[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama, Chairman
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey NITA M. LOWEY, New York
TOM LATHAM, Iowa JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Ben Nicholson, Jeff Ashford, Kris Mallard,
Kathy Kraninger, and Miles Taylor,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 4
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Science and Technology Budget.................................... 1
National Protection and Programs Directorate..................... 159
Terrorist Travel: Programs and Funding........................... 239
WMD Countermeasures--Threat, Programs and Funding................ 251
Federal Emergency Management Agency.............................. 357
Outside Witnesses................................................ 889
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
PART 4
S&T
NPPD
TTP&F
WMDCTP&F
FEMA
Out. Wit.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
?
?
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama, Chairman
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey NITA M. LOWEY, New York
TOM LATHAM, Iowa JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Ben Nicholson, Jeff Ashford, Kris Mallard,
Kathy Kraninger, and Miles Taylor,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 4
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Science and Technology Budget.................................... 1
National Protection and Programs Directorate..................... 159
Terrorist Travel: Programs and Funding........................... 239
WMD Countermeasures--Threat, Programs and Funding................ 251
Federal Emergency Management Agency.............................. 357
Outside Witnesses................................................ 889
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
68-060 WASHINGTON : 2011
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida \1\ NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
JERRY LEWIS, California \1\ MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia NITA M. LOWEY, New York
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
TOM LATHAM, Iowa ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
KAY GRANGER, Texas ED PASTOR, Arizona
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
DENNY REHBERG, Montana SAM FARR, California
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
KEN CALVERT, California STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
JO BONNER, Alabama SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio BARBARA LEE, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
STEVE AUSTRIA, Ohio
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
TOM GRAVES, Georgia
KEVIN YODER, Kansas
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi
----------
1}}Chairman Emeritus
William B. Inglee, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
----------
Wednesday, March 30, 2011.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BUDGET
WITNESS
HON. TARA O'TOOLE, M.D., M.P.H., UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Opening Statement: Chairman Aderholt
Mr. Aderholt. The hearing is called to order. This
afternoon we welcome Under Secretary Tara O'Toole in her second
appearance before this subcommittee as we examine the
President's fiscal year 2012 budget to fund the Directorate of
Science and Technology.
A literally young enterprise, Science and Technology was
established in 2003 with the new Department of Homeland
Security, with its primary mission to ensure that the
Department of Homeland Security, its agencies, and the border
homeland security community can benefit from the applications
of science and technology.
As it has evolved as a component of the Department, Science
and Technology has touched on virtually all activities of the
Department of Homeland Security and has established an
organizational structure that aligns with them.
We have had long-standing concerns about whether Science
and Technology is striking the right balance between long-term
basic research and targeting near-term research for
technologies that are ripe for deployment.
There is no question some DHS research may not have a home
anywhere else than DHS itself. It may not be a priority for
other Federal agencies. It may have a long-time horizon or may
lack a commercial market that could attract private funding.
Still, such research may have value and should be considered
when looking at S&T plans.
However, there seems to be an implicit consensus that
Science and Technology should concentrate on fielding
technology its customers' need, a view I believe you endorse,
Dr. O'Toole. I hope to hear today about the concrete impacts
Science and Technology can point to, particularly for critical
missions involving border and travel security, biometrics, and
infrastructure protection.
Science and Technology's approach to technology is to serve
as a reliable and transparent clearinghouse for private-sector
homeland security related research. Despite there being
specific examples where Science and Technology has helped
discover or accelerate development, testing, or review of such
technology, there remains a perception in the private sector
that Science and Technology and the Department of Homeland
Security agencies who procure technologies remain difficult to
connect with.
Today I hope you will address this in tangible ways in
which the Department of Homeland Security and Science and
Technology in particular are working to attract and be more
accessible to private-sector initiatives. More than anything,
Science and Technology has to sell itself to Congress as a good
investment and not a place where ideas may be generated only to
be ignored by front-line operators.
Last month's House action on H.R. 1 showed that many in
Congress are uninformed about Science and Technology. Science
and Technology needs more effective outreach about what it does
and how the multibillion dollar investment in the enterprise is
valuable to producing results. Until Science and Technology's
role can be made more visible and its impact demonstrated more
concretely, you will likely face challenges from those who are
unfamiliar with your work and will question the value of
funding research and development over other operational
programs.
Dr. O'Toole, we look forward to your testimony this
afternoon. I know that you have your written record that you
will present to us shortly, and it will be placed into the
record in its entirety. Maybe take 5 minutes to summarize it in
a few minutes.
But before we call on you, I would like to recognize Mr.
Price, who is our ranking member, for his opening remarks as
well.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.003
Opening Remarks: Ranking Member Price
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. O'Toole, I am glad to welcome you to the Subcommittee
to testify once again on the importance of research and
development initiatives to address gaps in homeland security.
Your fiscal year 2012 budget request totals $1.176 billion,
which is 16 percent above the fiscal year 2010 enacted level.
However, once you factor out the $150 million requested for the
initial construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense
Facility, the funding levels for ongoing research programs is
about the same as what the administration requested last year.
Our research and development efforts are critical to making
the homeland more secure, and it is important that the
resources we devote to R&D help to anticipate threats, rather
than to merely respond. Time and time again, after a threat or
event occurs, numerous companies come forward offering the
solution to the latest problem. But really what we should be
doing is thinking about what threats and vulnerabilities exist
before events occur, which will permit us to have the
technology already on our radar screens so that we can rapidly
respond. There is an obvious case in point. After the Christmas
Day bombing attempt, TSA was able to decide very quickly to
procure advanced imaging technology to look for nonmetallic
threats on a person because the agency had already been testing
these systems successfully in limited operational settings.
Since you assumed your position, you have looked at S&T's
roles and responsibilities with a critical eye. Your
predecessor took a proactive stance, seeking to ensure that the
research S&T undertook was relevant to the operational needs of
DHS components, and I know you have been continuing this hard
look.
As I understand it, you have asked your Directorate to do
three things:
First, annually review all basic and applied research and
development activities as well as all of your proposed ``new
start'' projects to make sure they are still necessary and to
make sure we are not replicating research done either by other
Federal Government entities or by other DHS agencies;
Secondly, to survey scientific discoveries and inventions
relevant to existing and emerging homeland security challenges;
And, third, to more closely align your work with the needs
of DHS components so that the end product is a technology that
the agency itself will use in an operational environment. Now,
the result of this hard look is a proposed reorganization of
S&T that segregates research and development activities into
innovation and acquisition efforts, keeping the university and
laboratory programs intact. It also means that S&T may be
involved beyond the research and development phase, for example
by participating in operational testing and piloting of new
technologies. Ultimately, this may mean--at least as I
understand it--that S&T may be evaluating fewer concepts but
that the ones they do assess are more apt to be used every day.
Today, I look forward to discussing your proposed
reorganizations so that we can get a better understanding of
how S&T will identify and select promising technologies for
further development and how you can find ways to efficiently
leverage existing technologies into new uses as rapidly as
possible. At the same time, I want to explore further some of
the proposals in your 2012 budget request, including plans for
the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, human factors
research--exactly where we stand on that--and disaster
resiliency.
As we begin to more closely examine your 2012 budget, it is
important to note that no program is off limits to scrutiny.
Our obligation is to take a balanced, realistic approach, to
weigh risks carefully, and to make prudent investments. Dr.
O'Toole, I have no doubt that you share this point of view; and
I look forward to continuing to work with you and look forward
to your testimony today.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Price.
Dr. O'Toole, we look forward to your testimony. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.006
Opening Remarks: Under Secretary O'Toole
Dr. O'Toole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Price.
I appreciate the opportunity to be before you today and discuss
the DHS's Directorate of Science and Technology. Mr. Chairman,
we spend about 20 percent of our R&D budget on basic research
and the remainder on more applied development of knowledge,
products, and technology. And, as you say, we cover the entire
range of DHS's extraordinary span of missions in terms of
supplying knowledge, products, scientific expertise, and
technology to the DHS missions. I recognize that these are
tough economic times, as you say, Congressman Price, and that
we have to be responsible stewards of taxpayers' money and do
our work efficiently and cost effectively.
I would like to briefly review some of the initiatives we
have taken since I became Under Secretary in November of 2009,
a few of which have already been touched upon.
The top priority in our strategic plan is to rapidly
develop and transition our technologies and knowledge products
to use in the field. This reflects the enormous operational
needs of DHS for new technology products and for scientific
analyses of its work and of its options. The best analysis, the
most advanced technology in the world, is of no use unless it
is actually in routine use by someone.
So moving innovative solutions from the lab bench or the
prototype stage into routine use, crossing the so-called
``valley of death'', is a challenge to all R&D organizations;
and for many reasons it is particularly so in DHS. We are
trying to bridge this gap in several ways.
First of all, as you said, Congressman Price, we have
instituted an annual review of our entire basic and applied R&D
portfolio, including all ``new start'' projects. We asked
internal and external experts to assess each project according
to a set of criteria which we developed along with our partners
in the components, which essentially gauge impact and
feasibility or riskiness of every project. This allows us to
measure all of our projects against a single framework
regardless of the topical area of the project and also enables
a more strategic approach to budget decisions.
We have already used the results of the portfolio review,
which we have done twice, to concentrate R&D funds on fewer
projects to improve delivery of capabilities to end users and
to reprioritize projects to redirect funding to better address
the needs of our partners in the operational components.
So, for example, the first review identified three programs
with a similar focus on cargo and container screening. We were
allowed by this review to combine all three projects into a
single project, creating synergies and cost savings; and we
took that money and redirected it.
We also identified a high-impact explosives division
project which was aimed at new computer software to improve
detection capabilities of our x-ray and AIT machines. We
increased funding of that project in order to speed its
deployment. And, in fact, there is a new software program in
use today, or going into use today, in the AIT machines which
will reduce privacy concerns.
Secondly, we have realigned the Directorate's
organizational structure, which I think also serves our primary
goal of transitioning more rapidly to use. I have executed one
Federal reorganization and had no desire to do another one. But
I think that this realignment actually does serve our strategic
purposes.
First of all, it is in line with the National Academy of
Public Administration's 2009 top recommendation to reduce the
number of reports to the Under Secretary. We did that, reducing
it from 21 to 10. And, as I said, it directly supports our
strategic goals.
First of all, it is pretty well accepted in R&D circles
that innovation comes from the seams between technical
disciplines. So we recombined all of our technical divisions
into a single group, which is known as HSARPA. This is going to
make it a lot easier for our biologists and our engineers and
our explosive experts and so forth to work together
collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, and these multi-
faceted teams are actually what is required to really solve
some of the complex problems DHS is facing. We also have
initiated what we call APEX projects. These are very high-
priority, high-value, fast-turnaround projects, again using
multidisciplinary teams, which only go forward if there is a
charted agreement between myself and the head of the component.
These aim to solve real, urgent problems that the component
head thinks are important. We have one APEX project going on
with the Secret Service and another beginning with the Customs
and Border Protection groups. We have also recognized that the
special needs of first responders and our partners in State and
local governments are different from those of the operating
components, and we have established a dedicated office to serve
them. This is being headed up by a career first responder, a
former fire chief of Louden County, who also has a Ph.D.; and I
think this organization is going to better enable us to meet
the critical needs of that important set of groups.
As was mentioned, we are working with the DHS Under
Secretary of Management and the components to leverage S&T's
technical skills--again, we are the core group of science and
engineering expertise in DHS--to improve the front end of the
acquisition process by helping the components to formulate
clear requirements stemming from their mission needs. This will
enable us to much more readily develop technologies that will
serve their actual needs.
We are already engaged by statute in the back end of the
acquisition process, the testing and evaluation part of
acquiring new technologies, but by the time you get to testing
and evaluation, if you haven't established appropriate
requirements, you may end up not getting the technology that
you need or it may not work in the conditions in which you need
to operate. we are also trying to instill a more systems
engineering based approach to DHS operations in this new Office
of Acquisitions and Analysis, and we have a new leader for that
group who is the former head of acquisitions at FAA.
Another important initiative--and this goes to your
comments, Mr. Chairman, about the importance of connecting with
the commercial sector and others, including the interagencies--
we intend to become ``best in class'' at technology foraging.
Now we already do partner with the private sector, with
other Federal agencies, with universities, and with other
governments abroad, for that matter, and try to leverage their
investments in R&D against the needs of DHS. In fact, we won
two SBIR awards last year for our work. But it is really
difficult to know who is doing what in the R&D community.
This is a global community. It is churning out new products
all the time, and it is difficult to keep up with. What we want
to do is become best in class at surveying this dynamic and
expanding world, identifying potential partners, discovering
technologies in late-stage development which we might adopt or
adapt for new purposes, new environmental conditions, or new
scales.
This effort, the technology foraging effort, is going to be
based in the new Office of R&D Partnerships which will serve as
an easy-to-use portal through which the rest of the world can
access S&T. We are trying to make it much easier for commercial
partners to work with S&T. There are a lot of them. There are a
lot of potential commercial partners. And the small companies,
which are often the most innovative, have a different series of
difficulties working with government than do the large
integrators; and universities have a different set of talents
and problems in connecting up with government.
But we are, for example, establishing industry days and
other ways to make a better connection with the commercial
sector as well as having established a new partnership with In-
Q-Tel.
In sum, as you said, we are a young agency. I think we have
much to show for ourselves. Although I agree with you, Mr.
Chairman, we have done a bad job of branding S&T products; and
we hope to do better. I think we are evolving. I think these
initiatives will make us stronger.
And I look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.020
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you for your testimony.
We will move now into the questioning portion of the
hearing, and I will begin with the first question regarding the
priorities and some of the things that are your priorities
there at S&T. Science and Technology faces many competing
priorities. Yet, because they are finite resources, your
Directorate and our committee are forced to make tough
decisions about which areas are most crucial and most critical
to fund. In this light, please discuss with the committee your
top research priorities for fiscal year 2012 and what you
believe are the Department's biggest capability gaps.
S&T PRIORITIES
Dr. O'Toole. That is a tough question to answer, for the
reasons you state.
We face a huge need across a broad horizon of missions in
DHS. I think it is fair to say that top priorities in the
Department right now include aviation security, cybersecurity,
preventing and being prepared to respond to an attack using
either a biological weapon or a nuclear weapon, an IND, for
example. Or now we are also, of course, with others in the
government worried about nuclear accidents at power plants. And
we also have to worry, of course, about border security. There
are many moving parts under those large headings, but I think
those are the big priorities. In terms of standout gaps in R&D,
we would love to be able to detect explosives without touching
anybody, without opening your laptop as you go through checkout
or the checkpoint or taking off your shoes. That is a very
difficult scientific problem on which we are making progress.
We would like to know a lot more about signals, observable
signals of human behavior that would indicate malintent. This
goes, for example, to the core of suicide bomber detection.
There is a lot to do in terms of biological defense. S&T's
particular bailiwick has been detection. I think we have very
persuasive data that show that we need to create the
possibility of real-time detection of a biological weapon so
that, for example, if it were discovered in a subway that
Anthrax or another pathogen would be released we could
immediately shut that subway down. Not 10 minutes later, not an
hour later, but immediately. And we are striving for that, but
we are not there yet.
Mr. Aderholt. The priorities you mentioned I think are very
good priorities, but have you aligned those priorities with
your budget? And how do you measure Science and Technology's
ability to address those priorities?
Dr. O'Toole. Yes. And this is the purpose and the
usefulness of the portfolio review.
The criteria that we use in assessing a project include,
for example, the impact of a project, a number of different
ways of getting at the impact, including does a customer want
this, is there a transition plan, how likely are we to really
move this from prototype into widespread use. And we also
assess feasibility. So somebody might have a really wild idea
which, if we could bring it to fruition, would be terrific, but
it is just not going to happen in the next 5 years, in which
case it would score lower.
And, again, we use people from the components as well as
outside experts to do the scoring. We use those assessments to
award funding or to take it away. And we have eliminated
projects on the basis of the portfolio as well, as I said,
plussing some up to speed transition or because we think this
is a high-impact project.
CYBERSECURITY
Mr. Aderholt. You mentioned in your opening remarks about
cybersecurity. The committee applauds the budget's increased
emphasis on cybersecurity, and that is a subject we will
actually address in another hearing later this week, but what
critical cybersecurity needs does S&T plan to address with
additional funding?
Dr. O'Toole. We are focusing on trying to make the Internet
more secure for users. So, for example, we have worked on a
project called DNSSEC, domain name security, which is intended
to assure that, when you go to a Web site, that is the Web site
you really hook up with and to, you know, diminish the
possibility that when you are trying to reach your bank
somebody else is diverting your messages to their Web site.
This particular tool has been adopted by many major
companies, including--incorporated, for example, into Microsoft
7.
We also have a couple of tools that are intended to
increase our situational awareness of attacks on the Internet.
So, for example, we have tools that detect people who are
trying to hijack messages as they are relayed from one router
to the next to their generation, as happened, for example,
recently when for about 15 minutes all Facebook pages were
being shunted to China. So those are two examples.
We also have established a test bed for commercial
companies to come in and try out their own defenses against
cyberattacks. Obviously, you don't want to try out attacks and
ways to stop them on the real Internet, because unforeseen bad
things could happen. But you have to create a test bed that is
large enough to actually mimic the Internet. So we have done
that, and a lot of companies in the private sector have been
coming in testing their own vulnerabilities as well as their
own products. And one such product actually was developed by a
company that subsequently got bought out by a big company.
Mr. Aderholt. I have got some more questions, but we are
going to have votes here in a few minutes, so let me go ahead
and recognize Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, let me
ask you to help us understand the import of this reordering of
the Directorate's agenda. As you said, there has been a fair
amount of this in the history of the Department, and I know you
wouldn't just needlessly undertake another review, so I am sure
you have thought about this and rationalized it thoroughly. I
just want to make sure that we understand it and understand the
impact of this on your budget priorities. I am going to refer
you here to your printed statement by way, I hope, of bringing
out the rationale here.
You have stressed the division of these research priorities
into two broad categories: Research, development, and
innovation, on the one hand; acquisition and operations
support, on the other hand; and then of course keeping the
laboratory facilities and the university program components
pretty much as they are. And then the usual breakdown that we
are accustomed to of topics of mission-related research is
detailed under these headings.
One big question, I gather you talk a lot about the
``valley of death'' and the need to pay more attention to that
area between innovation and deployment. I gather that is one
reason for this focus on what you call acquisitions and
operations support; and yet that is an area where your overall
budget actually goes down, although there is some variation
within the subheads under that item. Then when you come to the
more familiar list for research, development, and innovation,
there are some striking changes. I know in your budget
justifications you go into this in more detail, so I am really
asking you to perhaps help us get the bigger picture here.
There are some areas that you list as having no funding at
present that you are wanting to invest in, radiation and
nuclear detection, for example, radiation nuclear resiliency.
There is one that we really don't need to have explained, I
think, the cybersecurity emphasis. I think we all agree that is
going to be a matter of increased emphasis. You have some major
reductions here: Natural disaster resiliency cut by two-thirds.
The hostile behavior prediction and detection, one component of
the human factor's portfolio, goes from $22.7 to $14.6 million
and so forth.
I am not really asking you to get too much into the weeds
of these individual items. We will have plenty of time to do
that. What I am asking you is, to what extent are these changes
and these budget priorities a function of this reordering that
you seem to put considerable stock in?
I am not certain I understand the rationale. And so the
rationale is one thing but also the kind of budget consequences
and the relative focus on different missionaries, I don't think
we understand either. At least we need to understand it more
fully.
R&D FUNDING
Dr. O'Toole. Okay. Fair question. First of all, I think the
drop in the Office of Acquisitions and Operational Support is
because of a one-time cost to the testing and evaluation and
standards group that came in Fiscal Year 2010 that is not
reflected in the current budget, but they have not been
diminished in any way.
The R&D funding for particular projects follows the
portfolio review. We are asking for a different structure for
our budget lines so that we can have a much more transparent
layout of the projects that we are funding.
Mr. Price. Let me just interrupt you there.
You do use that term and, of course, we understand
transparency is an important value. You are talking here about
the ability to track and assess our progress, though. I mean,
transparency in that sense more than the usual sense of
transparency to the public or accountability in that broader
sense?
Dr. O'Toole. It would be both, and the latter is very
important in informing the commercial sector as to what we are
up to and what we are interested in.
But what we would do is we would put all of our R&D under a
single budget line; and we would then fund projects, whether it
is disaster resilience or biodefense, according to our
customers' needs and priorities, which do shift, and our
ability to meet them.
So disaster resiliency, for example, is devoutly desired by
all of us, especially these days when we are watching Japan
struggle with its trifecta of disasters. But we do not see many
near-term, cost-effective ways that S&T can address that right
now.
One of the problems with projects and disaster resiliency,
and we have developed several good products for disaster
resiliency, and I will mention one, is that they mostly pertain
to the critical infrastructure, to improving critical
infrastructure. And that lies in private hands. So it is
difficult to transition, for example, a device that will plug a
damaged levee to municipalities that don't have any money to
buy it. We invented such a device, and it works as far as we
can tell, but we are having a hard time transitioning.
So if transition to use is one of our priorities then those
projects which lend themselves to transition are more likely to
get funded. But this would be flexible. The acquisition
emphasis is due to the fact that we have seen many technology
acquisitions in DHS fail because they didn't start out with
clear, specific, detailed requirements in the first place; and
they would go way down the path of acquiring a technology only
to find that it wouldn't work or it wouldn't work in the
conditions in which it had to operate. So we think we can
leverage S&T's technical expertise much more effectively if we
worked as advisors on the front end when the components are
deciding how to translate their mission needs into requirements
for new technology and save DHS a lot of money, a lot of grief,
and be very successful in getting the Components what they
need, whoever develops the technology, whether it is S&T or the
commercial sector or whomever.
So this is not an expensive proposition, because we are
basically acting as coaches in the acquisition office. We are
not developing new technologies. We are not paying laboratories
and so on and so forth.
Is that helpful?
Mr. Price. I think the key word here is support,
acquisition and operation support, a kind of informing of that
process.
Mr. Aderholt. I want to make sure Mr. Dent gets a question
here. It is 15 minutes before the vote.
So to Mr. Dent.
Mr. Dent. Thanks, Mr. Chairman; and, Madam Secretary, thank
you for being here.
In your written testimony, you articulate the need to equip
our first responders with various tools to manage and execute
their responsibilities in the midst of a terrorist attack or
natural disaster or hazards approach. Can you describe the
status of each program, including the self-contained breathing
apparatus, the geospacial location accountability and
navigation system for emergency responders, and the portable
interoperable tactical operations center? Is S&T currently
piloting each program? And, if so, what is the expected date to
transition the project from a pilot to a commercially available
technology?
Dr. O'Toole. Thank you, Congressman.
SELF-CONTAINED BREATHING APPARATUS
Yes, we are working on all three of those programs. They
are actually in late stages of development. The self-contained
breathing apparatus is something first responders have been
seeking for decades, actually; and what we have developed is a
much smaller, lighter, more ergonomic self-contained air tank
that fits on your back.
Firefighters in particular have had difficulty fitting into
tight spaces with the old models. This one supplies as much air
but would be much easier to use, and this spring it is actually
going into testing with the fire service and in the Chicago
Fire Department.
GEOSPATIAL LOCATION DEVICES
The second device you mentioned is an effort to develop a
kind of beeper that would locate firefighters in particular
when they are working in areas that don't have transponders,
so, for example, very high-rise buildings in urban settings. We
have lost some firefighters in the past because their
colleagues couldn't get to them once they ran into trouble.
PORTABLE EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER
And the third is actually a two-part effort that includes a
rapidly portable emergency operation center that you could
literally carry to where it is needed and set up very quickly
complete with communications gear and power supplies.
Mr. Dent. How much funding is associated with those
efforts? Do you know?
Dr. O'Toole. I would have to get back to you on that, Mr.
Dent.
Mr. Dent. That is fine.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Dent. How much funding is associated with those efforts? Do you
know?
Dr. O'Toole. I would have to get back to you on that, Mr. Dent.
Mr. Dent. That is fine.
Response: Funding noted below.
Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus
FY 2005: $1,793,820
FY 2006: $206,208
FY 2008: $263,938
FY 2009: $233,733
FY 2010: $225,000
Geospatial Location Accountability and Navigation
System
FY 2009: $1,950,600
FY 2010: $2,960,606
FY 2011 (Request): $3,112,757
FY 2012 (Request): $3,358,598
Portable Interoperable Tactical Operations Center
FY 2004: $380,200
FY 2005: $730,025
RADIATION DETECTORS
Mr. Dent. And, also, just on the issue of chemical,
biological, radiological, nuclear attacks, what is the status
of an intelligent personal radiation locator program and who is
going to receive those pocket-size locators? I know the
Japanese and others are pretty much purchasing them right now,
as you can imagine. Is there any consideration for our first
responders to get some of those same types of devices or
equipment?
Dr. O'Toole. Yes. There have been several generations of
radiation detectors over the years, and I think most fire
departments and police departments have some version of
radiation detectors.
The project you referred to is in its early stages and is
an attempt to network individuals wearing these devices. So
that if you were, for example, looking for an improvised
nuclear device and you had a team of people out walking around,
their radiation levels, the radiation that they were seeing
with their devices, would be transmitted back to a central
source and you could start to triangulate where a source might
be.
The device you are talking about also is a more sensitive
detector of certain kinds of radiation like gamma rays and
neutrons. We are not there yet, but there is no question there
has been progress in belt-worn radiation devices over the
years.
Mr. Dent. I yield back.
NATIONAL BIO AND AGRO-DEFENSE FACILITY
Mr. Aderholt. I am going to ask one brief question, and
then the remaining time I want to give to Mr. Price. I know he
has got a few more questions. The rest of mine I can submit for
the record, since we have a vote on.
But I do want to ask you about the National Bio and Agro-
defense Facility. And, of course, the request for $150 million
for the construction indicates that it is a priority for you,
but the central utility project has been delayed. What is the
current project timeline? And in your assessment will it be
done by 2018?
Dr. O'Toole. We cannot begin working on the CUP until we
either get a fiscal year 2011 budget and permission from
Congress to proceed with construction or we get permission from
Congress and Kansas decides that it will spend the remainder of
its funds on building the CUP, which is unlikely.
The schedule is probably going to be more impacted by the
delay in waiting for the risk assessment requested by NAS than
by the funding for the CUP. So we actually may make it to 2018
or it may be delayed by a year at this point. It is very
difficult to say.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Well, let me just follow up on that. I have
questions I, too, will submit for the record. But, as you know,
the National Academy of Sciences did take a look at this
project; and they came up with a rather high figure in terms of
the risk of the release of the foot-and-mouth disease virus
within the next 50 years.
Now there are lots of concerns about that study, with some
feeling I think that it exaggerates the risk because it doesn't
consider mitigation strategies that will be included in the
design and construction of the lab. But, nonetheless, a
reassessment does clearly need to occur. You simply cannot have
assessment findings out there that aren't effectively dealt
with.
All the versions that we have of the 2011 appropriations
bill have called for safety and security reassessment, although
they vary somewhat in the degree in which they make funding
contingent on that assessment. But just abbreviating this here
because of our time pressure, what further assessment do you
believe is necessary and on what time schedule. Won't that need
to apply to the entire facility, including the central utility
plan? I mean, if there are going to be problems with respect to
the entire facility--and we hope and believe there won't be in
the end--wouldn't you want to have the assurances in place
before you construct any component, including the utility
plant?
Dr. O'Toole. Well, first of all, for the record, the
National Academy also, as you know, Congressman, stated very
strongly that the country needs a facility like this.
Mr. Price. I don't think there is any disputing that on
this subcommittee. That has been our position all along.
Dr. O'Toole. I appreciate that.
In building a facility like this, which is fairly complex,
we and others have done it before. It is actually better to
have iterative risk assessment, as we were doing, so that you
can actually build in safeguards as you get closer and closer
to a complete design. We are, I think, about 35 percent
complete in our design at this point, and what you want to know
as you go forward are what are the vulnerabilities that we need
to be looking out for. I expect that there will be a lot of
people going back and looking at earthquake vulnerabilities in
all kinds of settings in the next few months and years.
So doing iterative risk assessments is not a bad idea if
you use them to inform your thinking, but it doesn't make sense
to assume that you are never going to mitigate anything you
turn up as a risk as the National Academy did, and you need to
do it at the end when you have all of your safeguards in place,
not just those engineered protective devices but also your
plans and your response protocols and so forth.
Mr. Price. I know we need to go. I am going to ask you to
elaborate that for the record in some detail, and we will work
with you as to what that answer might entail.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Price.
Dr. O'Toole, they just called the votes. Looks like we are
going to be in a series of votes. So, in reference to your
schedule and, of course, I know the members of the committee,
we will adjourn the committee.
But we will be probably submitting more than usual
questions for the record because our time was limited here at
the committee today. But we do thank you for your appearance
and we look forward to hearing your testimony for the record.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you very much.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.087
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.088
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.089
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.099
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.104
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.119
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.120
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.121
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.122
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.123
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.124
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.125
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.126
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.127
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.128
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.129
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.130
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.131
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.132
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.133
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.134
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.135
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.136
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.137
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.138
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.139
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.140
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.141
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.142
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.143
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.145
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.146
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.147
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.148
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.149
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.150
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.151
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.152
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.153
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.154
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.155
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.156
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.157
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.158
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.159
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.160
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.161
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.162
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.163
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.164
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.165
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.166
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.167
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.168
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.169
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.170
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.171
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.172
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.173
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.174
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.175
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.176
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.177
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.178
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.179
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.180
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.181
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.182
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.183
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.184
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.185
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.186
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.187
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.188
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.189
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.190
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.191
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.192
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.193
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.194
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.195
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.196
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.197
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.198
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.199
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.200
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.201
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.202
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.203
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.204
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.205
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.206
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.207
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.208
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.209
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.210
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.211
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.212
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.213
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.214
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.215
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.216
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.217
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.218
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.219
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.220
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.221
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.222
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.223
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.225
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.226
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.227
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.228
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.229
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.230
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.231
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.232
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.233
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.234
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.235
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.236
Tuesday, April 5, 2011.
WMD COUNTERMEASURES--THREAT, PROGRAMS
AND FUNDING
WITNESSES
WARREN STERN, DIRECTOR, DOMESTIC NUCLEAR DETECTION OFFICE
ALEXANDER GARZA, M.D., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HEALTH AFFAIRS,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
[Clerk's note.--The Department has redacted classified
information from this transcript.]
Opening Statement: Chairman Aderholt
Mr. Aderholt. The hearing is called to order. Today we have
a classified briefing to discuss the Department of Homeland
Security's programs related to weapons of mass destruction. We
expect to begin with a discussion of current risk and threat
scenarios, The Department of Homeland Security programs to
detect and deter such threats, and countermeasures being
developed and deployed.
To help us better understand these programs, we welcome
Warren Stern, director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office, DNDO, in his first appearance before the subcommittee,
and Dr. Alexander Garza, Assistant Secretary of Health Affairs
and the Department's chief medical officer who is returning to
us. So welcome to both of you.
Although I understand you will both submit unclassified
segments for the record, this hearing is intended to cover
discussion of material that may rise to the secret level. I
expect your presentations and the questions and concerns
members may raise will fall in both classified and unclassified
areas.
Before we begin, I would like to remind members and staff
that because information we receive over the next 2 hours is
highly classified, it is not to be repeated in any unsecure
setting or for any other than official purposes.
We will have an official transcript that will be classified
at the secret level, although we will ask the Department to
review it and provide a redacted version, which, if
appropriate, we will publish as part of our public hearing
record. There will be no electronic devices--that includes
pagers, BlackBerrys, or cell phones--in the hearing. If someone
has inadvertently brought such a device into the room, please
give it to our staff who will safeguard it outside until the
hearing is over.
The threat that weapons of mass destruction could be used
by terrorists or other adversaries to attack the United States
homeland has been a central driver of all of DHS operational
agencies. These include CBP and ICE which seek to identify and
deter weapons of mass destruction that could cross our borders
or damage international supply chains: The Coast Guard,
responsible for security of our coasts, ports, and sea lanes;
TSA, which overseas transportation and other infrastructure
security; and the Secret Service, whose protective mission also
entails planning for scenarios involving threats of chemical,
biological, radiological, and nuclear attacks; planning and
grant assistance through FEMA and the National Protection and
Programs Directorate; training at the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center; and the S&T research programs are also heavily
focused on weapons of mass threats.
For DNDO and OHA, addressing weapons of mass destruction is
the priority mission. The Department of Homeland Security has
responsibility through your offices to plan for and support
development for new detection technology; lead interagency
efforts to design and develop architects to detect and respond
to threats; and to sustain testing, red-teaming, and forensic
capability. And these efforts could not be more critical.
As outlined in public reports, al Qaeda and its leadership
have for years called for the use of weapons of mass
destruction against the United States. This has never changed
and it is clearly a reason for vigilance with regard to new and
continuing threats from them and their confederates.
In addition, the threat of biological or chemical weapons
is not trivial and there is much basis to remain vigilant. The
memories of the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system or
the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States are vivid
examples.
The fundamental questions we hope you address today
include, number one, a review of the current threat environment
in which your agencies have built your missions; number two,
what unique roles your agencies play not only with the
Department of Homeland Security, but in the larger national
effort to plan for and address these threats; and number three,
how DNDO's core mission may change with the shift of basic R&D
to the S&T Directorate.
Given the crucial importance of this topic to our security
and to perhaps our very own way of life, I expect an animated
discussion here this afternoon.
I will ask Director Stern, to be followed by Assistant
Secretary Garza, to summarize your written testimony in a brief
oral statement to allow sufficient time for members' questions.
Before you begin, I would like to recognize our
distinguished ranking member, Mr. Price, for any remarks that
he may have. And also I would like to recognize that Stephanie
Gupta is having a birthday today, who is the clerk of the
subcommittee. Stephanie is clerk on the minority side. And we
wish her a happy birthday.
And we will turn it over to you, Mr. Price.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.237
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.238
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.239
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.240
Opening Statement: Ranking Member Price
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join you in wishing
happy birthday to Stephanie Gupta and welcoming our witnesses
here today. This hearing takes place as we all realize that
terrorists are determined to attack our country again. Osama
bin laden has made it known that obtaining weapons of mass
destruction is a top priority and that, in his own words, al
Qaeda seeks to inflict an attack akin to Hiroshima on American
soil. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has voiced similar
desires.
While the most widely used definition of ``weapons of mass
destruction'' consists of nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons with the unique ability to kill large numbers of people
with a very small amount of material, in this hearing we will
primarily focus on the nuclear and biological threats.
Since the end of the Cold War the U.S. has spent billions
to successfully secure nuclear weapons, materials and
technology in the former states of the Soviet Union. However,
during this same period, the world has also witnessed a new era
of proliferation with North Korea and Iran, passing key
milestones in developing their nuclear weapons programs. In the
Middle East and Asia, nuclear arms rivalries have intensified.
In Pakistan, Dr. A.Q. Kahn led a nuclear proliferation network
that served as a one-stop shop for countries aspiring to
develop nuclear weapons.
If not constrained, this continued proliferation could
prompt nuclear crises and even nuclear use at the very time
that we and the Russians are reducing our nuclear weapons
deployments and stockpiles.
While advancements in biotechnology have led to important
progress in the medical field, it has also increased the
availability of pathogens and technologies that could be used
for terrorist ends. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has had a
particular interest in these biological weapons along with
other attack methods. Many biological pathogens and nuclear
materials around the globe are poorly secured and vulnerable to
theft, with the risk of ending up on the black market and thus
inevitably in the hands of terrorists.
In December of 2008, the commission on the Prevention of
Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism
issued a report noting that, quote, unless the world community
acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than
not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a
terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013. the
commission believed that terrorists were more likely to obtain
and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon and that the
U.S. Government needs to be more aggressive in limiting the
proliferation of biological weapons to reduce the prospect of a
bioterror attack. Let us hope that in the intervening years,
security has increased so this threat is not looming quite as
large.
Today I look forward to discussing what DHS's Office of
Health Affairs and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office are
doing to reduce the likelihood of a nuclear or biological
attack; the programs you are developing to quickly identify an
occurrence; and how DHS, along with other Federal, State, and
local entities will respond. While both of your budgets are
relatively small, your missions are far-reaching and the
results of failure could be catastrophic.
Dr. Garza, Director Stern, I look forward to a frank
discussion of these matters and welcome you to the
subcommittee.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.241
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.242
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. And Director Stern, we will start
with you, and we look forward to your testimony.
Opening Statement: Director Stern
Mr. Stern. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Aderholt,
Ranking Member Price, and other distinguished members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today
about DNDO's goals, its missions. As you indicated, I have
submitted testimony for the record, but I would like to spend a
few minutes hitting some of the key points in that written
testimony.
As you may know, I have been at DNDO for approximately 7
months now, and I have learned a lot and imposed a few changes
at DNDO. I bring to DNDO three basic principles: Discipline,
transparency, and intellectual rigor. In terms of discipline. I
am working very hard to ensure that we follow the legislative
mandate that we have been given. In terms of transparency. I am
trying very hard to ensure that we work with Congress and are
transparent with Congress and, to the extent possible, with the
American public. And in terms of intellectual rigor, I am
trying very hard to ensure that there is a good oversight and
peer review to ensure that what we are doing is supported by
basic common sense.
These three principles have led to two big changes at DNDO
since I have started. One is the strategic plan for the global
nuclear detection architecture. As you may know, Congress has
pressed for many years that we develop such a strategic plan.
And in my first 3 months, we, with seven other agencies of the
U.S. Government who are responsible for this mission, drafted
very carefully and cooperatively a strategic plan which we
delivered to Congress at the end of last year.
The other big change is how we look at the architecture. We
have historically looked at the architecture, the detection
architecture, in terms of static detectors, in terms of what
the likelihood that a piece of nuclear material passing a
detector will in fact be detected by that detector. But in
terms of imposing an intellectual rigor on the way that we look
at the architecture, it is much more defensible to look at the
architecture as a defense architecture; that is, to assume that
there will be some information that we will be able to respond
to.
And so what we are looking at the architecture now is a
surge architecture. That is, how can we design an architecture
that will allow the United States to surge assets in order to
find nuclear radioactive material when there is some
information available about that nuclear or radioactive
material? This is one of the reasons that from the outset of my
term, I focused very strongly on supporting State and local
authorities and developing nuclear radiation detection
capabilities.
Of course, only the States and locals have the numbers of
people that can get quickly to a site or to an area to look for
nuclear and radioactive material. And I am very pleased,
consequently, that in the President's fiscal year 2012 budget
request we have additional support for the Securing the City
program for New York and for one other city or urban area to be
selected on a competitive basis.
In terms of technology R&D, I see two key changes that we
are making at DNDO. The first is to rely more on commercially
available technologies than we ever have before. In the 6 years
since DNDO was created, commercial technologies have changes in
a rather fundamental way. And a lot of the applications that
the U.S. Government needs are available in the commercial
sector. So wherever possible in the future, we will use the 85,
90 percent solution that is available off the shelf
commercially rather than developing our own capabilities. That
leads us to focus a lot more in helping to set standards, which
is part of our legislative mandate, and to test to those
standards.
So the second big technical change we are going to be
imposing is to follow the National Academy of Science's
recommendation of following a model test, model approach, in
our evaluation of detectors, and you will see that change.
You may or may not be aware that we are now recruiting for
the individual who would head the office that does the modeling
and the testing. And one of the key requirements for that post
is to understand and be able to implement the National
Academy's recommendations on the model test, model approach.
So, Congressman, our research and development work will
consistently be matched with the needs of the global nuclear
detection architecture and the operational requirements of our
end users.
Our budget request is focused on preventing radiological
nuclear terrorism by enhancing our ability to detect these
nuclear radioactive materiels. And I appreciate this
opportunity to talk to you today about any of the issues you
would like to talk about related to the domestic nuclear
detection architecture. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.243
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.244
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.245
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.246
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.247
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.248
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.249
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.250
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.251
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.252
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.253
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.254
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.255
Mr Aderholt. Dr. Garza.
Opening Statement: Dr. Garza
Dr. Garza. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Chairman
Aderholt, Ranking Member Price, and distinguished members of
the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you
today. It is a privilege to be here to discuss the Office of
Health Affairs programs and funding that support the Department
of Homeland Security's efforts to combat weapons of mass
destruction.
OHA serves as the principal authority for all medical and
health issues for the Department of Homeland Securiy. We look
at health through the prism of naional security, providing
medical, public health, and scientific expertise in support of
the Department's mission to prepare for, respond to, and
recover from all threats.
Our responsibilities include serving as the principal
adviser to the Secretary and to the FEMA Administrator on
medical and public health issues; leading and coordinating the
biological and chemical defense programs; providing medical and
scientific expertise to support DHS preparedness and response
efforts; and leading the Department's workforce health
protection and medical support activities.
OHA furthermore serves as the point of contact for State
and local governments on medical and public health issues for
the Department. The threat of an attack using a WMD is real and
so is the risk. As Congressman Price pointed out, the WMD
Commission reported on December 3, 2008, that we must be
vigilant in addressing several urgent threats, including
bioterrorism. In their report, World at Risk, the Commission
found that, and I quote, ``Unless the world community acts
decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not
that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist
act somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.'' Because DHS
understands this threat, high consequence biological attacks
were identified as a high-priority item within the Quadrennial
Homeland Security Review.
Today I will provide a short overview of OHA initiatives
that help to mitigate these threats and prepare the Nation to
respond to and recover from chemical and biological attacks.
OHA lends our expertise to a number of initiatives across the
Department that focus on the threat of biological attack. These
efforts span the pillars of biodefense and include awareness,
prevention and protection, detection and surveillance, and
response and recovery. This end-to-end approach to biodefense
is necessary in order to communicate the current national
capability and develop a strategy for further biodefense
improvement.
OHA works closely with the DHS Science and Technology
Directorate and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis to
assess our current and emerging threats of natural or
intentional events involving biological agents as well as
chemical, radiologic, and nuclear agents to the U.S.
population.
OHA applies these risk assessments in operating, managing,
and supporting the Department's biological defense programs.
Our work is primarily focused on addressing the threat of
biological attack through the BioWatch program, and
surveillance through the national biosurveillance integration
system.
In addition, we focus on helping the build preparedness at
the State and local level. The fiscal year 2012 budget request
includes $7 million for the NBIS and $90 million for continued
operations of our deployed BioWatch detection system. The
fiscal year 2012 budget request also includes an increase of
$25 million to fund the start of operational testing and
evaluation for the BioWatch Generation-3 automated detection
system. The Gen-3 system will advance current detection
technology by significantly reducing the time to detection of a
biological agent in the environment. This early detection
allows communities to provide medical countermeasures to
affected persons in a timely manner and thus saving more lives.
OHA further coordinates the Department's health
preparedness efforts to protect against high-consequence
chemical events. Chemical events, whether from terrorist attack
or accidental release, pose a significant homeland security
threat. Chemical agents can cause immediate mass casulaties,
numbering in the thousands if released in or near a densely
populated area.
Chemical is different from biological. The response window
is shorter and far less forgiving. Therefore, our approach to
preparedness for chemical events is much different. We focus
more on building an overarching defense framework and building
rapid response cabilities as well as enhancing community
resilience.
We are doing this now through a demonstration project in
Baltimore that focuses on partnerships at the Federal, State,
and local levels. Similar to the biological terrorism risk
assessment, OHA uses the chemical terrorism risk assessment in
prioritizing our programs. The fiscal year 2012 budget request
of $2.4 million will allow OHA to continue to provide health
and medical expertise related to chemical preparedness,
response, and resilience in support of an integrated chemical
defense framework to protect against high-consequence events.
I want to thank this committee for the opportunity to
testify and I look forward to answering any questions that you
may have. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Dr. Garza.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.256
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.257
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.258
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.259
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.260
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.261
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.262
CURRENT THREATS
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you both for your summary of what your
job priorities are and what you do to try to make sure that we
have a safe Nation.
One thing that I would like to start out is maybe let you
refocus just a minute and maybe giving the subcommittee a brief
summary of the current threat picture for weapons of mass
destruction in this country. I think it would be of interest, I
know, to myself and to other members of the subcommittee. So if
you could take a few minutes and just talk a little bit about
the current threats that are out there as we speak.
Dr. Stern, we will start with you.
Mr. Stern. Thank you. At DNDO we take the information that
the Intelligence Community provides us in terms of the risks of
various activities, and we try and build our defenses based on
the likelihood that an adversary would take a given path; for
example, to move nuclear or radioactive material, you know,
into the United States. So we don't actually evaluate the
actual likelihood that an entity like al Qaeda wants or is able
to attack the United States, but rather we take the input from
the Intelligence Community and build our models around that to
try to identify how it is that we can detect those materials
should they come through various pathways.
Mr. Aderholt. Okay, Do you want to add anything?
Dr. Garza. Sir, yes. I can tell you this, and part of it is
in relation to what Director Stern says. We take the threat
information and we build it into risk profiles on how we are
going to direct our operational programs. So we work very
closely with the Science and Technology Directorate who builds
the BTRA, the Biological Terrorism Risk Assessment, and CTRA,
the Chemical Terrorism Risk Assessment, as well as an
integrated risk that combines both biological, chemical, and
nuclear.
Specifically to your question though, I can tell you this:
[Redacted] Without getting into a much higher classification
scheme [Redacted].
If we look at the biological terrorism risks assessment
provided by S&T [Redacted] majority fo the threat. There are
other agents on the list that we are concerned about as well.
But [Redacted] does occupy the top spot.
If you look at the integrated risk assessments--and I would
ask you if you had further questions about that, you should get
a brief from S&T. [Redacted] Nuclear material is much easier to
control the movement of and the control of, where biological
agents are ubiquitous in the environment and they are located
in labs around the world. So the control and access to them are
much simpler than it is for nuclear material. And using these
risk assessments and the different threat information is what
drives a lot of what our operational programs are in the
BioWatch as well as others.
Mr. Aderholt. Director Stern, let me ask you this: What
particular scenarios are they putting before you that you have
actually planned for?
Mr. Stern. Yeah. This is following on what Dr. Garza said,
the nuclear terrorism risk assessment. At DNDO, we do lead the
DHS radiological and nuclear----
Mr. Aderholt. Is your mic on?
Mr. Stern. Sorry. So at DHS, we do lead the radiological
and nuclear risk threat assessment for the Science and
Technology Division. But this document and series of analyses
look at particular pathways and help us to prioritize pathways,
not the overall risk. In the nuclear and radiological world,
following on again what Dr. Garza said, there is a hierachy of
risks in the sense that radiological materials are of less
consequence but are commonly available both in the U.S. and
overseas; whereas nuclear materials, nuclear weapon materials,
are very carefully controlled. So there are different scenarios
we look at.
And as I mentioned in my introductory remarks, one of the
things that we are shifting our focus on is to look at an
architecture that is a surge architecture that, again, assumes
we will have a certain amount of information regarding the
attack that would be coming and that will allow us to more
rigorously defend and detect--defend the U.S. and detect the
nuclear or radioactive material. And that effort very much is
linked to this nuclear risk assessment. And in the Intelligence
Community we all, again, work together to identify what sort of
information might be available in the case of the illicit
movement of nuclear material and what wouldn't; that allows us
to build our models and develop an adequate architecture.
DOMESTIC NUCLEAR DETECTION OFFICE: STRUCTURE & PRIORITIES
Mr. Aderholt. We may want to follow up with that shortly.
But let me go ahead and address this. Of course, this is your
first time, Director Stern, to appear before this subcommittee
and a chance for us to get a sense of your vision of DNDO. It
will come as no surprise to you that some have suggested your
agency be folded in other parts of the Department of Homeland
Security.
Why does DNDO need to remain a stand-along operation within
the Department? And what are your key priorities for the office
going forward?
Mr. Stern. I am not sure I fully agree with the premise. I
believe that DNDO is a unique organization that is able and is
focused on detection, detection systems, detection
technologies, detection architecture. And there is no, in my
mind, ideal structure for us. We need to be in a place where we
have the access to the Secretary, like we do now, and to other
agencies to keep this issue of improving U.S. defenses against
nuclear terrorism in the forefront. But I don't assume that the
only structure that is right is the one we have now.
Mr. Aderholt. What is your explanation to other requests to
move the transformational research activity to Science and
Technology?
Mr. Stern. You know, that decision was made, of course,
before I came onboard. And like any such decision, there are
pluses and minuses. The plus is, of course, it brings a lot of
the long-term research and development across the Department
into one place. And one of the negatives is one of the founding
principles of DNDO of having an integrated system where we have
research and development that leads to testing, that leads to
production and acquisition. All together, that gets separated a
little bit.
Now I am sure that the Under Secreatary--Dr. O'Toole--of
Science and Technology and I will have a very good working
relationship. And I am sure no matter what happens we will make
it work. But the key to success is to ensure that the mission
of DNDO is not affected by this transfer. So there are pluses
and minuses. But whatever Congress decides, we will do our best
to make sure that it doesn't in any way harm the mission of
DNDO.
If I could continue because I--actually in your last
question, I didn't finish the second part in terms of the
criticisms of DNDO and my vision for the future. There have
been, as you suggest, a number of criticisms in the past of
DNDO. And this is why, you know, I very strongly believe in
bringing to DNDO these three principles I outlined at the
outset.
One is discipline, and we need to keep very disciplined on
the things we are doing so that we can focus on our legislative
mandate. When I came onboard, there were a few things we were
doing that sort of were on the edges of this. So I am trying
very hard to bring it together so we can focus on this very
clear mandate.
In terms of transparency, part of the criticism of DNDO was
this lack of cooperation and transparency with Congress. So I
am trying very hard to ensure that with all congressional staff
and others, you know, we are transparent: that you know what we
are doing and understand why we are doing it. We won't always
agree, but Congress has a fundamental right to know what we are
doing and to effect that through the budget process.
And third, this intellectual rigor. I think some on the
outside have not viewed our activities as following a logical
and defensible intellectual program. So I am trying very hard
to make sure that anything we do, I can defend to you and to
others in an intellectually consistent way. And that gets back
to transparency. I look very much forward to having some of
those on the outside who have criticized us in the past, such
as the National Academy, to look again and hear what we have
done and see to what extent the same criticisms apply. My
vision is simply to focus on our legislative mandate and to do
it well.
Mr. Aderholt. How will DNDO system development acquisition
and program activities be affected by the mover? And will you
be a priority customer of S&T?
Mr. Stern. Well, there are still some details we would need
to work out. the transitional and applied research feeds into
the solutions in development processes. So we are in the
process now of trying to negotiate an MOU in terms of how that
would work after they depart DNDO, if they depart DNDO. It is
again a challenge. It is not insurmountable. The process works
best when everything is well integrated, but again it is not
the only structure that will work.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Price.
BIOSURVEILLANCE
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Garza, let me turn to you and to the subject of
biosurveillance. In 2008 this subcommittee directed the
National Academy of Science to evaluate the BioWatch program
and to compare it to an enhanced public health surveillance
system. The National Academy of Science found that a network of
sensors in strategic locations offered potential advantages in
terms of the early detection of airborne agents. But the
BioWatch's current methods of testing and evaluation needed
improvement. Moreover, a system of this sort has inherent
limitations both in geographical reach and in the range of
agents it might be programmed to detect.
Now, I notice you furnished a chart here today which
diagrams some of the advantages in terms of early detection,
early treatment, and lives saved, the advantages of a BioWatch-
type system. But these inherent limitations, of course, still
exist and will exist no matter how much we expand this system.
And I don't think we have ever had an answer to the question,
How much is enough? What are the outer limits, the boundaries
that probably will determine the reach of this system?
Since that report was completed, your agency has responded
to some of the recommendations of the NIS report as you have
been working on the Generation-3 technology. And I want to take
up some of that in more detail in the second round of
questions.
But at this moment I want to focus on the issue of the
inherent limitations in the BioWatch system. The National
Academy's report made it quite clear that even if it were
widely deployed, BioWatch would need to be complemented by
improved intake and analysis of data through the public health
system, which is inherently broader and more flexible than
BioWatch's system of detection.
So let me ask you three related questions about this. OHA
has been working with Federal, State and local partners,
including a consortium of government and academic institutions,
and in my State of North Carolina to address this public health
side of the biological detection equation. And as you know,
North Carolina pioneered this years ago. Can you fill us in on
the progress that you have made on these efforts?
Secondly, how does OHA intend to engage more State and
local partners in these activities? Assuming that this kind of
data intake effort, this early detection, early analysis
effort, that it is inherently going to be a partnership, it is
not going to be simply run by OHA, it is going to require these
partnerships at the State and local level, how do you plan to
engage these partners?
And then thirdly, to what extent is your work with State
and local partners incorporated into the national
biosurveillance integration system?
Dr. Garza. Thank you, Congressman Price. So you are
absolutely correct that the BioWatch system does have
limitations in what it can perform. It has absolute
responsibility for things that it does detect for. But it is
part of a system, a larger system, as you appropriately
mentioned, and part of a larger biodefense picture which does
include biosurveillance.
You also mentioned the program in North Carolina, and our
work with the project in North Carolina has been very
encouraging. And you know as well as I do that the State of
North Carolina has a very good integrated system between public
health, emergency departments, law enforcement, and the
different communities that it takes to have a very robust
surveillance picture. So with OHA working with the State and
local and territorial leaders, that is an important mission of
the national biosurveillance integration system.
In addition to the work that we have been doing with North
Carolina, we have also had outreach to several other States.
And we are starting to make some forays into how can we work
best with them. Now, part of that involves letting them have
awareness or use of our tools within the NBIS system,
particularly the biological common operating picture. So the
States commonly understand what their own data is, but they
frequently do not have the national picture on what data looks
like. And as we all know in dealing with pandemics as well as
other issues, it is very important for us to have global
situational awareness, which is what the biological common
operating picture is built to do; so that somebody from the
State of North Carolina could see what is going on in the State
of North Carolina or the State of Alabama or likewise, because
it is only through this common situational awareness that we
can best build that biosurveillance picture. So that is one
part of engaging our partners.
Other parts are a little bit more security-centric with
other parts of our office, even outside of biosurveillance. We
are quickly adapting to the notion that health does belong in
our national fusion centers. And we have been advocating this
across the country and at the national level, that public
health does belong as part of a national security picture. So
we have been advocating for and assisting with getting health
partners into our fusion centers, where they can be sitting
next to law enforcement and other disciplines to interpret data
as well as reports coming in for the health effects and/or
looking for other markers of what could potentially be a
health-related event.
So those are a couple of the ways that we are more engaged
with the States. We are always looking for ways to further
engage with the States and we really--we work very well with
the State Public Health officials. I meet with them regularly,
probably two or three times a year, to discuss issues like
this. And we are very much engaged with them.
Mr. Price. The presence of these public health efforts is
of course a source of great strength and expanded reach for
you. I suppose the downside of it though, the downside of the
partnership, a character of this, is that if those partners
aren't there, if these capacities aren't developed in a given
State, then it is problematic how much you can achieve. Do you
have any way of giving us an overview of how far along these
capacities are? States, after all, are strapped for funds right
now. I mean, there are plenty of competing priorities.
We are confident that what is going on in North Carolina
will be something of a model, something of a demonstration for
the rest of the country. But do you have any kind of tabulated
account of the capabilities that you are looking at in the
various States, how far along you are toward having this kind
of early detection and analysis capability; also requires, of
course, data processing capacity. It requires a lot of things
there. So there are some advantages and disadvantages, I would
say, that come with the State-centric, State-centered nature of
this effort.
Dr. Garza. Yes, sir. So as far as tabulations go, we are
currently exploring, or we are currently in the works of
getting this biological common operating picture out to four
States. As you know, we have been working a lot with the State
of North Carolina to develop their capacity for integrated
biosurveillance. You are correct that this does need to be a
bidirectional flow between the State and the Federal
Government.
Unfortunately, in terms of biosurveillance, that data is
very slow in coming because it has to go from local to State,
and then usually to CDC, because that is the way the
information flows. But I think some of the very best ways,
though, that we could go about trying to improve information
flow is looking for more novel approaches to gaining
situational awareness. Now, Whether that is through different
forms of data with poison centers, with emergency medical
services data, and issues like that is something that we are
exploring.
Mr. Price. I understand that that diversity of data in fact
is a very important consideration. I am told, for example, that
there might be a certain payoff in tracking Pepto-Bismol sales
at drugstores. That sort of thing could be indicative of a
significant issue.
Dr. Garza. Yes. You are absolutely right. Part of the
strategy will be reaching out to some of our private sector
partners as well, to do exactly what you are talking about,
which is trying to get data from retail pharmacies on if there
has been a run on cold and flu medicine, for example, in a
period of time where you would not expect that to happen, such
as during the summer months.
So we are exploring those options as well. And I think we
have a fairly good lead on getting that sort of private sector
data. It is always difficult working with private sector data.
It is always difficult working with private sector data just
because of the business aspect of it, and people don't want to
release their data on sales and things like that. But in
working with some middle kind of--wherever the data is
aggregated, I think we have a better chance of doing that.
But I do want to get back to your point on funding, though.
And that is, the majority of the funding for the public health
partners does come through CDC and through HHS-ASPR as well as
FEMA. So one of the things that our office does do is advise
FEMA--and FEMA grantees typically spend a lot of money on
emergency response equipment and, you know, law enforcement-
type issues and things like that. So part of our job is trying
to convince them that public health is an important part of
emergency management and emergency response, and getting those
public health partners the ability to apply for those FEMA
grant dollars to support those public health initiatives that
you and I know are so important.
Mr. Price. Finally, just could you fill us in on the extent
to which this is integrated into the NBIS?
Dr. Garza. The integration of the States into the NBIS,
sir?
Mr. Price. Yes.
Dr. Garza. As I mentioned, right now as it stands, it is
very much a unidirectional flow which is going from the
national to the States. The data that we do receive is a lot
of--not what you would think as traditional data, whether it is
looking for open-source reporting on disease states as well as
getting different information from States from our fusion
centers and various customers like that.
But I do want to hit on that we have made tremendous
strides I think in reaching out to the States to get that sort
of bidirectional flow, as well as other partners.
I recently participated with the DOD in an exercise. I am
looking at just this issue. And the director--or I am sorry, he
is the Assistant Secretary for Chem-Bio for DOD--is very much
interested in partnering with DHS on this biosurveillance
picture for a more global picture.
As we know, DOD is deployed worldwide, so they have a
particular interest in surveillance. We recognize that things
that start overseas are going to be a risk to homeland
security. So we do have a vested interest in making sure that
we are partnered up. But we are always looking for ways to
strengthen that relationship with our States as well. And I
think we are headed down a good path. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Carter.
ADVANCED SPECTROSCOPIC PORTAL DEVICES: IMPLEMENTING RECOMMENDATIONS
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question is about the advanced spectroscopic quarterly
ASP machines. I understand these machines are intended to
screen people, cars, trucks, and containers for radioactive
material at 600 U.S. ports. I also understand that the fiscal
year 2012 budget will fund the procurement of 44 of these
systems.
As we talk about how over recent years DNDO has been
criticized in its research development testing of the ASP
machines. How has the research development testing of the 44
planned additional systems been improved? What procedures have
you done to improve them? Do you feel that DNDO--or are you not
able to double-check the improvement on these machines? And
because you are having developmental testing, can you assure us
that the money we are spending at this time is going to be well
spent and the equipment procurement will not again be
criticized by GAO or the National Academy of Science?
Mr. Stern. Thank you for your question, Congressman. I
guess I will answer your last question first which is, no, I
cannot assure you that we won't be criticized by GAO or the
National Academy. But I can assure you that we will do things
in an intellectually rigorous way and in a disciplined way to
minimize the likelihood of that.
The request for funding for a number of ASPs in fiscal year
2012 is based on the assumption that the ASP makes it through
testing, which is expected to be completed this year. That is
not a foregone conclusion. Earlier this year, we began the last
phase of field validation. We are at the tail end of that field
validation, and we will go back to the Acquisitions Review
Board to decide the path forward. And that path may be that, in
fact, this device is ready to be fielded, or it may be that it
is not, and it may be that it is time to terminate the program.
But I am committed to following that process and ensuring that
the result that comes out is a defensible result and something
I can explain in clear terms to you.
Mr. Carter. These are pretty expensive products, and some
would say they are only marginally better than existing
systems. I am wondering if you have looked at, secondly,
inspection systems of the type--I don't have the mic turned on,
I am sorry. Some say they are not any better than what we have
already got.
Mr. Stern. The certain threat materials--and this is a
classified room so we can talk a little more broadly about it.
[Redacted]
So in answering your question, the ASP--the ASP device in
secondary is a much better system than the current system we
have in terms of dealing with the threat [Redacted]. But it is
not necessarily the only system out there. [Redacted] And while
we will be doing better, we won't be solving the problem with
the ASP.
Mr. Carter. And GAO and the National Academy of Sciences
make these criticisms. I assume they put them in writing, and
the people who are developing this product have looked at them
and are trying to figure out how to solve what these folks are
seeing as a problem, which may be your research and development
might not have seen as a problem; is that correct?
Mr. Stern. That is correct. I personally review all of
these reports, and particularly the last National Academy
report, very closely; and the test-model-test, or model-test-
model approach they recommend is resulting in a fundamental
shift in the way we do business at DNDO. Their recommendation
for spiral development will be a fundamental part of the ASP
program if it goes forward, or any other program. A number of
their fundamental recommendations will be part of DNDO. Some of
the other recommendations that they have made are good
recommendations but are not necessarily practically
implementable.
But yes, we do follow the report, the criticisms. Again,
this gets back to this intellectual rigor, and we incorporate
it in what we do to the extent that we can.
Mr. Carter. And the reason I ask the question, because the
first time you answered the question, it was sort of we are
trying to do everything we can that we are able to do. And I
was wondering, I want to make sure you were looking at at least
addressing the issues. Is it beyond the scope of what you think
is capable? Do you reply to them in any form or fashion to say
this is really not scientifically capable?
Mr. Stern. Yes, if I could give you an example. The
National Academy report which again, I have a fundamental
respect for the National Academy and their recommendations. But
one of their recommendations was that we consider in our cost/
benefit analysis a comparison with a device that doesn't really
exist yet. They noted that if you took the data from an
existing device and put it into a computer with a more advanced
computer code, you would get a better answer. And it is a
reasonable point. It is intellectually a reasonable point. But
it is not really part of a cost/benefit analysis, because in a
cost/benefit analysis, you examine the costs and benefits of
devices that actually exist, not that in theory could exist.
So we reply to the National Academy that it is a reasonable
point but it is not something we can follow. I have no doubts
that DNDO, with its current staff and current budget, can do a
better job than probably any other organization in testing, in
setting standards for nuclear devices. I am just not sure in
the past we have approached it the right way, and I am
committed to turning things so that we are approaching it in
the right way.
I think we test devices more rigorously, even in the past,
than any other entity in the world. And you know in Washington,
no good deed goes unpunished. The more we test, the more things
we expose. Of course, other devices that are out there that
haven't been tested, you know, don't get the same degree of
scrutiny.
So just the fundamental answer to your question is, yes, we
are capable of implementing any recommendations that the
National Academy or the GAO have made. Yes, we take them very
seriously. And yes, they will affect what we do in the future
in a fundamental way.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR DETECTION ARCHITECTURE: STRATEGIC PLAN
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Mr. Stern, in your opening comments, you
mentioned that you have completed the strategic plan. And the
lack of a plan was what GAO highlighted as part of the failure
with regards to the ASP. They also said that as a result of the
lack of a strategic plan that attention was taken away from
other aspects that were important [Redacted]. It also mentioned
that it delayed the creation of a global nuclear detection
architecture, which we were talking about just a little bit
earlier.
Can you elaborate a little bit on your strategic plan and
how it is put together as a guide for future investments in
technology, and also how it is used in a way that focus is not
taken away from other aspects or other responsibilities that
you have?
Mr. Stern. Sure. Thank you for the question. Yes, one of
GAO's fundamental recommendations or criticisms, if you will,
was that focus on the ASP detracted from our broader
responsibility of looking at the global and the domestic
nuclear detection architecture. And I actually agree with that.
In the past, we have spent so much effort on this one
device that we haven't spent adequate effort on other areas of
the global nuclear detection architecture, on other pathways,
as you indicate, Congresswoman. So I fundamentally agree with
the criticism, and it is why when I first came on--I think my
first 3 or 4 months with the seven other agencies that are
responsible to develop the strategic plan, as Congress and GAO
had recommended. The strategic plan begins where any strategic
plan needs to.
It defines what the global nuclear detection architecture
is. Before the strategic plan, there was no interagency or any
kind of a definition of where the architecture began and where
it ended. So there couldn't be really discussion of the very
important element of roles and responsibilities. So the
strategic plan begins with the definition, which took quite
some time and effort to hammer out. It then moves to
fundamental goals of the architecture, and then fundamental
objectives of architecture, and then performance goals and
then, very importantly, the roles and responsibilities of the
many agencies that are involved in this effort.
So the strategic plan to me in any case is a framework for
our efforts in the future. And you may have seen our budget
briefings, for example; and our budget requests are all now put
in the context of the roles and responsibilities and the
performance goals that are identified in the strategic plan.
And that gives Congress a degree of transparency into what we
at DNDO, we at DHS and what, across the government, what we are
doing and what we are spending on detection architecture,
because you have specific performance goals and the roles that
each agency plays within that.
But the other big and more precise thing that came out of
the strategic plan that worked for me was this recognition
that, given the physical limitations for example, [Redacted],
we needed to relook at the concept that we were using to define
our efforts. And this is where we have come up with this surge
architecture; that is, the ability to respond to certain
capability--to certain threats quickly, and adequate resources,
and that then leads ultimately to, as I described at the
outset, the need for providing substantial assistance to State
and local authorities so that the State and local authorities
working with the Federal Government can surge assets in order
to detect nuclear radioactive material when we are presented
with information that will help guide us.
So we begin with the strategic plan. That is the underlying
framework for what we do, and that provides some degree of
intellectual rigor and a transparency for Congress in terms of
what we are doing.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. That is what I wanted to ask you about,
because my understanding is as part of what needs to be done is
the development of a metrics system so that you can measure the
performance of the global nuclear detection architecture. And
as I understand it, at least according to CRS, without this
metrics, it will be difficult for Congress to assess the
effectiveness of new investments in the GNDA and to monitor
progress towards the goals.
So my question is then: Can you update us on the
development of this metrics system and how soon can we expect
it to be implemented so that we as Members of Congress, we can
use it.
Mr. Stern. Sure. And I agree completely with CRS, GAO, and
you. So the strategic plan is the framework.
The next document that you will receive, which should be--I
hesitate to say, because of clearance, but within a month.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Possibly.
Mr. Stern. We are working hard and we have a good first
draft, is our annual review. And our annual review, which you
have received, I think the last time, 2 years ago, will be very
different this time in that it will be much more meaty. It will
have the metrics which you indicate and I agree is necessary in
order to take the next step in allowing you to evaluate
progress on the global and particularly the domestic
architecture. And we will have real details on the work that is
going on across the government linked to those metrics, linked
to the performance goals and the strategic plan and what we are
trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it. So if
that answers----
Ms. Roybal-Allard. So within about a month or so?
Mr. Stern. Yeah.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Latham.
AGRO-TERRORISM
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Garza, you
are being ignored there, Dr. Garza. One of the real threats I
have always thought was having to do with agri-terrorism,
contamination of the food supply and foreign animal disease
outbreaks which could be brought into the country on a
handkerchief, basically, and rub a few cattle's nose and have
hoof-and-mouth disease and things like that.
What are you doing to monitor that or how--talk about the
coordination monitor.
Mr. Garza. Yes, sir. So you bring up a very important
point, which is it is not all just human health issues that we
need to worry about. The food, agricultural, and veterinarian
sector is something that does cause us a lot of concern. We do
play a supporting role in that. Of course, USDA as well as the
FDA play major roles in that. But we do support efforts from
the Homeland Security's perspective with our food, agriculture
and veterinarian defense branch. So I employ six veterinarians
whose sole job is to work on those efforts.
You rightly mentioned some of the concerns with food chain
security and with organic disease such as foot and mouth
disease. So as we all know, foot and mouth disease is now
somewhat of a problem in the Far East and in Korea, especially
in North Korea. And the effects of a foot-and-mouth disease
outbreak on the United States would be devastating to the
economy, especially to our ranchers. We export a lot of beef.
It would absolutely destroy that market.
The examples that we can use for that is simple as our H1N1
pandemic when people continued to call it swine flu, and we saw
the pork industry be devastated just from the word ``swine''
flu.
So our food, ag and vet defense branch is actively engaged
with our partners at USDA and FDA. And some of the things that
they have been working on are building metrics and tools for
the States to use to build their own inherent capabilities, and
some of these are on the Internet where the States can go. They
answer a series of questions and it builds a risk model for
them that says these are the things you need to be
concentrating on, and it helps them plot out where they need to
focus a lot of their efforts on. And so that is in partnership
with the Federal interagency.
In addition, we do monitor the intelligence information
from around the world because, as you know, the food security
supply chain is a tough, tough issue. We all saw it with the
melamine in dog food and milk. Believe it or not--and you
should probably get a brief on this as well--a good majority of
the food products that the United States consumes are brought
in from other countries, as far as the different bits and
pieces. And so we are all connected in the food chain, and just
one disruption in that with a dangerous chemical could cause a
lot of economic as well as social disruption. So we are
monitoring those things on intelligence and analysis. We are
trying to build up State and local capacity. And we are working
with our partners in the Federal interagency.
ANTHRAX VACCINE
Mr. Latham. Just one other question. What is the status and
the quality and availability for a supply of vaccine for
anthrax?
Mr. Garza. The biggest procurers of vaccine are, of course,
the Federal Government for the Strategic National Stockpile.
Mr. Latham. Is that modern technology?
Mr. Garza. Is the vaccine modern technology? It has been
around for quite a few years. I can say that there are no
harmful effects to most people, because I am a recipient of
that through the DOD. You can make your own judgment on that.
But it is a federally licensed vaccine. And in order to get
licensure from the FDA, it does have to go through safety
studies. And so a lot of the inherent biases against the
vaccine were really built on cases of individual reactions more
so than problems with the general population.
So it is a safe vaccine. It is pretty limited on the people
that can receive the vaccine. The problem with the vaccine is
that the current dosing for it is very lengthy. And so you have
to get at least five does in order to become fully immune.
Now, we are doing--not we, OHA--we, the Federal Government,
arer continuing to do studies to see if we can reduce the
vaccine load to fewer amounts of inoculations in order to get
full protection. But those have not been published yet. But
that is really the hurdle that has to be overcome is that you
need a vaccine where you don't have to have a large series of
shots, because you lose people to follow-up and you are unable
to complete the series and things like that.
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Dicks.
ADVANCED SPECTROSCOPIC PORTAL DEVICES: CERTIFICATION PROCESS
Mr. Dicks. Director Stern, what hurdles must be overcome
before the Secretary certifies advanced spectroscopic radiation
portal monitors?
Mr. Stern. Before the Secretary decides on certification,
the process is that it goes through field validation and then
operational testing, and then ultimately she will decide
whether it is time to certify or not. That presumes again, it
makes it through each of these steps. We are at the tail end of
field validation. There are some issues and we are trying to
determine how to proceed.
Mr. Dicks. It has been 5 years and apparently two of the
three original vendors are no longer participating in the
acquisition because they had technical difficulties that could
not be overcome. Raytheon, the one of many vendors, continues
to undergo testing. Is this a problem?
Mr. Stern. Thank you for the the question. No. As you
described it, that is the process as envisioned. There were
actually a much larger number of companies that tried at the
beginning, and as time went on and at various very precisely
defined points, those numbers were narrowed. So in the end we
get the best device at the best cost/benefit for the U.S.
So the process you have described is accurate, but the fact
that there is one vendor now as opposed to three, representing
three different devices, the ASP, A, B and C, is not a problem.
It is the result of the process.
Mr. Dicks. During this period, it is possible that other
radiation detection technologies being developed by the private
sector may have advanced far enough along to overcome the need
for ASPs in secondary?
Mr. Stern. There has been, I think as I mentioned in my
testimony, a lot of progress in the private sector regarding
portal monitors and spectroscopic portal monitors. We are in
our decision on our path forward doing our best to take into
account that information. Again, we have to move through the
ASP process before we can move to another process. I want to
make sure that the U.S. makes the best decision possible with
the limited resources that are available. So, yes, there has
been a lot of progress and we are going to try to take that
into account.
Mr. Dicks. Would those be primary screening tools, the
newer ones that we are talking about, the newer technology?
Mr. Stern. Whether a device is primary or secondary is more
an issue of negotiation with the Customs and Border Protection
and their concept of operations. They all do in essence the
same thing; that is, some of the devices you may be referring
to are also advanced spectroscopic portals. So they have
different sensitivities and different capabilities, but they
would likely perform the same function unless somehow the
concept of operations for CBP changes.
Mr. Dicks. I assume these would also be utilized in our
major ports; is that correct?
Mr. Stern. I am sorry. Take a step back. There are devices
that are made of plastic PVT that are deployed at our ports
across the U.S. that don't really have much of a capability to
identify isotopes. Then there are more advanced devices such as
the ASP that could do a much better job of identifying
different isotopes, and there are some in the private sector.
In the U.S., I don't believe any of these advanced portals are
deployed at our ports. Some of them are deployed in the
interior and some are deployed overseas, including the ASP. But
at our ports, we use almost exclusively now the plastic, the
PBT, portals that do not identify isotopes very well.
GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: CONTINGENCY PLAN
Mr. Dicks. Let me ask you this: If there was a government
shutdown, what impact would it have on both of your work? And
are there urgent problems that would go unaddressed if that
should occur?
Mr. Stern. Well, we have a plan, a departmental-level plan
in the case of a shutdown. So work definitely would go
unaddressed. The urgent work would be addressed.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BIOWATCH GENERATION-3: COMPARISON TO GEN-1 & GEN-2
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. Secretary Garza, the BioWatch Gen-
3 is designed to provide greater coverage at a decreased cost.
What are the added capabilities of the Gen-3 system as compared
to the Gen-1 and -2 systems that are currently deployed?
Mr. Garza. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Gen-3 system is
designed--the basic premise of the Gen-3 is to increase the
time to detect. The reason why that is such an important aspect
is that we have very limited time from the time of exposure to
the time of illness where we can deploy medical
countermeasures. And you always have to factor in how much time
it is going to take to look at the results, to come to a
decision process, to deploy the SNS and distribute medical
countermeasures. And that is a fairly lengthy process.
So the current Gen-1, -2, is anywhere from 24 to 36 hours
from time of exposure to time of detection. The goal of Gen-3
is to decrease that time down to 4 to 6 hours. The other
benefit of Generation-3 is that it will be expanding the
distribution of the machines. So it will protect more of the
population, we will be going from anywhere from 70 percent of
the population protected within an urban environment, or,
within the community, up to 90 percent. And it will increase
the coverage of the United States population in total from 20
percent to 33 percent.
The other added benefit of Generation-3 is that we will now
start taking the program indoors where there is also an
increasing threat. As everybody I am sure knows, if a terrorist
was a thinking terrorist, they would want to go someplace where
there was a high concentration of people where they could get
the most bang for their buck, and clearly some of that would be
indoors. So we are moving some of our machines also indoors
from five locations up to 160.
Mr. Aderholt. Would you continue to maintain that Gen-1 and
-2 units?
Mr. Garza. It would be a phased deployment of Gen-1, -2, up
to Gen-3. So there would be a period of time where we would
simultaneously run both systems until Gen-3 came up and
running. At that time, we would phase out Gen-1, -2. We would
still retain that capability, though, for surge capacity, as
well as dealing with some national security events that we do
throughout the year and other issues as we would need to use
them.
Mr. Aderholt. Secretary Garza, this would be--after having
planned to have two vendors, last year you down-selected to
just one vendor. What drove the down-select to one vendor?
Mr. Garza. It was not technically a down-select. It was
during the first phase of our program, there were troubles with
the assays and algorithms of one of the vendors. Essentially
what that means is it was giving us positive signals when the
bacteria or the virus that we were looking for was not present,
and it was giving us negative signals when it was there. And
simply that is unacceptable.
And so we worked with the vendor and, believe me, we have
very high regard for competitiveness. We absolutely would like
for more than one vendor to be involved in the competition.
However, the science is going to trump that every day. So we
gave the vendor some opportunity to correct some of the things
that we were seeing, and they are completely able to come back
into the process in a second RFP phase, granted they will have
done certain things in order to be successful in that. But at
the end of the day, we just couldn't go along with them
continuing in Phase 1.
BIOWATCH GENERATION-3: TESTING & EVALUATION
Mr. Aderholt. You have initiated a field test of Gen-3 at
the end of February that is still ongoing. What is the status
of the field test?
Mr. Garza. Yes, sir. The field test is ongoing right now in
the [Redacted]. I am happy to report the machines survived the
[Redacted] that they had [Redacted] and came through with
flying colors. It is ongoing right now. From all the reports
that I have received, it has been going very well.
And I will just put this plug out for you. We are having a
VIP day [Redacted] that all of your staff, I believe, have
received or will receive invitations to go up and have a look
at the machines, ask questions, and get more information on the
field test. I believe the field test is going to run until the
middle of June or July, and at that time we can take a look at
the date and see how they performed.
Mr. Aderholt. So you are safe to say those are operating up
to your expectations at this point?
Mr. Garza. At this point, I haven't seen anything that
discourages me, no.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to follow up
on this line of questioning and I want to clarify a couple of
things you just said and then ask you for some further
elaboration.
You did terminate the contract with one of the two vendors,
both false positive and false negative ratings unacceptably
high. So you are saying that this second vendor could get back
in the game only if these problems are overcome to your
satisfaction?
Mr. Garza. Yes, sir.
Mr. Price. Are you making an estimation of how likely that
is? Or are we going to in all likelihood be working here with
one vendor?
Mr. Garza. From my experience in looking at the testing
procedures, it would be a steep climb to get back into. It is
not impossible, though. But you have to--the testing and
evaluation process that we have laid out, it was built to be
rigorous because we understand the consequences that would
follow given a positive test from these machines. And so we
have to stick with what the science is telling us, that either
these things will work the way they are expected to work and
deliver us the information that we need.
I did want to clarify one thing, though. We didn't
terminate a contract. That has certain legalistic implications
to it. So they are unable to proceed with the original Phase 1
of the contract. But we certainly have left it open for them if
they can correct the issues that were involved and can give us
reasonable assurance that they have been corrected. We are
committed to a clear, transparent, and open competition.
BIOWATCH GENERATION-3: PATHOGEN DETECTION
Mr. Price. Well, I certainly agree with your assessment of
how important it is to get this right. After all, we are
talking about very important capabilities here, more rapid
detection, detection done without an attendant, removing a
filter and analyzing it and so forth. These are advances that
we know we have to achieve if this system is to live up to its
promise.
In this classified setting, could you discuss what specific
biological pathogens the Gen-3 system will test for and how
that compares to what is currently in place? I understand that
testing for more pathogens is one of the advantages.
Mr. Garza. Yes, sir. Currently we test for [Redacted]
agents. [Redacted] And that is all controlled information.
So we picked those organisms based off of the Science and
Technology bioterrorism risk assessment as the top [Redacted]
organisms that are at the highest risk for the United States.
Of those [Redacted] that territory. So they make up the bulwark
of what we look for.
Generation-3, though, has the capacity to test up to 20
agents. So we don't have to limit it [Redacted]. And if we
receive intelligence or if we receive an updated risk
information that these bacterial agents have changed, then we
can certainly develop--we won't develop the assay, we will test
the assay to make sure it works. But we can certainly employ
that into the machines. We deliberately made the machines when
we put out the request for information to make sure that they
were expandable and compatible to do things like that.
Mr. Price. Well, the feature of quicker turnaround and an
automated turnaround has been much more thoroughly discussed,
at least in this committee, than has this feature of more
flexibility in terms of the ability to test for more agents, is
that--in layman's terms, can you just briefly account for that
expanded new capacity? Is it a matter of the way the machines
operate, the machines are equipped, the way the machines are
read? What are we talking about here?
Mr. Garza. So the big difference between Gen -1/2 and Gen-3
is, of course, as you mentioned. We are basically taking all of
the functions that are inherent to Gen-1 and Gen-2 and
compressing them into a single unit. We have affectionately
called it a ``lab in a box.'' The laboratory workers get really
mad at us when we say that, so we don't mention it very much.
But that is affectionately what it does.
It doesn't mean that Gen-1, -2 could not expand to agents
more than [Redacted]. Because what happens is the vacuum or the
air collector collects air in the environment through a filter
paper. You are correct; somebody has to go pick up that filter,
take it back to the lab where the analysis is run. We only run
it on [Redacted] agents right now. Clearly if we needed to run
on more agents, we could do that. We could incorporate that
into our laboratory capacity. It would take more work, more
money, things like that. But the beauty of the Gen-3 is we
could incorporate it all into the machine at once, or we can
either up-select or down-select the number of agents that we
could use, provided that we had an adequate assay. And the
assay is the chemicals that are used to test for the DNA of the
bacteria, and that is something that is very technically
difficult to make sure that you get right, because you want to
make sure you are hitting the right bug; you want to make sure
you are not missing the right bug as well.
BIOWATCH GENERATION-3: NATURALLY OCCURRING VS. INTENTIONAL PATHOGENS
Mr. Price. Now, there are some consequences for some of
these false readings that we have seen with the earlier
versions of this equipment. There are dozens of instances, as I
understand it, where the BioWatch filters have captured
dangerous germs, although none of them have been the result of
a biological attack. In some of these instances, it has taken
weeks to determine that this is a naturally occurring pathogen.
That is well beyond the time it would take public health
professionals to see the results of a biological attack.
Speaking of the supposed time advantage, in this instance it
has been reversed.
Is this kind of disconcerting pattern of false readings
continuing? What cities have been affected by this? How long
has it taken DHS and the local community to determine that it
was not a biological attack going on?
Mr. Garza. Yes, sir. So allow me to explain what occurs
with that. So they are not false readings per se, because they
detect absolutely what they are built to detect, which is
bacteria, DNA of bacteria. This bacteria, as I mentioned during
the briefings, is ubiquitous in the environment. [Redacted] But
these are not false positives. They are true positives in the
sense that we found DNA. They are not true positives in the
sense--and I think what you were describing in that, they were
intentionally released.
Mr. Price. Yes. I understand.
Mr. Garza. So we have through our experience in working
with that, we have come up with different ways of identifying
whether we believe that this is an intentional release or a
naturally occurring event. And some of those are technical
things such as looking at cycle times. We know that if we bake
the DNA enough or multiply the DNA enough, that we are going to
find something. And, frankly, all of those have been where we
have very much expanded the DNA through multiple cycles.
So looking at that, we discussed--of course we take this
very seriously, though. So we don't just write it off as it is
environmental and they are ready to go about doing their
business. We always talk with our FBI partners, with our
emergency providers; has anybody noticed an increase in cases
in hospitals? And then the public health providers usually do a
prolonged surveillance period to make sure we are not missing
anything.
Mr. Price. Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired. I will
have some additional questions for the record. If I could, just
one question for clarification here, and then I will be done.
You talk about this process that you go through and, of course,
it needs to be a very careful process that leaves nothing to
chance. How much of the experimentation and demonstration and
work that is underway on Gen-3 is going to directly address
this problem?
Mr. Garza. There is quite a bit, frankly. So part of that
is selecting for the bacteria that we know is going to be the
most likely causative agent for an intentional attack, because
there is a lot of ``near neighbors'' is what we call them, in
bacteria. A lot of bacteria that are in the same family but
some of them are disease-causing and some of them are not.
And so developing better assays so that we can target more
specifically the organisms that we know would be of a terrorist
origin is part of the process that went into developing Gen-3.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Dicks.
Mr. Dicks. No further questions, Mr. Chairman.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR DETECTION ARCHITECTURE: GAPS
Mr. Aderholt. Director Stern, it is not feasible, either
financially or practically for DNDO to close every gap that
could be used to smuggle nuclear material into the United
States, but it is your job to determine what the highest risk
vulnerabilities are and to put a priority on which ones must be
mitigated.
At the same time, we understand that your efforts to build
a more comprehensive, inclusive global nuclear detective
architecture across the government is still at its beginning
stages with most shown by DNDO as being at stage zero gap
identification in the DNDO solution development process. What
are the biggest holes in the GNDA and how are you working to
rapidly close them?
Mr. Stern. Thank you for the question, Congressman. There
are lots of holes, frankly, in the global nuclear detection
architecture. But the biggest reason is because of simple
physics and the way we lead our lives. And I don't think that
that is, frankly, going to change in any time in the
foreseeable future without a fundamental change in detection
technology, which will take a great deal of time. And this is
why I am changing the approach that the DNDO takes towards
architecture to look at this surge architecture.
I had one of my guys do just an off-the-cuff estimate of
what it would cost to actually close the gaps in a non-rigorous
way. [Redacted] I mean, physics is very much working against us
here. And so what we are doing is saying, look, in the case of
an attack, it wouldn't just come out of the blue, there will be
some intelligence. We spend $60 to $80 billion a year on the
Intelligence Community for a reason: because there will be some
information.
So let us develop an architecture that assumes some level
of information before we act, as opposed to just having static
detectors waiting to see what might pass by it. So we have
begun that process, working very closely with the Intelligence
Community, and the National Counterterrorism Center in
particular, to help define what information would likely be
available. For example, would the pathway be available, would
we know whether it is in a city or a region? And from that, we
are going to develop our architecture that allows us to
actually define and create clear metrics, define what is
necessary to meet that threat. [Redacted]
So we are changing the way we look at it. We hope to have
our first model out later this year. I think you will get a lot
more detailed information on the approach, and on the gaps,
even in the current approach in the annual review which you
will have again shortly. So I hope that answers your question.
Mr. Aderholt. What progress can you report to in the past
year and what do you anticipate achieving in the coming year?
Mr. Stern. I am trying very hard, as I mentioned, to
refocus DNDO in a number of ways. The first product will be
this new surge architecture that will allow us to create clear
and definable metrics, numbers of detectors, how quickly people
need to get together in order to respond to attacks or
attempted attacks.
The other progress in the technical area that I am very
focused on is shifting to this model test, model approach that
the National Academy of Science has recommended. In terms of
devices, we will have this year two new devices, the handheld
human portable radiation detection device--which is a very
precise device that CBP, the Customs and Border Protection,
will deploy across the country--and also a much more advanced
version of this handheld device that uses a Germanium detector,
which is really the best around, but it is also human portable.
So those are the primary accomplishments that I hope to
look back upon at the end of this year. The biggest one, again,
being changing the way that the DNDO operates and the way that
we focus on the architecture and our device development.
NUCLEAR FORENSICS
Mr. Aderholt. DNDO's nuclear forensic programs represent a
key mission for DNDO, establishing capability needed for
government-wide forensic expertise. However, last year, the
National Academy of Sciences in a classified report raised
concerns about the adequacy of the Nation's nuclear forensic
capability. And in your own justification for a $7 million
increase, [Redacted].
What is your assessment of U.S. forensic capability? And do
you agree with the concerns raised by the national academics?
Mr. Stern. Yes. I mean, nuclear forensics is a very
important part of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and a
big focus of mine. There is much room for improvement in our--
our, being the U.S. Federal Government's forensics capability;
in fact, global forensics capability, which is why we are
seeking a significant budget increase for forensics.
Now, it is important also to understand that while the
Nuclear Technical Forensic Center is part of DNDO, most of the
forensics money is spent at other agencies. We are a
coordinator and a facilitator and we do a limited amount of
research and development. But it is important that the other
agencies that do the workhorse of the analysis also see
improvements in accordance with the National Academy's
recommendations.
Mr. Aderholt. What specific improvements in forensic
capacity will be made by additional funding you have requested?
Mr. Stern. Well, the additional funding that we have
requested, I really break down into two areas. One is to do
some sort of fuel cycle modeling. As you may know, when we are
doing forensics, we can analyze the particles; but if we don't
have anything to compare it to--that is, a particle from where
it came from--it doesn't tell us much. So we are working on a
program, one, to help model fuel cycles that will provide some
insight into the second part of the analysis; that is, where
might this have come from?
And the second big part is, I think you described earlier,
is working very closely with the FBI to help establish a
mechanism to ensure that there is a reliable system for doing
forensics analysis that would actually hold up in a court of
law.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. No further questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I
do want to thank our witnesses for wide-ranging and quite
helpful testimony.
Mr. Aderholt. Yes. Thank you both for your testimony here
today. And there may be some additional questions that we will
submit to you for questions, and some of the members who were
not able to be present today.
So again we appreciate your testimony before the
subcommittee. So the subcommittee is adjourned.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.263
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.264
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.265
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.266
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.267
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.268
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.269
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.270
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.271
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.272
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.273
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.274
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.275
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.276
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.277
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.278
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.279
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.280
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.281
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.282
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.283
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.284
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.285
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.286
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.287
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.288
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.289
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.290
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.291
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.292
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.293
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.294
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.295
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.296
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.297
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.298
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.299
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.300
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.301
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.302
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.303
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.304
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.305
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.306
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.307
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.308
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.309
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.310
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.311
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.312
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.313
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.314
Wednesday, April 6, 2011.
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
WITNESS
CRAIG FUGATE, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Opening Statement: Chairman Aderholt
Mr. Aderholt. The hearing is called to order. Good morning.
Today we welcome the Administrator of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, better known as FEMA, Craig Fugate, to
discuss his Agency's $8.2 billion request for fiscal year 2012.
As we know, FEMA has continued to evolve in the years
following Hurricane Katrina and has been required to make
changes under the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act
of 2006. This law expanded FEMA's responsibilities and
authorities for disaster response and recovery in integrated
preparedness functions. Today we want to hear from
Administrator Fugate on how the transformation is proceeding
and the challenges he faces in the coming year. We will also
want to hear from him on some concerns we have of FEMA's
budgeting.
Over the last year FEMA has worked to help devastated
communities rebuild itself. As a Member of Congress from a
State that is very familiar with severe damage from
catastrophic events, I know firsthand FEMA's successes and,
regrettably, FEMA's struggles.
Administrator Fugate, this Committee has a strong history
of responding to your Agency's needs, providing funding that
was so desperately needed to rebuild and reorganize FEMA in the
post-Katrina era, and we will continue to do so, but that
funding cannot be a blank check. Today our country faces
disaster of a different kind, a fiscal disaster that will
require change that some may find hard to accept. This means
that today, more so than ever, we must budget responsibly for
known requirements, and we must also ensure that funding is in
line with measurable goals on the Federal, State and local
levels.
Administrator, I want to touch on two of the issues of
greatest concern facing us this year in reviewing your budget
request; first, your Disaster Relief Fund, or DRF, as it is
sometimes referred to. As we sit here today, the DRF inches
closer and closer to insolvency. Last year when faced with this
exact situation, Congress bailed out the DRF with a $5.1
billion supplemental. Now, just a few months later, your Agency
has informed us that the $5.1 billion was not enough, and you
need an additional appropriations to complete this year. Today
we believe you need almost $1.5 billion for this year, but,
frankly, I am not sure how confident I am with that figure
since it seems to change rather frequently. But whatever the
number is, we know that it is significantly more than what is
available, even when including the $5.1 billion extra Congress
provided just a few months ago. How will you complete this year
when we all know that the DRF is almost broke?
We have asked repeatedly what FEMA will do, and thus far no
one can answer, even as the balance in DRF continues to
diminish. You are forcing Congress to address a situation,
since, once again, the administration has failed to do so. In
the current fiscal environment this means cuts throughout the
entire Department of Homeland Security, cuts that may be
unappealing to many, but cuts that are necessary in order to
bail out FEMA. In other words, we are forced to take money from
other Department of Homeland Security components to fill FEMA's
shortfalls.
While the shortfall in fiscal year 2011 is of great
concern, the situation in fiscal year 2012 is alarming. The
Department continually states that it funds to a rolling 5-year
average, but the math does not work. By our math, based on your
5-year average, you need $4.6 billion just for the average cost
of noncatastrophic events. Added to that we understand you need
$3 billion for the costs associated with prior-year
catastrophic events, costs you knew about before you submitted
a budget to Congress, but failed to fund. This brings it to a
total of $7.6 billion. However, your fiscal year 2012 budget
only requests $1.8 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund. This
puts individuals and communities at great risk.
What we would like to hear from you today is your reasoning
behind this. When I asked Secretary Napolitano this exact
question just 4 weeks ago, she said you would recover more
money from prior-year unobligated balances, and that you would
seek a supplemental to cover the full cost. First, the
President's budget assumes $900 million from prior-year
recoveries. Thus far you have not adjusted that number, and we
have seen no plan to show how this will be achieved.
Second, what is more astonishing is that we sit here 6
months from the beginning of the next fiscal year, and your end
game for fiscal year 2012 is to ask for an emergency
supplemental even though this unfunded amount is not an
emergency, and it was known prior to the submission of the
fiscal year 2012 budget. This has to be one of the most
startling examples of irresponsible budgeting shenanigans that
this subcommittee has seen. I trust that during our discussion
today you can add some insight as to this rationale for this
request.
The second issue in front of us today is the continuing
lack of metrics for the billions of dollars we have invested in
the first responder grants. Since 9/11, the U.S. taxpayers have
invested over $33 billion in first responder grants. The
question we ask year after year is how much safer are we, how
better prepared are we, what are the gaps, how much more needs
to be done; however, year after year we don't get answers, yet
the Department asks for more money even though we have no
quantifiable justification to support these requests.
According to staff reports, you are working on metrics, but
the Departments have told Congress the same thing many times in
the past. FEMA has tried multiple times to create metrics, but
all efforts have resulted in failure. Now we hear that a new
revised Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 will address
the national preparedness, and thus FEMA is waiting on it
before developing metrics.
While we need to support our local fire responders, we must
seek a method to determine what we are getting for the billions
in grant funding we appropriate from this subcommittee each
year. After almost a decade of investment, it is time to stop
making excuses and address the situation with the seriousness
that is needed so that our taxpayers have confidence that hard-
earned money is being used as effectively as possible. In
short, these grant programs were never meant to permanently
subsidize local responsibility, but help bolster capability by
buying down risk and addressing gaps so States and local
governments could respond. However, to do this, we need to
measure the capabilities and gaps so that taxpayer funds are
invested in a wise manner.
Administrator, these are not new concerns, and issues of
which you are very familiar. I look forward to your thoughts
and your insights as we have our discussions today on these
problems and what progress you have made in the last year, as
well as the challenges that remain. I would be remiss if I
didn't, however, thank you for taking on such a challenging job
that you have taken on at such an important time in our
Nation's history, and this subcommittee understands the
challenges that you have.
As your written testimony will be placed in the record, I
would ask that you take about 5 minutes to summarize it for the
committee. But before you begin, I would like to recognize the
ranking member Mr. Price for his opening remarks.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.315
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.316
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.317
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.318
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.319
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.320
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.321
Opening Statement: Ranking Member Price
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Fugate. We are glad to welcome you back to the
Subcommittee to testify once again on the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's work to prepare our country for disasters
and to mitigate and minimize any losses. I want to thank you
for your leadership of this critical government function. You
have brought to the job the expertise and experience of a
seasoned emergency manager, and you have left your distinctive
mark on the Agency, building a more decentralized FEMA that is
designed to be closer to the States and to respond to their
needs more effectively. I am interested to hear how your work
is progressing, including any measures of the success of your
reforms.
Our main purpose here today is to discuss your 2012 budget,
and I want to flag some concerns as we get this hearing under
way. The request for FEMA is $6.8 billion. That is 5 percent,
or $339 million, below the 2010 enacted level. It appears that
your Agency has been asked to do the most with the least amount
of resources compared to other DHS components.
In the current rush to cut government services, we need to
be particularly careful that we do not sacrifice our Nation's
preparedness for disasters. Disasters, after all, are going to
happen. They are unavoidable, but many of their consequences
can be avoided with the right preparation. I have already
expressed concern to the Secretary about your 2012 request for
disaster relief, which appears to provide only enough resources
to last about halfway through the fiscal year. And the request
does not recognize an additional $6 billion in catastrophic
costs that are coming due. If we know the costs for ongoing
recovery activities associated with large disasters, then it
makes sense to provide Congress with a budget request that will
meet those disaster relief obligations. Emergency supplementals
should be used for unanticipated emergencies, not to meet half
of the annual funding needs that we, in fact, can anticipate.
It also worries me that your request substantially reduces
funding in staffing levels within the management of the
administration account. After I became Chairman of this
Subcommittee, we spent 4 years making sure FEMA had sufficient
staffing and resources to support States and localities in
times of emergency, to provide efficient oversight over the
billions of State and local first responder grants it is
responsible for each year, and to soundly manage your Agency's
finances, logistics, human capital and contracting efforts. We
need to understand these reductions better to make sure that
they in no way impede your missions. So you are going to need
to let the Subcommittee know if that is not the case; otherwise
we are going to want to scrutinize those reductions very
skeptically.
The budget request also substantially reduces funding for a
variety of grant programs, including cutting assistance to
firefighters by $140 million, and cutting in half funding for
the Emergency Food and Shelter Program at a time when States
and localities are still on shaky economic footing. We want to
know if and how we can justify such reductions.
On the other hand, I am pleased to note the modest
increases you have proposed for Emergency Management
Performance grants and Urban Area Security grants. And I am
glad you are seeking to maintain funding for port and transit
grants at the 2010 level. Especially as States and localities
are cutting funding to emergency and public safety, these
grants are a critical bulwark against the erosion of
preparedness at the local level.
Finally, your request more than halves funding for the
Flood Hazard Mapping and Risk Analysis Program. We know that
flooding is the most frequent and costly natural hazard in the
United States. In fact, much of the northern half of U.S., from
Montana to New York, faces an above-average risk of flooding in
the next few weeks, according to the National Weather Service.
FEMA is required by law to update flood maps and the risks
associated with flooding every 5 years, so we need to know how
you plan to continue meeting your statutory requirements with
the significantly reduced resources. The alternative, of
course, is an acceptance of greater risk and potentially
greater cost to local communities and the Federal Government.
So, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we can work together to
address these problems as we develop our 2012 funding
recommendations. And, Administrator Fugate, we look forward to
working with you in this endeavor. I want to thank you for your
service to the country. We look forward to a productive
discussion today and continuing to work together for our
resilient Nation.
Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Price.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.322
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.323
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.324
Opening Statement: Administrator Fugate
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Fugate, we look forward to your
testimony.
Mr. Fugate. Good morning, Chairman Aderholt and Ranking
Member Price, and members of the committee. I am here today to
present the FEMA fiscal year 2012 fiscal budget. And given that
you have already taken my written testimony, I just want to hit
a couple key points, because I think you really would like to
get into the Q&A piece of this and actually discuss some of the
issues you have raised.
Our mission is to support State and local first responders.
There is this tendency that people think of FEMA as a response
organization. What we do is coordinate and facilitate on behalf
of the present homeland security Federal resources when
disaster strikes and Governors request assistance under the
Stafford Act. But alternatively, we also provide support to
other Federal agencies when they need coordination on behalf of
those authorities that you have given us.
I have been doing this for a while in budget discussions. I
have never been told to go do what you need to do, and it is a
blank check. We have always had to work within the constraints
of the budget. We have always had to prioritize. In many cases
we have to make hard decisions that are not always easy, and
that is the reality of coming from local and State government
and dealing in constrained budget environments where the
disasters do not stop and having to prioritize those issues and
funds that are available to continue to ensure that we are
ready to respond and support our citizens in their time of
need.
Because of the significant investment that was alluded to
with the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act and the
investments that have been made in the Agency, we have been
working to take steps not only to implement the improvements
required in the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act,
but also to look at how we do business and further reduce that
cost in the overhead of administering disasters. We are trying
to do what we feel are the things that increase that
efficiency, focusing continuously on the mission and the
outcomes and taking a hard look at the business processes and
asking questions: Why are we doing it this way? Is there a
better way to do it? Can we reduce the overall cost without
affecting our ability to deliver services?
Some of this is the straightforward approach of why are we
having to do all the traveling when we can use conferences and
videoconferencing tools to meet that need, shutting off and
turning off excessive equipment that isn't needed that was
turned on during past disasters, looking at how we can leverage
our resources and personnel to do a better job by reorganizing
our team to reflect what we do, and looking at an outcome-based
strategic plan.
I will just close with this, Mr. Chairman, and prepare to
take questions. When you read most strategic plans, they talk
in various terms about what you want to do, but they very
rarely put a number about what you are going to measure it
against. And so in doing this, our strategic plan is based upon
what are the types of events and outcomes we need to achieve in
large-scale catastrophic disaster response. And we are looking
at basing that outcome on the needs of the immediate response
issues, the intermediate phases, into the long-term recovery
aspects.
Again, our mission statement as issued by Congress is to
prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and
mitigate all hazards. But we also know that FEMA is not the
team, we are part of the team. And we have to be able to make
sure that our working relationship with our State and local
partners, the private sector, and most importantly the public,
is the foundation of how we address this country's risk from
disaster.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Administrator. And we appreciate
your testimony.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.325
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.326
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.327
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.328
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.329
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.330
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.331
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.332
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.333
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.334
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.335
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.336
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.337
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.338
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.339
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.340
DISASTER RELIEF FUND
Mr. Aderholt. I think, as you see from past hearings, that
having the Members ask you questions directly about some of
these issues, I think, will be most helpful.
I think one of the things that I had alluded to in my
opening remarks and that I think is certainly something that is
of great concern to the subcommittee--and we have had these
conversations before, but let me just get right to the point.
You are running a substantial shortfall in the DRF that has not
been addressed for the remainder of this year or in the budget
for fiscal year 2012. The bottom line is the fiscal year 2012
budget and your fiscal year 2012 requests do not support the
sizable disaster relief cost for the rest of the year or the
next. The subcommittee needs to know the plan. How will you
complete the year when you are already clearly short of the
required funding for fiscal year 2011 by an estimated of $1.5
billion?
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF)
and the history of how we fund that, this Nation, has been
debated and discussed numerous times, and so I am going to
present what I think is the philosophical approach that we have
taken.
I understand the issues you are raising. I will start with
fiscal year 2011. We currently have a little over $1 billion in
the Disaster Relief Fund. We consider that once we go below $1
billion, that we need to implement an immediate needs funding,
which would limit funding to only those emergency actions in
response and individual assistance, and would no longer support
permanent work or mitigation projects from previous disasters.
That also is contingent upon another issue that this
committee and others have raised in the number of open
disasters and funds that have been obligated in those previous
disasters but were not drawn down. Last year we looked at open
missions to Federal agencies and began closing out those
disaster missions. That returned a little more than $2 billion
back into the Disaster Relief Fund.
Mr. Aderholt. Two billion dollars.
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir.
This year we are looking at those disaster funds to State
and local governments where the projects have been completed,
but in the initial allocation they did not require all of the
funds. Those balances have to be closed out, and in doing so
would return back to DRF. We were projecting, as we started
this process this year, about $120 million to $125 million per
month. Last month we were able to close out and return $240
million back to DRF.
Now, again, this is work that is already completed. We are
not taking money away from State and local governments. What
happens many times is when we do a project, the project may be
approved for, let's say, a debris mission of $100 million. When
the actual work is done, all the bills are paid, it may only
have been $80 million, but as long as that obligation is there,
that $20 million that could have been returned is not available
to DRF because it is considered obligated. So as we go through
that process and deobligate those funds, they go back into the
DRF.
And so this process this year is focused on those open
disasters with State and local governments where the work has
been done. This is not an appeal. This is not stopping
projects. This is taking work that is already completed and
determining if all the funds allocated were expended, and, if
not, putting those dollars made available back into the DRF.
So that process this year, again it is a little bit early
to get an estimate, but we are looking at--again, I don't know
if we are going to have last year's numbers, but there are
substantial open disasters where the funds have not been drawn
down, the work has been done, and we are looking to free those
dollars up to go into the DRF. So, therefore, our best
estimates still look at--if we get the 2011 request for the
DRF, it would be a May-June time frame before we would reach
immediate needs funding, but the unknown is how successful we
are going to be in closing out disasters, and will that move
that further into the year and reduce any additional amounts
that may be required. So that is for this fiscal year.
As to the 2012 budget request, I think this is where it is
a question of when these disasters occur and the initial
appropriations are given, how do you fund the outyears? And
let's take Katrina, one of our largest disasters. The majority
of those funds were not going to be expended in the first
emergency supplementals. It requires literally years to
rebuild. And I guess the question is: Do you place that into
your baseline budget because this is a very large disaster that
is going to take multiple years to pay out, or do you look at
your averages, budget for that, and then look at the
supplemental process for these extraordinary costs moving
through the budget?
I think this is a philosophical issue. This is not
something that this administration has started with; this has
been something that has been done in previous administrations,
and in the outstanding large-scale disasters, supplementals
were requested to pay for those large projects as they came
through the system.
Whether or not you can project accurately that number is
another issue. From my experience as a State director in trying
to do that within State, because you are dependent upon State
and local construction projects, bids, everything that goes
into that project, it is somewhat difficult to have a fixed
number, and in many cases as a State director, we were asking
for appropriations and authority that may not be actually drawn
down that year because the projects did not come on line during
that time frame.
So it is, to me, again, how do we approach the large-scale
disasters that are moving through the system that are
multiyears but are not expected to be there 5, 6, 7 years out,
and are going to be a bubble moving through the budget process
against the top line of the total appropriations? And I think
this is a philosophical question, Mr. Chairman: How do you
budget that? Do you put that in your top-line budget and go, if
this is my top-line budget, I am going to take that $5 to $6
billion that are moving through on those disasters and now make
that my top line, or do I look at my top line on a recurring
average and then place that on top? And again, I think it is
philosophical as to how to best to do that, but this has been
the way that this administration and the previous
administration had addressed the DRF for those costs above the
annual request for the appropriation.
Mr. Aderholt. Let me just ask you straight up: Would you
agree that there is $3 billion stated for fiscal year 2012
already, though; do we know that?
Mr. Fugate. The exact number, Mr. Chairman, I would have to
ask staff to look at what we project for recoveries. We also
were budgeting into that what we were going to estimate for
recoveries. So I can't say that is not the number; I would just
say I don't know.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Aderholt. Let me just ask you straight up: Would you agree that
there is $3 billion stated for fiscal year 2012 already, though; do we
know that?
Mr. Fugate. The exact number, Mr. Chairman, I would have to ask
staff to look at what we project for recoveries. We also were budgeting
into that what we were going to estimate for recoveries. So I can't say
that is not the number; I would just say that I don't know.
Response. The $3 billion figure represents a rough estimate of the
catastrophic need for FY 2012. The estimate is based on a projection of
annual total recoveries of $1.5 billion, project completion times that
may fluctuate greatly, and an assumption that there will be no
additional occurrences of catastrophic events. While the Administration
continues to work on improving its DRF estimation capabilities, the
variation inherent in the projection should be an accompanying caveat
for any DRF figure.
Mr. Aderholt. But it very likely is?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. I just don't know what recovery
amount was built into that, if that was on that number, or
would that go against it?
Mr. Aderholt. And this would be for a catastrophic?
Mr. Fugate. Yes. These would be for those outstanding
large-scale disasters that are still working through the
system.
Mr. Aderholt. Let's talk about the 5-year average. Could
you explain how you budgeted to the 5-year average in fiscal
year 2012, which is $4.6 billion, even though you requested
$1.8 billion?
Mr. Fugate. Well, again, we look at trend data for those
disasters, not catastrophic. And this number, again, is one
that would go through the budget process trying to get to what
that reoccurring average is. And that is a number that I think
is, again, at the center of debate of how much that trend is
going up, or how many catastrophic disasters are being built in
that base.
Mr. Aderholt. How much of this shortfall can be offset with
recovered unobligated funding beyond the $900 million already
included in the budget request?
Mr. Fugate. Again, I have always been reluctant, Mr.
Chairman, to talk about a number until we get in there, because
there is a lot of unknowns. We think that it is over $1
billion, but we are not sure what that recovery looks like or
the pace of that recovery. As we get more information this
summer as we are doing this--again, last month we were only
projecting about $120 million; we actually hit $240 million.
Some of these projects are very large. If you close out one
or two projects, you can get a very substantial number. Others
have not that big of a number. So as we do it, it is not
something that is easy to project until we actually have some
time doing it, and seeing what those trends look like, and
seeing what we are finding in these recoveries. And, Mr.
Chairman, as soon as we get that kind of trend data, we see
that pattern and get a better sense of that, we will provide it
to the committee; but as it is now, starting that process, we
doubled what we thought we were going to get this year. We saw
a similar trend last year where we actually were recovering
much more early on than we thought we were, and that tended to
push out the requirements for additional funds.
Mr. Aderholt. I may have some follow-up in a minute, but
let me go to Mr. Price.
GRANTS: STAFFING FOR ADEQUATE FIRE AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator, I would like to lead off with a question
about the fire grants and then move on to flood hazard mapping,
either now or in the next round of questions.
As you know, we continue to debate the appropriate level of
funding for the SAFER program and for the fire grants.
Fortunately on the House floor we are able to reverse the cuts
that had been proposed in H.R. 1 and to restore full funding
for both the SAFER program, the personnel program, and for the
firefighter assistance grants. And your 2012 budget proposes
$670 million overall for firefighter assistance grants,
including full funding of $420 million for SAFER, but the fire
grant equipment program is being reduced, which I, for one,
will want to examine skeptically. You may want to say something
about that.
But I want to ask you a prior question about the personnel
side of this. We understand that at a time of economic
downturn, the personnel program performs a broader function
than the SAFER grants normally do. In other words, it often is
needed to restore personnel, to prevent layoffs, to help
communities deal with economic diversity, hopefully to avoid
layoffs in the first place. So along with the need for adequate
funding comes a need for flexible rules, and in particular for
a waiver of the cost-sharing and local matching provisions, and
also a waiver of the requirement that these be new additional
personnel.
So we, of course, are hopeful about our economic recovery
as we chart our way back to full economic health, but we know
that local public safety budgets are not recovered, and that
there is a good deal of unevenness around the country in the
health of those budgets.
Now, your testimony states that the fiscal 2012 request
includes $670 million for firefighter assistance grant
programs. Included in this amount are $420 million for SAFER
grants to rehire laid-off firefighters and retain veteran first
responders, totaling 2,300 firefighter positions. You do need a
waiver to use SAFER funds to retain firefighters, and I want to
ask you about an apparent omission, maybe an inadvertent
omission, that this waiver isn't included in the 2012 budget.
So the question is quite straightforward: Do you support the
continuation of waivers to retain firefighters? And in your
opinion, have the waivers been successful in stemming the tide
of potential firefighters layoffs?
Mr. Fugate. The first question, yes, sir. The second
question, based upon the available funds, yes, sir, there have
been those that have been rehired or those that we prevented
the layoffs from. And in many cases, there has been more demand
for the funds than the availability of those dollars.
So the first question is yes. The second question, sir, is
yes.
GRANTS: ASSISTANCE TO FIREFIGHTERS
Mr. Price. Yes, that is certainly my impression as well.
When we were having the debate on the House floor over H.R. 1,
at that point a number of firefighters from around the country
made their way to Washington. They did a real service, I think,
in doing that and in bearing witness to the difference these
funds had made as their departments attempted to retain their
full strength in terms of personnel.
Will you say a word about the budget proposal with respect
to the fire grants as compared to the personnel program, what
kind of rationale underlies that request?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. Given the issues of looking at where
we could make reductions and target those reductions, we felt
in the current budget climate that we should continue to level
funding for firefighter personnel, and that if we were going to
have to look at a reduction, we would take it in the equipment
support. We realized that neither--these options are not
necessarily things people want to see, but because of the
reality of the budget and the request to reduce our funding, we
made the strategic decision for the positions themselves versus
the equipment and other programs eligible under the AFG grants.
Mr. Price. So that the decision is a function of the budget
pressures you are experiencing and perceiving, not a reduced
demand or any judgments necessarily about the program itself?
Mr. Fugate. No, sir. I think this, again, comes back to we
don't have unlimited resources. We generally see far more grant
requests than we have funds. That is just a reality of what we
are doing. But in looking at where we are going to make
reductions and make those recommended reductions to Congress,
we felt that reducing the grant programs for the equipment and
other programs that are eligible was preferable than reducing
the funding for the actual firefighters themselves, sir.
Mr. Price. All right. I will wait on the next round for the
mapping because I do want to get into that. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for being here. I know that you are from
Florida.
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir.
NATIONAL FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM: COVERAGE
Mr. Crenshaw. And so you know a little bit about
hurricanes. And I guess when you look across the country, as
you said, we are always going to have disasters. I mean, we are
going to have hurricanes, we are going to have tornadoes, we
are going to have earthquakes. And I guess Katrina was a pretty
good example, like $80 billion.
And I want to ask you a little bit about what you think the
Federal Government's role ought to be in helping States like
Florida, who tries to kind of plan in advance through
catastrophic insurance. And there have been proposals from time
to time to have Federal legislation that would allow States to
get together and to pool their resources, because if we assume
that we are going to have these disasters, and we assume that
they are going to be very, very expensive, it seems like one of
the things we ought to be trying to do is try to help private
dollars, insurance dollars, prefund some of those catastrophes.
So could you talk a little bit about--I can't remember
exactly what goes on in Florida, but I know there have been
efforts to do that--how you think that works, and do you think
that the Federal Government ought to set up some sort of
program to expand that to where States are getting together
where they are going to have an earthquake in California and a
hurricane in Florida and a tornado in Kansas? What are your
thoughts about that to help reduce the overall cost, because if
we keep going like we are going, sooner or later there is going
to be one gigantic hurricane even bigger than Katrina, and in
these days of difficult dollars, it could really put a hurting
on the Federal Treasury.
Mr. Fugate. Congressman, coming from Florida, as you know,
the primary issue here has been the affordability and
availability of coverage for insurance for individual
homeowners and businesses. And so I will limit the questions to
that. I think it is another discussion about the cost of the
impacts to the government and the government buildings and
other facilities themselves.
We currently administer a National Flood Insurance Program
in the United States, which is a federally administered,
federally backed by the U.S. taxpayer program of providing a
type of insurance that the private sector does not provide.
That program is not solvent; it has a lot of challenges and is
currently being discussed for reauthorization. Currently FEMA,
the National Flood Insurance Program, owes close to $18 billion
to the Treasury due to payouts as a result of the hurricanes in
2005.
In looking at how you address this, I think we have to be
very careful that we engage the private sector in such a way
that we don't increase the vulnerability or the burden to the
taxpayers unless it is a strategic investment on behalf of the
taxpayer to mitigate some of those risks. I think some of the
things you discussed as providing, because of the interstate
clause, States the ability to pool reinsurance rather than
doing State by State may be an area to look at. We certainly
are encouraged by the draft legislation that would look at how
we could begin to engage the private sector in some aspects of
the National Flood Insurance Program.
But I think you are absolutely right. Most of the
assistance that we provide in the individual assistance program
is based upon lack of insurance, whether it was a particular
exposure that wasn't covered by a homeowner policy such as the
exclusion of floodwaters and requirement of a national flood
insurance policy; whether it is exclusions by wind that you
face in your communities where the various State insurers have
basically said, ``We will provide everything but hurricane
protection, and you are going to have to buy that from a State
wind pool''; to earthquakes, now sinkholes, now mold.
And I think it is going to be a growing challenge that if
we are looking at the private-sector insurance to provide the
bulk of the protection to individual homeowners in the private
sector, that is something we need to look at. But I will
caution against the Federal Government becoming a direct
provider of that insurance. I think that the National Flood
Insurance Program shows some of the challenges with that. And
it may be more on the lines of looking at some of the
interstate clauses of allowing the insurance commissioners in
States to pool resources.
The biggest issue is, unless you can geographically
distribute your risk across areas, it is very difficult to
reduce the total cost of that risk. If you are looking at a
hurricane-prone State like Florida, could you offset some of
that risk with a flood-prone or an earthquake-prone State so
that you didn't have the same hazard in the same pool as what
would happen if you just looked at the Gulf Coast States?
Mr. Crenshaw. But in a bigger sense, a broader sense, you
said it would be something worth looking at. But the
catastrophic insurance pool that Florida has to kind of prefund
those catastrophes as opposed to waiting until it happens and
then kind of bail it out, like we do at the Federal level, do
you have any thoughts? Is that kind of beyond what you have had
to focus on from day to day, or do you think there ought to be
some way to try to allow States that are subject to these
disasters to pool their assets to broad--not just the
individual property insurance owners, but in a broad sense deal
with these major, major catastrophes, that it might be more
affordable if States got together and pooled their resources?
Mr. Fugate. Well, I think the Florida wind pool and the
citizens insurance company, which is the State's insurer of
last resort, offer cautionary tales of the pros and cons. As
you well know, and as a Florida resident, if we have a
catastrophic impact to the wind pool, the way they are able to
pay that is everybody that owns an insurance policy will be
charged a surcharge. We currently are paying surcharges for
previous events. That model is very vulnerable to the large-
scale impacts of a major windstorm, such as the great Miami
hurricane in 1926, [and] would produce impacts in the $100
billion range.
I don't think the State wind pool can absorb those
catastrophic hits as currently designed, and I think that
places an extreme vulnerability to everybody that has an
insurance policy. You are going to have to subsidize that risk
after the fact.
So I think there are some perils to that, but I also think
there are some advantages, because lacking that, the ability to
have wind coverage in Florida would have gone the way of many
of the private systems, that we would no longer provide that
coverage. And that would cause the other economic impact of not
being able to insure homes against a very prevalent threat in
Florida.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Carter.
REMEDIAL ACTION MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In recent reports in January of this year by DHS Office of
Inspector General, FEMA was criticized for not conducting
after-action reviews of all disaster responses, as well as not
communicating these reviews to FEMA personnel. The IG reported
that FEMA has missed opportunities to learn from past
experiences, and the IG gave FEMA six recommendations to
improve its Remedial Action Management Program.
What are you doing in response to these six
recommendations, and how are you working to improve the
remedial action program?
Mr. Fugate. Congressman, we took the IG's reports to heart.
We are implementing these. One of the things that we have done
that is a shorter term is we have a series of no notice
exercises that my staff have used--a term I use called
``thunderbolts,'' which we send out both an exercise team and
an evaluation team to do quick reports and quick looks.
I think one of our challenges, if we only look at the
catastrophic large-scale disasters, the frequencies of those
don't give us the improvement that we need in the short term.
So we are not only looking at the IG's recommendations, we are
also throughout FEMA, without advance notice, doing no notice
exercises at both the headquarters and the regional levels,
with both an exercise component and an after-action quick look
report, to find those areas we need to address immediately to
continue to improve against that.
So we took it very seriously. We know that that process had
sometimes become too convoluted and so complex that by the time
we got the information, we were years into the aftermath of an
event. So we have been focusing on, particularly in our no
notice exercises, doing very quick action reports that occur
within a week of the exercise to give us a snapshot of what
worked, what didn't work, and what we have got to focus on.
So we are implementing both the IG recommendations, but
also are looking at a shorter-term process to really start
building these lessons back quicker versus waiting for the
formal reviews being completed and trying to build that into an
after-action.
DATA BACKUP SYSTEM
Mr. Carter. I understand that FEMA lost 7 years' worth of
after-action reports and best practices when a server failed
last year. And in February of this year, this data was still
unreadable, as I understand it. What is the status of that
failure, and does FEMA anticipate being able to read this data?
And what are you going to do to prevent this from happening
again?
Mr. Fugate. I am not sure what the forensics are going to
be able to do with that server. It was a catastrophic failure,
and I am not sure that we are going to be able to get any of
that data back. Since then we have moved to the lessons learned
system and actually have more of a cloud architecture to move
away from a single point of failure. But it does show some of
the state that our IT infrastructure was in, literally a server
box without backup; therefore a single point of failure wiped
out all the data.
So as we move toward the DHS strategic plan for IT
management and start moving things in the data centers and data
clouds where we have the back-up and the redundancies, to
eliminate the hardware failure, and then, more importantly, to
continue to use things like the lessonslearned.gov site to post
this information so it is not lost, and it is available to the
response community.
Mr. Carter. Had either you or previous FEMA Directors,
noticed that you had a problem of a not-backed-up system and
made a request of this committee or anyone to back up these
systems in a time when at least the Nation looks upon FEMA as a
massive disaster response--we realize what your real nature is,
but we hearken back to our two or three great hurricanes in the
gulf a while back, and everybody thought FEMA was in charge of
everything, and then to realize that you had servers that were
not backed up. When you listen to the radio, and they tell you
about every 45 minutes you need a back-up of your data, it
seems to me somebody should have noticed that. Has anybody made
requests on that matter?
Mr. Fugate. On that particular server, no, sir. Overall,
yes, sir. We are, in part of our budget, looking at how we move
from a system of server boxes into the data centers and data
cloud. This is a migration within the Department of Homeland
Security to move away from what I would call the single points
of failure into a distributed cloud-based environment where we
have the built-in back-up and security on these systems.
Too often what we have found is we have been looking at our
IT as we have a lot of different programs that have servers
that don't have the support, don't have the back-up. And so as
we have been identifying them, we are trying to move all that
to the DHS data center approach and get away from individual
boxes.
So for that particular one, sir, I didn't have visibility
until it happened, as an aftermath. But we had recognized that
our current IT infrastructure was very vulnerable both to
security, loss of data, and the vulnerabilities of not having
these systems where they were secured and backed up and
available to the rest of the team.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Carter.
Mr. Dent.
DISASTER ASSISTANCE OVERPAYMENTS
Mr. Dent. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Fugate, good to be with you.
Last month FEMA began sending notice of debt letters to
disaster assistance applicants who received improper Federal
disaster assistance payments. The letters were to address the
most recent disasters first, as I understand it. The letters
are informing applicants of the amount and reason for their
debt, and provide information on how to repay the debt or
appeal FEMA's determination.
First, how much money do you believe FEMA has outstanding
in overpayments?
Mr. Fugate. The number that was provided in the IG report
was about $640 million. We think that number was less than that
as we went through and--we actually had our national processing
centers go through the list and began looking at that. That
number has come down. And, Congressman Dent, I request that we
give you that figure in writing, what we think that number is,
based upon the last scrub of going through all those
applications. But that process has started. As you pointed out,
over 5,000 of those letters are going out to the most recent
disasters, and we are working our way back through those
numbers.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Dent. Last month FEMA began sending notice of debt letters to
disaster assistance applicants who received improper Federal disaster
assistance payments. The letters were to address the most recent
disasters first, as I understand it. The letters are informing
applicants of the amount and reason for their debt, and provide
information on how to repay the debt or appeal FEMA's determination.
First, how much money do you believe FEMA has outstanding in
overpayments?
Mr. Fugate. The number that was provided in the IG report was about
$640 million. We think that number was less than that as we went
through and---we actually had our national processing centers go
through the list and began looking at that. That number has come down.
And, Congressman Dent, I request that we give you that figure in
writing, what we think that number is, based upon the last scrub of
going through all those applications. But that process has started. As
you pointed out, more than 5,000 of those letters are going out to the
most recent disasters, and we are working our way back through those
numbers.
Response: To date we have identified $21,754,993.93 in recoupment
dollars for applicants provided disaster assistance funding (October
2005 to present) through the Individuals and Households Program (IHP).
This does not include any Katrina, Rita, or Wilma recoupments through
the IHP as the review is still being conducted on this subset of
disaster payment recipients.
Mr. Dent. And I guess the second question would be do you
know the kind of responses that FEMA has received to the
letters being sent out to those individuals and families
requesting a repayment, and are people responding to the
letter, I guess?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir, they are responding to the letter. In
most cases they are questioning why they would need to repay.
It is falling into several categories. In some cases errors
were made in the process of determining eligibility; in some
cases it is they had duplication of benefits. They had
insurance that paid, but now they had gotten the assistance, or
were having multiple parties that applied from the same
household, and so multiple individuals have gotten that.
The process we are trying to use is in many cases if we got
more documentation, they may not have an outstanding debt. This
is indicating, based upon what we know, they have an
outstanding debt. If they have documentation that we are asking
for, it may establish there is no debt, and that will close the
case. If we do, however, determine that they do have a debt,
and they owe money back, they have several options. They can
pay in full. They can do a payment plan. But at the point at
which they either are unresponsive or refuse to repay money
after we have been able to make contact, ultimately these are
referred to Treasury for collection.
So this process starts with this is what we think you owe.
Provide us information. If that information satisfies our
request, it is closed; if not, and we still demonstrate you owe
us, then the options are to begin a repayment program or to pay
it in full.
Mr. Dent. So essentially if somebody fails to respond to a
letter, you refer the matter over to Treasury for collection;
is that how it works?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. Ultimately, if we can determine that
that is a viable case that we would not be able to get either
them to respond to us or that they do not agree to repay it,
ultimately it would go to Treasury if it is determined that is
a repayment----
Mr. Dent. Is there an intermediate step? In other words, if
they do not respond to the letter, do you go right to Treasury?
Mr. Fugate. No sir. We will do additional attempts to
notify. And again hopefully, again, as they get the letters,
they will respond back to us. And in many cases if we can get
some additional documentation, it may clear the issue up, and
they were eligible in the first place. So we are hoping people
will understand that.
But it does provide that they have the right of appeal.
This is a requirement that came about after a judge found that
our process was not compliant and essentially we were no longer
able to do recoupments to give you what it is, why we think you
owe the money, and state clearly how to appeal that and how to
notify us of your intention to pay.
Mr. Dent. And my final question, is there going to be
another round of notice of debt letters this year?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir.
Mr. Dent. Okay. I yield back. Thank you.
PREPAREDNESS CAPABILITIES
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Dent.
As I stated earlier in my opening remarks, after almost a
decade of the Department cannot measure if we are safer or more
prepared from the $33 billion investment we have made in
preparedness grants, over the past decade FEMA has made many
attempts to measure capability, but none have been implemented.
The continual excuses and delays must stop. The American
taxpayer deserves to know what they are getting for their
investment.
Do you agree that there needs to be a quantifiable metrics
that measures capabilities, that measures if we are safer or we
are more prepared than we have been in the past?
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, when we first started this and I
was State director, I asked the questions: What are we
building? How do we know it is built? And how do we maintain
it?
I think we can measure what we are doing. I think we can
demonstrate in many cases significant improvements in
everything from interoperable communications to enhancements
and increased capability for bomb squads, hazardous material
teams, increased medical capacity. We can give you numbers to
show what we have invested in and what that has provided us.
But do you have a matrix that asks what are we preparing
against? And once we get to that number, then how do we
maintain it, and what is the appropriate Federal share versus
local and State share?
And I think this goes back to one area that we have made
progress in, which is to be able to measure the number of
exercises and the participation exercises. I was asked one
time, how do you know if we are prepared? And in many cases it
always comes back to if a disaster occurs, was the response
better? But my observation has been those communities that have
engaged--particularly local elected leadership, State
leadership--in exercises do much better in the response to both
the disasters they have planned for and the things they have
never had happen previously in their communities.
We think that in measuring exercise, participation,
frequency, and the effectiveness of those exercises is one of
the better measures of showing increased preparedness. Those
who do have historically performed better in their response;
those who don't have greater challenges, particularly when it
comes to the initial impacts decision-making in executive-level
operations.
Mr. Aderholt. Knowing that, of course, we agree on that,
how long will it be before you can actually tell us that these
grants are making us more safer and making us more resilient?
Mr. Fugate. Good question. How do we define it? I think
this is, again, coming back to what level are we going to
define as prepared, and what measures are we going to use.
I think that we are looking right now at our ability to
measure and look at the exercises. I think that in looking at
other things to measure is looking at--Mr. Chairman, if you
will indulge me, this may take a little bit of time. But I
think what I ran into when I got here was we always said we are
going to respond better and faster. I asked, ``By how much?
What are we doing? What are we planning against?'' We never
really put a time frame on how fast response should be; we just
said we want it fast.
My observation is the first 72 hours of any disaster is the
most critical time for changing the outcome for lifesaving and
stabilization. That means you have to look at what capabilities
have you built that are both local and State initial responses
and what resources do you need to bring, and now you need to
plan against these scenarios that produce the maximum impacts,
whether it is an improvised nuclear device, a major hurricane,
or major earthquake.
NATIONAL LEVEL EXERCISE
In NLE 11, our exercise that we are going to be conducting
for the central U.S., part of this is to look at how rapidly
can we get teams in to do some things that are very measurable,
such as conducting and doing the initial search for the injured
in the first 72 hours of a no notice event, and basing that
upon the catastrophic impacts of the likely hazards we face,
what we are calling the maximum of maximums; that now gives us
something to start measuring. Given that we have X amount of
teams, X amount of resources, we have built--and you look into
reports from the States on how much additional search and
rescue teams have been built at State and local levels that are
not part of the Federal USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) teams.
Can we get those teams there fast enough through mutual aid and
other tools to get there, and what is our gap?
That is how we are going to start measuring preparedness.
We are going to put it up against the actual events this
country faces, looking at a time frame that we are going to
exercise at National Level Exercise 11, and looking at how
quickly can we get there, if we can change that outcome, and
what is the gap. And I think this then gives us a direction not
necessarily to spend more money, but to look at where do we
make investments elsewhere that have capabilities that have not
been brought to bear, such as we don't engage the private
sector in a lot of our search and rescue. But what about mine
safety rescue teams? How would we engage them if we were in New
Madrid, in Memphis, doing search and rescue to bring those
teams on board?
These are the kind of things we want to measure
preparedness against. Take historical events that we know we
can model what the potential impacts are; look at the first 72
hours, whether it is a chem bio. Can we distribute
prophylactics in an anthrax attack in a major metropolitan
area, and use those to plan against? And given what we have
built, what do we need to maintain? Adjusting for what is not
achieving that mission, but measured against the events and the
time frames, how do we as a Nation respond to these types of
events?
Mr. Aderholt. I think the 72-hour time frame you discuss is
very important. But going back to my original question, when do
you think that we might get to see something like this put
together?
Mr. Fugate. I think the actual measuring tools we have
developed in looking at how we demonstrate the response in the
first 72 hours, we are looking at 13 critical areas of things
that have to be accomplished. We are going to use these to test
the system in NLE 11. And we are also using the concept we are
calling the maximum maximum, looking at these large-scale
scenarios, very similar to what we saw in Japan, and now using
those to start looking at nationally how much capacity do we
have to respond to that. And I think NLE 11 will give us a
chance to look at that in real time and then further refine
that.
So this year what we are focusing on right now is the
exercise component of measuring that. I think the next area
that we are going to focus on is the Urban Search and Rescue
Teams--both the 28 that are federally sponsored and the
numerous teams that local and State governments built with
their Homeland Security dollars and are currently maintaining
with those dollars--and the urban security initiatives. And
given that mix, tools such as the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact, which the States have, can we effectively
as a Nation mobilize not only the Federal teams, but also State
and local teams to respond, and what does that measure, and how
do we determine where we are at on that system? So in looking
at this, start taking these pieces.
And again, sir, in my observations process, everybody has
been trying to come up with a finished product. I think we got
to start doing this in pieces; that we know this is an area
that we need to measure because it has a definite outcome.
Let's get it in place and quit waiting for a finished document
that we are going to go against to look at these issues.
So we are going to start with exercising. The next area we
are going to be looking at are the things like the teams that
have been paid for and built and maintained. But starting with
the search and rescue teams, look at the additional teams that
have been built for the chem and bio effects, and start
measuring that against these events.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Mr. Administrator, let me, before I get into my
question, just commend you for that answer. I think there is a
lot of common sense and experience reflected in that answer. We
all would like to estimate risk more accurately, and we all
would like to measure the effects of what we are doing more
accurately. And you are suggesting a very practical approach to
that which has to do with specific interventions. It is very
important that we understand what works and what doesn't, and
that we measure the impact of these interventions. There is a
kind of Holy Grail, though, that we sometimes seem to be
pursuing, a comprehensive method of estimating risk and
allocating funds accordingly, and then measuring impacts in a
similar kind of global way. I have worked as hard as anyone on
this Subcommittee to try to refine our instruments for risk
assessment and to refine our ways of measuring our impacts, but
just looking at the range of programs you are talking about, I
don't believe one size fits all.
For example, just the range of grant programs that you
administer. They vary in the extent to which they are risk-
based. UASI grants, for example, are allocated on the basis of
some rather straightforward risk assessments. Some other grants
like the State grants, the EMPGs, are very decentralized; they
are allocated according to population and other factors. And
you leave, I think rightly so a good deal of the determination
of how those funds are expended and where they are directed to
your State and local partners.
Other grant programs work on the basis not just of some
central administrator's estimate of what the needs are out
there, but they take into account the initiative that is being
taken locally. We have a lot of our fire chiefs represented
here this morning. The fire grants quite explicitly reward the
fire departments that take initiatives, that help themselves,
and that get their act together, and that make meritorious
proposals. This area I want to question you about, floodplain
mapping, is the same thing.
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: EFFECTIVENESS
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank Mr. Price for his questioning, because it
brings up something that I have some curiosity about.
Locally, I have a town in my district, Salado, which has a
creek that runs through it and there was an upper-end
subdivision built in that watershed. These were houses $250,000
and up, and the flood maps showing an area, which everybody who
ever lived in Salado for any length of time said, they are
nuts, that is not out of the flood plain; that is in the flood
plain. But it was insisted that those maps were accurate, and
about 40 houses were built in that area. We had one flood that
flooded those houses; and asked that the maps be corrected to
indicate that obviously it had flooded, and amazingly enough
they came back with the answer, those were accurate flood plain
maps.
Well, last year, we had a second flood came through. We
lost all those houses, and they have finally said sort of an,
oops, I guess we screwed up, even though half the world was
telling us we were wrong, and we will look again and see if we
made a mistake.
To me, it is just a no-brainer, that if there are 60 houses
that flooded twice, it probably ought to be considered flood
plain. So it concerns me that this is cut back, too. I will
have to admit that, because I think that was a mess-up.
And then the conversation you were having with the chairman
here. You know, when I first got on this committee, which is 6
years ago, there was an ongoing debate, and it is still ongoing
at the local level: FEMA as a standalone versus FEMA as part of
this Department. And I would assume, because that debate has
been very vocal around the whole country, that someone would
have done some kind of comparison of response and preparedness
of FEMA when it was standalone versus FEMA as part of this
Department, so there would have been some sort of metrics
established. I just would have assumed that, if nothing else,
some kid writing a dissertation should have probably written
something on that.
Do you have any information about any comparisons about
FEMA as a standalone agency, which at least early on people
kind of felt like we made a mistake putting them in this big
Department and they should have been standalone all along? This
debate has been on this committee since I have been here, at
least the discussion has gone on. And were there any metrics
used to make those kind of studies, or do you know?
Mr. Fugate. Congressman, I am not aware of that.
I can't tell you just the numbers. After the post-Katrina
emergency management format, FEMA is now almost double the size
it was when it was a standalone agency.
Another significant event was in passing the post-Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act. For the first time, we
actually had a mission statement and a purpose in legislation
rather than the Stafford Act and appropriations language.
So I think there is a clearer mission. It is a larger, more
robust organization than we had when it was a standalone.
As far as the issue should we be in or out of DHS, in my
testimony during my confirmation hearing, I felt that the
matter was resolved: We were part of DHS. We need to get back
to work and focus on it. I felt that continuing discussions
about whether FEMA was in or out was a distraction from my
mission. I am very fortunate, working for Secretary Napolitano
and being part of DHS, that I can tap into the resources of the
other components, but I also have a tremendous amount of
flexibility she gives me in order to be very responsive to the
States when they have an issue.
So I don't feel it has compromised FEMA's mission. I feel
that we are a part of an organization that gives us a lot of
capability from resources from our partners in the Coast Guard,
Customs and Borders, law enforcement support from ICE.
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
So I really, sir, I don't know if anybody has done a study.
I know that you look at the numbers today and where we were
previously as a standalone agency, we are bigger with more
capabilities, more authorities that Congress has provided us.
And my personal opinion is, sir, I have not been engaging in
that debate. I have been focusing on the things we need to do
to get FEMA where you expect us to be, to where the public
expects us to be.
Mr. Carter. I don't expect you to engage in that debate. I
think that question has been satisfied. But I assume, because
it was indicated that you are looking for metrics to analyze
your effectiveness today. And, by the way, there are some of us
who don't always think bigger is better in this world. Some of
us think maybe lean and mean sometimes operates a little
better. But that is a debate for another time.
But you were saying that you were working to develop
metrics, and I was wondering, because this debate was pretty
loud and pretty long for a long time, that somebody might have
done some studies that would at least set metrics up that you
might could use to judge your department now. I guess that was
my question.
Mr. Fugate. No, sir. I think most of the things that people
were measuring was our administration of the Stafford Act. And,
quite honestly, that is a program that provides financial
assistance reimbursement and has the ability to do tasking to
other Federal agencies for disaster. But my experience as a
State director and as a local administrator was that the things
that we are talking about now, setting performance measures,
have never been part of the national preparedness dialogue.
People said we wanted to respond, but nobody defined what that
meant. People said we wanted to go out and do all this stuff,
but nobody put a time limit against it that says--I mean, quite
honestly, sir, if you are injured in a disaster, how much time
do you have? That sets the response posture, not what I am
capable of doing. I think this has been the trap we run into.
We plan for what we are capable of doing versus what the
threat is. And I agree with you 100 percent: I don't think you
need to be bigger. I am not asking that we have to constantly
grow FEMA. I think you have got us to the critical mass. But I
think we have got to define what outcome we are going to
achieve, and then not fall into the other trap I have seen us
do, and that is always look at a government-centric solution
and forget there are tremendous resources every day in every
community 1 minute before that disaster struck. Why do we start
1 minute after that and ignore the resources?
Mr. Carter. I wouldn't expect anybody from Florida to have
any other response than that, so I respect that.
If I have time, I have one more question that troubles me.
Mr. Aderholt. Time is up. We will let you on the next
round.
Mrs. Lowey.
NUCLEAR CRISIS: EVACUATION PLANNING
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome. The Indian Point nuclear facility is located
near my district and is within 30 miles of New York City. The
government has recently recommended a 50-mile evacuation zone
in Japan. If a 50-mile evacuation were ordered for Indian
Point, 20 million people would need to be evacuated, including
Times Square, Wall Street, and parts of Connecticut and New
Jersey.
Mr. Fugate, you have an emergency preparedness background.
Can you honestly tell this Committee that adequate plans exist
to evacuate the most densely populated region of the country if
there were an incident at Indian Point?
Mr. Fugate. Well, based upon two assumptions that are not
the current assumptions that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
[NRC] uses for planning is, one, that you would have a full
population evacuation 50 miles from the point of the nuclear
power plant. The current guidance is a 10-mile range. So based
upon that, the area I am most familiar with, in working as part
of the team that does the exercises and reviews those exercises
with the NRC, is a 10-mile evacuation. I don't know if I could
speak to the 50-mile evacuation, because that is not one of the
plans that are currently there for nuclear power plants.
Mrs. Lowey. Let me just say very clearly that Indian Point
is up for relicensing in the year 2013, 2015, and you are the
agency that is going to be responsible for the evacuation. So
with all due respect, I am puzzled why you are sticking to the
10-mile radius. Your agency, as we know, would have the leading
role with the response to a radiation leak at Indian Point. And
given events in Japan, especially our own government's
reaction, including advising Americans to evacuate a 50-mile
area, which for Indian Point would include 20 million people,
surely you would be closely evaluating your ability to protect
the public. I don't understand why you are assuming and
accepting a 10-mile radius. And wouldn't you be considering,
based upon what happened in Japan, the 50-mile radius?
Mr. Fugate. In the division of the responsibilities to
determine what the protective areas and the protective measures
are, those are provided in guidance from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission in consultation with the States. The actual
evacuations are conducted by local and State governments with
FEMA supporting them. Again, the current planning guidance,
which FEMA does not establish but works to be able to exercise
and test, is a 10-mile evacuation zone based upon those threats
and scenarios that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
identified.
If at such time that radius was ever increased, we would
again work with State and local governments to determine the
effectiveness of those evacuations. As you well know, in
licensing a nuclear power plant, part of that evaluation does
require that the communities and State can effect a successful
evacuation. So if that guidance changes, that would be the
determination: Could you successfully evacuate a larger
population in the time frames given, and if not, would that
result in any impacts to licenser's ability to operate the
plant?
Mrs. Lowey. Now, you are saying if that guidance changes.
Do you have any role, any input as to whether it is feasible to
evacuate 20 million people from now that is 10-mile radius--Do
you make that determination or do they?
Mr. Fugate. We do not make the recommendations on the
protective zones. And the 10-mile emergency protective zone is
the one in which they look at the options of either sheltering
in place or evacuations. Because FEMA does not make that
determination, we would work with State and local governments
if that changed to determine if that could be done and the time
frames given in a power plant accident.
So if that increased, that would obviously result in us
having to go back, work with State and local governments,
update the plan, and then exercise and evaluate that plan to
see if you could achieve the evacuations in the time frames
given.
Mrs. Lowey. So I am a little puzzled. You are saying FEMA,
that should have this expertise, doesn't have the input based
upon Nuclear Regulatory Commission determination as to whether
it should be 50 miles or 10 miles? You are not involved in this
decision at all?
Mr. Fugate. We are not the scientific advisers or the
engineers that make those recommendations and determinations.
We are part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations
required to work with State and local governments to ensure
whatever those protective measures are, they can be exercised
and executed if an event occurs.
Mrs. Lowey. I will let it go at this point.
But I think there is a real question as to what FEMA's role
is in determining whether an evacuation should be 50 miles--you
know, I think my issue that is of great concern to me is when
you consider relicensing, you don't consider it in light of new
data and new information but based on the old data and the old
information. So I am a little concerned that the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission would not have any concentration process
in place to deal with FEMA. But I will go on to another
question before my time is up.
UASI funding has continually been diluted by increasing the
number of recipients, and what started as a program for seven
urban areas now serves 64. Every area of the country deserves
funds, I want to make that very clear, but not from the high-
risk program. And I attached an amendment to H.R. 1 to limit
UASI funding to the top 25 highest risked regions, restoring
the program to its original intent.
The 9/11 Commission report stated clearly that Federal
Homeland Security assistance should not remain a program for
general revenue sharing, end quote. Why then do you continue to
disregard both the recommendations of the Commission and the
intent of Congress in creating UASI by providing funding to
localities that are neither high risk nor high density? And,
again, I want to make it clear, they can get other pots of
money. But why this pot of money?
Did I hear--I thought I was asked to close, but as long as
the chairman is very indulgent----
Mr. Aderholt. Your time is fleeting, but we will go ahead
and sum up the last and answer.
Mrs. Lowey. Some opponents of my amendment have stated that
current UASI cities, such as Denver and Bridgeport, are key
sites to the logistical planning of potential terrorist
attacks. How much FEMA first responder funding did Colorado and
Connecticut receive apart from the UASI program in fiscal year
2010?
And if you don't have that answer, I am sure you can get
back to me. Because it is my understanding that Colorado and
Connecticut, for example, each received more than $20 million
through other FEMA programs. Does that sound right? And,
further, there is nothing stopping any State Homeland Security
Office from distributing State Homeland Security GP and other
FEMA grants in the localities on the basis of need, correct?
Mr. Fugate. That is correct. As far as the actual numbers,
I would request to get back in writing those actual totals and
the grant fundings and the breakdown of those fundings for
those States.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.341
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.342
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.343
Mrs. Lowey. And I want to make it clear again; everyone
should get funding, but not as a high-risk program that began
as 7 and is now at 64. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
CATASTROPHIC PLANNING
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Recent events in Japan have highlighted
the risk that earthquakes pose and the need to improve our
preparedness, as I am sure has been discussed here earlier. As
you know, California is especially vulnerable. A seismic event
in Los Angeles could claim countless lives and inflict more
than $500 billion in damages.
Now, Ms. Lowey, I understand, asked about a disaster
affecting the nuclear power plant near New York, and I have
similar concerns about California which has two nuclear power
plants located near major fault lines.
You have testified in the past about the importance of
careful planning to have effective response in the event of a
disaster. Could you describe FEMA's efforts to plan for a
catastrophic earthquake in Southern California? And have you
considered scenarios in which these States' nuclear power
plants are seriously being damaged? And not only an earthquake,
but our understanding is if it is of the magnitude of Japan, it
could also result in a tsunami for the West Coast.
Mr. Fugate. Yes, we have. In fact, we participate in the
State of California's Golden Guardian exercises and work these
types of issues and plan against catastrophics.
I think one of the things that Japan showed us, we saw this
with Hurricane Katrina, is oftentimes the original event
cascades into additional impacts, such as the power plants
being engaged or other types of technological disasters
occurring as a result of the initial hazard itself.
And so we have been working with the State of California.
In fact, we are working with the entire West Coast, both for
earthquake hazards but also tsunami hazards. It wasn't very
widely reported, but we actually did have tsunami-related
damages on our coast. It was fortunately not to the degree of
loss of life or the impacts, but we were under tsunami warnings
along the California coast in the aftermath of that.
So our Region 9--and something that the ranking member
pointed out--is we have been working hard to empower our
regional offices, in our case, Region 9, which covers
California, to work closer with the States on catastrophic
planning, to look at not just again the tendency to say we are
going to write a plan and put it on the shelf, but to engage in
actual exercising and testing of those plans and those
assumptions.
We look at what happened in Japan as an opportunity for
lessons learned to come back and ask the question: If you have
this massive earthquake but you also now have additional
issues, such as a nuclear power plant or other technological
hazards that are occurring, how do you respond to them?
So these are ongoing programs. This is an ongoing process.
And I think it points out that too often we focus on our last
big disaster, and in our case, it was hurricanes. But you can
see a hurricane coming, as we have seen in Haiti, in Chile, in
Christchurch and, unfortunately, in Japan. There is no lead
time or warning for an earthquake. It happens. You have to be
able to respond to it.
So we plan and work with our partners to leverage both our
resources capabilities. But we look at these very issues you
brought up: The large-scale events, the multi-dimensions of
multiple issues happening, and then begin looking at, how do
you respond based upon the priority of lifesaving, life-
sustaining, and the initial stabilization to begin looking at
recovery?
DISASTER RESPONSE: BUDGET CUTS
Ms. Roybal-Allard. As you know, we are in the middle of
dealing with budgets for the rest of this year as well as for
next year. And to have a better understanding of what the
impact of what some of these recommendations are with regards
to the budget, I would like to focus a little bit on H.R. 1,
which slashes more than $800 million from FEMA's grant
programs.
Now, unfortunately, these cuts come at a time when,
according to the DHS Inspector General, State and local
governments across the country have been forced to
significantly reduce their spending on emergency management. So
if H.R. 1 is enacted and we have these cuts, Los Angeles, as I
understand it, stands to lose almost $60 million in critically
important funds to protect the city against acts of terrorism,
respond to natural disasters, and to improve emergency
communications.
What is the likely impact on your agency's operations if
the capabilities of major cities like Los Angeles are
diminished as a result of these cuts? And will a greater burden
fall on FEMA in emergency situations if local governments lack
the means to respond effectively?
Mr. Fugate. My experience tells me that where local
governments don't have the capability or resources to respond
to the disasters and, as a State, having to bring those in, it
costs us far more than those communities that had that basic
preparedness. I know that from the perspective of what I have
seen in disaster response at FEMA, for those States that have
built those capabilities, in many cases, FEMA does not have to
engage in a response role, but rather a recovery role, because
they are able to manage their response.
This is a tough question, I think. Mr. Chairman and for the
members here, this is really I think getting to the crux of the
grants. We don't want to supplant local responsibilities, but
there is a cost to the taxpayer. And this is the balancing
point we have to determine. I don't think you can indefinitely
fund grants at a level that you can't sustain. But if you cut
them too fast, a lot of this investment and capabilities built
over time will not withstand that kind of reduction.
Also, many of these local governments are engaged in
multiyear enhancements, particularly in interoperable
communication. So we may end up with half-built systems or
systems that aren't completed, and we have already made that
investment, yet we have never fully realized the benefits of
the full package.
So I think it is a question of balance. Where is it in the
interest of the Federal Government, the taxpayer, to invest to
build capabilities and capacities at State and local levels
that would reduce the overall cost of Federal response and,
more importantly, provide resources closest to those survivors
in the most critical first hours to days of that event, versus
what we could build on a national scale to essentially replace
that, and the time frame of getting it there? I think there
needs to be a balance. And that is why, again, from my
experience and what I have seen as a responder, those
investments that we in the State of Florida made in our local
communities save significant cost in the response phase. Those
communities that did not have those, it cost us far more
because not only did we have to respond to the other needs, but
we oftentimes had to augment their basic response. And that
cost us far more in the events that I have been involved in.
So it is a balancing act. But it is a decision that, in
doing that, where is it--and, again, looking from the
standpoint of the Federal taxpayer, where do those investments
make sense? And where, if we do reductions, would it not
adversely affect the Federal response in support? But there is
a tipping point there where I--and I think it comes back to the
frustration that the chairman has basically brought up, because
we have not been able to come up with good matrixes, we can't
really tell you what the impacts will be on the cuts, and so we
are oftentimes dealing with the anecdotal data. And I think
this is the challenge we have. We are going to deal and to face
the budget realities, but we need to have the best data
available so, as these decisions are being made, we don't end
up with cuts that produce unintended consequences based upon
our previous investments.
GRANTS: FIRST RESPONDER
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
And let me just add on H.R. 1, certainly the goal was not
to cut the grants. I think overall, as we head into the known
cost for disasters and those had to be paid for, and so that is
where I think it really goes back to.
Let me switch to another issue that we have alluded to
maybe a little bit but get into a little more, and of course,
that is the slow execution of the first responder grants. Each
year, FEMA says they are working to improve the execution, but
based on the latest data provided to the Committee, grantees
continue to lag in expending their funds. Could you tell us
what you are doing to try to address this issue that we have
seen over the past several years?
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, this is as both--I have been on
the receiving end of this as a State, where we could not draw
down funds fast enough. And, again, the bulk of these programs
are reimbursements. The locals and States expend their funds
and seek their reimbursements, and in some cases these are
multiyear projects. So we know that it takes several years for
these grants, as they move through the system, to actually get
drawn down out of the system. It doesn't mean that States and
locals have not already obligated funds; they are already in
contracts or in procurement, but they are reimbursements.
I think our particular concerns are those that are at 4
years, where we see substantial amounts that haven't been drawn
down, and the tendency that as we get to the 5th year and the
failure to execute those funds, they come back to the Treasury.
What we have been working with are the State administrative
agencies that are appointed by the Governor to be the grant's
administrator but also with the Homeland Security advisers and
the State emergency management directors to give them
visibility on what those numbers are. And I think it has been
an eye opener for them to see what has not been drawn down,
particularly in the subgrantees that have not finally submitted
their reimbursements.
They understand this. In fact, I addressed the new State
Homeland Security adviser this morning at FEMA before I came
over here. And, Mr. Chairman, I basically just told them flat
out: You are looking at tremendous balances that haven't been
drawn down, and you are looking at an austere budget
environment. It is very hard to justify continuing requests for
grants if we do not show progress on getting those disaster
funds, those grant funds, drawn down so that we can show
progress that we are completing projects and we are expending
those funds.
So they understand, and we are putting information in their
hands on what those balances State by State look like, grant by
grant, to bring attention to this but also to caution them
that, we can explain why, but until you get those numbers
coming down in this environment, it will be a constant
pressure. Why are we continuing to put more money in grants
when you still have tens of billions outstanding to be drawn
down?
What we get back--and this is what I know from State
directors, in many cases, they have already expended those
funds. They are going through the process of then getting their
reimbursements. In some cases, they are in multiyear contracts
trying to get this done. There are delays. These are things
that you run into. But it is systemic across the board. As you
have pointed out, some States have been much more aggressive in
getting their funds expended; others have not. And I think
putting those numbers out there is trying to shine the light on
and explain to them the gravity of this situation.
Mr. Aderholt. This might be too premature. But does that
seem to resonate? Or is that still you are waiting to see how
that----
Mr. Fugate. I saw a lot of eyes pop when they saw their
first spreadsheet, sir. I think this has been one of these
things that we have got to shine a light on and get the
exposure out there. Once people saw the numbers, I think until
they realized what it looks like when you look at that
spreadsheet versus looking at the process of reimbursement. And
so, hopefully, we can get greater traction. And, again, the
proof will be when we start seeing these drawdowns,
particularly in the older grant cycles, moving that up so we
can start getting those funds disbursed back to the States and
local governments for their expenditures.
Mr. Aderholt. Have you considered reducing the request for
funds based on the amount of funds already in the pipeline?
Mr. Fugate. No, sir. It has been based upon--the one area
that we did was, again, looking at fire grants of favoring
employees, firefighters, versus future equipment purchases. But
that was more driven by the budget pressures.
In looking at these grants, I think if we were dealing with
things that were short term or rather straightforward, not
multiyear projects, you would see if you were not expending
those funds. But I think part of the challenge is a lot of this
is getting into what we call maintenance as we have seen some
overall trends. It isn't so much we are buying and building new
teams and equipment as much as trying to maintain and finish
the projects that we have. But it comes back to, again, at a
point--and this is I think the very difficult decision I think
we are going to have to make: How much further investment? Once
we have built some of this capability, what does it take to
maintain it versus, do we continue adding more teams or
capabilities based upon the various State initiatives?
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Mr. Price.
GRANTS: TRANSIT SECURITY AND PORT
Mr. Price. Let me just follow up on the Chairman's line of
questioning here, particularly in regards to two categories of
grants that we funded in recent years and that have had
particular drawdown problems. This subcommittee, as you may
know, had extensive and repeated hearings on the transit
security grants and the port grants in particular, those two
programs.
In the most recent data FEMA has given us 52.8 percent of
the 2006 port security grants have not been drawn down yet, and
this is money that is going to expire at the end of the fiscal
year. And for 2007 we are talking about 84 percent of the
transit security grants not being drawn down. So these figures
seem to tell a similar story.
So I wonder if you want to elaborate on those challenges in
particular? I know they both involve or have involved some
interagency coordination. We dealt in some detail with the TSA-
FEMA intersection in the transit grants, and of course, Coast
Guard has a hand in the port grants.
We were looking at some hopeful streamlining of these
processes we thought, yet the figures don't seem to suggest
that this has worked very well yet.
Mr. Fugate. I believe that there is--one of the things that
we did was we never had a memorandum of understanding with TSA
(Transportation Security Administration) on those grants to
make sure we had clarity of our roles and responsibilities to
administer the grants as they set the priorities. We have that
with John Pistole now, who is the head of TSA. So we are
starting to get some of those structures in place. But again,
in many cases, an honest question to both you and the Chairman
is, given that we have built in flexibility in these grants,
given that we have built-in appeals, we oftentimes get requests
from Members of Congress to grant these extensions. The
flexibility there I think has the unintended consequences that
we are not getting these funds expended, and that there always
seems to be one more forgiveness to extend it because something
came up, something changed, a direction changed. And I think it
is the inherent nature of trying to maintain flexibility and
retain those funds and to expend it that has in some cases not
put any emphasis on getting this project done quicker.
I think the 5-year--and I will expect, I will not be
surprised that, with 2006 money that will lapse and go back to
the Treasury, we will not have requests to see if we can appeal
that. The answer is: we don't have the authority. You made it
very clear, at 5 years, it is going back to the Treasury. But
as we go through this process of giving flexibility, it does
build in that in many cases, that urgency to get these funds
drawn down gets bogged down in the process of trying to do
these projects, deal with changes, and adjust those strategies.
Mr. Price. Extending past the 5 years requires a statutory
change. Right? I mean, that hasn't been under your discretion.
Mr. Fugate. And that is, as far as I am concerned, if we
don't--I mean, you have got to basically say, unless Congress
gives us any more extensions, which I am not going to ask for
or recommend, we have to close these projects. If you couldn't
get it done in 5 years, we need to take the money back and put
it into Treasury. But I think that it is getting to when you
get to the third year, your fourth year, you are still not
drawing it down. I understand the complexity of bid protests
and environmental and historical reviews, new Governors coming
in wanting to stop and review things. I understand all that.
But your fourth year? That is troublesome. And in many cases, I
think this is where we have to come back and do better work on
the front end in trying to make sure that we are not the
roadblock, that we are able to provide the grant guidance and
that we are able to work with our applicants. But I think
because of the flexibility in some of these grants and the
changing situation we find ourselves in, we still see
tremendous balances that have not been drawn down.
NATIONAL FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM: LEVEE ACCREDITATION
Mr. Price. Right. And I am sure the interventions and the
appeals that you are talking about do occur. But the thrust of
our efforts over the past several years has been to simply get
this process unclogged at the agency and for the potential
grantees to know what they are dealing with, what is expected
of them, and to have reasonably quick turnaround. We really
need to keep pushing on that. I know you agree. And we want to
work with you to make that happen. Because if, as the Chairman
suggests, current budget decisions are complicated by the fact
that these balances are still there, and yet these are moneys
that are needed; the demand is there. The purpose is quite
clear, I think. We just need to get it done.
Speaking of entreaties you and we get from colleagues, let
me mention one final subject that has to do with levees. Late
last year, many Members lobbied this Subcommittee to include a
statutory change to the 2011 bill to prevent FEMA from refusing
to account for flood control structures, such as levees, that
are not to certain standards when FEMA is updating its flood
maps. In other words, they are saying you should have to take
some account of these structures. Now, this policy does have an
impact, a major impact on flood insurance and related issues
for some communities.
This statutory change was not included in the omnibus or a
full year CR, largely because of the lateness of the issue
coming up. It is not that we didn't understand that it had some
merit and was important to a number of colleagues.
Now, in February, a bipartisan group of 27 Senators wrote
FEMA asking the agency to halt its policy of treating levees in
need of repair or recertification as if they didn't exist at
all. A number of House Members have expressed similar concerns.
Lawmakers argued that the agency should instead take into
account the level of flood protection that each structure
provides, even if that structure is in a weakened state.
In early March, FEMA informed congressional leaders that
the agency will take into account ailing dams and levees and
the risk maps it generates for the National Flood Insurance
Program.
So I am asking you to fill us in on your intentions going
forward. How do you intend to factor in levees that in the past
you deemed as nonexistent or you treated as though they were
nonexistent while they are being repaired or recertified when
you develop risk maps as part of this flood insurance program?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. We kept asking the question: Why is
this a binary decision? You can see a levee there; it is not
fully accredited, but we are going to ignore and then map. But
that levee affects the flood. So we basically came back and
said, ``We don't have a defensible stand here. We need to do
something different.''
And so staff agreed to look at, and what we are going to do
is--It is not always an ailing levee. In some cases these are
levees that are well engineered, well built, but they may be
not quite as high as an accredited levee would be to offer
protection for every area behind that levee to get it below 1
percent risk. So this will not always be levees that are in
disrepair; it is just a levee system may not provide a
reduction of that risk below 1 percent.
So what we have asked our staff to go back and look at is--
and this will be an increased cost; it will slow down some of
the mapping, but it will be more accurate--to take what the
levee structure is as it exists, model the flood risk there,
and produce those results. Again, this will not always be
levees that are in disrepair. This may just be in areas where
the levee system doesn't provide uniformity, minimizing the
risk below 1 percent, which would trigger the special risk area
for flood insurance but substantial areas would. So why are we
not looking at that and just treating it as if it doesn't exit?
So our staff is working right now on the technical aspects
of how you model levees and dams as they exist to determine
what that risk is in setting the rate for the insurance, and
recognizing that not having a fully accredited levee is not a
binary decision. It will be based upon the structures there,
what protection they do offer, and will be based upon that
risk.
Mr. Price. And you are confident that you can come up with
an objective assessment of this, even though binary decisions
are sometimes crisper and seem more absolute. Making this kind
of calculation certainly makes a lot of sense. You are
confident that you can in fact come up with a metric?
Mr. Fugate. That was the question we asked was,
technically, ``How do we do that?'' They have already worked up
some preliminary ideas. They have talked with the engineers and
the people that do the evaluation and engineering of levees.
And I think we have the ability to classify levees into
different categories based upon what those impacts would be and
model that. It will cost more money. It will take more time.
But it will provide a much more accurate reflection of the risk
versus just a binary decision, yes, you have got an accredited
levee, or no, you don't. Because I think it was not accurately
representing the true risk. And because we used that to base
the flood insurance model, it oftentimes resulted in people
being in special high-risk areas that would not be necessarily
flooded based upon the levee protection offered.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MOUNT WEATHER: CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLANS
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Price.
Let me close with one last question about Mount Weather.
And of course it is a true strategic asset for our country,
which houses the operations for management and for all hazard
activities for multiple executive branches including the
Department of Homeland Security.
To address the issues with the aging of the facility,
Congress has provided $155 million for capital improvements. I
understand that much of the funding remains unspent. My
question, what is the status of the capital improvement plans
for Mount Weather?
Mr. Fugate. Ongoing. That is why we actually reduced the
request. We had been requesting a certain amount of capital
improvements, and because we have a backlog of contract
projects that have not been completed, we did not ask for that
amount continuing. We want to get caught up on the work we
already have authorized to contractors and the bid selection in
that process. So rather than just getting a reoccurring
capital, we wanted to get through the backlog of projects that
are currently under contract or out to bid to do that work.
Mr. Aderholt. What is causing the delay?
Mr. Fugate. Sir, as you know, this is a facility that has a
lot of--in a setting that is open--I think I have to remind
myself to be very careful how I phrase this. But it is a
facility that has a lot of unique characteristics that require
extraordinary efforts and securing contractors that can operate
in that environment. Also, the IT and some of the other
infrastructures, it is not just something that we solely have
responsibility and authority over. We have other partners we
have to engage in. And because of that, we felt that we had a
backlog that we were working through. That work is being done
in the capital improvement program. But because of that
outstanding balance and the work still to be done, we did not
feel it was necessary to continue requesting money, although
this work will continue. We need to get caught up on the
backlog at work, quite honestly, sir.
And, Mr. Chairman, I can give you a better briefing on
that, but it would have to be a briefing that we would do on a
secure level to give you some of the numbers and the
breakdowns.
Mr. Aderholt. And we may follow up on that.
But we thank you for coming here this morning and listening
to our concerns and questions.
As I stated in my opening remarks, we are in this Nation in
a fiscal crisis, one that requires tough decisions and
responsible budgeting. That means, as you know, we can no
longer fund known requirements through gimmicks or fund
programs without having measurable outcomes. And certainly I
think you and all of us know that the taxpayers deserve better.
So, again, thank you for being here today. Thank for your
testimony. Thank you for the work that you do at FEMA. We
understand that you have many challenges at the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. So we look forward to working with
you as we try to address these issues.
The hearing is adjourned.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.344
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.345
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.346
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.347
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.348
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.349
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.350
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.351
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.352
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.353
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.354
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.355
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.356
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.357
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.358
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.359
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.360
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.361
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.362
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.363
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.364
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.365
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.366
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.367
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.368
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.369
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.370
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.371
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.372
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.373
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.374
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.375
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.376
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.377
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.378
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.379
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.380
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.381
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.382
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.383
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.384
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.385
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.386
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.387
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.388
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.389
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.390
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.391
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.392
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.393
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.394
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.395
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.396
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.397
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.398
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.399
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.400
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.401
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.402
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.403
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.404
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.405
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.406
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.407
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.408
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.409
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.410
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.411
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.412
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.413
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.414
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.415
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.416
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.417
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.418
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.419
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.420
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.421
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.422
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.423
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.424
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.425
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.426
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.427
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.428
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.429
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.430
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.431
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.432
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.433
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.434
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.435
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.436
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.437
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.438
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.439
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.440
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.441
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.442
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.443
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.444
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.445
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.446
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.447
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.448
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.449
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.450
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.451
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.452
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.453
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.454
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.455
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.456
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.457
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.458
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.459
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.460
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.461
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.462
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.463
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.464
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.465
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.466
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.467
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.468
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.469
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.470
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.471
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.472
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.473
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.474
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.475
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.476
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.477
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.478
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.479
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.480
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.481
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.482
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.483
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.484
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.485
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.486
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.487
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.488
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.489
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.490
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.491
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.492
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.493
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.494
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.495
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.496
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.497
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.498
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.499
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.500
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.501
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.502
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.503
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.504
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.505
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.506
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.507
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.508
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.509
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.510
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.511
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.512
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.513
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.514
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.515
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.516
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.517
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.518
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.519
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.520
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.521
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.522
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.523
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.524
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.525
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.526
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.527
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.528
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.529
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.530
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.531
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.532
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.533
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.534
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.535
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.536
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.537
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.538
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.539
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.540
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.541
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.542
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.543
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.544
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.545
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.546
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.547
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.548
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.549
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.550
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.551
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.552
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.553
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.554
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.555
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.556
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.557
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.558
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.559
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.560
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.561
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.562
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.563
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.564
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.565
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.566
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.567
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.568
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.569
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.570
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.571
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.572
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.573
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.574
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.575
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.576
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.577
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.578
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.579
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.580
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.581
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.582
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.583
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.584
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.585
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.586
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.587
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.588
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.589
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.590
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.591
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.592
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.593
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.594
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.595
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.596
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.597
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.598
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.599
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.600
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.601
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.602
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.603
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.604
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.605
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.606
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.607
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.608
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.609
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.610
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.611
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.612
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.613
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.614
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.615
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.616
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.617
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.618
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.619
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.620
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.621
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.622
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.623
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.624
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.625
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.626
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.627
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.628
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.629
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.630
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.631
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.632
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.633
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.634
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.635
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.636
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.637
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.638
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.639
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.640
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.641
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.642
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.643
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.644
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.645
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.646
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.647
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.648
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.649
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.650
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.651
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.652
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.653
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.654
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.655
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.656
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.657
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.658
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.659
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.660
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.661
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.662
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.663
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.664
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.665
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.666
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.667
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.668
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.669
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.670
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.671
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.672
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.673
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.674
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.675
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.676
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.677
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.678
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.679
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.680
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.681
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.682
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.683
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.684
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.685
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.686
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.687
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.688
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.689
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.690
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.691
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.692
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.693
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.694
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.695
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.696
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.697
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.698
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.699
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.700
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.701
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.702
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.703
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.704
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.705
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.706
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.707
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.708
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.709
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.710
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.711
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.712
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.713
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.714
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.715
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.716
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.717
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.718
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.719
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.720
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.721
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.722
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.723
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.724
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.725
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.726
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.727
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.728
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.729
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.730
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.731
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.732
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.733
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.734
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.735
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.736
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.737
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.738
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.739
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.740
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.741
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.742
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.743
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.744
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.745
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.746
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.747
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.748
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.749
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.750
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.751
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.752
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.753
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.754
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.755
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.756
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.757
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.758
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.759
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.760
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.761
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.762
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.763
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.764
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.765
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.766
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.767
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.768
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.769
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.770
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.771
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.772
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.773
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.774
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.775
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.776
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.777
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.778
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.779
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.780
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.781
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.782
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.783
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.784
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.785
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.786
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.787
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.788
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.789
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.790
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.791
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.792
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.793
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.794
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.795
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.796
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.797
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.798
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.799
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.800
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.801
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.802
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.803
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.804
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.805
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.806
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.807
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.808
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.809
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.810
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.811
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.812
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.814
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.815
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.816
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.817
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.818
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.819
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.820
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.821
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.822
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.823
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.824
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.825
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.826
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.827
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.828
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.829
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.830
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.831
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.832
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.833
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.834
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.835
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.836
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.837
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.838
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.839
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.840
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.841
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.842
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.843
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.844
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060A.845
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8060P3.001
I N D E X
----------
Page
Science & Technology (S&T)....................................... 1
Biography: Tara O'Toole.......................................... 27
Cybersecurity.................................................... 29
Geospatial Location Devices...................................... 32
National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility........................... 33
Opening Statement:
Chairman Aderholt............................................ 1
Ranking Member Price......................................... 6
Under Secretary O'Toole...................................... 11
Portable Emergency Operations Center............................. 32
R&D Funding...................................................... 30
Radiation Detectors.............................................. 33
S&T Priorities................................................... 28
Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus............................... 32
National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD).............. 159
Biography:
Rand Beers................................................... 179
Phil Reitinger............................................... 181
Opening Statement:
Chairman Aderholt............................................ 160
Ranking Member Price......................................... 164
Under Secretary Beers & Deputy Under Secretary Reitinger..... 166
Terrorist Travel: Programs and Funding........................... 239
Biography:
Timothy Healy................................................ 245
Kevin K. McAleenan........................................... 246
Geoff O'Connell.............................................. 248
Joseph C. Salvator........................................... 249
Benjamin J. Stefano.......................................... 250
Opening Statement:
Chairman Aderholt............................................ 240
WMD Countermeasures: Threat, Programs, and Funding............... 251
Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Devices:
Certification Process........................................ 296
Implementing Recommendations................................. 291
Agro-Terrorism................................................... 295
Anthrax Vaccine.................................................. 296
Biography:
Warren Stern................................................. 275
Dr. Alexander G. Garza....................................... 284
Biosurveillance.................................................. 287
Biowatch Generation 3:
Comparison to Gen-1 & Gen-2.................................. 297
Naturally Occurring vs. Intentional Pathogens................ 301
Pathogen Detection........................................... 299
Testing & Evaluation......................................... 299
Current Threat................................................... 285
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office: Structure & Priorities........ 286
Global Nuclear Detection Architecture:
Gaps......................................................... 302
Strategic Plan............................................... 293
Government Shutdown: Contingency Plan............................ 297
Nuclear Forensics................................................ 303
Opening Statement:
Chairman Aderholt............................................ 251
Director Stern............................................... 261
Dr. Garza.................................................... 276
Ranking Member Price......................................... 257
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)....................... 357
Biography: Craig Fugate.......................................... 389
Catastrophic Planning............................................ 411
Data Backup System............................................... 397
Disaster Assistance Overpayments................................. 398
Disaster Relief Fund............................................. 390
Disaster Response: Budget Cuts................................... 412
Federal Emergency Management Agency: Effectiveness............... 403
Grants:
Assistance to Firefighters................................... 394
First Responder.............................................. 413
Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response............ 393
Transit Security and Port.................................... 415
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.......................... 404
Mt. Weather: Capital Improvement Plans........................... 418
National Level Exercise.......................................... 401
National Flood Insurance Program:
Coverage..................................................... 394
Levee Accreditation.......................................... 416
Nuclear Crisis: Evacuation Planning.............................. 405
Opening Statement:
Chairman Aderholt............................................ 357
Administrator Fugate......................................... 372
Ranking Member Price......................................... 367
Preparedness Capabilities........................................ 400
Remedial Action Management Program............................... 396
Outside Witnesses................................................ 889
William Chandler................................................. 909
Colleen Kelley................................................... 900
William Millar................................................... 916
Jim Mullen....................................................... 911
Patricia W. Potrzebowski......................................... 905
Rep. Silvestre Reyes............................................. 890
Rep. Laura Richardson............................................ 895