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84–698 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 22, 2002

Serial No. 107–160

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

HENRY WRAY, Senior Counsel

JUSTIN PAULHAMUS, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 22, 2002 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Posner, Paul, Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues, U.S. General

Accounting Office; Ron Castleman, Regional Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency; Ray P. Churay, Assistant Special Agent

in Charge, Phoenix Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Michael P. Austin, Director, Arizona Division of Emergency Management;

David Englethaler, Director, Arizona Department of Health Services

and Response Office and Emergency Response Coordinator, Arizona

Department of Health Services; and Lt. Col. Norman Beasley, Assistant

Director for Criminal Investigations, Arizona Department of Public

Safety ............................................................................................................. 18

Spencer, Robert, director of Maricopa County Department of Emergency

Management; Jack Harris, assistant chief, Phoenix Police Department;

Steve Storment, assistant chief, Phoenix Fire Department; Tom Gallier,

general manager, Water Utilities Department, city of Tempe; and Roy

Stewart, president, Stewart Electric & Communications .......................... 86

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

Austin, Michael P., Director, Arizona Division of Emergency Management, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 71

Beasley, Lt. Col. Norman, Assistant Director for Criminal Investigations,

Arizona Department of Public Safety, prepared statement of .................. 80

Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Federal Emergency Management

Agency, prepared statement of .................................................................... 49

Churay, Ray P., Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Phoenix Field Office,

Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ........................... 58

Englethaler, David, Director, Arizona Department of Health Services and

Response Office and Emergency Response Coordinator, Arizona Department of Health Services, prepared statement of ........................................ 75

Flake, Hon. Jeff, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arizona,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 13

Gallier, Tom, general manager, Water Utilities Department, city of

Tempe, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 126

Harris, Jack assistant chief, Phoenix Police Department, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 95

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

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 2

Hull, Governor Jane D., prepared statement of ............................................. 8

Posner, Paul, Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues, U.S. General

Accounting Office, prepared statement of ................................................... 24

Spencer, Robert, director of Maricopa County Department of Emergency

Management, prepared statement of .......................................................... 90

Stewart, Roy, president, Stewart Electric & Communications, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 133

Storment, Steve, assistant chief, Phoenix Fire Department, paper entitled, ‘‘Winning Plays, Essential Guidance from the Terrorism Line of

Scrimmage’’ .................................................................................................... 99

(1)

HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE

AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL,

CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2002

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Tempe, AZ.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in the City

Council Chamber, Tempe, AZ, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the

subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn.

Also present: Representative Flake.

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

Henry Wray, senior counsel; Justin Paulhamus, clerk; Steve

Voeller, chief of staff to Congressman Jeff Flake; and Pat Curtin,

office manager for Congressman John Shadegg.

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

Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.

We are delighted to have the Governor of the State of Arizona,

and we are delighted to have you, you will be introduced to the

hearing by the Councilman of this wonderful Town of Tempe, and

we look forward to it.

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

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Mr. HORN. So Councilman Arredondo.

Mr. ARREDONDO. Congressman Horn and chairman of the committee, thank you for coming to Tempe, Arizona. It is with great

pleasure that I have the opportunity to say hello to you and extend

the invitation to come back.

And of course, Congressman Flake, thank you for always thinking of your home town and knowing that you can always tell it by

the Butte out there. We appreciate you bringing this very important issue to the forefront and allowing Tempe to be part of it even

though it is only hosting.

It is my pleasure today to introduce our Governor of our great

State of Arizona, the Honorable Jane D. Hull.

I wanted to make some points perfectly clear because we do not

get this honor oftentimes. It is my pleasure to introduce this Governor because she will always be known in Tempe as the Governor

of Education where Arizona State University is very important.

While she has inherited many difficult situations, she has

worked very diligently to keep education, our community and our

strengths together through her whole tenure as Governor. She has

strengthened our relationships with Mexico, and because of the

wonderful things she has done in Tempe, Arizona, she will always

be the Governor of Education, and that we will always embrace her

leadership and thank her for coming to Tempe, Arizona.

The Governor of the State of Arizona, Jane D. Hull.

[Applause.]

Governor HULL. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Flake. We are very glad to welcome you all to Arizona.

The chairman reminded me how well I know his daughter Marsha, who lives here and does a tremendous job for those of you who

have not had the opportunity to meet her.

But, again, we are glad to have you here today and glad to have

you having an opportunity to hear what we have been doing after

September 11th.

As Congressman Flake and I both believe, the best ideas come

from the people. They come from the bottom down, and not to disparage Washington or Phoenix, the capital, but they come much

better from the bottom up than they do from the top down. The

local citizens who live and work in the trenches are the ones really

who should be making the decisions.

I really appreciate the fact that you are here to listen to us because it is extremely important to all of us, particularly those of

us, and the chairman is from California, that live in the West and

think that no one from east of the Rockies even knows where the

West is. So always glad to have you out here.

I am here today to testify regarding the actions that were taken

by the State of Arizona and our local governments in coordination

with the Federal Government to address the challenges of assuring

security of our State and our Nation. Along with our fellow citizens

across the country, Arizona has watched the horror of September

11th unfold before our eyes.

In a single moment, we witnessed the worst of human behavior,

and in the next the very best of human behavior. And even more,

we witnessed the tremendous spirit of Americans.

4

As in other States, Arizona has demonstrated courage in the face

of adversity. Within hours of the attack, Arizona members of

FEMA’s emergency response team, including several canine units,

were mobilized and were one of the first groups to be transported

by military plane to Washington. Several of them are hear today.

Did the dog come? The dog is not here.

We had the dog on the floor of the house for opening ceremonies.

So sorry he is not here today.

They were followed by two teams of Phoenix fire fighters, some

of the same brave men and women who responded to the bombing

in Oklahoma. They are recognized as some of the finest fire fighters in the Nation, and we are fortunate to have them serve us

daily.

Citizens of every background in Arizona stood in line in 100 degree heat to donate blood. Others organized the collection of blankets and materials and supplies for shipment to both New York

and to Washington.

Arizona’s children were especially moving. They collected, as children did in other States, their pennies, their savings, and donated

them, as well as their own toys, to the children who had been left

homeless and in many cases parentless in New York.

Since the tragic events, which I think have changed all of our

lives and I believe has changed all of our priorities, we know that

the threat of possible terrorist activities will go on at any time and

any place, and certainly what has just happened in Israel is appalling to all of us.

The sense of having personal security in our lives, I think, is

probably gone forever or changed at least. The State of Arizona has

stood ready, however, to take all of the necessary actions to protect

the people of Arizona and the United States when faced by those

who would harm us and our way of live.

We are not new to comprehensive efforts aimed at anticipating

and responding to possible terrorist attacks. The cooperative spirit

of all levels of government was evident when the city of Tempe

hosted Super Bowl XXX in 1996. It was apparent again in our very

successful efforts in preparation for Y2K.

And in 1997, we established the Arizona Domestic Preparedness

Task Force, consisting of Federal, State, county, and local agencies,

public and private entities who develop plans for the detection, prevention, and response of terrorist activities.

That was done largely because of funding from Washington,

which we appreciate.

Those years of preparation by true professionals allow us to respond quickly to the threats posed by the attacks of September

11th. Within minutes, the Arizona Department of Public Safety mobilized their operations center headed by a national expert on

weapons of mass destruction, whom you will be hearing from later

today.

DPS developed a unique, secure communication system to insure

that we have the best lines of communication among Federal,

State, county, and local law enforcement. Arizona is a recognized

leader in those efforts, and you will be hearing from them in just

a few minutes.

5

Also within the Arizona Department of Emergency Management,

known as FEMA, Arizona FEMA had its emergency operations center open and running with Federal, State and local agencies standing in alert.

This center has been in operation for decades dealing with national disasters and other emergencies. It directly communicates

with State and local agencies, the FBI, FEMA, Red Cross, and

members of major utilities and other private entities.

I was out there that day, and I had also been out there around

midnight on Y2K, and again, the setup, you have a lot of people

who come in from all over to basically work those 24–7 that everybody worked for so long.

The Domestic Preparedness Task Force reviewed and upgraded

its response plans. The State Health Lab, located within the FBI,

stayed open around the clock to insure that any reports of suspected anthrax or other forms of bioterrorism were immediately

dealt with.

Over 900 suspected samples were tested, and I am happy to report that all of the samples were negative.

I established a State Homeland Security Coordinating Council

consisting of 12 State agencies to oversee all State response efforts.

We really do not have a homeland securities czar. We have two

or three czars. So let me introduce two of them that are here today.

Dr. Jim Shamadan. I do not know where he is. Back there somewhere?

George Weiss, and Sandra Schneider has just joined us, along

with Steve Truitt, our Tucson Director who basically handled the

daily coordination of these efforts.

I activated Operation Vigilance and setup a central telephone

number at that DPS center for leads, for reports of terrorism, for

anything that needed to be in the intelligence community, and basically all of those calls were followed up by almost 100 DPS detectives.

Obviously, I called on the National Guard early and often. We

basically had National Guard at the President’s request into the

airports within a week. Like all States, we had to wait for the FAA

training to come in.

They have stood with the Federal agents at our border with Mexico, and again, they were put there in a civilian capacity to facilitate the commerce. Arizona is a State that, because we are very

close to Mexico, September 11th was obviously coming into our

produce season, as with California. We were very concerned about

what was going to happen if the commerce could not go through.

They facilitated that commerce, and it actually went very, very

smoothly, and the rest of them will be pulling out this week.

They assisted the Bureau of Reclamation with patrols at Hoover

Dam. The bureau finally got people up there, but it was a long time

when basically our DPA and our National Guard were up there

and some of Nevada’s.

They worked alongside the Deputy of Maricopa County Sheriff’s

Office to provide around-the-clock security for the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Plant, which is the Nation’s largest nuclear plant.

We worked closely with Mayor Rimsza of Phoenix, who did an

outstanding job, along with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in coordinating this

6

multi-agency task force to insure the safety of the thousands of

fans who attended the World Series in Phoenix. And, again, that

was another potential terrorist threat target.

These efforts can only be successful with cooperation and communication, and I think I used those words many, many times during

September and October. On the Federal level, my office and the

State agencies have been in regular contact with the White House,

the Office of Homeland Security, and various other Federal agencies.

We have held frequent conference calls with cabinet members. In

fact, we love the briefings that we get about twice a week with Tom

Ridge, if he was there, with Joe Arpaio, with all of the offices of

the administration. They were extremely helpful in keeping the

Governors aware of what was going on.

I was in Washington about two or 3 weeks ago, and I had the

opportunity of meeting not only with President Bush, but with

Homeland Security Director—I still call him Governor Tom Ridge.

He says he prefers Governor—to talk more about that relationship

and certainly with Governor Ridge to talk about the smart border

concept, the fact that we have done a lot of work in Arizona on

technology on the border, and all we need now, to mention those

dirty words, is funding.

I know there are a couple of bills going through that would help

us both with creating the smart borders that we need and, second,

in rebuilding the Hoover Dam bypass, which basically the Hoover

Dam has now been closed to trucks since September 11th and will

remain closed to trucks because of the condition of the dam.

So we are hoping that we will get the funding to complete that

bypass road, which has been started, so that we do not have that

situation again. It is costing truckers and those who are transporting goods a lot of money to have to go clear around, as Jeff knows,

but you cannot come down that road, and we are losing some

trucks periodically.

So, again, we are hopeful that can be resolved.

I was recently in Mexico with Governor Fox, and he has insured

his commitment to working with us with the border problems. They

have done a lot in Mexico to alleviate some of the problems that

we have had.

I believe that Arizona enjoys one of the finest interagency cooperative spirits in the Nation. There is always room for improvement.

In that effort, in the next 2 months, two conferences related to terrorism will be held in Arizona.

One is designed to educate first-responders and health care providers on the potential threats of bioterrorism. It is co-hosted by

my office, by the Department of Health Services, the Department

of Military and Emergency Affairs, and the FBI.

A second conference will deal with communications interoperability and is co-hosted by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission. As was evidenced in New York, radio and electronic communications between first-responders is a dire necessity. This situation, particularly in Arizona, needs vast improvement.

I appreciate the Federal funds that are planning to come our way

to specifically address this crucial issue to all of the States.

7

I would be remiss if I didn’t bring just two other issues to your

attention. First, the attack and response to terrorism both here and

abroad shows how vital Arizona’s military bases are to the defense

of our country. We need to do everything we can do to protect

them, to protect Luke, to protect Yuma, to protect Fort Huachuca,

and to protect Davis-Monthan, and certainly we work with that a

great deal, and I would just remind you about the base closings.

Second, some of the Federal funds that are available for security

purposes have been designed to include a match of various sorts

from State and local governments. As you well know from the

West, and I am sure you have heard from a lot of the Governors;

you have not heard from me about, ‘‘the financial condition that

most of the states are in.’’

Yesterday I signed a bill that will remove another $230 million

from the 2002 budget. We have already removed about $675. So

the 2002 budget is down $1 billion, and hopefully will balance in

July.

We now begin the job of cutting another $1 billion from the 2003

budget. That is about 17 percent of the State’s budget, and I have

obviously tried very hard not to hit education.

So it is tough for all of the Governors, but again, I believe that

what is being done in Washington is extremely important, and I

would only ask that as we go for matches, that one understands

that all of the States and on behalf of literally all of the Western

States, we are all suffering, and it will be difficult for us to make

matches.

Finally, just in ending, and again, I thank you for coming, and

I thank you for listening; the State of Arizona is in the forefront

of the Nation’s efforts to prepare for and, if necessary, respond to

terrorist threats whenever and however they occur.

Our local first-responders stand shoulder to shoulder with our

Federal colleagues. We appreciate the tremendous cooperation that

we have received from all the Federal and local agencies. We appreciate the briefings and the conversations that we have had with

the cabinet officers, with the officials of FEMA, and certainly Governor Ridge is talking to our people once a week, which we really

appreciate.

I think we have set in place a very flexible, responsive, domestic

preparedness program that assures that Federal, State, and local

officials work together as seamlessly as possible to meet any challenge.

I want to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you,

and thank you again for coming West, even though both of you are

from the West, and I know that you will enjoy hearing from our

agencies and from the panels that are setup.

They are the true experts, and more than that, they are the people who have really pulled this together because they know what

they are doing.

With that, I want to thank you very much, and if you have any

questions, I would be glad to answer.

[The prepared statement of Governor Hull follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you very much for giving us the really

leadership that you have provided as Governor and the cooperation

you received from it.

And I want to now ask that Representative Flake, on behalf of

the committee here, will thank you for us.

Mr. FLAKE. I just want to echo those words. I know that you

have a very busy schedule. You have outlined some of the issues

that you are dealing with, and so we appreciate it a great deal.

It speaks to the importance that you place on this issue, and we

all know that one of the hallmarks of the whole administration has

been the interagency coordination and cooperation that exists here

in Arizona. And we at the Federal level learn a lot from that because we have our own problems with interagency issues, and the

fact that you were able to pull together such a great team in such

a short period of time and carried out such great work speaks well

for you, and we really appreciate you carving out time in your busy

schedule to be here.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jeff Flake follows:]

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Governor HULL. Thank you very much. Have a nice weekend.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Mr. ARREDONDO. Chairman Horn, hopefully you, too, as we in

Arizona and particularly Tempe have come to appreciate the Governor, because of the wisdom and the leadership she has provided,

we congratulate her and thank her for coming to Tempe.

Congressman Flake, prior to me introducing our next guest, I

would be remiss upon our city, our educators if I did not say thank

you to the hard work you have carried back in Washington, DC,

to provide those homeless kids a safe haven to attend school.

I thank you for your leadership, your hands on approach to continue the support where kids have an opportunity every day to succeed. Thank you for representing our district very well.

With that, it is with great pleasure that I get to introduce the

Honorable Skip Rimsza. Skip was tied up in traffic on the Phoenix

side. So it took him a little longer to get to the Tempe side. [Laughter.]

But he is here, and we congratulate Mr. Rimsza for the things

that he has stood for and has done in Phoenix.

We know for a fact that he has overseen already 16 new additional city parks to enhance the quality of life for his citizens. But

more so and the most important thing that we would like to recognize and thank him is for the new units in the Phoenix Police Department dedicated to solely fighting hate crimes.

You know, I could go on and on, but the real person is here, and

it is time for me to introduce the Honorable Skip Rimsza, Phoenix

Mayor.

[Applause.]

Mr. RIMSZA. Thank you very much.

I do apologize for my late arrival.

We are very pleased to host you here in our community, and I

know the city of Tempe is delighted to have you here in our facility.

I will just take a few short moments to chat with you about the

urban center challenges we have for homeland security, and there

are a couple of things that at least from my perspective are important to touch upon.

First, we understand in the city of Phoenix that there is no single agency capable of expectory planning by themselves for the

kinds of things that we are now forced to consider as potential elements that happen in urban centers. So you being here today and

the partnership, frankly, that has developed since September 11th

between local government, State government, Federal Government

are nothing short of profound.

I would refer quite personally to the World Series game, the very

first one that was played here in Phoenix right after the September

11th attacks as one where all levels of government came together

to provide the level of security that was, I think, critically important for that event to be a success.

The collaboration at that event with the Federal Government

and State and local organizations was nothing short of profound,

and I do think the September 11th events have caused us all to set

aside any parochial perspectives we might have had and find even

better ways to work together.

15

We think the collaboration that has resulted in the new funding

that is being discussed for us is very important to us and you.

One of the key issues for cities, I would tell you, is this. We

would like to make sure that Congress recognizes that cities really

are the places where public safety is provided. To give you an example, cities in Arizona have about 10,000 public safety employees.

The State itself has 1,000.

So we are kind of the place we like to think, and I think the Vice

Mayor would agree with me, where the rubber meets the road

when it comes to public safety. So as you look at the funding that

might be available to protect our communities from any kind of terrorist acts, we would like you to very carefully consider the places

where the work is being done today and make sure the resources

get to those locations.

I also have to take a short moment and speak about urban center

cities. From our perspective, and we think it is broadly held, that

locations where terrorists might focus their activities will tend to

be densely populated urban centers. Once again, therefore, we

would suggest that the allocation of any resources or partnerships

be focused on those urban centers so that they can respond to the

likely locations of attacks.

There are some exceptions to that I think we all recognize, such

as nuclear power plants or water supply sources that are outside

urban centers, but it would be something we would really like you,

too, to think about as you work through this process.

The next one is sustaining the funding. I’ve had both the joy and

the pleasure and the pain of dealing with the COPS MORE Grants

over the years, and it was nice to have the Federal Government

pickup a portion of adding new police officers, and it was helpful,

and we took advantage of that.

But the reality is many urban center cities, in particular were

not able to take full advantage of it because, unlike Phoenix, they

weren’t growing. Their tax bases weren’t growing, and as you may

know and may recall, cities had to commit to keep those officers

on after 5 years out of their own operating budgets.

And that is, I think, a challenge that should be considered as you

look at funding for these kinds of security investments, not just initial funding for the capital equipment or the additional training,

but some base maintenance funding to keep equipment and, frankly, the people sharp for, I think, decades to come.

In fact, from our perspective, this is the new reality. This is not

something that is going to go away ever in the future of our country. And so some baseline permanent funding after the initial large

funding I think is important to consider.

I would suggest to you that the FEMA model for urban search

and rescue has been very successful for our communities. As you

may be aware, the city of Phoenix’s fire fighters responded to an

earthquake in California, obviously a tremendous disaster.

We also were onsite in Oklahoma City and were part of the recovery effort in New York City. The one challenge with that for us

and, I think, you is that response is 72 hours after the incident,

and I think all of us are recognizing that this investment that we

are talking about making now needs to be put in place in a way

16

that we can respond within minutes, if possible hours probably at

the longest.

So it is a different kind of investment than the FEMA model, but

the FEMA model is not a bad backdrop to consider for your processes.

Just to kind of give you a quick outline for that, FEMA funds for

us the capitalization of some fairly sophisticated equipment, some

very specialized training from our fire fighters. We take that equipment. We have it palletized and stored in a location here in the

valley, and then if called by FEMA, we can rally our fire fighters

and police officers and that equipment in about 3 days to put them

on the scene to help with any rescue and recovery efforts.

That system works pretty well with the one enhancement we

think is necessary, which is having equipment more readily available and having the training more active on a more day-to-day

basis.

The last thing I would mention to you, which is a critical issue

to every public safety system in the country, is the new radio systems that we are all capitalizing today. The Phoenix City voters

just approved $120 million to replace our old, antiquated radio system with a new 800 megahertz radio system, and I am pleased and

proud that the Phoenix voters wanted to do that.

We are doing this so we can communicate directly with other

agencies internal to the city. That would be so that a police officer

and a fire fighter and someone from Streets and Transportation

can all communicate at the same time on the same radio system.

At the same time, we want to be able to communicate with other

public safety agencies either in other cities, like Tempe, or the

State. One of the problems that appears to be arising with this

new, very significant investment, virtually every city in America,

is the sale of the 700 megahertz public safety spectrum, and that’s

because, to put it simply, there is a level of over-speak between the

two systems that is problematic.

You might have heard or recall that in New York some of the

challenges that they experienced when the fire fighters and police

officers entered the building is the loss of communications. One of

the reasons we are all looking to 800 megahertz is to avoid that

kind of loss because it’s a better frequency for public safety officials

to operate on.

One of the things we are all concerned about is if we inadvertently sell the 700 megahertz system and then create over-speak.

All we are asking is solve that problem before we sell those radio

frequencies so that our officers do not get blocked from critical communications when they are most important.

If you do not mind, we have a short video I think we are going

to play for you, and then I will conclude.

[Video played.]

Mr. RIMSZA. I would just conclude that this model is one that is

a good base model. The challenge for all of us is how to make this

even more efficient and more quickly able to respond.

I can tell you from the perspective of us locals, the enhanced

training and equipment that is available here within our community is very important to us, and we have always been glad to partner with FEMA in this.

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I would hope though, as always, that we never have to respond

ever again to one of these tragedies, but it makes me feel good, as

Mayor, that we are prepared to.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.

I was telling the staff on the way out that your fire department

has been No. 1 in the Nation and that we can be proud of that.

I assume they are still No. 1.

Mr. RIMSZA. I am certain they are. If they were not, they would

be calling me for more equipment. [Laughter.]

Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you very much for that overview.

Mr. ARREDONDO. Chairman Horn, Congressman Flake, it is time

for you to get on to your business. We at Tempe want to thank you

for being here.

I would be remiss if I did not allude to the fact that our two Assistant Police Chiefs are here in the back. If they would please

stand.

And our fire department is represented here, and we will even

have some of our staff members participating in your panel. As you

have requested, there will be a list given. You do something that

no other congressional hearing folks do and that is the recognition

of the people that really make this happen.

We at Tempe extend our warmest hello to you and congratulations in being here.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Well, that is well put because that is exactly what we

are trying to do, and as we all know, September 11, 2001 the world

witnessed the most devastating attacks ever committed on U.S.

soil. And as we have looked about this, we are going around to various cities and parts of America, and we wanted those who live in

the great State of Arizona and its fine cities to know that they can

rely on these systems should the need arise.

We have been interested in the chemical attacks, the biological

attacks, the water supply, and as everybody knows in this room,

the West has always had problems with water supply.

I look with great interest on what is happening in Arizona, your

productivity in food and orchards and all the other things, and we

want to make sure that it’s purified and not compromised by some

of the terrorists.

When I was in Europe a month ago, four terrorists tried to poison the Rome water supply, and so this is the kind of thing we

face. We are going to ask during this and get ideas from people

that are going to be witnesses so that we can be better prepared

for that type of thing, which we have never had to face before September 11th.

So let us bring the first panel here, which is Councilman

Arredondo and Paul Posner, who is the Managing Director. I will

announce them as they start with their presentation.

And Ron Castleman, Ray P. Churay, and Michael Austin, David

Englethaler, and Lieutenant Colonel Norman Beasley. We have

seats for Panel 1 right here, and we will start the way we generally

do.

We will swear in all of the witnesses, and if you do not mind,

just stand and raise your right hand.

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[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. We will start as we do always in Washington and out

in the field with the U.S. General Accounting Office as headed by

the Comptroller General of the United States, who has the best job

and the toughest job in Washington. He has a 15-year term and nobody can mess with him. [Laughter.]

Including Congress and Presidents, and we have got an excellent

one in Mr. Walker right now.

The expert from the General Accounting Office now, Paul Posner

is Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues of the U.S. General

Accounting Office. GAO works for the Congress and not the executive branch. We look to them, and I looked at the terrorism blue

books. There must be at least 50 of them already. I mean, they are

on top of this, and we appreciate that.

So, Mr. Posner.

STATEMENTS OF PAUL POSNER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUDGET ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE;

RON CASTLEMAN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; RAY P. CHURAY, ASSISTANT

SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, PHOENIX FIELD OFFICE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; MICHAEL P. AUSTIN, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT;

DAVID ENGLETHALER, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT

OF HEALTH SERVICES AND RESPONSE OFFICE AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE COORDINATOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT

OF HEALTH SERVICES; AND LT. COL. NORMAN BEASLEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Mr. POSNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And it is a pleasure to be here in the Phoenix area. I want to

again commend you for holding field hearings that are particularly

relevant since taking a bottomup look at our system is so important for how we prepare to protect the Nation from terrorism attacks.

It is somewhat novel to have a highly intergovernmental issue be

focused in the national security area. We are used to dealing with

State and local governments in document program areas, whether

it’s education and healthcare and law enforcement and a variety of

other things. Well, we have learned that nothing we do in the Nation can be done by one government alone; that critically any national goal, whether it is protecting public health or whether it is

educating handicapped children is critically dependent on State

and local governments and our ability to form partnerships with

them over time.

What we are learning now is protecting the Nation’s boundaries

and borders itself from foreign threats is equally dependent on harmonious and important working relationships.

What does this mean then for what we have to think about going

forward? One is that it means Federal initiatives are really not

Federal. They are national in nature, and that is one of the reasons

why meeting together at the local level is so critical.

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It means that Federal orders and policies mean very little if they

are not done in partnerships with State and local governments and

the private sector to address these challenges.

And ultimately the challenge for us at the Federal level, we have

to balance the national interests in obtaining preparedness and

mitigation with the unique needs and interests of our local communities. One size will not nor should it fit all.

For both sides this kind of arrangement raises opportunities and

challenges. By working collectively with State and local governments, the Federal Government gains the opportunity to get support and resources that we simply do not have.

I mean, we cannot defend and protect water systems in this

country or transit systems or anything else. These are owned by

other levels of government. Fundamentally you were the first-responders to every single serious incident, and we do not. So we get

the chance to enhance the protection of the Nation. We risk the potential that we are going to have inconsistent approaches and we

are going to have to basically adopt the priorities that local governments feel are important.

Some Federal officials may feel that is a risk, but nonetheless,

we have no other choice but to work through the system.

Local governments gain support and financing, as well, for critical local issues. But they risk being exposed to national standards

and requirements that may not particularly fit well with particular

local values and conditions.

With that as kind of the framing, I want to briefly reprise the

written statement that will be entered in the record with your permission.

Mr. HORN. Without objection, that is automatically in the record.

Mr. RIMSZA. Thank you.

The main points are these. A national strategy at the Federal

level is critical. We at the Federal level have many players, many

agencies involved in this whole area of counterterrorism and homeland security. At latest count, over 40 Federal agencies have a role

to play.

The concern is obviously that this breeds the potential for fragmentation, overlap, duplication, inefficiency. We think this is a

longstanding problem with Federal initiatives across the Board, not

just homeland security, particularly important here because the

States are so large.

There is also a concern that there is the potential for this problem to get worse, not better, after crisis. Well intentioned people

across the board attempt to become relevant in solving problems.

In the process, for example, after Oklahoma City, we noted that

a number of agencies got into the act of providing assistance to

State and local governments for training and planning.

That may have been welcomed by some States and local governments. Others told us that created widespread confusion and overlap and frustration in dealing with the Federal Government.

So the concern is the crises like we have just experienced presents opportunities, but they also present potential challenges, and

the fragmentation could get worse before it gets better, as a lot of

agencies get in the act.

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We have recommended consolidation of State and local planning

grants and training grants at the Federal level, and we are pleased

that at least the President’s budget does suggest the need to do

that, and as you know, he has recommended a block grant to get

that done.

The second point going forward is the need for strong national

goals and indicators. We have something at the Federal level called

the Government Performance and Results Act, which really was

modeled after State and local governments more than anything we

have done. This sets the table that anything we do in the budget

or in management should be informed by some expectation of what

we are going to accomplish in terms of the results.

We think the preparedness will not be sustainable. Funding, support, programs are going to be difficult to sustain if we do not have

informed, balanced, national level kinds of measures done in partnership with State and local governments and the private sector.

Without it, we lack the ability to make budget decisions based

on performance. This could lead to either the abandonment of effective programs or the endless funding of ineffective ones.

The point is: How do we move then from an environment where

we can really start to measure what we are trying to do, measure

levels of preparedness, measure the impact of Federal funds, particularly relevant now that we are ratcheting up that level?

And what we mean by this is not just measuring input, not the

number of people in training, although that is part of it. But trying

as best we can, as difficult as it is, to measure some kinds of indicators about how well prepared we are.

Obviously there are a lot of efforts already underway in the State

and local community and at the Federal community. Exercises, the

Emergency Management Assistance Accreditation Programs that

States and local governments are working among themselves are

part of the question because the idea of how you measure performance and set goals is not one that any one level government, again,

should do, certainly not the Federal Government.

These standards need to be national and not Federal, and ultimately they need to be premised on hard work reaching some

agreement of what does it mean to be prepared. Is it the lack of

an event? Is it the limitation or containment of any damage that

does happen as a result of an event?

Those are some of the difficult questions we are going to have to

start thinking about.

Finally, we need to think about how we best define a Federal

role to promote State and local preparedness in ways that really

foster the kind of partnership we are talking about. States and

local governments’ resources, as folks here know, alone are not sufficient.

We can build on the all hazards approach to emergency management. That is important. If you have experience and you are prepared for an earthquake and other kinds of disasters, you are well

on the way to being prepared for this, but this threat is different.

It crosses conventional boundaries and involves new actors, different skills, new legal authorities, the private sector in ways really

that are very, very difficult to fashion as people here know better

than I.

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So the challenge for the Federal Government is how can we design tools to help harmonize the interests of all the partners, and

here we offer some suggestions and a statement based on what

we’ve learned elsewhere in the Federal system.

The point is our goal should be to enhance, not to preempt, and

our goal should be to protect others who may want to take our

money and supplant it and replace it for their own funds. We want

to somehow strike this balance.

In the area of grants, for example, there are three or four challenges we think we need to kind of think about as we go forward.

One is to insure that the money is well targeted to places that, No.

1, have the greatest threats and, No. 2, have the least financial capability of delivering the public services on their own, and this

means devising some reasonable indicators that can separate out

these kinds of issues.

We have suggested in disaster assistance that FEMA do a better

job of articulating criteria to define when a jurisdiction is more capable than others of handling emergencies of certain types. We

need to do a better job at the Federal level, not just in this area,

but across the board in targeting Federal money.

The second issue that is perennial that challenges us throughout

the Federal Assistance System is fiscal substitution. Clearly, we

are trying to offer money because there is a problem. If the money,

in fact, is used by State or local governments, as we often find it

is, to replace local money, then, in fact, we have not accomplished

anything except general fiscal relief.

In fact, we did a study that said in general across the board

about 60 cents of every Federal dollar given to State and local governments is supplanted. There are ways to protect this. We have

maintenance of effort provisions. We find that some areas are more

vulnerable to this than others, particularly areas where State and

local governments have longstanding involvement. The substitution

is a particular problem.

A third related issue is accountability. We know that whenever

the Federal Government grants money, the State and local governments have their own accountability for their own citizens, but

somehow we have to develop procedures to insure that there is

some performance reporting back to the Federal level.

One thing we have learned about block grants over the years is

if we do not have meaningful ways of telling appropriators what we

are getting for that money, notwithstanding the discretion and

flexibility we give to those communities, congressional interest

withers away and those programs tend to wither away as well or

get recategorized.

So as we think about this FEMA block grant, meaningful ways

to kind of translate local performance into results that can be reported consistently at the national level really important.

Another important strategy, encourage partnerships below the

Federal level. Just as we are fragmented, we know that communities in metropolitan areas, for example, face tremendous barriers

in working together across boundaries.

You have solved them much more so than we have because you

have had to, but we know that an emergency management and othVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:01 Apr 21, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84698.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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erwise economies of scale can really make a difference. Mutual aid

agreements are a testament to that.

The question is: As we design Federal programs, can we encourage more of that to take place? Would that be useful?

The metropolitan planning model of the Department of Transportation’s ICE TEA is an example where all grants essentially have

to get screened by a regional planning agency. Whether that works

or not here remains to be seen, but some kind of mechanism to encourage that process is important.

Ultimately what we need to think about as we design assistance

is sustainability. We want to have our initiatives make a difference

for the long and not the short-term.

The Federal Government does best at starting and building,

stimulating capacity. Ideally we would like to see these initiatives

become institutionalized and build support, get a head of steam on

their own on the local level. This might happen if we’re aiding the

kind of functions that provide multi-purpose functionality, not just

terrorism preparedness, but preparedness for other kinds of hazards.

The public health example is a good one where when fighting

bioterrorism, we’re really strengthening the public health system to

protect against a variety of threats, and that kind of thing augers

well for the prospects of enhancing our long-term preparedness.

A few other tools that we talk about in the testimony are in the

area of regulation. Crises have a way of prompting national standards, and at times we visited some communities where already

some local governments are telling us that they are facing challenges in coming to, dealing with large, for example, national rail

systems and rail corporations, and how we can develop ways to better regulate if we need to and develop standards that are really cooperative in nature. That is a real challenge.

And finally, the concern of information sharing. How do we insure that we share the kind of intelligence that State and local governments need to really effectively target their own resources in

areas?

As you know, Presidential Directive 3, Mr. Ridge last week announced a new warning system. The challenge of providing State

and local governments with access to sensitive national security information that is nonetheless vital for their citizens is a challenge

we are going to be facing.

I know there is some legislation that has been developed that

certainly warrant some thought and consideration.

The point is that we can help them better face their challenges

in terrorism by better sharing information, but they can also help

us, and that is the last point here. This is a two-way street. This

is not just the Federal Government coming down as a benefactor.

Basically State and local governments have vital resources. They

are essential to help us interdict and prevent terrorism as well.

With 600,00 local police officer, 200,000 sheriff staff, you have really the resources to know better what is going on in communities

than the Federal Government does. And how can we find ways to

get that information back from you and utilize it productively to

defend against these threats? That is an emerging challenge.

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We notice the INS is starting to contract with certain communities to have them monitor overstayed visa applicants, to take advantage, in other words, of this great capacity that is out there.

So ultimately, in conclusion, the three points that are essential

we think for preparing defending the Nation remain: defining a

strategy, to defining the national objectives and the Federal role,

developing reasonable and meaningful national, not Federal performance accountability standards, and designing tools and choosing them well and effectively to get the job done.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Posner follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. We appreciate that overall national, State, city and regional perspective.

We now go to Mr. Ron Castleman, the Regional Director of the

Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. He is based in

Dallas, and we are glad to have you here.

And I might add to all you do not have to read everything that

you have. If you could summarize that would be helpful because we

have got ten more witnesses.

Thank you.

Mr. CASTLEMAN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of

the subcommittee. I am Ron Castleman, Regional Director of Region VI of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and it is

a pleasure for me to be here today to discuss the pressing matter

of how FEMA is assisting State and local governments to prepare

for a potential terrorist attack involving biological, chemical or nuclear agents.

FEMA is the Federal agency responsible for leading the Nation

in preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters. Our

success depends on our ability to organize and lead a community

of local, State, and Federal agencies and volunteer organizations.

The Federal Response Plan forms the heart of our management

framework and lays out the process by which interagency groups

work together to respond as a cohesive team to all types of disasters.

In response to the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, the

Federal Response Plan has proven to be an effective and efficient

framework for managing all phases of disasters and emergencies.

Much of our success in emergency management can be attributed

to our historically strong working relationship with State and local

partners.

Through our preparedness programs, we provide the financial,

technical, planning, training and exercise support to give State,

local, and tribal governments the capabilities they need to protect

public health, safety, and property both before and after disaster

strikes.

In meeting the challenges ahead for State and local government,

FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness is becoming more robust.

The mission of the Office of National Preparedness is to provide

leadership in coordinating and facilitating all Federal efforts to assist State and local first-responders, as well as emergency management organizations with planning, training, equipment, and exercises.

We continue to work with all 50 States and territories and federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaskan native villages to implement our current and other grant programs to assist State, tribal,

and local governments.

Our programs enhance their capabilities to respond to all types

of hazards and emergencies, such as chemical incidents, incidents

involving radiological substances, and natural disasters.

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

the Arizona Division of Emergency Management. Through our terrorism consequence management preparedness assistance grant,

we support the State’s activities in the readiness arena. With

FEMA financial support, Arizona has in place its domestic preVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:01 Apr 21, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84698.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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paredness task force that concentrates on such activities as developing and testing the State’s strategy for preparedness and response; identifying necessary steps, Arizona communities need to

take to prepare for weapons of mass destruction events; and establishing the most appropriate training curriculum to deal with domestic terrorism.

Further, each of Arizona’s counties received FEMA funds from

Arizona to participate in a statewide domestic terrorism risk assessment.

Finally, our terrorism consequence management assistant grant

is also supporting various training workshops throughout the Phoenix area that cover mass fatalities, anthrax response, and other aspects of a response to a terrorist event.

We recognize that chemical, biological, and radiological scenarios

will present unique challenges to the first-responder community. Of

these types of attacks, we are in many ways better prepared for

chemical attack because such an incident is comparable to a large

scale hazardous material incident.

In such an event, EPA and the Coast Guard are well connected

to local hazardous material responders, State and Federal agencies

and the chemical industries. There are systems and plans in place

for response to hazardous material systems that are routinely used

for both small and large scale events.

EPA is also the primary agency for hazardous materials functions of the Federal Response Plan.

Bioterrorism, on the other hand, presents a greater immediate

concern. With the covert release of a biological agent, the first-responders will be hospital staff, medical examiners, private physicians, and animal control workers instead of the traditional firstresponders with whom we have a long-term relationship.

The Department of Health and Human Services leads the efforts

of the health and medical community to plan and prepare for a national response to a public health emergency and is the critical link

between the health and medical community and the larger Federal

response.

Concerning the radiological threat, the Federal Radiological

Emergency Response Plan has 17 Federal agency signatories, and

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the lead Federal agency for

coordinating the overall response, and FEMA is responsible for coordinating nonradiological support to that.

Finally, FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness has asked the

FEMA regions to provide information on what the region has done

to review and modify State and local radiological emergency preparedness plans for response to a sudden catastrophic event.

It is FEMA’s responsibility to insure that the national emergency

management system is adequate to respond to the consequences of

catastrophic emergencies and disasters regardless of cause. We rely

on our partners at the State and local level, and without question,

they need support to further strengthen capabilities and operation

capacity.

FEMA must insure that the national system has the tools to

gather information, set priorities, and deploy resources effectively.

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The creation of the Office of National Preparedness and our emphasis on training, planning, equipment, and exercises will enable

us to better focus on our efforts and will help our Nation become

better prepared for the future.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castleman follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We thank you very much. That’s a very thorough

statement and very helpful to us.

Our next witness is Ray P. Churay, Assistant Special Agent in

Charge, the Phoenix Field Office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. CHURAY. Good afternoon, Chairman Horn, Congressman

Flake, members of the subcommittee, and distinguished participants from Arizona.

Thank you for the opportunity to represent the FBI at this hearing.

Terrorist events of recent years both in the United States and

elsewhere have driven home the importance of the absolute necessity of the FBI to work closely with State and local law enforcement and first-responder agencies.

The Phoenix FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI’s National

Infrastructure and Computer Intrusion Program, and the FBI’s

Weapons of Mass Destruction Program are the main vehicles facilitating that cooperation and support.

Each of these efforts address both international and domestic terrorist threats that involve all appropriate local, State, and Federal

law enforcement, first-responder, and infrastructure related agencies.

I have provided a more detailed statement. However, in the limited time available, I would like to provide just a few examples of

how this program works.

Members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have productive liaison with the Arizona Department of Health Services and their bioterrorism lab. The ADHS and lab are essential in immediately addressing an overt biological threat and tracking hospital cases to

identify spiking illnesses that may be an indication of a covert biological attack.

Other JTTF liaisons relevant to the purposes of this hearing include the Metro Medical Response System, which receives Federal

funding; the Arizona Office of Homeland Defense, which you have

heard about earlier; and the Arizona Department of Emergency

and Military Affairs.

The Joint Terrorism Task Force has participated in numerous

joint training exercises, which included these and many other agencies. These exercises involved simulated chemical, biological and

nuclear threats. Some of the locations included Phoenix, Mesa,

Lake Havasu City, Fort Huachuca and Sierra Vista, Sky Harbor

Airport, and the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant.

Since the events of September 11th, the FBI has worked closely

with the law enforcement community to create two satellite Joint

Terrorism Task Forces, one at Tucson and one at Flagstaff, and

has attempted to increase membership in Phoenix by six additional

State and local agency members.

The FBI’s National Infrastructure and Protection Center, or

NIPC, created in 1998, serves as a focal point to warn against and

respond to terrorist attacks that involve the use of the Nation’s

cyber network.

The NIPC Key Asset initiative program identifies and attempts

to protect against cyber attacks on major electrical, communications, water, and energy systems, as well as transportation hubs.

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The NIPC Infra-guard Program incorporates business, military,

and government communities into a kind of cyber Neighborhood

Watch network.

The FBI has also developed a number of warning systems that

are linked to the Arizona law enforcement and business communities. The National Threat Warning System is a classified, secure

network that reaches 60 Federal agencies and their subcomponents, as well as all 56 FBI field offices and 44 legal attaches overseas.

This information can then be disseminated to local and State

agency personnel with appropriate clearances. Thirty-seven such

warnings have been sent since September 11th.

Unclassified threat information is nationally disseminated

through the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System [NLETS]. The FBI has issued over 40 ‘‘be on the lookout,’’ or

BOLO, alerts on the NLET system since September 11th, and thousands of security managers at U.S. commercial firms receive threat

information through the FBI’s Awareness of National Security

Issues and Responses [ANSIR] Program.

The FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Program fully integrates

the FBI into Arizona’s local and State emergency first-responder,

and law enforcement community. The Phoenix FBI Weapons of

Mass Destruction Coordinator is Arizona’s conduit to a myriad of

national nuclear, biological, and chemical resources.

Arizona’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordinator works closely with the FBINQ and Counter Measures Unit and Hazardous

Materials Response Unit to provide immediate expertise and links

to subject experts in all related fields.

The WMD Counter Measures Unit and HMRU also serve as a

central resource point for Federal response teams in the event of

an actual attack. They also have immediate liaison with agencies

responsible for the administration of medical stores, portable medical facilities, and supporting material resources, such as tents, mobile labs, and storage buildings.

The WMD Coordinator’s position was created specifically by FBI

Headquarters to insure that each FBI field office gave an immediate response to local and State resource needs in a WMD event.

Due to time constraints, this concludes my prepared remarks. I

would like to thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation, and I look forward to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Churay follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much. That is helpful.

We now have Michael P. Austin, the director of the Arizona Division of Emergency Management.

Mr. Austin.

Mr. AUSTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman.

It is a pleasure to be here today to offer some comments to the

committee.

Mr. HORN. Is that mic enough to hear you? Sorry to interrupt.

The REPORTER. The mics on the table will not amplify.

Mr. HORN. OK.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. Chairman, I will try to speak louder.

My name is Mike Austin, and I am the Director of Emergency

Management for Arizona.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to offer comments

on your efforts to hear interoperability and efficiency issues for the

country.

Arizona, as you heard the Governor say, has begun preparing for

terrorism since 1997. Our strategy has been modeled after a consensus process that was articulated well by Dr. Faulkner at Harvard. He wrote a book, ‘‘America’s Achilles Heel,’’ several years ago

and then presented the key issues of that book at a conference that

was held and hosted by the Department of Justice in Williamsburg,

Maryland, in 1997.

The State of Arizona attended that conference and took away

from that some key points of emphasis that we needed to develop

our Terrorism Task Force after in Arizona.

Governor Hull emphasized that the key points for our Task Force

would be to build a statewide response capacity; construct a firstresponder response preparedness curriculum; and develop a robust

health alert network.

Prior to September 11th, the Task Force was primarily focused

on administering the Department of Justice grant and working

with our Federal partners on integrating the State, Federal, and

local response capacity along those lines.

After September 11th, you heard the Governor mention that she

elevated that effort to the cabinet level and appointed several of

her key policy advisors to fostering the Task Force through its reinvention.

The Governor’s key points of emphasis since then have been the

driving force for developing a statewide capacity. Her first key

point of emphasis is to build a first-responder capacity that is incredibly robust. Arizona’s response has been built on a pre-September 11th threat assessment. Obviously after September 11th, our

threat assessment methodology changed dramatically.

We immediately recognized that first-responders need to build a

response capacity that clearly enhances public safety and does not

supplant current capacity.

The methodology that we are considering is focusing on a model

that you heard referenced by the city of Phoenix Mayor, Mayor

Skip Rimsza, based on the urban search and rescue model, building

a response capacity within the State of Arizona that is equipment

typed, resource typed, that can be functionally deployed to an incident that occurs anywhere in the State.

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The critical element of that is that mutual aid needs to be thoroughly developed and thoroughly integrated throughout all of the

different levels of government within Arizona, including the Federal level. There are Federal assets that need to be incorporated

into mutual aid as well.

Clearly, not all local governments are going to be able to develop

a capacity for weapons of mass destruction incidents. It is probably

not strategically valid to have every jurisdiction in Arizona have

the maximum response capacity for any kind of incident.

The response capacity that they have should be measured

against the threat that they have and also measured against the

kind of assets that are readily deployable within their region.

To that end though, interstate and intrastate capacity must be

developed. Not so much of a problem in Arizona, but I recently

went to a similar hearing in Texas where it was pointed out that

the Phoenix urban search and rescue team is much closer to El

Paso than the Dallas urban search and rescue team or even the

city of Austin response capacity. So if El Paso was to have an incident, then Phoenix is the closest big responder that would be able

to go.

The key component to mutual aid, of course, is interoperability,

and that is a tough problem to address. The mayor spoke of the

800 megahertz issue, and in all of the Federal dollars that Congress is appropriating to Federal agencies to provide money to local

jurisdictions to enhance their communications capacity, that is not

going to be enough. We are still going to be short money in order

to develop 800 megahertz capacity throughout the State of Arizona,

especially in the West.

The problem with 800 megahertz, it needs a robust repeater

methodology in order to be able to have the interoperability that

you would desire to have. The West, as you know, is much different

than the East Coast where political subdivisions are small, and 800

megahertz carries easily across a county border. There are counties

in Arizona that are much larger than Eastern States.

In all of this, the Governor’s role plays an important element.

States play a key role. As you have heard, there are over 40 Federal agencies that offer weapons of mass destruction or terrorism

assistance programs. It is essential that States be able to have

funding in order to administer and to be able to provide the overhead integration capability so that all of these goals can be met.

Providing money to first-responders is a great idea, and Arizona

embraces that because we readily recognize that the first-responder

capacity is essential to developing a statewide capacity.

However, if all of that capacity is not integrated and a strategic

investment is not made, then as Mr. Posner has pointed out, you

will lose the effectiveness of all of the investment to some degree.

So States play a vital role, and Congress needs to provide funding

to States in order to accomplish that goal.

The other issue that I want to bring forward today is the issue

of outcome-based performance indicators for the accountability for

that funding. That is a dynamic topic that needs to be thoroughly

explored.

Before strategic investment can take place, before funding can

take place beyond a first-responder capacity, we need to be able to

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know what the outcome is. We kind of intuitively know what that

is being better prepared. But realistically, what does that mean?

And if we have 30 different funding streams or several different

funding streams that have specific program indicators or outcome

indicators, output indicators, if you will, for what that funding is

being spent on, if DOJ has an accountability process and FEMA

has an accountability process, then the administrative burden on

the States would be excessive.

We need to know, the Nation needs to have an outcome indicator

or outcome based methodology that all of the Federal agencies will

accept as a performance accountable measure for the funding that

is coming through. The States can provide that methodology and

can provide that reporting, but to have separate accountability outcomes for all of the different funding streams may be difficult to

administer.

So we do need to have outcome-based indicators, and they may

be simple to arrive at. They may be outcome indicators that already exist: faster response times for first-responders, better water

quality, things like that currently exist that we can report on.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity today. In the interest of time, I will end my comments.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Austin follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, that is a very fine list that the Governor is implementing, and it is a good list that I am sure other States will

try to follow.

Our next presenter is David Englethaler, director, Arizona Department of Health Services and Response Office, emergency response coordinator for the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Mr. ENGLETHALER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman

Flake, members of the committee.

Good afternoon. I am David Englethaler with the Arizona Department of Health Services. I am here to represent Dr. Catherine

Eden, who is the director of the Department, who is sorry that she

is not able to appear before this subcommittee.

I act as the chief of the Department’s Bioterrorism Office and as

the emergency response coordinator for the Department.

I am grateful to this subcommittee for the opportunity to speak

here today. My hope is to give you the Department of Health Services’ perspective on what we have been doing so far to prepare for

a potential bioterrorism attack, as well as what we are currently

working on.

Prior to receiving the Centers for Disease Control bioterrorism

funds, public health agencies at the State and county levels were

not primary participants in bioterrorism discussions and really

were not consulted within bioterrorism hoax responses, which has

really been the primary response to bioterrorism prior to September 11th.

The primary responders were often the law enforcement and

HAZMAT agencies, which are not considered traditional public

health partners.

The Arizona Department of Health Services received a bioterrorism cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control in

the fall of 1999. These funds allowed the department to establish

its epidemic detection and response program. This program was

centered around four main activities, those being emergency response planning, bioterrorism and outbreak surveillance and investigation, biological agent detection, and communications.

The CDC funding provided the Department the opportunity to simultaneously begin to develop bioterrorism response capabilities,

as well as to bolster the existing infectious disease surveillance and

response infrastructure.

Over the ensuing 2 years, the department established itself as a

main component in emergency response, particularly in the area of

bioterrorism. Close partnerships were developed with emergency

management and law enforcement and other first-responders, and

these relationships were tested and proven during the anthrax letter and hoax responses activities during last fall.

Three Arizona cities were funded as part of the federally coordinated Metropolitan Medical Response System Program out of the

Office of Emergency Preparedness. The Department has built close

ties with these programs and remains involved with the development of their systems.

The Department has also developed both intra and interdepartmental response plans for public health emergencies and produces

statewide response plans for bioterrorism, pandemic influenza, and

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the national pharmaceutical stockpile, and has participated in various tabletop exercises.

New disease and outbreak surveillance systems have either been

developed on air in the process of development. The State Health

Laboratory has increased its capacity to test for bioterrorism

agents and has begun to provide Level A laboratory training.

The Department has also increased the emergency health communications capacity in the State by providing county health departments and healthcare facilities with communications equipment, including satellite dishes and fax machines.

The department has also begun development of an Internet

based health alerting system that allows for secure high-speed communications between all emergency responders, and this system is

being done in coordination with emergency management and law

enforcement.

All of these activities were made possible by the Centers for Disease Control bioterrorism cooperative agreement funds, and all

were tested during September 11th and anthrax response activities. A review of response activities last fall has shown that the department was able to adequately respond to the public health

needs of the State, although the Department’s resources were

taxed.

The county health departments and the hospitals participated to

some degree in emergency response actions, but they had not been

previously able to develop strong bioterrorism response systems. It

became obvious that an actual large scale bioterrorism attack

would quickly overwhelm Arizona’s, like most States’, response capabilities.

With the advent of the CDC bioterrorism cooperative agreement,

supplemental funds and the HRSA hospital bioterrorism preparedness funds just recently this year, the State will be able to address

the bioterrorism preparedness needs of the county health departments and begin to address the many needs of the hospitals in this

State.

Currently the Department of Health Services is vigorously developing work plans and applications for these grants. The Department is also making immediate funds available to all county health

departments for each to hire a bioterrorism coordinator, as well as

a communications coordinator to insure the development of local

health emergency response plans and the integration of department directed health communications systems.

The department has already met with the county health departments, and the bioterrorism and hospital advisory committees to

provide input and direction on work plan development for both of

these grants.

The department believes that these funds will allow the State to

go a long way to shoring up Arizona’s public health infrastructure,

while insuring the citizens of Arizona will be more adequately protected during catastrophic bioterrorism attack.

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An ongoing planning concern is the long-term maintenance of

this increased public health infrastructure, particularly funding for

new personnel. It is hoped that these current funding streams are,

although immediate in nature, long-term in reality.

I thank the subcommittee for your time and your kind invitation.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Englethaler follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you. That is helpful.

I am going to take the privilege of one question and one question

only, and then we can do it generally, but it comes to me, and I

want it with this part of the record.

You have got fine laboratories in the Public Health Department.

Do you have a capacity of the nonprofits and the profits, the universities to do some of this laboratory work of let’s say you had

some kind of a plague and biological thing? Have you thought

about getting those all connected in some way?

Mr. ENGLETHALER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Flake, essentially those labs that you all listed are considered Level A labs, and

those are labs that typically test for various types of disease agents

that humans may get. They are all receiving training through our

department to be able to do a certain level of testing for the various

bioterrorism agents, at least some rule out testing, information on

how to handle this material, how to send it to the State lab.

The State lab is part of the overall laboratory response network

in the country and is coordinating all existing testing during a bioterrorism event or hoax type situation. So we are working with

those partners and providing education and training, too.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

And now our last speaker for Panel 1 is Lieutenant Colonel Norman Beasley, the Assistant Director for Criminal Investigations of

the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Colonel Beasley.

Lt. Col. BEASLEY. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Flake, it is, as

the rest of the panel has said, a pleasure to be here and to have

the opportunity to testify on this truly probably the most vital topic

that we are facing today in our society.

What I would like to do real briefly, and I assure you real briefly,

is talk a little bit about what the Department of Public Safety and

other law enforcement offices are doing in Arizona, and then talk

specifically about some homeland defense recommendations as it

relates to the law enforcement function.

The Department of Public Safety is designated under our emergency response plan as the lead State agency for terrorism. What

this means is that we are responsible for coordinating all State assets that would be deployed to assist other State and local agencies

during an act of terrorism.

To accomplish this mission, as of September 11th, we have instituted our Domestic Preparedness Command. As part of that, we

have opened a Domestic Preparedness Operations Center that until

recently was staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by not only DPS

investigative personnel, but personnel from other local law enforcement agencies.

What this center handles is all requests for DPS assistance, information, and support, and any other State agencies’ support, to

include the Department of Health Services; is routed to this center,

and then it gives us a point of central coordination.

We also, during the anthrax scare, we took over the responsibility from the FBI to track all of our suspicious anthrax letters. If

a local jurisdiction does not have the responses to respond to deal

with a suspicious package, we will either have other local agencies

respond or our own specialized response units will respond in conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:01 Apr 21, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\84698.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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junction with the FBI to deal with that particular package and

then transport it to the Division of Health Services.

We also coordinate the deployment of the National Guard Civil

Support Team, which has been a very good asset for us, and is the

National Guard’s version of a weapon of mass destruction response

team.

The center also developed a secure Web site that provides real

time intelligence, research and open source information to all law

enforcement agencies, not only within Arizona, but throughout the

country.

It does provide written ready access to even Federal generated

information. We have partnered with the FBI, and all of their teletype and information bulletins are placed on this Web site in a real

time basis so that agencies in Arizona can go to this Web site and

get the most current information that’s available.

In addition, our Intelligence Bureau generates daily threat

advisories for all law enforcement agencies in Arizona. To date, we

have generated well over 250 intelligence bulletins. We have forwarded 187 NLETS terrorist related teletypes to all law enforcement, and basically this becomes a check and balance.

What we found initially is not every law enforcement agency was

receiving the NLETS. So we have taken that responsibility to make

sure that every agency gets this information.

If they do not have NLETS capability, we use e-mail or the fax.

Since September 11th, as a department we have been in a higher

state of alert, and all of our specialized response units that would

respond to a weapon of mass destruction or act of terrorism are on

immediate mobilization status.

Detectives and support personnel assigned to the division have

been redeployed to conduct counterterrorist investigations in the

area of intelligence and security operations. We work very closely

on the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. Attorney’s

Anti-terrorism Task Force. We have also assisted the city of Phoenix with security at Sky Harbor Airport.

In the area of personal protection equipment, we have been very

fortunate. We are in the process of finishing up the purchase of a

personal protective ensemble for every sworn officer, almost 1,100,

that will give every officer in the field protection so that they could

perform law enforcement functions within a chemical and biological

environment.

At the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we have partnered

with the FBI in their expanded U.S. Attorney Task Force and FBI

Joint Terrorism Task Force to provide liaisons in those areas of the

State where there is not an FBI agent.

Throughout our history, Arizona has enjoyed a very strong working relationship prior to September 11th, and this has been a building block not only with law enforcement, but with other public safety respond agencies. A lot of credit goes to the men and women out

there in the field in Arizona who work daily on very hazardous

things and work very well. We feel Arizona really is a model when

you look at interagency cooperation.

I want to publicly compliment the role of the U.S. Attorney and

the FBI in providing that support to us.

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Now I wish to talk specifically on some homeland defense issues,

some of which Mr. Posner touched on.

In the area of intelligence sharing, there needs to be a mechanism in place to allow for the timely sharing of intelligence information between State, local, and Federal agencies. Currently there

does not seem to be a clear vision on how this is going to be accomplished.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police has a Web site

on the FBI Law Enforcement Online. The U.S. Department of Justice RISS projects are attempting to use RISSNET as an interoperability between agencies.

The problem with both of these systems is not everybody is on

them.

The FBI uses the NLETS system to disseminate information.

Again, as we talked, not all law enforcement agencies have this.

In addition to the vision on how are you going to get this information from the Federal level to the State level, there needs to be

also a vision on specific tasking to State and local agencies. What

does the Federal Government expect from us in the way of information, and a mechanism where those State and local investigative

operations can input that data directly and receive information

back.

This vision should also look at developing and supporting systems, including software and hardware, that enhance the overall

intelligence effort and makes this a true national intelligence program.

It appears that the State law enforcement agencies can play a

vital role, and I think Congress needs to look at funding for the

State level law enforcement agency in the area of this intelligence

dissemination system.

The development of interoperable communications systems is a

huge issue for first-responders, and that has to be a critical thing

for Congress to look at. We had experience during the World Services. The military does have that capability to link various radio

frequencies, and if this system could be made available to State

and local agencies, as long as it was not cost prohibitive, that

might be something to look at.

In the area of training, much of the WMD training that we see

today is not law enforcement specific. We would like to see that the

training programs develop some form of law enforcement specific

training that is geared to what the law enforcement officer is going

to do in a WMD or a terrorist environment. That is primarily for

the field officers.

In closing, I really wish to thank Congress for their support in

the Nunn-Luger initiatives and other initiatives because, quite

frankly, without your support, Arizona could not be at the level of

preparedness that we currently are.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Lt. Col. Beasley follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, I thank you for your fine presentation.

I want to just answer one thing that I think is what you were

talking about. We were very conscious of sharing law enforcement

information with the FBI and other intelligence agencies to pinpoint a person in the city or the county or the State that would be

cleared by the FBI so that you did not have a dope by mistake that

was putting away marijuana or something and taking it out the

cage himself.

So I would just like to put this in the record because it is definitely with what you are talking about, which is the H.R. 3483, the

Intergovernmental Law Enforcement Information Sharing Act of

2001.

This is a letter signed by myself and Christopher Shays, the

chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, and I gave this to the chairman

of Judiciary and the James Sensenbrenner, Jr. He is very responsive to this, and we hope we can move that legislation in the next

couple of months. And we know that is long overdue.

So you hit a right thing, and I hope that the delegation all over

the country agree with that, and I think they do.

So that is very helpful now on Panel 1, and then we will move

into Panel 2, and with the General Accounting Office usually we

have the individual from the GAO we will at the end ask if we

have missed something. That is where we are trying to get to between people.

The Panel 2 is Robert Spencer, Jack Harris, Steve Storment,

Tom Gallier, and Roy Stewart.

OK. We do swear in our witnesses. So if you will stand and raise

your right hand, we would appreciate it.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. The Clerk will note that all five witnesses have affirmed.

We will begin with Robert Spencer, the Director of Maricopa

County Department of Emergency Management.

STATEMENTS OF ROBERT SPENCER, DIRECTOR OF MARICOPA

COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT;

JACK HARRIS, ASSISTANT CHIEF, PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT; STEVE STORMENT, ASSISTANT CHIEF, PHOENIX FIRE

DEPARTMENT; TOM GALLIER, GENERAL MANAGER, WATER

UTILITIES DEPARTMENT, CITY OF TEMPE; AND ROY STEWART, PRESIDENT, STEWART ELECTRIC & COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. SPENCER. Chairman Horn, Congressman Flake, members of

the committee, thank you for this opportunity to present some local

views on how the Federal Government’s efforts are working for the

response to terrorism and for searching for recommendations to

make those efforts more efficient. My comments today will hopefully represent the local regional perspective.

Some of the demographics of Maricopa County are included in

the written statement that I have submitted today. I will not go

into those too much right now.

Mr. HORN. I might say all of your statements automatically go

into the record when I call your name.

Mr. SPENCER. OK.

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Mr. HORN. We hope we can get these hearing records out in the

next few months because otherwise we are losing problems and not

taking your knowledge and spreading that around the country.

So go ahead.

Mr. SPENCER. Included in that statement are many of the terrorism response capabilities that we have. Today I am speaking from

the Maricopa County perspective, but it is also a partnership of 24

cities and towns and another 30 city-like, unincorporated population centers. So it is not just Maricopa County because we do

work closely together with the cities and towns.

In my short period of time here today for verbal testimony, I

would like to convey shortfalls that we have in the system and

some recommendations maybe on how to fix some of those shortfalls.

The current money allocated by the U.S. Department of Justice

has begun to put a dent in the overall needs for equipment. This

money flow needs to continue.

Restrictions on this money, however, need to be relaxed. We cannot purchase such items as bomb robots and rolling stock with this

money. So even though we are buying a lot of response equipment,

we are getting close to the dilemma as to how we will store it and

quickly get it to the scene. Trucks and trailers must be purchased

for such.

Perhaps too much emphasis is sometimes placed on these funds

for chemical and biological response, where maybe the most likely

attack will be conventional explosives perhaps enhanced with nuclear materials.

Therefore, equipment to interrupt or disarm bombs and equipment to rescue people in collapsed structures needs to be considered.

When considering this and certain other sources of Federal funding for the local emergency response, the bureaucracy needs to

lighten-up on some of the grant restrictions. Requiring local match

can be difficult when dealing with funds at these levels. We cannot

spend the money if we are required to match it, and we cannot

come up with the qualified matches.

Another shortcoming is that when moneys at these levels come

into a smaller agency, such as mine, it can be very difficult to

spend it within strict timeframes and without additional personnel

to manage the funds. We want to get this money on the street as

quickly as possible, but we also want to manage it professionally.

Future money should allow for the hiring of a limited number of

employees to keep track of the funds and to get those funds spent

expeditiously.

Now, the hospital system has come into this game late and is not

yet able to provide the level of capability that we need. Even during normal times, our EMS and hospital system in the valley becomes saturated. If the large mass casualty incident was to occur

during the 8 months out of the year when our population is at its

highest, when our snowbird population has come down for their annual migration, we might be fortunate to find three critical care

beds per hospital.

May I suggest something maybe that may help nationwide to

remedy the need for more critical care bed space? This may be

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maybe my highest recommendation today, for improving the hospital surge capacity preparedness, and that would be for the Federal Government to develop 12 nationally committed field hospitals

which could be expeditiously shipped anywhere in the Nation within a 12 hour maximum timeframe.

If you research some of the old civil defense things, we used to

have those, and during the early 1980’s they were dismantled, sent

to South America, and so forth, and we no longer have that capacity.

There has already been developed a similar capability in the national pharmaceutical PUSH package, and to a lesser degree the

national DMORT system. The hospitals would be self-contained,

would provide shelter, climate control, bed space, and medical

equipment to handle up to 1,000 critical care patients.

A trained group of professionals would accompany the hospitals

during a deployment, to set them up and to provide additional

medic support to the local effort.

The mobile hospitals would go a long way in solving the surge

capacity required in every locality in our Nation.

The next shortfall that currently is being addressed, but needs

to be expanded and implemented nationwide is the uniform medical surveillance system, and David Englethaler addressed that

pretty well.

But if a biological attack was to occur, we all know that recognizing the event early on is crucial preventing its spread. Funding to

install the system in every hospital and in every emergency medical system is of paramount importance.

The ability to quickly warn and advise the public is lacking. The

old civil defense sirens are gone. The emergency alert system has

replaced the earlier and older emergency broadcast system, somewhat debatable as to whether or not that was an improvement.

Locally we have something called the media alert, which will

blast fax the media with emergency information. The media alert

was developed to supplement the EAS.

We currently have funding also to develop a county-wide telephone calling system to provide emergency information to the populous.

With all of these projects considered, I am still not comfortable

that we have what we need in the way of warning and notification.

The Federal Government has been working on legislation that requires a special electronic chip to be installed in all new radios and

televisions. The chip would automatically turn on a device in which

it was installed and tune it to receive emergency messages from

the EAS.

This would fill a huge gap, and it would be found where someone

who is not in contact with a telephone or did not have their radio

or TV turned on. The Federal Government should continue to look

at this legislation and expedite it if it really does seem right.

The final shortfall that can be predicted is the ability for the

local emergency response agencies to sustain their terrorism emergency response capabilities. Most response equipment has a 5-year

shelf-life. Of course, if it actually has to be used, it is immediately

outdated.

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Phoenix, which is our original Nunn-Luger-Dominici Act city that

was trained under those funds, has noted that their originally purchased equipment is going to start getting outdated. It has been

that long.

Although they have spent much of their own local money to sustain and build their capabilities, they cannot do so indefinitely. The

Federal Government needs to come up with a plan and funding

streams to provide the sustainability required in the future.

Thank you, once again, for requesting our local input. I hope my

recommendations can help you plan future legislation that will

make local response to terroristic acts more effective and more efficient.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Spencer follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, that’s excellent, and your point on the hospitals

and the need for tents and all of the rest of it, like MASH, maybe

we can get some of it off the MASH set in Hollywood and solve

some of these problems.

But I will ask our staff to go now and get a real look of where

are the various tents and all that could be moved rapidly across the

country. So thank you for pointing that out.

Jack Harris is the Assistant Chief of the Phoenix Police Department.

Thank you for being here.

Mr. HARRIS. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before this

committee.

It is nice going in the second group because I get to just review

some of the main points that I wanted to present because most of

them have been presented by other members from the other group.

But let me say that one of the important points that we wanted

to bring forth from the local jurisdiction is the topic of resource allocation and threat assessment.

In the earliest stages of the development of the WMD program

back in 1996, the initial grant funds that were going to be offered

to the jurisdictions were disseminated based primarily on the 27

largest jurisdictions throughout the United States. That short list

of 27 jurisdictions included the city of Phoenix.

As time went on, the funding was presented at the State or the

country level for disbursement, and the funds to not always get disbursed to the areas where the risk is the highest or where the population is the greatest. We would recommend that a review be

made and go back to the original allocation alignment of looking at

the jurisdictions that had the highest risk assessment according to

the Department of Justice study and also where the largest masses

of population were concentrated.

The second area that I would like to talk about which has been

discussed already is the policy for sustainment of funds. We get

funds which we really appreciate to start program and to purchase

equipment for programs that are essential to our response to a

WMD situation, but we desperately need to be able to continue

that funding to sustain that equipment and those programs beyond

just the initial allotment to get the equipment.

One example would be the purchase of, say, 2,700 gas masks to

equip everyone with the Phoenix Police Department. That is extremely beneficial to us, and we appreciate that kind of funding.

But along with that allotment comes training needs and OSHA

standards that have to be met to continue to operate with that

equipment. OSHA standards will require physical examinations,

respiratory examinations for people who are disbursed with this

equipment and also training in how to properly utilize the equipment.

That funding can be very detrimental to a local agency, especially in these hard times economically. So we would, as some of

the other members have, emphasize and reiterate that we need

sustainment funds to keep those programs and equipment going

into the future.

The other topic that I wanted to discuss was the communications

situation with the 700 megahertz bands. The city of Phoenix

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strongly urges continued review by the FCC and the congressional

committee for appropriate distribution and organization of frequencies allocated for public safety uses. As I am sure you are well

aware, in any type of major response to something like Oklahoma

City, one of the first things that can cause problems for first-responders is the lack of communications.

So we are asking that we continue to look at how those frequencies are allotted to both public entities and private entities, as

well as to public safety organizations so that when we get to a

scene, as the Twin Towers disaster, that we are able to continue

to communicate without overlap or the frequencies and a problem

with private industry frequencies not be available to us to be able

to maintain the communications that are so necessary in a mass

disaster like that.

And with that, I would thank you for allowing me to present

today and appreciate any consideration that you give to our requests.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We now have your counterpart in the Phoenix Fire

Department, Assistant Chief Steve Storment.

And welcome being here.

Mr. STORMENT. Thank you, Congressman Flake and Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to actually followup from what Mr. Spencer and Jack said as far as sustainability.

We go back to 1997 being one of the first two dozen MMRSes

that were put together to start looking at this issue, and as Mr.

Spencer said, as we have gone along with this, we have made the

equipment go as far as we can. We are now almost 6 years into

that program, and using the FEMA USAR model that the mayor

spoke about so well and the video, we have been a decade, and that

has been my responsibility over the last actually 12 years, is that

direct funding source to the local jurisdictions that provide the direct service to the customer.

In the gap between our 22 points out of 22 points that we scored

during the assessment in this last round of money, we got all of

the points there were for the hazards and the risks associated. One

of our gap problems is the FEMA USAR assets, some 60,000

pounds and some up to 100 people that you have got to move on

best speed is a 6-hour window and up to 2 to 3 days to get wherever you are going.

Those same folks, if it happens here, are tied up in the emergency response. One of the pieces for sustaining our effort here is

daily operational sustainment that takes 6 to 8 minutes, not 6 to

8 hours. For us that would be a piece of equipment and staffing

called heavy rescues that New York City had and other cities currently have that allows you to kind of bridge that gap between getting the rest of the stuff here and the rest of the Federal effort here

that helps not only law enforcement, but also helps the fire department and certainly the customers in Phoenix.

The other part of this sustainment effort is the track record. In

fact, Mr. Posner said it very well, is the success stories. In the last

10 years, last 12 years of the FEMA USAR program, we have survived an IG audit, and that was quite interesting and we got

through that.

So those auditing pieces for the local jurisdiction are in place,

and they work. We would like to see that directed to the city locale

that have a proven track record to continue. With the efforts between the police department and the fire department and MMRS,

we have been ranked at least by CNN in one article being the fifth

best prepared in the Nation.

What held us back was what Mr. Spencer talked about, was the

hospital piece, which is enormously difficult and at least in what

you read in some of the congressional notes and in the newspaper,

the Health and Human Services piece with a block of money coming through to them would certainly be helpful.

We would like to submit that our effort over the last number of

years has been well measured. We know what the work is. Hence

we know what the job needs to be done, and we know what the outcome is.

We have deployed to five different locations. We have seen it

from the ground up.

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On the frequency piece that Jack talked about, we would like to

add another piece that is not quite so special to become routine,

and that is use of satellite communication that is not impervious,

but certainly more hardened than ground-lines and cell phone towers.

And having been one of the first ones to Oklahoma, I can tell you

it was a little unnerving to call to the National Response Center

via pay phone in the Bell South building because there were no

other lines available. So some interest in that to make it less special and more user friendly.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to pass this along, and

as part of the record, we made copies of a group that I got to work

with back in Boston at the Kennedy School of Government, which

I have had the privilege of sitting on their Executive Board for

weapons of mass destruction issues, and there is a paper, which I

am sure you guys have it, called ‘‘Winning Plays, Essential Guidance from the Terrorism Line of Scrimmage,’’ which is kind of a

long way of saying, you know, we know what the issues are and

we have offered some solutions to those issues, and those are kind

of the solutions we share with you today.

Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Well, we would certainly want to have that document

in the hearing record. If you could just read in the matter and give

it to the court reporter, and we will have it in.

Mr. STORMENT. The name of the paper that some 12 of us had

put together as part of this charge over the last 3 years is coming

out of September 11th, and it was actually done for a really good

friend of ours who passed away in that, Jack Finney of the New

York City Fire Department, and it is called ‘‘Winning Plays, Essential Guidance from the Terrorism Line of Scrimmage,’’ which basically represents the folks in the trenches, which are all of us.

Mr. HORN. Sure.

Mr. STORMENT. And the contributing authors were Peter Bearing, Paul Matascowsco, Hank Christian, myself, A.D. Vickery, and

then the staff at the school there.

And we have 100 copies back there, and I certainly have a copy

here for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you.

I am a graduate of the Kennedy school, too, so I am interested

in what they are doing. I am glad to see there is practicality and

not just theory. So thank you for changing my view of my alma

mater. [Laughter.]

So we now have Tom Gallier, the General Manager, Water Utilities Department, city of Tempe.

Thank you.

Mr. GALLIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Flake.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to your subcommittee today.

As I am sitting here listening to all of the previous speakers, I

realize what we have been hearing from are our protectors and our

rescuers in the event of a terrorist attack. I guess I am here to be

the target, to represent the target community.

Mr. HORN. You are right. You are right. We have not had a lot

of testimony on the water resource situation.

Mr. GALLIER. It is a significant issue, albeit quiet one, in the

background, and we appreciate that.

I think an example of the whole thing in a nutshell is all of us

have bottles of what we call ‘‘Tempe tap’’ here at our places, and

I think all of us drink this water without a moment’s hesitation or

thought about its safety. And our goal essentially in the water industry is to make sure that continues to be the case.

With the help of the good folks up here and with our representatives in Congress and other legislators and councils, hopefully we

can continue that.

I wanted to just briefly summarize the written comments that I

have already submitted. It is important to remember that in the

water industry, this issue did not begin for us on September 11th.

By Presidential directive in 1996, as you are aware, there was an

intergovernmental cooperative effort begun by Executive Order

13010.

That was expanded in 1998 with the creation of the National Infrastructure Protection Center. Eight key critical sectors were identified in the country, water supply being one of those key sectors,

and we have been working every since to try to develop programs

that will allow us to protect our water systems around the country,

not just in any particular area.

One of the key elements of that is gradually coming to fruition

now is a joint effort between the U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency and one of our professional associations, the Association of

Metropolitan Water Agencies. They have coordinated very closely

with the FBI, with the Department of Energy’s Sandia Labs especially, CDC, and many other Federal agencies to help fine tune our

planning and preparation for potential terrorist acts.

As you have mentioned, Mr. Chairman, at the beginning of the

session, it is not a groundless concern, especially with what just

happened a few weeks ago. Those of us in the water industry are

very aware of that and very concerned.

Some of the key points I would like to make is that as EPA and

our own association are working together, one of their key outcomes they are working on is a system called the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or Water ISAC. Similar to some

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of the agency communication systems that you have heard spoken

about earlier, but with a focus on water.

That is a very important piece of communication technology that

we need to be in place as soon as possible. Those agencies are

working very closely on it. There are a few issues that still need

to be ironed out, not the least of which, as was mentioned earlier.

We have the same issue, and that is obtaining security clearances

at the proper level for the proper people in our associations so that

they can get the information from the FBI and other national security agencies as soon as possible and then adequately get that information out to the rest of us.

There are some financing questions that need to be addressed as

well. There has been funding provided to create this system. We

are now struggling to figure out how to pay for it for ongoing O&M,

as was mentioned here.

We may do that by subscription, essentially charging all of us in

the industry a certain amount to support that, and if that is what

it takes, then we will certainly do that.

Definitely more research and development is needed on the full

range of water system security threats that we face now. EPA’s ongoing efforts have been helpful. They have allocated or potentially

allocated $15 million this year in their proposed budget or next

year’s budget. That is a good start. We would like to see that continue and even be increased.

There are efforts by a number of Federal research agencies and

the American Water Works Association Research Foundation that

are using some of the funds from the past and will be using those

that are available this year.

I am participating on a Professional Advisory Oversight Committee for an international study that is looking at one aspect of that

right now with representatives of Portland, Oregon water authority

and also the city of New York.

So we are not just looking nationally at this issue, but outside

of our boundaries as well.

Governor Whitman’s announcement last Tuesday that EPA is releasing $90 million in emergency grant funds directly to water systems to help pay for vulnerability assessments is greatly appreciated. I was notified by phone last week by EPA Region IX in San

Francisco, and I appreciate the direct contact.

As was mentioned here, I appreciate the fact that funding is coming directly to us. We do not have to go through three or four layers of bureaucracy.

We appreciate the efforts that EPA is also making with Sandia

Labs. DOE’s research arm at Sandia is doing tremendous work for

the water industry. They are beginning to plan now some train the

trainer sessions, which a number of professionals in the industry

can then use to come back and disseminate that knowledge very

rapidly.

Those sessions will begin next month. Already the city of Phoenix

and the city of Tempe have volunteered in this area to provide

space for that training process to occur when that is complete.

Our city’s planning efforts are coordinated, of course, by our fire

and police departments, as Phoenix’s are. We work closely with

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sonnel. We have had a number of emergency drills, just like most

cities. Our latest one was last October, I believe, and that scenario

was based on a biological or chemical terrorist attack at a sporting

event, which we have some experience with sporting events in

Tempe.

Individually, our facilities are upgrading our electronic and physical security systems. We are reassigning staff to security planning

and patrol duties. The leader in the valley, without question, has

been the city of Phoenix Water Services Department. I believe they

deserve special recognition for their efforts in this area.

We are also, like everyone else, revisiting all of the design, construction and operating standards, plans, and assumptions because

we realize now that this is not a short-term issue. It is long-term.

We have to rethink the way that we not only deliver our water

services to our customers, but also how we bring the water into our

facilities, how we treat the water, and then how we distribute it

and store it.

The ultimate question that we face in the water industry is what

is the appropriate level of security that is needed. How much of our

limited financial resources should we be prepared to expend on security when we as an industry also face significant costs to meet

other, ever more stringent State and Federal water quality requirements?

As an example, in Tempe’s case, the new arsenic standards that

were recently issued have very little effect on us. Our surface water

supplies were blessed to have supplies that are very low naturally

in arsenic.

Many of the cities around us, however, rely on substantially

more groundwater than we do that does have high arsenic levels.

There is at least one city in the valley that I know of that is facing

at least $60 million in capital construction to be able to meet those

standards.

I am not saying that to question the validity or the necessity of

those standards. I think that is important for public health, but it

is important to remember that the water industry is facing challenges on several fronts at the same time.

So, of course, like everyone else, we are asking for more money.

That usually comes through the form of the State revolving loan

fund program, and again, to echo what Mayor Rimsza said earlier,

and so did my counterparts here in local government, frequently

portions of those funds when they are available have set-asides for

rural areas where the level of income is much lower and the need

is great.

We need to look at security issues from a different perspective.

The targets primarily for terrorist activity are going to be the larger urban areas. I would only ask that you remember it is not just

one particular city in an urban area. Phoenix is like other major

urban areas around the country, and within this area, we have

eight cities with populations greater than 100,000.

So we would suggest that be looked at as a metropolitan area

basis, and that a set-aside in the Federal SRF be made of about

15 percent, if possible, for metropolitan areas around the country

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so that we have a quicker access to that money that we can use

for security improvements and other things that we will need.

With that, I will end my statement and be happy to answer any

questions.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gallier follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much. That is helpful, and we

will get back to it in the question period.

I have asked Representative Flake to introduce our last presenter.

Mr. FLAKE. Well, thank you, Congressman Horn and Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to introduce Mr. Stewart. I have been familiar with him

and his company recently. Just to put it bluntly, I have been very

impressed with what they have done.

Right after September 11th, Mr. Stewart got a call saying things

were needed in New York, particularly to restore cellular phone

service there, and within hours he put together a team of eight

men and drove, I think it took 49 hours or so.

Mr. STEWART. About 48 hours, yes.

Mr. FLAKE. And with two trucks and all of the equipment, eight

men, driving across the country, arrived, and it was fairly chaotic,

as I understand, for quite a while there, but within 4 days working

nonstop, they were able to restore cellular service there by putting

up some microwave facilities, and I just want to commend him publicly for that and his company for what he did, and I look forward

to his testimony.

Mr. STEWART. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you, Chairman.

I guess probably what I will do is probably create more questions

than I have answers or needs from the private sector. We have listened all day to these fine organizations that are established, and

they do a fantastic job. We have watched them in New York City

on September 11th when we were back there.

Like the Congressman said, we got a call and asked us to go

back to New York and deliver some equipment back there and see

if we could not aid them in bringing a cellular system back up for

one of our carriers that we worked for here in the valley.

No information other than just what we could get off the media,

over telephones as we were traveling. We put a team together pretty rapidly. What do we need when we get back there, like our

urban response teams, so organized and have everything ready to

go to deal with the actual scene itself?

But when they break it, we have got to go fix it, and as we talked

today, everybody is very concerned with this 800 megahertz, which

we are working on that presently right now. Communications play

such a vital role to America. A question to you is: What would have

happened in Manhattan if Wall Street would have opened up the

next morning business as usual? The reason why they could not,

they could not communicate with the world.

Our business today communicates globally. It is a very, very vital

role in emergency tasks, in our business, in our commerce today

around the world.

It is a very complex system, and 99 percent of it is operated and

owned by publicly held companies, and privately held companies

like myself that design it and build it and maintain it for these

companies with all of the large ones.

But like Congressman Flake said, we got a call, and we headed

for New York. We had never been asked to do this before. We never

responded to a disaster. So we got back to New Jersey. There we

found out there was no land-line base available, and what their cell

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system operated on was a hard-line system. Copper wire was the

way they hauled their cell sites around.

Out here in the West we hurl microwave shots around here because we’re so sprawled across the State that we do not have copper; we do not have hard-lines. So we use microwave. Everywhere

you look there is a microwave dish hauling our systems around the

country.

So when we got back there, all of the copper lines had been destroyed in the neighborhood of literally millions when the World

Trade Center went down.

So we went into their command center for the customer that we

were working for, and it was somewhat chaotic, but this had never

happened in America before. So, yes, it kind of devastated everybody.

We went to work the first day, went into the city; finally got into

the city. Access was an absolute nightmare. Here was a bunch of

guys from Arizona. Who are these folks? What are they going to

do with the microwave specialists?

Well, we did have enough thought that we said, OK, let’s take

everything but the kitchen sink when we leave. We took all of our

spectrum analyzers, all of our equipment to sweep cell sites, to install, all of the materials that we could haul in our service trucks

that we pulled the equipment back to New York with.

Sitting in the war room, we finally started calling it, we had a

map of Manhattan, and we had an entire system that was completely dead. There was some movement being made in it, some additional switching facilities that had been hauled into the area and

were being tapped onto the switch, but nothing could be brought

back up because the local phone company was trying to bring copper back up.

Well, copper was not coming up, and there is a great deal of it

that will not be up for several more months.

So then we sat down, and we sat actually on a chalkboard in

general conversation. How are we going to put this system back together?

That is when we came up with, well, we do not know your system, but you have got cell sites here and here and here. Do you

have access into these buildings? We can put you a microwave

shop. We can haul it back through what we call a backbone system,

a trunking system, fire these cell sites up to these various building

tops and carry it out of the city that way and get you to a switching

facility.

Sure, that will be fine.

So we went out to try to accomplish that task, and we ran into

building owners that asked why we were there, what we were

going to do, who was going to insure this installation while we are

there, what is it going to look like on our building, is it really necessary, where are your credentials at, problem after problem after

problem.

It got to the point where we were afraid to leave what we had

called the soft-line with our trucks and our equipment because we

were afraid we would not get back in. Sometimes they would let

us in; sometimes they wouldn’t. We’d have to go around to another.

Obstacle after obstacle that we ran into, with government agencies

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sitting there doing their job, but not allowing us to move freely

through the city.

A job that should have taken probably 11⁄2 to 2 days is what we

would have done here in the Phoenix metropolitan area with our

highrises. It wound up taking us about 4 days.

We commandeered a broken grocery cart, a hand-truck we found

behind a building, and that is the way we moved around through

the city, like a bunch of thieves actually.

So I guess in closing, like I said, my story is probably going to

have more questions and more problems because this is the first

time we have been involved in this.

What do we need to do to organize this? We have just a multitude of talent across the United States that is going to have to

respond to these needs. When Phoenix goes down, they are going

to have to call us because we built it. We will play a large role in

the 800 megahertz for Phoenix fire and police and civil defense

here in Phoenix.

What are we going to do to organize that so that we know where

our resources are? We know where the fire department is. We

know where HAZMAT is at. We know where the Phoenix Police

Department is. We know where DPS and all of these agencies are.

But who knows where our talent is to bring this stuff back up

when it is actually needed?

Who knows where Roy is at? And his staff are absolutely the best

of the best when it comes to microwave people. Who knows where

they are and do we need them?

So I will close this on the last and try to wrap this thing up, but

I do appreciate you guys giving us the opportunity to come and

bring some of the problems that the private sector had in New

York City and probably some that may occur again, but maybe

with the help of this committee right here and these hearings, we

might be able to start reaching out and saying, ‘‘Hey, maybe we do

have a problem here. Let’s organize this and see if we cannot get

it together.’’

Thank you so much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stewart follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Well, we thank you.

That is a real fascinating story. Has that been picked up by the

press?

Mr. STEWART. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORN. Do you have some questions you would like to ask

first?

Mr. FLAKE. Yes.

Mr. HORN. Please do.

Mr. FLAKE. Just a few.

Mr. Stewart, given what you encountered there and kind of taking from the first panel, Mr. Posner talked about strategies to coordinate, some of the problems as we have heard are resource problems and others are communication and coordination.

On the communication and coordination, a national strategy as

opposed to a Federal strategy is what has been posed. How do you

people who work with it on the ground, how do you see that playing out?

The notion is that you do not rely on the Federal Government

coming in and posing a solution and saying that this agency with

this agency or you are going to be supporting it with this agency

or that. What would be the appropriate vehicle, an association of

State legislators or some association of police forces out there?

I guess I will close it, if you could answer that briefly, your

thoughts about a national strategy as opposed to a Federal strategy

and how that might help on the ground in a situation because we

have had a real world situation that Mr. Stewart has encountered;

how that would have perhaps helped in that regard.

Mr. POSNER. I have been impressed hearing just about the vitality of our system. I mean, the Federal Government, for example,

has not recognized the security problems of the water systems, but

you have the Association of Water Resource Managers that is really taking a proactive role in this system.

I think we are seeing a lot of that in the emergency management

community, how with some support from FEMA the State and local

managers are taking this problem on themselves and developing

professional standards, certification procedures.

I am not familiar with the communications area, but somehow

being able to—and I am reading the really wonderful report that

this plays, this effort that you worked on together, and I am familiar with some of the other people there, and they are all first rate

people, and you have really laid out an agenda that really does not

just focus on the Federal Government.

I mean, certainly we can facilitate, but it is, I think, a responsible strategy to say that this is really national problems and not

Federal, and part of that is getting private sector. Part of it is getting the professional association officials together to really do something about some of these problems.

Mr. FLAKE. Specifically, Mr. Stewart, if you were to encounter a

situation like this again, say we had a similar attack in Chicago

or L.A. and you were called to go in again. What do you think we

have learned already that would make it easier for you to get

around and do in a day what you had to spend 4 days doing?

Mr. STEWART. Well, after myself and my staff got back to Chandler there to our office, we started having general conversations,

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and it just about has not stopped to this day. What if, what if,

what if?

Because nobody knows anything about us, we started kind of

putting together our own plan. What if we had some kind of an org.

chart put together around the country that says, OK, Stewart Electric & Communications. They live in Chandler, Arizona, and we do

happen to know for their staff. Now, I went out and bought five

cows since New York. On my own I have spent several thousands

and thousands of dollars to put together a team of emergency what

we call cows, cells on wheels, which is what we pulled back to New

York and which New York is operating heavily on right now.

Mr. FLAKE. I thought you were talking about cattle.

Mr. STEWART. Yes.

Mr. FLAKE. What in the world?

Mr. STEWART. A cow. I used that so easy. It is a cell site on

wheels. It is a portable cell site, and we hauled those back to New

York.

And so we went to the effort or the expense now that we have

actually purchased five, and we have them sitting in our yard right

now just in the event that these things or another situation like

this was to happen again.

You talk about your water system. A lot of the water systems

and pumps, sewer treatment plants and what have you, they are

all hauled or a lot of them are hauled via some type of broad band

radio system.

You can simply take and knock one of those radios off the

ground, and until a serviceman gets out there and manually opens

or closes that pump, you have got a major problem going on.

Our communications within our own home jurisdiction, Phoenix,

Mesa, Tempe, this entire State right here relies so heavily. If you

want terrorist activity to really become a pain in your side, let him

start working on our communication system, and he will drive us

crazy. You can already see what is going on with our Internet with

the hackers and viruses going around there.

It is very simple to get to these systems. They are on mountaintops. They are on rooftops. They are sitting out on a pump station

for the CAP with a little Aggie sitting out there that controls that

entire station out there.

What we need is once this happens and our terrorist activity may

become small like this to where it’s just an ongoing nagging, going

on type of situation to where we know where we can get the resources and we know where we can find the people that can respond to that.

A pre-qualifying list. Take my key employees, the people that

would really count. The eight that I had back in New York are the

best of the best, like I said, when it comes to telecommunications

or microwave and analyzing problems with taking data and moving

it through air. I have got eight individuals that just are second to

none.

Those people to be qualified and somebody to know where they

are if they are needed. Something simple as starting at the ground

roots there and start building a private sector because we are the

one that is going to have to fight this war when it goes on.

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Mr. FLAKE. Just to followup on that, Mr. Spencer, we talked

about problems of communication and coordination between the

Federal Government and the State, the State and the local agencies. Is there sufficient coordination and cooperation right now between local agencies and the private sector, as Mr. Stewart who actually will come in and be partners with various governments in

this?

Is there need for that?

Mr. SPENCER. There is much more that could be done. We work

real closely with the utilities, but I did not know of his existence.

You know, we are aware of cell on wheels, but we would have gone

to the telephone company to find those, and hopefully you are on

their list.

Mr. STEWART. And whether that list would ever get back to

somebody like you guys, you know, it is hard to tell. That is why

I keep kind of going back to an Arizona, if you will, or national and

expanding from there. Some type of org. chart.

If we have a major disaster in telecommunications, let’s go over

here in this category over here and let’s start seeing who does this

and who can put response teams together on that.

Now we have got DPS and the military and everybody to protect

us and secure that area off, but we have got to get that thing rebuilt. Well, just an awfully lot of our communications throughout

this country and the world is built by the private sector. The systems that we have here in Arizona we know more about than the

people that have their name on them because we build them. We

maintain them and service them for those companies.

Mr. POSNER. If I could just maybe add one other point.

Mr. FLAKE. Go ahead.

Mr. POSNER. In response, Congressman Flake, to your concern,

there is a national infrastructure protection council that is established under Presidential directives, and they do have subcommittees of working level groups that are supposed to be pulling together exactly what you are saying at the national level, recognizing like we did in Y2K that this is not a Federal—it is a national

problem, and that the private sector really commands the key resources.

They are supposed to be pulling together strategy, No. 1, to map

out who does own this problem. Who are the key actors and what

are the strategies?

You know, that is something that, again, in the communications

area across the board there are efforts that are underway to do

that, I believe. We have not looked at that particular sector, but

you are pointing up an important——

Mr. STEWART. But I believe that is starting being built at the

State level and then growing to the national level, but in order for

it to happen, we have got disaster recovery programs that were put

out for our wireless communications field industry several years

ago, which I was very proud to work on one with one of our carriers

and played a major role in developing and designing and being

ready to respond to them.

People tend to go to sleep. People tend to forget about this. So

that if we do not go from a Federal level and maybe a Federal

mandate and then start at the State level and have it grow and

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then connect to a national and then a Federal level, as Americans

we get kind of comfortable with the fact that, well, that happened

in New York and now we have got baseball season getting ready

to start. We get lax.

I do not want to see this after what we went through in Manhattan for 4 days of hell back there. If this should happen again, we

should be a lot more prepared in the private sector than what we

are right now.

Mr. HORN. Let me pursue another question that is, I guess, three

decades ago. I was a university president, and we participated in

the emergency situations because we had our own State police force

on the campus. It was a campus the size of Arizona State University, and you have got a very fine university.

And we did these exercises, and the problem was nobody could

communicate with anybody because we did not have the frequencies. At that time it was all on the East Coast, and you had

to squeeze them out in order to have our people.

Now, our first hearing was in Nashville, Tennessee a few weeks

ago, and part of the situation was in response to a question like

this, that the military helicopters, and they have a major I think

82nd Airborne fairly near, and the civilian helicopters had a completely different frequency. They could not talk to each other. We

went through the trauma sections of the hospital there, and Vanderbilt, just like Arizona State, is a very fine university.

But if you cannot get the communications out there, it is just a

blind corridor, and I wonder what it is doing at either the national

level, the State level or trying to get—what do you need? I saw

here interoperability of radio communications and the 700 public

safety spectrum.

Is that so difficult? Are we running out of some of those frequencies and all or levels of frequency? And how do we deal with

that? What have we dealt with in the State of Arizona from Flagstaff to there?

Mr. HARRIS. I do not know about communications, but locally we

are switching over to the 800 megahertz band so that we would be

able to communicate with fire. Mesa, Tempe, Scottsville, Phoenix,

all of those agencies would be on the same frequencies, and they

would be able to communicate at least locally.

Second, 700, as I understand it, is the next group of bands of frequencies that are becoming available. When you get into that group

of bands, it is not that there is not enough bands for public safety

and for the private sector. It is how they are arranged.

And, again, I am not an expert in this area, but when they are

not arranged appropriately, you can get cross-talk between the

bands, and it stops the communications.

So it is more when we look at the FCC as I understand it. It is

not in how many bands there are, but in how they are arranged

that is going to be critical so that we do not have that cross-talk

with private bands.

Mr. HORN. Could it be jammed also easily or just the cross-talk

does it?

Mr. HARRIS. You are out of my area of expertise already.

Mr. SPENCER. Just experience, it is kind of a good news/bad news

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tial to tie a lot of us together, and on the fly we can create talk

groups almost, you know, within minutes.

The bad news is that it does not work well in buildings. I am not

sure what they were using in New York City, but I understand

within the Towers they lost communications on the radios, and I

am not sure if it was because of the frequencies, but it is definitely

a problem within our own command center.

Our EOC, we have to have an internal repeater just to be able

to make the frequency go out.

Second of all, there are certain cell phone companies that have

close frequencies that interfere with it. I know, I believe, it was

Phoenix PD was on a SWAT mission and they had to pull back because they lost communications because they were close to one of

these cell sites and it blanked out their 800 megahertz.

Mr. HORN. Yes. We were told that there was a real problem

where cellular phones just went out. So is there in between the fire

departments, the police departments, the States, and the FEMAs—

do you know anybody who is working on this or are they just saying, well, it is a bad problem?

Mr. SPENCER. Well, on the interference side of things, they are

looking at it. I think part of the problem is that particular cell company that is having the problems, they are also within that close

band, and that is where you are getting some of that crossover.

In this area, it is kind of a catch as catch can. As soon as the

cities and towns switch to 800 megahertz, there is a wireless committee that is somewhat organizing it, and again, there is a bit of

a problem. Some of them have bought the analogue system and the

newer systems coming on are digital. So the older analogue systems are now going to have to somehow convert or get translators

that will turn that into digital so that they will continue to talk on

that and be able to talk to each other.

It is as close, I think, as we have ever gotten to something that

will help us all talk together.

Another system that is out there that I know our local National

Guard’s community support team has is a magical band that will

tie some of these frequencies together, but I think it is limited to

two or three frequencies at a time. It will make it so that you are

able to talk to each other as though you are on the same frequency.

Expansion of that type of equipment might not hurt.

Mr. HORN. Staff tells me that the Federal Aviation Administration has instituted a policy that would free up the space for emergency officials, while limiting cell space for the public.

Oh, OK. It is the Federal Communications Commission. That is

what I thought.

So that would make some sense. Do you think so?

Mr. HARRIS. I have been told the FCC is also conducting hearings on the problem.

Mr. HORN. Good.

Mr. STEWART. We will make one suggestion that 800 megahertz

band be looked at very, very close.

Mr. FLAKE. I had one question for Mr. Gallier.

Initially right after September 11th, we were warned of chemical

and biological attacks and were told the water systems were certainly vulnerable.

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Later on there seem to be kind of a pull-back, that, no, there’s

really nothing that they can do. It would be very difficult and they

would have to be very, very sophisticated at that to use the water

systems to terrorize.

What have we settled on? How big of a threat is it?

You mentioned that you have to weigh or balance your meter resources to protect against it. How much of a threat do you think

it is in Arizona? Have we got enough water to matter here?

Mr. GALLIER. Congressman, I think it is kind of a Gordion knot,

if you will. I think the initial statements that said there was little

risk were really based on an assumption that an attack would

occur within the raw water supply itself or at the point where the

raw water supply comes into the treatment facility.

You have facilities like mine that treat approximately 50 million

gallons of water a day per facility. It would take a lot of poison or

biological toxin to have an impact, more than most people could

really do effectively.

There are other risks though. A number of groups are beginning

to raise the issue of storage, large quantity storage of high pressurized gas cylinders filled with chlorine gas. It’s actually in a liquid

form because it is under so much pressure.

Thousands of pounds of chlorine are stored at water and waste

water facilities throughout the country, throughout the world. All

of our systems of protection are designed essentially around protection against human error or accidental release. They are really not

adequately designed; the systems are not adequately designed to

protect against a significant terrorist attack.

That is one issue that I think as an industry we are very concerned about.

That does not directly affect the quality of the drinking water.

It directly affects the areas immediately around any facility where

they are stored. So there is a significant issue there.

The other potential is the issue of, frankly, contamination happening intentionally within the distribution system. As Chairman

Horn indicated at the beginning, that is a major concern that we

have in the industry, and I am going to be honest. We do not have

clear-cut answers to that right now. My suggestions that significant additional research and development are needed are really focused on that area as much as anything else.

So when someone talks about dumping water in a canal or poisons in a canal or into a lake or some other water source, that is

really not where the threat is. The threat is in the distribution and,

alternately, the physical threat of what happens if the hazardous

chemicals that are used in some places in the treatment system are

released.

Mr. SPENCER. We actually ran an exercise where we modeled a

plume from a chlorine tanker at a water treatment plant, and it

put out a plume over ten miles long, over a mile wide, and that

was at what is known as an IDLH level, or immediately dangerous

to life and health. If you are in it a very short-time, you have permanent damage.

So it is a huge potential that is out there for an attack.

Mr. GALLIER. And I would add in most of those cases, there are

technological alternatives available, but they are not cheap.

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To give you an example, I have done some back-of-the-envelope

work with our engineering staff and others to look at what it would

take to convert our two water treatment plants. It is just one city

serving approximately 170,000 people. We could be looking at costs as high as $30 million in capital to

do that, and then when you look at the operating component of

that, I pay for chlorine right now roughly $50,000 to $60,000 a year

on average. It is not a high dollar item within our budget.

But to replace that with some of these other alternatives, you would easily be talking in excess of $1 million a year. You start

multiplying that through other threats that we may face, that is

an issue that we have to be concerned about.

Mr. HORN. I am told that there are some processes and chemicals

that could get the poisons out of water and get purification is that

pretty well known throughout those who have your responsibility

on the protection of the water resources?

Mr. GALLIER. Well, Congressman, that depends on what the

threat would be, what type of chemical or biological contaminant

would be in place. Some are relatively easy to deal with. The organism itself might be very hazardous, but the treatment necessary

to render it harmless is relatively straightforward.

Some have a minor health effect, but are very difficult to control.

There are many, many, many variables that we have to deal with.

Mr. HORN. When you get done cleaning up Arizona, you should

probably come to Washington, DC. The Corps of Engineers puts in

absolutely wonderful purified water, and it goes through a distribution system of the city of Washington which we all have given up

on, and we just now—well, Speaker Gingrich, when he got into

power, he said, ‘‘You can get the bottled water for your constituents, but you cannot really drink it.’’

But we all drink it. So that is a problem, too, in terms of distribution systems.

Mr. GALLIER. Distribution system is a key part of this.

Mr. HORN. Yes.

Mr. GALLIER. That is why it is very important that the research

and development that is ongoing right now continue.

I do not think there is a single problem we face that there is not

a fix for. In some cases it is going to take some time and in other

cases it is going to take time and money. But there are fixes out

there for all of these issues, and there is no reason to believe that

there is any substantial risk of that type of attack at this time.

But it is important to recognize that the risk is there, and we do

need to recognize it, and we need to deal with it.

Mr. POSNER. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add.

Mr. HORN. Yes.

Mr. POSNER. The discussion here is illustrative of some broader

concerns we have addressed, which is that homeland security and

the costs of paying for what we are dealing with are substantial

and really kind of bump up against other priorities. And we have

talked about the need for agencies.

The Coast Guard faces this, for example. They have had a long

established mission to trace down drug dealers and others dealing

with public safety. They are having to really rethink because they

have a totally new mission protecting the ports now.

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They have had to pull their boats back in, and they have to face

some painful tradeoffs because money is not unlimited, and particularly in State and local budgets, or the Federal level. How do

you do that? How do you go about reassessing your priorities?

And that may be the process that ultimately water systems have

to rethink because you have many standards that you are trying

to comply with for safe drinking water, and now you have this new

set of demands.

I know that we challenged OMB and the Federal agencies to

think more explicitly about that.

Mr. HORN. How realistic a threat would airborne toxins be to the

area?

And reports have confirmed or I do not know if they have really

confirmed, but they have been considered that the terrorists of the

September 11th situation explored that option.

Mr. GALLIER. I probably would not be the appropriate person to

try to answer that because that is a different medium entirely.

Mr. HORN. Not just allergy off the trees, but if they are put in

dust cropping and all of that.

Mr. GALLIER. Oh, you mean an airborne addition?

Mr. HORN. Yes, airborne. Sorry.

Mr. GALLIER. I see. You know, we have had some concern about

that in the industry. There were reports early on of crop dusters

going in low over reservoirs, and then combined with reports that

some of the Al Qaida cell members were trying to get information

on how to operate crop dusters and all of that.

Personally I think that if the use intended would be to contaminate a water supply, I think the risk is pretty low, again, for that

same reason.

It is the old dilution is the solution to pollution argument. It

works the same for poisons and toxins. You would have to have a

very, very high amount, a large quantity amount relative to the

amount of water that is being treated in the system in order to

have an effect.

But if the goal is to introduce fear into a population, which is one

of the major goals of terrorism, then you could have some effectiveness in doing that. Anything you do to cause fear in a population

is going to have some benefit if that is your goal.

As I said at the beginning, people want to be able to depend on

their water being safe when they open the tap, and right now it

is. Our goal is to make sure that it continues to be.

Mr. HORN. Any other questions?

Well, let me just say we thank you very much for this Friday

that I am sure your families are waiting for you at home.

I want to thank the people that helped us prepare this. Steve

Jewett, the Governor’s Homeland security coordinator. Marcus

Aurelius, the emergency management coordinator for the city of

Phoenix. Shannon Wilhelmsen, director of government relations for

the city of Tempe. Amber Wakeman, the government relations

management assistant for the city of Tempe. Skip Neeley, communications and media relations for this fine city. Greg Wolfe, communications and media relations for the city of Tempe. Josh Lader,

the executive assistant to Office of Mayor Neil Giuliano’s office.

Mark Minieri, intern, Office of the Mayor. And the court reporter

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today is Allison Long, and we thank you. It has been a long afternoon, and we are delighted to have you here.

Our own staff, Mr. J. Russell George is staff director and chief

counsel, back of me. To my left, Henry Wray is the senior counsel.

And Justin Paulhamus is majority clerk. Other congressional staff

are Steve Voeller, chief of staff to Congressman Jeff Flake. Pat

Curtin, office manager for Congressman John Shadegg.

We appreciate all of the help that we got. So thank you all, especially when you have come both close and far.

So if you have any thoughts, write us a letter. We will put it in

the hearing. What we are trying to do is when we get to about

maybe 15 or 20 cities, we want to put that in a report, and hopefully it will be useful.

It is not going to be useful unless we have your ideas because

we do not know all of this stuff, and we do not pretend to. That

is why we hold these hearings, and so we would welcome any

thought you have got.

You might say, ‘‘Oh, well, they already know that.’’

Well, often we do not know it. So we would like your help.

With that, I thank Representative Flake for being here. I have

seen him on the floor. He is a great representative for the State

of Arizona. He is an eloquent speaker, more than most of his class

certainly.

We will not tell the rest of them that. [Laughter.]

But it is true. I have watched him do these things, and so you

have got a good voice in Washington, and we are glad to have him

here.

Thank you for taking all of the time when he could be shaking

constituents’ hands.

So thank you. We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the subcommittee meeting was adjourned.]

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