[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LEVERAGING MUTUAL AID FOR EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY RESPONSE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY
COMMUNICATIONS, PREPAREDNESS,
AND RESPONSE
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 15, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-87
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi, Chairman
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California, PETER T. KING, New York
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts LAMAR SMITH, Texas
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
JANE HARMAN, California MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon TOM DAVIS, Virginia
NITA M. LOWEY, New York DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
Columbia BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana
ZOE LOFGREN, California DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
Islands GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas DAVID DAVIS, Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
AL GREEN, Texas
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
VACANCY
Jessica Herra-Flanigan, Staff Director & General Counsel
Rosaline Cohen, Chief Counsel
Michael Twinchek, Chief Clerk
Robert O'Connor, Minority Staff Director
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, PREPAREDNESS, AND RESPONSE
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas, Chairman
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
NITA M. LOWEY, New York MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana
Columbia DAVID DAVIS, Tennessee
DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin PETER T. KING, New York (Ex
Islands Officio)
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex
Officio)
Craig Sharman, Director
Nichole Francis, Counsel
Brian Turbyfill, Clerk
Heather Hogg, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Henry Cuellar, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Texas, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Emergency
Communications, Preparedness, and Response..................... 1
The Honorable Charles W. Dent, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Pennsylvania, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response........... 2
Witnesses
Mr. Marko Bourne, Director of Policy and Program Analysis,
Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 17
Mr. Jim McPartlon, President, American Ambulance Association:
Oral Statement................................................. 35
Prepared Statement............................................. 37
Mr. Kenneth Murphy, President, National Emergency Management
Association, Director of the Oregon Office of Emergency
Management:
Oral Statement................................................. 19
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Major Michael Ronczkowski, Homeland Security Bureau, Miami-Dade
Police Department:
Oral Statement................................................. 30
Prepared Statement............................................. 33
Chief Steven P. Westermann, President, International Association
of Fire Chiefs:
Oral Statement................................................. 25
Prepared Statement............................................. 27
For the Record
Sheriff Leroy D. Baca, Los Angeles County:
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Mr. Richard L. Cashdollar, Senior Advisor, Major Cities (Police)
Chiefs:
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
Appendix
Additional Questions and Responses:
Responses from Mr. Marko Bourne................................ 47
Responses from Mr. Jim McPartlon............................... 52
Reaponses from Mr. Kenneth Murphy.............................. 53
Responses from Major Michael Ronczkowski....................... 57
Responses from Chief Steven P. Westermann...................... 61
LEVERAGING MUTUAL AID FOR EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY RESPONSE
----------
Thursday, November 15, 2007
U.s. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and
Response,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Henry Cuellar
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Cuellar, Etheridge and Dent.
Mr. Cuellar. All right. This meeting is now called to
order. The subcommittee will come to order.
First of all, I want to thank all the witnesses for being
here. And I apologize, as you can see, we are toward the end of
the session, so it is going to be one of those interesting
hearings as we try to go in and do some votes. But I think
probably what we will do is we will do the opening statements,
and then we will probably have to depart as we go to do the
votes, and then we will come back again.
So I want to thank all of you all as we examine the
effectiveness of the mutual aid system which we have in place
across the country. If our Nation is going to truly be
resilient to the effects of an act of terrorism or natural
disaster, we need to have a robust system in place whereby an
effective community can call on resources from surrounding
jurisdictions and States to respond to that particular
emergency. Additionally, we need to know that when a call goes
out for help, the resources come quickly, the right people and
the right equipment show up, the personnel is trained, and the
assistant community at stake will get paid back in a timely
manner.
With this hearing we hope to examine how mutual aid works
during an emergency and how it is managed both in an intrastate
and an interstate level. This includes examining the
effectiveness of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact,
or EMAC, or how it can be improved. As you know, EMAC is an
interstate mutual aid compact that provides a legal system by
which States affected by this type of disaster may request
emergency assistance from other States. The compact is
administered by the National Emergency Management Association,
who we are glad to have here today to testify. The compact was
extensively utilized in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and in
the recent California wildfires. I would be interested in
hearing about the improvements made to the system since Katrina
and how they played out during the wildfires.
This committee is very interested in the issue of mutual
aid and in credentialing also. In fact, as part of the 9/11
Commission bill we passed earlier this year, we require that
within 1 year of enactment, the credentialing and the
resourcing-typing standards under development by FEMA be
finalized and provided to every Federal agency with
responsibilities under the National Response Framework as well
as State, local and tribal governments. We also mandated that
all Federal agencies implement credentialing and resource
typing standards within 6 months of receiving the standards
from FEMA. I look forward to hearing from FEMA on the progress
they are making on implementing this requirement and the steps
that they are taking to ensure that our Nation's mutual aid
system works.
Finally, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses from
the fire, EMS and law enforcement communities on how they fit
in the system. I would also be interested to hear how they feel
we can make progress on the credentialing of first responders
so that incident commanders can accurately verify the identity
and qualifications of the emergency personnel responding to an
incident.
In closing, let me say that I totally believe that when it
comes to mutual aid and credentialing, FEMA and our State and
local emergency personnel are making progress; however, I think
we still have a long way to go to be ready to respond to the
next disaster.
Mr. Cuellar. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of
the subcommittee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Dent for
an opening statement.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, mutual aid agreements, such as the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact, or EMAC, form the pillar of our
emergency management system. Through a series of agreements and
a network administered by the National Emergency Management
Association, it provides State and local governments with a
variety of emergency response capabilities to fill gaps or
shortfalls in their own capabilities.
EMAC was used to help respond to the terrorist attacks of
September 11, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and most
recently, the wildfires in California. In each of these
incidents, unaffected States were able to offer assistance,
including the provision of emergency management personnel, law
enforcement officers, firefighters, fire engines, search-and-
rescue teams, communications equipment, ambulances, and public
health personnel, among other things.
Today's hearing offers an opportunity to discuss the
critical support EMAC and other mutual aid agreements provide
in responding to these emergencies. It also provides an
opportunity to discuss how we can further support these
agreements and improve their efficiency and effectiveness.
I am pleased to have with us today a distinguished group of
experts to discuss this important issue, including
representatives from FEMA and the National Emergency Management
Agency, as well as individuals representing the fire services,
law enforcement community, and emergency medical service
providers. Each of the witnesses is working hard to support
mutual aid and to improve the sharing of critical resources in
times of need.
And, as you may be aware, this hearing was originally
scheduled to occur last week at which time a representative
from the Major City Chiefs, Richard Cashdollar, was scheduled
to testify. Unfortunately Mr. Cashdollar had a scheduling
conflict and was unable to be with us today, but he did,
however, submit a written testimony, and I would like to ask
unanimous consent that it be included in the record.
Mr. Cuellar. So ordered. Without objection, so ordered.
[The statement of Mr. Cashdollar follows:]
For the Record
Prepared Statement of Richard L. Cashdollar, Senior Advisor, Major
Cities (Police) Chiefs
Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent, members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to discuss the issues and opportunities
surrounding the use of mutual aid in response to all-hazard disasters
in the United States.
My name is Richard Cashdollar. I am a consultant associated with
Frazier Group LLC, a nationwide firm specializing in law enforcement
and homeland security issues. I also serve as a volunteer Advisor for
the Major Cities (Police) Chiefs Association (MCC). MCC membership is
comprised of the Chiefs of the 63 largest police departments in the
United States and Canada. Membership in MCC is limited to Chiefs who
serve cities with a core population greater than 500,000, and who have
police departments with more than 1,000 sworn officers. I appear before
you today in my capacity as Senior Advisor to MCC.
I have been a public servant for two careers, serving as a
commissioned officer in the United States Coast Guard for twenty-six
years, and as Executive Director of Public Safety for the City of
Mobile, Alabama, for nearly twelve years. During my Coast Guard career
I was heavily involved in the drug wars in the Caribbean, serving not
only operational interdiction assignments, but also involved in
interagency law enforcement initiatives, and in tactical drug
intelligence fusion operations as well. I also served tours of duty
where I was seconded by the Coast Guard to the Justice Department, the
State Department, the Office of the Vice President, and the Executive
Office of the President. During my second career as Executive Director
of Public Safety for the City of Mobile I was responsible for all
public safety programs in the City, managing an annual budget of nearly
$70M, supervising two professional Chiefs and the nearly 1,200
personnel in the Police Department, the Fire Department, and Municipal
Court. I also served as the City's representative to the Mobile County
Emergency Management Agency's Governing Board, and completed three two-
year terms as Chairmen of the Board.
As we collectively strive to better prepare our country to Prevent,
Protect, Respond to, and Recover from all-hazard disasters there can
hardly be a more important topic than mutual aid. The Federal
Government simply doesn't own sufficient equipment to provide the
necessary levels of support required following a major disaster. Nor
does it have the sheer numbers of first responders who are trained to,
and who routinely operate in, a civilian urban environment. Only
States, Municipalities, and Tribal entities own these diverse resources
in sufficient quantities to meet our country's needs as outlined in the
National Strategy.
The record of our collective efforts to better prepare our nation
for flexible, resilient, and coordinated actions across the scope of
the four primary mission areas is well documented, and it is not my
purpose here today to review those activities. We have come a long way
since 9/11--and even from Katrina, as news coverage of the terrible
Southern California wildfires documented. However, we still have a long
way to go in this terribly complicated--and expensive--environment. In
my brief time before you today I would like to concentrate on two
mutual aid initiatives near and dear to the hearts of the law
enforcement community. One project has just been completed, and the
other is just beginning. I'm happy to leave the broader aspects of
mutual aid program management to my colleagues from FEMA and from EMAC,
also represented on this panel. I would note that I have personally
worked closely with both of these organizations, and these
representatives, over the past year. They have proven themselves both
organizationally and personally to be reliable and valuable allies, and
we in MCC have been pleased with our partnerships with them.
Now on to the projects.
Hurricane Katrina was law enforcement's first true large-scale
involvement with the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).
Results were very mixed. While a number of law enforcement agencies
successfully deployed both State and local officers to the stricken
area, many others who wanted to help were very frustrated with the
system. To be brutally honest, a lot of this frustration was the fault
of involved law enforcement agencies that were either totally unaware
of EMAC, or attempted to use the system in ways that it was never
designed to support. The confusion and failed communications that
resulted caused many law enforcement agencies that were ready, willing,
and anxious to send officers to the devastated area to instead stay
home. Many of the Katrina after-action analyses echoed the same theme--
law enforcement, and EMAC itself--could do better in the future. As a
direct result of this review process, EMAC took several necessary steps
to improve. First was to establish a ``user group'' of key
stakeholders, called the EMAC Advisory Group, to insure that EMAC would
be more directly connected to its major customers in the future. One of
the original members of this Advisory Group was MCC, and I have been
honored to represent the Chiefs in this important forum since its
establishment. The second was for EMAC to embark on a major education
program aimed at insuring that key first responder organizations and
personnel critical to future responses would be far better trained and
aware of EMAC policy and procedures, so that future deployments could
proceed on a quicker and smoother pace than during Katrina. As far as
the education piece is concerned, I am happy to report that, at least
for MCC and its members, the education program is proceeding well, and
that the Chiefs won't encounter many of the difficulties and
frustrations faced several years ago.
One of the key components of the EMAC system is a document that
they call the ``REQ-A''. It is, in essence, a framework, or
``boilerplate'' contract document that requesting States, and States
interested in providing mutual aid support, can use as a starting point
to detail the precise needs of the requesting State, and the terms and
conditions that a potential providing State require to be met prior to
loaning out valuable resources to another governmental entity. The
``REQ-A'' is a necessary and valuable document, but because it was
crafted to be very generic so that it could be molded into finished
contracts covering a broad spectrum of needs, it leaves out a lot of
detail that is necessary to manage complex deployments, and to make
them work smoothly and to the satisfaction of all parties. Katrina
after-actions showed time and time again that many State-to-State
contracts were hurriedly negotiated, resulting in requesting States
getting assets that were not what they thought they would receive, and
deployed resources finding out after arrival that the mission they
thought they were going to conduct was in fact very different than
local on-scene circumstances required. Key components of credentialing,
liability protections, use of force doctrine, transference of
warrantless arrest powers, and many other critical issues simply hadn't
been thoroughly addressed. The end result was substantial delays in
getting deployed personnel out in the field doing good, many mismatches
of resources and missions, and lots of instances where critical
jurisdictional issues were insufficiently addressed, causing
unnecessary risk exposure to both the receiving and to the providing
States. Clearly, system improvements were necessary.
Early discussions within the new EMAC Advisory Group focused on
thisissue, and MCC volunteered to start a project that would develop a
``Law Enforcement Checklist'' that would serve as a companion document
to the ``REQ-A'', and a guide to those who were negotiating the ``REQ-
A'' contracts for deployment of local law enforcement officers in the
future. This checklist would detail all of the ``hot button'' issues
that police chiefs and sheriffs--and the local political leadership
that they either work with or answer to--would want addressed prior to
sending their personnel across State lines to work in difficult and
dangerous circumstances for other governmental entities, and within
legal and jurisdictional systems that could be very different from
their own. What started out as a seemingly simple task quickly became
very complex, as the diversity of legal systems in the United States
was recognized. Literally, no two states are the same, and many are
very different. However, I am happy to report that all parties involved
in this project--EMAC and Law Enforcement--recognized the potential
value of the checklist, and approached the challenges from a
perspective of ``how can we work through this'' as opposed to ``it
can't be done''. The end result was that at the National Association of
Emergency Managers (NEMA--the national program manager for the EMAC
system) annual conference in Oklahoma City in early October the final
touches were put on the checklist, which has now been adopted by EMAC,
Major Cities Chiefs, and Major County Sheriffs. Efforts are currently
ongoing to gain the endorsement of other national law enforcement
organizations as well. EMAC has been so pleased with the results of
this project that they plan on using the law enforcement checklist as a
``best practice'', and to urge other first responder disciplines to
produce similar checklists tailored to their own specific professional
needs. What started as a small law enforcement project is now morphing
into a project that will, over the course of the next year or so,
produce a stronger EMAC system as a whole.
We view this as a wonderful example that all progress doesn't
require a new Federal program, or a new Federal or State appropriation.
Much can still be accomplished when people put aside organizational
turf, solve commonly shared problems--and do it with existing
resources. A copy of the completed Law Enforcement Checklist is
attached to my testimony for your further review.
The second project that I would like to briefly discuss is just
beginning. As we looked at mutual aid performance during Katrina, we
realized that a piece of the necessary national response capability was
missing. Medical services had the Disaster Medical Assistance Team
(DMAT) program. Fire/Rescue had the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR)
program to provide essential rescue services. During Katrina both
needed--and requested--security for first responder personnel, critical
equipment, and invaluable consumable supplies and stores of medications
placed at risk in the tumultuous environment that existed for some time
after landfall. Yet the law enforcement resources of the nation had no
similar ``DMAT'' or ``USAR''-like program that could quickly and
efficiently move cadres at self-supporting sworn officers into the
impacted areas to help restore civil order, and to protect others also
providing life-saving services.
Out of these discussions emerged the concept of Law Enforcement
Rapid Response Teams (LERRTs), loosely patterned after the two model
programs mentioned earlier. The vision is to develop as many as ten of
these LERRTs nationwide, possibly one (or more) in each of the ten FEMA
regions, each capable of deploying up to five hundred specially trained
law enforcement officers--fully self-supported--for a two-week period.
These teams would be flexible and scalable--able to field modules of
personnel up to the maximum in the unit, and to have a ``menu'' of
specialty services also available. Each LERRT could then be assembled
to meet the specific requirements of the requesting state, and that
subsequent deployments could see relieving LERRTs structured
differently as needs within the impacted area evolve. Each LERRT would
be formed around a ``center of gravity'' agency--a major city police
department or a major county sheriff's office. We feel that only these
larger agencies have the depth of personnel to appropriately administer
this program, insuring that all necessary training and logistical
support is provided when the need to deploy emerges. While administered
by a large agency, the LERRT itself would be comprised of law
enforcement officers from many regional agencies. Depending on their
size, some law enforcement organizations could provide a squad of five
officers and a supervisor, while larger ones could provide larger
contingents. Assembled together, and receiving specialized training,
these components could perform effectively as a cohesive unit. By
assembling the LERRT from many contributors, we also insure that no one
community's force is depleted to the point where local services
degrade.
In many ways the LERRT Program would resemble the DMAT and USAR
models--local personnel ``married'' to equipment and training funds
provided by the federal government. As with these models, the truly
expensive part--specially trained and experienced personnel--would be
provided by literally hundreds of communities nationwide. The cost to
train and equip would be only a small percentage of overall costs.
Major Cities Chiefs and Major County Sheriffs have already undertaken a
comprehensive development program to further refine this promising
concept. The project is being developed through the efforts of two
committees--one headed by Sheriff Lee Baca from Los Angeles County, and
one headed by Director Bobby Parker from Metro-Dade Police Department
in Miami, Florida.
While similar in many ways to DMAT and USAR, there will be
significant differences as well. Unlike DMAT and USAR which become
``Federal'' resources when activated, LERRT would remain a State or
local entity in order to preserve their non-federal ``peace officer''
status as they move across state lines, as their primary function will
be to enforce local and state laws in the impacted areas. We envision
EMAC as the perfect vehicle for this interstate movement of law
enforcement units--and EMAC agrees.
Congress has already shown an interest in this concept. Language
contained in the recently enacted H.R.1, The 9/11 Commission Act of
2007, directs the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to
establish in the DHS Policy Directorate an Office for State and Local
Law Enforcement, which will be headed by an Assistant Secretary for
State and Local Law Enforcement. The language of the Act continues by
stating that the new Office shall ``conduct, jointly with the
Administrator, a study to determine the efficacy and feasibility of
establishing specialized law enforcement deployment teams to assist
State, local, and tribal governments in responding to natural
disasters, acts of terrorism, or other man-made disasters and report on
the results of that study to the appropriate committees of Congress.''
MCC and MCS hope to assist the new Assistant Secretary with our
preliminary work as soon at that individual assumes this important
position.
In closing, MCC feels that these two initiatives will serve the
American people well, and that our relationships with DHS, FEMA, and
EMAC are open, friendly, and productive. As with all friendships
though--we don't always agree on everything. Two quick examples:
Mutual Aid agreements and systems are generally
reactive in nature. Something bad has to happen before they are
triggered. As law enforcement in general becomes more and more
involved with mutual aid on a national scale, our natural
tendencies to want to PREVENT--before we have to RESPOND--take
over. A thoughtful look at mutual aid systems with the goal of
making them friendlier to preventative deployments would be
well received by the law enforcement community, and good for
our country.
MCC has favorably reviewed the new draft National
Response Framework. We think it is a considerable improvement
over the ``Generation One'' document that it will replace. It
is cleaner, more focused, and more clearly shows local and
tribal officials that don't work within the terribly complex
tiered national system on a daily basis what their
responsibilities are, and how they fit into the bigger picture.
The format of a base document, many more detailed annexes, and
a web-based resource center permits users to seek as much
detail as they need to do their jobs. We realize that this
position puts us slightly at odds with our emergency management
colleagues, but we all have different needs and differing
perspectives on these complex issues and documents. That being
said, we do have some difficulties with the draft NRF. In spite
of considerable improvement, it is still too ``top-down'' and
too ``Federal centric'' in its approach. And--as important as
we all agree that mutual aid is to our overall national
readiness and response postures--the NRF doesn't have a single
annex dealing with mutual aid.
On behalf of Chief Darrel Stephens of the Charlotte-Mecklenberg
Police Department, President of Major Cities Chiefs, I want to thank
you for allowing MCC to submit its comments on the important work that
you do. We look forward to working with the Subcommittee on strategies
to address the issues that we have raised here today.
Attachment: EMAC Law Enforcement Checklist
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE COMPACT
(Final Approved Version 10/10/2007)
Law Enforcement Resource Request Checklist
When an EMAC request is made for law enforcement resources, this
checklist can be used by Requesting States, Assisting States or EMAC A-
Teams in creating a precise mission request. Use of this checklist is
not required but it does provide a comprehensive (but not all-
inclusive) list of items relative to the deployment of law enforcement
resources. These items can also be included in a REQ-A for the
deployment of law enforcement resources.
1. EMAC allows officers to carry weapons in the performance of
their law enforcement duties within the requesting jurisdiction
or State. Note: the Law Enforcement Safety Act of 2004 allows
police officers to carry weapons throughout the United States
except in certain federal facilities or where prohibited by
certain State laws. Any restrictions on carrying weapons in the
Requesting State should be discussed prior to finalizing a REQ-
A or prior to placing officers of the Assisting State into
duty.
2. Officers may bring and use their regular equipment,
including service weapons, Tasers, baton, pepper spray and
other less-than-lethal weapons, while deployed to the
Requesting State or jurisdiction unless the Requesting State or
jurisdiction specifically prohibits use of a particular piece
of equipment or weapon. Any restrictions on the use of
equipment, weapons or less-than-lethal weapons in the
Requesting State or jurisdiction should be discussed prior to
finalizing a REQ-A or prior to placing officers of the
Assisting State into duty.
3. Officers may bring and use their radios for use while
deployed to the Requesting State or jurisdiction, provided any
electronic equipment will not interfere with equipment being
operated by the Requesting State or jurisdiction.
4. Responding officers will wear the official uniform
components and badging prescribed by their department to ensure
proper identification as a law enforcement officer.
5. EMAC Article IV provides that responding officers will have
the authority to detain or arrest without a warrant for all
Requesting State criminal offenses occurring within their
presence or view and in order to maintain and establish public
peace, health or safety in the Requesting State or
jurisdiction.
6. EMAC Article IV provides that responding officers will have
``the same powers (except that of arrest unless specifically
authorized by the receiving state), duties, rights, and
privileges as are afforded forces of the state in which they
are performing emergency services.'' The REQ-A should include a
recitation of this provision. Wherever legally permissible,
Requesting States and jurisdictions should have procedures in
place to have responding officers sworn in by the Requesting
State or jurisdiction upon arrival, granting them the same
authority, rights and immunities applicable to officers of the
Requesting State or jurisdiction whether established under
local, state or federal law
7. Requesting States and jurisdictions should develop, prior to
a disaster, a concise summary of the state's or jurisdiction's
use of force procedures that can be provided to responding
officers prior to placing them into duty. Assisting State or
jurisdiction officers will have authority to use force,
including deadly force where necessary and appropriate under
the circumstances in the exercise of their law enforcement
authority and duties. No officer has the duty nor is required
to retreat prior to the use of deadly force. The authority to
use deadly force will be limited to situations where the
officers are protecting themselves or a third person from
serious bodily harm or death.
8. Responding State and jurisdiction officers shall be trained
to the minimum standards required by their Assisting States for
full-time career law enforcement officers, such as Police
Officers Standards and Training (POST) or equivalent
certification.
9. Officers will have full and regular standing as police
officers with their departments and not be in a probationary,
reserve, temporary or other lesser status with their
departments. Since terminology varies from State to State, at a
minimum, all responding officers will have graduated from an
accredited police academy meeting the Assisting State's
training standards for full-time career law enforcement
officers and will have served a minimum of two years, post-
academy, as a full-time law enforcement officer. If responding
officers do not meet these level of training or experience, it
should be discussed and noted in the REQ-A.
10.Requesting States and jurisdictions should develop, prior to
a disaster, a procedure that can be provided to responding
officers prior to placing them into duty regarding the safe and
efficient transportation of individuals arrested to facilities
designated by the Requesting State or jurisdiction. The
Requesting State or jurisdiction will provide adequate
detention facilities for this purpose.
11.Responding officers will use basic forms of the Requesting
State or jurisdiction. Prior to deployment or prior to
placement into duty, officers of the Requesting State or
jurisdiction will acquaint responding officers with the
appropriate basic forms. Completed basic forms will be
maintained by the Requesting State or jurisdiction and
preserved pursuant to that state's or jurisdiction's regular
procedures.
12.Responding officers will collect and preserve evidence in
the manner prescribed by the officers of the Requesting State
or jurisdiction.
13.Both Requesting States and jurisdictions and Assisting
States and jurisdictions should be aware that there may be
additional costs after deployment related to the prosecution
and trial of individuals arrested during the deployment.
Assisting State or jurisdiction officers may be required to
testify and Requesting States and jurisdictions should be
prepared to discuss related issues at that time.
For purposes of EMAC missions, all jurisdictions should be aware of
the following Articles.
Pursuant to Article IX, any party state rendering aid
in another state pursuant to this compact shall be reimbursed
by the party state receiving such aid for any loss or damage to
or expense incurred in the operation of any equipment and the
provision of any service in answering a request for aid and for
the costs incurred in connection with such requests; provided
that any aiding party state may assume in whole or in part such
loss, damage, expenses, or other cost, or may loan such
equipment or donate such services to the receiving party state
without charge or cost; and provided further, that any two or
more party states may enter into supplementary agreements
establishing a different allocation of costs among those
states. Article VIII expenses shall not be reimbursable under
this provision.
Pursuant to Article IV, emergency forces will continue
under the command and control of their regular leaders, but
organizational units will come under the operational control of
the emergency services authorities of the state receiving
assistance.
Pursuant to Article VIII, each party state shall
provide for the payment of compensation and death benefits to
injured members of the emergency forces of that state and
representatives of deceased members of such forces in case such
members sustain injuries or are killed while rendering aid
pursuant to this compact, in the same manner and on the same
terms as if the injury or death were sustained within their own
state.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, I would like to thank the witnesses for being here
today and for their commitment to strengthening the
coordination of response efforts nationwide.
At this time I would like to yield back to you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Dent.
Mr. Cuellar. Other members of the subcommittee are reminded
under committee rules opening statements may be submitted for
the record.
Mr. Cuellar. In addition, without objection, I would also
like to submit a statement from Sheriff Lee Baca of Los Angeles
County regarding the issues we are discussing here today.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
For the Record
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
.epsPrepared Statement of Leroy D. Baca, Sheriff
Introduction
The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department provides law enforcement
and emergency services for the largest metropolitan area in the United
States. As Sheriff, I serve as the coordinator for the subject of your
hearing, ``Leveraging Mutual Aid for Effective Emergency Response''.
The devastating wildfires that recently swept through Southern
California put to the test our policies and procedures for mutual aid.
I am pleased to report to the Committee that our mutual aid plans were
executed without incident. Hundreds of police officers were deployed
multiple agencies to evacuate and protect neighborhoods and support
fire operations. But California has faced these challenges before, our
experience has matured over decades of implementing an effective mutual
aid plan.
Background--Mutual Aid in California and Los Angeles
The Los Angeles County Operational Area spans more than 4,000
square miles and is home to over 10 million residents. It is comprised
of 88 contiguous cities, and with its airports, seaports, commercial,
tourism, entertainment industries, and transportation system, it is the
most complex urban region in the Nation. In addition, the Los Angeles
County Sheriffs Department provides law enforcement services to 40
cities and unincorporated areas, and the County Fire Department
protects 58 cities and county areas. There are also 45 municipal police
departments, 30 fire departments and three public health organizations
within the Operational Area.
According to California state law, the County Government provides
emergency management and mutual aid coordination for all disciplines,
and is the gateway for state and federal resources for all entities
within the Operational Area.
Mutual aid response within California is based on defined
governmental levels that delineate cities (or other similar local
jurisdictions), operational areas (counties), mutual aid regions, and
the state. To facilitate coordination of mutual aid, the state is
geographically divided into mutual aid regions. Each region is
comprised of multiple operational areas. The operational area is a
composite of its political subdivisions, i.e., municipalities, special
districts, and county agencies. All requests for mutual aid and
additional resources must progress local-to-county-to-state and region
\1\-to-state and then federal. The California State Governor's Office
of Emergency Services (OES) coordinates these requests. In a Los
Angeles emergency, or one in which multiple jurisdictions are affected,
the county sheriff functions as the director of emergency operations
for the entire operational area.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ OES Region I is comprised of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
The State of California has a structured organization for disaster
management and response known as the Standardized Emergency Management
System (SEMS), it was the foundation for the development of the
National Incident Management Systems (NIMS). It is described as
follows:
... The Standardized Emergency Management System is required by
Government Code Sec. 8607 (a) for managing response to multi-
agency and multi-jurisdiction emergencies in California. SEMS
consists organizational levels which are activated as
necessary: field response, local government, operational area,
region, and State. SEMS incorporates the use of the Incident
Command System (ICS) the Master Mutual Aid Agreement, existing
discipline mutual aid, the operational area concept, and multi-
agency or inter-agency coordination. SEMS helps all elements of
California's emergency management organization into a single
integrated system. Its use is required for State response
agencies. Local government agencies must use SEMS to be
eligible for State funding of certain response related
personnel costs resulting from a disaster.
Based upon proven programs, our blueprint for has been tested by
earthquakes, fires and hurricanes. The recent firestorms in Southern
California demonstrated that disasters are not limited by geographic
boundaries and that mutual aid must be coordinated regionally. Although
the actual fires were contained within a few jurisdictions, virtually
all of the municipalities in the Los Angeles Operational Area were
affected by these massive fires, and all successfully participated in
the response. Within Angeles County, the recent caused minimum property
damage and no lives were lost. This is a testament to the cooperation
fostered by mutual aid agreements in the region.
However, a catastrophic event on the scale of Katrina may overwhelm
the capabilities and resources of large and small jurisdictions alike.
During such a crisis, a comprehensive national law enforcement mutual
aid system is required to restore order and ensure public safety.
Lessons Learned: Hurricane Katrina
Law enforcement agencies in the path of Katrina were completely
overwhelmed. In Mississippi and Louisiana, the storm caused massive
damage to police and sheriffs' cars and stations, emergency response
vehicles, and emergency operations centers. Police departments in the
storm's path lost their dispatch and communication functions,
administrative capabilities, and jails to confine arrested suspects.
Additional burdens were then imposed on law enforcement, such as search
and rescue, which took priority over normal police duties.
It was an extraordinary and unprecedented breakdown in emergency
management. Federal law enforcement personnel and the National Guard
arrived, and state and local law teams from around the country began to
self-dispatch. Although these actions clearly were meant to help, the
lack of a coordinated response often caused further chaos and and had
the potential to emergency workers into storm victims as well.
For disaster recovery and medical assistance, communities may
receive emergency assistance from programs supported by the Federal
government. Urban Search Rescue has, since 1989, been dispatching elite
search-and-rescue teams to conduct operations in everything from
collapsed buildings to catastrophic earthquakes. Disaster Medical
Assistance Teams provide emergency medical services. These groups of
professional and para-professional personnel provide life-saving
assistance during a disaster. In the wake of Katrina, the question has
been asked: Why doesn't law enforcement have rapid response teams like
and DMAT to provide near-immediate support during a catastrophic event,
regardless of the cause?
This question becomes even more critical when one examines what set
Hurricane Katrina apart from events like the terrorist attacks of
September 11 or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City.
In New York, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, the public
emergency management infrastructure remained intact. Incoming support
teams took their missions from on-site incident management personnel,
whose knowledge of the area, the incident, and what was required to
address it came from their experience on the ground. There was a
structure and a system still in place to assess damage and direct the
efforts of incoming support teams.
What made Katrina different was that the public safety and
emergency management systems were destroyed. This devastating
destruction underscores the need for large and independent completely
self sufficient and able to provide a broad range of public safety
functions. Responding to a domestic disaster in an all-hazards approach
is a key focus of local, State and Federal organizations. Hurricane
Katrina highlighted the fact that a significant or catastrophic
incident can quickly overwhelm the ability of local jurisdictions to
carry out basic public safety functions. In extreme cases, entire
regions can be left without any law enforcement services.
Law Enforcement Deployment Teams
In the wake of law enforcement leaders determined that a national
plan was required to ensure that this breakdown would never happen
again. The Major Cities Chiefs Association represents the 56 largest
Police and Sheriffs Departments in the Nation. At our recent annual
meeting in New Orleans, my colleagues and I adopted a national plan for
Law Enforcement Deployment Teams now under review at the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS). It is my pleasure to lead this committee
focused on developing a national law enforcement mutual aid plan.
The processes and protocols for dispatching LEDTs may be modeled
after the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). These state-
to-state compacts, which exist under the non-profit National Emergency
Management Association (NEMA), cover liability, the honoring of law
enforcement credentials fi-om state to state, and reimbursement.
However, there is a need to streamline existing EMAC procedures to
enable the rapid deployment of LEDTs.
Following the interaction between the nation's largest law
enforcement agencies and our federal partners, including the DHS,
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department has taken the
lead in developing a regional team as a pilot for this project. The of
the Los Angeles LEDT may vary slightly other LEDTs based on local needs
and capabilities. Departments around the country are being surveyed to
identify specialized capabilities that can contribute to the national
LEDT program. The Los Angeles LEDT will include each of the modular
components identified in Figure 1.
In addition to the core capabilities, which include general patrol
and custody teams, the Los Angeles Regional LEDT will also include an
incident command module capable of providing local incident commander
with the support necessary to manage an event. Interoperable
communications along with radio technicians will also be available,
enabling the ability of multiple agencies to seamlessly communicate
with each other. Logistics support will manage the deployment of
resource and also keep track of personnel and equipment for future
reimbursement.
A significant component of the Angeles pilot will include seeking
out partnerships with national chain stores and transportation
companies to facilitate the rapid movement of personnel and resources.
Leveraging these relationships will greatly increase the ability of
LEDTs to deploy quickly and effectively.
Conclusion
The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department will continue to develop
our LEDT pilot and support the development of supporting policies and
procedures. It is through the continued coordination and cooperation
with all of our local, state and Federal partners that a comprehensive
LEDT program can be fully developed to supplement regional and national
law enforcement mutual aid capabilities.
On behalf of the Chiefs and Sheriffs who are committed to this
national effort, I offer our full support for the work of the Committee
and commend you for addressing this urgent need. Please know that law
enforcement agencies across the Nation are grateful for your leadership
and thank you for calling attention to this critical priority.
Mr. Cuellar. At this time we will go ahead and recess as we
go vote. And you all make yourselves at home while we get back.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Cuellar. All right. You are telling it to me and the
record, so keep the record in mind.
Again, I apologize, because, as you know, we are actually
the last minute of voting, and Members are heading off to other
committee hearings also.
Mr. Dent, we will go ahead and get started. He said he was
going to be a few minutes late, so with respect to him, we will
go ahead and get started at this time.
Again, I want to welcome the panel of witnesses that we
have here. Our first witness is Marko Bourne, who is the
Director of Policy and Program Analysis at the Federal
Emergency Management Agency with the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. He has more than 20 years of experience both
in the emergency services and the policy arenas. Welcome.
Our second witness is Mr. Kenneth Murphy. He is the
president of the National Emergency Management Association and
director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. Mr.
Murphy has been with the Oregon office for 8 years and during
his tenure has served as administrator of operations manager,
and deputy director. He has been the director since 2003.
Our third witness is Chief Steve Westermann, who is the
president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
Chief Westermann has been in the fire service since 1972 and
has served as chief of the Department of Central Jackson County
Fire Protection District, Missouri, since 1988. And again,
welcome.
Our fourth witness is Mr. Michael Ronczkowski, who oversees
the Homeland Security Bureau of the Miami/Dade Police
Department. He began his law enforcement career in 1983 and
throughout his career has been serving in various leadership
capacity within the local, county and Federal law enforcement.
Welcome.
Our fifth witness is Mr. Jim McPartlon, who serves as the
president of the American Ambulance Association. He is also the
vice president of the Mohawk Ambulance Service, which is the
largest publicly owned ambulance service in upstate New York.
And we want to go ahead and we make sure that we welcome
all of you, and we are all pleased to have you here today.
Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be
inserted in the record.
I now will ask each witness to summarize his statement for
5 minutes, beginning with Mr. Bourne.
STATEMENT OF MARKO BOURNE, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROGRAM
ANALYSIS, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Bourne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member
Dent, members of the subcommittee. I am Marko Bourne. I serve
as the Policy Director of Program Analysis for FEMA. I
appreciate the opportunity to be here today to talk about some
very important issues that affect our first responders and our
emergency services across the Nation, especially with the
status of mutual aid and credentialing. The committee has my
formal statement, so I will do my best to summarize as
succinctly as I can here.
FEMA is addressing and has been addressing for quite some
time with our State and local partners many aspects of mutual
aid. We have continued to support and recently renewed our
memorandum of understanding and agreement with the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact and NEMA for the support of
State-to-State mutual aid. We have also had available for
several years now, since 2003, model intrastate mutual aid
language that we have made available to State and locals to
address the intrastate mutual aid needs. Some States have
passed interstate agreements; some have not. And certainly that
legislative language has been there for their use and modifying
as necessary. And we have been actively working through our
training and exercises, our programs, our fostering development
of local and regional mutual aid practices.
Most of the mutual aid that exists in this country happens
every single day at a local level, and having spent 23 years as
both a firefighter and EMT and a police officer, mutual aid is
the bread and butter of our everyday activity, especially in
the fire service, where events rapidly can become larger than
our department's capacity and we need to call on help.
We have also been working to create with the International
Association of Fire Chiefs, working through EMAC as well, a
National Fire Service Mutual Aid System that can be utilized in
the future, and we have been providing grant dollars support to
that for the development of those systems.
Today I would also like to specifically outline, however,
how we are working on one major aspect of mutual aid through
the development of common credentialing standards, the
framework for our credentialing and typing programs and how we
intend to move forward. However, I do want to state for the
record, because I know that there is always potential for
misperception and confusion, that FEMA and the Department of
Homeland Security in no way wishes to encroach upon the
responsibilities of State and locals to credential their
personnel. That is their primary responsibility. What we would
rather do is assist them in those efforts. We are not going to
be the ones issuing the credentials to these folks. Their local
police chiefs, their local mayors, their local law enforcement
and fire and EMS personnel are credentialed through the
organizations that they work for. What we would like to do, and
certainly the Congress has given us the authority to do, is to
try to begin to build a standard so that there is some
commonality in the way that we as a Nation approach
credentialing that can support those efforts.
The need for a standard process to enable first responders
to move rapidly to different jurisdictions and to validate the
identity and professional qualifications of responders who
arrive on the scene is a long-standing issue. Credentialing and
typing standards arise from this need, and to ensure that the
incident commander and those in other response leadership roles
know who is present at an incident and what their
qualifications are.
Since the creation of the National Incident Management
System in 2003, programs have been developed to address this
need. Congress, of course, has also recognized that need by
passing the 9/11 implementation bill which allowed FEMA the
authorization language to develop this standard and to continue
our resource typing and mutual aid efforts.
Title IV of the 9/11 Act directs the FEMA Administrator to
set standards for credentialing and typing Federal personnel
who are likely to respond to a natural disaster or an act of
terrorism, and that is an enormous responsibility which
requires us to ensure that whatever approach we take
encompasses all of the attributes that are necessary to balance
the interests of the Federal agencies involved, due processes
and consensus that are the hallmarks of a credible standards
development process.
Now we are in the process now of developing a common
standard, utilizing existing programs that have already been in
place, and leveraging efforts that have been underway not only
within the Federal family, but within the first responder
community through the implementation of the National Incident
Management System. We are also working through these efforts,
and including in the National Response Framework, the National
Infrastructure Protection Plan, our work with NEMA, NFPA, other
emergency management and first responder accrediting programs,
the development of this standards process. These organizations
represent the key stakeholders, and before we move any further
down the standards development road, we need to bring them
together to determine exactly what are the major elements that
that standard needs to have, and we will be doing so over the
next several months.
The standards and programs of all of these plans and
systems and organizations have been vetted and endorsed by a
wide range of disciplines, and they do provide a solid
foundation for our effort.
Now, specifically within our credentialing and typing
programs, we have made progress on technology of credentialing.
There has been a tremendous effort that has taken place to
include our resource typing effort where we have more than 125
to 175 resources typed, and those standards efforts and
resource typing efforts are being handled by the Incident
Management Systems Division at FEMA.
We have also expanded, through the auspices of our National
Capital Region office, a pilot in the National Capital Region
working with all of the affected communities that are part of
the NCR on coming up with a pilot program for a national
credentialing system for NCR first responders, and that effort
is in its early stages and hopes to be fielded in pilot tests
in some exercises in the beginning of 2008 after the first of
the year.
The NCR, of course, faces a lot of challenges, multiple
jurisdictions, multiple authorities, all requiring
clarification. In 2004, both DHS, Department of Defense and the
NCR sought to overcome the challenge by essentially leveraging
a standard that exists now for Federal IDs, FIPS 201, and the
corresponding off-the-shelf, commercially available equipment
in order to support that effort. NCRC is working as the nexus
for that effort in the Capital region, also reaching out to
private-sector and nonprofit partners. This test and national
pilot in the NCR will allow us to test some basic assumptions
about credentialing and resource typing in an actual responder
environment, and allow us to better inform the standards
development process as we move through 2008.
Now, as noted, it is the intent of FEMA and DHS not to
issue identification cards, but that responsibility lying with
the State and local governments, but the FIPS 201 standard
describes what a credential should be in order to provide
identity validation. And we are working on the subsequent
component of this, the aspect that says, this is who I am in
the professional community, and these are my skills, and then
how that information is securely shared and verified at
whatever level of government or at the scene of the event that
it needs to take place.
In strengthening mutual aid, standardized personnel
identification skills verification directly enhances the
capability for multijurisdictional resource sharing and mutual
aid. This credentialing and typing standard will allow the
execution of mutual aid agreements, more effective streamlining
of operations and a reliable method for verifying individuals.
Our program plan is established and is being put into place
now, and I would be happy to share that with the committee,
which allows for a common nonproprietary approach using as much
off-the-shelf capability as possible to assure identity
assurance standards, credentialing and typing standards for
personnel, their skill sets, their qualifications, and the
common process that integrates that information. This standard
will be used, of course, on a limited basis in the NCR and a
national level exercise in February and then again in April.
What we are looking at doing also is building essentially a
system of systems. Certainly the local and State communities
have the vast ownership over the information that they take in
with regards to their first responders. FEMA is not in a good
position, nor would we advocate, that we maintain a national
database of these individuals. However, most jurisdictions have
their own way of tracking their personnel, their
qualifications, their training, their education. What we need
to do is provide a standard so that when that information is
shared, it is done so between those organizations without a
cumbersome process to update a much larger database effort.
The other part of the standard I think also needs to look
at mobile credentialing processes that can be used in large-
scale events to facilitate mutual aid and the provision of
credentials in the field. Certainly when we get into large-
scale events, that becomes an issue.
In conclusion, FEMA is making great strides in this effort.
We are working with our partners and look to work even more
closely with them as we develop the standard over the next
several months. A program plan we have outlined puts us in a
position to meet the objectives of the 9/11 Act and to further
promote mutual aid and multijurisdictional interoperability for
credentialing. This standard, using this common nonproprietary
approach, will have the further benefit of addressing issues of
self-dispatching personnel and scene control down the road.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would like to
thank the committee for their interest in this issue and the
opportunity to testify, and when the time comes, I would be
happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you for your testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Bourne follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marko Bourne
Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent, and Members of the
Subcommittee, I am Marko Bourne and I serve as Director of Policy and
Program Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security's Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). I appreciate the opportunity to
appear today before the Committee to discuss the status of mutual aid,
credentialing and typing of the Nation's first responders.
In my testimony today, I will outline how we are working to develop
a common credentialing standard, the framework of our credentialing and
typing programs, how this relates to strengthening mutual aid, and how
we intend to move forward in addressing this important issue in our
response community. I would also like to make sure that I state for the
record that credentialing first responders is the right of the local
community and that FEMA and the Department in no way wishes this effort
to encroach upon that right, but instead assist them in their efforts
both now and into the future to develop nationwide credentialing
standards. FEMA will not be issuing credentials to state and local
personnel; that will remain a state and local responsibility as it
always has been.
Background
The need for a standard process to enable first responders to move
rapidly to different jurisdictions, and to validate the identity and
professional qualifications of responders who arrive on the scene of an
emergency or disaster, is a long standing issue. Creating a
credentialing and typing standard arises from this need to ensure that
the Incident Commander and those in other response leadership roles
know who is present at an incident site, and their qualifications.
Lessons learned from past disasters have indicated that it is often
difficult for local officials to know who is qualified to do what, and
who may be an immediate asset to the situation among the multitude of
volunteers or entities that arrive. Additionally, examples of people
posing as firefighters, police officers, doctors or rescue specialists
are well documented in every major disaster, and further underscore the
need for further measures to provide the Incident Commander with
greater assurance that those who respond, whether asked or not, can be
verified, validated and utilized.
Since the creation of the National Incident Management System
(NIMS) in 2003 and the development of the NIMS Integration Center, now
the Incident Management Systems Division (IMSD), there have been
programs developed to address this need, using a multi-jurisdictional,
shared approach to develop a common standard available to all response
partners. Congress has also recognized this necessity by passing
legislation to provide authorization for FEMA to develop this standard
and to continue our resource typing and mutual aid efforts. We are
looking to best practices by leveraging existing methodologies, such as
the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 201, which is
approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This
non-proprietary standard, issued in response to Homeland Security
Presidential Directive 12, establishes a common process and technology
for sharing secure personnel identification and achieving
interoperability across multiple jurisdictions.
Developing a Standard
Title IV of the ``Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11
Commission Act of 2007'' (9/11 Act) directs the Administrator of FEMA
to set standards for credentialing and typing Federal personnel who are
likely to respond to a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other
man-made disaster. This is an enormous task and responsibility and FEMA
will be working with the Test and Evaluation and Standards Division of
the Science and Technology Directorate to ensure the approach will
encompass the attributes of openness, balance of interest, due process,
and consensus that are the hallmarks of a credible standards
development process.
As such, FEMA is in the process of developing a common standard
utilizing existing programs, standards and accredited sources including
the National Incident Management System, National Response Framework,
National Infrastructure Protection Plan, National Emergency Management
Association, National Fire Protection Association, Emergency Management
Accreditation Program, and American National Standards Institute. The
representative organizations are key partners and well-respected
members of the emergency management community. The standards and
programs of these plans, systems and organizations have been vetted and
endorsed by a wide range of disciplines, and provide a solid foundation
for this effort.
Credentialing and Typing Program
Significant progress on the technology of credentialing has already
been made. FEMA's efforts beyond the resource typing and standards
efforts of the IMSD programs have been expanded through the auspices of
our National Capital Region Coordination (NCRC) office just recently
transferred to FEMA. The National Capital Region faces challenges based
on multiple jurisdictions and authorities that require clarification;
one of those is the need for rapid coordination between Federal, State,
and local responders across jurisdictions while validating the identity
and professional qualifications of those responders. Although the
individual jurisdictions maintain and retain ownership of their
credentialing and typing information, that information nevertheless
needs to be shared among jurisdictions through a common technology
standard. In 2004, DHS, DoD, and the National Capital Region (NCR)
jurisdictions sought to overcome this challenge by leveraging FIPS 201
and corresponding off-the-shelf commercially available equipment. NCRC
is the nexus for this coordination effort in its day-to-day interaction
with Federal, State, local, private sector, and non-profit partners in
the NCR. NCRC is working closely with these partners to test the
concepts, methodology, and process while gaining invaluable feedback
directly from its constituents in order to enhance the program for
potential use by a larger audience. By leveraging and assessing these
efforts, the NCR becomes a national pilot, allowing us to test some
basic assumptions about credentialing and resource typing in a
responder environment. The results of these efforts will be known later
this year and will assist us in the validation of a standard that can
be adopted nationally.
The credentialing and typing process requires an objective,
standardized evaluation and documentation of an individual's
qualifications, called attributes, and ability to meet nationally-
accepted minimum standards to provide particular services or functions
during an incident. The standard can help to ensure that personnel with
the right attributes are deployed to the right place at the right time,
thus reducing response and recovery times.
With respect to credentialing, again the intent of FEMA and the
Department of Homeland Security is not to issue identification cards to
all State and local first responders or others. That responsibility
lies with State and local governments or the jurisdiction having
appropriate authority. The aforementioned FIPS 201 standard describes
what the credential should be to represent identity validation. We are
working on the subsequent component--the aspect that says here is who I
am in the professional community and these are my skills--and how that
information is securely shared and verified on scene.
We are utilizing the Emergency Support Function construct of the
National Response Framework, as well as the National Infrastructure
Protection Plan sectors, to identify those professional attributes
(e.g., paramedic, emergency room physician, hazardous materials
technician) that have a professional authority standing behind these
designations for its personnel. In other words, we are leveraging
existing certification processes to ``substantiate'' the qualifications
of personnel. This will provide the cornerstone and structure to allow
our State and local partners to engage in this process, in coordination
with existing jurisdictional priorities and funding streams.
Deployment of the credentialing and typing process requires the
development of common data models and role-based access management
framework for protecting the integrity and security of the underlying
data. We have also initiated efforts with the Test and Evaluation and
Standards Division of the Science and Technology Directorate and the
National Institute of standards and Technology to develop these data
models and associated access management framework.
Strengthening Mutual Aid
A process that standardizes personnel identification and skill set
verification directly enhances the capability for multi-jurisdictional
resource sharing and mutual aid. This credentialing and typing effort
supports FEMA's integrated National Mutual Aid and Resource Management
System to enhance the functionality of interstate and intrastate mutual
aid. All incidents require the use of the Incident Command System (ICS)
which is the backbone of the National Incident Management System. ICS
provides a flexible core mechanism for coordinated and collaborative
incident management and integrates facilities, equipment, personnel,
and communications operating within a common organizational structure.
A credentialing/typing standard will help make execution of mutual aid
agreements more streamlined by offering a quick, effective, and
reliable method for verifying individuals and their respective
qualifications.
Program Plan
FEMA is establishing a program plan to implement a common, non-
proprietary approach, including:
An identity assurance standard;
Credentialing/typing standards for personnel skill
sets/qualifications; and
A common process/technology standard that integrates
both.
The resulting aggregated standard will be used on a limited basis
during the NCR portion of the National Level Exercise (NLE) 2-08 taking
place in April 2008. The intent is to test the standard using a
federated model where information is controlled and maintained by the
respective entities, not by FEMA. This is a ``system of systems in a
sense, as FEMA will not own the information; participating
jurisdictions retain ownership of their information. This concept, if
validated, could be made available in other parts of the country, and
potentially will allow for real-time and post-event electronic
validation of on-scene personnel. The standard also could enable a
mobile credentialing process at the incident scene to ensure multi-
jurisdictional mutual aid capability.
Important milestones have been established to address Title IV of
the 9/11 Act, among others. These include development of credentialing
and typing guidelines and objectives, with written guidance to Federal
agencies that have responsibilities under the National Response
Framework, and participation in an exercise by Federal agencies within
the NCR to determine the effectiveness of the guidelines and
objectives. In addition, FEMA intends to provide ongoing expertise and
technical assistance to aid emergency management stakeholders with
credentialing and resource typing, and completion of credentialing and
typing standards for our Federal, State, local, tribal, private sector,
and non-profit partners.
Conclusion
In summary, FEMA is making great strides in developing a
credentialing and typing standard for use by responders across
jurisdictions. The program plan we have outlined puts FEMA in a
position to meet the objectives and milestones of Title IV of the 9/11
Act, and promotes mutual aid and standardized multi-jurisdictional
interoperability. Timely and effective emergency response to a disaster
rests on the proper establishment and verification of personnel
identity, skills, and abilities. The implementation of a credentialing
and typing system using common, non-proprietary standards will support
and facilitate intrastate and interstate initiatives, and have the
further benefit of addressing issues of self-dispatching personnel and
scene control.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would like to thank
the Committee for the opportunity to testify and am prepared to answer
any questions you may have.
Mr. Cuellar. At this time I would like to recognize Mr.
Murphy to summarize his statement for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH MURPHY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION, DIRECTOR OF THE OREGON OFFICE OF
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member
Dent and distinguished members of the committee. In my
statement I am representing the National Emergency Management
Association, whose members are the State directors of emergency
management in the States, territories and the District of
Columbia.
Through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, EMAC,
NEMA's members are the leaders in State-to-State mutual aid
facilitation and continuously working to improve the system
based on lessons learned from previous disasters. During
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, EMAC fulfilled over 2,174 missions
with 49 States, the District of Columbia the U.S. Virgin
Islands and Puerto Rico, providing assistance in the form of
65,919 civilian and military personnel and equipment assets to
support the impacted States. The estimated cost of this
assistance exceeded $829 million.
Today all 50 States, the District of Columbia, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and most recently Guam are parties
to the EMAC agreement.
Also, most recently assets and personnel were used to fight
the California wildfires through the EMAC system, and in 2007,
EMAC was the vehicle used to provide assistance for the
Colorado, Nebraska and Virginia winter storms, the Kansas
tornadoes and floods, and Hurricane Dean in Texas.
There are several key areas I wish to discuss with you
today on EMAC: EMAC as a tool for mutual aid before, during and
after disaster to support response and recovery; EMAC's work
plan for improving and building on lessons learned from the
largest mobilization in the program's history; enhancing EMAC
with strong congressional support and administrative
coordination.
EMAC response to Hurricane Katrina resulted in the largest
deployment of interstate mutual aid in the Nation's history.
EMAC deployed personnel and equipment comprised of multiple
disciplines from all member States to respond to Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas. The process enabled
the National Guard, search and rescue teams, incident
management teams, emergency operation center support, building
inspectors, law enforcement personnel, health and medical and
other disciplines to immediately assist the requesting States.
The National Guard even chose to continue their response
through EMAC when deployed under title 32 because of the
organization, liability protections, accountability and
tracking abilities that EMAC provides.
The key to EMAC is the system provides assistance to those
in need, but allows others to assist and learn from the
disasters in other States. The framework to effectively manage
resources from all levels of government is defined in
community, county, State and Federal response plans. The plans
preidentify local, State and Federal agencies' roles and
responsibilities so that blended resources from all levels of
government meet the mission. The system prevents self-
deployment, allows for States to get the most cost-effective
and swiftest assistance, and allows for a Governor to call back
assets if need be. EMAC partners, such as the fire chiefs,
Major City Chiefs, utilize EMAC to move personnel and resources
through the State. There is no other vehicle that ensures
reimbursement liabilities and worker compensation.
NEMA is the administrator of the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact. The State-to-State mutual aid system was
referenced as a key achievement and best practice to be built
upon in many of the reports on Hurricane Katrina. EMAC is not a
perfect system, but strives to achieve continuous improvement.
NEMA members are proud of the success of this system and
support initiatives to bolster operational response and elevate
awareness of how EMAC works.
EMAC has a strategic plan to put lessons learned into
practice. The after-action process from Hurricane Katrina
allowed EMAC to examine how to improve the system after
catastrophic disasters and unparalleled growth in the use of
the system. I would just like to highlight some of the
significant improvements we have put into place in the last 2
years as a result of what we have learned from Hurricane
Katrina.
First, since the education on EMAC among all levels of
government was identified as a key need, NEMA has established
an EMAC Advisory Group that is already working together better
to integrate mutual aid partners into the EMAC system before
future disasters occur and to educate partners. The EMAC
Advisory Group has already met four times to discuss common
issues, such as resource typing, developing mission packages
and deployment issues for future disasters. The group includes
representatives from the State and local government
associations, the National Guard Bureau, emergency responders
associations, public utility associations and the private
sector. The discussions and interactions of this group will
serve to assist in adding local government assets to the scope
of resources and other disciplines that can readily be plugged
into the system.
Second, EMAC has hired a full-time training coordinator
whose main job will be to provide training for States as well
as our local mutual aid partners. Multiple-discipline,
standardized training modules will be developed and delivered
through distance-learning programs and face-to-face
instruction. The national training needs assessment for EMAC
will drive the development of curriculum, and a cadre of
qualified trainers will be maintained through this initiative.
Additionally, the training curriculum will include an exercise
component which will help facilitate the further integration of
EMAC in Federal, State and local plans and exercises.
Third, NEMA has evolved in the area of EMAC resource
tracking and management. In the coming months, we will fully
implement an on-line Requisition A form to allow for swifter
approvals from requesting and responding States, which will
ultimately allow for improved tracking and faster response to
the request for assistance.
Finally, States are engaged in developing their own
deployable mission-ready packages, and EMAC is involved in
assisting with this responsibility set in both the Post-Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act and the Implementing the 9/11
Commission Recommendations Act for resource typing and
credentialing.
The support of EMAC is critical to helping offset the cost
of the disasters and building costly infrastructure at the
Federal level that could sit unused until a disaster occurs. In
order to meet the ever-growing need for the reliance on
interstate mutual aid, NEMA is seeking $4 million to continue
to build EMAC capabilities. This funding will allow EMAC to
focus on the implementation of lessons learned from Hurricane
Katrina and Rita, such as training and education for mutual aid
stakeholders, resource typing and credentialing, and
information and resource capabilities.
Specific funding for EMAC is needed to continue to build
capabilities and sustain the EMAC system at appropriate levels
for 24-by-7 activation when a disaster occurs. The post-Katrina
FEMA Reform Act authorized $4 million annually for EMAC, but no
funds were appropriated. NEMA supports the inclusion of the
annual budget line item in FEMA to assist with these training
and education and resource typing requirements in the fiscal
year 2008 DHS appropriations.
I do appreciate Congress' attention and focus on mutual
aid, and we must ensure that our mutual aid system has adequate
resources and builds plans and systems before a disaster. I
thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the
National Emergency Management Association.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
[The statement of Mr. Murphy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kenneth D. Murphy
Introduction
Thank you Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent, and distinguished
members of the Committee for allowing me the opportunity to provide you
with a statement for the record on our nation's preparedness. I am Ken
Murphy, the President of the National Emergency Management Association
(NEMA) and the Director of Oregon Emergency Management. In my
statement, I am representing the NEMA, whose members are the state
directors of emergency management in the states, territories, and the
District of Columbia. I was named to my current position in 2003, after
serving with the agency since July 1999. Previous experience includes
over nineteen years of service with U.S. Army as an active duty Guard/
Reserve Officer.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify before your
Committee today on the role of the mutual aid in disaster response.
Through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), NEMA's
members are the leaders in state-to-state mutual aid facilitation and
continuously working to improve the system based on lessons learned
from previous disasters. During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, EMAC
fulfilled over 2,174 missions with 49 states, the District of Columbia,
the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico providing assistance in the
form of 65,919 civilian and military personnel and equipment assets to
support the impacted states. The estimated costs of this assistance
exceeds $829 million. Today, all fifty states, the District of
Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and most recently Guam
are parties to the EMAC agreement. Most recently, assets and personnel
were used to fight the California wildfires through the EMAC system. In
2007, EMAC was the vehicle used to provide assistance for the Colorado,
Nebraska, and Virginia winter storms; the Kansas tornadoes and floods;
and Hurricane Dean in Texas.
There are several key areas that I wish to discuss with you today
to address our mutual aid system:
1. EMAC as the tool for mutual aid before, during, and after
disasters to support response and recovery;
2. EMAC's work plan for improving and building on the lessons
learned from the largest mobilization in the program's history;
and
3. Enhancing EMAC with strong Congressional support and
Administrative coordination.
BUILDING OUR NATION'S MUTUAL AID SYSTEM THROUGH EMAC
The EMAC response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in the
largest deployment of interstate mutual aid in the nation's history. As
mentioned previously, EMAC deployed personnel and equipment comprised
of multiple disciplines from all member states to respond to Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Texas. The process enabled National
Guard, search and rescue teams, incident management teams, emergency
operations center support, building inspectors, law enforcement
personnel, health and medical and other disciplines to immediately
assist the requesting states in need of support. The National Guard
even chose to continue their response through EMAC when deployed under
Title 32 because of the organization, liability protections,
accountability, and tracking abilities EMAC provides. EMAC works,
especially when deploying resources in teams and task forces with an
established command and control structure, as established by the
requesting state. EMAC connects the operational dots across state lines
during a disaster.
EMAC was created in 1993 after Hurricane Andrew by then-Florida
Governor Lawton Chiles. The system was developed through the member
states of the Southern Governors' Association to establish mechanisms
to enable mutual aid among member states in emergency situations. The
Southern Regional Emergency Management Assistance Compact (SREMAC) was
signed by participating Governors in 1993. Following recognition of
SREMAC's nationwide applicability by the National Governors'
Association and FEMA, Congress enacted EMAC in 1996 (P.L. 104-321).
EMAC requires member states to have an implementation plan and to
follow procedures outlined in the EMAC Operations Manual. EMAC takes
care of issues such as reimbursement, liability protections, and
workers' compensation issues.
Prior to the historic 2005 deployments for Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, EMAC's largest previous deployment was during the 2004 Hurricane
season in Florida, Alabama, and West Virginia, during which time 38
states provided assistance in the form of more than $15 million in
human, military, and equipment assets and over 800 personnel to support
the impacted states for over 85 days of continuous response operations.
EMAC experienced significant growth and development as a result of the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On 9/11/2001, only 28 states were
a party to EMAC. That number quickly grew, as states saw the need to
have mutual aid in place to respond to a catastrophic disaster and
other emergencies and as a means to assist impacted states.
The key to EMAC is that the system provides assistance to those in
need, but allows others to assist and learn from disasters in other
states. The framework to effectively mange resources from all levels of
government is defined in community, county, state, and federal response
plans. The plans pre-identify local, state, and federal agency role and
responsibilities so that blended resources from all levels of
government meet the mission. Resource management is an area that a
state impacted by a disaster can rely upon EMAC assistance for to
ensure appropriate resources are brought to bear before, during and
after a disaster. The only pre-requisite is verbal, followed up by a
signed Governor's State of Emergency Proclamation in the requesting
state and appropriate paperwork such as the REQ-A. This means not only
bringing in equipment, but emergency management personnel to backfill
and assist impacted communities when a disaster occurs. The system
prevents self-deployment, allows for states to get the most cost
effective and swiftest assistance, and allows for a Governor to call
back assets if need be. EMAC partners such as the Fire Chiefs and Major
Cities Chiefs utilize EMAC to move personnel and resources through the
state--there is no other vehicle that ensures reimbursement, liability,
and workers' compensation.
EMAC has a strong state organizational structure and commonly
accepted protocols. EMAC is not a federal program, but a state
developed and state program. Each year, the day-to-day business
operations for EMAC is assigned to an elected EMAC Executive Task Force
Chair. Iowa currently serves in this capacity. Additionally, each
Region elects a lead EMAC State Representative to serve on the
Executive Task Force. NEMA also maintains an EMAC Committee comprised
of state emergency management directors who give overall policy
guidance and direction for the compact. NEMA also maintains the staff
to coordinate the program.
EMAC has also developed in 2004 Model Intrastate Mutual Aid
Legislation to provide a tool for states to use on mutual aid within
their states. Fourteen states have adopted this model to date. EMAC has
also developed a model contract for states to use when utilizing local
government employees under EMAC.
EMAC IMPROVEMENTS AS A RESULT OF LESSONS LEARNED
NEMA is the administrator of the Emergency Management Assistance
Compact (EMAC). The state-to-state mutual aid system was referenced as
a key achievement and best practice to be built upon in many of the
reports on Hurricane Katrina. EMAC is not a perfect system but strives
to achieve continuous improvement. NEMA's members are proud of the
success of the system and support initiatives to bolster operational
response and elevate awareness of how EMAC works. EMAC has a strategic
plan to put lessons learned into practice. The After-Action process
from Hurricane Katrina allowed EMAC to examine how to improve the
system after unprecedented disasters and an unparalleled growth in the
use of the system. I would like to highlight just some of the
significant improvements we have put into place in the last two years
as a result of what we have learned from Hurricane Katrina.
First, since education on EMAC among all levels of
government was identified as a key need, NEMA has established
an EMAC Advisory Group that is already working to better
integrate mutual aid partners into the EMAC system before
future disasters occur and to educate partners. The EMAC
Advisory Group has already met four times to discuss common
issues such as resource typing, developing mission packages,
and deployment issues for future disasters. The group includes
representatives from state and local government associations,
the National Guard Bureau, emergency responder associations,
public utility associations, and the private sector. The
discussions and interactions of this group will serve to assist
in adding local government assets to the scope of resources and
other disciplines that can be readily plugged into the system.
Second, EMAC has hired a full-time training
coordinator whose main job will be to provide training for
states as well as our local mutual aid partners. Multi-
discipline, standardized training modules will be developed and
delivered through distance learning programs and face-to-face
instruction. A national training needs assessment for EMAC will
drive the development of curriculum and a cadre of qualified
trainers will be maintained through this initiative.
Additionally, the training curriculum will include an exercise
component which will help to facilitate the further integration
of EMAC in federal, state, and local plans and exercises
Third, NEMA has evolved in the area of EMAC resource
tracking and management. In the coming months, we will fully
implement an online REQ-A form to allow for swifter approvals
from the requesting and responding states, which will
ultimately allow for improved tracking and faster response to
requests for assistance.
Finally, states are engaged in developing their own
deployable mission ready packages and EMAC is involved in
assisting with responsibilities set in both the Post Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act and the Implementing the 9/11
Commission Recommendations Act for resource typing and
credentialing.
States we are better prepared to address disasters through
exercises and coordination with surrounding states and interagency
partners to exercise the EMAC agreement. One example of how this is
being put into practice is North Carolina's 2006 initiative with the
National Guard and the State Medical Assistance Team Program (SMAT)
medical assets that led to the development of mission ready packages.
These teams are resource typed, so a requesting state knows exactly
what they are getting when they request specific typed teams. From
these team developments, North Carolina learned and was able to share
with the various emergency support functions: that resources need to be
mission ready for emergency management to broker at the state level;
resources and systems should be understood in advance of a disaster to
assist each other; resources need to be appropriately allocated using
EMAC as the vehicle; planning must occur together across disciplines to
develop standardized mission ready packages; and relationships must be
developed in advance of the disaster. Other states including Georgia,
Mississippi, and Alabama have built on these developments of the
medical resource capability.
ENHANCING EMAC WITH FEDERAL INVESTMENT
The support of EMAC is critical to helping offset the costs of
disasters and building costly infrastructure at the federal level that
could sit unused until a disaster occurs. In order to meet the ever-
growing need for and reliance on interstate mutual aid, NEMA is seeking
$4 million over three years to continue to build EMAC capabilities.
This funding will allow EMAC to focus on the implementation of lessons
learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, such as training and
education for all mutual aid stakeholders, resource typing and
credentialing, and information and resource management. Since EMAC's
inception in 1993, EMAC was funded by member states until 2003. In 2003
with the second 9/11 supplemental, FEMA funded EMAC with a 3 year grant
of $2.1 million. This funding expired on May 31, 2007. EMAC is
currently operating with a $1,005,000 grant for this fiscal year.
Funding is being used to continue to build and enhance EMAC
capabilities through further development of the EMAC Operations system.
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank FEMA for their
financial support of EMAC. Their support helped us to make the strides
that allowed the compact to respond so effectively to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita. EMAC works in conjunction and coordination with the
federal resource management systems so that resource allocations are
optimized. Both systems need to be employed during large disasters,
without making one system a replacement or subservient of another.
While homeland security grants and Emergency Management Performance
Grants are helping to build capabilities, the National Homeland
Security Strategy counts on the fact that mutual aid is going to be put
to use in a disaster. Specific Funding for EMAC is needed to continue
to build capabilities and sustain the EMAC system at appropriate
readiness levels for 24/7 activation when a disaster occurs. The Post-
Katrina FEMA Reform Act authorized $4 million annually for EMAC, but no
funds were appropriated. NEMA supports inclusion of an annual budget
line item in FEMA to assist with training and education, resource
typing requirements in the fiscal year 2007 DHS appropriations,
credentialing, and information and resource management. Including a
budget line item for building EMAC capabilities and our nation's mutual
aid system in the DHS budget for fiscal year 2008 and beyond will help
to build and sustain our nation's interstate mutual aid system. We hope
we can count on this Committee, which drafted the initial language
authorizing EMAC, to support funding in the appropriations process.
Additionally, EMAC faces other challenges. EMAC must maintain a
significant partnership with the federal government in order to work.
In that respect, I will be meeting with the FEMA Deputy Administrator
for National Preparedness later this month to continue to build the
EMAC and FEMA partnership. We have to ensure that as changes are made
in the federal and state governments and in any change of
Administration that EMAC continues to be recognized as an effective
system for mutual aid and disaster response. .
CONCLUSION
We appreciate Congress' attention and focus on mutual aid. We must
ensure that our mutual aid system has adequate resources to build plans
and systems before a disaster. I thank you for the opportunity to
testify on behalf of NEMA.
Mr. Cuellar. I now recognize Chief Westermann to summarize
your statement for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN P. WESTERMANN, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS
Chief Westermann. Good afternoon, Chairman Cuellar, Ranking
Member Dent, members of the committee. I am Chief Steven
Westermann of the Central Jackson County Missouri, Fire
Protection District, and current president of the nearly 13,000
members of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. The
IASC represents the leadership of America's fire, rescue and
emergency medical services, including rural volunteer fire
departments and metropolitan career fire departments.
Today I would like to thank the committee for the
opportunity to discuss the importance of leveraging mutual aid
for effective emergency response. The fundamental cornerstone
of every emergency event is at the local government, and local
officials are the responding authority. However, there are
situations where the emergency's demands exceed the resources
of local departments. Mutual aid agreements are designed to
meet these situations. They are based on the principle of
neighbor helping neighbor.
In many incidents, a local mutual aid agreement will be
sufficient to handle an emergency incident, but in some cases
the incident may exceed the resources of the local
jurisdiction. A statewide mutual aid system should manage and
deploy resources in these situations.
The timely deployment of resources is the key foundation
for a successful statewide mutual aid system. A successful
statewide mutual aid system also must have the following
characteristics: a scalable system that allows a tiered
response, implementation of the National Incident Management
System and the Incident Command System, a single list of
resources categorized by type and kind, a system for ordering
resources so that the closest assets are deployed first, the
ability to track resources and personnel, an interoperable
communications system or plan, a credentialing standard that is
simple to understand and manage, a compensation reimbursement
plan to identify pay rates for potential responders and deal
with issues such as volunteer firefighters and backfilling,
articles of agreement to deal with issues such as liability and
workers compensation, and a logistical support system to
maintain equipment and provide for the responders.
There will be disasters such as Hurricane Katrina that will
require a truly national response. The National Response
Framework and its 15 emergency support functions are designed
to cover the planning, support and implementation of essential
services. The U.S. Forest Service is the lead agency for ESF-4,
which is designed to provide resource support to firefighting
operations that require coordinated Federal response. In
addition, the National Emergency Management Association's EMAC
serves as a major tool for disaster-stricken States to request
aid from other States, and EMAC is recognized by all 50 States.
It includes a number of benefits, including liability
protections and recognition of professional licenses and
certifications.
In early 2005, the National Integration Center contracted
the IFC to support their creation of intrastate mutual aid
plans. After Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the need for some
States to more effectively deploy emergency assets internally,
the IFC received greater support for its efforts. Using the
anchor States of California, Illinois, Ohio and Florida as
models, the IFC's 3-year program uses the State fire chiefs
associations to develop robust mutual aid systems in all 50
States.
During the first year, the IFC focused on the Gulf Coast
and the Rocky Mountain States to deal with threats of
hurricanes and wildland fires. For the second year, the IFC is
focusing on the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States. In the third
year, the IFC intends to assist the remaining States.
The IFC is also working on a plan for a national mutual aid
system. This system would be annexed to the EMAC and be built
on a foundation of States' experience with statewide mutual
aid. A national mutual aid system should be based on the FEMA
regions and allow a disaster-stricken State to receive
assistance within 12 hours. We are working with the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, NEMA, U.S. Fire Administration
and U.S. Forest Service and other stakeholders to develop this
national mutual aid system.
The recent California wildfires demonstrated the strengths
of a successful mutual aid system and highlighted areas for
further study. During the height of the fire siege, over 13,000
firefighters and about 1,500 engines were deployed to combat
the fires. The majority of these resources came from within the
State of California, with additional firefighting resources
provided by other Western States.
During the fire, some fire departments from outside
California expressed concern about the delay being reimbursed.
Reimbursement can take months or years through the EMAC and
Federal reimbursement systems. This delay creates a great
fiscal strain on local fire departments. We urge Congress to
examine how responding mutual aid units are reimbursed.
In addition, the EMAC system deployed firefighters from
other States that were not trained to respond to wildland
fires. The IFC supports the development of the credentialing
system that has standardized minimum levels of training and
provides sufficient evidence of training and agency
affiliation. This system must include both career and volunteer
firefighters.
A nationwide credentialing and resource-tightening system
also should focus on the ability to deploy units within and
between States that are composed of both apparatus and
personnel.
We also urge Congress to pass H.R. 2638, the fiscal year
2008 DHS appropriations bill. We support the House-passed
funding levels of $570 million and $235 million respectively
for the FIRE and SAFER grant programs. These programs bolster
local response capabilities that can be used for mutual aid. We
also support the $100 million that the Senate passed to fund
new grants to support communications interoperability and
operability. In addition, this bill also funds important
Federal agencies, such as the USFA and the NIC, which are
engaged in important Federal mutual aid initiatives.
Thank you again for the opportunity to address this
committee on this important topic. On behalf of America's fire
and EMS chiefs, I thank the Congress and especially the
Homeland Security Committee for its continued support of
America's fire services.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Chief.
[The statement of Chief Westermann follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chief Steven P. Westermann
Good morning, Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent, and members of
the committee. I am Chief Steven P. Westermann, CFO, of the Central
Jackson County, Missouri, Fire Protection District and President of the
nearly 13,000 members of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
The IAFC represents the leadership of America's fire, rescue, and
emergency medical services (EMS) ranging from large, metropolitan,
career fire departments to small, rural, volunteer fire departments.
Today, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to
discuss the importance of leveraging mutual aid for effective emergency
response.
The Fire and Emergency Service Community
America's fire and emergency services are the only organized group
of American citizens that is locally situated, staffed, trained, and
equipped to respond to all types of emergencies. There are
approximately 1.1 million men and women in the fire and emergency
services--316,950 career firefighters and 823,950 volunteer
firefighters--serving in 30,400 fire departments around the country.
They are trained to respond to all risks and hazards ranging from
earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, to acts of terrorism,
hazardous materials incidents, technical rescues, fires, and medical
emergencies.
The fire service protects America's critical infrastructure--the
electrical grid, interstate highways, railroads, pipelines, petroleum
and chemical facilities--and is, in fact, even considered part of the
critical infrastructure. The fire service protects federal buildings,
provides mutual aid to most military bases, and protects interstate
commerce. No passenger airliner takes off from a runway that is not
protected by a fire department. The transport of hazardous materials is
an integral part of the U.S. economy, and when they spill or ignite,
the fire service responds to protect lives and clean up the mess.
Mutual Aid
The fundamental cornerstone of every emergency event is that the
local government and local officials are the responding authority. When
there is an emergency incident, a jurisdiction's local fire, EMS, and
police resources respond. However, it is understood in the fire service
that there will be situations where the emergency's needs exceed the
resources of the local departments. In these situations, fire
departments call upon their neighbors for help. Mutual aid agreements
are based on this principle of neighbor helping neighbor. In many
incidents, these local mutual aid agreements will be sufficient to
handle an emergency incident.
In some cases, the incident may exceed the capabilities of a local
jurisdiction or its neighbors. A robust intrastate mutual aid system is
critical to respond to these incidents. The system manages and deploys
resources to the incident scene. The key factor for statewide mutual
aid systems is the timeliness in which resources can be delivered to
save lives. The states with advanced and well-tested intrastate mutual
aid systems are California, Illinois, Ohio, and Florida.
Situations, such as Hurricane Katrina, can exceed a state's
resources and depend on a national response. The National Response
Framework includes 15 Emergency Support Function (ESF) annexes to cover
the planning, support, implementation and services that are most likely
to be needed during a large-scale event. The ESF-4 is designed to
provide resource support to wildland, rural, and urban firefighting
operations that require a coordinated federal response. The U.S. Forest
Service is designated as the lead agency for ESF-4.
One of the major avenues for the deployment of national assets is
the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). Originally
established in 1993 and ratified by Congress in 1996, the EMAC is
composed of all 50 states and administered by the National Emergency
Management Association (NEMA). The EMAC serves as a vehicle for a
disaster-stricken state to request mutual aid from other states. The
EMAC system includes a number of benefits, including liability
protections for the out-of-state responders and recognition of their
professional licenses and certifications.
State Mutual Aid Programs
In early 2005, the IAFC was contracted by the National Integration
Center (NIC) to support the creation of formalized and comprehensive
intrastate mutual aid plans. Support for the National Fire Service
Intrastate Mutual Aid System (IMAS) increased after it became apparent
during Hurricane Katrina that some states need to improve their mutual
aid plans to deploy resources to affected areas more effectively. For
example, there was a clear need to help disaster-stricken states deploy
firefighters and their equipment from unaffected areas within hours of
a major disaster before relying on interstate or federal aid that could
take days to deploy. The NIC gave $1 million to the IAFC to fund
efforts to improve both statewide and national mutual aid systems.
Using the ``anchor states'' of California, Illinois, Ohio, and
Florida as models, the IAFC is helping all fifty states develop robust
mutual aid systems as part of a three-year program by leveraging our
relationships with state fire chiefs associations. During the first
year, the IAFC focused on assisting states in the Gulf Coast region and
Rocky Mountain states based on the threats of hurricanes and wildland
fires. For the second year, the IAFC is focusing on states in the
Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. By the third year of the program, the
IAFC intends to assist the remaining states in the West, Midwest, and
Northeast regions of the country. The plans in these states can be
adopted to suit the needs of other emergency services and disciplines.
Based on its experiences with wildland fires, the state of
California has created an effective state mutual aid plan that serves
as a model for other states. According to the California Master Mutual
Aid Agreement and Part One of the Standardized Emergency Management
System (SEMS), California consists of five escalating organizational
levels that can be activated as necessary:
Field Response: At this level, emergency response
personnel and resources, under the command of an appropriate
authority, carry out tactical decisions and activities in
direct response to an incident or threat.
Local Government: Local governments manage and
coordinate the overall emergency response activities within
their jurisdiction. This level includes counties, cities, and
special districts.
Operational Area: This is an intermediate level of the
state's emergency services organization that encompasses the
county and all political subdivisions located within the
county. The operational area manages and coordinates
information, resources and priorities among local governments
within the area, and serves as the coordination link between
the local government level and the regional level.
Region: Due to its size and geography, the state of
California is divided into six mutual aid regions. The purpose
of each region is to provide for the more effective application
and coordination of mutual aid and other emergency-related
activities. The regional level manages and coordinates
information and resources among operational areas within the
mutual aid region, and also between the operational areas and
the state. The regional level also coordinates overall state
agency support for emergency response activities within the
region.
State: This level manages state resources in response
to the emergency needs of other levels, and coordinates mutual
aid among the six mutual aid regions and between them and the
state. The state level also serves as the coordination and
communication link between the state and the federal disaster
response system.
Other factors are also important to a successful state mutual aid
system. The implementation of the National Incident Management System
(NIMS) and the incident command system allow multi-agency resources to
operate together within a common organizational structure with common
terminology, span of control, and resource typing. A statewide mutual
aid system depends on the establishment and maintenance of a single,
statewide recognized list of resources that is categorized by type and
kind. A system for ordering resources must be developed to ensure that
the closest available and appropriate resources are deployed first, and
that the requesting jurisdiction has an expectation of a timely
response, mobilization, en route times, and on-scene arrival. When
resources are mobilized, including personnel, they must be tracked. The
state also must have an interoperable communications system or a plan
to ensure interoperable communications, so that the responding units
can effectively communicate with each other. A statewide standard for
the credentialing of personnel to ensure minimum and consistent
standards for performance must exist. The state must develop a
compensation/reimbursement plan to identify pay rates for potential
responders, handle issues relating to volunteer firefighters, and cover
backfill for the responding agency. The state also must develop
articles of agreement that address issues relating to liability,
workers' compensation, and dispute resolution for financial and other
issues. Finally, all state mutual aid plans must anticipate the
increased need to maintain the mechanical functioning of tools and
apparatus and provide for the logistical needs of the responders.
The recent wildland fires in California demonstrated the advantages
of having a strong state mutual aid system. At the height of the fire
siege, over 13,000 firefighters and about 1,500 engines were deployed
to combat the fires in southern California. A majority of these
resources came from within the state of California with additional
firefighting resources provided by other western states.
National Mutual Aid System
In conjunction with the IAFC's efforts to improve statewide mutual
aid plans, the IAFC also is working on developing a plan for a national
mutual aid system. This national system would serve as an annex to the
EMAC, and strengthen the foundation for effective interstate mutual aid
by assuring the existence of a system of states experienced with the
provision of mutual aid. The national mutual aid system should be based
on the FEMA regions. By drawing resources from other states within a
FEMA region, the disaster-stricken state should be able to receive
interstate assistance within 12 hours of an emergency. It is important
to recognize that a successful interstate mutual aid program also would
depend on continued stakeholder and financial support.
To develop a well-coordinated national fire service mutual aid
system, the IAFC is working with the NEMA, the U.S. Fire
Administration, and the U.S. Forest Service. The IAFC also is working
with other stakeholder organizations to develop education programs to
prepare the fire service for the implementation of the national mutual
aid system.
Credentialing
One important issue for an interstate and intrastate mutual aid
program is credentialing. The IAFC supports the development of a
credentialing system that includes both career and volunteer
firefighters, and provides sufficient evidence of training and agency
affiliation, while not placing an excessive burden on the participants.
A successful credentialing and resource typing system would focus on
the ability to deploy units within and between states that are composed
of both apparatus and personnel.
It is vital that any national credentialing and resource typing
system be simple to understand and manage. Prior attempts at developing
these systems have been bogged down by a need to be all things to all
people. As a practical matter, a credentialing and resource typing
system that is composed of lengthy lists of personnel and resources can
create a process that is too cumbersome for the vast majority of local
fire departments to adopt. The IAFC recommends that a national
credentialing and resource typing system be based on a core set of
capabilities that will be easy for agencies from all levels of
government to adopt.
Role of Congress
While Congress has taken the most important step in supporting
mutual aid by ratifying the EMAC in 1996, there are still steps that it
can take to support mutual aid.
For example, it is important that the fire departments that provide
mutual aid are reimbursed in a timely manner. Under the current system,
the local fire departments that send resources to help must bear all of
the initial costs incurred in sending the engines and personnel.
Reimbursement can take months or years through the EMAC or federal
reimbursement systems, causing significant financial distress on these
local fire departments who were simply trying to help their neighbors.
This issue came up during the recent California wildland fires when
some fire departments from outside the state expressed concern about
the delay in being reimbursed. Small fire departments can face severe
hardship if they are forced to wait months for reimbursement. We urge
Congress to examine how responding mutual aid units are reimbursed,
whether they are dispatched through the EMAC system, through the U.S.
Forest Service or U.S Department of Interior, or through a direct
request from FEMA.
Also, as an illustration of the need for a credentialing system
that provides for standardized minimum levels of training, some of the
firefighters that were deployed from other states to California through
the EMAC system were not trained to respond to wildland fires. Although
these firefighters were supposed to backfill for the fire departments
deployed to respond to the wildland fires, the reality is that any
firefighter in any station in the West could be dispatched to fight a
wildland fire. In some cases, that is exactly what happened and these
firefighters were used to fight wildland fires. There needs to be a
greater effort to make sure that all firefighters, especially those in
the West, are trained to respond to fires in the wildland urban
interface.
In addition, Congress can fund a number of important programs that
support mutual aid activities. Specifically, Congress should pass H.R
2638, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 DHS Appropriations bills to fund the
following programs:
The National Integration Center: The NIC plays an
important role in overseeing the development and implementation
of the NIMS. The NIMS is important in ensuring an organized,
unified incident command system during a national disaster. In
addition, the NIC is engaged in important initiatives to
improve national and statewide mutual aid and develop
credentialing and resource typing programs.
The Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program: The
AFG's FIRE and SAFER components grant matching funds to local
fire departments for staffing, equipment, training, and
prevention programs. Unlike the State Homeland Security Grant
and the Urban Areas Security Initiative programs, the AFG
programs fund fire departments' capabilities to respond to all
hazards, including hurricanes and wildland fires. Since the
resources deployed in national disasters are locally-owned, it
is important to bolster local response capabilities. The IAFC
supports the House-passed funding levels of $805 million for
the AFG program, including $570 million for the FIRE grants and
$235 million for the SAFER grants.
The Interoperable Emergency Communications Grant
Program: The Interoperable Emergency Communications Grant
Program was created by the ``Implementing Recommendations of
the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (P.L.110-53).'' This grant
program sets out federal funding to ensure both communications
operability and interoperability by funding equipment,
training, planning, and governance activities as outlined in
the SAFECOM interoperability continuum. The need for
interoperable communications still remains an obstacle to
national mutual aid, even six years after the terrorist attacks
of 9/11. The IAFC supports the Senate-passed amount of $100,000
in H.R. 2638.
The U.S. Fire Administration: The USFA plays an
important role in promoting mutual aid for the fire service. By
working with the U.S. Forest Service, it is helping to support
operations under ESF-4. In addition, the USFA has been deeply
involved in the development of a national credentialing system,
including a study in 2005. The House and Senate have both
passed appropriations of $43.3 million for this program.
Conclusion
Thank you again for the opportunity to address this committee. On
behalf of America's fire and EMS chiefs, I would like to thank you for
holding this hearing on the important topic of mutual aid and look
forward to answering any questions that the committee members may have.
Mr. Cuellar. I now recognize Mr. Ronczkowski to summarize
your statement for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL RONCZKOWSKI, HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU,
MIAMI-DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT
Mr. Ronczkowski. Thank you, Chairman Cuellar and Ranking
Member Dent, and other distinguished Members. I appreciate the
opportunity to come before you today to discuss matters of
mutual concern.
I am Michael Ronczkowski, Major of the Miami-Dade Police
Department's Homeland Security Bureau, and I am here on behalf
of Director Robert Parker of the Miami-Dade Police Department
as well as my Major City Chiefs Association.
Law enforcement agencies have long participated in mutual
aid agreements and memorandums of----
Mr. Cuellar. Is your mike working?
Mr. Ronczkowski. Are we testing operability? Okay. I am
sorry.
Mr. Cuellar. All right. Go ahead. Continue. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Ronczkowski. Thank you for the opportunity.
Law enforcement has long been participants in various
mutual aid agreements as well as memorandums of understanding.
Events such as Katrina, Rita, man-made, natural disasters, it
makes no difference to us. What we are striving to do is go
forth with different efforts to come to the assistance of our
fellow comrades, whether it is law enforcement, fire, emergency
managers or the overall incident at hand.
Since 9/11--the 9/11 Act, I should say--There is a
recommendation that law enforcement deployment teams be put
forth to be studied. The Major City Chiefs has taken the Law
Enforcement Deployment Team recommendation to study law
enforcement deployment teams and made it a reality. There is a
document that we have been working and partnering with ATF, as
well as DHS, as well as the various other people that have
interest in this, and we have put together a viable document
that is in the process of being vetted and worked around the
system in the past 6 weeks.
Like the fire service and the emergency management
community as a whole, law enforcement rallied to provide
everybody with help regardless of the size of the catastrophe.
The problem that we have with law enforcement is agencies,
regardless of whether it is a two-person agency or 20,000-
person agency, everybody felt the need to send personnel, and
we are striving to struggle with how do we get them there? Once
they are there, what do we do with them, who do they report to,
who manages them? Law enforcement wants to show up to be a
party to this with full law enforcement capabilities.
When Major City Chiefs met about 6 weeks ago, the concept
of EMAC was brought forth. The testimony that Dick Cashdollar
has put forth before you represents where we stand on that
matter. The issue of EMAC that was amongst the chiefs as well
as other people in the room was one of, what is EMAC? We were
trying to understand it. We did not know what it was or how to
get it out. Now we understand it, and we are going to use that
as a vehicle through these Law Enforcement Deployment Teams to
get the word out amongst our personnel once they arrive.
It is not a matter of showing up with a presence, it is a
matter of showing up with a purpose, and our purpose is
outlined in the law enforcement checklist as part of Req A. The
Requisition A component, we think, will address many of the
issues that are out there. There are several issues that are at
hand. We need to be ready not just for 1 day, 1 week, but the
possibility of having law enforcement personnel on the ground
for 1 year or preventative measures on the front side.
We have, as I stated, worked with the Las Vegas
Metropolitan Police Department, who hosted the meeting, the
FBI, DHS and ATF. Mr. Bourne was actually one of the
participants on the panel that we worked with. The goal of this
workshop was to discuss the concept of rapidly deploying the
law enforcement teams that can provide continual law
enforcement support, not just traffic management. We are
talking from corrections to investigations on through.
The discussion came about, how do we do this? Well, we want
to go ahead and we want to use existing models, the USAR model,
the DMAT mobilization model. However, these components, these
programs are federalized, and one thing we do not want the Law
Enforcement Deployment Teams is to be federalized. The reason
being is if we get deputized at the Federal agency level, that
limits our ability to act in the law enforcement capacity at
the local level. That is why we are encouraging the adoption
into full use of the Req A process with the law enforcement
checklist that NEMA put forward and Dick Cashdollar puts out in
his testimony.
We have developed a documented framework for implementation
of the deployment teams. This included an all-hazard approach
not just for disasters; man-made, natural made no difference.
One thing that law enforcement has the ability to do is respond
ahead of an event should we get some insight or information
that something may occur. Whether it is a large rally, get-
together, organizational component or whatever the case may be,
we can be there on the front side.
That is something that goes against the reimbursement
models that are out there, and I am glad my colleagues at the
table here have mentioned reimbursement, because that is the
cornerstone for many of these agencies. Larger agencies are
able to take pieces on. The smaller agencies do play a role.
There are a lot more of them than there are of the large ones.
The program that we are looking to put forth is regional,
one that follows the 10 FEMA regions that are already in
existence. Each team would be completely scalable, with no more
than 500 personnel. Realizing that local law enforcement is a
different mission than Federal law enforcement, there will be
no Federal members on this team. They will be complementary in
their role for their mission. But we are talking the role of
local law enforcement here. Teams provide essential law
enforcement support. Whether it is crowd control, road patrol,
traffic, advanced communication; whether it is SWAT, bomb, we
will be able to handle various degrees.
We have put together a core list of core skills that we are
seeking to have as part of the team. Each team will include
emergency support personnel from all the other disciplines.
Teams will be comprised of modular components, and we would
rely on various caches of equipment that are out there, such as
the Prepositioned Equipment Program and other pieces that are
already in place. Law enforcement will come with the majority
of the equipment. Most of what we will need is food, water and
the essentials to sustain ourselves. We will be following the
National Incident Management System, the ICS model, and take
best practices from across the Nation.
We are a firm believer in FEMA's efforts to support
resource typing and identification, that this will leverage our
capabilities. When the incident commander calls, the incident
commander will run and control these teams. He needs to
understand what he has. Having 500 officers show up that have
one skill set will do him no good. We are going to draw upon
the best practices. However, one practice that is not
understood by many, and that is the reimbursement model.
The Stafford Act addresses much of the reimbursement. As we
are well aware in south Florida, FEMA and DHS have done a
really great job in the past couple of years with hurricanes.
Reimbursement has become something we are quite efficient at,
with the various hurricanes we had, whether it was Katrina,
Rita, which did impact, or Wilma a couple years ago. The
capability of reimbursement was great.
The problem is with the Stafford Act, limitations are in
place for after action. We may have to be deployed
preventative. There may be other things that are going to have
to be addressed within the Stafford Act expansion or
modification there. We are not looking to supersede any
existing interstate mutual agreements, memorandums of
understanding. We are talking interstate. We want to make sure
that the incident commander has support completely through the
entire operation, whether it is a fire commander or law
enforcement commander. The unified command system will address
the needs of everybody at hand.
I thank you for the opportunity to come here and represent
Major City Chiefs as well as the south Florida region, and I
look forward to answering any of your questions.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you again for your testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Ronczkowski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Major Michael Ronczkowski
Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent, members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to discuss law enforcement efforts to
provide comprehensive response capabilities for all-hazard disasters in
the United States.
I am Michael Ronczkowski, major of the Miami-Dade Police
Department?s Homeland Security Bureau and I am here on behalf of
Director Robert Parker of the Miami-Dade Police Department and I am
also representing the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCC), whose
members include the 56 largest police departments in the United States.
Law enforcement agencies have long participated in mutual aid
agreements with other law enforcement and first responder agencies. We
have developed strong relationships with fire and emergency management
agencies like those on this panel. All of us agree on the necessity to
develop robust mutual aid agreements with regional partners in advance
of natural or man-made disasters. It is only through collaboration that
we can effectively protect the public and provide timely and effective
response. As far as we have come in developing regional mutual aid
agreements since 9/11, the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made
it painfully clear that this country is missing a critical response
capability--one focused on providing coordinated law enforcement
services and support to regions severely impacted by natural disasters
or terrorist attacks.
Like the fire service and the emergency management community as a
whole, law enforcement rallied to provide our brothers in need with
help regardless of the catastrophe. Dozens of police departments from
around the country sent teams of officers and response equipment to
Louisiana and Mississippi immediately following Katrina and Rita.
Police were needed to maintain stability and to fulfill requests from
search and rescue and fire teams for law enforcement escorts due to
unrest in the most impacted areas. Upon arriving in the region,
officers quickly discovered that almost all ability to provide basic
public safety support was destroyed. Response capabilities were
severely impacted and the ability to maintain basic law and order was
compromised. Departments continued to send support in an ad hoc and
uncoordinated fashion without any central coordinating entity,
indentified an needs skills, documentation, liability considerations,
reimbursement and sustainment. Mission tasking and areas of
responsibilities were often unclear. Skill sets and equipment
graciously sent did not always meet the on the need on the ground.
Incident commanders were left with a patchwork of personnel and
equipment, often with varying capabilities and training and not knowing
how long they will be available.
For weeks and months after the storm, local law enforcement
agencies in the impacted areas struggled to maintain command and
control. As response turned to recovery, local agencies continued to
need support to provide essential public safety services, such as
neighborhood patrols, crowd control, and custody operations. Advanced
law enforcement capabilities were also lacking, including
investigative, correctional, special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams
and bomb squads. As time progressed deployed personnel began to suffer
from fatigue and stress from the harsh environment. Equipment began to
fail and basic supplies needed to be refreshed. However, there was no
formal mechanism to manage the deployment of resources over the entire
period of the operation whether it was one week or one year.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated a critical gap in our
nation's law enforcement response and sustainment capability.
Collectively, the nation's local law enforcement agencies recognized we
had a responsibility to address the void.
With the support of the Department of Homeland Security, namely the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, an executive workshop was conduct
in August 2007 to develop a general framework for a nationally
deployable law enforcement response capability. Hosted by Sheriff
Douglas Gillespie from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department,
members from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Major County
Sheriffs' Association and the National Sheriff's Association were
joined by senior officials from DHS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI). Mr. Bourne was one of the participants and we appreciate his
contribution and ongoing support.
The goal of the workshop was to discuss the concept of rapidly
deployable teams of law enforcement officers capable of providing
incident commanders with immediate and continual support in the wake of
natural or man-made incidents. Coined Law Enforcement Deployment Teams
(LEDTs), these teams would provide professional law enforcement
resources to ensure the Nation's civil well-being in an all hazards
environment.
The concept of having mobile teams of first responders is not new.
The LEDT concept was inspired by the Urban Search and Rescue (US&R)
program and the Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT). Both of these
programs are comprised of teams of professional first responder that
have received standardized training and supported by strategically
placed caches of equipment. However, there is no law enforcement
equivalent although the need and desire are clear.
Participants in the workshop developed a documented framework for
the implementation of a national LEDTs program, to include the
following:
The program would be all-hazards--not just for
disasters. LEDTs could be deployed for a hurricane, terrorist
attack, or a special event where there is a credible or
preserved threat.
The program would be regional and consistent with the
10 FEMA regions, but not under the control of FEMA or DHS
directly.
Each LEDT would be scalable and comprised of no more
than 500 state and local personnel, none of which would be
Federal law enforcement.
LEDTs would report to the local Incident Commander,
consistent with the National Incident Management System and the
Incident Command Structure.
Teams would provide essential law enforcement support
(e.g. patrol and crowd control) but also have the capability to
provide advanced and specialized skills (e.g. SWAT).
Each team would include related emergency support
personnel capabilities such as emergency medical technicians,
mental health specialist, and logistics support.
Teams would be comprised of modular components,
enabling individual components to be deployed.
LEDTs would arrive at the disaster site with all
necessary equipment as identified by the incident commander in
concert with advance team recommendations--supplied by regional
equipment caches that included standardized stock of law
enforcement specific response equipment.
A national database of LEDT capabilities would assist
in the deployment of team and would also track equipment and
training--allowing capability gaps to be identified and
rectified.
Existing caches of equipment could be leveraged and
expanded to include law enforcement specific equipment.
DHS programs that are currently supporting the
establishment of interoperable communications and the
distribution of response equipment, like the Commercial
Equipment Direct Assistance Program (CEDAP). CEDAP is designed
to ``fill the gaps'' in equipment among responders. Because
CEDAP is not a grant, the local agencies receive their
equipment directly from the federal government saving time and
money. In the event of a regional response, interoperability of
the CEDAP equipment will be an important aspect of mutual aid.
We strongly support this easy to use Federal program and hope
that Congress will increase its funding so that smaller
agencies will be able to contribute to a mutual aid response.
Partnership with the private sector would be brokered
so that the LEDT program could leverage their extensive
logistics and supply networks.
FEMA's resource typing and identification effort would
be leveraged in developing standard capabilities and equipment
requirements.
Each LEDT would be self-sufficient, capable of
sustained operations for no more than 14 days. The general
consensus was that longer deployments would create prolonged
stress for team members.
Additional deployments would continue to be tailored
to the change conditions on the ground as defined by the local
incident commander.
LEDTs would display uniform identification that is
recognized by all authorities.
Standardized credentials and certification in
appropriate training and exercises would ensure that team
members are interoperable.
Policies and procedures for the LEDTs would leverage
similar programs to the greatest extent possible and draw upon
best practices nation-wide.
The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)
would be used, including the recently adopted Law Enforcement
Checklist. This provides a standardized request methodology
that most local agencies are familiar. The LEDT program in use
of EMAC is not looking to supersede existing intra-state mutual
aide agreement, rather proving standardization for inter-state
agreements.
The end product of the workshop is a report that identifies
significant issues and law enforcement recommendations on how to
structure a national LEDT program. This report represents the consensus
of the nation's largest law enforcement agencies. It is currently being
reviewed by FEMA and will be present it to this committee once
finalized.
Yet to be resolved and defined in further detail are issues
relating to liability, authority, reimbursement/funding and
deputization. Major Cities Chiefs are opposed to federal deputization
based on the limiting ability to enforce state and local laws and
integrate within the jurisdiction of need. Congress should consider
expanding or modifying the Stafford Act so that LEDTs related
activities and equipment are recovered. As funding options are
considered, the Chiefs and Sheriffs strongly encourage the
implementation of a new funding source specifically for LEDTs and that
existing grant programs are not supplanted.
This, however, is just the first step in the process. Law
enforcement looks forward to working with DHS and the other Federal
partners as the LEDT concept continues to be developed. As the
committee members know, the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 established the
Office for State and Local Law Enforcement within DHS and calls on this
new office to study the issue further. We look forward to collaborating
with this office and other federal agencies.
Thank you for allowing me to speak on this important issue.
Mr. Cuellar. At this time I will recognize Mr. McPartlon to
summarize your statement for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JIM MCPARTLON, III, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN AMBULANCE
ASSOCIATION
Mr. McPartlon. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to
speak before you today. My name is Jim McPartlon, and I
currently serve as the president of the American Ambulance
Association. I started my career in emergency medical services
30 years ago as an EMT, and today I am the vice president of
Mohawk Ambulance Service, providing services in Albany,
Schenectady and Troy, New York.
AAA is the primary trade association, composed of more than
700 ambulance services with members in every State,
transporting over 6 million patients a year. AAA members
include private, public, fire and hospital-based providers.
The immediate response to a natural or man-made disaster
involves many local public safety, public health and health
care organizations. As first responders, America's ambulance
service providers are an essential resource and perform vital
services as part of each community's emergency response system.
This was abundantly clear during the response to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita in which over 500 ambulances and thousands of
EMTs and paramedics assisted patients in need.
While great strides have been made to leverage mutual aid
for emergency response, improvements are still required to more
effectively use ambulance services. Ambulance services are a
mix of governmental and nongovernmental providers, serving
alongside our fire and law enforcement colleagues, and are a
critical part of the emergency response system; however,
nongovernmental ambulance service providers often face
difficulty in being properly included in the preparation and
response to catastrophic events.
To ensure that all ambulance service providers can be
effectively utilized under mutual aid for emergency response, I
recommend to the committee the following: Ensure that adequate
Federal homeland security funding is available to governmental
and nongovernmental ambulance service providers; further
integrate all ambulance service providers into local, State,
Federal planning and exercises, and require that
nongovernmental ambulance service providers be included under
appropriate mutual aid agreements such as EMAC's; strengthen
interstate or intrastate mutual aid as an essential component
of the National Response Framework; and lastly, increase access
for all ambulance service providers to funding for emergency
communications and equipment systems.
In 2005 and in 2006, DHS reported that emergency medical
service providers received only 4 percent of the Homeland
Security funding. This level of funding is incredibly
inadequate to properly train and equip paramedics and exposes
frontline emergency health care workers to further risk when
responding to a disaster.
The recent TOPOFF 4 exercise in Phoenix illustrates the
need for improved integration and coordination of
nongovernmental providers. While nongovernmental ambulance
service providers played an extremely important role in the
exercise, they were isolated from fellow governmental first
responders and placed in the private sector operation center,
which in this case happened to be in the middle of the
radioactive plume from the dirty bomb. This removed ambulance
officials from direct interaction with managers of the
emergency response and delayed situational awareness and
response by the ambulance personnel.
Shifting to EMAC, although it is an efficient way to
mobilize interstate mutual aid, challenges still exist with the
development and deployment of the system. Only 17 States have
arranged to utilize private-sector resources to fulfill EMAC
requests. Almost two-thirds of the States do not allow the
inclusion and the deployment under EMAC of nongovernmental
ambulance service providers, which constitute the majority of
available ambulances and personnel. Interstate mutual aid plans
need to be strengthened so local communities can reach out to
their State when in need and so States will have the resources
organized for sending to neighboring States when requested
through EMAC.
The bridge collapse in Minneapolis demonstrated how a
strong intrastate mutual aid system can work. Immediately after
the collapse, mutual aid from the seven closest counties
responded, and within 2 hours all patients were transported to
the necessary medical facility. Without a well coordinated and
robust mutual aid system, patient treatment and transport would
have been delayed.
To ensure that all ambulance service providers can
communicate during an incident, nongovernmental providers must
be eligible for grants and involved in the communications
interoperability planning activities. Additional spectrum and
systems must be made available to both government and
nongovernmental providers.
In conclusion, to ensure the effective involvement of all
ambulance service providers and mutual aid for emergency
response, there needs to be more Homeland Security funding
directed towards emergency medical services and better
integration of nongovernmental providers.
I again thank Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent and
members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify
today. I would be happy to answer any questions at the
appropriate time.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you for your testimony.
[The statement of Mr. McPartlon follows:]
Prepared Statement of James P. McPartlon, III
I. Introduction
Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent and members of the
Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response, I
greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today. My name
is Jim McPartlon and I currently serve as the President of the American
Ambulance Association (AAA). I started in the emergency medical
services (EMS) sector as an EMT 30 years ago and today I am the Vice
President of Mohawk Ambulance Service which provides emergency and non-
emergency ambulance services to the cities of Albany, Schenectady and
Troy, New York and the surrounding areas.
The AAA is the primary trade association representing ambulance
service providers that participate in serving communities with
emergency and non-emergency ambulance services. The AAA is composed of
more than 700 ambulance operations and has members in every state;
transporting over 6 million patients every year. AAA members include
private, public and fire and hospital-based providers covering urban
and rural areas. The AAA was formed in response to the need for
improvements in pre-hospital healthcare and medical transportation.
It is in my elected role as President of the AAA that I appear
before you today, to provide the perspective of the Association
regarding ``Leveraging Mutual Aid for Effective Emergency Response.''
II. Recommendations for More Effective Use of Ambulance Services
While great strides have been made over the years to better
leverage mutual aid for emergency response, improvements are still
required to more effectively use ambulance services. Ambulance services
are a mix of governmental and nongovernmental providers which serve
alongside our fire and law enforcement colleagues and are a critical
part of the emergency response system. Our operations are comprised of
paramedics, emergency medical technicians and other emergency medical
service professionals. However, ambulance service providers, in
particular nongovernmental, often face difficulty in being properly
included in the preparing and response to catastrophic events.
To ensure that all ambulance service providers can be effectively
utilized under mutual aid for emergency response, I recommend to the
Committee the following:
1. Ensure that adequate federal homeland security funding is
available to governmental and nongovernmental ambulance service
providers for personal protective equipment, training and other
resources necessary to support critical public safety missions.
2. Further integrate governmental and nongovernmental ambulance
service providers into local, state and federal planning and
exercises and require that nongovernmental ambulance service
providers be included under appropriate mutual aid agreements
such as Emergency Management Agreement Compacts (EMACs);
3. Strengthen intrastate mutual aid as an essential component
of the National Response Framework capability; and,
4. Increase access for governmental and nongovernmental
ambulance service providers to funding for emergency
communications equipment and systems in order to ensure that
our systems achieve interoperability with other first
responders.
III. Role of Ambulance Service Providers as First Responders
The immediate response to a catastrophic disaster, act of terrorism
or other public health emergency involves many local public safety,
public health and health care organizations. As first responders,
America's ambulance service providers are an essential resource and
perform vital services as part of each community's emergency response
system. This was abundantly clear during the response to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita in which over five hundred ambulances comprised of
paramedics and emergency medical technicians from around the country,
assisted patients in need and local agencies in their response to the
catastrophic events along the gulf coast.
During the response to a natural or man-made disaster, the role of
an ambulance service provider includes patient care and triage,
decontamination, treatment, and transport. Their role also includes
hazard recognition, symptom surveillance and reporting, disaster
shelter staffing and re-supply, on-scene medical stand-by, and
transport and redistribution of patients to better utilize available
receiving hospital resources. Many agencies have begun developing
``strike teams'' or ``disaster response teams'' to effect rapid
deployment in support of local, state and federal resources.
America's 9-1-1 ambulance service providers are a diverse group of
public, private, hospital and volunteer-based services. Indeed, many
stories of heroism and sacrifice include representatives from all these
agencies as they have responded to natural and man-made disasters.
During a catastrophic disaster, local ambulance services providing
emergency medical services are an essential resource and a vital part
of the emergency response system. In a review of the nation's largest
200 cities, including those most vulnerable to attack, emergency
ambulance services are provided by private, public, volunteer, and
hospital-based agencies. Experience has shown that non-emergency as
well as emergency ambulance service providers often serve as ``first
responders'' by dedicating essential vehicle and personnel resources
within the first hours of a disaster.
IV. Importance of Private-Public Partnerships
Unlike fire and police, the private sector is a major provider of
emergency and non-emergency ambulance services across the nation. While
the emergency medical service system design varies greatly, in almost
all cases there is participation by both public and private entities.
For this reason, it is critical that a strong partnership exist between
government and nongovernmental first responders and those who manage
the total emergency response system. Furthermore, the successful
management of any emergency response is directly related to the
coordination of all assets being deployed.
The recent TOPOFF 4 exercise in Phoenix illustrates the need for
improved integration and overall system response coordination of
nongovernmental providers. While nongovernmental ambulance service
providers played an extremely important role in the exercise, providers
were placed in the private sector operations center and separated from
their fellow governmental first responders and emergency health care
workers. This removed ambulance officials from direct interaction with
managers of the emergency response system and delayed situational
awareness and response by the ambulance officials. It is ironic that
the private sector operations center was located in the direct path of
the radioactive debris plume from the dirty bomb. Those responsible for
mobilizing the front line of the emergency medical response would be
therefore incapacitated from directing critical care to victims as well
as other first responders.
V. Current Challenges with Mutual Aid
The National Response Framework recognizes that all disasters are
local; therefore the response must begin with the utilization of the
closest available units i.e. the local response. As the disaster (or
preparation for the disaster) becomes larger in scale, the greater the
need is for an expanded response, beginning with neighboring
communities, neighboring states and finally a federal response. Because
a majority of disasters are smaller in scale, attention needs to be
paid on building local, state and interstate mutual aid systems
allowing the closest resources to mobilize and respond.
Although EMAC is an efficient way to mobilize interstate mutual
aid, challenges still exist to the development and deployment of the
system. Each state develops a unique mutual aid agreement and there are
few standards and procedures that exist across the nation. For example,
only 17 states have arranged to utilize private sector resources to
fulfill EMAC requests. Almost two-thirds of states do not allow the
inclusion and deployment under EMAC of nongovernmental ambulance
service providers which constitute the majority of available ambulances
and personnel. Not including nongovernmental providers under EMAC means
that resources from further away will need to be deployed wasting
precious time. When nongovernmental ambulance resources are used, many
providers report significant delays in getting reimbursed for their
costs and many states reimburse below cost. Finally, coordination
between the Federal response and the state response is often lacking,
with services being deployed to the same location and state EMS
coordinating officers unaware of unit availability and location.
The bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 1, 2007
demonstrated how a strong interstate mutual aid system can work. During
rush hour the main spans of the I-35 Bridge collapsed, killing thirteen
and injuring one hundred. Immediately after the collapse, mutual aid
from the seven closest counties responded and within two hours all
patients were transported to local hospitals and trauma centers for
treatment. Without a well-coordinated and robust mutual aid system;
patient treatment and transport would have been delayed and additional
loss of lives possible. Every citizen, in every city and county in the
U.S. deserves the quickest and best possible pre-hospital healthcare
and a strong Mutual Aid system is one of the ways to insure it.
VI. Further Detail on Recommendations
1. Ensure adequate federal homeland security funding is available
to governmental and nongovernmental ambulance service providers for
personal protective equipment, training and other resources necessary
to support their critical public safety missions.
Many ambulance service personnel that responded to major incidents
mentioned in this testimony continue to lack the appropriate personal
protective equipment necessary for the environments in which they would
be operating in including hazardous scenes and toxic floodwaters. This
is a direct result of the lack of federal and state homeland security
funding for ambulance service providers. In 2005 and 2006, the
Department of Homeland Security reported that emergency medical service
providers received only 4% of the homeland security funding distributed
to first responders.
To provide an effective response and to protect the health and
safety of our personnel, all medics, including those who have the
potential to respond in a mutual aid capacity, must be protected.
Personnel must have access to and must be trained on the appropriate
procedures for use of personal protective equipment that may include
tyvec suits, gloves, masks, rescue helmets, bunker gear and bio-hazard
storage and disposal equipment. Procedures must be developed to assure
access to vaccines and antidotes when necessary. In order for on scene
personnel to be effective in the incident command structure, these on
scene resources are essential. Ambulance logistics such as refueling,
repair and restocking are important considerations as well.
2. Further integrate governmental and nongovernmental ambulance
service providers into local, state and federal planning and exercises
and require that nongovernmental ambulance service providers be
included under appropriate mutual aid agreements such as Emergency
Management Agreement Contracts (EMACs).
Ambulance service providers operate at the intersection of the
public health, public safety and health care fields, and there is great
diversity in the types of providers delivering ambulance services and
the designs of those delivery systems. This diversity contributes to
the fact that many ambulance services are sometimes excluded from local
and state emergency preparedness and response activities. Furthermore,
there are compliance issues associated with the general requirements of
FEMA to obtain mutual aid agreements prior to an event in order to be
eligible for Stafford Act Public Assistance federal disaster
reimbursement. Ambulance service providers are not even listed as
emergency work under the Stafford Act and thus providers face barriers
in being eligible for reimbursement. Ambulance providers respond to
mutual aid requests from long distances--including neighboring cities,
counties and even states. It is difficult for a local ambulance
provider to secure prior mutual aid agreements with every local
community that may request services in the future.
3. Strengthen intrastate mutual aid as an essential component of
the National Response Framework capability.
Intrastate mutual aid plans need to be strengthened so local
communities can reach out to their state when in need of help and so
states will have resources organized for sending to neighboring states
when requested through EMAC. As recent catastrophes have demonstrated,
governmental and nongovernmental ambulance service providers are an
essential asset in the evacuation, response and recovery phases of a
national disaster. Governmental and nongovernmental ambulance service
providers must be fully integrated in the planning, training and
exercise activities at the local, state and federal level. State and
local EMS officials need to work hand in hand with state and local
emergency management officials as well as with their colleagues in the
fire service and law enforcement. Practical and integrated systems must
be instituted to inventory disaster response assets state by state to
streamline and document all mutual aid requests for assistance. As
local, regional and state mutual aid plans are strengthened and
broadened, the planning process should formalize mutual aid agreements
with all potential responders and service providers.
4. Increase access for governmental and nongovernmental ambulance
service providers to funding for emergency communications equipment and
systems in order to ensure that our systems achieve interoperability
with other first responders.
Based on a recent AAA membership survey, AAA members have reported
that communications systems and equipment remain a significant
operational need. In many communities, ambulance service providers also
face challenges obtaining access to radio frequencies. During recent
incidents of major consequence, AAA members experienced serious gaps in
maintaining communications with incident command authorities.
To ensure that all ambulance service providers can communicate
without problem during an incident, two objectives must be met. First,
governmental and nongovernmental ambulance service providers must be
eligible for grants to assure communications systems support our
critical public safety mission. Second, additional spectrum and systems
must be made available to government and non-government emergency
medical service providers and providers must be involved in the
communications interoperability planning activities at the local,
state, regional and national level. Studies clearly show the lack of a
compatible spectrum as well as a spectrum that is actually available to
local emergency responders, including ambulance service providers. Only
then will ambulance services providers be able to work efficiently with
incident command and other first responders.
VII. Conclusion
In conclusion, ambulance service providers stand ready with our
fire and law enforcement colleagues to assist in responding to future
catastrophic events. As demonstrated in the response to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita and more recently with the bridge collapse in
Minnesota, governmental and non-governmental ambulance service
providers are a critical component of the state, local and the national
response to catastrophic events. In these types of situations, all
ambulance service providers, regardless of provider type or whether the
units are emergency or non-emergency, become potential first
responders.
To assure the effective involvement of ambulance service providers
in mutual aid for emergency response, the following guiding principles
should apply:
Establish funding mechanisms to support and maintain
the essential capabilities of all ambulance service providers;
Require that all states include private ambulance
service providers in their Emergency Management Agreement
Contracts; and,
Ensure access for ambulance service providers to
interoperability communications equipment and systems.
I again thank Chairman Cuellar, Ranking Member Dent and members of
the Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and
Response for the opportunity to testify on this important issue.
I will be more than happy at the appropriate time to answer
questions that Subcommittee members have for me.
Thank you.
Consensus Report:
EMAC and EMS Resources for National Disaster Response
from the June 20, 2007 EMS Stakeholders Meeting in Arlington, VA
On June 20, 2007, the National Association of State Emergency Medical
Services Officials (NASEMSO) and the American Ambulance Association
(AAA) held a summit to discuss the use of emergency medical services
(EMS) resources during a disaster of national significance. In
attendance were various EMS, fire and emergency management national
organizations. In addition, the Federal agencies that participated
included:
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Health Affairs,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) Office of EMS.
After a round table discussion of lessons learned from the response to
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and status updates of EMS response
capabilities to incidents of national significance, the assembled
stakeholders identified the desired state for EMS national disaster
response captured by `` 6 C's'' which enable a robust national response
while not disrupting local emergency response capacity:
Coordination
Cooperation
Communication
Common Standards
Continued Operations
Commitment
Coordination
By working together and sharing information a coordinated response
maximizes resources while eliminating duplicate resource requests and
response. Planning and response is seamless across jurisdictions and
disciplines, involving integration of government and non-governmental
service providers horizontally and vertically. State/territorial EMS
Offices, local EMS Officials and providers must be involved in the
planning process to ensure proper funding support for EMS through
Federal preparedness grants. Additionally, there must be a plan
developed that accounts for the multi-jurisdictional pre-hospital
response to a catastrophic incident that considers mutual aid
agreements and associated equipment, staff, command and control and non
traditional patient movement and transfers. This coordinated process is
transparent and there is no competition for the same resources. The
National Response Framework (NRF) and the National Incident Management
System (NIMS), including the Incident Command System (ICS), form the
foundation and the operational guidelines for the coordinated response
as disasters are handled first locally with the support of interstate
mutual aid (time to execute recall mutual aid agreements with state and
local partners) and Federal resources as they are needed and/or
requested.
Cooperation
Planning is key to cooperation so that State and Federal resources are
complimentary to the local efforts. States, through the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), organize resources that include
government and non-governmental resources. Planning for critical
infrastructure (e.g. hospitals) support is incorporated in the overall
resource response plan. Federal disaster assets are organized as backup
and supplement local or EMAC resources when they are unable to meet the
need. States work together and exercise their EMAC agreements from the
receiving and sending position. Professional personnel credentialing,
both civil and criminal liability are key issues that remain to be
solved. Provider scope of practice and protocol differences highlights
the difficulties in coordinating healthcare personnel resources
throughout the EMAC system.
Communication
Communication is the sharing and understanding of information between
people/responders and their organizations. Open lines of communication
exist between all entities involved in disaster response in the pre-
disaster phases of planning and exercising. This includes communication
across jurisdictions and disciplines. Additionally, leadership of
stakeholder organizations promoting the 6 C's of EMS Resources of
national disaster response through their organizations. In the
operational mode, communications rely on advanced technologies,
including back up systems, with the following features:
Interoperability using broadband and various gateways
Redundancy
Common data dictionary
AVL/GPS/GIS
Resource tracking of availability, utilization and
accountability
Common Standards
In order to properly coordinate, cooperate and communicate, there are
common agreed upon standards that all participating organizations
utilize including:
Data Dictionary-National EMS Information System
(NEMSIS) Compliant
NIMS credentialing and national EMS certification NIMS
Resource typing
Disaster clinical protocols based on a single national
EMS scope of practice model
Self sufficiency
Accountability
Equipment, supplies and PPE
Conduct of personnel
Standardize Disaster Plans
Continued Operations
Disasters of national significance may require weeks and months of
continued operations. There must be systems in place in order for all
EMS resources to be used across jurisdiction, both intrastate and
interstate, using the National Incident Management System (NIMS)
(Res.C1a 1.3.2). In order to sustain operations in the disaster area as
well as local emergency response in unaffected areas, the following
components help maintain national EMS disaster response at an effective
and efficient level:
Sent resources are self sufficient for a minimum of 72
hours. There is no competition for resources or duplication of
requests
Resource response is measured and in waves
Regular but flexible resource (personnel and
equipment) replacement schedules are utilized
Mission determines resource need
Logistical support is planned and resourced adequately
Commitment
Coordination, cooperation, communication, common standards and
continued operations are achieved by the commitment of all involved
partners. All stakeholders are at the planning table and committed to
achieving consensus. Local, tribal, territorial, State and Federal EMS
leaders are integrated at every level with Emergency Management leaders
and with the Federal agencies responsible for disaster preparedness and
response. There are no barriers to participation of any stakeholder
agency or organization.
Current Issues
Against this vision of effective national EMS disaster response, the
EMS and EM stakeholders identified various areas where improvement is
necessary to achieve our maximum effectiveness. Those issues are:
Coordination and outright competition between states
and EMAC and Federal ambulance and shelter contractors, and
hospital systems
Clarity about the Federal support of EMAC as the
primary way to provide state resources to a disaster leading to
multiple pools of resources
Assess, categorize and track health and medical
resources at the state, regional and local levels including but
not limited to trauma centers, burn centers, pediatric
facilities, acute care facilities and other specialty
facilities (Res. C1a 1.1)
Due to the current capabilities of our EMS system in
meeting the day-to-day operations, a plan needs to be
identified for surge capacity at local and state levels.
A method to prevent over taxing local resources thus
degrading local emergencyoperations in areas outside of the
disaster zone
Coordination of resource requests from neighboring
states at the same time those states are receiving evacuees
Standardized credentialing and uniform clinical
protocols
Uniformity and interpretation in how states prepare
for and respond to EMAC requests
Inclusion of State/territorial EMS Offices, local EMS
Officials and providers in planning and preparedness activities
Identification of EMS as a priority in grant guidance
Air medical resources should be a part of the local,
regional and national ICS operations
Deployment lengths are problematic for physicians,
paid personnel, volunteers and their families
Self sufficiency needs to be fully explained so that
it is understood and practiceduniformly
Requests should be based on mission rather than
resource
Some states do not incorporate nongovernmental
resources in their EMAC resource plan
Preplanning needs to be the foundation for all
disaster response not waiting for sequential failure as the
trigger for additional resources
Need to clarify reimbursement through the EMAC process
Assure that there is an understanding that
reimbursement through the EMAC process is between requesting
and assisting states
EMAC reimbursements are slow and cumbersome relying on
the receiving state to get funded then reimburse the sending
states
Action Items
1. Support the current initiative spearheaded by DHS-OHA, HHS-ASPR and
FEMA to develop a single pool of resources and a single resource
ordering system accessible by states and the Federal government using
NIMS resourced and credentialed EMS resources with standardized
reimbursement rates.
2. Support the initiative that all state EMS assets are coordinated by
the lead state EMS office
3. NASEMSO, NEMA and EMAC leadership summit to get state EMS officials
fully engaged in the EMAC process.
4. Distribute this consensus document to all stakeholders and Federal
partners.
5. Collaborate with the ongoing IAFC interstate and intrastate mutual
aid project.
6. Support the Federal Interagency Committee on EMS (FICEMS) Technical
Working Group (TWG) Preparedness Committee.
7. Support the identification and inclusion of EMS priorities in
preparedness grant guidance.
8. State/territorial EMS Offices need to be actively engaged in
planning and preparedness activities.
9. Re-convene this stakeholders group in early 2008 to further develop
and implement the vision and action plan.
Contact
For more information on this consensus report on EMS resources in
national disaster response, contact NASEMSO Program Advisor Leslee
Stein-Spencer, LesleeSS@aol.com.
Consensus Report Approved by:
American Ambulance Association
American College of Emergency Physicians
Association of Air Medical Services
International Association of Emergency Managers
National Association of EMS Physicians
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
National Association of State EMS Officials
National EMS Management Association
Mr. Cuellar. And at this time I thank all the witnesses for
their testimony.
Members, as you know, we now have an opportunity to ask the
witnesses questions. I will remind each Member that he or she
will have 5 minutes each for questions. I will now recognize
myself for questions.
Mr. Bourne, talk to me a little about the Canadian fire
truck that was responding to a U.S. call that was held up at
the border I think it was for about 8 minutes. What can we do
to expedite that next time?
Mr. Bourne. I just learned about that just prior to the
hearing, Mr. Chairman, and it is certainly something we will
look into. It seems to me that there needs to be an
accommodation or a plan put in place with our partners at CBP
in order to facilitate that type of mutual aid activity. I
don't know the specifics of that incident. We will be certainly
looking into it.
One of the things that we have done in recent months is
increased our planning with CBP on cross-border types of
incidents. Much of that work began in earnest with the run-up
to Hurricane Dean, especially along the southern border.
Obviously on the northern border, our regional offices have
been engaged with our Canadian counterparts on mutual aid
efforts that are taking place every day.
That particular issue we will have to address directly with
CBP and see if we can't come up with a resolution to it which
talks about a protocol for who communicates to who that these
assets are coming to the border from whichever direction and
facilitating them through the border as quickly as possible.
And we will get back to you with an answer to the specifics on
that.
Mr. Cuellar. I ask you to do that. Could you tell us how
you intend to do that both at the northern and southern border
also, and again work with the committee?
Mr. Bourne. We will do that, sir.
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Cuellar. Let me ask, I guess, both Chief Westermann and
Mr. McPartlon on this issue. Both of you discussed the problems
of your members facing reimbursements through EMAC or the
Federal reimbursement system that provides assistance through a
disaster. There is a time lag on that. And if I can have both
of you, first the Chief and then Mr. McPartlon, if you can give
us any suggestions on how we can help fix the system to
expedite the system.
So, Chief.
Chief Westermann. I think one of the first things--and Mr.
Murphy referred to it in his comments by hiring a training
person. I think one of the first things is a lack of knowledge
on fire service, it has also been mentioned by law enforcement,
on the paperwork and exactly what the process is. And with that
training person, that will help a lot.
In the California fires, several fire chiefs I talked with,
several of the departments, because of the long reimbursement
time frame, requested not to go through EMAC. On a wildfire
they had the option of going through the National Forest
Service in Boise, Idaho, and they went through that process,
and their reimbursement is much quicker. So hope that we can
compare those two systems and see why that system is a little
bit quicker in reimbursement. In the EMAC process, it's more--
unless there is money coming from FEMA to the State which is
having the disaster and then disbursing it to the locals. So
that process needs to be looked at.
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Very good.
Mr. McPartlon. Our biggest challenge has to deal more with
the inclusion of nongovernmental providers in the EMAC program.
As I said, 17 States allow participation by nongovernmental
providers. The balance of the States do not. It is an
interpretative issue based on either State laws that are either
silent on the issue or strictly prohibit the participation.
Additionally, I don't think the States have figured out how to
make nongovernment assets stay assets. So we need to continue
to work on that.
As far as providing assistance in that regard, I think it
would be beneficial if we could ask our friends at FEMA to
facilitate communication with the States that don't allow
nongovernmental providers to participate in EMAC.
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Could I have both of you provide some
written suggestions on how we could address this again to our
committee staff?
Mr. McPartlon. Absolutely.
Chief Westermann. I would be happy to.
Mr. Cuellar. Let me just ask one question and make sure I
keep within the time. Mr. Murphy, in your testimony you were
talking about the framework, you know, to make sure that we
effectively manage resources from all levels of government;
make sure that it is defined community, county, State and
Federal response plans. To what extent do you believe that the
draft National Response Framework addresses resource
management?
Mr. Murphy. Chairman Cuellar, I think it addresses it, and
I think it gets into the more specifics in some of the
appendixes or annexes that are not in, you know, the initial
framework, although that does talk about it, I think, in what I
remember reading. And what we are trying to do, and I think we
can still work on this, is making sure, you know, part of this
whole process of mutual aid is really to make better use of our
resources and our tax dollars and, you know, to try and really
make sure that everybody has the right resources in the right
place, and that includes what you might be able to share, you
know, through this EMAC or any type of interstate mutual aid
also.
But I think it is something--and I know we have worked with
FEMA and the comments and the National Response Framework, you
know, emphasizing that, and maybe we need to even make this
stronger, because I think, as Chief Westermann said, you know,
there is a continuing education process, I think, not only
under EMAC, but interstate mutual aid programs, making sure
that we have accounted for as many people and as many resources
so that we really can take advantage of this to help people
when a disaster strikes.
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Thank you.
At this time I will recognize the Ranking Member of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Dent for
questions.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just wanted to follow up with Mr. McPartlon on the issue
that the Chairman just raised with respect to the various
ambulance service providers often finding themselves excluded
from consideration in mutual aid agreements. I thought I heard
you say that part of that reason was because of reimbursement
issues. Did I understand that correctly?
Mr. McPartlon. They are not excluded from the reimbursement
issues. They are excluded from participation.
Mr. Dent. Because of reimbursement issues? I thought I
heard that said.
Mr. McPartlon. Some States just don't recognize the
inclusion of the nongovernmental providers in those contracts.
Mr. Dent. Okay. And why is that? Why do you think that is?
Mr. McPartlon. It is my understanding that State laws are
either silent on the issue, and the attorney general of that
particular State has made a determination that they are not to
be included, or they have a State law that prohibits it.
Mr. Dent. So, in other words, they could--a mutual aid
agreement would be fine with a publicly owned entity, but not
with a service provider?
Mr. McPartlon. Under the EMAC, under an EMAC.
Mr. Dent. Have you had any discussions with the Federal
Government or other national-level organizations such as NEMA
to raise the awareness of this particular problem? Have you had
a lot of conversation?
Mr. McPartlon. We have. Those are in the works. We are also
working with the State EMS officials to resolve this issue.
Mr. Dent. I guess the question is, why would the States
recognize these groups? Are there liability questions? Anybody
feel free to jump in Marko, if you have any thoughts on this.
Mr. Bourne. I obviously don't know all the issues that are
intended in this, but I do believe some of it comes under
whether or not these ambulance services are under contract to
local government to perform an emergency service function,
whether they are, say, the true third-party EMS provider as
opposed to EMS being provided by a fire department or a
municipally managed service. And then there are ambulance
services that provide transport services that are not
necessarily 9-1-1-dispatched kind of services. Part of it
becomes when they are not acting under the color of government,
they are then in many States by law have to be treated under
procurement laws as a contracted vendor, which complicates it
for States.
So that is one of the issues that I know interferes with
them being directly included automatically when they are
technically not acting as the emergency responder for that
local government that is sending them, but instead they are
acting outside that authority. So that is just one of the
issues that I know exists.
Mr. Dent. I know. I guess there are about 17 States that
include these nongovernmental ambulance service providers as
being eligible. What are those States doing? Why can those 17
States allow you to participate under an EMAC request? Does
anybody have any thoughts or comments on that?
Mr. Bourne. We are not really sure. We would have to look
at what the State laws are that are specific to EMAC and the
involvement. They may have laws on the books that literally
treat them as governmental entities when they are dispatched
under EMAC. But my guess is that it probably revolves around
theirA-that localA-that for-profit ambulance service or
nonprofit ambulance service's relationship to the municipality
it is serving and under what--under whose auspices they may be
responding under.
Mr. Dent. It sounds like--you are not saying it, but it
sounds like there is some liability questions here.
Mr. Bourne. There is. There is also procurement law issues.
Part of this issue--and this was a hearing that we had with you
not that long ago when it talks about private-sector
involvement in emergency response activity. We always have to
be cognizant of it. At what point do they become a vendor
selling a service to the government, any government, and how do
we treat them under procurement law? And so there is a balance
that has to be understood, especially with entities that are
not governmental in nature, but are serving a governmental
purpose.
Mr. Dent. Finally to you, Mr. Bourne, Marko. What role, if
any, does FEMA play in the development and administration of an
intra-state mutual aid agreement? I am not just talking about
for fire companies and for ambulance corps, but I have heard
about it recently from police departments where there have been
some issues coming from counterterrorism people. There were
some--and they were legitimate issues--where some local law
enforcement could move between counties in my State. What
role----
Mr. Bourne. We don't have the authority to regulate that.
We certainly do have the authority to tell them what to do. But
what we have provided and continue to provide is model
agreements that the State legislatures can pass to address
those issues. EMAC has done that as well.
Mr. Dent. Could you share that with my office, particularly
as it relates to police service? I have had some issues
recently--and I think there is a little bit of frustration, and
everybody was acting in good faith, but there were some real
constraints that we felt need to be addressed. If you have
model legislation, I would really appreciate it if you could
get that to me and my staff.
Mr. Bourne. We do. And at the risk of getting out in front
of our friends in Pennsylvania, I have learned that they have
actually been working on this issue through both the State fire
commissioner and PEMA to actually look at these issues. And I
believe they have got something they are going to be rolling
out in the next week or two. But we can get the model to you.
Mr. Dent. It came up in the area of police service, not so
much in fire service or ambulance. So that would be very, very
helpful.
Mr. Bourne. I would be happy to do that.
Mr. Dent. And I see that I am over my time. And out of
respect to the Chairman--he will let me talk, I guess, a while
longer. I will yield back to the Chairman at this time. Thank
you. This has been very, very helpful.
Thank you, Chairman Cuellar.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you very much.
Let me just ask one last question for Major Ronczkowski. I
understand your proposal to work in the Law Enforcement
Deployment Team, that there is need for a follow-through and
sustained involvement. Can you speak a little bit more in
detail on the issue of how for law enforcement the mission does
not usually end at the scene itself and what that entails?
Mr. Ronczkowski. That is a huge challenge. As we know,
during Katrina, for example, there were many deceased people
that were out there. Law enforcement could have shown up. It
may have been a crime, may not have been a crime, may have been
accidental. That requires immediate investigation of a team of
personnel, everything from crime scene investigators to the
property and evidence custodians. Chain of custody comes into
play. And then what ends up taking place should an arrest
transpire is the detention of that individual, whether it is
immediately or down the line. All these are going to very much
lead up to various court appearances, and as we know with
homicide cases or long-term cases, it could be 2, 3, 4, 5 years
down the line, whether a warrant has been issued, whether it is
an Arthur hearing, various challenges to the detention, the
arrest, the apprehension, the training of the personnel. And
any good lawyer is going to bring in everybody that was on the
scene. So you could be talking to as many as 20 law enforcement
officials, fire officials, ambulance; they are all going to be
brought back for what may have been a crime scene and an
arrest. What is going to take place is we are going to have to
go back for depositions, we are going to have to go back for
the trial, and right now we do not know of any mechanism that
is willing to cover or compensate for that. And depending on
the case and the challenges that may take place, you may end up
with the leadership of our agencies, even though they were not
on the scene, being challenged in court later on down the line
in another jurisdiction.
Mr. Ronczkowski. These individuals are going to take a lot
of time to go back up to that jurisdiction. You are going to
have travel. You are going to have holdover. And in some cases
the attorneys are very willing to work with us, giving a
specific time to be there. In some other jurisdictions, they
want everybody there because they have the subpoena and they
have the authority to do so.
We do not have a reimbursement mechanism for that other
than out of our own coffers. So generally what will transpire
is that will become one of those pieces of the pie that doesn't
get reimbursed, doesn't get funded, doesn't even get looked at,
because that is after the television cameras have gone away and
the news media has forgotten about it unless it is rather
significant. And that is a great challenge.
We have got a little bit on the front end should we have a
large-scale demonstration or event, whether it is a convention
in a jurisdiction or a locale that has maybe a hundred small
jurisdictions, but no big one to come together. They may want
to reach out within the region to pull personnel in. Again, we
don't have a mechanism on the front side to help prevent
something from taking place.
A hurricane is a great example. Law enforcement we know is
going to be there afterwards. But we have the availability with
technology now to know 4, 5 days in advance to know the storm
is coming. We can position our personnel up there.
Stafford Act, if I recall correctly, is limiting to after
the event and the declaration of emergency has taken place.
Those are the challenges that we are facing within law
enforcement. We are willing to go forward to deployment teams.
Sheriff Baca has made it a commitment that it is going to
take place in California. We are willing to be a pilot project
down in the south Florida region. We have the assets and
resources. But we have to be inclusive of everybody. And the
only way they are going to do it, honestly, is if they are
going to know that reimbursement will be there to make them
whole.
Mr. Cuellar. All right. I understand.
Well, I want to thank all the witnesses at this time. I
would also ask you, besides providing the testimony, as you
listen to each other and you heard the different testimony I am
sure certain things got you thinking about certain things that
might be helpful to us. So, again, if you have any other
suggestions, if you want to follow-up again, please present it
to us. And we certainly want to follow up with you on this.
I want to thank all of you for your valuable testimony and,
of course, the members that were here for their questions. The
members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for
you; and if we do provide you with those, we ask you to respond
to those as quickly as possible in writing.
And, again, hearing no further business, the hearing stands
adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix: Additional Questions and Responses
----------
Question from the Honorable Henry Cuellar, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response
Responses from Marko Bourne
Question 1.: Mr. Bourne, as you know, FEMA recently signed a three
year Memorandum of Understanding with EMAC to work on credentialing and
typing, both of which you address in your testimony. Understanding and
respecting that EMAC is a State compact, I would like to know how FEMA
works with EMAC and the States to ensure a seamless response effort. At
times, State mutual aid efforts may be overwhelmed and federal
resources must be brought to bear.
How do you work together pre-incident to identify roles and
responsibilities?
Please describe to us the level of funding, coordination, and
communication between FEMA and EMAC.
Response: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the
National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have a long cooperative
relationship on resource typing and credentialing that predates the
Homeland Security Act of 2002. FEMA actively participates with the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) through formal
membership on the EMAC Advisory Group and participation at the EMAC
Committee meetings. FEMA maintains close routine contact with the EMAC
Director, the Policy Advisor to EMAC, the Chair of the EMAC Executive
Task Force and the EMAC Committee Chair. The EMAC representatives are
actively engaged with the FEMA Resource Typing and Credentialing
discipline working groups to ensure the efforts are compliant with
EMAC. For example, EMAC has started to develop full mission packages
(including estimated daily costs) for the 120 FEMA Typed Resources.
Effectively, EMAC has extended the 120 typed resources into fully ready
packages that simplify the ordering, deployment, and utilization of the
120 resources. Through the EMAC Memorandum of Understanding and
Cooperative Agreement, FEMA is working with EMAC to ensure that
National Incident Management System credentialing results in the right
persons being granted access at the right time to incident scenes
through a valid deployment authorization (which is a properly executed
EMAC REG-A form).
Funding for EMAC is an annually negotiated amount, based on the
activity and deliverables that NEMA and FEMA agree to. The funding
amount for FY 2007 was $1,000,000.
Question 2.: As you highlighted in your testimony, the Implementing
the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act provides for a 1 year
deadline on standards for credentialing and typing of incident
management personnel, emergency response providers and other personnel.
This deadline includes that FEMA provide technical assistance and
expertise to state and locals.
To date, what type of technical assistance and expertise has been
provided to States?
Response: FEMA is providing credentialing guidance and standards to
State and local entities. The State and local entities can determine,
on a voluntary basis, what responders need to be credentialed for EMAC
deployment. Working groups already exist that assess the minimum
standard per discipline. With this minimum standard, State and local
authorities can identify those personnel and volunteers to be
credentialed for EMAC. The Incident Commander at a disaster scene needs
to validate a credential and have proof that a responder is requested.
The State and/or local authorities issue these credentials for
responders. Additionally, the REQ-A, a contract between State
Governors, lists the pre-determined State and local disaster personnel
so that the Incident Commander will know who should have access to the
scene of a disaster.
States must establish a program that grants authority to agencies,
organizations or other entities to issue Qualification Cards for
persons meeting credentialing standards to be deployed for interstate
mutual aid. Working with EMAC, States will need to be able to provide
an inventory of credentialed assets and be able to track availability
for deployment.
A standardized system of personnel identification and ``skill-set''
verification will directly enhance resource sharing and mutual aid
throughout the Nation. State and local credentialing efforts support
FEMA's National Mutual Aid and Resource Management System to enhance
inter and intra-state mutual aid. The establishment of credentialing
standards enhances the validation process and management of incident
command system (ICS), which is the backbone of NIMS.
Technical assistance and expertise is provided to States by
Incident Management Systems Integration (IMSI) of FEMA, an element of
the National Integration Center. NIMS Guide 2 (titled National
Credentialing Definition and Criteria) issued by IMSI in March, 2007
provides general credentialing guidance to States. The NIMS
Credentialing Standards Working Group is in the process of developing
additional credentialing guidance for States. We anticipate that this
guidance will be released in January 2008. Additional technical
assistance and expertise is also provided to States by the FEMA NIMS
Coordinators in each of the FEMA regional office. Discipline specific
credentialing standards by position can be accessed at http://
www.fema.gov/emergency/nims. Specific questions regarding State and
local credentialing can be directed to the following email address:
[email protected]
Question 3.: The Major Cities Chiefs and the Major County Sheriffs
have proposed the idea of Law Enforcement Deployment Teams to be sent
to areas where there has been a large disaster to help local law
enforcement carry out their duties.
What is FEMA's position on the creation of these teams?
What may be the possible challenges to the deployment of the teams?
Response: In 2006 the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs concluded that there is a demonstrated need for
``a large, well-equipped, and coordinated law enforcement response to
maintain or restore civil order after catastrophic events.'' As was
experienced with Hurricane Katrina, such a significant event can
effectively eliminate even a State's ability to maintain civil order in
all its communities.
The Implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of
2007 recently established an Office of State and Local Law Enforcement
in the Department of Homeland Security that requires the Assistant
Secretary leading this office to:
[C]onduct, jointly with the Administrator, a study to determine
the efficacy and feasibility of establishing specialized law
enforcement deployment teams to assist State, local, and tribal
governments in responding to natural disasters, acts of
terrorism, or other man-made disasters and report on the
results of that study to the appropriate committees of
Congress.
While this study has not been completed, we agree that there is a
need to strengthen state to state law enforcement mutual aid
capabilities. FEMA believes it is appropriate to leverage existing
state to state agreements and infrastructure to complete this mission.
FEMA has worked cooperatively with the Major City Police Chiefs (MCC)
and Major County Sheriffs (MCS) in the preparation of their report; we
will engage national law enforcement leadership, including MCC and MCS
in partnership with the Office of State and Local Law Enforcement in
the required LEDT study.
Challenges to the deployment of these teams include the significant
costs associated with not only deployment, but start up and maintenance
costs (including equipment, training, logistics and management).
Required law enforcement authorities and policies including powers of
arrest and use of force, along with legal liabilities will need to be
thoroughly scrutinized. Support for these teams includes not only
normal logistical challenges, but includes the challenges associated
with prisoners, jails and the courts. Early decisions will need to be
made as to whether LEDT should be a federalized resource, working at
the direction of and fully supported by DOJ or DHS as sworn federal law
enforcement officers, or as a state to state law enforcement resource
working at the direction of and fully supported by Governors. In order
for LEDT to be effective, typing and credentialing for law enforcement
will need significant improvement, requiring national law enforcement
community consensus and support.
While there are significant costs associated with a Law Enforcement
Deployment Team system, the ability to integrate and leverage the
community oriented policing training and experience of over 700,000
state/local police officers at a disaster is a significant opportunity
that can improve our Nation's ability to respond and recover from
disaster; the ad hoc and self dispatching of law enforcement as
experienced in response to Hurricane Katrina is an unacceptable
national policy.
Question 4.: In your testimony you highlight the work of the
National Capitol Region on credentialing.
What are the biggest challenges to this pilot and what are the
estimated costs associated with credentialing first responders?
How feasible is a future scenario where most communities in the
U.S. have credentialed emergency personnel based on a national
identification standard?
Response: In fulfilling Federal credentialing requirements
implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007,
FEMA will develop a control objective and guidelines by which State and
local partners can leverage the Federal government's effort, if they so
choose. While there is no requirement for States and localities to
credential first responders, many State and local jurisdictions may
wish to do so.
With regard specifically to the NCR pilot, one challenge is
business rule development related to incorporating credentialing into
response and recovery activities. For example, in the event of threat
level changes (e.g., Orange to Red), the requirements to validate a
responder's credentials could also change, for example becoming more
stringent. The NCR pilot is engaged in selected exercises/
demonstrations to develop business rules for various scenarios. An
additional challenge, which is being addressed by FEMA's National
Integration Center, is the need to baseline skill sets. Currently, how
one jurisdiction defines an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), for
example, is often different from another. Developing a common approach
to defining various skill sets (e.g., hazmat certified fire fighter),
or attributes, will allow incident commanders to quickly identify and
locate needed resources, thus facilitating response across different
jurisdictions.
The feasibility of future scenarios where most communities in the
Untied States have credentialed emergency personnel is dependent upon
how quickly the credentialing process can be implemented across the
nation. Pockets of the nation are further along in the credentialing
process than others.
The estimated cost of the NCR pilot (FY 2008) is $1,387,000.
Question 5.: The Washington Military Department in my home state
has hosted several meetings with the Emergency Management Directors of
the other FEMA Region X states (Alaska, Oregon and Idaho), all of whom
are committed to working toward eventual regional contingency planning,
capabilities sets, and mutual aid arrangements that can effectively
strengthen regional disaster resilience.
My state's Homeland Security Advisor tells me that this kind of
planning can substantially reduce the need for federal government
assistance in the event of significant state or regional disasters. If
states know as an event unfolds exactly what they can rely on their
neighbors to provide, their inclination will likely be to look for
assistance from that direction.
Beyond a unity of intent, however, little has been done because the
states lack the funds necessary to undertake and coordinate the
requisite baseline regional planning. Mr. Bourne, do you think that it
makes sense for the federal government and FEMA in particular to
provide some modest assistance to states to help facilitate this
planning and discussion?
Response: Incidents typically begin and end locally and are managed
on a daily basis at the lowest possible geographical, organizational,
and jurisdictional level. However, there are instances in which
successful incident management operations depend on the involvement of
multiple jurisdictions, levels of government, functional agencies, and/
or emergency responder disciplines. These types of incidents require
effective and efficient coordination across a broad spectrum of
organizations and activities. A regional planning approach (i.e.
involving the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) that
would address capabilities, resources, and mutual aid needs supports
the implementation of the National Incident Management System, and
would absolutely make sense for the federal government and FEMA to
support. One example of how the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) is supporting this kind of joint, regional planning is through
the hiring of Federal Preparedness Coordinators in each of the 10 FEMA
Regional Offices. These Coordinators are high-level officials that will
be charged with, among other things, facilitating regional planning
across their regions with a specific emphasis on identifying regional
capability sets and developing regional contingency plans and mutual
aid arrangements to strengthen regional disaster resilience. In
addition, the FY 2007 U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina
Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations (P.L. 110-28) provided
$35 million for a Catastrophic Event Planning Initiative. FEMA will
provide these funds and technical assistance to support joint regional
planning in and around the Tier I Urban Areas. As you are aware, the
recently passed FY 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act includes an
additional $35 million for this purpose. FEMA also allows homeland
security grant funding to be used to support these kinds of planning
activities in all jurisdictions nationally.
In addition to the CAT planning funds for FY 2007, the following
additional grant programs support planning efforts at the state and
local level: the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) which consists
of the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP), Urban Area Security
Initiative (UASI), Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program
(LETPP), Citizen Corps Program (CCP) and the Metropolitan Medical
Response System (MMRS); Emergency Management Performance Grant Program
(EMPG); Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program
(PSIC); and the Infrastructure Protection Program (IPP) which consists
of the Transit Security Grant Program (TSGP), Port Security Grant
Program (PSGP), Intercity Bus Security Grant Program (IBSGP), Trucking
Security Grant Program (TSP) and the Buffer Zone Protection Program
(BZPP). For FY 2007, the 56 States and Territories have estimated that
they intend to use approximately $374 million of their HSGP funding for
planning activities.
Questions from the Honorable Charles W. Dent, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Emergecny Communications, Preparedness and Response
Responses from Marko Bourne
Question 6.: Please provide copies of the model agreements FEMA
provides States and localities for their use in developing and
implementing mutual aid agreements. In particular, please provide any
information that may assist a local community in establishing mutual
aid agreements for law enforcement purposes.
Response: Mutual aid agreements and assistance agreements are
written or oral agreements made between and among agencies/
organizations and jurisdictions that provide a mechanism to quickly
obtain emergency assistance in the form of personnel, equipment,
materials, and other associated services. The primary objective is to
facilitate rapid, short term deployment of emergency support prior to,
during, and after an incident. A signed agreement does not obligate the
provision or receipt of aid, but rather provides a tool for use should
the incident dictate a need. Agreements should include the following
elements or provisions:
definitions of key terms used in the agreement
roles and responsibilities of individual parties
procedures for requesting and providing assistance
procedures, authorities, and rules for payment,
reimbursement, and allocation of costs
notification procedures
protocols for interoperable communications
relationships with other agreements among
jurisdictions
workers' compensation
treatment of liability and immunity
recognition of qualifications and certifications
termination clause
Jurisdictions should be party to agreements with the appropriate
jurisdictions and organizations (including the private sector and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), where appropriate) from which
they expect to receive, or to which they expect to provide assistance.
States should participate in interstate compacts and establish
intrastate agreements that encompass all local jurisdictions.
Authorized officials from each of the participating jurisdictions and
organizations should collectively approve all mutual aid agreements and
assistance agreements.
Memorandums of understanding and memorandums of agreement are also
needed with the private sector and NGOs--such as community-based and
faith-based organizations and national organizations, including the
American Red Cross and the Salvation Army to facilitate the timely
delivery of assistance during incidents.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's IS-706 National Incident
Management System (NIMS) Intrastate Mutual Aid--An Introduction course
provides an introduction to NIMS intrastate mutual aid and assistance.
Participants learn about the purpose and benefits of mutual aid and
assistance. Participants also learn about the emphasis that NIMS places
on mutual aid and assistance. The course explains how to develop mutual
aid and assistance agreements and mutual aid operational plans. At the
conclusion of this course, participants should be able to:
Describe the purpose, benefits, and uses of mutual aid
and assistance.
Explain how mutual aid and assistance agreements
relate to NIMS.
Identify what information should be included in a
mutual aid and assistance agreement.
Explain the process for developing mutual aid and
assistance agreements.
Identify the elements of a mutual aid and assistance
operational plan.
The primary audience for the course is State, local, and tribal
emergency response and coordination personnel. The course takes
approximately two and a half hours to complete. The course can be
accessed at http://training.fema.gov/IS/.
The following mutual aid resources can be found on the FEMA website
at http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/rm/ma.shtm
Model Intrastate Mutual Aid Legislation
Model State-County Mutual Aid Deployment Contract
Model Cooperative Agreements
Model Mutual Aid Agreements
Mutual Aid FAQs
Question 7.: One of EMAC's priorities is to develop pre-scripted
mission assignments, including personnel and equipment descriptions and
cost estimates. Is FEMA involved in the development of these mission
assignments? Please discuss how this effort through EMAC may be similar
to the pre-scripted mission assignments that FEMA has been working on
at the Federal level.
How does FEMA coordinate with EMAC? Is your office the focal point
for coordination between EMAC and FEMA?
Response: The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is a
mutual aid agreement and partnership administered by the National
Emergency Management Association (NEMA) among all 50 States, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Emergency management assistance compacts consist of cooperative mutual
aid agreements exercised State to State to facilitate the sharing of
critical resources during emergencies and disasters. They can be used
to provide capabilities from one EMAC-member to another, as long as
there is a state of emergency declared by the Governor of the receiving
State. The agreements address operational, policy, legal and financial
issues associated with interstate mutual-aid.
The EMAC Committee of NEMA, led by a chairperson, manages and
provides overall policy direction for EMAC activities and operations.
Because of the EMAC mutual-aid process, requests for assistance are
often coordinated between States without any Federal involvement
whatsoever. When the capabilities of a State or an assisting State are
overwhelmed, Federal coordination and involvement are required. Under
such circumstances, Authorized Representatives of the requesting and
assisting States join in with the Federal government's response efforts
to provide increased capabilities and prevent any duplication of
efforts.
When FEMA's National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) and/or the
Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) are activated to
coordinate Federal disaster response and recovery operations, FEMA may
request inclusion of a coordination element from EMAC. The EMAC
National Coordinating Team (NCT) can then be deployed to the NRCC and
their Regional Coordinating Team (RCT) can be deployed to the RRCC to
serve as liaisons between FEMA and EMAC. The EMAC NCT and RCT
coordinate with all of the deployed EMAC components responding to the
disaster and serve as the liaison between the EMAC assistance efforts
and the Federally-provided assistance efforts.
FEMA is not directly involved with EMAC in helping them develop
their own Mission Assignments (MA)/Pre-Scripted Mission Assignments
(PSMA). The term MA has a specific meaning for FEMA and the Federal
Departments and Agencies (D/A). 44 CFR, Part 206, provides definitions
and general rules pertaining to MAs issued by FEMA. 44 CFR defines a MA
as a ``work order issued to a Federal agency by the Regional Director
(RD), Associate Director, or Director, directing the completion by that
Federal agency of a specified task and citing funding, other managerial
controls, and guidance.'' [NOTE: The CFR has not been updated to
reflect current organizational or position title changes].
Additional related definitions related to FEMA's MAs include:
Proposed Statement of Work (PSOW): A preliminary statement
of work prepared by an Emergency Support Function (ESF) Primary D/A,
prior to a major disaster or emergency. The key components of a PSOW
are a scope of work (e.g., specific tasks to be performed, requirements
or criteria to be followed) and a projected cost estimate. Preparation
of the PSOW is the first step in development of a PSMA.
PSMA: Specific statements of work designed to
facilitate assistance between two D/As at the Federal level.
PSMAs include a statement of work and projected cost estimate
written, evaluated, and mutually agreed upon by FEMA and the
ESF Primary D/A designated in the MA, prior to a major disaster
or emergency (In the case of DoD, PSMAs are coordinated vs.
approved). The PSMA serves as a baseline for developing a
tasking to a Federal D/A to meet operational requirements.
Essentially, the PSMA is a PSOW that has undergone program,
legal, and financial reviews and been accepted by both FEMA and
the Primary D/A.
Although FEMA is not really involved in EMAC's PSMA process, the
intent of the EMAC process is likely similar to that of the Federal
PSMA process in that both serve as a baseline for developing taskings
to meet operational requirements, including a scope of work (e.g.,
specific tasks to be performed, requirements or criteria to be
followed) and projected cost estimates.
Questions from the Honorable Henry Cuellar, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Responses from Jim McPartlon
1. Chief Westermann and Mr. McPartlon, both of your testimonies
discuss the problems your members face receiving reimbursement through
the EMAC or federal reimbursement systems after they provided
assistance during a disaster. You both said it can sometimes take as
long as a few month or years for agencies to be paid for the services
they provided.
T3Do you have any suggestions on how we can fix the
system?
Response of Mr. McPartlon: The primary reason for the delay in
payments to ambulance service providers, and in particular
nongovernmental providers, is that ambulance services are not
specifically listed as a covered service in the Stafford Act. While the
central office at FEMA has issued guidance to FEMA field offices and
state homeland security officials that governmental and nongovernmental
ambulance service providers are eligible for reimbursement, providers
still encounter resistance in being reimbursed. This is because
nongovernmental providers must have a local or state government agency
submit their claim to FEMA. The state or local government officials do
not believe that nongovernmental providers are eligible even when
provided documentation by the provider. When seeking clarification from
FEMA, there are often times when the FEMA field representative is
unaware of the guidance and denies the claim. All of the confusion
stems from the fact that ambulance services are not listed as a covered
entity in the Stafford Act. My recommendation therefore would be to
include ``governmental and nongovernmental ambulance services'' in the
list of service eligible for reimbursement under the Stafford Act. This
would address reimbursement problems both when ambulance service
providers respond directly to a local federally-declared disaster or
through an EMAC.
2. In your testimony you say that almost two-thirds of states do
not allow the inclusion and deployment under EMAC of nongovernmental
ambulance service providers.
Why do you believe that more states do not allow the
utilization of these resources under EMAC?
Response of Mr. McPartlon:
My understanding of why more states do not allow the utilization of
nongovernmental ambulance service providers is twofold. First, the
federal language authorizing EMACs does not specifically state that
nongovernmental resources may be utilized under an EMAC. Without
explicit language to that fact, many state attorneys generals have
therefore concluded that nongovernmental resources may not be deployed
under an EMAC request. Second, even when state attorneys general
determine that nongovernmental resources may be deployed, states often
face issues such as liability insurance and whether nongovernmental
resources are covered. States therefore decide it best to avoid any
potential expose and exclude nongovernmental resources. To resolve this
issue, I recommend that the EMAC authorization language be clarified to
specifically include nongovernmental resources and that these resources
are considered state resources during the deployment to avoid liability
issues.
Question from the Honorable Norman D. Dicks, Member, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
3. Within your respective jurisdictions and to the extent that
regional contingency planning has been done, have you found that a lack
of available resources have limited the value of a mutual aid
arrangement?
Response of Mr. McPartlon:
I have found that a lack of available resources is not an issue
with ambulance services. Nongovernmental ambulance service providers
represent the majority of ambulances and medics which are available to
respond under any mutual aid arrangement. In response to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita and at the request of FEMA, the AAA coordinated the
deployment of over 500 nongovernmental ambulances and crews to the gulf
region. The issue, however, is that nongovernmental ambulance service
providers are not being utilized effectively. Two-thirds of states do
not allow for the deployment under their EMAC of nongovernmental
resources. I therefore recommend that the EMAC authorization language
be clarified to specifically include nongovernmental resources.
Questions from the Honorable Henry Cuellar, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response
Response from Kenneth Murphy
Question 1: In your testimony, you mention that the framework to
effectively manage resources from all levels of government is defined
in community, county, state and federal response plans.
a. To what extent do you believe the National Response Framework
addresses resource management?
b. How does EMAC work with FEMA and the states to ensure that all
resources are typed in a way in which they can be effectively shared at
the National level?
The current draft of the National Response Plan/Framework does not
limit states' ability to request federal support until all mutual aid
options are exhausted as previous drafts have included. Resource
management is not fully addressed in the National Response Plan/
Framework and needs to be a concurrent plan developed in coordination
with all of the players at the state, local and federal level in order
to be a national resource management plan.
EMAC, as part of our cooperative agreement with FEMA, has completed
sixty (60) resource typed mission packages and will complete ninety
(90) by May 2008. The mission packages use FEMA NIMS resource typing
method and take it to the next level by identifying the missions that
package can be deployable for, personnel and equipment needed,
limitations, required logistical support, the footprint needed to
support, and the estimated cost (minus travel costs) to deploy. Mission
packaging will allow assets to not just be deployed more quickly but
will also allow resource owners to look at costs, equipment, and
personnel needed pre-event. It is thought that the work upfront to
identify mission packages will also have a positive outcome on
reimbursement when the package is demobilized.
The completed resource typed mission packages are posted to the
EMAC Web Site and available publically. Further, NEMA has been working
with FEMA to share them with the disciplines and resource typing
working groups, and the EMAC Advisory Group. While the job of resource
typing and building mission packages resides with the resource owner,
the mission packages being developed will serve as a model/template for
resources owners.
This initiative is in its infancy and we expect to continue this
work through the disciplines and FEMA in the next two to three years
assuming continuation of our cooperative agreements and grants.
Question 2.: You should be commended on establishing the EMAC
Advisory Group that is working to integrate partners before a disaster
or attack happens. From your testimony, I understand you are discussing
issues such as resource typing, mission packages, and deployment issues
in the meetings.
a. How is information being shared on group activities with the
States and localities? What is the end goal of the Advisory Group, to
issue recommendations, develop a baseline of best practices for typing
and packages?
Thank you for recognizing the importance of the EMAC Advisory
Committee. We are very proud to be able to pull stakeholders into the
policy discussions and development as EMAC tries to expand information
on how the EMAC system works and how state and local governments and
various disciplines can utilize the system.
The mission of the EMAC Advisory Group is to facilitate the
effective integration of multi-discipline emergency response and
recovery assets for nation-wide mutual aid through the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact. To accomplish this mission we have
focused on three goals: 1) Promote a better understanding of EMAC for
multi-discipline emergency response and recovery entities, and mutual
aid partners; 2) Create a forum for mutual aid stakeholders to provide
input and feedback to NEMA to enhance mutual aid through EMAC; and 3)
Advance inter and intra state mutual aid.
Information is being shared on the Advisory Committee through the
members of the Committee reporting back to their national associations.
For example, the National League of Cities representative shares the
information back with members of the National League of Cities. This
also opens doors for future EMAC training with these partners, as was
the case with a national State Municipal League meeting last summer in
which EMAC coordinated a session on the EMAC system.
The disciplines and practitioners are the resource owners. To make
deployments of resources more effective and efficient, resource typed
mission packaging must be developed using uniform verbiage.
In addition to resource typing and mission package development we
have been working with the disciplines to develop discipline specific
``tip sheets'' and an ``EMAC Deployment Brochure'' that can be handed
out at meetings and conferences to give the disciplines a better
understanding of mutual aid, EMAC, and how to effectively and
efficiently deploy during an event. We have also been working on
credentialing and helping disciplines to better understand the
professional standards and site credentialing issues. Another more
recent outcome from the EMAC Advisory Group is the development of law
enforcement rapid response teams underway with Major City Chiefs
Association and Major County Sheriffs' Association that would be
deployable under EMAC.
Question 3.: As the Administrator for EMAC--please explain to us
the NEMA staffing and financial resources committed to the mission so
far.
a. Are the staffing needs adequate?
b. Are the information technology systems able to support the
current and future missions?
c. Understanding the EMAC program is authorized for more money
than appropriated, what could additional dollars provide for
EMAC?
EMAC recently received a $1.005 million grant from FEMA to continue
operations in June 2007 through May 2008. Prior to that, EMAC was
funded in FY 2002 with $2.1 million that kept the system operating
until the recent influx of funding. We currently have two full time
staff members dedicated to running the EMAC system and to providing
training, a senior advisor, a technology consultant, and part-time
assistance shared with other NEMA staff. Currently, the staffing needs
are within our funding levels, however increases would be necessary to
better support of state operations and exercises, better coordination
with federal agencies during events and exercises, and the
Congressional mandates for resource typing and credentialing in future
years.
The current information technology systems are sufficient to
address current and future missions, but we need out year support to
sustain at the current level and to continue to maintain system
integrity in conjunction other technologies.
EMAC funding at the authorized level is critical to the sustainment
of the program and enhancing the EMAC systems and operations. Funding
EMAC also helps leverage federal dollars for building state operations
and to help other states through other grant programs like the
Emergency Management Performance Grant. Administrative support for the
compact, operations enhancement, and training are key initiatives that
would be addressed with the full authorized funding level.
Question 4.: EMAC has grown considerably since the mid-1990s--what
are the requirements for a State or territory to belong to EMAC?
State legislative approval is required for a state to become a
party to EMAC. Currently, all fifty states, the District of Columbia,
Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam are parties to EMAC.
a. How has the growth in the size of EMAC changes the way business
is done?
The growth of EMAC, and the development of one uniform system by
which all disciplines may be deployed through the state emergency
management agency, has resulted in a number of changes. A few of these
are highlighted below:1. NEMA established an EMAC Committee, allowing
the state directors become more engaged in the policies, procedures,
and work elements. The EMAC Subcommittee under the Response and
Recovery Committee of NEMA has been renamed the EMAC Executive Task
Force with direct reporting to the EMAC Committee. One state emergency
management person from each FEMA region serves on the EMAC Executive
Task Force and reports back to their region:
2. The development of the EMAC Advisory Group to engage with
the disciplines and bring together state emergency management
with response and recovery elements:
3. Modernize the EMAC Operations System whereby states manage
EMAC operations:
4. Providing more guidance to the disciplines on how to become
more engaged in intra and inter state mutual aid: and
5. Addition of full time staffing to maintain the system, the
policies and procedures, coordination, incorporate lessons
learned, training and education.
b. Has EMAC been able to keep up with the members, the requests for
assistance and the reimbursements?
EMAC has been able to keep up the members (thanks to funding from
FEMA) and has been able to facilitate the requests for assistance.
Reimbursement packages from Assisting States are sent to Requesting
States for payment. These are not processed by NEMA staff but by the
states. Political jurisdictions in the states deployed under EMAC send
their reimbursement packages to the state emergency management agencies
where they are audited and then send to the Requesting State for audit
and reimbursement against the original mission order and any
amendments.
Question 5.: Chief Westerman and Mr. McParlton, both of your
testimonies discuss the problems members face receiving reimbursement
through the EMAC or federal reimbursement systems after they provided
assistance during a disaster. You both said it can sometimes take as
long as a few months or years for agencies to be paid for the services
they provided.
a. Do you have any suggestions on how we can fix the system?
We have requested that Immediate Needs Funding be granted to states
that are impacted to quickly pay EMAC mission costs based on contracts,
not FEMA Public Assistance guidelines.
b. Mr. Murphy, what is EMAC doing to fix this problem?
We have been working on through the development of resource typed
mission packages to work on knowing upfront mission costs and better
dissemination of reimbursement guidelines to all political
jurisdictions to assist the states with reimbursement. Providing an
accurate cost estimate upfront on the mission will allow for better
reimbursement packages received by the Requesting State. Further, we
are working with the disciplines and the EMAC Advisory Group, and EMAC
leadership to share information before deployments on what is
reimbursable and what is not reimbursable.
Question 6.: In your testimony, you say that almost two-thirds of
states do not allow the inclusion and deployment under EMAC of non-
governmental service providers.
a. Why do you believe that more states do not allow the
utilization of these resources under EMAC?
State laws and regulations may prevent fronting costs for non-
public resources deployed through mutual aid agreements. These may not
be exclusive to EMAC alone and may involve all mutual aid deployments.
Additionally, states may prefer to exhaust their own state and local
assets before including non-public assets. NEMA developed, in 2004 a
Model Interstate Mutual Aid model that states may be able to use, if
state law allows, to further the deployment of non-traditional assets
under EMAC.
b. Mr. Murphy, as a state emergency management, can you comment
on what some states would not utilize non-governmental
ambulance services as part of EMAC?
State laws and regulations may prevent fronting costs for non-
public resources deployed through mutual aid agreements.
Questions from the Honorable Norman D. Dicks, Member, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response
Responses from Kenneth Murphy
Question 7.: With your respective jurisdictions and to the extent
that regional contingency planning has been done, have you found that a
lack of available resources have limited the value of a mutual aid
agreement?
No, in Oregon and nationally regional planning has enabled us to
better identify assets and resources that can be brought to bear in a
disaster before the disaster actually occurs. We are getting better at
knowing who has assets, expertise and resources through planning
initiatives and regional efforts such as the Pacific Northwest Economic
Region and national exercises like TOPOFF. EMAC expands authority and
leverages more resources during a disaster. The federal dollars
invested in capacity for states are leveraged during an event because
assets can move under EMAC to respond to other states in need. Further
integration of EMAC into national exercises will allow us to realize
the assets the nation can share during a real event.
Question from the Honorable Charles W. Dent, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response
Response from Kenneth Murphy
Does the State of Oregon include private ambulance service
providers in its mutual aid agreements? Why or why not?
Part I--A state might not include a private or non-profit simply
because the entity in question does not have in their operating
procedures or contract the legal authority to allow for mutual aid. I
believe that through the proper legal review and collaboration that any
operating procedures or contractual language can be overcome. It simply
would need to be on a case-by-case basis.
From your perspective, why might a State not include private or
non-governmental emergency service providers in mutual aid agreements
such as EMAC?
Part II--EMAC is a state-to-state agreement and it leaves the
decisions on provider participation to states. State laws and
regulations may prevent fronting costs for non-public resources
deployed through mutual aid agreements. These may not be exclusive to
EMAC alone and may involve all mutual aid deployments. Additionally,
states may prefer to exhaust their own state and local assets before
including non-public assets.
Question 8.: Several provide organization have proposed putting
together a business equivalent of a mutual aid agreement, referred to
as BEMAC. How is NEMA involved in the business community's effort to
develop such as agreement? Would a formal agreement among businesses
and governments for emergency response be beneficial?
NEMA is working closely with partners at the US Chamber of Commerce
and Business Executives for National Security (BENS). Meetings with
BENS, the US Chamber of Commerce, and private sector participants
resulted in matching private sector assets with state emergency
management agencies over the development of a BEMAC.
State laws and regulations may prevent the fronting of costs for
non-public resources and may impact infringing on competition and
bidding laws for contracts. The NEMA Legal Committee and BENS has been
exploring the legal hindrances between both public and private sector.
We have been working to match private sector and state emergency
management agencies pre-event to determine in essence resource typed
mission packages that the private sector could develop for states that
could be quickly deployed upon the signature of a contract (much like
signing a mission order except the private sector company is directly
engaged with the entity that would need the resource. This would solve
the need for having to upfront costs by the public sector and allow the
resource to get to the impacted area more efficiently and effectively
by pre-determining needs.
NEMA held two private sector/state emergency management workshops
at the 2007 Annual Conference in Oklahoma City, OK to directly connect
state emergency management directors with the resources they may need
during an event.
Question 9.: One issue this Committee has been focused on is
interoperable communications. How is NEMA involved in supporting the
efforts of state and local governments to achieve interoperable
communications? Does EMAC include any guidance to States regarding
interoperability to help ensure that States providing assistance
through EMAC can communicate effectively with the emergency response
officials they are assisting?
NEMA has been supportive of Congressional and Administration
initiatives to develop interoperable communications grants programs to
state and local governments. The system developed can be leveraged by
states in need during disasters through EMAC, thus increasing the value
of investments made. EMAC does not have a specific recommendation on
how to achieve interoperability, but mission packages help facilitate
matching the needs of the requesting state with the systems available
through assisting states. We try to share information as much as
possible on what kind of communications equipment and systems are being
used so assisting states are prepared. However, once assets are
deployed, under command and control, they have to follow the state
procedures in the state they are assisting.
Question 10.: We often hear about mutual aid channels for voice
communication during disasters. Would you please explain how these
channels work and their effectiveness during emergencies?
EMAC is not specifically involved in developing mutual aid
channels. EMAC has been used to re-route 911 call centers during
Hurricane Katrina to provide a backstop for states that experienced
complete losses of communications. EMAC is currently working with the
Association of Public Communications Officials and the National
Emergency Number Association to prepare a plan to assist in the
movement of call centers and/or personnel in the future that includes
911 and poison control.
Questions from the Honorable Henry Cuellar, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Responses from Major Michael Ronczkowski
Question 1.: To what extent has the Miami-Dade Police Department
contributed equipment, personnel and resources to other States through
EMAC and to your knowledge, how often have you been on the receiving
end of such resources?
The Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) has not received direct
support from the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). As a
Department we have responded to multiple counties during 2004 and 2005.
This request for support came via the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations
Center (EOC) and the State EOC. We always utilized FEMA tracking /
mission numbers that were provided via the EOCs.
In-state support included:
St Lucie County (Main Area of Support)
Escambia County (Pensacola -Pan Handle) Lee County
Charlotte County Desoto County Hillsborough County Polk County
Hardee County
Out-of-state support included:
Mississippi (Hurricane Katrina support)
Louisiana (Hurricane Katrina support)
--relief supplies and escort for supplies were the main
missions
Support included MDPD personnel who assisted with recovery efforts,
traffic control and search rescue efforts (checking damaged homes for
injured persons). We also provided law enforcement and fire personnel
with tools and equipment to secure their homes so that they can focus
on the mission of restoring order and assisting the citizens in their
respective jurisdiction.
2. Please highlight the law enforcement capabilities and skill sets
that may be needed during a disaster or incident that would demand
personnel from a force outside of a particular State's jurisdiction?
Quite often agencies that are struck with a disaster lack the
necessary resources to address the situation in a sustained fashion.
Whether they themselves are among the victims or they do not have the
personnel to meet the needs of the situation, no one agency can
generally have ample personnel allocations to address every scenario.
By combining resources, personnel with specialized skill sets can be
pooled and leveraged to meet the demands of virtually any disaster,
without draining the resources of any one jurisdiction or region. As an
example, a natural disaster such as a hurricane can devastate
physically and resource wise a entire region of one state. Therefore,
leveraging law enforcement resources following FEMA's 10 regions gives
teams the ability to address multiple areas or events.
Team Size
It is recommended that no single team will be comprised of more
than 500 personnel, recognizing that at any given time not all members
will be deployable. Any larger and the teams could constitute a burden
on local law enforcement agencies. The emphasis is on developing
scalable and flexible teams, enabling specific assets to be deployed to
meet the need of the incident commander. Teams can be deployed
independently or in concert with other teams so that a tailored
solution is provided to the on-site incident commander.
Team Capabilities
The emphasis is on providing law enforcement capabilities to an
incident commander so that civil order can be restored and maintained.
Accordingly, each team will also have advanced or specialty skills
based on the capabilities of the participating agencies and the need of
the region. Teams will be all-hazards and multi-disciplinary and
comprised of highly skilled officers cross trained in various
specialties. The intent is to provide a broad range of skill sets
deployable in a scalable and flexible manner, deployable in a modular
fashion. The incident commander can then identify the specific
resources gaps and the National Team Coordinator, part of the DHS
Office of State and Local Law Enforcement, would then be able to deploy
a comprehensive package that meets the needs on the ground.
Graphic #1 identifies the core, advanced and specialty capabilities
that each team, and the system as a whole, should comprise. These
capabilities can be deployed in their entirety or modularly. It is the
intent that only the necessary components are deployed.
GRAPHIC #1: TEAM CAPABILITIES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Capabilities Skill Sets
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Core Capabilities
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Traditional Law General public safety and law enforcement
enforcement
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crowd and riot Crowd management and dispersal
control
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Canine Teams Narcotics, cadaver and explosive detection
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intelligence Covert surveillance, information and intelligence
collection and analysis
analysis
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Investigation Criminal investigation, e.g. robbery, homicide, etc.
Teams
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Custody Teams Jail operations and detainment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infrastructure Critical infrastructure vulnerability assessment
vulnerability
assessment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maritime security water patrol and rescue
and rescue
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advance Teams Incident assessment and operations planning
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Incident Operations support and planning
Management
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Logistics support Equipment and supply management
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced
Capabilities
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special weapons SWAT/Tactical Teams
and tactics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arson/Explosives Arson and explosives investigation
investigations
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hazardous HAZMAT teams
Materials
identification
and handling
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aviation support Aerial patrol, rescue, tactical support and heavy
lift support
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hostage Hostage negotiators
negotiation
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mounted Teams Equestrian crowd/riot control
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bicycle Teams Area patrol and crowd control
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Motorcycle Teams Area patrol and crowd control
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Safety Dive Water rescue, area security, and vulnerability
Teams assessment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teams would have the ability to deploy with an incident management
capability if needed. After Katrina, some responding agencies were
given a designated area of operations to provide all law and order
support. Accordingly, team incident management capability would deploy
to a specified geographic region designated by the Incident Commander
and establish command and control. If the incident management
capability is not needed, other team capabilities could be deployed and
organized under the Incident Commander. As required, the incident
management capability could also be deployed independent other team
capabilities to support the primary Incident Commander.
Another key component of the team program is the inclusion of
Advance Teams that would collect information and intelligence from the
incident site. This approach enables the Incident Commander and
National Team Coordinator to continuously adjust the deployment of team
resources as the environment and mission changes. Each region should
have a primary and secondary advance team designated in advance capable
of immediate deployment.
As with any operation, it is also necessary to have personnel to
provide critical logistics support through the mobilization (preparing
to deploy), operations (onsite support of team activities) and
demobilization (return to home agencies and state of readiness) phases.
Are you working with EMAC to identify a breakdown of these
skill sets?
Yes, the Major Cities Chief's Association (MCC) has been working
with EMAC and DHS personnel to identify skills and resource typing.
EMAC has also developed a law enforcement resource check list.
Primary skill sets would be focused on restoring civil order; these
skill sets have been defined by the National Incident Management System
(NIMS) resource typing project, which has recently developed a ``patrol
operations'' type. Law enforcement, primarily Major Cities Chiefs, has
been working closely with EMAC since Katrina. MCC is a member of the
EMAC Advisory Group, and in conjunction with EMAC and NEMA, recently
completed a nearly year-long project to identify critical issues that
could hinder the rapid deployment of state and local officers to
disaster scenes across state lines. A copy of that checklist is also
attached for your review. MCC views the relationship with EMAC as
positive, healthy, and valuable.
3. Understanding your proposal and work on Law Enforcement
Deployment Teams--can you speak in more detail about the issue of how
for law enforcement the ``mission'' does not usually end at the scene
itself--there is a need for follow through and sustained involvement.
Is there a funding stream available for reimbursement for
reoccurring costs such as court appearances and depositions?
No particular funding stream is in place to cover this issue. As in
all other costs of EMAC deployments it is the responsibility of the
receiving state to reimburse the sending state in a manner negotiated
in the REQ-A.
All 50 states have a varying degree of legal systems and existing
law enforcement contracts. Reoccurring expenses will not be limited to
a specific time frame due to the aforementioned and may last weeks or
even years after the initial law enforcement encounter or action.
Depending on an agency size, there may be situations that will require
an agency to pay for backfilling a position should an employee be
required to attend court in another jurisdiction for an extended period
of time. There is a need for an independent fiscal mechanism to enable
agencies to become whole when providing assistance as part of the
proposed teams.
The team composition is predicated upon the participating personnel
responding with full law enforcement authorities. Should a law
enforcement member initiate or participate in an arrest or other legal
action, there is a likelihood that they will be required to attend
various legal or court related matters while under subpoena. These
events usually take place weeks, or longer, after the initial
encounter. Failure of law enforcement personnel to attend the
proceedings can place the case at hand in legal jeopardy or be
dismissed. Quite often, every officer, beyond the arresting official,
that partakes in a legal event such as an arrest will be subpoenaed and
demanded to appear. Without the backfilling of positions at the local
level, when the requested officer responds back to appear for a court
proceeding, will create a possible scenario where the jurisdiction will
be not be able to address the needs of their home jurisdiction.
The issue of after-action court appearances and costs is one that
MCC and EMAC wrestled with throughout the process of creating the Law
Enforcement (LE) checklist. After many discussions, the Legal Counsels
for both EMAC and MCC agreed to this general language as the best
method of addressing the issue, recognizing that the legal systems in
all states are different, and that more specific language could be
counterproductive by facilitating the process in one state while
hindering it in another. All felt that the best way to deal with the
issue is to call attention to it, and to leave it as the subject of
bilateral negotiations between the sending and receiving states
involved.
4. The proposal for Law Enforcement Deployment Teams is embraced by
the Major Cities Chiefs and the Mayor County Sheriffs.
Recognizing this how do you envision the proposed make up of these
teams?
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
.epsA national team program can provide reliable, scalable and
consistent support. Organization is paramount following a major
incident and a national team system would provide a professional and
coordinated law enforcement response. Although some law enforcement
agencies have been on the forefront of developing deployable teams,
incident commanders have largely been subject to ad hoc support. A
national team system not only standardizes the law enforcement specific
capabilities, equipment and training, but also standardizes the
assistance request process for law enforcement support. Incident
commanders will know that what they request will arrive as advertised
and will operate consistent with the Incident Command System (ICS).
Regional Framework
A national team system should be decentralized and based on a
regional framework. Using the ten (10) FEMA regions provides a solid
foundation. Each region will have multiple scalable teams and the
number of teams per region will vary based on participation and need.
Each team would be self-sufficient, capable of sustained operations for
no more than 14 days. The general consensus was that longer deployments
would create prolonged stress for team members.
Would smaller law enforcement agencies participate and
allocate resources?
Yes, every local, county and state law enforcement agency,
regardless of size, will be encouraged to participate at all levels.
We see the teams forming around a ``center of gravity'' agency--a
major city police department or a major county sheriff's department
large enough to absorb the administrative burden of supporting and
managing the team. The team itself will be modular and scalable,
drawing personnel from literally dozens of law enforcement
organizations surrounding the organizing entity. Smaller departments
could contribute a unit as small as a squad--5 officers and a
supervisor. Larger agencies could supply more. In this manner, many can
participate without drawing down ``home'' personnel to the point where
public safety in the contributing community might be adversely
impacted. It would be the responsibility of the organizing entity--the
``center of gravity'' department--to pull these diverse units together
for training that will permit them to operate as a cohesive force.
Questions from the Honorable Norman D. Dicks, Member, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Question 5.: Within your respective jurisdictions and to the extent
regional contingency planning has been done, have you found that a lack
of available resources have limited the value of a mutual aid
arrangement?
Response: No. Many states have robust intrastate mutual aid
agreements in place, and others are now beginning to look at this on a
more regional basis.
Questions from the Honorable Charles W. Dent, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Question 6.: Chief Westermann from the International Association of
Fire Chiefs (IAFC) discussed efforts underway to develop intra-state
mutual aid agreement across the country. Does the law enforcement
community have similar mutual aid agreements at the intra-state level?
Yes, many law enforcement agencies enter into intra-county and
intra-state mutual aid agreements as well as memorandums of
understanding, depending on the degree or complexity of the situation
that is to be addressed. The degree of authority or responsibility may
also vary from agreement to agreement.
Question 7.: To the best of your knowledge, how is the law
enforcement community involved in efforts being led by FEMA and NEMA to
develop standards and guidelines for resource typing and credentialing
personnel?
Law enforcement officials have been active in committees such as
the DHS Law Enforcement Resource Typing and Credentialing Committee,
which is supervised by the NIMS Integration Center. While this effort
has been productive, much is still on the table in the typing arena.
The Committee is just beginning to look at the credentialing issue. The
NIC has been working hard to produce uniform national standards for
credentialing, but as the Committee is aware, it is a very complex
problem.
Questions from the Honorable Henry Cuellar, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Responses from P. Westermann
Question 1.: Chief Westermann and Mr. McPartlon, both of your
testimonies discuss the problems your members face receiving
reimbursement through the EMAC or federal reimbursement systems after
they provided assistance during a disaster. You both said it can
sometimes take as long as a few months or years for agencies to be paid
for the services they provided.
Do you have any suggestions on how we can fix the system?
Response: Under the current system, local fire departments that
send resources to aid requesting states must bear all of the initial
costs incurred. Significant delays in reimbursement can cause severe
financial strain for the fire departments that provided assistance to
other jurisdictions in need. It is critical to remove such impediments
to timely reimbursement, so that financial concerns will not serve as a
future disincentive for providing mutual aid.
Although limited steps have been taken by FEMA to address barriers
relating to timely reimbursement following disasters, problems remain
which negatively impact the reimbursement process for directly affected
jurisdictions as well as responding states providing aid. The entire
review process is extremely cumbersome and has not been modernized to
support a robust mutual aid system. Additionally, administrative
rulings have been applied inconsistently, which adds uncertainty to the
process.
To resolve these problems, we make the following recommendations:
At the federal level, additional training is needed for
all FEMA personnel, including temporary Disaster Assistance Employees.
More training and internal agreement within FEMA regarding
administrative rules would alleviate the inconsistent application of
rulings. The IAFC is hopeful that the FEMA reform legislation enacted
by Congress in the ``Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007''
(P.L. 109-295), which included human capital provisions intended to
improve the skills and competencies of the FEMA workforce, will begin
to address this issue.
More clear guidance regarding the reimbursement
application process should also be provided by FEMA to state and local
communities. At a minimum, such guidance should include updated and
accurate information on the FEMA website regarding the application
process and rules.
The use of the EMAC Request for Assistance (Req-A) forms,
which are used to officially request assistance, offer assistance, and
accept assistance between states, should be better incorporated into
the FEMA reimbursement process in cases where mutual aid has been
provided.
Some FEMA regional offices have begun to take a more
proactive approach toward resolving reimbursement concerns, including
diligence in monitoring the reimbursement process for states within
that FEMA region and closely coordinating activities with FEMA
headquarters and other regions. The IAFC encourages all FEMA regions to
adopt a proactive approach to mutual aid reimbursement.
Some states have developed pre-planned requests and
response frameworks, including a fee schedule with advanced cost
computations. These pre-staged requests can be quickly activated and
are intended to reduce the administrative time needed to summon or
receive assistance in the event of a disaster. Such plans should be
further developed by participating states, and all states should be
encouraged to develop similar plans.
We encourage Congress to continue to review this issue and work
with FEMA to resolve inefficiencies in the mutual aid reimbursement
process where possible.
Question 2.: Chief Westermann, in your testimony you say that the
IAFC is working on developing a plan for a National Mutual Aid System
for the fire service.
How would this system fit into the EMAC system?
Should each discipline set up their own national mutual
aid system?
Response: The IAFC National Mutual Aid project uses EMAC as the
foundation for moving resources across state lines. The IAFC's project
primarily involves ESF-4 (Firefighting), but has direct application to
other emergency functions. Since a majority of fire departments also
handle EMS, hazardous materials response, technical rescue, water
rescue, and communications, there is a pressing need to develop
operational plans that mirror each other, so the training required for
all other functions is maximized.
We also encourage all other disciplines for primary and secondary
responders to follow a similar format. In doing so, each discipline
would not necessarily need a separate national mutual aid system, but
would have the operational plans in place if such a need exists.
However, EMAC should continue to provide the form and structure for
mutual aid requests.
Question 3.: Chief Westermann, how has recent legislation that
Congress has passed (the 9/11 Commission Implementation Bill and the
Post-Katrina Reform Bill) improved the nation's mutual aid
capabilities?
Response: Both the ``Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11
Commission Act of 2007'' (P.L. 110-53) and the ``Fiscal Year (FY) 2007
Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act'' (P.L.109-295)
contained provisions that are important for enhanced mutual aid. The
FEMA reform provisions in the FY 2007 DHS Appropriations Act support an
increased capacity for regional response by enhancing FEMA regional
offices that can coordinate with state, local, and tribal governments
to foster mutual aid agreements and promote a regional response to
disasters. The FEMA reform legislation also included human capital
provisions intended to improve the skills and competencies of the FEMA
workforce. Increased training for the FEMA workforce will allow greater
guidance and consistency from the agency in its interactions with state
and local governments.
In addition, the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act authorizes the
development of standards for resource typing and personnel
credentialing within one year of the law's enactment. This measure will
create a common definition of assets and skills across regions,
fostering a more seamless response when resources and personnel are
deployed to a disaster scene from other areas. The law includes
technical assistance to states to adopt these standards.
Both of these bills will enhance the national mutual aid system
through increased regional cooperation, a common definition of the
assets and personnel that can be deployed for mutual aid, and improved
skills and competencies of FEMA personnel.
Questions from the Honorable Norman D. Dicks, Member, Subcommittee on
Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Question 4.: Within your respective jurisdictions and to the extent
that regional contingency planning has been done, have you found that a
lack of available resources have limited the value of a mutual aid
arrangement?
Response: A robust mutual aid system is critical precisely because
local and state resources can be overwhelmed in their ability to
respond to disasters and emergencies. The mutual aid system is designed
to be scalable and flexible enough to expand until resource needs are
met. However, additional resources would be extremely beneficial in
enhancing capacity building for first responders, particularly at a
time when the responsibilities and requirements of first responders
have grown to meet increasing homeland security and emergency
management needs. Through the mutual aid system, the value of
additional resource investments in preparedness and response
capabilities is multiplied. Increased funding for FIRE, SAFER, and
other homeland security grant programs improves training and resources
available for use in mutual aid.
Questions from the Honorable Charles W. Dent, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response
Question 5.: Please discuss why you believe private ambulance
service providers are not always included in intra- or inter-state
mutual aid agreements? Aside from issues such as reimbursement and
liability, what other factors might affect a State's decision whether
to deploy non-governmental service providers to an emergency in another
State?
Response: There are a number of factors which may influence a
state's decision to include private ambulance service providers in
operational plans. In cases where private ambulance service providers
are not directly affiliated with a local fire department, they are
typically under a contract structure that may be outside the scope of
local emergency plans. The contracts often require minimum response
capabilities to be maintained at all times. In cases where private
ambulance service providers meet, but do not greatly exceed these
readiness levels, the private ambulance company may not have the
resources to meet mutual aid commitments outside their contracts.
In some areas, private ambulance service providers are primarily
used for transportation and basic life support purposes, and may lack
the advanced level of training and exercising necessary to respond to
mass casualty events.
The IAFC encourages states to ensure all ESF-8 (Health & Medical)
resources operating within the state are included and utilized to the
extent possible in the state operational plan.
Question 6.: In your written testimony you mention that IAFC is
leveraging its relationships with State fire chiefs associations as it
helps develop strong intra-state mutual aid agreements. Do the State
fire chiefs associations encompass all fire services across a State or
is it also necessary to utilize other means of reaching out to fire
stations? How do IAFC's efforts to develop intra-state agreements
differ in areas that are predominantly rural or have volunteer--as
opposed to career--fire services?
Response: State fire chiefs associations encompass a large number
of departments within a given state. However, not all states have a
state fire chiefs association. In these cases, the IAFC has been able
to work with other overarching entities, such as the State Fire
Commissioner or State Office of Homeland Security, to accomplish
completion of an intra-state mutual aid plan. When a state plan is
developed, it provides every fire department with the same process to
summon and receive resources, regardless of whether they are
association members or not.
The IAFC understands that rural America has different needs than
suburban or urban areas. In rural areas, the numbers of personnel and
equipment available at any given time may fluctuate, which reinforces
the need for mutual aid.
Question 7.: The State of California is known as having one of the
strongest intra-state mutual aid systems within the fire service. Were
there any lessons learned from the recent wildfires in Southern
California that may assist other States as they develop and strengthen
their own response capabilities?
Response: My testimony noted that the state of California has built
an effective state mutual aid plan that serves as a model for other
states. California's mutual aid system consists of five escalating
organizational levels that can be activated as necessary. My testimony
noted in detail other factors critical to a strong mutual aid system,
including a strong incident command system which allows multi-agency
resources to operate under a common organizational structure; a single
statewide recognized list of resources, as well as a system for
ordering and tracking resources; an effective interoperable
communications system; a statewide standard for the credentialing of
personnel; a comprehensive compensation and reimbursement plan;
articles of agreement that address issues relating to liability,
workers' compensation, and dispute resolution; and a recognition of the
need to maintain optimal functioning of equipment.
The fall 2007 wildfires demonstrated the strength of California's
mutual aid system. At the height of the fire siege, over 13,000
firefighters and roughly 1,500 engines were deployed to combat the
fires in southern California. A majority of these resources came from
within the state of California, with additional firefighting resources
provided by other western states.
As I mentioned in my testimony, it is important that fire stations
that provide mutual aid are reimbursed in a timely manner.
Reimbursement can take months or years through the EMAC or federal
reimbursement systems, causing significant financial distress on local
fire departments who were simply trying to help their neighbors. In the
recent California wildland fires, some out-of-state fire stations
expressed concern about the delay in being reimbursed.
California has assembled a Blue Ribbon Commission to fully examine
the 2007 wildland fire season. When the Commission's report is
completed, it will provide a more rigorous assessment and the
opportunity to benefit from lessons learned.
Again, I would like to thank you for the Committee's thoughtful
attention to improving the mutual aid system, which is a critical
element of emergency response.