Pre 911 Congressional Hearing On Terrorism

Page 1 I did a Lexis search of Congressional meetings prior to September 11th, an important date seems to be May 8th when Bush announced he was authorizing Cheney to carry our an exercise that FEMA would be the lead agency in charge of.

11 of 91 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2001 FDCHeMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. FDCH Political Transcripts May 9, 2001, Wednesday TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING LENGTH: 22472 words COMMITTEE: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT HEADLINE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN LATOURETTE (R-OH) HOLDS HEARING ON TERRORISM PREPAREDNESS SPEAKER: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN LATOURETTE (R-OH) LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C. WITNESSES: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WAYNE GILCHREST (R-MD)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE EARL BLUMENAUER (D-OR) JOSEPH ALLBAUGH DIRECTOR FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY JOHN MAGAW ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY MARY LOU LEARY ACTING ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL OFFICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS CHARLES CRAGIN ACTING ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR CIVIL SUPPORT RAYMOND DECKER DIRECTOR FOR DIFFUSE THREAT ISSUES DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT TEAM U.S. ACCOUNTING OFFICE ANN SIMANK CHAIR PUBLIC SAFETY AND CRIME PREVENTION COMMITTEE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES EDWARD PLAUGHER FIRE CHIEF ARLINGTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA GARY MCCONNELL DIRECTOR GEORGIA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY BODY: HOUSE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS & EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT HOLDS HEARING ON H.R. 525, THE PREPAREDNESS AGAINST DOMESTIC TERRORISM ACT 2001 MAY 9, 2001 SPEAKERS: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN C. LATOURETTE (R-OH) CHAIRMAN U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN COOKSEY (R-LA) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE ROGERS (R-MI) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-WV) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (VACANCY) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DON YOUNG (R-AK) (EX OFFICIO) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JERRY COSTELLO (D-IL), RANKING MEMBER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MARION BERRY (D-AR) U.S. DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DC) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES BARCIA (D-MI) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES L. OBERSTAR (EX OFFICIO) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R-CT) * LATOURETTE: The committee -- the subcommittee will come to order. Yesterday, the president announced his intention to create a vice presidential task force to set policies and priorities for organizing the federal domestic terrorism preparedness effort. This task force will be supported by a new office within the Federal Emergency Management Agency called the Office of National Preparedness. FEMA's new office will extend its already

established all-hazards approach for disaster response to oversee the federal programs for domestic terrorist attack preparedness. Arguably, this is where the federal response to terrorism should have been coordinated from the beginning. FEMA was created for emergency management. It has existing relationships with the response community and should diverge those relationships to coordinate this response effort. It is my understanding that this proposal is supported by the president's Cabinet officials. I also understand that it will not result in relocating any existing programs. Each agency will continue to administer its programs. The difference will be that policy will begin where it belongs, in the White House, and not in a single agency. Two years ago, this committee began an examination of the federal programs designed to assist state and local emergency personnel to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks. That investigation led to a series of hearings illustrating the glaring lack of coordination and rampant duplication among programs of the 40-odd agencies involved in this effort. Throughout our review, the question we continue to ask is, "Who is in charge?" The answer is that there is not a single entity leading this effort. Nearly 100 training programs and as many response teams have been created by the federal agencies, but there has been no single entity to call before this committee or any other committee in the Congress to tell us the status of all of these programs. There has been no single person to call to ask how all of these programs work together to accomplish a unified goal. In fact, there has been no unified goal. The federal government will spend more than $11 billion during fiscal year 2001 on counter-terrorism, but there is no coordinated national strategy to guide this effort. The Department of Justice has made significant progress but their efforts simply do not meet the requirements of a national strategy. No steps have been identified that would lead to a specified end state or lay out goals to be achieved by our preparedness programs. Unfortunately, the efforts of a single agency cannot replace the participation and guidance of the executive office of the president. These problems led the committee to draft and facilitate the unanimous House passage of a bill that would facilitate coordination within the federal effort. I would like to thank Congressman Wayne Gilchrest for re-introducing this bill with minor changes early in the 107th Congress. The bill and its underlying principles will be the topic of today's hearing. We will also ask each of our agency officials how their agency will support the president's initiative to ensure its success. I recently read an article in the May 2001 issue of the Washington Monthly called, "Weapons of Mass Confusion -- How Pork Trumps Preparedness in the Fight Against Terrorism". As the title indicates, the article focused on problems that exist within the structure of our federal terrorism preparedness effort. I was not surprised to find that the article echoed the concerns of many witnesses who have testified before this subcommittee. Hopefully, the next time we meet on this issue, we can discuss the progress we have made instead of the problems that we have uncovered. I now want to recognize our distinguished ranking member, Mr. Costello of Illinois. COSTELLO: Mr. Chairman, I thank you and I thank you for calling this important hearing today on H.R. 525, The Preparedness Against Domestic Terrorism Act of 2001. I look forward to hearing the testimony on this bill as well as the proposal offered by President Bush and his administration. During the last Congress, we had a difficult time getting the most critical agencies involved in terrorism to get in the same room just to talk to each other. There were turf battles within the

administration and its agencies and among the various committees with jurisdictions over these issues. We have indeed come a long way. Over the last several years, this committee has heard from experts, state and local governments, and other stakeholders that if we want to be prepared for a possible terrorist attack, we must have a meaningful national strategy with measurable objectives and priorities based on threat, risk, and capability assessment. The strategy must designate specific roles and responsibilities for federal, state and local entities and provide minimum standards for preparedness. These are not difficult concepts. At our last hearing on this subject, we heard from some of the authors of other terrorism preparedness proposals and many experts in the field. And although these proposals contain different ways to achieve the goal, the consensus was overwhelming. We all agree that we need to make some major improvements to the federal response to terrorism and we need to address the situation now. I believe that H.R. 525, which will amend the Robert T. Stafford Act to update Title VI of the act and to provide coordination for federal efforts with regard to preparedness against terrorist attacks in the United States will help us achieve this goal. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation. However, I recognize that the most important thing for us now is to move forward with the most comprehensive proposal. We owe it to our constituents and to our nation. The Congress and the administration must work together to provide the citizens of this country with a national plan and a comprehensive strategy to achieve preparedness against terrorism before it's too late. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, as well as Congressman Gilchrest, ranking Democrat Mr. Oberstar, and others on enhancing H.R. 525 to reinforce some of the key principles that we all agree are critical to improving our ability to be ready for a terrorist incident. We want to continue to provide the proper oversight to ensure that we will move forward toward that goal. Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for calling this hearing and yield back the balance of my time. LATOURETTE: I thank the gentleman. At our last hearing, we were joined by members of the National Security, Veterans' Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Today, we have again been joined by Chris Shays of Connecticut. And I would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Shays, be permitted to participate in and ask questions during today's hearing. UNKNOWN: Without objection. LATOURETTE: So ordered. Mr. Shays, are there comments that you would like make at the beginning of the hearing? SHAYS: Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to wait for the other members who may have a statement but I do have a statement. LATOURETTE: OK. Ms. Holmes Norton? HOLMES NORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank you, Mr. LaTourette, for giving the matter of domestic terrorism and the Domestic Terrorism Act of 2001 your priority attention. I'm also pleased to see that the president has given the matter priority by forming the task force. I appreciate the bill Mr. Gilchrest has put in. He lives in this region and perhaps has a greater sense of the vulnerability of the city and the region to the terrorism for which our country is ill-prepared.

We have indeed been indescribably fortunate. There have indeed been -- there has been domestic terrorism in this country. A man is about to be executed because of terrorism in a city far away from this one. New York has experienced horrible terrorism. And yet we are only beginning as a Congress to think seriously about penetrating to a new level, a new level that the terrorists have already gotten to. In my view, the only reason that there has not been the kind of terrorist act in the District of Columbia and in the region has nothing to do with anybody here, either in the Congress or those who protect the city. It probably, in my judgment, has more to do with counterintelligence at our borders, which I must say I am grateful to because so many who might have entered this country clearly have been kept out. I have followed closely this matter because the District of Columbia is the bull's eye for terrorism, domestic and foreign. And not only are the federal buildings bull's eye, but the 600,000 people I represent, not to mention the 3 million people who live in this region, would be the first to fall vulnerable. I am shocked at the primitive nature of the federal response and at the failure to marshal the best thinking in the society, which is found neither in the Congress nor in Washington, D.C., but among a much broader array of people who it seems to me ought to be looking at the question of how does one maintain an open society in a world in which there is now a very serious threat of terrorism, both foreign and domestic. To give you an example, if there were terrorist acts in this city, the front line is nobody in the federal work force. The front line is the D.C. police and D.C. members of the fire department. And I would hate to tell you how little the federal government has done to coordinate and prepare the front line city agency where almost all the personnel would be drawn from and where almost all the expertise would come from, very little coordination within our federal ranks, very little coordination with the District of Columbia which would be on the front line or with the region that would also be called upon to help. Yet, just willy nilly, the funding for counterterrorism has doubled in the last four years; keep pouring the money in. This is not a Congress that would keep pouring money in on anything else without looking to see whether it was being coordinated, without looking to see whether or not your money was, for example, going to redundant administrative overhead. One of the great problems with just pouring money in without coordination is the inevitable redundancy from administration alone. There's obviously redundancy in the core mission. But the redundancy just on funding the same people to do the same thing at the overhead level is something we wouldn't have considered doing for many other domestic matters. It is really time. We've got to put money in this, and more money in this. But I don't think we ought to be putting money into redundancy. We ought to be putting money into the core mission. And it is not rocket science to figure out how to do the coordination of this very serious matter. The task force will obviously be some help. Finally, let me say the broader approach that I spoke of earlier is what I believe we must eventually get to. We are working essentially on a straight line. We are doing the same things we were always doing, only we're saying do more of it. This is geometric. This is calculus. This is not about ordinary algebra. This is about how do you maintain two things. Terrorism goes up and changes and morphs it's face on an annual basis. We keep doing the same thing, but we do a little more of what we were doing, meanwhile throwing money at the problem. How do you maintain an open society in a world in which there is extraordinary threat

from terrorism? If all we do is to pump money into the security side of it, we will close this city and this society down. I can tell you exactly how to tell keep terrorism from occurring. Simply close off the society. Close down Pennsylvania Avenue. When you get through with that, close down Independence Avenue. Next, you should try Constitution Avenue. And then I got some other avenues in the middle of town that make it really safe for the federal sector. That is the 19th century approach to counterterrorism we see in the capital of the United States, and it is now spreading to other parts of the United States. I'm looking forward in this hearing -- and we've had another hearing in another committee -- to moving us from a straight line approach to the multifaceted way we must look at this problem so that we are doing everything we can to protect the federal presence and the people who live in this city and this region while at the same time assuring that at the end of 10 years, when we're satisfied that somehow we protected ourselves, we will regret the selves we have become. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. LATOURETTE: I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Rogers, any opening remarks at this time? Mr. Shays? SHAYS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the ranking member as well and members of the committee for allowing me to participate in this very important hearing. The United States is the strongest economic and military power on earth, but we have a serious security vulnerability and it's terrorism. Our vulnerability to terrorism takes many forms and comes from a variety of threats domestic and abroad. Presently, America still has no comprehensive national security strategy to address this threat to our nation and citizens. The bill before you today, H.R. 525, The Preparedness Against Terrorism -- the Domestic Terrorism Act of 2001, addresses important organizational weaknesses in the current federal effort against terrorism and can serve as the foundation for developing a comprehensive national strategy. But to fulfill the stated purpose to strengthen federal and inter-agency emergency planning, the bill should be clarified in my judgment to be sure it provides the sharp focus and comprehensive scope required to unite the disjointed efforts against terrorism. First, the definition of terrorism should be clear. Differentiating between terrorism, crime and civil unrest can be tricky. The growth threat of cyber-attacks challenges traditional concepts that all terrorist acts involve violence. A functional government-wide definition of terrorism should include any pre- meditated, malicious and destructive act directed against official or unofficial targets for ideological purposes whether or not conventional -- a conventional weapon or a weapon of mass destruction is involved. Using this definition attacks against the Murrah Federal Building or the World Trade Center, the USS Cole, the "Uni-" bombings and the embassy bombings in Africa would certainly be considered terrorist acts because they meet the criteria. Conversely, the Columbine school shootings, Ted Bundy's serial murders, or the Los Angeles riots would not fall within this definition of terrorism, primarily because these incidents lack a clear ideological component. The Executive Branch Council chartered by H.R. 525 should have a mandate broad enough to address terrorism on a comprehensive, national scale. That mandate should include three core components in my judgment: real budget authority of all federal agencies and departments having a role in anti-terrorism; real time access to a national intelligence assessment of threats; articulation of a national anti-terrorism strategy based on principles of risk management.

As was urged by witnesses at our joint hearing on this and other bills dealing with this issue, the entity charged with implementing a comprehensive anti-terrorism plan must be given the authority, accountability and the resources to do the job. A comprehensive terrorism strategy should approach the problem multidimensionally and an effective plan must employ a strategy of prevention and response. Prevention involves the efficient communication and coordination of intelligence, implementing effective anti-terrorism programs worldwide, institutionalizing sound fiscal and personal security programs domestically and abroad, all backed by a consistent diplomatic policy of deterrence. Response includes competent crisis management by first responders, seamless consequence management by federal agencies responsible for infrastructure and recovery, supported by effective counterterrorism measures and investigative followup by law enforcement. I believe the concepts and mechanisms for a national strategy in H.R. 525 could be expanded beyond domestic boundaries to include the international aspects of terrorism. Terrorism is not just a domestic problem. It is an international problem requiring domestic and international solutions. The CIA should be a voting member of the executive council. The State Department should be a voting member of the Executive Council as well because diplomacy is our first line of defense and border security begins with the issuance of visas by our embassies. I believe Congress has an opportunity with H.R. 525 to have a meaningful impact on our nation's ability to combat terrorism, and I look forward to working with this subcommittee and our colleagues supporting other proposals. Our nation needs a comprehensive, national anti-terrorism strategy. Congress and the administration have an obligation and an opportunity to work together against terrorism. We should do so with a palpable sense of urgency because one thing is certain. Our terrorist adversaries will not wait for us to act on this very important issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. LATOURETTE: I thank you, Mr. Shays. Mr. Berry, any comments you'd like to make? LATOURETTE: I thank all the members for their opening statements. If there are no further statements, I'd now like to call up today's first panel. Due to a conflict with the director's schedule, we're going to hear first from the director of FEMA, Mr. Allbaugh. I welcome you, Director Allbaugh, to testify. I know that you're accompanied by Mr. Magaw who I knew in his previous incarnation as the head of the ATF and the excellent work that he did there. And before listening to your opening remarks, I think I'm struck by the warmth in the room. And so, I'm going to take my jacket off and if anyone in the audience wants to similarly disrobe, it will not be a sign of disrespect on any of the proceedings and I encourage you to do that. And with that, Mr. Director, we'd like to hear from you. ALLBAUGH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Joe Allbaugh, Director of Federal Emergency Management Agency. First, I'd like to thank the committee for accommodating my schedule. I'm trying to get back this afternoon to handle a disaster request in two states, Illinois and Wisconsin. As you know, we have flooding in the upper Mississippi, and it's paramount that I try to expedite those and get those to the president as quickly as possible. And I appreciate the courtesy you show me this afternoon.

As the chairman noted, I'm joined by John Magaw, acting deputy director of FEMA. Mr. Magaw is well known on Capitol Hill for his expertise and long service to our country, and I am honored that he is by my side today. And for the panel, Mr. Magaw, should the members request, will remain after I depart. ALLBAUGH: I really want to thank the members of the committee for this opportunity to discuss enhancing the coordination of terrorism preparedness programs and activities. I applaud the efforts of this committee and its members for focusing on this important national issue. I know you've been working closely with FEMA over the last several years and other agencies to understand the complexities of the problems and to identify ways to implement programs more effectively and more efficiently. In working with President Bush over the last several months, I am very much aware of his vision for peace and stability in our world; however, we know only too well that are others here at home and abroad who do not share these ideals. As the president's director for emergency management, I am also aware of the expectations of our citizens that their government protect their lives and property when an emergency or disaster occurs, whether it be a hurricane, earthquake, flood, tornado or as the result of an act of terrorism. Our government responsibility is more fundamental than protecting the physical safety of our population. In today's world, this obligation includes protection against the use of weapons of mass destruction involving nuclear, biological, or chemical agents and materials. Sadly, we've already experienced the use of destructive agents, as has been noted, with Oklahoma City and New York City. Members should know I am originally from Oklahoma. As a side bar, I lost many friends in that disaster, even some high school classmates -- a disaster that touched many hearts all across this country. LATOURETTE: It sure did. ALLBAUGH: The threat of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction is real. Though we pray that an incident will never occur again, prudence dictates that we take measures to defend our nation under any circumstances. Therefore, the United States must be fully prepared to deal effectively with the potential threat and possible use of such weapons. In response to the need expressed by many in Congress, governors, and state and local officials to better focus our domestic preparedness, this administration is working to address these critical matters. As has been noted by the chairman and others, President Bush has asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the national effort dealing with the weapons of mass destruction. We are aware of your desire, the committee's desire, for focused leadership from the White House in this area, and of your desire for a national strategy with measurable objectives to help guide the effort, and I support this need as well. The president's very aware of your desire for better coordination among the involved agencies so that together we can develop and deliver a viable domestic preparedness program that supports the requirements of local, state and federal responders. The president has directed me to establish the Office of National Preparedness at FEMA which will serve as a focal point for the coordination and implementation of preparedness and consequence management programs for dealing with the threat of weapons of mass destruction. This office will work with other agencies and departments to coordinate federal programs and assistance in support of an integrated local, state and federal preparedness and consequence management response capability. This office will also work closely with the states and local

governments to ensure their input in those programs and activities as it seeks to improve the quality of federal support for state and local emergency management personnel and our first responders. I'm committed to working closely with Attorney General John Ashcroft to ensure that the Department of Justice's lead federal role for crisis management programs and FEMA's lead federal role for consequence management efforts are seamless and thoroughly integrated. This action by President Bush yesterday will better focus our current policies and ensure that programs and activities are fully coordinated and integrated in support of building the needed preparedness and response capabilities. We're now poised to move forward in a meaningful way, and I look forward to working with the committee on this important undertaking. This is a critical matter and it will require the commitment of all of us working together to ensure its success. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. LATOURETTE: I thank you, Director Allbaugh, for your fine statement. And before questions, I note behind you is Fran McCarthy from your organization, and I just want to compliment you on the work that he's doing with others relative to the awarding of fire grants throughout the country. He came to northeastern Ohio and my rather hard-hearted fire chiefs were just won over instantly by his charm and others in your organization. (LAUGHTER) A little later, we're going to hear from the author -- the main author -- of H.R. 525, Congressman Gilchrest, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for carrying the ball in this Congress. And as you know from reviewing that legislation, that it was drafted and continues to be refined to address five major principles and that is the lack of a national strategy; the fact that there's no defined end state for preparedness; a lack that coordination and duplication among agencies; no single entity in charge; and authority over all of the agencies involved. And we had the chance to chat a little bit yesterday, and I think you understand some of the concerns that we expressed relative to those five principles. And my question to you would be, How do you think that the president's executive order and his proposal that I know is a work in progress is going to address those issues? ALLBAUGH: Well, I believe that first and foremost it will define -- the vice president's efforts will define a matrix and understand the world in so far as terrorism preparedness among all the agencies and exactly what they're doing in preparation. I asked for that list not too long ago and nobody can provide that. I think its -- that's the beginning place for the vice president's effort. We'll be supporting that role for the vice president. The executive order that I've seen shopped around -- I'm not sure what stage it is -- there isn't an executive order right now. I know that the vice president is very concerned about this issue. I think that the vice president and president ought to be deciding what the timetable should be for responding properly to all the agencies in responding to Congress. But FEMA's going to be there at the front, leading the charge, helping in any way we can, doing the things that we do best, which is facilitating and coordination. We see that day in and day out when a disaster hits, utilizing the federal response plans, so that's probably the greatest asset we bring to the table, doing what we do best. LATOURETTE: I think we'd ask that -- I think Congress in '97 passed legislation trying to get the list that you're now seeking in 2001, and I would simply ask as a courtesy if you would ever lay hands on one, if you'd be kind enough to share it.

ALLBAUGH: I promise you I will share that with everybody. LATOURETTE: We would appreciate that very much. I, for one, was delighted to hear the president's proposal and have FEMA be the lead dog, if you will, in this effort. I thought that that's where it should be. We also felt strongly that there needed to be a presence, as I indicated in my opening remarks, in the Office of the Vice President and the Office of the President. The president seems to be accomplishing that. But one of the things that's tough around here that you'll find out being from Texas through Oklahoma and all other points is that there's a lot of turf fights that go on here. People are reluctant once they get a program or a bailiwick to give it up. And I was interested in your opening remarks about the fact that the secretaries of defense and state, I thought I understood you to say, and also the attorney general seem to be on board. And I'd just ask you to comment on that, as to how you think those agencies which have important responsibilities in this effort are going to respond and sort of give up some of the things that perhaps they've been engaged in in the past. ALLBAUGH: Well, I know that the president, the vice president, the national security advisor and myself have spoken with all the members of the Cabinet. And to a person, they're all on board in having a central, integrated national plan, which we don't have right now. That is the goal. That's what everyone wants to achieve. And I can't think of a person who doesn't want to help in that effort. I do not see that as a problem. FEMA is a bottom-up driven organization as opposed to some of the other organizations that are top-down driven. We want to be in a position of educating those first responders, the local emergency managers, the fire, the police -- and each member of the Cabinet share in that goal. So to that end, I don't see that there's going to be a problem in coordinating and facilitating all these efforts among the various agencies regardless of who has ultimate responsibility, Mr. Chairman. LATOURETTE: And I appreciate that. And since you mentioned first responders, I want to commend you, because I know that you had a lot to do with the fact that we're even talking about $100 million now going out to the fire services across the country, and we very much appreciate that. And you mentioned it to me yesterday, but for the purposes of this record, how much money in terms of dollars have you received in requests for that $100 million from around the country? ALLBAUGH: The $100 for this year, I think we're somewhere around 19,000 or 20,000 requests, and it totals about $7 or $8 billion. That's among five or six categories. We weren't able to implement all the categories that Congress was so gracious in approving, but that just demonstrates the need and the desire among the fire service community. LATOURETTE: I think everyone on this panel would agree that the need is great. I think the only thing that we can encourage you as we get through the appropriations and the budget process is, the Congress authorized $300 million, as you know, and if we can scrape it up we'd like you to spend it, I think, for the folks in the fire service. With that, I'd like to yield to the ranking member, Mr. Costello. COSTELLO: I want to ask you a couple of quick questions. One is, what is the timetable for this project getting underway? ALLBAUGH: Well, I don't want to, again, craft a timetable for the president or the vice president. I will let them set the timetable. But I know it's in their agenda sooner rather than later. This program -- a variety of programs -- have been in position since '95 and '96. We still don't

have a national coordinated effort. And that's our focus, to bring clarity to this issue. And I know the executive order that had been shopped around a little bit, there was a date of October 1 in that. And I would hate to hold anyone's feet to the fire on that, but obviously, sooner rather than later. COSTELLO: As I said in my opening statement, we have come a long way. And I commend the president for taking this action. You talked about a close working relationship with state and local government. Can you elaborate on that a little bit. In other words, how do you see the role of the states and local government involved in this project? ALLBAUGH: Well, as I stated yesterday across the Hill, nine times out of ten, that first phone call is going to come in through a 911 phone call. And the individuals who are going to be responding to that will be the local emergency managers, principally the fire and police. I don't have a fire department. I don't have a police department. It's those folks where the incident takes place who are going to be there on the job. We have over 42 programs at FEMA at the National Emergency Training Center up in Emmitsburg that are either resident programs or they're field programs that we try to push down to those local responders, folks who put their lives on the line day in and day out -- the best education that we can bring forward so they'll know exactly what to do. I might point out that we produce a book as well to deal with a multitude of issues, not only fire and police actions but in the area of terrorism, all types of terrorism. We produced over 57,000 copies of this booklet and that is really in every fire truck in America and in every fire station and police station. This is a manual, and it's a wonderful tool. We could not do anything without those local responders. They protect our national infrastructure more than anything else, more than anybody else. And we can never say thank you enough to those folks in the fire and police service. And I'm happy to do all that I can with the fire grant program to make that a successful program. COSTELLO: We of course all realize that the first to respond are the folks on the scene at the local level. How do you envision -- or do you have any recommendations that you intend to make to the vice president as to how the local government will be involved on the front end as opposed to the later stages? ALLBAUGH: Yes, sir, I do. COSTELLO: Is there an advisory committee or would there be people involved from either the governor's office in various states or at the local level? ALLBAUGH: It would be my recommendation to the president and vice president that these programs -- none of the programs are going to be successful unless we include those individuals at the state, local, county level. They have to be a part of the program. They have to be a part of crafting the program. And I would insist, as we do with other programs at FEMA, their participation, because without them we have absolutely nothing. COSTELLO: What -- do you want to add to that Mr. Magaw? MAGAW: If I could just add for a moment, what we're saying here is that no program can be successful if it doesn't involve the first responders, and in the Office of National Preparedness we expect that there will be representatives from state and local that will be detailed there, selected by their own chiefs, their own mayors, governors, emergency management personnel. And we would hope to be able to pay their per diem and their cost of living and generally the supporting city or county would pay their wages so that when decisions are made, there will always be state and local at the table. If that doesn't happen, you won't have success.

COSTELLO: We, I think, recognize that the vice president is a very capable person. But it seems to me he has a pretty full plate right now. What will the vice president's role be on this project? ALLBAUGH: He will oversee the entire effort of looking at this area, utilizing the Office of National Preparedness as the backbone entity to support his efforts. And I expect that he will be taking this issue up as soon as he possibly can. I know that we're going to move forward with the creation of the office here in the next several days, quite frankly, so we can be ahead of the power curve once he's finished with some other duties -- the energy task force and some other things -- he will be focused on this. COSTELLO: I would just conclude, Mr. Chairman, by encouraging the director -- and I know you don't need encouragement to do this -- but you realize the importance. ALLBAUGH: I do. COSTELLO: When the chairman speaks of turf battles in the various agencies in the federal government, we also have turf battles right here on Capitol Hill, on this side and the other side. So I would just encourage you and the vice president as the project gets underway, to work very closely with the various committees in the Congress. ALLBAUGH: We will do that. COSTELLO: I thank you, Mr. Chairman. LATOURETTE: I thank the gentleman. Mr. Rogers? ROGERS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I was kind of shocked with I got to Congress about 10 years ago. We were working on some cases involving terrorism in Chicago as a young FBI agent, and we decided that we needed some experts and anyone who had training in chemical and biological response. And we found that there was nobody that we could talk to that could give us that information. I checked after I got here, and I thought, well, 10 years, they've straightened out that mess. And I find out there is really no one that can tell me in any given community who is even qualified to show up if we had a chemical or biological attack. It's a little disconcerting to me. We know they're out there and we know that the task that you have is great. My one concern -- Ron Brown, a few years ago, was asked to coordinate various trade organizations, a very small number in the federal government talking about trade issues, and he came back and said, "This is an impossible task to get these people on the same sheet of paper." We're talking about 200 regulators and insurance and banking and securities trying to talk with each other, and we found out without action in Congress, this isn't going to happen. So when you said coordination, I got a little bit nervous. How -- maybe I'm not understanding your vision of how this is going to look. My fear is if we don't have a very strong civilian department head who has authority over that -- I don't know if you want to call it domestic security council -- we are not going to get anywhere in a real hurry on this particular issue. Help me get there, if you can. And I want to be as helpful as... ALLBAUGH: Well, the only way I can help you get there is to let you know and assure you that this is front and center on the president's mind. He wants to bring clarity to this issue, doesn't see the need for his involvement with Vice President Cheney's involvement, to have creation of another agency or entity.

And in my personal conversations with both of those gentlemen, it is front and center on their mind. And we do need to bring clarity to this issue. We have some 40 agencies, 46 agencies, 49 agencies, I'm not sure, but we all seem to be bumping into one another. And still after -- I don't know how many billions of dollars that have been spent -- we don't have a national plan. And that's what we need. ROGERS: When you say plan, is there somebody who is going to have authority to pull in 49 agencies and say, "Look, this is exactly what's going to happen?" ALLBAUGH: I would say the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States. That's who I respond to. ROGERS: I share my concern -- they're pretty busy. I guess my concern, Mr. Chairman, I don't want to belabor the point. I hope we can work with you on this. ALLBAUGH: Absolutely. ROGERS: I think it's important to have a department head, somebody, who has the ability to put those 49 players at the same table and say this is the way we will coordinate the effort. Or we will be again, 10 years from now, and we will be saying, "Gee, can we find the guy in Pawtucket (ph), Michigan who knows how to respond to chemical warfare?" And we will scratch our head and say, "No, but we spent a lot of money training for it." ALLBAUGH: Well, what happened to that guy with the flat top? That's what you'll ask. (LAUGHTER) ROGERS: Well, by then you will have more hair. ALLBAUGH: I doubt it. ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. LATOURETTE: Thank you. And I would tell the gentleman that in the meeting with the director yesterday, he has indicated a willingness to take any and all ideas that members of the committee might have back to the administration for potential incorporation as they work through their policy. And I'm sure he would welcome your thoughts. LATOURETTE: Mr. Director, I don't think anybody noticed your hair until you made that comment. Ms. Holmes Norton? HOLMES NORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I'm pleased that this is being coordinated at the presidential and vice presidential level. I served in the Carter administration and I can think of no agency that would command the respect and attention, or a single agency that could get all of the agencies involved, to somehow believe that since they have been designated the lead agency that they were supposed to do what they said to do, either the FBI, the Justice Department, or all of the rest of them, particularly given the different levels of expertise that each of these agencies have. And I really think there is only one place to coordinate it, and that is at the presidential and vice presidential level. So I commend the president for taking this on. I'm sure Mr. Cheney can't do everything, but this is one thing I sure hope he does do. I am concerned about what we do while the federal government is getting coordinated. Because I had the experience just how uncoordinated it is just a few summers ago here. One of the leading national Jewish organizations in town had something left, and a phone call made that there was

some kind of biological agent left. And of course, just as your testimony says, and I read from it because I think you show an important awareness of just what has to be done. In your own testimony, Mr. Allbaugh, you say, "Local responders will be the first to arrive at an incident and may be forced to manage operations at the scene on their own for hours." When there is domestic terrorism, minutes can be everything. Hours can mean whatever could be done with good coordination could be all over. SO what we have to assume is that the local responders have to be able to take care of it, pure and simple. We hope that others will have time to get in, but the safest assumption to make is that the local responders will act. Now I think we would have been particularly informed if we had asked the police chief of the District of Columbia to come to this hearing today, or the fire chief, because we would have had some sense of what at least one local responder on the front line is faced with. My concern is that the District police, who probably even then had better training than most folks. They live cheek by jowl with the federal government -- did everything wrong. You know, they put on the wrong clothes, put people in the wrong thing. It was a disaster to behold. They came, and they were alert what they knew how to do, and they knew how to do very little. So I am real concerned that we have not only a plan to coordinate people and get everybody on board, but that we have interim plans so that people are prepared, even if it's jerry-built, to know what to do while we are getting to the point where they are truly up to skill. I am particularly concerned -- I was very impressed that there are any number of things that FEMA has already done -- all kinds of courses and the rest that are available, self study, and many courses that have been prepared. I would like to ask you, what is there? Let's face it, who the first responders will be. If you are a terrorist, you are not going to go to Podunk. You're going to go to some big city or some part around the big city. You're going to go to Oklahoma City. You're going to go to Washington, D.C. You're going to go to Philadelphia. These are the police departments and the fire departments who are under the greatest pressure from their own internal pressures. I'd like to know what there is that would make a big city police chief or fire chief want to now take time from the complicated first- priority tasks of managing crime and fire protection in his jurisdiction and put his men and women into learning what to do as first responders. Are there grants? Are there instructions of any kind? I mean, I can get these self-study courses, but what incentive is there if you are in what every big city is in -- a high crime area, a very vulnerable area -- to even look at what you want them to do. How can you get their attention in all of this? ALLBAUGH: Well, first and foremost, we spend about $30 million a year in training and grants that we offer up to many communities. I would tell you that members of the police service and the fire service, this is an issue that is front and center on their mind. I don't think we have to encourage them to take time away from their regular duties. They know that this could happen in their community at any given moment. Having those training courses and those grants available just further encourages their participation. And with Mr. Magaw's life- long service in the law enforcement community I would ask him to follow up on it. MAGAW: One of the things, Congresswoman, is that we've really worked well and worked really for the first time in Oklahoma City. Just a few weeks before the bombing in Oklahoma City, that city community -- and it is difficult to get them together -- but it's more and more now, we've got so many that we can't handle them. But anyway, the mayor comes in, the city council,

the police chief, the fire chief, they come into Emmitsburg for one week and they're taught through any emergency situations, many different ones. And they find out that "we're going to have to change this if this is going to work; and we're going to have change this." And it's difficult to get them together, but the cities that have committed are now the biggest salespersons to do that. And once they get together and talk about, you know, how the fire and the police are going to interact, those are the people who are going to respond. All of terrorism is going to come through 911. And so that's the group we have to get to first. And that program has worked very, very well. And we just continue to offer those programs with as much money as we have. And it has worked very well for these cities to help them start within the regions, our regional areas out there, identify what training they want and try to find which one of these agencies, 27 agencies that support FEMA in this area, to see who has the best program for them. So that's one of the ways that we do this. HOLMES NORTON: I wish you would provide for the record the cities who have gone through that kind of... MAGAW: We will do that. HOLMES NORTON: ... sounds like that is very helpful. And I'd also like to caution that I do believe that police departments, fire departments, understand this is the worst thing that could happen to their city and they better give it some attention. And I also know that in a very real sense, from the police view, the worst thing that can happen to your city is that you're not bringing down crime and you're not looking like you are doing fire protection. So I caution you about believing that people understand how disastrous it would be. It is still a very remote notion to most people and I believe most security experts in their own cities, because of the humongous pressures that face them every day on which their jobs depend if they do not attend to those pressures. ALLBAUGH: Your emergency manager Peter LaPorte is almost daily in contact with FEMA and the other agencies and is really doing a good job of bringing the training that he can. HOLMES NORTON: Thank you. He is. And that's precisely because we're in the nation's capitol. MAGAW: Could I add one additional thing, to reinforce the importance, so you'll know, that the president places on this. He reached out and tapped an individual to be the new administrator of the Fire Administration, Jon Hanson, who was in Oklahoma City, lived through Oklahoma City when the bombing took place. He's in the audience today, and I hope that each and every one of you have a chance to get to meet Jon. He brings 26 years worth of fire service training and experience, and he knows firsthand what's on the minds of the fire community. LATOURETTE: I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Shays? SHAYS: It's nice to have you here, and it's nice to know that you have this appointment, in part because of your competence and also in part because of your relationship with the president, because this is such an important position. In this legislation, there is budget authority and there is a national strategy, but there is not a risk assessment component. And I'm on the bill. I mean, I think it's a step forward. But there's not a risk assessment. Doesn't it strike you that if you have to respond to a terrorist attack, that you

need to have assessment continually about where an attack is likely may happen, what kind of attack it would be, and so on? ALLBAUGH: That really is the first thing you have to do, because if you -- in a lot of the different studies that have gone on, and a lot of people who have testified about the risk, what is the risk of your particular area? What is the risk of the particular part of the country you live in? Bio is one of the ones that is the most difficult to prepare for and the one that we've done the least in preparing for. But how viable is it? Where does it rank in comparison to explosives or chemical or radiological? So an assessment clearly has to be done. It not only has to be done at the national level, it has to be done at a community level. And then your program is built from that. Your training is built from that. Your staffing is built from that. And so that is one of the things that the vice president clearly is going to... SHAYS: How will we be able to do that unless we allow the CIA and others to be participants in that process? Because the terrorist threat assessment, in large measure, will be -- well, it's obvious. So would they not have to play a role? ALLBAUGH: The new intelligence unit that was put together a few months ago, chaired by the director of the FBI, brings all those elements together. And part of this plan as we move forward is to be able to share that intelligence so that we can... SHAYS: Are you prepared to talk about this legislation? Or do you all feel you need to get your feet wet a little longer before you start making assessments of this legislation? ALLBAUGH: For 525? SHAYS: Yes. ALLBAUGH: Well, Mr. Magaw is better prepared with 525, having been here the last couple of sessions. I am really not. SHAYS: I just wondered if the administration was prepared -- in other words, one of the questions I would want to know, whether you're prepared to answer it now or later, is the type of changes you would recommend to make sure that we have a risk assessment. ALLBAUGH: Well, to one who is independently trying to look at terrorism and preparing the kind of things you've been talking about, would lose their credibility immediately if they found very much wrong with 525. There is not very much wrong with 525, and the rough drafts that we have seen of what... SHAYS: Well, then why don't you just tell me exactly where I find the risk assessment component... ALLBAUGH: Pardon me? SHAYS: Where do I find the... ALLBAUGH: We already answered that. I thought we had gotten beyond that... SHAYS: No, but the point is you want to see a risk assessment component. ALLBAUGH: That's right. SHAYS: Where in the legislation do we find that? ALLBAUGH: It's not in 525, but I had already addressed that, and I thought... SHAYS: OK, you said it was perfect, and I'm just -- I was... ALLBAUGH: No, I said you can't find very much wrong with it, but since I'd already addressed the assessment... SHAYS: OK, that would be one area where you would -- you know, OK... ALLBAUGH: That's right.

SHAYS: That's all. I'm just trying to reconcile... ALLBAUGH: And much of the rough draft executive orders that we have been able to see really address most every area that you're dealing with here. SHAYS: Let me share with you -- we have 40-plus agencies. We have presently, we have a person in NSA, Mr. Clark, who is trying to assess terrorism. But there's a strong view that we need a strong coordinator with budgetary authority and so on, and line authority as well. And then you have Mr. Rudman who in his group that's been looking at this has actually suggested a home security department that would basically include FEMA and the National Guard and so on. I think the reason why we think this way is, as Ms. Norton points out, we are the target. It's great when our allies say we don't need a national missile defense system, but they're not the targets. And obviously, national missile defense doesn't help us with terrorism, but it's another way we're a target and we've got to deal with it. And I guess, I'd love to think -- I'm not sure how we address this problem -- don't look for an answer, I just want to share it with Mr. Allbaugh. And that is, the biological or chemical attack in, say, Atlanta airport, and then in the next three hours with the infection going to 50 airports. I don't even think we come close to coming to grips with how we address that. And I hope the dialogue that you get involved in will start to look at those issues. ALLBAUGH: I think we've started to really realize what you're saying, because of the Top Off exercise, that part that took place in Denver, showed exactly what you're talking about -- that within a very short period of time, seven or eight days for the incubation period before it could be discovered and identified. By then, people were in Europe. They were in Asia. The hospitals, as soon as the employees found out about it, they didn't come back to work. All kinds of things occurred in that exercise. And so exactly what you've addressed is really... SHAYS: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Thank you, gentlemen. LATOURETTE: I thank you, Mr. Shays. And, Mr. Director, before we let you go, Mr. Blumenauer, who is a member of our full committee, has asked if he can make a quick point, and I would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Oregon be permitted to participate. So ordered. BLUMENAUER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Director, I apologize for missing some of the commentary. We had a markup downstairs. But I wanted -- in the course of your consideration, I hope that your notion of engaging law enforcement personnel would include the transit security and police. Internationally, 42 percent of the terrorist activity has been directed toward transportation and transportation infrastructure. It's doubled since 1995. And I will be aggressive in the subcommittee in the next panel about this. But I hope as you put together the task force and as you're looking at this, that there's a way to engage the people who are working with this problem, where we have millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of employees who are on the line every day. And we're seeing an increase of these. We've got some for air security, but all of the rest of the transit system is deeply troubling to me, and I hope that they will be a part of the task force and will be able to work with you so they get the attention they deserve. ALLBAUGH: That's a very good point, and I'll make sure that we include them. BLUMENAUER: Thank you. LATOURETTE: Thank you for your contribution.

And, gentlemen, we thank you very much for appearing before us today, and we'll keep you on schedule, and we look forward to working with you in the future. ALLBAUGH: Mr. Chairman and members, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. LATOURETTE: I now want to take the opportunity to call up today's second panel. This panel consists of two or our distinguished colleagues from the full Transportation Committee. First, we have with us Congressman Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, and it's been alluded to before, he's the primary mover and shaker behind H.R. 525. And to Congressman Gilchrest, I would say that we wouldn't be where we are today, although we've come a long way, we wouldn't be where we are today with the administration's proposal if it hadn't been for you taking up this effort in the 107th Congress. We're also fortunate enough to have Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon with us today. And the subcommittee wants to extend its thanks to you for your help and participation as we move through H.R. 525. We are delighted you're here. We're prepared to listen to your remarks. And I invite you to begin, Mr. Gilchrest. GILCHREST: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for holding another hearing on this issue. I think what we're beginning to understand, certainly the people in the administration and first responders in the various departments and agencies have understood for a long time, is that this is quite a serious issue. And so our attention needs to be focused on the best way to create a fluid structure so that the U.S. is prepared to react to the consequences of terrorism. One of the examples I'd like to use for putting this in the executive council of the president, Mr. Chairman, is that even though the room is very warm, and you recommended people take their coats off, and you yourself, the chairman of the committee took their coats off, very few people in the hearing room took their coats off. But I think if Mr. Bush was here and took his coat off, showing the power of the presidency, I think just about everybody in the room, if not everyone, would have taken their coats off. GILCHREST: So, that's sort of a simple example of why we should put this in the executive office and have the president oversee these various agencies. LATOURETTE: I think you're sort of dissing me, quite frankly. (LAUGHTER) BLUMENAUER: I do not associate myself with these comments. LATOURETTE: That's a whole other question. GILCHREST: At any rate, just one other observation, Mr. Chairman, before I start my formal testimony, and I would ask for unanimous consent that my complete statement be put into the record. LATOURETTE: Without objection. GILCHREST: Mr. Allbaugh and the other questions and responses that were discussed from the first panel emphasized the need to have a quick response from the top to the bottom -- from the top of FEMA or the Department of Defense or FBI or whatever, right down to the individual making the 911 call some place in an urban or rural area of the country. So I would hope that when we begin to do this, and if the bill passes and the president signs it into law, that on a big screen in this seminar or conference room where people are beginning to discuss how do we make this coordination effort, they put up a spider web. When you touch that

first strand of the spider web, we all know that a spider web is quite strong, so when you touch the first strand, the center of the spider web immediately vibrates. So the center of the spider web knows that something touched the outer edge. And the outer edges of this bill, as I see it, are the people in the communities that will be first affected by this crisis. And the center of this web of life is the president. If we can create some system that will do that, and have that as a frame of reference, I think the coordination will be what we want it to be. Let me begin my testimony by describing what I see is the present situation right now. First, there's an absence, in my judgment, of an organized federal effort. Federal agencies have created a massive, expensive, mostly uncoordinated and often duplicative programs, many of which do not address the needs of the state and local responders. Secondly, the entity created to coordinate these programs, the FBI's National Domestic Preparedness Office, the FBI, we've seen, and also it has been said from a number of sources, has not met the expectations of the response communities. Mostly, I think, this is because the FBI does not have the ability of oversight over all of the other different federal agencies. We also know that in the last four years we've doubled the budget for terrorist programs, but we haven't gotten the bang for our buck. The situation we are in is not from a lack of commitment from the various agencies involved in the anti-domestic terrorism effort. On the contrary, the men and women who have dedicated their lives and careers to addressing the issue have done amazing things with their particular agencies, commissions, groups, committees and organizations. Their work is sound and their heart and their minds have definitely been in the right place. The problems arise when the efforts are made independent of each other, where billions of dollars are spent on programs that overlap and do not incorporate the input of those who will be first on the scene. That is why we introduced H.R. 525. And at this point, I want to make sure that we thank the staff -- the staff of the committee, my personal staff, certainly the agencies, Tillie Fowler from last year, and all the people that have gone into fine-tuning this legislation. But we've introduced H.R. 525 because there is no national strategy for preparedness against terrorist attacks. Two, despite the multitude of existing preparedness programs, there is no defined end state to determine at what point communities are prepared for a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction. Three, federal efforts, as much as we try, are not coordinated, resulting often in fragmented and overly expensive overlapping programs. Number four, emergency responders insist there must be a single entity in charge of coordinating federal efforts. And number five, who is going to coordinate the federal efforts? Who will have the power to do that, and the influence to make sure these various diverse federal agencies respond quickly? And a number of people said here today, and we agree with it, that it has to be the president. There's been a number of public and private organizations that have made certain comments about this present situation. And this is what we based 525 on. And what we think 525 does is offer a structural organization from which to coordinate our efforts and it requires that we have a plan for where we need to be. And when I say we create a structural organization to coordinate our efforts, if you could always sort of keep in mind what we might call that web of life, or that spider web example. And with the new executive order that Mr. Allbaugh talked about today, we think that's extraordinary good news. And we think this legislation can fit quite nicely into that.

I want to respond to Mr. Shays' question about risk assessment. Certainly, that can, I think, to some extent be incorporated into this legislation. But for the most part, this legislation is to respond in as effortless a way as possible to first responders during a crisis. And inherent in this is we assume that certainly the CIA, NSA and other federal agencies will continue to try to prevent these things from happening. H.R. 525 is not the last word on domestic preparedness, nor is the president's executive order as it is initiated and implemented. The Preparedness Against Domestic Terrorism bill is intended to prompt action, to get people thinking about this process, and to set up a structure in which those thoughts and ideas can be made reality. And Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time you have given us here this afternoon. We look forward to working with you in hopes of getting a piece of legislation that can be signed by the president. LATOURETTE: I thank you very much. Congressman Blumenauer? BLUMENAUER: Mr. Chairman, I do begin by associating myself with Mr. Gilchrest's comments, except his reference to the chair's leadership. I have appreciated the evolution of this legislation, Congressman Gilchrest stepping in, working on it last session and making sure that the hard work of our former colleague Tillie Fowler was moving forward. I appreciate the committee's attention, and I would hope that there's no reason to test the steps that we see in H.R. 525, but sadly the threat to our country from terrorism remains very real. As reference to my brief comment a moment ago to Director Allbaugh, I'd like to direct my comments on the risk of terrorist attacks against transportation, energy and other infrastructure facilities. Providing safe and accessible transportation choices is a part of community livability where families are safe, healthy and economically secure. As I referenced, according to the Department of Transportation's Office of Intelligence and Security, in 1998 attacks against transportation and transportation infrastructure accounted for 42 percent of all international terrorist attacks reported by the United States State Department. In that year, there were over 1,000 violent incidents worldwide, representing nearly a 20 percent increase over 1997 and 107 percent increase since 1995. They doubled. And transportation targets by terrorists are not new. Assessments from the intelligence community indicate that the threat of terrorism against airplanes, subways, buses, pipelines and railroads has in fact increased in recent years. Mass transit systems and infrastructure in the United States have figured prominently in numerous attacks of terrorism and extreme violence: the Long Island railroad shootings -- a tragedy which touched one of our colleagues here, Congresswoman McCarthy, the World Trade Center bombings, sabotage-induced derailments of Amtrak Sunset Limited in Arizona and the Fulton Street fire bombings. Just last week in Los Angeles, a city bus was hijacked by a gunman, crashed during a police chase through the downtown, killing one person and injuring seven others. The evolution of terrorism impacts all sectors of our society. Perhaps no single sector is more susceptible than public transportation. According to the 1997 Transportation Research Board report, since 1991 public transportation has been the target of 20 to 35 percent of all worldwide terrorist attacks. Buses and rail remain the targets of choice for terrorists. We as members of Congress spend a lot of time going through the airport system, but 34 percent of all violent acts against transportation

is rail and buses -- the greatest number of casualties. This should come as no surprise given the relatively easy access to transportation targets and the challenge in developing effective measures for security for our transportation systems. Many systems have no security measures or response plans in place for dealing with this threat. After all, transit agencies are in the business of moving people not fighting terrorism, they think. It does not require a bomb to destroy the lives of a 100 bus passengers, merely one angry person with a gun threatening the life of a driver or passengers, to put all of their lives and safety of the entire group at risk. For our 14 million people who ride transit to work each day and over one-third of one million men and women who work in transit, I think we in Congress need to do better. I appreciate the support of this committee and my colleague from Maryland, in an attempt to incorporate some modest provisions. The first proposal is to at least include the Department of Transportation as a voting member of the President's Council on Domestic Terrorism that this legislation would create. Given the already high percentage of terrorist events involving transportation infrastructure facilities, it would seem to me having the secretary of transportation as an important player is an absolute minimum, and this puts them in the best position to understand the potential budgetary impacts and requirements necessary in improving the preparedness for the nation's airlines, pipelines, roads, railways, buses and subways. The second provision would broaden the definition of terrorist attacks specifically as it relates to attacks against transportation, energy and other infrastructure facilities. For purposes of this subsection, the definition should be changed to include terrorist and quasi-terrorist attacks, defined as the use of force or violence or the threat of force or violence by one or more persons to achieve a clear criminal, ideological, political, social or religious agenda. This broader definition is critical to our ability as a nation to successfully address the scope of potential terrorist threat to the entire transportation sector. Too often, these people working in the transportation industry, face risks from criminal acts beyond those traditionally defined as terrorism. We need to do more, both at the state and federal level, to ensure protection and prosecution of the many kinds of assault that threaten operators and passengers. I appreciate the subcommittee's consideration of these two issues specifically related to transportation infrastructure and look forward to working with you in ways in the future that we may be able to better address this significant need. And I appreciate your courtesy. LATOURETTE: I thank you both, and the subcommittee is very appreciative of the work that both of you are doing in cooperation and conjunction with others. And, Mr. Gilchrest, it's a pleasure to have you back before the subcommittee, and we appreciated your comments that last time. LATOURETTE: As a result, I don't have any questions, and I'd yield to Mr. Costello if he does. COSTELLO: Mr. Chairman, I would just associate myself with your remarks, and I compliment both of our colleagues for not only being here today, but Congressman Gilchrest for your leadership on this issue.

I have two quick questions for you, Congressman Gilchrest. One, you indicate in your testimony that passage of H.R. 525 would give the force of law to the president's executive order. And I wonder two issues. One, our colleague Mr. Blumenauer has suggested that the Department of Transportation ought to be involved in any project that is set up. Would you agree with that? GILCHREST: I think that's a fascinating suggestion, and I'd like to work with Earl on that to further understand that. Off the top of my head, I would agree with Earl that the Department of Transportation, under the situation that he just described, would be an important addition to this program. So I'd like to work with him on that, certainly. COSTELLO: I don't know if you were in the room to hear all of the testimony of the director of FEMA, but I believe he indicated that he thought it was a good idea as well. The second question I have is, in your legislation, 525, do you believe currently there is a provision in that legislation which would give this subcommittee an oversight role? GILCHREST: That's an interesting question. I would assume, based on the development of this legislation, the implementation of this legislation, especially the connection with transportation, that I would recommend to the speaker of the House that this subcommittee be given unique jurisdiction over the oversight of this new executive council. COSTELLO: I would suggest that, if we can, with the chair and both the chairman of the full committee and the ranking member, that we work together to try and make certain that that oversight role is, in fact, in the legislation, if you're open to working with us on that. GILCHREST: I assume that the Transportation Committee and this subcommittee would have oversight over this, but we certainly can work with the subcommittee and the parliamentarian to ensure that that is the case. COSTELLO: I thank you. And, Mr. Blumenauer, just one question for you quickly. In your testimony, you say a recent survey of transit agencies found that over 90 percent had experiences with bomb threats; over 50 percent with hate crimes; and almost 30 percent with hijacking and multiple-victim shootings. In responding to terrorist events, almost 60 percent of transit agencies surveyed felt that they were not well-prepared to deal with these kinds of activities. If 60 percent felt that they were not prepared to deal with these kinds of activities, are there any transit agencies out there that believe that they are fully prepared to deal with these types of incidents? BLUMENAUER: In the work that we've been doing on this, I've not encountered anybody who feels like they are fully prepared. I think this is part of the broader context that adds urgency, I think, to the subcommittee's work, to Mr. Gilchrest's legislation. But as it relates to this, I think there is a gaping hole, and it is acknowledged by everybody that I've worked with. COSTELLO: Well, I thank both of you for your testimony, and in particular in pointing out the issue of transportation and how vulnerable public transportation is to terrorist attacks, and look forward to working with you on this legislation. Thank you. LATOURETTE: I thank the gentleman. We thank both of you. Before calling up the third panel, I want to ask unanimous consent that the following documents be entered into the record. One, a Washington Monthly article entitled "Weapons of Mass Confusion." Two, a National Journal article called "Beyond the Blue Canaries." Three, a letter from the National Governors Association stating their domestic terrorism preparedness policy.

And four, just referenced by Congressman Blumenauer, an article entitled "Emergency Preparedness for Transit Terrorism" and the report of the Federal Transit Administration. And then lastly, the statement generated by our colleague Mr. Shays. COSTELLO: Mr. Chairman, without objection, I would like to make a unanimous consent request that the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, his statement be entered into the record. LATOURETTE: Certainly. Without objection, so ordered. I now want to call today's third panel of witnesses. We're very pleased to have representatives from the president's administration with us. First we have a return visit from John Magaw, who is FEMA's acting deputy director, in place of Director Allbaugh. Next, we have Ms. Mary Lou Leary, who is the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs with the Department of Justice. And Mr. Charles Cragin, acting assistant to the secretary of defense for civil support for the Department of Defense. I understand, Mr. Magaw, you may not have an opening set of remarks, but to our other witnesses, if you'd be kind enough to summarize your observations, and without any objection, your full statements will appear and be made part of the record. Ms. Leary, why don't we begin with you. LEARY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I am Mary Lou Leary. I'm the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice. And on behalf of the department, I want to thank you for this opportunity to discuss this issue of better preparing our nation to respond to incidents of domestic terrorism, including incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. Addressing the issue of terrorism, including domestic terrorism and homeland defense, is a principal priority of the president and the attorney general. They both believe firmly that the nation's most fundamental responsibility is to protect its citizens, at home and abroad, from terrorist attacks. To do that, both are committed to ensuring that the federal government has a comprehensive, coordinated and unified strategy to counter and respond to those threats and to make sure that adequate resources are available to support those efforts. Equally important is their commitment to state and local jurisdictions, to the state and local emergency response agencies and the men and the women who serve in them. The federal government will work with them as partners to protect lives and public safety. Included in that partnership is the federal government's commitment to assist state and local jurisdictions prepare for such incidents; and, if they should occur, to help ensure that there's an effective response. If such an incident would occur in an American community, as has been noted several times already today, it's obvious to all of us that that particular community's emergency response agencies and public officials and first responders will be the one who'll be called upon to respond, manage and mitigate the incident during those crucial initial hours. During the last decade, Mr. Chairman, the Department of Justice has focused an increasingly greater amount of resources on responding to both domestic and overseas terrorism. Many of our efforts have been devoted to planning and coordinated activities with other federal agencies, and we are working increasingly more closely with state and local jurisdictions. As you know, much of the federal coordination is done through the National Security Council, including its various subgroups, Policy Coordinating Committee and the like. And since 1998,

the Department of Justice has been the lead agency for developing and annually updating the five-year Interagency Counterterrorism and Technology Plan. Also, since 1998, the Office of Justice Programs has played an increasingly greater role in the department's homeland defense efforts, based on the need to work more closely with state and local jurisdictions in the emergency response community. As you know, the Office of Justice Programs is the component at DOJ responsible for working directly with state and local jurisdictions, agencies, public officials and various public service disciplines, working on areas like preparation and response to incidents of domestic terrorism. When we carry out that mission, we're dedicated to working as a partner with states, counties, cities and other municipalities. Our goal has always been and it remains capacity building. We basically judge our success by the success of those who with whom we work at the state and local level. Currently, we have several offices and a number of specific activities that are assisting American communities better prepare for and respond to any act of domestic terrorism that might occur. This includes providing, through our Office of State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support, equipment, hands-on training, support for real- life situational exercises, and technical assistance to state and local emergency response agencies and public officials. In addition, our National Institute for Justice in its Office for Science and Technology supports research and development activities to provide emergency response communities with improved technologies and equipment. In addition, our Office for Victims of Crime has done a lot of work with state and local communities on planning for the human consequences of terrorist incidents. That is, dealing with the victims and the survivors of such events -- we learned a lot about that from Oklahoma City -and working with the consequences to first responders as well, who are in many ways victimized themselves. I'll give you a few specifics. Since its inception in fiscal year 1998, OJP's Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support has made significant progress, including the establishment of a national scope training, development and delivery program for emergency response personnel, public officials and the like. As part of this, we've established six national training centers under the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium. That includes the establishment of our First Responder Training Center in Anniston, Alabama, the Center for Domestic Preparedness, where we do live agent training. Also, as part of this training effort, we provide for training to be delivered on-site in local communities across the country, and we have various distance learning mechanisms available as well. We, in total, have trained over 60,000 individuals since 1998 in these various disciplines. We've provided equipment grants to all 50 states, territories and the District of Columbia; and during fiscal years '98 and '99, we also provided grants directly to the nation's 157 largest jurisdictions. We implemented a nationwide assessment of the WMD threat, risk, response, needs and capabilities to provide the means to better target resources. We did that in coordination with other agencies. And as a result of that effort, each state, territory and DC is currently completing an assessment and developing an individual plan to address how each of them will improve its ability to respond to a terrorist incident.

We've developed a program to ensure that state and local agencies, together with federal agencies, are able to test their resources out through actual exercises. At the national level, this includes the Top Off exercise, which DOJ co-chaired with FEMA, and I'm sure you're all familiar with that; it was spoken of earlier today. It also includes localized exercises at various places throughout the country. But in every instance, whether it's a national exercise or an exercise at the local community level, we always coordinate with other federal agencies in order to avoid duplicating our efforts and also to maximize the value of the exercise to that community and to all the agencies involved. We are in the process, as well, of completing the Nunn-Lugar- Domenici Domestic Preparedness program. As you may know, responsibility for that particular program was transferred from DOD to Justice in fiscal 2000. Our National Institute of Justice, specifically our Office of Science and Technology, has made an interesting and valuable contribution to this arena. Since 1997, pursuant to the Anti- Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of '96, NIJ has worked with a number of federal agencies and private sector groups to supply the emergency response community with improved technologies. We were discussing the problems on public transportation earlier on in the hearing. One of the projects that NIJ's involved in is the development of something called Project Protect, which is a chemical detection device specifically for use in subways and other public transportation. So there are a lot of things going on in that realm. We work on our technology development with the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Center for Disease Control and Prevention and others. In cooperation with the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology, we're working in the area of developing safety and performance standards for equipment that's used by emergency responders. A lot of this is focused on protective clothing worn by responders. Office of Victims of Crime for much of the past decade has worked with the families of the victims of the Pan Am flight 103 attack and families and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing to make sure that the victims of those attacks get the care and assistance they require. These are just a few of the highlights, Mr. Chairman, of the OJP activities in this arena, but I think that they are representative of our broad approach to assisting state and local communities in this area. I think OJP does this task well, effectively, and we are building on our relationship with other federal agencies and, in particular, building on our 30-year history of strong experience and relationships working directly with state and local jurisdictions. In coordinating with other federal agencies, we are very careful to be sure that our efforts support and complement those of others; make sure that the federal message, particularly in the area of training, is a consistent one and that it's built on the synergy of federal agencies working together. Just for an example, when we developed our first responder training, we coordinated with FEMA, FBI, HHS and others in deciding what courses ought to be developed, reviewing the curriculum, getting feedback, tweaking the program based on the kind of feedback we got, and so on. We coordinate very closely with FEMA in providing emergency response training in areas such as their National Fire Academy so that we have a unified selection of courses, we're avoiding duplication, and we're better informing the emergency response community of available federal resources.

And finally, we did co-chair the Top Off exercise from which we learned so much with FEMA. So, in conclusion, I just want to restate the attorney general's absolutely commitment to addressing these issues relating to both overseas and domestic terrorism, to using our federal resources in an effective manner, and to be sure that state and local jurisdictions have the resources and the training and the equipment that they need to protect the lives of our nation's people. LEARY: Thank you very much. LATOURETTE: I thank you very much. Mr. Cragin? CRAGIN: Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Costello. Thank you very much for inviting me to testify today on the Department of Defense's continuing efforts to support national preparedness to respond to acts of terrorism directed at the United States, its territories and possessions. The Department of Defense's role in supporting national domestic combating terrorism preparedness is to be prepared to provide, when requested, available military forces and capabilities to support domestic requirements specified by the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the attorney general of the United States. Combating terrorism preparedness has been, and continues to be, one of the nation's top priorities. It is a fact that no, one single agency or department is responsible for combating terrorism in America. Rather there are policy, technical, operational, law enforcement, research and development and intelligence elements, among others, that must be coordinated and integrated. In the event of a terrorist attack, those closest to the problem are going to be the first to respond. We know that. They always have been and they always will be. However, we presume that if the attack results in catastrophic consequences, state and local capabilities are likely to be quickly overwhelmed. If a civilian authority requests federal support, the lead federal agency, FEMA or the FBI, is likely to request support from other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense. The department stands ready to support President Bush's plan to establish a comprehensive, seamlessly integrated and harmonized federal government effort to assist state and local governments in managing the consequences of a WMD attack on America's citizens. As you're now aware, yesterday President Bush announced that Vice President Cheney would oversee the development of a coordinated national effort to achieve that goal and that an Office of National Preparedness would be established within FEMA to implement the weapons of mass destruction consequence management aspects of the vice president's effort. The president stated that FEMA will establish an Office of National Preparedness to coordinate all federal programs dealing with WMD consequence management within the many federal departments and agencies and would work closely with state and local governments to ensure their WMD consequence management planning, training and equipment needs are addressed. The Department of Defense will work with the Office of National Preparedness and the vice president to support efforts to develop a preparedness strategy for federal, state and local governments to do the best possible job of preparing for and defending against weapons of mass destruction.

In recognition of the likelihood of a terrorist event, a number of steps have been undertaken by the Department of Defense to address this critical area. First, we sought to define more clearly what the department's role should and should not be. We do not view our support to combating terrorism activities in the United States as homeland defense, but rather as civil support, because this reflects the fundamental principle that the Department of Defense does not have the lead, but rather supports the lead federal agency in the event of a domestic contingency. Four principles have been established to guide DOD's response in the event of a domestic WMD contingency. First, there will always be an unequivocal chain of civilian accountability and authority for all military support to civil authorities. Second, DOD's role is always to provide support to the lead civilian federal agency. Third, though our capabilities are primarily war fighting capabilities, the expertise that we have gained as a result of the threats we have faced overseas can be applied in the domestic arena as well. We also bring communications, logistics, transportation and medical assets, among others, that can be used for civil support. Fourth, our response will necessarily be grounded in the National Guard and Reserves as our forward deployed forces for domestic support operations. This week, Secretary Rumsfeld announced two key decisions that demonstrate the priority and commitment of the department and its senior civilian leadership regarding the department's role in combating domestic terrorism. First, he has made it clear that any deployment of military forces in support of domestic combating terrorism activities will require his or the deputy's direct authority. Second, consistent with Section 901 of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, the secretary announced his decision to consolidate civilian oversight responsibility for the department's combating terrorism activities in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. This action establishes one senior civilian official to advise the secretary and deputy secretary on all DOD combating terrorism policies, programs and activities and ensures that every policy issue and operational activity relating to combating terrorism receives the personal attention of the most senior leaders in the department. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I spell out in more detail in my prepared testimony the details of Secretary Rumsfeld's decisions and also the manner in which the department is prepared to support the lead federal agencies with respect to both consequence management and crisis management. And again, let me thank you for inviting us to participate in this series of hearings. LATOURETTE: Mr. Cragin, we thank you very much. And we thank all of you for appearing today and giving us your insight. Ms. Leary, I -- and you'll have to excuse my ignorance -- but during your observations, you indicated that DOJ has made grants to all 50 states. And how large a program on an annualized basis is that? And how much money, you know, are we talking about? LEARY: We have an equipment grant. And I'll be happy to provide you with the numbers for each one of the areas in which we work. LATOURETTE: Sure. LEARY: We work in provisioning of equipment in the states. We also provide ewuipment assistance. We work with them to develop actual exercises with them and share them out. And we do technical assistance on a host of issues. The total budget for 2002 is $220.5 million. So I'll

be happy to give you break down of that, and you can see how much has gone for equipment, how much for training and so on. LATOURETTE: I would appreciate that. The other observation that you made is that the DOJ coordinates with all of the other agencies and they have responsibility there for anti-terrorism, domestic terrorism responsibilities. One of the difficulties that this committee's had, and others, is that we can't quite figure out where all the programs are and who has what. I'm wondering what that cooperation and coordination looks like. Who is it that you reach out to and coordinate with to make sure that there's not a duplication of activities and efforts? I would assume DOD would be one. LEARY: Yes. LATOURETTE: Are there others that readily come to mind? LEARY: Yes, we do an awful lot of coordination with FEMA, with the CDC, Department of Energy, Department of -- a broad range of programs and agencies. And what we do is, we're helping state and local communities be prepared to get prepared to respond. And that's where our focus has been. Obviously, the function of all the other federal agencies have an impact on where the state and local response comes from. We are working on developing training curriculum. We bring in the other agencies who also do training, who can identify training needs that they know. LATOURETTE: And Mr. Cragin, at our last hearing, one of my colleagues who is on Mr. Shays' subcommittee, but not on this subcommittee, in the Transportation Committee, Congressman Kucinich from Ohio, expressed a lot of questions and concerns that whatever we created or whatever the presidency created didn't become sort of an intelligence gathering operation on United States citizens. And he had a lot of questions about the freedom to assemble and civil rights and things of that nature. And I think that if he were here today, he'd probably be nervous about the thought of military personnel assisting in what he would consider to be a civilian exercise. I would just ask you, one, have you experienced, in your experience, any of those things that cause him sleepless nights? And does he have any reason to worry based upon DOD's involvement? And then two, I assume the secretary has indicated a willingness to participate with the president's and the vice president's program to put this together under FEMA's leadership. And I'm wondering what that'll look like? CRAGIN: I'm sorry. What were the last two words of your question? LATOURETTE: What will that look like from DOD's perspective? CRAGIN: I think I can answer both of the questions, because in a sense, Mr. Chairman, they are inexorably intertwined. What it will look like, is it will look like the Department of Defense bringing its resources to bear at the request of a lead civilian federal agency. And I think that goes to your colleague's inquiry of last year and his concern. It is the concern of the secretary, and that's why I made the point that this is not homeland defense, this is civil support. And that's what the men and women of America's military stand ready to do. Obviously, the National Guard, which is part of our total force, is dual-hatted as state employees first, a response force of the governor's, and then as a federal response. But we want to make sure that whenever military forces are deployed to support a civil authority that it has been carefully reviewed and that the decision has been made by the secretary or the deputy, as I indicated the secretary made in his decision this week. LATOURETTE: OK. I thank you.

Mr. Costello? COSTELLO: Ms. Leary, you mentioned in your testimony that there are six training centers and the department has trained over 60,000 individuals since 1998, I believe. One, at the training centers, is the training conducted by DOJ employees? Or is this contracted out? LEARY: No, it's contracted out. And we work with various universities and other groups within the consortium. And they have specialized expertise. For instance, at Texas A&M, they have specialized expertise in fire training and other things like urban rescue response. COSTELLO: Are these awarded on the competitive bid basis? Or the department selects them because of the expertise they bring to the table? LEARY: Well, they do bring a lot of expertise to the table; this is not a competitive program. COSTELLO: And the six training centers, where are they located? LEARY: In Anniston, Alabama, the Center for Domestic Preparedness would do the live agent training. I encourage you to go down and see that sometime. It's quite interesting. COSTELLO: Watch out for the examples though. LEARY: I survived it. I participated and survived. Louisiana State University, the Nevada Test Site, Texas A&M, New Mexico (inaudible) COSTELLO: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have no further questions. LATOURETTE: I thank the gentleman. Mr. Shays? SHAYS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cragin -- I'm sorry, Ms. Leary, how does the president's executive order affect each of your departments? CRAGIN: Mr. Shays, I am not aware that the president has yet issued an executive order. I believe that the president yesterday issued a statement. SHAYS: How would his statement, if it was incorporated in an executive order, affect you? CRAGIN: Essentially what the president is saying is that there needs to be a coordinated and directed national strategy for combating terrorism, and that Vice President Cheney is going to conduct a review and development of the matrix necessary to ensure that national strategy. And that at the same time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to establish an Office of National Preparedness to serve as the coordinator within the interagency for consequence management. And also to be the linkage with state and local responders. The Department of Defense will support that office. And we will, obviously, be working within the interagency to develop that coordinated national strategy. SHAYS: Ms. Leary, I believe the FBI would have the role of preventing and investigating a terrorist act. How does it impact the Justice Department? LEARY: Well, the Justice Department's work in the crisis management, the prevention and the investigation and the law enforcement aspects of it will continue to operate in the same way and to be in charge of that. I believe that the -- what's been established in the last couple of days makes FEMA responsible -the lead agency for coordinating all the consequence management. And we -- the Office of Justice Programs work primarily in preparing state and local jurisdictions for consequence management. So we would continue to operate our programs. We would look forward to continuing to coordinate and working with the other federal agencies on the overall picture. SHAYS: If you did and put it in your testimony, then I just want you to tell me and then I won't go any further. But did you critique the legislation before us?

LEARY: No. SHAYS: OK. Would you care to do that? LEARY: Not at this time, because it's still under review by the administration. SHAYS: OK. Mr. Cragin? CRAGIN: I would have the same answer to your question, Mr. Shays. SHAYS: Thank you. LATOURETTE: We thank you all for appearing here today. We'll find your comments to be illuminating as we move through the markup process. And we appreciate the administration's involvement in this process. I now want to call our last panel of the day. LATOURETTE: This is a panel -- we'll have a representative from the U.S. General Accounting Office and individuals who are very familiar with state and local emergency response. Our first witness on this panel will be Mr. Gary McConnell, who will be introduced by one of our colleagues, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, in just a second. Next we have Ms. Ann Simank, the chair of the Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee of the National League of Cities. We have Mr. Edward Plaugher, the fire chief of Arlington County, Virginia, who is representing the International Association of Fire Chiefs. And lastly, a return visit from Mr. Ray Decker, the director for the diffuse threats issues with the Defense Capabilities and Management Team of the U.S. General Accounting Office. As we have asked the other three panels, sometimes unsuccessfully, we're going to ask you to summarize your remarks. Without objection of the other members of the committee, your full statements will be made part of the record. And we look forward to hearing from each of you. To begin, it is our pleasure to welcome to the subcommittee, Saxby Chambliss, a classmate of mine, who is a distinguished champion of the state of Georgia and (inaudible) everywhere to introduce Mr. Mcconnell, and we've gone from human now to genius (ph). So, Mr. Chambliss? CHAMBLISS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is indeed a pleasure for me to come before this committee, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to introduce my good friend, Gary McConnell, who I think is going to bring some very interesting and insightful testimony to you on this very critical issue. As you know, and Chris knows, we've been working very closely together with our working group on international terrorism and homeland security within the Intelligence Committee. And I've had the chance to go down and visit with Gary and his folks. He is going to bring probably more experience particularly on this issue, than any other state director for GEMA, for crisis management or any other agency around the country, because in addition to having a number of emergency situations from a pure weather perspective, we've had some situations in Georgia, some of which occurred as late as yesterday. Gary, we haven't had a chance to talk about that, but I know you're going to mention the (inaudible) coming through Georgia. But with the '96 Olympics, Gary took some time off from his position as director of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to head up all the law enforcement agencies in Georgia. He supervised about 5,000 people during the '96 Olympics. And from a preparedness standpoint, for what we need to do to be prepared to respond to a terrorist incident, Gary brings a real insight that I think nobody else can bring to the table.

And I just wanted to come over to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this hearing and bringing this kind of group together, and just to introduce my friend Gary to you and to the members of this panel. Thank you for letting me come and be with you. LATOURETTE: Thank you very much, Congressman Chambliss, we appreciate it. With that stirring introduction, Mr. McConnell, we will begin with you, and we welcome your remarks. MCCONNELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will certainly try not to disappoint my congressman from Georgia. You have some prepared testimony in front of you. I'd like to just talk to you just a minute and try to answer your questions. Not only did I have the opportunity to do the security for the state of Georgia for the 1996 Games, we've had 16 presidential disasters in Georgia. And prior to that, I was elected county sheriff for 22 years, at that time being the youngest sheriff in Georgia. So I've been there for quite awhile. But talking about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, I certainly commend President Bush for taking the lead yesterday in putting somebody in charge. Everybody wants to be in charge, but somebody has got to be responsible. There is a big difference. I would also encourage you to look at not only traditional public safety such as fire, EMS and law enforcement. But as we learned in 1996, it entails public health, Department of Agriculture, a wide variety of folks that we normally do not think about when we're dealing with law enforcement type issues. Also, I'd like to encourage you to look at -- I believe it is in the South Regional (ph) Atlanta paper (inaudible) this afternoon. The director of FEMA says 43 agencies. I know in the state of Georgia, we dealt with 29 just for the Olympics not counting local agencies. Not only look at the response and the training and the exercise but also the cross- commissions and the cross-use of federal and state dollars. Most of the states around the country have appointed a single point of contact to be the coordinating agency for weapons of mass destruction materials. We have done that in Georgia. I happen to be that person. MCCONNELL: Most other states have also done that. We're glad to see the federal government doing that, but I encourage you not only to appoint someone in that position, but to look at the broad range of things such as CDC, U.S. Department of Agriculture, a wide variety of agencies that you would normally do not think about to have a (inaudible) in weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. And also, please do not just get focused on the world, that CNN's going to leave Atlanta and come cover it for you, just think about the other stuff every day that's terrorism in the eyes of Americans and in the eyes of Georgians, in particular. Whether it's a teenager at school with an AK-47 or a stick of dynamite or whatever that might be, that's also terrorism to the parents of those kids who send their kids there. It has a tremendous effect. I remember in 1996, when Centennial Park exploded at 1:20 on Friday morning, injuring 128 folks, what did not make the news was that for 17 days of the summer games in Georgia, they responded to over 640 suspicious packages at the local fire and EMS; that's an average of 1 every 10 minutes for 17 days. So there's a tremendous demand, and it's honestly past time, folks, we need to get on with it. You know, I had the privilege of being in Anniston, Alabama testifying a couple of years for (inaudible) one of the centers down there. There's been a tremendous amount of progress made in the last few years, but we certainly, certainly, do not need, in my opinion, to study it to death. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. There's a lot of protocol. In Georgia, for example, we have

a working protocol now with the FBI and other federal agencies, all of our state and local law enforcement, on who's doing what once they arrive there. In reality, folks, there's going to be about three levels of responders. It's going to be the city and county folks first, it's going to be the state people after that and, depending on the magnitude of the situation, there's going to be the federal agencies. That's not saying anything with disrespect to the federal agencies, but reality is, they're going to be about the last ones there. They're going to have the most resources, the best-trained, and if you look at (inaudible) weapons of mass destruction, and according to the news article, there's going to be a study looking at how the federal government's going to respond to weapons of mass destruction. Please don't plan for us, plan with us, because in our respective states across the country not only are the senators and congressmen responsible, but also the local state-elected officials. If this turns into a planning process inside the beltway and somebody comes to Atlanta and tells us how it's going to work, it's going to be a lot longer making it work than it would be if you'd ask us a little bit before time, and I think it's going to be about that a way everywhere. There's a tremendous amount of resources, but somebody needs to get their hands around where they're at, how they're being used. For example, the CDC gives money to the State Department of Human Resources for laboratory work. In my particular state, we already have the resources to do that, just nobody asked us. So we can better use some of those funds on equipment for fire and EMS and law enforcement and the 911 centers to respond and look after the citizens. Look, I could go on all afternoon, but I'd much rather be quiet and let you ask me any questions you might have. And with that, I would certainly entertain any questions you might have, sir. LATOURETTE: Thank you very much, Mr. McConnell. Ms. Simank? SIMANK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, the National League of Cities is pleased to have this opportunity to share its views on H.R. 525. SIMANK: I am Ann Simank and I'm a council member from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I also serve as chair of the National League of Cities Public Safety and Crime Prevention Policy Committee. I won my election and I was sworn into office eight days prior to the bombing of my city, so I learned through hard work, dedication and a lot of service right alongside my first responders and they monitored the bombing until we imploded that building. I'm here on behalf of the National League of Cities today. I'm here on behalf of their membership and their president, Dennis Archer, the mayor of Detroit, Michigan, as well as my home town of Oklahoma City. I want to express my gratitude to Representative Wayne Gilchrest and other sponsors for introducing this legislation. NLC has expressed its support of a comprehensive, national domestic preparedness plan for more than three years and I hope that we will successful in securing the enactment of such legislation this year. As you know, Oklahoma City was certainly devastated by the bombing in '95 of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The fact that (inaudible) shattered the lives of many of our citizens and public servants, destroying the families as well as their health and economic well being, another severe consequence of the bombing is that many of our first responders are still devastated by the horror that was caused by such a massive terrorist incident. And, in fact, our counseling "Project Heartland" reported that we're still receiving, after all this time, over 1,000 phone calls a day for psychological crisis intervention.

LATOURETTE: A day? SIMANK: Today. LATOURETTE: Each day, 1,000? SIMANK: A thousand a month, phone calls. That's people that are just calling in, needing to talk with crisis intervention. First, had it not been for the integrated emergency management training Oklahoma City did receive from FEMA, we would not have been able to mitigate such a catastrophic act of terrorism. It was July of 1994 that the mayor, the council members and other community leaders attended this training in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Secondly, the lessons we learned from the tragic bombing indicate a need for better coordination among all levels of government. This act would help us accomplish this objective by setting a precedent for domestic preparedness at the federal level and, hopefully, improving interagency planning and coordination. The National League of Cities applauds the federal government's efforts in establishing training, programs and grants to help improve local domestic preparedness. While we're noting these resources, I must reiterate the need for better coordination and direct assistance to local government. This will enable states and local governments to improve their own capabilities against the use of weapons of mass destruction. NLC believes that H.R. 525 will address this urgent need, authorizing a lead agency to oversee the coordination of all federal resources for domestic preparedness. I would like to share the National League of Cities' position on specific provisions of this (inaudible) Act, denoting current constraints in geographic limitations, equipment and training, emergency communication systems and information sharing. In reviewing H.R. 525, we have found that the designation of one federal entity as a primary point of contact for local governments is most feasible in the notification of potential threats and requests for federal resources and information. Also, the implementation of the biannual review of state and local disaster response commands and capabilities is a good idea. This review will help all levels of government. With regard to regional needs, I urge that the coordinating agency take special note of the need for smaller jurisdictions that are just as vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction as larger cities. We heard testimony today about larger cities facing this. Who would have thought Oklahoma City would have had a bombing. This can happen anywhere. NLC also recognizes the legislation's requirement to set voluntary minimum standards for state and local domestic preparedness programs. SIMANK: We understand that these standards are to be used as guidelines. NLC is concerned, however, that many cities may not receive needed resources because they cannot financially or physically meet these mandates or guidelines. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, there must be some assurance that local governments will have direct and flexible access to these vital terms and resources. The constraints local governments face in acquiring sufficient emergency communications systems presents strong evidence for such direct funding. First responders in Oklahoma City had to resort to runners who relayed information between agencies as well as cell phones because of the lack of inter-operability among emergency communications systems used by federal, state and local authorities.

This function is crucial to any comprehensive preparedness plans. Notices to local authorities on pertinent intelligence affecting their regions will help the cities and towns become more aware of potential threats and could even help prevent acts of terrorism. Mr. Chairman, before I conclude my remarks, I would like to note that when NLC's Public Safety Committee began studying this issue, we found that at least 33 separate federal agencies were involved in domestic terrorism, and you've heard that today. We feel that H.R. 525 can address this issue effectively. The National League of Cities looks forward to working with you as this crucial piece of legislation moves forward for final passage. And we will certainly underscore the need for sufficient spending for this legislation during the appropriations process. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate your leadership on this issue, and I would be happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time. LATOURETTE: We thank you very much for your very fine statement. And Chief Plaugher, we'd now like to hear from you, sir. PLAUGHER: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the privilege to be here this afternoon, as your committee is obviously taking this issue extremely serious, and from the local fire chiefs, I thank you very much. Also, I'd like to thank you very much for your remarks about the fire act and the impact that the fire act will have on rural or local fire departments. And I think that's one of the things that we bring to the table when we're talking about your local first responders. Also, thank you very much for accepting my statement, and I will not go through that statement. But I will bring to your attention a couple of key points that are within that statement. First of all, the local public safety personnel, particularly firefighters, will be first on the scene of any terrorist incident and will perform all life-safety, environmental and property damage mitigation. On (inaudible) the department that I'm with, as well as the surrounding jurisdictions in the Washington metropolitan area, have participated in the many programs that you heard about today during this testimony that have been designed to assist us in our preparedness efforts. We have made progress. We in Arlington County created the nation's very first metropolitan (inaudible) strike team. And I'm very proud to say that it has now also been converted to a national medical response team supported by the Department of Health and Human Services. However, from here today to say that we need focus, we need focus on this effort. We need the steps to be taken by Congress and the administration to designate the single point of contact at the federal level with the authority to direct efforts at the agency levels. We've got to stop confusion. We need to develop a single management strategy that will allow a (inaudible) early approach to our preparedness efforts. Such a strategy would include the development of performance -- and what you're talking about now are capability objectives that refine our preparedness goals. We must have goals that are definable and allow us to not only measure our progress, but define when we have reached adequate preparedness. Those of us within the local first responder community must have input into the development of these strategic goals. And I heard about earlier today by this panel. Inter-agency planning that includes local, state and federal agencies with the responsibility for emergency response needs, and in my opinion requires, a national strategy. We are excited about what we hear about this proposal (inaudible), about the effort of this legislation. We support this effort. We also are

encouraged by what we've heard today about some of the very salient questions about risk assessment and those types of things, and particularly, the problem of transportation. In Arlington County, we put this on our shelf or radar screens to work on in 1995 after the sarin gas attacks in the subway system in Tokyo. PLAUGHER: Why? Because we in Arlington County have an identical subway system that serves your nation's capital. And we have been working diligently to prepare in this effort since that time. I will tell you this, as I try and have repeatedly tried to work within the federal family, it is not only confusing, it is often times contradictory. And that does not allow us to make the progress that we should be making to prepare our nation for a first response to terrorist activities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the committee. LATOURETTE: Thank you very much. Mr. Decker? DECKER: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Costello, I am pleased to be here this afternoon to provide GAO's observations on H.R. 525 and a proposed draft executive order addressing domestic preparedness and response to terrorism. Since our government will spend over $11 billion this fiscal year to combat terrorism, which is about $1 billion more than the entire national defense budget of Canada, we view this hearing and recent announcements by senior administration officials as positive signs towards improving the overall management of this complex and cross- cutting issue. My testimony is based upon extensive evaluations of federal programs to combat terrorism, over 30 reports during the last four years, many at the request of this subcommittee, Chairman Shays' committee and others in the House and Senate. Two weeks ago during your joint hearing with Chairman Shays' Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, I highlighted the key actions we believe essential for the effective management of federal efforts to combat terrorism and commented on the three bills being proposed, using these key actions as a template. So, as you recall, the five key actions focus on leadership, threat and risk assessment, the actual strategy development, program and budget linkage, and coordination among federal, state and local entities. I use this approach to contrast the provisions of H.R. 525 and those in the draft executive order currently under review within the executive branch. And, Mr. Chairman, I must stress that some of my comments relate to this unreleased draft executive order, a "stealth" executive order, although the president, the vice president and the director of FEMA today have recently provided official statements on important aspects in this area. H.R. 525 and the draft executive order provide positive options associated with the five key areas we identified. There are some significant differences in three areas: First, H.R. 525 proposes the formation of the president's council on domestic terrorism preparedness within the Executive Office of the President as the focal point to lead and manage federal efforts in this area. Although the president serves as the chairman, he may designate an executive chairman who would be confirmed by the Senate. The draft executive order would create the Office of National Preparedness which we heard announced yesterday and confirmed today by the director of FEMA; would create this office within FEMA to lead and manage federal domestic preparedness and consequence management efforts for weapons of mass destruction related terrorism threats.

The director of FEMA would appoint an associate director to head this office, not subject to Senate confirmation. Second, H.R. 525 requires a threat and risk assessment to support a domestic terrorism preparedness plan and the annual implementation strategy. While the draft executive order stipulates that an annual update of the national plan for consequence national preparedness would include an assessment of national readiness, there is no mention of a threat in this assessment. And finally, H.R. 525 requires the President's Council on Domestic Terrorism Preparedness to publish a domestic terrorism preparedness plan with objectives, priorities, roles and performance measurements no later than 180 days after the council's first meeting. The draft executive order and a White House announcement yesterday focused on the creation of a task force chaired by the vice president to develop a framework for a national preparedness strategy to be presented to the president later this year. We've heard October. A national plan would follow within the next six months. DECKER: The Office of National Preparedness and FEMA would support the task force activities. In closing, H.R. 525 and the recent initiatives by the White House offer optimism that actions to improve the focus and the management of federal efforts to combat terrorism are imminent. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony and I will be glad to answer any questions. LATOURETTE: I thank you, and I thank all of you for your excellent statements. And I want to begin with a series of questions. Mr. McConnell, we'll start with you and invite the chief and others to jump in. I used to be a county prosecutor before I got this job, and so I'm wondering what level is the right level to organize? Let me tell you what I've heard you say that you would like the federal level to participate, but not plan for you. And I would understand that. From my experience, I was interested to hear you say you had some of your packages coming through the Olympics in Atlanta, but I have 89 different communities in my congressional district, and since each one of them has a fire service, some are volunteers, some are full time. And just as an example, we're (inaudible) or a package exempt. One time, we got the bomb squad, the guy next door decides he needs a bomb squad. And then, you know, maybe we have one bomb every 10 years or whatever, thank God. And it would go to other services, as well. The new rage is everybody, every place, to want an armored car. I can't figure out why. I think maybe they (inaudible) again, you know, on TNT or something, so they decided, "We need an armored car." And so, clearly, I'm concerned about the problem of the planning that's done at the localest, localest level. And is it the county, is it the state, to make sure that, while those with the most experience, those being those in charge of the first responders in the federal service, the police service, that hasn't been (inaudible), certainly had the ability to plan what's best for their locale, that we don't run into -- rather than have a federal duplication, and we stand over (inaudible) we had local group location. And then, you had thoughts about that, I think. MCCONNELL: Mr. Chairman, I certainly understand that coming from a state with 159 counties and over 600 cities. What we are proposing in Georgia and what we're doing in Georgia at this time, is looking at the mutual aid concept. We have divided the state up into 11 regions with, basically, an anchor facility or an anchor community in each one of those to work with that fire department, law enforcement, EMS and

what do we want to use for an example. The mutual aid agreement is between the adjacement counties and cities with the understanding that they can respond within a given period of time to train the first responders in the smaller communities, at least to be able to preliminarily identify the agent or whatever the device might be. And then to back off and wait on the mutual aid assistance to get there. There is not enough money to train and equip (inaudible), in my opinion all of the local responders across this country. And if we can tie it to a geographical area or a service area, whether we want to use congressional districts or whatever to help mutual aid agreements, let those folks train together, let them exercise together and let them come up with the necessary recommendations for equipment, in particular areas of their state. For example, in Georgia, training for the city of Atlanta, and planning for rural southwest Georgia is an entirely two different concepts. LATOURETTE: And so, I don't think that your answer to that question is that perhaps on a certified basis, it is the best way to sort of begin figuring out how Georgia's going to be divvied up, Ohio is going to be divvied up, and everybody is going to be divvied up and then they go from there. And in whatever regions, you identify, you know, somebody with the bomb squad, somebody with the HazMat unit, somebody gets the extra hook and ladder and that type of thing. MCCONNELL: That's what we're doing in cooperation with the local fire and law enforcement and the variety of agencies that are involved. But studying those districts, saving the priorities and trying to see that there's, you know, when you're training and exercise. PLAUGHER: Yes, we have been pretty much accustomed to using teams made up of members from various agencies. I know in our particular case, when we can get up our response team, we actually brought fire, police and emergency medical technicians together as a team from all of the Washington metropolitan area and suburban jurisdictions to create one team, so that we we didn't in fact create, you know, six or eight teams in D.C. So I think that there's some sound foundation to say that that's a very critical approach. PLAUGHER: So that we don't not have enough to go around, so we can have the size and resources necessary. But I also think that you're absolutely right, this is something that we do every day, which we try every day. We don't go to terrorist incidents, thank God, every day. But to answer your question about why they all want armored cars, the school situation in Colorado pointed out the fact that in every community, at every high school, you have a need for some sort of armored car, because they actually seized the fire pumper to allow a barrier for protection for their law enforcement to make access back to that school. And I know that that usually upsets the fire chiefs in the United States. That's not a custom that we want police departments to get into. But again, back to your original question, I think it is critical that we make the most of our resources and look forward to a national strategy of which critical components of a national strategy would be the approaches on how not to do (inaudible). SIMANK: Mr. Chairman, if I might address that? LATOURETTE: Sure, Ms. Simank. SIMANK: In Oklahoma City, we do have mutual aid agreements in place, and I think that many large cities do. But I also, from the National League of Cities perspective and my national public safety and high crime prevention policy committee which is made up of a little over 30 mayor and council members from all over this nation, from large cities to small cities, we have discussed this issue. And we support regional training and planning and efforts to not duplicate.

LATOURETTE: And I would say that the model that Mr. Costello and I are probably most familiar with at this time, transportation guidelines (inaudible) metropolitan planning organization takes a regional approach to transportation, takes a regional approach to from our standards (ph), and that seems to make sense to me. Mr. Decker, is there anything that you wanted to add to that question? DECKER: I have no comment, sir. LATOURETTE: OK, thank you very much. Mr. Costello? COSTELLO: Mr. Chairman, I really have no further questions. I think the testimony of the witnesses, they have answered some of the questions that I had. I do want to say that from my background, coming from local government as the chairman of the county board of the largest county in my district for eight years before I came to Congress, I realize the importance of making certain that local government is involved in whatever plan that we put together. We obviously have made progress -- the president's announcement in the last few days is a step in the right direction. I would only ask that you as experts in your field would convey both to our committee and to the vice president's office, number one, I would ask that if you have not had an opportunity to thoroughly go through H.R. 525, to do so and to get your recommendations to us as to how you believe that we can improve on that legislation. And number two is to make the points that you have made here today and any additional points in writing to the vice president, so when in fact the group is put together to implement policy that makes certain that not only local government is involved but all of your concerns are considered by the administration. I thank you for being here today. LATOURETTE: I would like before you go, Mr. Decker, I just wanted to ask you one question that was on my mind. We talked to the other panels a little bit about it, based upon your experience with energy (inaudible) and (inaudible) sort of look to them and not work together, your understanding of the proposal. We understand that the president has an issue (inaudible). Certainly, the framework (inaudible), I'd just be interested if you could for the record indicate to us your thoughts on this National Office of Preparedness that they're proposing to place within FEMA. How successful do you think they're going to be and (inaudible) into one place. And the second part of that question would be, how important is it that the vice president's office be sort of heading it up? DECKER: Sir, I'd be glad to address two parts of your question. First, in the location of this focal point within the government, I think H.R. 525 has got a good recommendation, where the president's council within the Executive Office of the President looks across all the departments and agencies in a way that perhaps the Office of National Preparedness that would be in FEMA may not have that ability. The proximity to the president, to the vice president for key decisions is essential when you talk about inter-agency issues that deal with plans and implementation, budget issues and so on. (AUDIO GAP) (UNKNOWN): We believe that the accountability, and accountability not just to the executive branch, but to the Congress which relates to a people is essential when you put an individual in such a critical position. I made a point earlier of our colleagues who are here, in particular Mr. Gilchrest, the primary sponsor of the legislation. I asked him if he felt that our subcommittee should have oversight,

and if, in fact, H.R. 525 clearly spelled that out. And I assume at this point that it doesn't clearly lay the oversight of this committee or either give us responsibility. I wasn't talking about jurisdiction, but I was talking about having the administration accountable to a committee of the Congress. I assume you would agree with that. DECKER: So with that, we'll look closely at that provision. (UNKNOWN): But you would agree that the administration should not be accountable to the administration, they should be accountable to the people's elected representatives? DECKER: I believe there's two types of accountability, that clearly one is much more independent than the other. (UNKNOWN): Thank you. LATOURETTE: I thank you all for your excellent testimony here today. And the last piece of business is, Mr. Costello, I would ask unanimous consent on getting Mr. McConnell and Mr. Chambliss to submit for the purchasing director the guide for all hazard and emergency operations planning from the FEMA. COSTELLO: Without objection. LATOURETTE: Thank you. So ordered. Thank you all for coming. This hearing's adjourned.