[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING
TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND
INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 28, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-163
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
_________
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
84-815 WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Bonnie Heald, Deputy Staff Director
Justin Paulhamus, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 28, 2002................................... 1
Statement of:
Baca, Lee, sheriff, Los Angeles County; Joseph E. Tait,
executive vice president and chief operating officer,
Metropolitan Water Department; Casey Chel, disaster
preparedness manager, city of Long Beach; Terry L. Harbour,
chief, Long Beach Fire Department; Ellis Stanley, Emergency
Management Services, city of Los Angeles; Bernie Wilson,
Los Angeles International Airport Police Department; and
Larry Keller, executive director, Port of Los Angeles...... 89
Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region 6, Federal
Emergency Management Agency; Kevin Yeskey, Director,
Bioterrorism Response Program, Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention; Ronald L. Iden, Assistant Director in
Charge, Los Angeles Division, Federal Bureau of
Investigation; Patricia Dalton, Director, Strategic Issues,
U.S. General Accounting Office; Dallas Jones, director,
Governor's Office of Emergency Services, State of
California; and Diana Bonta, director, California
Department of Health Services, State of California......... 6
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Baca, Lee, sheriff, Los Angeles County, prepared statement of 92
Bonta, Diana, director, California Department of Health
Services, State of California, prepared statement of....... 70
Castleman, Ron, Regional Director, Region 6, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, prepared statement of......... 9
Chel, Casey, disaster preparedness manager, city of Long
Beach, prepared statement of............................... 101
Dalton, Patricia, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. General
Accounting Office, prepared statement of................... 38
Harbour, Terry L., chief, Long Beach Fire Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 105
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 3
Iden, Ronald L., Assistant Director in Charge, Los Angeles
Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared
statement of............................................... 28
Jones, Dallas, director, Governor's Office of Emergency
Services, State of California, prepared statement of....... 60
Millender-McDonald, Hon. Juanita, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, prepared statement
of......................................................... 118
Tait, Joseph E., executive vice president and chief operating
officer, Metropolitan Water Department, prepared statement
of......................................................... 97
Yeskey, Kevin, Director, Bioterrorism Response Program,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prepared
statement of............................................... 17
HOW EFFECTIVELY ARE FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WORKING
TOGETHER TO PREPARE FOR A BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL OR NUCLEAR ATTACK?
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial
Management and Intergovernmental Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Los Angeles, CA.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., at
the Los Angeles City Hall, Board of Public Works Hearing Room,
200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA, Hon. Stephen Horn
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Horn, Millender-McDonald
and Watson.
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;
Bonnie Heald, deputy staff director; Justin Paulhamus, clerk; and David
McMillen, minority professional staff member.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, the hearing of the
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations will come to order.
On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most
devastating attacks ever committed on U.S. soil. Despite the
damage and enormous loss of life, the attacks failed to cripple
this Nation. To the contrary, Americans have never been more
united in their fundamental belief in freedom and their
willingness to protect that freedom.
The diabolical nature of these attacks and then the deadly
release of anthrax sent a loud and clear message to all
Americans: We must be prepared for the unexpected; we must have
the mechanisms in place to protect this Nation and its people
from further attempts to cause massive destruction.
The aftermath of September 11th clearly demonstrated the
need for adequate communication systems and rapid deployment of
well-trained emergency personnel. Yet despite billions of
dollars in spending on Federal emergency programs, there
remains serious doubts as to whether the Nation is equipped to
handle a massive chemical, biological or nuclear attack.
Today, the subcommittee will examine how effectively
Federal, State and local agencies are working together to
prepare for such emergencies. We want those who live in the
great State of California and the good people of Los Angeles
and Long Beach to know that they can rely on these systems
should the need arise.
We are fortunate to have witnesses today whose valuable
experience and insight will help the subcommittee better
understand the needs of those on the frontline. We want to hear
about their capabilities and their challenges, and we want to
know what the Federal Government can do to help. We welcome all
of our witnesses, and we look forward to their testimony.
I am delighted to have today Representative Watson as the
ranking Democrat on this committee. She is a member of the full
Committee on Government Reform and has done a wonderful job in
her freshman year and doing wonderful work.
We are glad to have you here, Diane, and if you would like
to have an opening statement, please do.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much, Chairman Horn, for including
me in this meeting and for holding these field hearings here in
southern California on terrorism response preparedness. This
hearing provides us an opportunity to hear from the people in
the State and those at local level who are responsible for
public safety in the event of a terrorist attack.
Here in Los Angeles we know that we can count on these
brave men and women who work to protect our people and our
infrastructure. We know this because we have faced calamities
before, lots of them, and the lessons that we have learned to
prepare for natural disasters mean that our State and our local
first-responders possess valuable real-world experience. This
is critical as you prepare to prevent or to face potential
manmade disasters. These experiences can also be a value to
other States and communities across the Nation as they seek to
develop terrorism response plans of their own.
This has not been why response plans developed for natural
disasters can be applied without modification to respond to
this new kind of terrorism. Preparation for response to a
terrorist incident has its own unique needs. The State of
California, under the leadership of Governor Gray Davis, is to
be commended for taking action as early as 1999 to approve a
terrorism response plan. September 11th only proved the
foresight of California's efforts.
I believe that many of California's efforts can serve as a
model for other communities and for the Nation as a whole. For
example, even before September 11th, California had to take a
hard look at various threats and risks posed to our State by
terrorism, committing to employ our resources in the most
constructive way. Our Federal Government still has not
conducted any sort of comprehensive threat and risk assessment.
As a result, the President has proposed large increases in
homeland security funding without objectively assessing the
best way to send these funds. I hope to work over the coming
year with Chairman Horn and my other colleagues on the
Government Reform Committee to persuade the administration to
conduct just that--a comprehensive national terrorism threat
and risk assessment.
But despite the differences between emergency planning for
natural disasters and emergency planning for terrorism, one
thing is for sure: Both require thoughtful and ample resources
and comprehensive planning. I have every confidence that our
witnesses here will describe to us the detailed results of
their thoughtful planning. Hopefully we can then take the
fruits of our labor back to Washington to press for the ample
Federal resources necessary to keep our communities prepared to
prevent or respond to terrorism.
And, Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and I want to thank
our witnesses for coming today to share their insights. I will
be listening closely.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. And I now will yield 5 minutes to Jack
Chois the councilmember for the 5th District of the city of Los
Angeles. And we are glad to have you here.
Mr. Chois. Thank you very much, Chairman Horn and
Congressman Watson, for bringing the attention of the Congress
of the United States here to Los Angeles, and I want to welcome
both of you and the members of your staffs to Los Angeles City
Hall. It means a lot to me personally that you would do this,
because threat preparedness has been my highest priority for
the past several months, and we need all the help we can get
locally, we need all the help we can get to raise attention and
awareness of these issues. And that is what you are doing by
your presence here today. It is extraordinarily important to
those of us in local government who are working on these issues
day in and day out to know your commitment and your support.
I just want to tell you very briefly about some of our
accomplishments and some of our needs. I was privileged to
create our Threat Preparedness Task Force in Los Angeles over
the past several months, and we did a needs assessment, and we
have filled some of those needs. We increased funding for
certain HAZMAT capabilities, we increased funding for certain
bomb squad capabilities in Los Angeles, and I believe I am
going to have the support of my colleagues on the city council
within the next week, and we will create a Threat Preparedness
Trust Fund for the city of Los Angeles. So we are doing
important work, but the needs are nonetheless still great to
address briefly the topics that you have set forth for this
hearing: the nuclear, biological and chemical areas.
Mr. Chairman, I will tell you that on Monday I had lunch
with our HAZMAT squad just a few blocks from here, one of our
two operating full-time HAZMAT squads in the city of Los
Angeles. We have a third one that is being operated on an ad
hoc basis. On their HAZMAT vehicles, they have sophisticated
nuclear detection capabilities, sophisticated nuclear detection
equipment. If you go on to one of our regular fire trucks, Mr.
Chair, you will see a big, clunky, old box, and on the bottom
of it are the letters ``CD,'' Civil Defense. It is a 1950's-era
device that is unfortunately up to the current threat that we
face in an era where people such as yourselves are confronting
the task of planning for dirty bombs and radiological releases.
We have tremendous needs there, both in capabilities and plans.
In the area of a mechanical threat, we need another HAZMAT
squad in the city of Los Angeles at a minimum. That's a matter
of a couple million dollars, and it is a real struggle here in
this building in this era of diminishing budget to secure those
funds, and that is the area where we desperately need help.
And in the area of biological preparedness, frankly, given
the tentative and teetering state of our public health system
in the Los Angeles area, we are in desperate need of Federal
assistance, Federal planning, Federal funding, and indeed a
national effort is no doubt called for. I am sure that both of
you would agree with me that while a national solution is
called for here, a Federal solution is not what we need,
because the first-responders are local, and the first response
will always be up to local government.
That is what I and my colleagues here spend a lot of time
on. You have a wonderful panel. In particular, I should note to
you that you will be hearing from Sheriff Lee Baca, whose
efforts in creating the Terrorism Early Warning Group in Los
Angeles, an accounting organization which I have worked to get
the city of Los Angeles to participate in and fully fund, I
think is a model for the Nation in terms of terrorism response,
intelligence and coordination.
Thank you very much for being here, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you very much for taking this
time, because you have a real respect for what these things are
all about, and we have really used the city of Los Angeles and
the County of Los Angeles on what we have done over the years
in earthquakes. We now get the rest of the Nation to face-up to
something that is not just earthquakes, and this panel will
bring out a lot of those things.
The way we operate is that we have the experts from the
governmental areas in which we work, and we go right down the
line, and we don't question them until the whole panel has got
it on the table. And then we will go down the line with each
member, 5 minutes at a time, questioning.
At this time, if you don't mind, we'll have all witnesses
rise and raise their right hand to accept the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. So we start with Mr. Ron Castleman, Regional
Director, Region 6. He is based in Dallas, TX for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], dear to us all, and I want
to thank your work. You have been with us already in two of our
hearings, and we are glad to have you because you always add
something new to it. And we have great appreciation for what
FEMA has done to help us with the Los Angeles River. When I
went to Congress, that was a real problem, and thanks to the
Corps of Engineers and thanks to FEMA we have got that done,
and it was done within the money that was needed, and it is now
one that won't get over the banks and thousands of people will
not have their homes harmed. So we thank FEMA for what it has
done in cooperation.
Mr. Castleman.
STATEMENTS OF RON CASTLEMAN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, REGION 6,
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; KEVIN YESKEY, DIRECTOR,
BIOTERRORISM RESPONSE PROGRAM, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND
PREVENTION; RONALD L. IDEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CHARGE, LOS
ANGELES DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; PATRICIA
DALTON, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE; DALLAS JONES, DIRECTOR, GOVERNOR'S OFFICE OF EMERGENCY
SERVICES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA; AND DIANA BONTA, DIRECTOR,
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Castleman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. For the
record, I am Ron Castleman, regional director, Region 6 of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, and it is a pleasure to be
here today. I am a former resident of Los Angeles County, so I
am just glad to be back here.
I want to discuss how FEMA is assisting State and local
governments to prepare for potential terrorist attacks. FEMA's
vision is to lead the Nation in preparing for, responding to
and recovering from disasters. Our success requires close
coordination with local, tribal, State and Federal agencies as
well as volunteer organizations. The Federal Response Plan
outlines the process by which Federal departments and agencies
respond as a cohesive team to all types of disasters in support
of State, tribal and local governments. The plan has been
tested on numerous occasions since its adoption in 1992, and
the Federal Response Plan again worked well in response to the
terrorist events of September 11, 2001.
FEMA's preparedness programs provide financial, technical
planning, training and exercise support to State, local and
tribal Americans. The programs are designed to strengthen
capabilities to protect public health, safety and property both
before and following a disaster.
As you know, the Gilmore Commission issued its second
report in December 2000, stressing the importance of giving
State and first-responders a single point of contact for
Federal training, exercises and equipment assistant. The
Commission's third report included recommendations to address
the lack of coordination, including proposals to consolidate
Federal grants programs, information and application procedures
and to include first-responder participation for Federal
preparedness programs. These findings and recommendations have
been echoed in other commission and GAO reports by the first-
responder community and by State and local governments.
On May 8, 2001, the President asked FEMA Director Joe
Allbaugh to create an Office of National Preparedness with
FEMA. ONP's mission is to provide leadership in the
coordination and facilitation of all Federal efforts to assist
State and local first-responders and emergency management
organizations with planning, equipment, training and exercises
to build and sustain the capability to respond to any emergency
or disaster, including a terrorist incident.
The President's formation of the Office of Homeland
Security further improves the coordination of Federal programs
and activities aimed at combating terrorism. FEMA is working
closely with Director Ridge, the OHS and other agencies to
identify and develop the most effective ways to quickly build
and enhance domestic preparedness for terrorist attacks.
This past January, the President took another step to
strengthen first-responder efforts to prepare for and respond
to incidents to terrorism. The first-responder initiative in
the President's 2003 budget calls for $3.5 billion, most of
which would be distributed to State and local jurisdictions for
planning efforts, critical equipment and to train and exercise
personnel.
FEMA's Office of National Preparedness will administer
these grants. ONP will also work with our Federal and State
partners to coordinate all terrorism-related first-responder
programs. To begin addressing some of the lessons the first-
responder community learned on September 11th, ONP will develop
national standards for interoperability and compatibility in a
number of areas, including training, equipment, mutual aid and
exercising. The first-responder grants, coupled with these
standards, will balance the needs for both flexibility and
accountability at the State and local level.
With respect to California, we continue to work very
closely with the Governor's Office of Emergency Services and
other State offices. Our mechanism to providing support in the
past has been the Nunn-Lugar 120 Cities Initiative. Recently,
through our Terrorism Consequence Management Preparedness
Assistance Grant Program, we have been able to fund terrorism
and weapons of mass destruction preparedness activities at the
local level. Our funds are provided through the Governor's
Office of Emergency Services, and they in turn provide them to
the California State Strategic Committee on Terrorism. The
areas of focus to the committee include cyber terrorism,
equipment, training, intelligence and early warning systems,
medical and health resource allocations and others.
FEMA has also participated in senior official workshops,
chemical weapons tabletop exercises as well as biological
weapons tabletop exercises in the city of Long Beach and other
California cities. FEMA is well prepared and equipped to
respond to terrorist disasters. We are strengthening our
preparedness efforts now so that State, tribal and local
governments and first-responders are well prepared for all
disasters, including the incidence of terrorism. Continued
coordination among all levels of government will ensure a safer
America. Thank you for your time, and I will be happy to
entertain any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Castleman follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. And I should have said that
automatically your fine statement, which we have all read, is,
at this point, in the record, and then if you can stay through
this, we will get to some questions.
So we have Kevin Yeskey, director, Bioterrorism Response
Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from
Atlanta, I assume. How is the weather there?
Mr. Yeskey. It is about the same as it is here, sir. Good
morning----
Mr. Horn. OK. We are delighted to have you.
Mr. Yeskey. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee and panel. I am Kevin Yeskey. I am the director of
the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program in the
National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Speaking for all the men and
women of my agency, let me thank you for sponsoring this field
hearing, raising these important issues and for allowing us to
take part.
Like all other Americans, we at CDC were horrified and
saddened by the events which took place in New York City and
Washington, DC, last fall. But as the Nation's disease control
and prevention agency, we were also immediately galvanized to
action to provide assistance to our partners and the affected
cities and States.
In my oral comments, I will provide a brief overview of
CDC's activities related to September 11th and the subsequent
anthrax attacks and how we are working better to prepare our
Nation's States and cities for the threat of public health
emergencies, including terrorism. My written statement goes
into more detail about the overall response planning.
The terrorist events of September 11th and the later events
related to anthrax have been defining moments for all of us,
and they have greatly sharpened the Nation's focus on public
health. These events created the greatest public health
challenge in CDC's history, requiring an unprecedented level of
response. CDC has deployed 588 employees since September 11th
in response to the World Trade Center event and the anthrax
investigation. Within minutes of the second plane crash in the
World Trade Center, we initiated an emergency operation center
that functioned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
While all commercial aircraft were grounded after the
attack, CDC was able to arrange transportation of its emergency
response personnel to New York. For the first time ever, CDC
deployed the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, sending push
packages of medical materials to New York City and Washington,
DC. In response to the cases of anthrax exposure, this program
was also used to deliver antibiotics for post-exposure
prophylaxis to employees in affected buildings, postal workers,
mail handlers and postal patrons.
Within 4 hours after the attack on the World Trade Center,
CDC's Health Alert Network was activated and began transmitting
emergency messages to the top 250 public health officials
throughout the Nation. Over the next 16 weeks, 67 health
alerts, advisories and updates were transmitted, ultimately
reaching an estimated 1 million frontline public and private
physicians, nurses, laboratories and State and local health
officials.
The Epidemic Information Exchange, EPI-X, the public
health's established, secure communications network,
immediately developed a secure conference site for State
epidemiologists and local onsite CDC investigative teams for
posting information on surveillance and response activities,
including HHS reports, CDC health advisory information and
health alerts and other reports from State health departments.
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC's scientific
publication, published reports on an urgent basis and delivered
these reports electronically to over 500,000 healthcare
providers.
During the height of the Nation's anthrax crisis in
October, CDC experienced larger than normal traffic on its Web
site, conducted daily press telephone briefings and fielded
thousands of press inquiries and featured in television
interviews reaching millions of viewers. At the peak of the
anthrax response, CDC had more than 200 personnel in the field
assisting State and local partners and hundreds more personnel
at headquarters assisting the effort. Overall, there were a
total of 22 cases of anthrax, with 11 being the cutaneous form
of the disease and 11 being the inhalation form. While we
deeply regret each illness that occurred, we are very
encouraged by the fact that none of the approximately 10,000
persons who were given antibiotic prophylaxis developed
anthrax, despite significant exposure to spores.
Last fall's events revealed serious gaps in our Nation's
public health defenses against biological and radiological
threats. These gaps include inadequate epidemiologic and
laboratory surge capacity and the insufficient knowledge base
concerning sampling and remediation and lack of information
concerning infectious dose and host susceptibility. In
addition, the public health system needs to improve its ability
to convey information and provide treatment and preventive
measures to large numbers of persons and having a way of
assuring compliance. This will require extensive preparedness
planning, cooperation across agencies between Federal, State
and local counterparts. It will also require that we work
closely with partners in emergency response community, law
enforcement, clinical medicine, academia and private industry.
CDC will continue to support State and local government
officials in preparing and responding to public health
emergencies, including terrorist events, by providing
assistance and technical guidance and conducting problem
assessment, evacuation and relocation decisions, proper
treatment of casualties, epidemiological surveillance, disease
control measures and studies of exposed populations.
At the request of the State, CDC will deploy trained rapid
response teams who can assist in protecting the public's health
in an event of a public health emergency. CDC response teams
have expertise on medical management, disease prevention
strategies, assessing needs, first-responder procedures, site
safety, environmental sampling strategies, sampling equipment
and disease and injury surveillance. All States and localities
must be prepared to address these threats and mount an
effective response.
In late January, HHS announced that a total of $1.1 billion
in funding would be provided to States to assist them in their
bioterrorism preparedness efforts. On January 31, Secretary
Thompson notified each Governor of the amount his or her State
would receive to allow them to initiate and expand planning and
building the necessary public health infrastructure. Here in
California, the State received $60.8 million in funds, and Los
Angeles County received $24.59 million in funds from CDC.
In conclusion, CDC is committed to working with other
Federal agencies and partners, State and local health
departments and healthcare and first-responder communities to
ensure the health and medical care of our citizens. Although we
have made substantial progress in enhancing the Nation's
capability to prepare for and respond to a terrorism episode,
the events of last fall demonstrate that we must accelerate the
pace of our efforts to assure an adequate response capacity. A
strong and flexible public health system is the best defense
against any disease outbreak or public health emergency.
Once again, let me thank you for the opportunity to be here
today. We look forward to working with you to address the
health and security threats of the 21st century. I will be
happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yeskey follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. Our next presenter is Ronald
Iden, the assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles
Division, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Iden.
Mr. Iden. Thank you, Chairman Horn. Good morning. Good
morning, Congresswoman Watson, Congresswoman Waters, Councilman
Weiss. Thank you for inviting us to join you here today to
discuss the FBI's efforts within the southern California region
to work with our local law enforcement and first-responder
partners in addressing the threat of weapons of mass
destruction.
As you know, the FBI's overall counter terrorism mission is
to detect, deter, prevent and respond to terrorist actions that
threaten U.S. national interests, at home or abroad, from
either domestic or international sources. At the Federal level,
the FBI's lead crisis management and investigative
responsibilities exist in a partnership alongside FEMA's
consequence management role for response to a WMD attack and
the U.S. Secret Service's role of security planning and
management. This partnership has demonstrated itself
successfully at events such as this year's Winter Olympics and
the 2000 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
The FBI recognizes that terrorism is a global problem with
a local impact, as was evidenced with devastating clarity on
the morning of September 11th. We understand, therefore, the
importance of partnering with regional law enforcement,
emergency services and health services agencies in executing
our counter terrorism mission.
The Los Angeles FBI office is responsible for a 40,000-
square mile, 7-county area and a population that exceeds 17
million people. We interact with 155 chiefs of police and
sheriffs, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
and the Los Angeles Police Department. The Los Angeles FBI has
collaborated closely with our city, county and State partners
in addressing the threat of terrorism for nearly 18 years. In
1984, we formed the Los Angeles Task Force on Terrorism as an
outgrowth of our planning and preparation for the 1984 Summer
Olympics, which were held in Los Angeles.
This task force, formed jointly with the Los Angeles Police
Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, has
expanded to incorporate the full-time participation of 14
Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. We have
established additional joint terrorism task forces within our
territory, including the Inland Empire, covering Riverside and
San Bernadino Counties and an Orange County JTTF, which
includes city and county agencies from Orange County, which was
recently formed in response to the September 11th attacks.
As you may know, in response to the events of September
11th, the State of California has established regional
terrorism task forces throughout the State composed of agents
from the California Department of Justice, officers from the
California Highway Patrol and local police agencies. The FBI,
the Governor, the California attorney general and their
executives have worked together closely to ensure close
collaboration between those regional State task force units and
the FBI's JJTFs throughout the State. In fact, most of those
units are co-located with the FBI's task forces.
In addition to establishing strong collaborative
relationships with law enforcement counterparts, the Los
Angeles FBI has developed similar relationships with emergency
first-responders and public health service agencies in order to
prepare to respond to an act of terrorism. These non-
traditional efforts began 6 years ago with the formation of the
Los Angeles County Terrorism Early Warning Group. The formation
of this group was a direct result of strong working
relationships developed over the years between the Los Angeles
County Sheriffs and City Police Departments, the Los Angeles
County and City Fire Departments, the Los Angeles County Health
Department and FBI personnel assigned to emergency operations
in counter terrorism.
The mission of the Terrorism Early Warning Group is to
provide a common venue for information sharing, training and
the establishment of common response protocols for law
enforcement, fire, health and emergency management agencies to
WMD incidents. Today, more than 50 agencies participate in the
Los Angeles Early Warning Group.
In addition, the Los Angeles FBI participates in extensive
weapons of mass destruction training with local first-
responders. Our 25-member HAZMAT team and 4 bomb technicians
have participated in 5 Nunn-Lugar sponsored WMD consequence
management exercises in the Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles
exercise, referred to as Westwind 99, simulated a chemical
attack resulting in 2,000 deaths. Participants included local,
county and State law enforcement, regional fire and HAZMAT
agencies, health and emergency management agencies, the
Department of Defense and various Federal agencies from the
Domestic Emergency Support Team.
We have conducted hazardous materials training with many
agencies, in addition to those I mentioned above, including the
FAA, the Los Angeles Airport Police, representatives from UCLA
and county hospitals. Our bomb technicians conduct basic 1-week
post-blast schools for regional law enforcement agencies--eight
annually. And they conduct one advanced post-blast school
annually, which attracts students from law enforcement agencies
around the country. Other Federal partners responsible for WMB
incidents, including FEMA and the Centers for Disease Control,
participated in field training exercises, as well as national
security special events, such as the 2000 Democratic National
Convention.
Recognizing the strong need for interagency communication,
the FBI has not only obtained top secret clearances for key law
enforcement personnel but also for fire, HAZMAT and health
personnel. This was necessary to ensure that critical threat
information could be passed to local and State officials so
that they could make appropriate health and safety decisions
during the course of a WMD terrorist incident.
Subsequent to the events of September 11th, we have also
established direct e-mail dissemination of threat information
to all of the 155 chiefs of police and sheriffs within our
territory. We also use the law enforcement online network, the
terrorist threat warning system and national law enforcement
telecommunications system to disseminate threat information. We
participate in the State of California's Standing Committee on
Terrorism and through that committee have assisted in the
development of policies, including recent anthrax response
protocols.
Our outreach and training efforts have also been expanded
to the private sector, in addition to State and local
government, through our National Infrastructure and Protection
and Computer Intrusion Program. NIPCI's Infraguard outreach
component shares threat information with representatives of
eight critical infrastructure sectors: banking, transportation,
telecommunications, oil and gas, water, power, government
services and emergency services. Among those partners is the
Pacific Gas and Electric's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power
Facility.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, the Los Angeles division of the
FBI is quite proud of our long-standing commitment to working
as a partner with State and local government in preparing to
meet the challenge of a WMD terrorist incident. Chairman Horn,
this concludes my prepared remarks. I would like to express
again my appreciation for your interest and examining of these
issues that are so vital to all of us in southern California,
and I look forward to any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Iden follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you for that very thorough
examination of what is going on in California. I might add to
this that we had wanted in the House of Representatives to have
the FBI work with the law enforcement situation in the United
States. And I did put a bill in, and Mr. Sensenbrenner will
move it through the judiciary when we get back, and that will
back up the FBI so you can check on the people to make sure
they are not involved with drugs or anything else and that you
can pass on the intelligence. And I know you are already
working in California, but the rest of the country hasn't done
too much in terms of the local law enforcement.
So we now move to Patricia Dalton. She is Director of
Strategic Issues, the U.S. General Accounting Office. The
General Accounting Office is the right arm of the Congress in
terms of research on financial matters and programmatic
matters. And we are delighted to have you here. And one of the
roles of the GAO person on these panels is that you take good
notes and you find at the end what have we missed, which is
what we are really interested in. So, Ms. Dalton, glad to have
you here.
Ms. Dalton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here in southern
California to discuss issues critical to national preparedness.
As you are aware, GAO has called for the development of a
national strategy that will improve our overall Nation's
preparedness, and I will address my remarks to that strategy
today.
The creation of the Office of Homeland Security, under the
leadership of Tom Ridge--as you know, Mr. Chairman, GAO has
called for the development of a national strategy that will
improve our Nation's preparedness, and I will address my
remarks today to that strategy. The creation of the Office of
Homeland Security, under the leadership of Tom Ridge, is an
important and potentially significant first step. As it comes
together, we believe that the key aspects of the strategy
should include, first, a definition and clarification of the
appropriate roles and responsibilities of Federal, State and
local entities in the private sector; second, the establishment
of goals and performance measures to guide our Nation's
preparedness efforts; and finally, a careful choice of the most
appropriate tools of government to best implement the Nation's
strategy and achieve our national goals. I would like to
briefly discuss each of these three points.
First, the roles and missions of Federal, State and local
entities need to be clarified. Although the Federal Government
appears to be a monolith to many, in the area of terrorism
prevention and response it is anything but. In fact, there are
more than 40 Federal entities that have a role in combating and
responding to terrorism and 20 entities alone in the
bioterrorism area.
Concerns about coordination and fragmentation in Federal
preparedness efforts are well-founded. There has been no single
leader in charge of many terrorism-related functions. The lack
of leadership has resulted in the development of programs to
assist State and local governments that were often similar and
potentially duplicative. This creates confusion at the State
and local level, and they certainly have called for more
coordination and to have one place to go to in the Federal
Government for such coordination.
Second, performance and accountability measures need to be
included in our Nation's strategy. Numerous discussions have
been held about the need to enhance the Nation's preparedness,
but national preparedness goals and measures, measurable
performance indicators have not yet been developed. Clear
objectives and measures are critical to a sustainable strategy
and for providing a framework for our roles and
responsibilities at all levels of government and in the private
sector.
Finally, from a national perspective, appropriate tools
need to be selected for designing any Federal assistance. The
General Accounting Office's previous work in Federal programs
suggest that the choice and design of policy tools have
important consequences for performance and accountability.
Governments have at their disposal a variety of policy
instruments, such as grants, regulations, tax incentives and
regional coordination and partnerships, that they can use to
motivate and mandate other levels of government and the private
sector entities to take actions to address security concerns
and goals.
For example, the Federal Government often uses grants as a
means of delivering Federal programs. Grants can be designed to
target the funds to State and localities with the greatest
needs, discourage the replacement of State and local funds with
Federal funds through maintenance and effort requirements, and,
finally, and most importantly, to strike a balance between
accountability and flexibility at the State and local level.
Intergovernmental partnerships and regional coordinations
will be a very important tool, particularly with respect to
information sharing and mutual aid agreements. National
preparedness is a complex mission that requires unusual
interagency, interjurisdictional and interorganizational
cooperation. An illustration of this complexity can be seen in
the ports which is certainly an issue in southern California
with the largest port in the Nation. There are in fact at least
15 Federal agencies that have jurisdiction over our seaports
and the various functions to make them operate. The primary
ones are the Coast Guard, Customs Service and the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, as increasing demands are
placed on budgets at all levels of government, it will be
necessary to make sound choices to maintain physical stability.
All levels of government in the private sector will have to
communicate and cooperate effectively with each other on a
broad range of issues to develop a national strategy to better
target our available resources to address the urgent national
preparedness needs.
This completes my prepared statement. I will be pleased to
respond to any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Dalton follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Thank you. That is very helpful as the General
Accounting Office always is. It is headed by the Comptroller
General of the United States. He has a term of 15 years, and he
doesn't have to take a lot of nonsense from anybody, the
President, Congress or anybody else. And in Dr. Walker we have
had a first-class person in that, he has a first-class staff.
We now move to Dallas Jones, the director of the Governor's
Office of Emergency Services for the State of California. Mr.
Jones.
Mr. Jones. Chairman Horn and members of the subcommittee,
thank you very much for being allowed to testify before you
today. First, I would like to talk a little bit about OES' role
in disaster management and then a little bit about our anti-
terrorist initiatives.
We coordinate the statewide response to all disasters and
emergencies in the State. Now, to manage disasters or the
emergencies, California has a unified, coordinated response
involving all levels of government. This is based on the
incident and command system and the unified command, which we
saw very effectively utilized recently at the Winter Olympics
in Utah. And just prior to then, at the DNC here in Los
Angeles, where all the agencies with various jurisdictional
interests and various areas of expertise all came together and
worked in a unified command for a common goal.
This didn't come about by accident. It was developed here
in California following the major fires and activities of the
early 1960's and 1970's. A concerted effort was made by
Federal, State and local agencies to develop a better
coordination of multi-jurisdictional and multi-authority
commands. It has been finely honed over the years because here
in California we don't practice disasters, we have them very
routinely. All levels of government need to be involved and
have to be involved for it to be successful.
Another response tool is the coordinated mutual aid system
that we have here in the State. The system incorporates the
neighbor helping neighbor principle and allows law enforcement,
fire and rescue, emergency management to go into neighboring
jurisdictions to help. And vice versa, if you have need, then
they will bring them into your agency. For the past several
years, terrorism has topped OES' priority list of hazards to be
planning. We have, for many years, provided guidance on
terrorism planning to local governments, and indeed we have
published a guide and put out to all local governments in 1998
a terrorism planning guide. In 1999, Governor Davis approved a
California terrorism response plan to guide and direct the
management of emergency and disaster operations related to
terrorism incidents. Our office chairs the State Strategic
Committee on Terrorism, which is comprised of representatives
of Federal, State and local government agencies. They develop
anti-terrorism plans, training and grant proposals.
We also provide expertise and support for State and local
private agencies in the development or the maintenance of
preparedness response or recovery plans for biological toxic
substances and radiological emergencies. This includes very
close coordination with the Department of Health Services and
the Emergency Medical Services Authority, which oversees the
State's health and medical disaster planning.
Although there are other potential biological terrorist
agents, anthrax became a primary concern in mail and shipping
safety following the terrorist attacks that resulted in anthrax
cases and deaths in several eastern States. Since then
thousands of threats have been investigated in California and
other States. As a result, our office distributed guidelines
for handling suspicious packages that might contain chemical or
biological contaminants.
Resources in that effort included a toll-free safety
information and referral line where callers can receive
important non-emergency information about anthrax, personal and
family preparedness as well as request copies of the California
Highway Patrol's video for mail handling suspicious envelopes
and packages.
Because the potential for chemical emergencies has been a
significant issue for some time, California had a sophisticated
response system in place even prior to September 11th. For many
years we have led a coordinated effort to work on hazardous
materials and response planning. We also maintain a 24-hour
hazardous materials network reporting and notification system,
which also provides technical assistance in the development of
training and risk management programs. It is this system that
we will continue to build and prepare for potential terrorism
events, be they chemical, biological or nuclear.
Several other efforts are underway that we believe will
enhance the State's coordination with the Federal Government in
the event of a terrorism event or any other type of emergency.
These include an update of the California annex to the Federal
Response Plan, which is currently underway. The State has also
embarked on a major catastrophic disaster planning effort
overseen by the Federal Catastrophic Disaster Response Group.
This involves State, local and Federal emergency response
agencies.
Even with all of the recent events in our Nation, we feel
that California is very well poised to effectively coordinate
with local, State and Federal agencies to manage the disasters
or emergencies of any type. This doesn't mean that we are fully
prepared for anything that may come our way. We have to
continue to work very closely with our Federal, State and local
partners in the planning efforts to identify both terrorism
threats, vulnerabilities and assess our needs for priorities.
We are very encouraged by the announcement of substantial
funding in the President's budget, and we strongly advocate the
funds be coordinated through the State using our existing
expertise and mechanisms for fund prioritization and
distribution. These systems have proven very effective time and
again in the administration of prior Federal grants. A
cooperative, coordinated effort involving all levels of
government must occur to ensure California is fully able to
address the terrorist threat. Each of the involved specialties
must be included in that planning--law, fire, health and
emergency management.
Again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to
come before you. I would be more than happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. That is very interesting
testimony. We now have one that is well-known to many in
southern California and now at the State level, Dr. Diana
Bonta, the director of the California Department of Health
Services, State of California. And for many years, she was the
director of Health in the city of Long Beach, and it is very
rare for any city to have its own health organization. The
Governor picked the right person when he picked her. So thank
you.
Ms. Bonta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to have you
here in Los Angeles and to see you all here this morning as
well.
As the director of the California Department of Health
Services, this is the agency responsible for coordinating
statewide disaster public health assistance in support of local
operations. And the department has primary responsibility for
public and environmental health operations and has major
supporting responsibility to the Emergency Medical Services
Authority for disasters involving mass casualties.
Through its disease control surveillance, laboratory,
environmental monitoring programs, the department plays a
central and critical role in rapidly detecting and
appropriately responding to chemical, radiological and
biological threats to terrorism. We have had an existing
cooperative agreement for bioterrorism response planning from
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and I sit
on their Advisory Committee. This has been very instrumental in
assisting us to buildupon the State's emergency and disaster
response systems. We are now in our third year, and we do have
supplemental funding.
We just heard testimony from Mr. Yeskey in terms of the
fact that we are receiving additional moneys. The $60 million
from CDC is for the cooperative agreement to the State and to
Los Angeles County, $24 million. I would like to also mention
the cooperative agreements for hospital planning and
preparation also includes to the California Department of
Health Services $9.9 million and to Los Angeles County $3.6
million.
In addition to that, the funding also included funds for
seven cities for a total of $2.2 million, and these cities will
develop metropolitan emergency bioterrorism preparedness for
regional preparedness planning as a part of the metropolitan
medical response systems initiative. Now, the hospital funds
are fairly new; they are going to be implemented in two phases.
The first is working together with EMSA, the Emergency Medical
Services Authority, here in California to develop a State plan
for the use of this hospital funding here in California. And
the purpose of this phase one planning process is an effort to
foster the preparedness in the State's hospital and healthcare
systems to respond to bioterrorist events through a statewide
assessment of unmet hospital needs.
We will, in addition, phase two, certainly we will be
working very, very closely with the hospitals so that they are
looking at their specific needs and their specific communities.
Not all communities look the same, not all communities have the
same needs. So we want to be able to tailor this with input
from those individual communities as well.
We have certainly worked with a CDC cooperative agreements
as well, and this calls for partnerships, and the partnerships
here in California include the California Conference of Local
Health Officers, the County Health Executives Association of
California, as well as many other public and private sector
partners. And we feel that it is crucial for all those entities
to come together. We would have numerous meetings in which we
invite all these players to the same table to discuss their
respective needs and to incorporate them in our planning
process.
We have taken an additional step, kind of an unusual one,
to ensure local and State collaboration. I have entered into an
intergovernmental agreement with Placer County in northern
California for the services of its health officer. In February
of this year, Dr. Richard Burton, a commander in the Naval
Reserves, a past Marine, a Corps flight surgeon and a physician
with several years of local public health experience, he joined
the California Department of Health Services as a senior member
of our bioterrorism preparedness planning team. And then we
also lent two of the Feds to the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, someone who is very talented from California,
Dr. Michael Asher, who has been chief of our bio lab here in
California. We lent him to be used, and so he is now
functioning in Washington, DC.
I think this is very important, because sometimes we don't
understand our different bureaucracies, and the more we can mix
it up, have people from the Feds join us here, we have various
CDC physicians, epidemiologists, scientists who are assigned
here in California, and Dr. Gil Chavez, for instance, is our
chief of Internal Health. He comes from the Centers for Disease
Control, and we lent staff to Washington, and we use certain
resources from our local county health departments and our city
health departments to be able to understand each other and
understand our respective worlds.
I know that the committee is interested in the department's
anti-terrorism activities as they relate to California's public
water systems, and the department is responsible for the
oversight and regulation of California's 8,500 public water
systems and local health jurisdictions participate in the
oversight and regulatory process. And shortly after September
11th, the department's Division of Drinking Water and
Environmental Management staff met with representatives of
public water systems throughout the State.
They have been able to discuss the State's water systems,
participating in approximately--numerous numbers of meetings,
and they are looking to protect the California public. And we
will continue to dialog here with the Department of Water
Resources, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California to develop a response strategy in the event of a
bioterrorist action against the State water project of the
Metropolitan Water Resources, the treatment facilities and the
distribution systems. We will be certainly continuing this
dialog and working with all of these experts in this field as
well.
I echo some of the testimony in terms of we have so many
agencies involved at the Federal level, State level, local
level that we need to have coordination, coordination,
coordination. And I would like to close by saying that in my
capacity from 1988 through 1999 as director of the Long Beach
Department of Health and Human Services, I saw firsthand that
you need to have a relationship, not only with your public
health colleagues, but with the fire department--they are
represented here today in the second panel--with law
enforcement, with constituents in the community, but most
importantly, with community members. If we don't have a dialog
with the community, and certainly Long Beach where we know that
the population, 51 percent and growing, who are members of
communities of color, that needed to address their specific
needs, certainly language barriers sometimes presents us with
challenges, and we need to go above and beyond to outreach the
communities and work closely with them.
I look forward to working with you as members of this
committee, today and in the future, providing you assistance as
much as possible. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonta follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, as I would expect, you are very eloquent on
this subject, and you make some real good points. We are now
going to go to questioning of this particular panel, and I am
going to yield 5 minutes to start with the ranking member,
which is Ms. Watson from Government Reform. And we are glad to
have you today.
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank the presenters. I am very impressed with the report you
are giving us. I am going to throw some questions out, and all
of you can respond if you choose.
The first is in your respective agencies' departments and
programs, what are the resources, other than money, that you
need? You can go up and down the table if you wish. The other
question is that Governor Ridge has come up with the signal
light--the green, the red, the yellow and so on. Maybe FEMA
could probably respond to this best. What does that mean? When
we start at the lowest level and move on up to the most at-risk
level, what does that put into operation, what does it start?
What would you be doing? And FEMA, again, you project you do, I
know, preparedness kinds of activities. When you see those
different signals, what action is taken, and maybe all of you
can respond with your own agencies, when you get those colored
signals? And believe me, we know nothing; we just know the
colors. So take us from the elementary level on up.
Mr. Castleman. Well, I am not an expert on all of that yet.
I can tell you what is apparently going on. Certainly, it is
not--this is not final yet. It is still in the public response
mode. We are looking to our Federal partners and the first-
responder community and anyone else who has suggestions or
ideas on this program that Governor Ridge has put forward. We
think it is a step in the right direction. Whether it will be
the final form or not we are not sure.
But, certainly, as the degrees start--and being colorblind,
I can get a little mixed up in my colors, but I do know that
red is at the top, and I think it is orange that is next and so
forth and so on. What we have been doing to evaluate this, from
a FEMA standpoint, is doing a crosswalk, if you will, or
bridging into the various phases of an emergency situation that
we will need to trigger, such as heightened security at one
level above another.
So I think rather than going into it in too much detail, I
want to, again, emphasize that it is still a preliminary
program and not finalized yet. But I believe that some form of
this, if not this program itself, will be a good structure that
not only will those of us that are in emergency management and
all of our partners here and first-responders will become very
familiar with, but in the programs that we are working on with
citizens for, that all of those folks will understand it, and
it will become second nature to us all, just as the traffic
lights in our streets. We will all understand perfectly well
exactly where we are when this program is final.
Ms. Watson. Let me ask the rest of you, do those signals,
those lights have meaning to you now, in terms of the planning
you are doing, the preparedness planning you are doing? We
still don't understand what happens as a result of the colors
being flashed out there? I mean where does it happen? Does it
come through the press? Is it on television, radio? What are
you to do? Does anyone know?
Mr. Jones. Congresswoman Watson, I might take a stab at it.
Ms. Watson. And it is good to see you, Dallas, again.
Mr. Jones. Good to see you too. I almost called you
Senator, I am sorry.
Ms. Watson. It is all right.
Mr. Jones. The system basically is designed to coordinate
activities nationally for a variety of reasons, both law
enforcement, so that we will have the ability to ramp up
departments or not, depending on the depth of the threat,
regionally or locally. And so the biggest component of that
system is yet to be developed, and it really has to be
developed on a local level. We are working with all of the
State agencies to try to determine, because one size doesn't
fit all. In the Office of Emergency Services, for example, we
have emergency operation centers that we will up to full
staffing at orange or red that during normal times we have at a
maintenance level. Maybe another department, like----
Ms. Watson. You are getting the yellow right now.
Mr. Jones. Oh, OK. Yes. I am in danger. [Laughter.]
When it gets red, we duck under the table. So it is really
to be determined, and that is what--the 45-day comment period
is for that so that we can work with all the other agencies and
try to get a standardized response. The biggest problem that I
see in the whole response alert network is what are the private
citizens going to do. And that we need to get out. We are
working on a public information campaign to say, ``Look, you
know, this isn't about ducking under the desk when it goes red;
it is about common sense kinds of things that you can do for
preparedness.'' And so that is going to be, I think, one of the
most difficult things in the process to be developed.
Ms. Watson. Let me just throw this out, in our school
system, we have these alarms, and we do these exercises and so
on. I think we need, as we look at it, Mr. Chair, to have a
program for schools, their own entity, and have a program, and
then for citizens. I would suggest at the end of the hearing
that one of the things we could do as a subcommittee is use
California as a model since we are the largest State, since you
all have been involved in preparedness and since we know every
disaster that ever can happen, and it happens here first, that
we might be able to suggest what coordination on the Federal
level would mean. Because I too have no idea what we do when we
see--I think we run underneath the table when we see red. We
used to tell our kids, ``Roll over and get underneath the
table.'' We need to have in your response period some very
strong recommendations, and I think it would mean a lot to
Congress, it would mean a lot to the Federal Government,
because we all have been involved in these emergencies, and I
think we could tell the rest of the country how to respond. But
if anyone else wants to comment. Coordination, I see, is the
key, coordinated efforts.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Iden.
Mr. Iden. Perhaps I can offer a brief--Mr. Chairman,
Congresswoman Watson.
Mr. Horn. Please.
Mr. Iden. The threat warning protocol grew from the need to
convey to law enforcement and the public the degree to which
certain threat information should be considered significant.
And what we are faced with in this environment is intelligence
reporting on occasion from a source who is not corroborated.
What response is appropriate to that sort of a report? You may
have an occasion where you are receiving a confluence of
reports with regard to threats to a particular sector, the
nuclear power facilities or a country, U.S. assets in Turkey.
So what is envisioned here is there might be a threat
protocol warning issued to a particular sector, issued to a
particular country, perhaps a geographic region of the United
States if sufficient information comes to our attention
suggesting a threat to a particular region. But more often than
not, the reporting that is received is very vague, it is
uncorroborated, it is unsubstantiated, it comes from a source,
and there is certainly a need to attach some level of
significance to that information.
One piece of information of that nature might receive a
very low threat warning, because it is not corroborated. If you
receive a couple of pieces of information that suggest the same
sector is being threatened or a timeframe or a particular
target, then that threat warning would elevate perhaps to an
orange or a red. But, again, as has been mentioned here
earlier, this is a work in progress. It is very difficult to
handle and get your hands around, but it is important that we
find some way to convey, and when to convey a threat warning,
with a level of significance to attribute to that warning.
Ms. Watson. Just another comment, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Horn. I am going to have to move to the next. We will
have some followup on that.
Ms. Watson. Yes, that is fine.
Mr. Horn. Ms. Millender-McDonald.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you so much for convening this important hearing. We applaud
you on the work that you have done, Mr. Chairman, throughout
the information in providing these types of hearings for us to
get a grasp as to what is going on with reference to the
interagencies' coordination.
I might say that when I have convened--I serve on the House
Homeland Security Task Force, looking at transportation, as I
am a member of the Transportation Committee. And I have, in
convening some of my hearings, especially down in the ports, I
find that our seniors, getting back to Mr. Jones' statement,
and the public, just our private citizens, are really quite
concerned as to what do they do in the event of a terrorist
attack and a biochemical type of attack.
So perhaps you might want to suggest, if you have not
looked at this, and I suggest you do look at this because our
seniors in homes, our schools, when we have met with the
superintendents of schools, universities, they too are
concerned about how do they dispatch students in various
different buildings if there is an attack. So that is something
that we really should look at, not just agencies, not just--of
course, ports are extremely important and agencies, but we
should look at just our constituents and seniors.
There is a question that I have for Mr. Castleman. You said
that FEMA's Office of National Preparedness has been directed
to closely work with States and local agencies, governments, to
ensure that their planning, training and equipment needs are
met. Coming from the local government, what is the office doing
to implement this directive?
Mr. Castleman. Well, one of the things that we have already
begun to do--of course, the office is very new. It was begun
before September 11th and really we have expanded greatly since
September 11th. We have begun to add more personnel in our
regions, more personnel in our headquarters office in
Washington, we have now appointed a new director of the Office
of National Preparedness. So we are gearing-up.
But in the meantime, we are already working with our State
and local governments in terms of terrorism exercises. We have
been doing that prior to September 11th, but we are doing even
more of that. We are working with government entities on their
continuation of operation plans. The other thing we are doing
is preparing for the hope that the $3.5 million first-responder
program will be approved by Congress, and the Office of
National Preparedness will be the division of FEMA that will
deliver those grants to our States, which will be a large task,
but we are preparing to do that.
Generally speaking, though, we are doing a lot of outreach
to try to make sure that we--and I might cite something that
came up that I think that we are trying to follow this. When I
was in Washington a couple of weeks ago and heard Governor
Ridge speak and Attorney General Ashcroft speak and Director
Allbaugh speak at the same meeting, Governor Ridge said, ``It
is not just about resources. We have got to remember that we
have got to improve methods and relationships.'' I like the
tone that he set for that, and I also like the fact that he
mentioned that this is a national issue, not a Federal issue.
Attorney General Ashcroft said that necessity is the mother
of invention, but it is also the mother of cooperation. And
Director Allbaugh mentioned that cooperation and improving
relationships is not something that can be dictated by him or
anyone else; it is a mindset that we all have to embrace. And I
believe the window of time to do that is now. So the Office of
National Preparedness, particularly at the regional level, as
well as headquarters level, is reaching out to try to make sure
that we facilitate those relationships.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Well, I certainly appreciate that,
and we want to make sure that it is not just endemic to the
larger cities, that your smaller cities under 90,000 should
also be engaged in this, because a lot of my cities are fewer
than 100,000 folks. Certainly, they want to dip in and be part
of the Federal Government in these efforts.
Let us see, I had one for Mr. Yeskey, but we are going to
get--in your testimony, you discussed CDC's quick response in
deploying the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile in New York and
Washington, DC. Should a biological or chemical attack occur,
how would those medications be distributed to a larger area
that could encompass perhaps hundreds of miles? And that is
something that everyone was thinking about during the anthrax
in Washington.
Mr. Yeskey. Yes. The National Pharmaceutical Stockpile
consists of two main elements. One is the 12-hour push
packages, which get initial antibiotics, medical materiel and
equipment onsite of the affected area within 12 hours of our
notification. There is a second amount of material called
vendor managed inventory that is more tailored to the specific
event. For instance, in the anthrax event, that would be
specific antibiotics that would be used. The National
Pharmaceutical Stockpile has currently 12-hour push packages
located strategically around the country. So what would happen
is if we had a large regional event, we would deploy the push
packages to various areas for distribution by the State health
departments and local health departments over that wide area.
What we have also realized early on in the anthrax event is
distribution of the antibiotics is probably the crucial factor
with regards to time, to getting it to people, and as part of
our cooperative agreement under our focus area of preparedness
planning the Pharmaceutical Stockpile is going to be working
with State health departments and local health departments in
the distribution plans of those materials. So we would look at
a cross-jurisdictional way of dispensing these antibiotics from
the initial push packages that went to the States.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. And urban areas strictly would have
the response of--in other words, you, in your whole pattern
that you have, in terms of the deployment, urban areas would
not be missed in any way by this deployment.
Mr. Yeskey. No, they wouldn't.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. OK. Fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. And we now have Representatives
Waters. We are delighted you could make it this morning.
Ms. Waters. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. You are welcome. Let me continue a little bit of
the question that was started by Congresswoman Millender-
McDonald.
Recently, it was discovered that some pharmaceutical
company had millions of dosages to respond to smallpox if in
fact we had smallpox contamination. Why didn't we know where
that was? We were told there was a shortage, and that was very
scary. What kind of assessment do we do to identify medicines
and medications that may be available in the United States or
in the world, for that matter, and what do we do, not only to
do that assessment, but to determine what we need to produce or
manufacture? And have we calculated the shelf-life of
medications that we know we would need in response to certain
kinds of attacks? I mean I felt a little bit annoyed by the
fact that we didn't know that we had millions of dosages of
medications to respond to the smallpox possibility. What can
you tell me about that?
Mr. Yeskey. I will answer your last question first about
the shelf-life and defer the smallpox vaccine question and
provide information for that later, at a later time. The shelf-
life for antibiotics in our National Pharmaceutical Stockpile,
we have an inventory management program that when antibiotics
in our stockpile reach 1 year of their expiration date they get
essentially put back into the manufacturer's normal stockpile
and redistributed under normal distribution mechanisms. So,
essentially, it is not recycling of the antibiotics, it is just
putting them back into the normal manufacturer's distribution
chain so they can be used before they expire.
Additionally, we have entered in a Shelf-Life Extension
Program that the Department of Defense uses that gives us
another 2 years of certain antibiotics. So as they approach
their shelf life expiration date, we can extend that for 2 more
years. Now because of the size of the pharmaceutical stockpile,
some of the antibiotics we have in there we just have so many
that they can't be recycled back into the general distribution;
they will expire. And that Shelf-Life Extension Program gives
us another 2 years of utilization for those antibiotics. At
that point, they cannot be put back into normal distribution
and have to be discarded. Now that is several years down the
road, so we don't have to worry about that in the stockpile
yet, but that is a future consideration that we have to look at
with the antibiotics in the stockpile.
With regards to the smallpox vaccine, again, I will provide
information at a later time on what mechanisms there are to
determine what vaccine stores there are, but the CDC takes its
vaccination policy for various vaccines. There are a number of
groups, there are experts panels, there is the Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practice that consults with the CDC
and advises the CDC on how to use antibiotics--excuse me, who
should receive the vaccines, how they should be managed,
contraindications and policies like that they advise the CDC on
the vaccine usage.
Ms. Waters. Let me ask, recently we discovered that there
was a plot by someone associated with al Qaeda to blow up a
nuclear power plant, and I keep hearing discussions about the
fact that there is really no way to secure our nuclear power
plants, that they are just sitting there exposed. Can you tell
us something that we don't know about the ability to secure
them without getting into, I guess, classified information, but
can we secure our nuclear power plants?
Mr. Iden. With regard to your first question, I am not
familiar with the plot that you referred to. I know that we
recognize that there is the potential threat to nuclear power
facilities. Specifically, I don't have that information. That
question would probably best be--your second question would
probably best be addressed by security folks, in our case, at
Diablo Canyon, but I can share with you that I have been to
that facility, I have spent time with them, discussed with them
the security that they have in place, and it is my belief that
with regard at least to the facility that I am aware of here in
our territory, Diablo Canyon, they have got very strong
security on the ground. They would be as vulnerable from the
air as any other target might be, as you can imagine.
There is some question and speculation as to the degree of
damage that would be caused by an aircraft crashing into a
facility. Those are questions that are beyond my expertise, but
I can share with you that with regard at least to the facility
within our territory the briefing that I received and what I
have seen suggest that they have put a good deal of time and
attention to securing that facility from any kind of an
internal or ground attack.
Ms. Waters. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I heard you
mention the piece of legislation that you have before our
committee, the Judiciary Committee, and that you have talked
with Chairman Sensenbrenner about it. We really do need the
sharing of information and whatever it takes to get clearances
for our local officials they need that also. They need to
understand--we cannot coordinate without that kind of
information being shared with everybody, and I will support
that bill, certainly, when it comes before our committee, and I
think it is a good idea that you have.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you, and I hope that between you and
Mr. Sensenbrenner we will get it through to the House, and
thank you for that. I am going to yield myself 5 minutes on
questions, and I will start with Dr. Bonta.
If a massive biological or chemical attack were to occur
today, is the California public healthcare system, with its
hospitals and laboratories and the nonprofits in most cases,
have the capacity to diagnose and treat victims? And throw in
germ toxins that somebody could do with farming and all the
rest.
Ms. Bonta. Mr. Chairman, I think we have learned from this
last several months that we are way ahead of so many States in
other parts of the country. But we have also come to the
realization that this is unprecedented in terms of really
calling upon our best skills here in California to assess what
could be potential threats against us and how to prepare for
that. The public health system has been a fragile system
throughout the country, and we have certainly the world's
experts here in California and throughout the country, in terms
of knowing their science and knowing their medicine and being
able to provide the best in technical services for patients.
But a lot of public health is just the grunt work, I would say,
of going out into communities and doing the field surveillance,
the epidemiology and talking, communicating with communities
and being able to assess an outreach services. And in that, you
can certainly have room for improvement. This money that has
just come to us provides us a wonderful opportunity to do some
of this planning and to continue to jump start what we have
already started and in the process.
But, you know, some of the questions that have been
addressed earlier come to mind that we were lacking in that
communication system. Certainly, after September 11th, here in
California, the rest of the country as well, specific to public
health. We were able to have conference calls with the Centers
for Disease Control, which every State was on a secure
telephone line with Tommy Thompson as well as--Secretary
Thompson as well as Jeff Copeland from CDC.
We needed to copy that, and we did, in California so that
all 61 health jurisdictions were on a secured line in which we
could talk with them as public health experts here in
California about what were their needs, how could we plan for
them. It called to mind that we really need to work on these
communications systems and be able to enhance what we are
doing. We are doing that through a California system. We need
to be able to look at disease in communities with a different
type of approach than in the past, with an urgency so that if
we see something going on in Riverside and something is
happening in Jalusa, that we be able to say, ``We have
something here that needs further investigation.''
Certainly, our scientists are excellent, but the salary
scales for them have not been competitive. We frequently have a
private industry that lures them to work for them. We need to
be able to look throughout the country, enhancing what we do
for our workforce development as well. So all that is to say
that I think that we are well on the road in terms of our
preparedness, but we need to continue to be very vigilant and
certainly to work with this new money to be able to do some of
the work that we anticipate needs to be accomplished.
Mr. Horn. Well, that is very helpful. Mr. Yeskey, with CDC,
would they be able to handle what potentially might be germ
samples or whatever? And are you prepared to do that?
Mr. Yeskey. We are prepared to do that and assist the
States, our traditional partners of State health departments,
in managing this. You mentioned the laboratory samples and
items like that. We have a laboratory response network
nationwide that includes all the State's public health
laboratories. So if one area gets overwhelmed with sampling or
requests for samples, we can identify labs that can handle that
surge and run those evaluations. We have response teams that we
can send at the State's request to assist them in their
identification, their control and containment of any outbreak,
and then we have the Health Alert Network and EPI-X
communication systems that are for the State health
departments' use in providing those communication mechanisms
and those four-on-four communications.
Mr. Horn. On that point, the progression of a particular
disease, let us take smallpox, is it at some curve of time that
it could be done within a couple of weeks, or would it just be
as you are talking about, if it is in Jalusa or Ureka and it is
out here in Riverside somewhere, there must be something going
on. So how do we deal with that, that you sort of see something
here and something there? Are we really sure?
Mr. Yeskey. I think in the case of smallpox any single case
of smallpox is what we are going to consider a national
emergency and take aggressive measures to work with the State
health departments in trying to identify not only the cases but
the contacts of those cases so we can immediately implement
activities with the State health departments in controlling
that epidemic. Other diseases that may have a naturally
occurring basis, we are going to pursue aggressively with the
States again in trying to identify the clinical cases, trying
to identify the sources and work with the States on the lab
side, on the epidemiology side and on the response side to help
identify the nature of that incident, whether it is an
intentional incident or a naturally occurring incident.
Mr. Horn. Dr. Bonta.
Ms. Bonta. If I might add, Mr. Chairman, in California, 10
years ago, through the foresight of the legislature, we were
able to do a planning process for a new State public health
laboratory. It just opened this spring. It will eventually
house 1,300 people in Richmond, California. It has a viral and
infectious disease lab, microbial lab, genetic disease lab and
environmental health. It is a state-of-the-art, it is able to
go to level three capacity in terms of containment. We were
very fortunate to have this up and running before this incident
occurred. That acts as our hub here in California and we work
with over 38 public health laboratories throughout the State to
coordinate activities. But I know that my colleagues from other
States are very jealous about us having this lineup. It
certainly was something that was well-needed and will continue
to be very well-needed.
We are looking, as well, certainly in discussions with CDC
and with Department of Defense, at what other laboratory
capacities we will predict we may need in California in future
years. And, certainly, there has been discussion at times about
whether or not level four capacity should be considered.
Mr. Horn. To what degree will the Veterans' Affairs
hospital facilities help in this? Is there a plan in California
or southern California?
Ms. Bonta. Yes. In fact, as part of our moneys from both
HRSA and CDC, we are directed to work with the Veterans'
Administration hospitals. As you know, in Long Beach, we were
doing that. We will do that here in Los Angeles. Ken Kaiser,
who was the former director of the California Department of
Health Services served in the capacity of being in charge of
the Veteran systems in Washington, so we had to put some
contact with him. Here in the County of Los Angeles, Dr.
Gaithwait came also from the Veteran system. So we have had
coordination at a local level and at a statewide level, and we
will continue to have that as well with the Federal facilities.
We also have here in California State-run veterans nursing
homes. We are certainly working with Secretary Bruce Fesa in
the California Department of Health Services and California
Department of Veterans' Affairs to coordinate services for
veterans but also to integrate that system. And it is very
crucial for us to be able to work closely with them.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. Any comments in response to any of the
questions we have heard so far from the panel? And then we will
go to 3 minutes now so everybody can get in a question. Yes,
Mr. Jones?
Mr. Jones. I have a response to one of the questions I
think Congresswoman Watson mentioned was suggestions that were
no cost or real low cost. Technology transfer from Federal
agencies in the military to local and State government would be
very helpful. As a member of the Gilmore Commission for the
last 3 years, I have been privileged to be present for a number
of classified briefings where there were a lot of hardware, a
lot of abilities for detecting chem-bio and these sort of
things that wasn't available. We even asked the question, could
we buy it at the State or local government level if we pay for
it? And the answer was no.
So, I think it is an area, and certainly there is a
national security concern on some equipment; so be it. We need
to relook at, in light of the threat that we face now, as all
disasters and terrorist events are local. Many of the Federal
resources won't be available to local government or State
government for days. Our urban search and rescue program is set
up on a 2-hour and 6-hour launch, and then you have flight
time. We are fortunate here in California we have days, but
some of these Federal resources will be several days coming in,
and so we need a very robust local and State ability to
respond.
The other issue I was going to mention is there is
currently no directory of Federal training programs. That would
be very helpful, I think, in sorting through some of the maze
of being able to identify some of these programs for local
government. Denigration of ICS and Unified Command has not bee
adopted by all Federal agencies, and we need, at least an
approach should be made in that level to move that forward.
The other one is to recognize that as we go through all of
our planning and work, that we keep in the back of our minds,
at least, that terrorism isn't just the ones that we're
horrendously worried about right now, but they run the gamut.
As we harden our defenses and work very hard to prepare, we
will very likely be pushing terrorism into areas not seen so
far. So we need to make sure that we consider cyber,
agricultural, nuclear, chemical, biological and some of the
conventional approaches as we go along in the process. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Horn. OK. Thank you. Ms. Watson, 3 minutes for your
best shot.
Ms. Watson. Thank you for that comment. This is going to
Patricia Dalton, because she might be the best person, the GAO,
to address it. But I got a call this morning from a very upset
parent who wanted to know--because his daughter was going to
school in Italy, and as you know, over the last 24, 48 hours
there have been announcements that there is some kind of
planned terrorism attack. As we go about developing strategies
and preparedness, what is the possibility of including all of
our territory abroad, our embassies?
Ms. Dalton. I think one of the important things in
developing a strategy is going to be developing a communication
plan that provides information to everyone as to what needs to
be done or what they personally should be taking action on, as
well as governmental organizations and the private sector, and
down to the individual citizen. Our plan has to be encompassing
all of the United States and its citizens so that no one is
left out of that plan, which is why we have recommended intense
coordination at an interorganizational level, at an interagency
level, at an intergovernmental level that also takes into
account fully the private sector and the individual citizens.
Mr. Horn. OK. Ms. Millender-McDonald.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Dalton, I would like to raise a question with you
regarding--the GAO has repeatedly criticized the massive
fragmentation and overlap of Federal efforts to combat
terrorism. Have you made specific recommendations to reduce
this fragmentation?
Ms. Dalton. One of our recommendations has been to
establish a focus point for counter terrorism and homeland
security. As I stated in my statement, the establishment of the
Office of Homeland Security has certainly been a step in that
direction, and we would hope through the national strategy,
that is supposed to be delivered sometime this summer
reportedly, that it will look at all of the organizations
within the Federal Government and their responsibilities,
identify what the objectives are for the national strategy,
establish performance goals that then each organization would
fit into. It may require some realignment of Federal
organizations in order to best meet our goals.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Last, Mr. Castleman, recently, the
interagencies of the Federal Government submitted a classified
report to Governor Ridge. Is there any way we can have an
unclassified version of this report developed on for your local
and State agencies?
Mr. Castleman. I can't speak for the Office of Homeland
Security, but my understanding is that they are working on a
non-classified version.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. They are working on one now?
Mr. Castleman. That is my understanding, and we will
determine for sure and provide for the record that is in fact
the case.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. I think it must be. As we
recognized, given September 11th, that a lot of our Federal
agencies were not engaging in interagency collaboration. Well,
certainly, now we know that this should not only just be at the
Federal level, but it should be throughout the country. I would
like to have some response or if you could report back to me as
to whether or not that is going to be done. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. Ms. Waters.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much. You may have answered
this, so let me ask again so that I can understand. As I
understand, there is no single comprehensive plan for improving
homeland security in California. However, my staff told me that
actually it has received 20 percent of the bioterrorism funding
here and will be able to receive it in 6 months after
submitting a plan for the use of the response. Also, there is
some danger in having a plan that can be accessed by others who
would somehow interfere with the plan. Well, how do you this?
Do we have a plan that we are going to submit, and is that
classified? Is the Governor's Office responsible for the State
plan?
Mr. Jones. That is a very difficult area to be dealing
with, quite frankly, because of the community right-to-know
legislation. I am sorry, it is very difficult because of the
community right-to-know legislation in some areas. What we have
done on a statewide level is we received a grant from the
Federal Government in approximately 1999 to work on both a
vulnerability assessment statewide, local government on up
through the State, but also a statewide, 3-year strategic plan
on needs assessment. We were in the process of that when
September 11th came. We were asked by the Federal Government to
submit those plans in very basic form by December 15 of last
year, which we did--a very, very skeletal plan. We are still
proceeding on the development of that plan, as far as the in-
the-weeds type of needs assessment.
What we have done, because our SSCT, our State Strategic
Committee on Terrorism, is through our law enforcement branch
within OES, we have deemed it to be law enforcement sensitive.
So it is not for public dissemination. Many of the
recommendations that we submitted we did put on the Governor's
Web site at his request. The other plan that is being discussed
is a separate plan, and that is a plan as to how to utilize
this Federal money that is coming through Health Services, and
they are working very hard on something to get that done so we
can get that money to the local government.
Ms. Bonta. If I might just comment on the healthcare
portion. The Federal Government gave us guidelines in terms of
what we need to have appear. So, for instance, they were asking
the area of reporting of infectious diseases that we ensure
that it is not--a physician is not reporting a disease that we
need to take note of 3 days later, that it occurs immediately.
So we changed our regulations, for instance, to allow for this
capacity, this laundry list, so that we are well on our way
toward completing some additional work.
But part of the recommendations, for instance, that were
public was the recommendation that we have an inventory of
specialists here in California, so infectious disease
specialists who might be available in time of a State emergency
to assist us, how we locate them quickly, where could we
utilize them, what is the credentialing in the hospitals or
other institutions so that we quickly have this cadre of
trained professional people, not necessarily the State system,
but working for private institutions, but we utilize their
expertise as well. Those are the planning methods currently in
process to be able to develop that kinds of system.
We are also looking at other departments, for instance, to
have continuing education courses. Many physicians, nurses,
health educators, physical therapists, all the disciplines are
looking to upgrade their skills and identification of issues
related to the bioterrorism. Looking at the possibility to have
that online, to make it simple, so that all of our
practitioners here in California are ready and are available
and that we have inventory as well of knowing where is the
training occurring and getting that information out.
So some of it is in regards to that. Other areas are much
more complicated in terms of, for instance, hospitals where
they are having individual disaster preparedness plans. And we
were the first State in the country to actually have on our
Internet system guidelines for hospitals in terms of
bioterrorism.
Mr. Horn. Let me conclude with one question that a lot of
people are nervous about, and that is smallpox and the fear
that some countries have smallpox germ warfare, if you will,
and I would like to know if we have vaccines for that? And the
question is those of us that got our smallpox vaccine 50, 60
years ago, in this case, what, if anything, should be done? Is
there a worry here that the various rogue States that create
some of this, what are we going to do about it and how do we
deal with it? I mean if we have the vaccine, does it do any
good for those of us when we had smallpox that many decades
ago? What is the answer, CDC, California?
Mr. Yeskey. A number of items to address your question. I
guess the law enforcement and intelligence communities will
have to tell us about the level of the threat. What CDC has
done, No. 1, is they have accelerated the vaccine production
program. Before September 11th, we wanted to augment the 15.4
million doses that we have stored and available for use, so
they entered a contract with a vaccine producer to additional
vaccines. Since September 11th, that program has been
accelerated, not only in the timeline, but in the quantity of
vaccine to be produced.
Second, CDC has released to States and other healthcare
organizations a smallpox response plan that describes what
strategies could be used in the case of smallpox release,
domestically or globally. That plan will be updated regularly
as we get additional threat information or additional vaccine
on board. CDC also has done training for responders. Started
with CDC responders and response teams to go to the field and
assist State health departments with the smallpox response. But
we have expanded that training to include State health
departments and other Federal responders who might participate
in a smallpox response.
Mr. Horn. Any other comments on this particular--Dr. Bonta.
Ms. Bonta. I think that initially we weren't sure whether
or not someone who was vaccinated 50 years ago whether or not
they would need to get another vaccine. Certainly, there hasn't
been experience with that because we were fortunate that
smallpox was eradicated from the world. We are having some good
news in terms of some of the limited research that has been
done on this, so we probably have some effectiveness in terms
of community in our population. And, certainly, Centers for
Disease Control and Department of Health and Human Services
have taken the lead in this in establishing what would be the
best way to protect our population.
I think, you know, the real reality is a circumstance where
we would need to consider this. We might look at rings of
protection pertaining to where the incident occurs. Certainly,
it is difficult if it were to be in multiple communities,
because you would have to be vaccinating multiple communities.
But you want to be able to prioritize and use what vaccine you
have appropriately, quickly to those populations that would
present more of a risk. Here in California, we are certainly
working very closely with the Federal Government in determining
what is the best way for us to anticipate, to plan, to protect
our public.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. And I just want to say that you have
done a wonderful job here in making this presentation. And, Ms.
Dalton, I will let the General Accounting Office have the last
word. And what have we missed, if anything?
Ms. Dalton. Mr. Chairman, I think this has been a very
comprehensive presentation. I think it has emphasized some of
the main points, as we move forward on a national strategy: The
need for threat assessments, risk assessments in all areas of
our activities and the need to continuously reassess what the
risks are, what the threats are, where resources need to be
placed, the need for coordination, particularly communication
has been very much emphasized, and I think we need to work
further in that area. I think we have seen some gaps here in
the presentation in terms of communication.
I would just end with the need for continuous improvement
and learning. We need to institutionalize a lessons learned
process, that we need to continuously improve from those things
that are going to be changing and to learn from them.
Mr. Horn. With that, we call up the second panel, and we
thank the first panel. You might want to stretch a little.
As this is an investigative hearing, we'll have all the
witnesses rise and raise their right hand to accept the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
[Recess.]
Mr. Horn. We have Lee Baca, the sheriff of Los Angeles
County, a county of 10 million people. I remember when I was
involved with the formulation of the National Institute of
Corrections I learned many years ago that the sheriff in L.A.
County has incarcerated people as at rates almost as large as
the whole Federal system. I think that with a lot of the drugs
they have gotten are responsible, Sheriff, but you have, about
30,000 now incarcerated?
STATEMENTS OF LEE BACA, SHERIFF, LOS ANGELES COUNTY; JOSEPH E.
TAIT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER,
METROPOLITAN WATER DEPARTMENT; CASEY CHEL, DISASTER
PREPAREDNESS MANAGER, CITY OF LONG BEACH; TERRY L. HARBOUR,
CHIEF, LONG BEACH FIRE DEPARTMENT; ELLIS STANLEY, EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT SERVICES, CITY OF LOS ANGELES; BERNIE WILSON, LOS
ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT POLICE DEPARTMENT; AND LARRY
KELLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PORT OF LOS ANGELES
Mr. Baca. Around 20,000, give or take a few.
Mr. Horn. Is it now 20? Good, crime is down. OK. Glad to
have Mr. Baca here. He is respected throughout America, and we
are glad to have you with us.
Mr. Baca. Thank you. Good morning, Congressmen, and I would
like to also say hello to the new Members of Congress who are
with you; all of my favorite Members of Congress.
So with that, let me start by taking off where you left off
when you asked Ms. Dalton where the gaps are, and there are a
few here that we need to address. I am here not only as the
Sheriff of Los Angeles County but in the State of California
the State is organized into seven emergency regions. Each of
these regions is comprised of multiple counties. I happen to be
in charge of Region 1. These are neutral aid regions wherein
county resources are gathered and deployed into problem areas,
such as fires, riots, floods, earthquakes. It is my
understanding that California is the largest beneficiary of
FEMA assistance in the Nation, because we have repeatedly major
natural disasters and of course disturbances that require their
assistance.
When Los Angeles County was put on alert by myself on
September 11th, we literally coordinated the ability to deploy
thousands of fire fighters as well as police officers under a
single mutual aid plan that you heard some comment about from
prior speakers this morning. We are well prepared in terms of
our ability to organize ourselves. But your core and your key
question here today is how effectively are Federal, State and
local governments working together to prepare for a biological,
chemical and nuclear attack?
The answer to that question may never be known unless one
occurs. However, we are going through the proper procedures to
answer this question, because, one, we don't have any gaps
locally that I can identify, other than the resources of three
things. One, first-responders need to talk to each other at
command sites of incidents. We can't do that now, and I don't
think this even capable of being done in too many places in the
Nation. Therefore, what we need is the Federal Communications
Commission to be a participant in ensuring that the radio
frequency spectrum that is so valued in this Nation not be just
given to the private sector on any request that the private
sector has, that the public safety system of our Nation depends
on radio communication.
Myself along with every major city chief of police in the
United States have met recently in San Antonio, Texas in
February this year on this very issue, that when the Federal
agencies and commissions who have virtual control over a
resource, such as radio frequency spectrum, are not actively
engaged in discussing their responsibility to solving the
problem, this causes a major concern for me, as it does every
other major city chief in the United States.
Second, we look forward to the Office of National
Preparedness, under FEMA, to get some guidelines out so that we
can start doing what we need to do to further our ability to
provide first-responder services. And so we wait. The core
Federal mission, as it pertains to justice, should not
overshadow local responders' ability to perform rescue and
public safety services, as it pertains to homeland security.
The whole idea of homeland security when you boil it all down
is how well local fire and police and medical service is going
to be able to perform. There is no other group of resources
that are readily deployable, other than what are locally
defined.
When it comes to the specific report I prepared,there are
specific elements common to how one addresses an attack. I have
spoken essentially about mutual aid and first-responder
capabilities of this county and the State; they are second to
none. This State is the best prepared State. Thanks to our
Governor and our Attorney General and our Department of
Justice, as well as the Office of Emergency Services,
everything is in place. I also want to say that the California
Anti-Terrorism Information Center, which I Chair for the State
of California, our intelligence gathering is seamless with the
FBI. The FBI is very cooperative, and we do things on a high
level of responsiveness, interactiveness, and I compliment
Director Iden of the local FBI office to be my strongest ally
in making sure this occurs.
The next most important thing that we do here is our
Terrorist Early Warning Group Program, and that is first-
responders need to be tied to the intelligence links, and I
have said we are, but then we also have to coordinate with the
medical group as to what goes on when fire fighters and police
officers get out on the scene of a disaster or a terrorism
attack. And so our entire planning has been bolstered by the
Board of Supervisors who have brought forth 16 more technical
resources to the Terrorist Early Warning Group. These are
people who are 30 in number who do nothing but plan for every
possible attack, through scenarios, through gathering of
information of possible types of attack. When we talk about the
types, as you know, there are chemical, biological,
radiological and nuclear forms of concern that this group is
responsible for organizing scenarios and response strategies in
the event such an attack occurred.
So in closing, the key here is that I have tasked a group
of people from the private sector, the community, to be part of
a Homeland Security Advisory Group for Los Angeles County. This
is Chaired by Mr. Mark Nathanson, and Orange County, I have
asked Sheriff Carona to do the same, and he has done the same.
So when you look at Ms. Dalton's overall GAO report, which I
think is a core document here, along with the FEMA document, we
are doing everything we can to interface federally, at the
State level and within the County of Los Angeles and then the
bi-county of Region 1, and we have already solved our
intelligence sharing problems up and down the State with 300
police departments and 58 sheriffs departments. But now we have
to reach out to our business community, to our general
neighborhoods, and we have to extend the strategy of homeland
security under the umbrella of the Terrorist Early Warning
Group, and that is my next effort that I have put forth in the
County of Los Angeles.
Thank you very much. I do have another meeting. I am not
sure how critical it is if I leave, but I beg your permission
to do so.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baca follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. If we have any questions, I will
send them to you, and we can put it in the record at this
point.
Mr. Baca. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you for coming. We're delighted to have
today the individual that is in charge of our water. We have
not had good testimony on that during our tour around the
Nation. Joseph Tait is the executive vice president and chief
operating officer of the Metropolitan Water District. I learned
when I was a Senate staff aid in the 1960's the power of the
Metropolitan Water District and the quality of people for its
board. And a lot of things were done in the 1950's starting
with Earl Warren and Gooding and Edwin Knight and so forth. And
Senator Kuchel, that is K-U-C-H-E-L, who spent a lot of time on
the water and how we get it to Los Angeles and how we get it to
California, generally. So we're delighted to have you.
Mr. Tait. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I am delighted to be here as a representative of
the Metropolitan Water District. I would also, Mr. Chairman,
like to thank Bonnie for her information that she forwarded to
us while we were in Washington, DC, and the support that she
gave us while we were back there last week.
As you are all showing during this recess your commitment
to this issue, Metropolitan has also shown its commitment to
security for many, many years. Mr. Chairman, you started this
briefing mentioning that the events of September 11th had
changed our lives but not brought the country or business to a
stop, nor did it bring the Metropolitan Water District to a
halt either. Just coincidentally on September 11th that was our
monthly scheduled board meeting where 26 directors had to come
from the 6-county service area to the downtown headquarters
building here in Los Angeles. And if you can imagine what the
chaotic environment was in a downtown high-rise building that
day, you can imagine what the atmosphere was like in that board
meeting. However, the directors did decide to go on with their
board meeting, they did not cancel their board meeting as a
result of the events, and the Metropolitan has also taken that
theme along with our 26 member agencies in supporting security
improvements.
Just to give you a little background on Metropolitan, the
26 member agencies and cities and special districts that we
serve really make up the 6-county service area which
Metropolitan services. We have a 5,200-square mile territory
running all the way from the Colorado River to the Mexican
border, up the coast to the Ventura County line and then back
down to the dessert into Riverside and San Bernadino County. So
we have pretty much the entire bottom third of the State. We
supply the water that impacts the lives of about 17 million
people.
As the representative of Metropolitan today and being the
public steward of the region's water supply and infrastructure
network, we have acted prudently and swiftly to secure the
precious resource that we all use, and that is water. Several
things that Metropolitan has done since September 11th have
been significant, although under the secrecy of confidentiality
as much as we could get away with. We have completed two
vulnerability assessments long before they were called for or
required or directed. Our board has approved $5.5 million in
security improvements. We have not asked for reimbursement, we
are not here today with our hands out. Our next security guard
contract to cover those six counties will basically double our
costs, from $11.9 million to about $20 million over 3 years to
cover security for this service area.
We have taken other steps. I will give you a couple of
examples. Our aircraft that fly patrols over our water system
every day have already had two engines replaced in the last 6
months because of the exhaustive patrols that we have embarked
upon on our service area. We have also--we are one of the first
agencies anywhere to take down critical maps and infrastructure
details off of our Web site when other folks were calling us
wondering why we did that. It was for logical and prudent
reasons, as we saw, but some folks weren't really understanding
why we did that.
We listed five areas, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, where this committee can come to the assistance of
Metropolitan and the 17 million residents that we serve. And
those five areas are we really need to partner with our Federal
agencies. Those Federal agencies are such as the Department of
Defense that could forward to us the list of those chemicals
and those contaminants, those exotic contaminants that exist.
But because the water district has not always been on the radar
screen of national security, we do not have all of that
information that we know exists, and that could be a great
benefit to us in preparing for such events.
Research and development of quicker methods to monitor
those contaminants. Currently, right now, in that $5.5 million
board appropriation, we plan on accentuating our remote site
monitoring throughout our service area that gives our treatment
plant operators a heads up long before that water would arrive
into the urban metropolitan area so that we can taken adequate
measures to respond.
Currently, we understand that through our meetings last
week in Washington EPA plans on reimbursing some of us who have
conducted vulnerability assessments and that reimbursement
level will be capped at approximately $125,000. Well, as you
can see, Metropolitan has spent upwards of $11 million more for
security than we did in the prior 3 years, and so you can see
the impact that it will on us.
Federal funding for a demonstration program for alternate
water supply protections and those protections would be
whatever research, whatever monitoring, whatever testing,
whatever new technologies we may employ. Our system is so large
and spread out that we would probably be a pretty good test lab
for firms that are proposing these type of devices to help us
improve security.
The last one is our water supply is heavily dependent on
what the Bureau of Reclamation security measures and operations
on the Colorado River entail. Right now the Colorado River
obviously impacts many western States, and Metropolitan gets
about half of our supply from the Colorado River. So what
happens on Parker Dam and Hoover Dam and through that watershed
is very critical to southern California and the 17 million
people that we serve. So the funding for the Bureau and for
their improvements would be very beneficial.
Mr. Chairman, you have my written testimony, and I won't go
into detail in that testimony. Again, any way that Metropolitan
can help this subcommittee or any other Federal agency, we are
here to do so. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tait follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, that is very helpful. I might add for all
of you that haven't been before us before that once I call on
you your full statement is in the hearing record at this point,
and you can summarize it or hit the major points that you have.
A lot will come out in the question period. There are some very
good questions I have got for a lot of you.
We go with Mr. Chel. Casey Chel is disaster preparedness
manager for the city of Long Beach.
Mr. Chel. Good afternoon, Congressman Horn, members of the
committee. Thank you for the opportunity----
Mr. Horn. Are you any relation to the great Fred Chel?
Mr. Chel. That is my uncle.
Mr. Horn. Huh?
Mr. Chel. That is my uncle.
Mr. Horn. Yes. He was great.
Mr. Chel. Thank you. The city of Long Beach began preparing
for a weapons of mass destruction event in 1998 as part of the
Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic Preparedness Program. At that
time, over 200 individuals with 49 different agencies
participated in a training program that they could take back to
their agencies to train their personnel to respond to such an
act. Long Beach, as part of the original 120 cities, also
received support from the Department of Health and Human
Services and the Department of Justice to create a treatment
and response cache of emergency medicines to treat 1,000
patients should the need arise to better prepare for a
coordinated response. This has led to three tabletop exercises,
one functional, one full-scale and--that we have conducted over
the past 2\1/2\ years.
The city has also developed a committee comprised of every
key city department, local hospitals and the FBI to continually
focus on the planning and coordination efforts of the city of
Long Beach. A response cache of emergency supplies and
equipment has also been created and stands ready to respond
should the need arise. We as a city also participate in the Los
Angeles County Terrorism Working Group and Los Angeles County
Terrorism Early Warning Group with the Department of Health and
Human Services and the MMRS Program.
The efforts of the city have been significant. The
determined threats have been identified, plans to secure and
protect these threats are ongoing, but since September 11th the
increase in security at our port, the water storage facilities
and the airport, as well as the significant security and
coordination efforts throughout the city, have created a
significant drain on the staff and funds for the city of Long
Beach.
Throughout all these efforts, several areas continue to be
a concern to the city of Long Beach. These areas include the
clear need for funding to support local hospitals in developing
response plans, obtaining emergency supplies and
decontamination equipment. Training must be addressed. Funding
to support the extended efforts of local planning and
coordination efforts, funds to upgrade the Department of Health
and Human Services laboratory in the city of Long Beach to be
able to determine the credibility of determined potential
threats and products quickly and accurately, funding to create
sustained and local hazardous materials response team for the
city of Long Beach. We currently do not have a dedicated team
within the city. Increased funding for port security, including
the addition of personnel in and around water, the boats and
other equipment, to patrol the ports and establish a
coordinated response plan between our agency and the Coast
Guard, funds to train emergency response personnel to better
protect the general public and, finally, the funds to sustain
the existing programs that we must find. The constant updating
of medicines and the ongoing training costs must be dealt with.
These costs are significant and yet unfunded to us.
Although the efforts of the city of Long Beach have been
significant, much more must be done. To truly meet the needs of
the community, funding must be found to continue the efforts
that have occurred so far and expand the program to better meet
the needs of the community. Unfunded mandates and the need to
plan, prepare and response to any potential weapons of mass
destruction event are significant. As I said, even though the
efforts have been significant, the needs are many, and we look
forward to the assistant that we are going to be getting. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chel follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Thank you. That is very helpful, and I hope you
have got Pine Avenue, where I live, in good shape. Don't let
the palm trees fall on us.
We now go to Terry Harbour, chief of the Long Beach Fire
Department, a very fine department and one of the best in the
country. So welcome.
Mr. Harbour. Thank you very much, Chairman and members of
the subcommittee. It is a great honor to be here, and I thank
you for this opportunity, particularly with your willingness to
hear what the local agencies have as needs and concerns.
I would like to focus on three primary areas of concern for
the city of Long Beach in the fight against nuclear, biological
and chemical terrorism. As you have heard, the efforts of Long
Beach have been significant, but more is needed to protect the
community and its citizens against terrorist acts. The Long
Beach Health Services, the police department and the fire
department have essential needs to combat terrorist activities.
I would like to focus and outline those needs that could be
funded through your efforts at the Federal level.
First of all, the health department needs to upgrade their
existing laboratory to a Level B facility. The equipment needed
would include a chemical analyzer and a biological analyzer.
This equipment would allow for anthrax testing, a quick look
with a 2-hour turnaround and a culture in 24-hour turnaround.
Presently, this type of testing has to be sent to L.A. County,
and there is a delay in the time factor to do that.
Additionally, the health department would like an epidemiology
division. A full-time epidemiologist and additional test
equipment, this would enhance the surveillance and early
detection of communicable diseases of unusual occurrence, and
that is what they are really looking at, the unusual
occurrence, so that they get an early heads up if there is some
type of pattern forming.
The police department's goal is to get two fully equipped
police boats staffed with armed officers and including
electronics, weapons and the state-of-the-art surveillance
equipment. These vessels would provide on-the-water security
for the Port of Long Beach and the adjacent waterways. As you
are aware, the marine waterways and the ports are a major area
of concern, and enhancing the security in these areas is
paramount. This would be a joint effort between the U.S. Coast
Guard, the Port of Long Beach and the Long Beach Police
Department.
Our last area of concern for the city is a Hazardous
Materials Response Team. You heard Mr. Chel speak about it.
Currently, the city of Long Beach does not have, possess the
resources to mitigate a hazardous materials emergency on its
own. We must rely on outside agencies that are dedicated to
other communities. Long Beach is the largest city in the State
of California that does not have a Hazardous Materials
Emergency Response Team. Simply stated, if one of our fire
fighters or a civilian was to go down in a hazardous material
spill or cloud, we currently are unable to safely perform an
extrication rescue. Funding for this program would be the
purchase of a vehicle, equipment and provide the necessary
training for 28 fire fighters. It would be a 24/7 service for
the Port of Long Beach and the city. This proposal is based on
the expectations that the port and the city of Long Beach would
jointly share the annual funding for this port-based Hazardous
Materials Team.
In addition, the fire department is the lead agency for
disaster preparedness in the city of Long Beach. Additional
staff is needed in disaster preparedness and for training in
coordination with the local, State and Federal agencies, as you
heard Mr. Chel state.
These are the three primary needs that the city of Long
Beach has identified as critical to taking the level of
awareness and preparedness for terrorism. Again, thank you for
this opportunity to present.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harbour follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Horn. Well, that is very helpful, and let me just ask
one question on your testimony now so we can get it in. Did you
talk to your counterpart in Baltimore with the problems that it
had when a train was going under their tunnel there, and they
really didn't know what was in the train. I am not sure they
have pulled it out yet, but it was a real mess and a lot of
problems, and I just wondered if the----
Mr. Harbour. I personally, no, have not talked to the
representatives in Baltimore. I am aware of the situation and
what they had. what you need to realize is that what is on the
highway and it is placard usually, if it is in a tank truck or
something like this, which gives us a basic identification type
of material and is the NFPA placarding standards and the DOT
standards, but a lot of times you just don't know what is in
those containers and----
Mr. Horn. Well, is it a crime if they don't post the
hazardous materials so the police department and the fire
department will know what they are facing?
Mr. Harbour. Well, yes, it is a crime, but the placarding
is fairly general. The DOT placarding you will see on your
tankers. It could be a 1075, what happens to the liquified
petroleum gas. But the real test is when you get the manifest
off the truck. In that instance there, there was no way that
they could get that manifest. The key element of the hazardous
material is isolation and then identification, and you have to
identify what you have before you can move forward.
Ms. Watson. On that issue?
Mr. Horn. Yes, sure.
Ms. Watson. We had a law passed in California while I was
there in the senate that said not only is it hazardous material
but you had to document on the label. And you need to pull that
up and see if it is being enforced, because under this new
threat, not only would it destroy the vehicle and other
vehicles around but road conditions. Transportation would be
affected too. So you need to followup to see if you are covered
and if the law is being enforced.
Mr. Harbour. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Horn. While we are waiting for the next witness,
Patricia Dalton, take Sheriff Baca's place so you have got a
place representing the Comptroller General of the United
States.
OK. We will now move to Mr. Stanley. And Mr. Stanley is the
Emergency Management Services, city of Los Angeles, so you are
in this building a lot, right?
Mr. Stanley. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr.----
Mr. Horn. Great place. I haven't been in it since all the
modifications have been done.
Mr. Stanley. Well, welcome back. Thank you, Mr.----
Mr. Horn. The fact that we are freezing is beside the
point. [Laughter.]
Ms. Watson. Catching pneumonia in the meantime.
Mr. Horn. That is right. Sounds like we are back in the
Carter administration.
Ms. Watson. It has got a mind of its own.
Mr. Horn. Well, we are delighted to be here.
Mr. Stanley. Thank you, Mr. Horn; we appreciate it. And
members of the committee, thank you for allowing us to
participate in this process. We recognize that State and local
input is essential to the success of any homeland security
efforts.
We also--from the standpoint of the local Emergency
Management Office, we respect the Nation's ability and effort
to bring forth the Homeland Security Office, and it should be
made one of the highest priorities in standardization and
support of local emergency management agencies to serve as the
integrating element of homeland security efforts regarding
preparedness and response, recovery from--and the mitigation of
consequences of a terrorist attack.
In order to ensure that the preparedness and response to
the consequence of any terrorist attack, there must be a common
infrastructure at all levels of government which has as its
single objective the planning for and integration of all
aspects of the potential incident. There is and has been
historically such a structure and competence in every level of
government, as well as the private, for-profit and non-profit
sectors.
The structure is integrating the emergency management
system. The core component of the system is the State and local
emergency managers who have been responsible for ensuring the
preparedness, response and recovery capability of their
jurisdictions. Regrettably, while this system represents the
single best capability for implementation of a national
homeland security strategy at all levels of government, the
State and local elements of that system has been significantly
underfunded for decades.
Funding programs such as FEMA's State and Local Assistance
Program, the Emergency Management Assistance Program have
consistently only been available to minority agencies needing
support and have only been funded at a fraction of the
authorized amount. As a result, local agencies are consistently
understaffed, often part-time and even volunteer positions.
They are often very weak at the organizational structure of
local government, which makes it difficult for them to
accomplish jurisdictional-wide coordination and planning.
Their function is often not understood by local officials,
and it is often confused with that of the emergency response
agencies, making it virtually impossible to gain the support
necessary to provide for a full service integrated program.
They seldom have the resources to effect the vital job of
performing and preparing the general public for disaster.
I mention that as a general overview of what is going on in
our country and would like to take a couple seconds to explain
in Los Angeles and in California we have a very comprehensive
program. The city of Los Angeles has what is called an
Emergency Operations Board in which many of the departments,
including my colleagues of the harbor and the airport, make up
that particular board. We meet regularly. Ironically, in
California and in our local jurisdiction, we have a lot of
incidents. You might recall on September 9 we had a 4.5
earthquake here in the city of Los Angeles. On September the
10th, we did a bioterrorism exercise here in the city as part
of our ongoing training programs that we routinely do. And on
September 11th, the world changed as we knew it.
That is important because we do sit down as a community,
and we have challenges. One of the challenges that Sheriff Baca
indicated was working with the FCC, looking at those frequency
issues. There is an issue now before the FCC, the 700 megahertz
frequency, in which they are getting ready to auction off
frequencies, and it is important that public safety be given
their critical share.
We have developed and have in place a critical
infrastructure plan that met with all the elements of EMS,
Emergency Medical, as well as our critical facilities, to make
sure that we exercise them and their plans are in place. It is
important that we keep those running. It is critically
important, too, that FEMA's programs with domestic preparedness
and especially the hazard mitigation grant programs on pre-
disaster mitigations be funded appropriately so that we might
mitigate those things in our communities that are disaster
potential.
Again, thank you. Mr. Horn, I remember testifying before
you about Y2K when you Chaired that Technology Committee, and
appreciate the efforts that you have done there. And Ms.
Millender-McDonald, we testified before you recently on some of
these homeland protections. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. It is good to see you again.
Bernie Wilson is the chief of the police department for the
Los Angeles International Airport. I am a 2 million mile member
of your fine airport.
Mr. Wilson. We would encourage you to increase that mileage
at any opportunity.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me today. I am a late
addition to the panel, so you have no written testimony from
me. But I promise you that I will keep my verbal comments brief
and I am available for written testimony should you need it.
Before I start, I just wanted to mention something, that I
had a chance to meet with Congressman Watson and Congressman
Millender-McDonald after September 11th, and we had an
opportunity to talk about the legislation that eventually
created the Transportation Security Administration, and I just
wanted to say that I am not going to take credit for the
legislation, I am sure you talked to a lot of people, but here
it is a few months later and I have heard other people say,
``Thank you, it is everything I asked for.'' It is working out
very well for us so far.
I represent a very unique community. The airport has 50,000
people or better that work there day in and day out at LAX, and
we serve about a million people a year that come through the
environment. It is a very unique business environment for that
reason. It is an environment with all those people who don't
actually live there, so we don't have residential to deal with
on airport grounds. Of course our surrounding communities have
issues with us, but it is a very unique business community.
It is also a very unique people community. We have people
who are part of our community who are only going to be with us
for a very, very short period of time while they are changing
planes or while they are catching a plane and then they will
move on. But we still owe them a degree of professionalism and
response capabilities to deal with them while they are with us.
And, of course, it is a very unique security community. We
have capabilities because there are certain Federal
requirements that a lot of other communities don't have. We can
literally lock the place up if we have to, as we did, as a
matter of fact, after September 11th.
But recognizing we have this unique community, we also have
to look at the realities that we faced before September 11th.
We are deeply involved with interagency planning and
cooperation, and that includes Federal agencies across the
entire Federal spectrum, as well as local agencies. We were the
very early starters in getting training, what is know as the
Incident Command System, which is a standby system for dealing
with emergencies that was actually created by the Fire Service,
and we owe a debt of gratitude to the Fire Service, and every
time I see a fire chief I always thank him for it, so thanks,
Chief.
The Incident Command System may have made a tremendous
impact on us after September 11th. We were able to see how it
actually works from a real live incident on a massive scale,
and for a period of about 3 months or better, we were in
emergency mode all the time with not one display of ego, not
one agency trying to claim someone else's work. It actually put
them in place, and I am very proud to say that it worked for
us.
In our planning done for September 11th, we had a number of
things that we did as a matter of regular course. We have
annual tests for response to aviation incidents, whether they
are aircraft crashes, action type incidents or security
incidents. And we have also--we are kind of picking up the ball
on the weapons of mass destruction potential. For example, we
now own and possess three decontamination units, which is like
a human car wash. You start at one end and you come out the
other end all scrubbed and clean and with a change of clothing.
And we were able to deploy one of those units for the
Democratic National Convention on a standby basis. I believe we
actually used it one time. We had a police officer who had
something thrown at him. They didn't know what it was, so we
activated it, he went through it and it worked for us.
Obviously, the tests and the focus on aviation and airports
was September 11th related, but I just want to emphasize that
we were planning for a lot of things way before September 11th,
and part of that planning does include talking to people. We
are members of the Airport Law Enforcement Agency Network,
which was started after the attacks in Vienna in 1985, and we
were able to talk to any airport in the country by literally
picking up the phone and talking to people on a first-name
basis.
Our challenges that we are meeting in the near future,
besides continuing the recovery from September 11th issues, we
are helping the Transportation Security Administration get
setup. They have a very, very tough road ahead of them to
create an agency out of nothing, and it is going to be a
massive undertaking for them. We have received absolute
cooperation from them, and I hope that we reciprocate the same.
Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. That is very helpful, and I hope my
car isn't by the curb.
Larry Keller is probably one of the outstanding port
directors in the United States. I see him frequently because he
wants that harbor dredge, and we will do the best we can. He
and his rival next door, Long Beach, wherever you count it, one
is one and the other might be two, so what is it this month? I
mean are you one or two in the Nation?
Mr. Keller. I have to say that this month, Congressman, we
are one.
Mr. Horn. Yes.
Mr. Keller. But Port Long Beach isn't far behind.
Mr. Horn. OK. I will tell them that. Give them a little
poke. So it is a great port, both of them are, and they have
great competition, and what they have done with the Alameda
corridor, which came out of your planning operation, and Long
Beach's planning operation went on with it, and that is about
to come on and open on April 12, I believe. And that will be
copied by almost every port in the United States. We got there
first, and we got the money first. So glad to hear anything you
want to say on this.
Mr. Keller. Thank you, Chairman Horn. Thank you, committee
members and Congresswoman Millender-McDonald and Congresswoman
Waters, for giving me the opportunity to appear before you
today.
I thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Port of Los
Angeles and the subject of seaport security as it relates to
the international maritime traffic into and out of the San
Pedro Bay every day. As you know, the port is a public entity,
and we relate to the private businesses. So the model is just a
little bit different in terms of the partnerships that we bring
to the table and people with whom we must interact.
This hearing is to discuss ways that the city of Los
Angeles Port has prepared for a terrorist attack and improved
security, what the needs are for the city to facilitate seaport
security now and in the future and the quality of cooperation
from Federal agencies.
Just a little bit of a background before I get into that,
if I may. The Port of Los Angeles is a remarkable story. In
1984, after the main channel was deepened to 45 feet, the Port
of Los Angeles was ranked eighth in the Nation, moving 1.04
million TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, the standard
maritime container.
With the help, cooperation and partnership of our customers
in the Federal Government, the Port of Los Angeles is today an
environmentally responsible port complex which handles more
than 5 million containers in a year, while creating hundreds of
thousands of jobs, not only in our region but across the
Nation. Together, the two Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
ship roughly 35 percent of the Nation's water trade.
Last year's total of more than 5 million containers marked
a national record in this growth has been particularly
important because the rest of the Nation and the State of
California experienced a dramatic economic downturn several
times during that period. We are in the midst of an incredible
construction activity, as you pointed out, Congressman, as we
prepare for the challenges and opportunities of the future. The
Alameda corridor will, as you say--the first phase of the
almost 500-acre sea/land terminal opens mid-year.
However, the events of September 11, 2001 have shifted our
focus from efficiency to security, while at the same time
continuing the through-put which is so important to our
Nation's and region's economy. Led by our port police force,
our response was immediate as we came down with various law
enforcement officials as well as the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S.
Customs, FBI, INS, other Federal agencies and Ms. Stanley took
care of the city.
Our national crisis has mandated security precautions and
permanent changes in how we do our business. This is a new day
with enhanced security standards for our maritime community. We
have experienced only slight delays caused by understandable
security measures, but commerce has continued unabated.
Since September 11th, the Port of Los Angeles has had in
place 12-hour shifts for port police, although we have begun
cutting that back just a bit; two patrol vessels on the water
at any given time, increased fixed post security in the cruise
passenger terminal; the addition of two explosive detection
canines; increased liaison with various Federal, State and
local law enforcement agencies, without whom the mission would
be impossible; regular dive inspections of passenger terminal,
tank vessels and other sensitive areas of the port;
establishment of a joint port police/U.S. Coast Guard/Sea
Marshall program for incoming and outgoing vessels, and that
includes all passenger vessels; increase inspection of truck
traffic; temporary placement of security barriers in key
facilities; increased security officer protection in port
facilities and support to various legislative, industrial and
neighborhood communities on port security matters. The costs of
the first year are estimated at $1.5 million to $2 million.
The city of Los Angeles and Mayor James Hahn have taken the
lead in establishing a Port Security Task Force to look at the
San Pedro Bay Port to evaluate needs, challenges and
opportunities for providing more secure ports. In our open
society, the challenge is to provide security yet to
effectively facilitate commerce and traffic. Our future
security needs offer increased cooperation and support for
Federal, State and local government bodies and agencies.
Mayor Hahn's Port Security Task Force is looking into how
we can more closely monitor who and what enters our country
through our seaports. Securing our borders and our seaports is
vital to the protection of the United States. This task force
has brought together executive level participation of local,
State and Federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, Customs,
FBI and INS, along with local and national police forces,
allowing the quick resolution of issues, enhanced security and
increased cooperation among all the agencies. We believe it is
a model for developing the outstanding the cooperation to
protect our vital resources, and yet more must be done.
Some other areas of port security we would like to put on
the table include development of a waterfront container
inspectionsite, or CIS, including facilities for involved
agencies to look at suspect containers within the confines of
the port; a portwide identification system to control access
and positively identify all people entering port facilities;
increase port police personnel; adequately deploy and maintain
increased operational security and policing functions;
development of systems and legislation to support the sharing
of passenger information and crew information for vessels
arriving in the port; development of a data base and
legislation to support acquisition and analysis of information
about persons and products arriving by sea; development of a
new public relations program to communicate credible terrorist
threat information to the public and to dispel unsubstantiated
rumors; development of new technology to adequately inspect
more shipping containers, both here and abroad; funding for
improved audio and video surveillance and monitoring systems;
creation of a secure Internet Web site for law enforcement
agencies to act as a terrorism warning clearinghouse, and
establishing a data base and central repository for
intelligence that is currently being collected by several
Federal and State resources.
It is anticipated that these enhancements for port security
in the Port of Los Angeles will cost $36.1 million in one-time
expenditures. Because of all these factors and the new
vulnerability, it is imperative that we concentrate on
maintaining and enhancing security awareness of our maritime
environment. We also strive to encourage more open information
sharing, and I have said this before, among local, State and
Federal law enforcement agencies in order to be better prepared
to fight terrorism as it occurs. I am pleased to say that the
Mayor's task force is making important strides in this area.
I want to also say that it is very important that the ACE
Customs computer system is fully funded an in operation. It is
an invaluable tool in spotting the right containers and the
right people to look at them. I also can't praise highly enough
the job being done by the U.S. Coast Guard and Captain Holmes.
The cooperation of all the Federal agencies has been
instrumental in our effective response to date to September
11th and the continuing operation.
We must continue to work hard to be successful. We welcome
new opportunities. While we are proud of our record and
accomplishments over the decade, we know that we are constantly
being challenged and will continue to be challenged by
tomorrow's security needs. Thank you for the opportunity to
share this information.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much, and I wish you well.
You are in a strategic situation, and so is our Nation and our
economy.
So let me start in with Mr. Tait on a couple of questions.
You talked about alternative sources of the water. Would that
include the desalinization?
Mr. Tait. Absolutely.
Mr. Horn. And we are trying to have that happen in Long
Beach.
Mr. Tait. Yes.
Mr. Horn. And anything you can do to be helpful, we
obviously would appreciate, because it has got to complement.
Israel did it 30, 40 years ago, and I don't know if they are
still doing it, but I happened to be there when the Sharon
election was, and I chatted with him for an hour, and he was in
this desalinization again. And when you look at the Jordan
River, there is not much water coming down there, so that big
ocean is very important.
How about wetlands, would you put that in the resource for
water?
Mr. Tait. Actually, our approach to wetlands is two-fold.
No. 1, the wetlands have often offset some of the need to
actually use that wetland water because we have been able to
use an adjoining basis, something in the near vicinity. So we
really haven't planned on using wetlands water. That gets into
another topic of watershed protection, and as you know, we have
spent many, many dollars protecting the watershed so that when
the water does come into an impoundment, and reservoir, such as
Diamond Valley Lake, that the water remains pristine until we
receive it in our treatment plants, thus the lower cost to
treat the water because it was already in good quality when we
received it. So watershed protection and wetlands improvements
are two parts of our planning process.
Mr. Horn. Well, that is a good idea, certainly, for the
reservoirs we need upstream to store that, and I have got a
great program for you. It is known as the Seretis Wetland, so
anything you can do to get that moving we would appreciate
that.
Mr. Tait. OK.
Mr. Horn. So let me ask you on--well, let me ask you
first--have Ms. Dalton say what are we missing, anything today
on this panel? And then we can go to questions from my
colleagues.
Ms. Dalton. I think the panel has very comprehensively
covered some of the issues that are present here in California
as well as in all of the Nation and the resources that need to
be protected, and highlighting the importance of planning,
integration of our resources and communication.
Mr. Horn. Very good. Now we will go with 5 minutes down the
line.
Ms. Watson. Yes. Very quickly, I want to commend Terry
Harbour on this report, your testimony, because not only do you
make a request but you have the dollars assigned to it. Mr.
Chair, you have got a lot of work to do. As I understand, Long
Beach is the largest city in the State of California that does
not have a Hazardous Material Emergency Response Team. And I
don't know where the funding will come for that, but my
question is, and this can go to Mr. Harbour and Mr. Keller,
maybe the next attack is on cruise ships to send a message. You
know we had first with the planes, now the cruise ships, and
can I hear comments from the two of you as to what we are doing
in terms of protecting our cruise ships that go out of the
ports?
Mr. Harbour. I can tell you for Long Beach right now we
don't have any cruise ships, but as you know, by the end of
next year Carnival Cruise Lines will be docking at the stern of
the Queen Mary, so it is one of the things that we are going to
need to deal with. To my knowledge, we haven't identified it. I
am sure L.A. is an expert at it, and I would like to refer that
to Mr. Keller.
Mr. Keller. Congresswoman Watson, that is a very good
question. We believe the human vulnerabilities should be placed
on an even higher plane than goods and property, and
immediately after September 11th the bookings on the cruise
ships dropped about 50 to 60 percent of what had been
anticipated. We immediately went to work with what is called an
early version of the Sea Marshall Program. And that meant we
put armed guards on every arriving and departing ship who were
then put on with our pilot boats or taken off with our pilot
boats. What that meant was that when the guards were on board
they secured the navigation space of the bridge, the engine
room and the communication center of the ship and talked to the
officers and crew to make sure that there was no suspicious
activity going on.
When the ships are in port, we have either Coast Guard
boats or Port Police boats alongside 24/7 to make sure that no
one approaches that boat. The boats are escorted in with an
armed Coast Guard cutter to make sure that no suspicious boats
approach the ship to do harm. We have purchased two explosive
sniffing dogs to run over the top of all the luggage that is
being put on the ship. As you know, unlike an airliner, we give
the passengers their luggage back. We put in magnetometers so
that all the crew and passengers are screened going in, and we
have secured the area in which the supplies, the food, any
other necessary supplies for the ship are inspected box by box
to be sure that nothing is going on that ship that doesn't
belong.
I am happy to report that as a result of these activities,
passenger acceptance has been very, very high, and the booking
ratio has risen almost to 90 percent now, because people
consider this a safe vacation.
Ms. Watson. Very good. I have one more question, Mr. Chair,
and that is for Mr. Tait. In your testimony, you talked about
alternative water supplies, and my concern now it looks like
the bottled water would be available, but is it possible to
require homes to have some kind of alternative water supplier?
Is there any kind of equipment that is self-safe in terms of
water supply? That is of a big concern to us at this time, and
I don't know if Brita could sift out whatever the bioterrorism
organism might be. Is it a water system? Is there anything that
could help? You know, smoke alarms for fire. Is there anything
we can do for people in their own homes?
Mr. Tait. Point-of-use devices have always been used for
what I would call elementary or minor filtration and treatment.
They are definitely not the solution. That is why Metropolitan
is promoting maybe a joint approach with bottler and suppliers
to take Metropolitan water, have those waters bottled and
stored in strategic areas. We have five treatment plants
throughout the southern California metropolitan area in various
counties, and so if you were to take those bottled supplies of
our own supply after it is treated and have those available for
the communities in the event of some kind of an attack, you
would raise the comfort level of the folks who are looking for
an alternative.
Ms. Watson. We had gone through a very devastating
earthquake in 1994 and we couldn't get the supplies to the
people. I came down here to City Hall and they said, ``Get a
guy, find somebody with a metal hat on and stop him.'' So at
the point of use, is there anything that can be done by the
residents to purify water in case our highways are destroyed,
the vehicles that transport are also affected? Is there
anything that we can do in our homes?
Mr. Tait. Sure. Point-of-use devices are effective.
However, it would really depend on what type of contaminant it
is. And if you also look in my testimony, partnering with DOD
on what those list of contaminants are that we are not privy to
right now, that confidential list, would help us better plan.
Remember when there are earthquakes or things of that nature
that really knock out infrastructure, you are really talking
about just simple organics, dirt, those type of things in the
water that you would either take care of through boiling or
through point-of-use devices. But either way, again, point-of-
use devices are still just that elementary treatment level, so
that is really not a solution, an overall solution.
Ms. Watson. Well, it would be very helpful if you could
supply us, all of our offices, with a list of the point-of-use
devices that could be effective. I know it is elementary, but I
am thinking about transportation systems, how do we convey and
transport if our roads are knocked out? And I don't put any of
that past the terrorists at this time, so we need to look at
every option we have.
With that, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you. I
think all of you have done an outstanding job in bringing us up
to date. We are going to depend on you providing us with
information that we cannot get out of Washington, DC. So we
will be sure to followup with you, to call you so that we can
instruct our constituents as they call in on a daily basis. We
want to give them a better comfort level than they have now. So
thank you very much for holding the hearing.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. Thank you. We have the
gentlewoman from Los Angeles County and the State of
California, and that is Ms. Millender-McDonald.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. My goodness, Mr. Chairman. Again,
thank you so much for your leadership on this hearing. You have
brought us a tremendous set of panelists, many of whom I have
had the pleasure of talking with for the congressional
oversight hearing on water with Congressman Ken Talbert, and so
we have had a lot of the issues that you have presented to us
today through that hearing. And also the oversight hearing that
we had, the congressional oversight hearing down at the ports
with Congressman Mark Souder.
And so with that, I mean all of you I have heard from you.
Mr. Stanley and all of you have incredible testimony. The Chief
Harbour, I have not heard from you, but I have heard from your
deputies and others, and you did the right thing to present us
with your testimony and dollar figures with it, because
otherwise we would not have known to what extent your requests
were and the amount of money.
I would simply say to all of you that we recognize that a
lot of you had to go into your budgets to put together a type
of emergency program, given September 11th, and what this
Federal Government can do is perhaps not reimburse you but
further give you the funding that is necessary to secure your
various bases that you have already spent of your own budget
dollars to help us in the crisis of September 11th. So I
applaud you on that, and, Mr. Chairman, I do know, in talking
with the Port of Long Beach folks who came to Washington a
couple of weeks ago, they have spent an incredible amount of
their own budget resources to help us safeguard the ports. If
it is nothing else, we should try to seek funding we can to
help all of these fine folks with in terms of not repaying but
to further the preparation of emergency crisis.
With that, again, Mr. Chairman, I will submit my statement
for the record. I have heard from these fine groups of people,
and thank you so much for this hearing. I am going to have to
tip out
because of other commitments, but I thank you again for your
leadership.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much for coming, and without
objection, your document will be put at this point in the
record.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Juanita Millender-McDonald
follows:]
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Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Mr. Horn. Well, I share my colleagues sentiments that you
have done a wonderful job, and there really isn't too much more
to be said. And I will incorporate Mr. Souder's, and Mr. Keller
and I have talked about that, and it was very good testimony,
and we are glad to do it. We have got a lot of ports in this
State of California, and I know that you and Ms. Bonta said
that there is about 800--what was it, 8,800 water supplies? Let
us see? Well, it is a lot, but it isn't in the jurisdiction of
those of you here in southern California, and I guess what we
will do is we will find out in San Francisco a few days from
now and see if they are as well organized as you are.
So thank you very much, and I am going to thank the people
that helped put this together, and we have many people to--J.
Russell George is the staff director and chief counsel for the
subcommittee. To my left here is the deputy staff director,
Bonnie Heald. Justin Paulhamus, the majority clerk--where is
Justin? Is he around? He is working back where he should be,
right? And Earl Pierce, professional staff member who is not
here today, but he helped coordinate everyone's testimony.
And the district staff, Connie Sziebl is in the back with a
red coat, and she has been the best district director in the
United States, and everybody agrees to it. And that way we
don't have to pay her anything. So Ryan Peterson has done a
wonderful job here with the camera, and he is an intern with us
in the district office, and Jennifer Hodges is working with
him. We thank you both for this and hope you aren't an ice
cube.
So the city of Los Angeles, a lot of people are to be
thanked. When we came into the garage this morning, people
couldn't have been nicer, and usually when you go into some
government garage, they sort of snarl at you. Not here, they
are nice, friendly people. And Jim Seeley, of course, you all
know. He is the key person in Washington on legislation, and
thank Deputy Mayor Carmel Celo, and you heard from Councilman
Jack Chois and Denise Sample and Diego Alverez and Dary Gomez
and Lindsey Watson and Avarcay Diaz. And the court reporter is
Kathleen Torres, thank you also. It is tough when you have got
to get everybody's words out in the right way, because we
depend on it.
That is it. Thank you. And with that, we are adjourned, and
we thank you for your testimony.
[Whereupon, at 1:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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