    [House Hearing, 108 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

     COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING FEDERAL ASSISTANCE TO FIRST RESPONDERS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
                       EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL
                                   RELATIONS

                                     of the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                               GOVERNMENT REFORM

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                          ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 15, 2003

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 108-112

                                   __________

           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

                                     ______

    92-125              U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
                                WASHINGTON : 2003
    ____________________________________________________________________________
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                         COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

                         TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
    CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut       TOM LANTOS, California
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
    JOHN M. McHUGH, New York             EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
    MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana              CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio           ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
    DOUG OSE, California                 DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
    RON LEWIS, Kentucky                  DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
    JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia               JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    CHRIS CANNON, Utah                   DIANE E. WATSON, California
    ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida              STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia          CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee       LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
    JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma              C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
    NATHAN DEAL, Georgia                     Maryland
    CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan          ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
    TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania                 Columbia
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    JOHN R. CARTER, Texas                CHRIS BELL, Texas
    WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota                 ------
    MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee          BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
                                             (Independent)

                           Peter Sirh, Staff Director
                     Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
                          Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
                           Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
                  Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director

     Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
                                   Relations

                    CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
    STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio           TOM LANTOS, California
    RON LEWIS, Kentucky                  BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida              CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia          LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee       C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
    TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania                 Maryland
    WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota     CHRIS BELL, Texas
                                         JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

                                   Ex Officio

    TOM DAVIS, Virginia                  HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
                Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
                  R. Nicholas Palarino, Senior Policy Advisor
                            Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
                        David Rapallo, Minority Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on September 15, 2003...............................     1
    Statement of:
        Arenovski, Dan, associate director of security, Purdue PHARMA    54
        Bergstresser, Richard, first selectman, town of Greenwich, CT    45
        Bond, Richard, first selectman, New Canaan, CT...............    45
        Conte, John, captain, Stamford Fire Department...............    60
        Duff, Bob, Connecticut State Representative, Norwalk, CT.....    49
        Farrell, Diane, first selectwoman, town of Westport, CT......    46
        Hawreluk, David, advisor-director, Darien EMS................    60
        Larkin, Jim, Global Strategy Advisors........................    58
        Latessa, E. Michael, EMS director, city of Norwalk, CT.......    61
        Malloy, Dannel P., mayor, city of Stamford, CT; Ted Macklin,
          Director, Exercise and Evaluation Division, Office for
          Domestic Preparedness, U.S. Department of Homeland
          Security; Daniel A. Craig, Regional Director, FEMA Region
          I; Donald Petri, Department of Public Safety, Division of
          Homeland Security, State of Connecticut, accompanied by
          Charles C. Beck, Chief, Domestic Preparedness Division,
          Office of Emergency Management, State of Connecticut; and
          Christopher Bruhl, president and chief executive officer of
          the SACIA..................................................     9
        McCormack, Ed, Stamford Health System........................    53
        McGrath, Robert J., fire chief, city of Stamford, CT.........    52
        Powers, Claudia Dolly, Connecticut State Representative......    48
        Wuennemann, Thomas, Captain, Stamford Police Department......    51
    Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
        Bruhl, Christopher, president and chief executive officer of
          the SACIA, prepared statement of...........................    36
        Craig, Daniel A., Regional Director, FEMA Region I, prepared
          statement of...............................................    25
        Macklin, Ted, Director, Exercise and Evaluation Division,
          Office for Domestic Preparedness, U.S. Department of
          Homeland Security, prepared statement of...................    15
        Malloy, Dannel P., mayor, city of Stamford, CT, prepared
          statement of...............................................    11
        Petri, Donald, Department of Public Safety, Division of
          Homeland Security, State of Connecticut, prepared statement
          of.........................................................    30
        Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
          the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............     3

     COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING FEDERAL ASSISTANCE TO FIRST RESPONDERS

                                  ----------

                           MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2003

                      House of Representatives,
    Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats
                           and International Relations,
                                Committee on Government Reform,
                                                          Stamford, CT.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:43 a.m., in
    the Davenport Ballroom, Holiday Inn Select, 700 Main Street,
    Stamford, CT, Hon. Christopher Shays (chairman of the
    subcommittee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, Maloney.
        Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and
    general counsel; R. Nicholas Palarino, senior policy analyst;
    Robert A. Briggs, clerk and professional staff member;
    Christopher Skaluba, Presidential management intern; and David
    Rapallo, minority counsel.
        Mr. Shays. A quorum being present the Subcommittee on
    National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations
    hearing entitled, ``Combating Terrorism, Assessing Federal
    Assistance to First Responders,'' is called to order.
        Let me first thank the city of Stamford and the U.S.
    Department of Homeland Security [DHS] for allowing the
    subcommittee to embed this hearing in the emergency response
    tabletop exercise now underway. We are here because, whether
    directed at Washington, DC, or Washington, CT, all terrorism is
    local. As a Nation, our preparedness to meet the terrorist
    menace can only be measured in the strength and readiness of
    local first responders.
        How prepared are we to meet the uncertain, changing threat
    of terrorism, specifically the dangers posed by chemical,
    biological, radiological or even nuclear weapons? Exercises
    like today's will help answer that question. But this we
    already know: Unless efforts to train and equip first
    responders are sharply focused and aggressively funded, those
    sworn to protect public health and safety will be asked to
    confront mortal perils without all the tools they need to
    survive and prevail.
        Well before September 11, 2001, this subcommittee focused
    on the needs of first responders for real-time threat
    information, the need for an overarching strategy to guide
    their efforts and the need to reorganize government at all
    levels to implement that strategy effectively and efficiently.
    In numerous sessions from Connecticut to Florida, we have heard
    testimony from police officers, firefighters, HAZMAT teams,
    emergency medical personnel and other experts expressing
    frustration over the extent and pace of Federal
    counterterrorism equipment and training programs. They told us
    fragmentation and duplication hobbled a multi-jurisdictional,
    multi-agency, multi-billion dollar preparedness effort.
        Since the September 11th attacks, much has been done, and a
    great deal of money has been spent to consolidate and focus
    Federal support for first responders. But last week we heard
    sobering evidence that local emergency personnel remain
    dangerously ill-prepared to handle a catastrophic attack on
    American soil.
        The recent report of the Independent Task Force of the
    Council of Foreign Relations [CFR] found that Federal agencies
    have been slow getting funding to State and local
    jurisdictions, and States have hampered the efficient
    dissemination of much-needed Federal funds to the local level.
    According to the report, the overall effectiveness of Federal
    funding has been further diluted by the lack of a process to
    determine the most critical needs of the emergency responder
    community in order to achieve the greatest return on
    investments.
        The key reason cited by the CFR Task Force for the current
    preparedness deficit was the lack of concrete, threat-based
    equipment and training standards against which to measure State
    and local capabilities. Standards capture community consensus
    and collective wisdom on the minimum that would be achieved
    with scarce public resources. Development of preparedness
    standards would transform unfocused motion into real progress
    toward actual preparedness. Standards should also guide
    allocation of scarce resources.
        The question of whether first-responder funding goes
    through the State or directly to localities is not an all-or-
    nothing proposition, especially in a State like Connecticut
    where the absence of counties can leave mid-sized cities like
    Stamford at a disadvantage in national funding formulae
    directed only to large metropolitan areas. Funding, even
    through the State, must be timely and commensurate with need as
    calibrated by objective preparedness standards.
        This week, the subcommittee will launch a bipartisan call
    for development of national preparedness standards. We will
    call on DHS and the relevant congressional committees of
    Congress to consolidate and coordinate ongoing standard
    programs to produce measurable norms for equipment and training
    readiness to meet the terrorist threat. What we see and hear
    today will be of inestimable value in that effort.
        Again, we thank Mayor Malloy and his administration for
    their hospitality and help in giving the subcommittee this
    opportunity to examine local preparedness initiatives first-
    hand. We look forward to his testimony, and that of all our
    witnesses today, as we strive to improve the immediacy, impact
    and efficiency of Federal first responder programs.
        At this time, the Chair would invite the distinguished
    representative Carolyn Maloney from New York to make any
    statements that she would like to.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2125.001

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2125.002

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2125.003

        Mrs. Maloney. I thank Chairman Shays and Vice Chairman
    Turner, Mayor Malloy and the entire team that worked today to
    put the exercises before us. It was tremendously informative
    and extremely helpful.
        I am a former member of the New York City Council and not
    only serve on Chris' subcommittee, but am Chair of the
    Democratic Task Force for Homeland Security. So this is an
    issue that is tremendously important to both parties. It is one
    that we have truly worked together in a bipartisan way. One of
    the good things about our government--I am going to put my
    opening statement in the record--is that we are taught to
    question. And one of the things that I would like to hear from
    the panelists today is exactly what you need and are you
    getting what you need from the Federal Government?
        Just last week our committee had a very important hearing
    with former Senator Warren Rudman, on his recently released
    study from the Council on Foreign Relations called Emergency
    Responders Drastically Underfunded and Dangerously Unprepared.
    And in it he outlined that the resources are not getting there.
    He called for $100 billion more on emergency responders.
        I found it very interesting throughout the entire display,
    no one called for the Federal Government. I kept waiting for
    when the call was going to FEMA or the FBI Central or to the
    President and Vice President. But truly in an emergency it is
    the first responders that are there reacting to the immediate
    crisis on line.
        As a New Yorker I am very proud of our mayor and our
    government and our first responders. In fact, the last bill
    that I passed--actually the last bill that Congress passed on
    the day of September 11 was giving the Congressional Gold
    Medal, the highest award that can be bestowed to those
    responders who gave their lives helping others, and to their
    units, their firehouses and emergency units as an artifact from
    that day.
        Your talk about how we would handle the transportation
    vividly brought back September 11 where I started driving back
    to New York, everything was barricaded, and to tell you the
    truth, it was the only time that my congressional ID was worth
    anything, because I could get through all of the barricades.
    And as you got closer and closer to New York, the only people
    you saw were emergency responders coming in from Connecticut,
    New Jersey, Massachusetts, almost as a reflex running into the
    city of New York and heavy equipment coming in, tractors, etc.,
    to respond.
        One thing that is lost in all of the discussion is that
    September 11 was truly the most miraculous rescue effort in the
    history of our country. On September 12 the estimates were that
    20,000 people died. We know it is less than 3,000. We do not
    know how many lives each of these heroes saved by rushing into
    the fires.
        One thing that I find troubling are the numbers that have
    been released by New York City's police department. They tell
    us that on July before the attacks there were over 39,000
    police officers in New York City, but as of this July there
    were only 37,000, a reduction of over 2,000 police officers.
    The fire department says the same. So I fail to understand how
    we can respond in a better way if our resources or manpower is
    not as strong as it was before.
        I have to say that I thought the exercise today was
    brilliant really, and I congratulate everyone who participated.
    It appears that you have done a great deal of work since
    September 11 to get ready. I would be interested today to hear
    what your plans are in responding to New York. Regrettably New
    York remains the No. 1 terrorist target not only in our region
    but in the entire world. When Connecticut is yellow, we're
    orange; when Connecticut is orange, we're red and by all
    accounts we are a major target. So part of it will be,
    regrettably, hopefully not the case, but how Connecticut will
    again respond to such a situation in New York again as you so
    brilliantly did coming and standing with us.
        In short, I look forward to your testimony and the
    opportunity to ask questions. Thank you, Mayor Malloy for your
    leadership in having us today.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. At this time, the Chair would
    recognize the vice chairman, Mr. Turner.
        Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to thank our chairman, Chairman Shays, for his
    leadership in this area. We all know that even prior to
    September 11, Chairman Shays was a leader in our country in
    making certain that communities looked to the issue of their
    vulnerabilities and also to look at issues at a national level
    as to how we need to be equipped to respond. Chairman Shays
    encouraged these types of exercises even prior to September 11
    and encouraged this exercise to occur.
        I want to congratulate the mayor. Certainly, as I have gone
    from tabletop to tabletop, I have seen some tremendous
    leadership in your community and surrounding communities. And
    this certainly is a topic that is one that you are not ill
    prepared for. You can tell the people have had these
    discussions and that this exercise is one that compliments the
    work that you have already done.
        I served as mayor of the city of Dayton from about 1993 to
    2001 and we were one of the cities that also had a weapons of
    mass destruction exercise prior to September 11. We had an
    actual mock exercise at a basketball arena, had a play where
    two devices were placed, one inside the facility and one
    outside the facility. And from that, we learned a tremendous
    amount. And as I went from tabletop to tabletop, I heard the
    types of issues that you were discussing that we faced.
        I know from our exercise when September 11 happened, we
    were a community that was much more prepared. We had people who
    had responsibility, knew what their responsibilities were, we
    knew what roads to shut down, we knew what processes to put in
    place.
        Even though we are not in close proximity, as you are, to
    New York, we were a community that contributed responders to
    the situation, both from our HAZMAT teams and our fire and
    additional police.
        One thing that has been wonderful in serving under Chairman
    Shays, as you see in this hearing today, is that this is not
    just an exercise in getting additional information. Chairman
    Shays works to make certain that legislation or regulations are
    modified that need to respond to the issues that are brought
    forth today. So we are looking for the information you provide
    to us.
        Also in addition to this, Chairman Shays has been holding a
    series of hearings on issues of strategic targets throughout
    our country and how they might have new vulnerabilities and
    what we need to be responding there.
        So any information you provide us today will actually go to
    formulation of policy, legislation and reforms in regulation
    and will be a complement to the information that this committee
    has been gathering on strategic locations.
        I look forward to your testimony.
        Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman.
        What you all are experiencing is what we call congressional
    courtesy where Members from outside of the District say nice
    things about the Member in the District.
        Mr. Turner. That is if they are true. [Laughter.]
        Mr. Shays. Let me just say that it is a privilege to have
    both these Members. They could be in their own districts right
    now and for them to spend their day with us is a real
    compliment. I just want to also say before recognizing our
    witnesses that all three of us were talking about how proud we
    are of our country--how proud we are to be in a room with so
    many competent people. We just felt, all of us, that we were
    just seeing a lot of competence and yet we all know we have a
    lot to learn.
        So with that, let me just take care of some business. I ask
    unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be
    permitted to place an opening statement in the record and the
    record will remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without
    objection, so ordered.
        I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
    permitted to include their written statements in the record.
    And without objection, so ordered.
        At this time, I will just recognize the witnesses we have
    before us. We have the Honorable Dannel P. Malloy, mayor of the
    city of Stamford; we have Mr. Ted Macklin, assistant director,
    Office for Domestic Preparedness, Department of Homeland
    Security; we have Mr. Daniel Craig, Regional Director,
    Department of Homeland Security; and taking Mr. Vincent
    DeRosa's place, who is not well today, we have Donald F. Petri,
    State of Connecticut Department of Public Safety, Division of
    Homeland Security. Petri, am I saying it correctly?
        Mr. Petri. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. And accompanied by Charles Beck,
    chief, Domestic Preparedness Division, State of Connecticut,
    Office of Emergency Management.
        I am going to swear you gentlemen in, as you know that is
    our practice. If there is anyone else that you think you may
    call on to make a statement or respond to a question, I would
    ask them to stand up at the same time.
        And I am sorry, I left out my very good friend--I am sorry,
    Chris--I saw Dan pointing this way and I was not getting the
    message. [Laughter.]
        I am very delighted, Chris, to have you here, one of the
    most competent people I know, head of SACIA and it is very nice
    to have you here as well. You are going to be closing up the
    comments.
        At this time, I would ask you all to stand, please.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. At this time, we will recognize Mayor
    Malloy. Dan, we do 5 minutes and we roll over. I think we are
    going to try to crunch this up a little bit, so we can get
    that. So your full statements will be in the record.

     STATEMENTS OF DANNEL P. MALLOY, MAYOR, CITY OF STAMFORD, CT;
    TED MACKLIN, DIRECTOR, EXERCISE AND EVALUATION DIVISION, OFFICE
        FOR DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
     SECURITY; DANIEL A. CRAIG, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, FEMA REGION I;
    DONALD PETRI, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, DIVISION OF HOMELAND
    SECURITY, STATE OF CONNECTICUT, ACCOMPANIED BY CHARLES C. BECK,
      CHIEF, DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS DIVISION, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY
       MANAGEMENT, STATE OF CONNECTICUT; AND CHRISTOPHER BRUHL,
           PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SACIA

        Mayor Malloy. Congressman, I want to thank you very much
    for bringing the entire subcommittee, members of the
    subcommittee, with you. We very much appreciate this
    opportunity. I think we have learned a great deal. I will not
    read my statement, I will, on the other hand, make a few points
    in the nature of crunching this together.
        This is an important exercise and one which I would
    certainly recommend to all regions and mayors and first
    selectmen throughout Connecticut and any other portion.
        Mr. Shays. Let me just--can you hear in the back or do we
    need to put these mics in front of us? Can you hear in the back
    all right? OK, we are all right.
        Mayor Malloy. I will try to do a little bit better.
        So I certainly would recommend this activity and I want to
    say that since September 11, this is one of the most useful
    things that we have done, being brought to us by an outside
    governmental agency. Clearly we have done, and I think we have
    evidenced, a fair amount of work within the community during
    the period of time to improve our readiness and I think we are
    demonstrating that in many ways today.
        My written statement, which has been submitted, makes a few
    points, but I do want to say that the funding of equipment for
    first responders is very important. There is a perfect storm
    out there with respect to the operation of municipal
    government. With rising prices, particularly for employee
    insurance benefits, decreased availability of funds from State
    and Federal agencies in many cases, but also effects of tax
    base. And all of this had led to a drying up of funds that
    might otherwise be dedicated on a local basis to preparedness.
        To Congresswoman Maloney's point, Stamford's police
    department is today smaller than it was on September 11 and
    that is in no small part due to the effects or the conditions
    which I have described.
        However, money is starting to flow to local jurisdictions.
    But back to Congressman Shay's point, Connecticut, I suspect
    Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have similar problems in the
    sense that we do not have county government and we are dealing
    as 169 municipalities with the State government. There needs to
    be the setting of priorities and the probability, for instance,
    of sites of attack and therefore, funds being driven that way.
        But money has started to flow and some equipment is
    starting to be distributed, such as decontamination units, one
    of which is now based in Stamford, another which is based in
    Greenwich, and highly appropriate. We are also starting to see
    coordination of activities. One of our great fears, however, in
    lower Fairfield County and southwestern Connecticut is the
    availability of State and Federal resources and their ability
    to respond in a very congested part of the State of
    Connecticut. One of the points that I have already made mental
    note of with respect to today's exercise is whether or not
    certain local officials should be designated to carry on those
    State activities that would otherwise be coordinated in
    Hartford in the absence of the availability of people to get to
    Stamford from another portion of the State.
        Finally, I would like to make a point that local
    governments can be overwhelmed. Certainly a terrorist attack
    could overwhelm or emergency responders. You know, for
    instance, if this exact event happened in Darien as opposed to
    Stamford, Stamford would be equally impacted but Darien would
    not have the resources to throw at the issue that we have here
    in Stamford. It could be same incident, very different
    reactions, very different impacts on the intermodal travel and
    likewise.
        So we have to be cognizant of the fact that we can in fact
    be overwhelmed, that additional coordination efforts need to be
    undertaken by the State and Federal Government and that we as
    localities need to work more closely together.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for the opportunity
    to appear before you and stand ready to answer questions when
    appropriate.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you, mayor. Mr. Macklin.
        [The prepared statement of Mayor Malloy follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2125.004

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2125.005

        Mr. Macklin. Good morning, Chairman Shays, Vice Chairman
    Turner, Congresswoman Maloney. I am Ted Macklin from the Office
    of Emergency Preparedness. As you know, ODP is a component of
    the Department of Homeland Security. It is a pleasure and
    privilege to be here today to talk about ODP's efforts to
    provide support to our Nation's emergency responders.
        I am pleased to be here in Stamford, CT, as the city
    participates in an important exercise to practice its response
    capabilities to a mock terrorist incident. On behalf of Tom
    Ridge, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office for
    Domestic Preparedness, I would like to express my appreciation
    for your support and your interest in Federal programs to
    combat terrorism.
        Assisting States and localities is critical to DHS' mission
    of protecting the homeland. As Secretary Ridge has often
    stated, the homeland is secure only when the hometowns are
    secure. And the way to ensure that hometowns are secure is to
    ensure that State and local officials, State and local
    emergency response agencies and State and local emergency
    response personnel have the resources, the information and the
    tools they need to do their jobs.
        Four days ago, we marked the second anniversary of the
    terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The lessons of
    September 11 are as true today as they were then--that State
    and local personnel are the first on the scene of any
    emergency, including acts of terrorism, to save lives, often at
    the risk of their own.
        As you are aware, Mr. Chairman, DHS was established to
    better enable the Nation to defend its borders, enhance its
    security and respond to external and internal threats and
    attacks.
        In the 8 months since DHS was established, significant
    progress has been made toward making America safer. To this
    end, since its creation, the Department has provided a
    significant amount of funds to States, cities and localities to
    prevent, prepare for and respond to acts of terrorism. DHS has
    provided more than $4 billion to State and local governments to
    assist first responders and offset costs of improving overall
    preparedness and enhanced security. A large majority of this
    assistance, including today's exercise, is provided through the
    Office for Domestic Preparedness.
        Before the creation of DHS in March 2003, ODP was a
    component of the Department of Justice. With the passage of the
    Homeland Security Act of 2002, ODP was transferred to DHS and
    designated the principal Federal agency for assisting States
    and local jurisdictions to prepare for, prevent and respond to
    incidents of terrorism.
        Since its establishment in 1998, ODP has provided more than
    $4.3 billion to our Nation's emergency response community for
    equipment acquisition, exercise support, training and technical
    assistance efforts. ODP has delivered weapons of mass
    destruction awareness, operations, technician and incident
    command level training to more than 304,000 emergency
    responders from approximately 5,000 jurisdictions nationwide.
        Additionally, ODP has conducted more than 260 preparedness
    exercises, including the congressionally mandated Top Officials
    I and Top Officials II exercises, most recently being concluded
    in May 2003 in Seattle and the city of Chicago.
        The State of Connecticut has benefited from this funding
    and support. From fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2002,
    ODP has provided more than $7 million in equipment acquisition,
    planning and exercise support funds. During fiscal year 2003,
    the State has received an additional more than $30 million
    under the State Homeland Security Grant program for equipment
    acquisition, exercise support, training and management and
    planning.
        It is a priority of this administration and the department
    to effectively and efficiently meet our responsibility to
    support first responders in fulfilling their critical role in
    our Nation's counter-terrorism efforts. We at DHS take very
    seriously the need to ensure that Federal support is focused
    and well organized.
        The Department recognizes the financial constraints placed
    on State governments which require difficult decisions to be
    made about limited resources. Nevertheless, it is the
    Department's view that Federal, State and local governments
    have a shared responsibility with respect to homeland security
    efforts. As such, State and local governments should take
    responsibility to directly fund a portion of the costs
    associated with domestic preparedness, including personnel
    costs. The Federal Government's role, on the other hand, should
    largely be geared to capacity building at the State and local
    level. One of the most important Federal roles is also to
    provide guidance, subject matter expertise and technical
    assistance. There is also an important shared responsibility at
    all levels of government to maintain accountability--to be able
    to provide assurance that the needed capability has been
    developed or that any shortfalls are identified and addressed.
        Another critical component of ODP's mission is its ongoing
    Training and Technical Assistance Program, which provides an
    extensive array of training to Federal, State and local
    agencies. Through this program, ODP provides more than 30
    direct training and technical assistance courses and programs
    to State and local officials.
        Perhaps the most notable means through which ODP provides
    support to States and localities is the State Homeland Security
    Grant Program. Through this program. ODP provides funds to all
    50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the
    territories for the acquisition of specialized equipment that
    could be used to prevent, deter and respond to terrorism.
        Mr. Shays. Why do you not just make a last closing sentence
    here.
        Mr. Macklin. Yes, sir.
        Sir, we at DHS are convinced that these programs are
    working at this time and we are extremely supportive of the
    activities of your subcommittee and we look forward to working
    with you shoulder to shoulder as we advance the cause of
    terrorism preparedness in the Nation.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you, Ted. We have more of the information
    and it will be part of the record. Sorry to rush you this time,
    but we are just trying to finish up here.
        Mr. Macklin. Yes.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Craig.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Macklin follows:]

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        Mr. Craig. Good afternoon, Chairman Shays, Vice Chairman
    Turner, Representative Maloney and distinguished members of
    this committee. My name is Daniel Craig and I serve as the
    Regional Director of FEMA Region I. On behalf of Secretary
    Ridge and Under Secretary Brown, it is my privilege to be with
    you today to discuss FEMA's role in emergency preparedness and
    response.
        As you know, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was
    transitioned into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in
    March of this year. That transition has strengthened FEMA's
    core mission of preparing for and responding to acts of
    terrorism and natural disasters. It has also provided a closer
    working relationship with other Federal agencies as well as
    State and local governments.
        On February 28, 2003, the President signed the Homeland
    Security Presidential Directive 5, HSPD-5, on the management of
    domestic incidents to establish a single comprehensive national
    incident management system and to integrate separate Federal
    response plans, including the current Federal response plan
    into a single, all discipline, all hazards national response
    plan. The Secretary of Homeland Security is responsible for
    developing and implementing both initiatives. FEMA is actively
    participating in the task force created by Secretary Ridge to
    develop a National Response Plan and a framework for a National
    Incident Management System. As directed by the Department of
    Homeland Security Act of 2002, FEMA will play a key role in the
    management and maintenance of NIMS once it is developed.
        To ensure better coordination and management of disaster
    relief, FEMA currently utilizes a Federal Response Plan [FRP].
    The FRP establishes FEMA as the lead coordinating agency for
    all Federal disaster relief. A total of 27 separate Federal
    departments and agencies have signed on as partners under the
    plan and work with FEMA to deliver disaster services in
    Presidentially declared emergencies and disasters that
    overwhelm State and local resources. One of the FRP's unique
    features is that it divides the Federal disaster relief efforts
    into distinct functional areas called Emergency Support
    Functions. These 12 functions are based on the types of direct
    Federal assistance that a State is most likely to need in case
    of a disaster. Each ESF is headed by a primary agency designed
    on the basis of its authorities, resources, capabilities in
    that functional area. These functions include transportation
    with the Department of Transportation being the lead;
    communications with the National Communications System; public
    works and engineering with the Corps of Engineers;
    firefighting, the U.S. Department of Agriculture; information
    and planning, FEMA; mass care with American Red Cross; resource
    support with the General Services Administration; health and
    medical services with the Department of Health and Human
    Services; urban search and rescue with FEMA; hazardous
    materials with the EPA; food with the U.S. Department of
    Agriculture; and energy with the Department of Energy.
        FEMA operates an Emergency Support Team which presently is
    up on a 24-hour basis because of Hurricane Isabel at our
    headquarters in Washington, DC, to coordinate and manage the
    initial response to major disasters, deploy assets, locate
    needed relief supplies and provide full range of disaster
    assistance 24 hours a day, 12 hour shifts until field teams can
    take over the response.
        At the same time we begin disaster response operations in
    Washington, our regional staff activate the regional operation
    centers which serve as the point of contact for State
    government seeking disaster assistance. Staff in our regional
    offices are key to disaster operations and they are among the
    first on the scene of a disaster. At the request of the State,
    the region will deploy a response liaison officer to act as an
    intermediary to address State concerns with FEMA. When an act
    of terrorism or natural disaster strikes and overwhelms the
    State and local capabilities, the Governor of the affected
    State can petition the President through FEMA for regional
    assistance. A senior FEMA official known as the Federal
    Coordinating Officer is appointed to head up the disaster
    response and recovery operations for FEMA and coordinate
    delivery of assistance with individuals and with State and
    local governments.
        In a Presidentially declared disaster, individuals may be
    eligible for assistance to help them recover from damages to
    residences, businesses and personal property. Assistance can
    include temporary housing, unemployment assistance, food
    coupons, family grants, low interest loans, legal aid and
    crisis counseling. Assistance may also be available through
    State and local governments and certain private nonprofit
    organizations for repair of infrastructure and public
    facilities. The assistance can include emergency protective
    measures, clearance of debris, repair, restoration and
    replacement of damaged facilities, equipment and contents.
        Partnerships among the Federal departments and agencies,
    among the various levels of government, among emergency
    managers and first responders and among public, private and
    volunteer entities are key to successful disaster response
    operations and maintenance of the Nation's comprehensive
    emergency management system. Partnerships also help us prepare
    for potential hazards. Our preparedness mission is to provide
    the technical expertise, guidance, assistance necessary to
    establish, maintain and improve and ensure the success of a
    comprehensive emergency preparedness system. We accomplish this
    mission through activities, programs and a broad range of
    functions of emergency planning, training, exercise,
    partnerships and outreach to all levels of the Federal
    Government. For example, the Emergency Management Institute,
    the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg.
        We now are a major component in the Department of Homeland
    Security and FEMA's mission will only become more important in
    the years to come.
        I will take any questions.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Mr. Petri.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Craig follows:]

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        Mr. Petri. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Shays, Vice
    Chairman Turner and Representative Maloney. On behalf of
    Governor John Rowland and Commissioner of Public Safety Arthur
    Spada, it is my pleasure to welcome you and your subcommittee
    to the State of Connecticut.
        I am pleased to appear before you today to report that
    substantial progress is being made to provide equipment and
    training to Connecticut's first responders. Indeed, they are
    better prepared to deal with a chemical, biological,
    radiological, nuclear explosion today than any time prior.
        Two years ago, the horrific events of September 11 and the
    subsequent anthrax incidents fostered a reexamination of the
    logistics of Connecticut's public safety and emergency
    services.
        With 169 municipalities, over 300 fire districts, two
    tribal nations, significant centers of industrial and
    commercial enterprise, substantial marine activity and notable
    population centers within and adjacent to our borders, the
    diversity of interests, perspectives and priorities seemed
    overwhelming. Governor Rowland led the effort to marshal
    Connecticut's resources toward a coordinated strategy for
    preparedness and response.
        Toward that end, he designated the Department of Public
    Safety, Division of Homeland Security as the lead agency in
    that effort. By adopting a proactive approach for prevention
    strategies in collaboration and cooperation with Federal, State
    and local entities, Connecticut pursued, secured and allocated
    all available Federal funding to outfit and train each first
    responder within the State.
        This was accomplished by building from the pre-existing
    foundation established by State, regional and local entities
    under the auspices of the State Office of Emergency Management.
    Prioritizing the most critical needs, a three-prong program has
    been implemented to enhance existing equipment inventories, to
    provide additional training as well as practical exercises, and
    undertake a vigorous assessment of anticipated needs to serve
    as a realistic planning platform for future funding.
        A leading priority is to place each first responder in a
    position of knowledge and safety when confronted with a CBRNE
    event. All first responders are being outfitted with personal
    protective equipment appropriate to their disciplines--that
    being hazmat, fire, police and emergency services. Training in
    use of personal protective equipment sponsored by ODP has been
    conducted. Overtime costs incurred for public safety
    authorities for training and for periods of heightened alert
    status have been defrayed.
        Metering packages for each jurisdiction within the State
    have been acquired and distributed, as have specialized hazmat
    metering packages for urban and regional teams.
        Thirty-four prime movers and mass decontamination trailers
    are being distributed throughout the State with interoperable
    radio communications centers. Each of the primary and secondary
    public safety answering points are now equipped with mobile
    radio stations at the interoperable frequency. Key local
    officials are being assigned portable radios at the
    interoperable frequency. Bomb trucks and a robotic device for
    local law enforcement are in place.
        An interdisciplinary urban search and rescue task force
    staffed by State and local first responders has been
    established. Relative to this last point, I wish to publicly
    express my appreciation to officials across the State who have
    volunteered their time to develop, recruit, interview and
    select the highly skilled local volunteers comprising this task
    force.
        A key feature of our training regimen is the partnership
    that has been developed between the Department of Public
    Safety, Department of Homeland Security and the University of
    Connecticut in the creation of the Homeland Security Education
    Center. Integrating the expertise of the Police Officers'
    Standards and Training Council, Connecticut Fire Academy,
    Office of Emergency Management and academic professionals, this
    center will provide a continuous improvement model of
    organizational development. Specific goals include training
    6,000 first responders, elected officials and program
    administrators in CBRNE awareness, performance and management
    level training programs currently available through the Office
    of Domestic Preparedness. For the first time in Connecticut,
    the training will integrate a CBRNE Exercise and Evaluation
    Program within the curriculum.
        At this time, Connecticut is participating in a detailed
    assessment mandated by the Federal Office of Homeland Security.
    DPS and DHS worked with the Office of Domestic Preparedness to
    offer each jurisdiction the opportunity to participate in
    training and receive technical assistance in the assessment
    process. This task is critical to our future level of
    readiness. Citizens and officials across our State will build
    this assessment by investing countless hours in performing
    unglamorous tasks. These reports must be submitted to DPS and
    Department of Homeland Security by November 1, 2003. A
    statewide strategy based on this data must be compiled,
    analyzed and submitted to the Office of Domestic Preparedness
    by December 31.
        In closing my remarks, I wish to acknowledge their efforts
    for they are performing truly heroic deeds that will go largely
    unheralded. It is only fitting that we recognize the broad-
    based citizen participation that we are attempting to build
    through programs such as Citizens Corps initiative, the
    community emergency response team program that is the most
    essential ingredient in maintaining our free and secure
    society.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Mr. Bruhl.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Petri follows:]

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        Mr. Bruhl. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman, for the
    invitation to meet with you today. I have the honor of serving
    as president of a network of close to 500 companies here in
    Fairfield County.
        Over the last 2 years obviously, government and industry
    have really taken important steps to improve security. Progress
    has been made, we all share the commitment that more needs to
    be done.
        Business comes at it from the point of view of feeling we
    share responsibility with the public sector for our own
    people--and I would like to underscore the idea of our own
    people. We have a responsibility that transcends merely calling
    for help. We have a belief that we need to provide help from
    the very first moment forward and we need to anticipate
    circumstances that might arise.
        As a result of that, our member firms have been, over the
    last 2 years, conducting a regular program of leadership
    dialogs among our security and crisis management leadership. We
    have reached out to our first responders throughout the region.
    We have participated in regional readiness exercises. We have
    had a regular formal exchange of corporate best practices. We
    have conducted advocacy in the public sector, security issues.
    I might note that eight of our participating companies are
    participating today and they have more than 15,000 employees in
    the city of Stamford.
        So what have we learned over the last 24 months that we
    would like to share with you in response to your invitation?
        First, communication is key. Public officials, private
    sector leaders and citizens need timely information upon which
    to base their actions.
        Second, homeland security is a shared responsibility. We
    need to coordinate every level, every aspect in a far more
    detailed way than we have previously. And also, the critical
    role of the private sector and the media play in readiness and
    response recovery needs to be more fully recognized and
    embraced, we believe, by the public sector.
        And finally, a management structure that is understood and
    embraced by all first responders--the same structure needs to
    be in place.
        You have asked us to focus our comments on the appropriate
    role for Federal agencies and ways that we might improve your
    ability to support local and State response activities. We have
    four key areas of suggestions: First, leadership role for the
    Federal Government; a role as an educator; a facilitator; and
    of course financier.
        In the Federal Government's leadership role, we believe it
    is critical to continue to develop the homeland security
    strategy or road map and to set benchmarks for local and State
    agencies. We need consistency. An important part of that is to
    adopt the unified command system as a national best practice.
    All of our first responders need to utilize the same management
    framework at every critical incident and disaster operation.
    Fire departments have almost universally adopted the incident
    command system, yet other first responders still have different
    protocols. And people of good will and excellent training who
    do not share the same protocols and who have not trained
    necessarily together will find confusion rather than
    cooperation, regardless of their intent, in the heat of an
    event. We think also that this management structure needs to
    include and be shared with the private sector. We had the
    blackout referred to many times this morning of recent event,
    in which our major employers allowed their people or could not
    stop their people from all going home together; therefore,
    creating each other's traffic jam. A plan in advance would have
    mitigated some of those impacts.
        In the role of educator, we believe that it is appropriate
    to highlight best practices and provide training resources.
    This morning's exercise is a wonderful example. Eighty-five
    percent of the critical infrastructure is either owned or
    operated by the private sector in this country, 85 percent of
    the people participating in readiness exercises are not private
    sector representatives.
        We are kind of pushy people here at SACIA, I suppose, and
    we have reached out and invited ourselves to participate. Last
    year, we participated in a Bridgeport regional exercise and we
    were the only private sector participants.
        Earlier this summer, we were the only private people in
    FEMA Region I at the Newport War College exercise.
        Today, we are delighted to participate with you and the
    city of Stamford in this exercise.
        And in October, we will take part in Livewire, a national
    cyber security training exercise.
        In every case, we were welcomed, but we needed to invite
    ourselves. And we were lonely when we got there because we were
    the only people who invited ourselves--being pushy. But as we
    go forward, we believe it should be an important part of the
    protocol that the private sector must be invited to take part
    in this planning. In some ways, it would be in their best
    interest to participate, some may decline. But at the very
    least, let us be sure that we reach out to involve people in
    training, because absent that, the communication that we know
    is so essential to make something work simply will not be
    there. We will be relying on a dozen different media offering a
    dozen media outlets offering a dozen different interpretation
    of events and we need to have direct links.
        The facilitator role, we have already mentioned. It is an
    important activity to be sure that our various agencies at the
    Federal, local and State level are able to work together. For
    example, Congresswoman Maloney, you asked about Connecticut
    coming to New York. Connecticut is in FEMA Region I, we do not
    drill with New York, and so therefore we need to look across
    these boundaries to enable ourselves to participate and to help
    each other across these boundaries. They are artificial
    boundaries that windstorms and terrorists do not respect.
        And finally, of course, I would just like to add our
    private sector voice to those of the public sector that have
    spoken already today, the role of the Federal Government as
    financier. Your money is critically important as local and
    State governments go through the financial storm of the
    century.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Bruhl follows:]

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        Mr. Shays. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for
    their very helpful statements and just point out, it is rather
    surprising but the only politician in this group was the most
    punctual. [Laughter.]
        So that is some mark of achievement.
        I want us to be very candid. I am going to run us over 10
    minutes. We had 15 minutes. We do not need a lot of nice little
    talk here, we need as direct and as honest conversation as we
    can have.
        I am going to turn to Mr. Turner first, but I am going to
    have Mr. Craig, have you anticipate a question I am going to be
    asking, why should we not be part of New York and train with
    New York throughout the metropolitan area. I know you live in
    Connecticut, so I love that.
        Mrs. Maloney. Point of personal privilege since you
    mentioned New York. I know that even though you did not train
    with New York, Connecticut responded because I saw the police
    and fire and equipment coming in from Connecticut to our aid,
    and on behalf of my constituents, I thank you.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you.
        Mr. Turner. Mr. Bruhl, I want to congratulate you on the
    participation that you have from the business community.
    Certainly we noted as part of this exercise that some of the
    businesses had put into place their emergency response teams
    that are working in coordination with this exercise.
        It was also interesting to see how quickly in the
    discussion the issue of liability came up and how that is going
    to restrain our abilities for private sector organizations,
    specifically in the area of hospitals, how they might operate.
    I know that is going to be a continuing issue for the private
    sector.
        My question is for the mayor. Our chairman has been a
    leader in advocating for the issue of national equipment and
    performance standards really looking at the process of
    establishing a national threat assessment, from that deriving
    national equipment and performance standards. Recognizing that
    there are national associations, certainly professional
    associations, that would be first responders, there is
    community experience and research, there is obviously State and
    national agencies that provide some guidance, but the
    Department of Homeland Security currently does not have in
    place for you to follow national equipment and performance
    standards that would coincide with grant application processes
    and funding processes, and also guidelines as to what you
    should have in your inventory as you look to responding. I
    wanted your thoughts and comments on that.
        Mayor Malloy. It is an interesting question, Congressman.
    You do not know this, but as mayor of the city of Stamford, I
    actually have six different fire companies. So we are just
    about being our own schedule for that which is purchased within
    the city with city funds, but distributed to volunteer
    companies. So I can appreciate the difficulty.
        I think it is a very important movement. I think standards
    across the board need to be set. I think it is part of the role
    that the Congress could in fact play if they were desirous of,
    or appropriate agencies could do. But clearly, one of our
    concerns will continue to be what equipment other people show
    up with if they respond in Stamford from surrounding
    communities or States. And I think it is an important interest.
        Mr. Turner. Thank you.
        Mr. Shays. Would anyone else like to address that question
    real quick?
        Mr. Petri. Yes, just a comment concerning the equipment
    that first responders will show up with. In the handout of
    personal protection equipment, great effort was made to
    standardize the colors of various chemical suits so that all
    police responding to a scene are in a particular color, all
    fire officials are in a particular color, etc. That will go a
    long way I think toward addressing some of the mayor's concern.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. Mrs. Maloney.
        Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I sometimes feel a disconnect between the rhetoric and the
    reality of what is on the ground, and what I heard today from
    the panel, the first responders that were reporting, we heard
    from the police group that they only have about 14 protective
    suits. I suppose that means hazmat suits. And that they had
    only escape hoods. Well, in the case of a chemical or
    biological attack, they are going to need more than escape
    hoods and they are going to need masks to be able to go in and
    help. Otherwise, they will just die themselves.
        Then we also heard that they do not have equipment for
    interoperable communications with officers from other
    jurisdictions. So they testified they could not communicate
    that way.
        The fire and EMS group said that they had only two
    trailers, one for the scene and a smaller one for the hospital.
    And then they had a comment that I did not quite follow. They
    said if they were contaminated they did not want to go to the
    hospital because they might contaminate other people. Well, a
    very serious concern to me is what are we going to be doing to
    protect our first responders and save their lives, both on the
    scene and later, with health problems.
        And my question is on equipment. Where are the critical
    needs? What is it you feel that you need for equipment and
    could you give us a listing from this city's perspective,
    knowing you will be helping all of your neighboring towns and
    villages--what are your biggest priorities for Stamford?
        Mayor Malloy. Congresswoman, I am going to attempt to
    answer that for you, but I do not have the specifics before me.
    But I will seek to have specifics--a list presented to you.
        Quite clearly, we are concerned about the hazmat area and
    the ability of police officers who may need to respond, given
    certain circumstances, to an incident whose needs are not being
    addressed as rapidly as the hazmat, fire units area. And quite
    clearly, the list that I will present you will address that
    issue. Police officers will play a vital role in responding,
    for instance, to the incident that presents itself in today's
    scenario.
        The math that was done before you a little while ago speaks
    of $4 billion distributed for local preparation, but $30
    million flowing to the State of Connecticut for redistribution.
    That is not the best flow level that I have ever seen reported
    when it comes to distributing assets for local preparation,
    albeit I understand we have a ways to go and I do not mean to
    be over critical, because we are working at this together. But
    there are great and tremendous needs.
        Let me point one thing out to you. although there are two
    trailers in Stamford, we actually built one locally because it
    was taking so long to get one distributed by the Federal
    Government through the State government. So the members of our
    fire department took an old backup piece of equipment and
    converted it to a decontamination unit, and that is the one
    that we, in today's exercise, would have responded to the
    hospital to help in their preparations, as opposed to the main
    unit which has now been distributed through the State I guess
    about 7 months ago, if I remember correctly. And one in New
    York--I mean in Greenwich. Greenwich and Stamford were chosen
    for some of the early distribution of that equipment because we
    are on the metro north line and in fact 222 trains going
    through Stamford on a daily basis.
        But I will otherwise ask our police chief and fire, EMS
    services to provide you a list of what we think is necessary.
        Mrs. Maloney. The mayor of New York, his office told me
    last week that the city of New York has received only $34
    million for homeland security. And one of the recommendations
    that Senator Rudman gave is that the grant should go directly
    to the localities and not to the States, since the response is
    from the locality, basically not from the State.
        So my question is your response to that. And also I would
    like to ask the mayor, Mayor Malloy, what funding did you,
    Mayor Malloy, request from the Federal Government for equipment
    and what level was funded? I assume you did make a request,
    correct?
        Mayor Malloy. Yes. The point you have raised is a very
    important one, even more critical in Connecticut. As has
    previously been said, we do not have county government for
    redistribution purposes. So we have a great fear about moneys
    not being fairly distributed to local jurisdictions,
    particularly jurisdictions that, relating to my earlier
    testimony, have a higher probability--not possibility, but
    higher probability--of attack or being the situs of such an
    incident. So we do have very serious concerns about that.
        There are, by last count, 244 municipalities in the United
    States, Dayton included, with a population of 100,000 or more,
    a relatively small number of such jurisdictions and if you want
    to use a 75,000 or a 50,000 definition of cities, you can still
    get to manageable numbers. We have other distribution formulas
    at work, the CDBG grant funds are distributed and recognized, a
    certain size community for direct distribution purposes. I
    would agree with what I believe the premise of the Congressman
    to be, that we probably can make some pretty good decisions on
    how to invest that money within the framework of State or
    national guidelines.
        With respect to the specifics of how much we have
    requested; for instance, we have requested overtime
    reimbursement and not received such funds. Not for training,
    but for higher levels of preparation and standby. And as a
    mayor who met the first train leaving New York City after train
    service was re-established on September 11, we had very great
    concerns about contamination being transported on that date.
    That grows out of the sarin gas attacks in Japan where more
    individuals died as a result of the transmittal than died as a
    direct result of the attack.
        Mrs. Maloney. My time is up. Thank you.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. We are just going to go this first
    round and then when we come back afterwards, you will all be
    invited to make any other comments you would like to make.
        We are going to invite those who have been the spokespeople
    for each of those tabletops to respond, but we will also invite
    the general audience to respond as well.
        My colleagues may need to get back to Washington, but I
    will make sure that this hearing lasts until we cover that.
        Just real quick, why should I not want to see Fairfield
    County as part of the New York region, FEMA region?
        Mr. Craig. Well, administratively it is very difficult, if
    not impossible, to break up a State to give out grants and to
    train. The regional structure of the Federal Government is
    based on 10 regions. The Department of Homeland Security, while
    we will have a regional structure, has not decided what the
    size or look of that structure will be. So that will be coming
    out in the near future. But we do work with New York State and
    New York City on different events. As you hear earlier,
    Operation Yankee, which was run by FEMA Region I out of the
    Naval War College, was for the six States of New England. Early
    next year, that will include New York and New Jersey to be
    participants in that.
        Mr. Shays. If there is an event like what happened, we
    would logically see people from New York come to Stamford,
    correct? We are not going to wait for Boston.
        Mr. Craig. Absolutely.
        Mr. Shays. OK.
        Mr. Craig. And we would immediately deploy somebody to the
    State of Connecticut.
        Also, a specific event where we are working together is the
    Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention.
    We have sent liaisons to New York for the RNC meetings and vice
    versa, Region II has sent them up to Boston for the DNC. So we
    have that kind of coordination between regions.
        Mr. Shays. When we did a tabletop in the Stratford-
    Bridgeport area, about 3 plus years ago, we learned a lot from
    that. One of the things we learned, which is obvious to us now
    particularly since September 11, was the challenge of
    communicating within units and then clearly among units--fire
    to police and so on. But the biggest negative or surprise was
    the health department had no communication at all within and
    then really a difficult time communicating among the different
    units.
        This time around, the thing that I am caught most by
    surprise--and it is so obvious--and it relates to you, Mr.
    Bruhl--first congratulations on getting the business community
    to think about this and to be a leader in this, and others
    should follow. But you are not going to keep anyone in the
    office building if they want to be with their child. And
    particularly since September 11 when people were told to stay
    in the buildings and the towers when they probably should have
    left. There is probably going to be a lack of trust as well.
        Speak to me about the challenges you are encountering and
    what your biggest obstacles were in getting the business
    community to come together.
        Mr. Bruhl. Well, in terms of getting the business community
    to come together, there were no obstacles here in Fairfield
    County because so many of our companies had loss of life in New
    York, so many of our communities had loss of life. There was an
    obvious sense that we were in this together, it was real. But
    that is a different thing from what I know the question is, how
    did they actually get action as opposed to merely getting
    together to commiserate. This idea----
        Mr. Shays. I thought you were going to say first you have a
    good mayor that took charge. [Laughter.]
        Mr. Bruhl. We happen to be blessed with a brilliant mayor--
    [laughter]--as we are blessed with a brilliant Representative
    as well. And as you know, I am a classic case of the
    understating.
        However, the issue of the employee as a person, the
    employee as a family member, not as a unit on a chart that gets
    managed is really where our companies have a lot of experience.
    And that is why when we say they are going home to their
    children, we are not saying these are thoughtless people,
    unable to understand that the first responders are trying to do
    the best they can. I am saying that my daughter is not going to
    be left on a street corner. And that issue can only yield to
    better planning where we all work on this together. Second,
    some form of evacuation planning. We heard some very good
    examples from the uniformed folks about corridors to move
    people in and out. But where is the public sector in doing
    that--I am sorry, the private sector in understanding that so
    we can communicate in advance of an event, not after an event
    when rumor and fear kicks in. And then finally, real
    communications, not the reliance on seeing press briefings. We
    need real time access to real hard information that people can
    make determinations on and therefore know is a plume coming our
    way or not--those kinds of things. Not to supersede the
    judgment of the public sector, but to tamp down the fear factor
    where people unilaterally take things into their hands.
        Mr. Shays. No board of education folks in the exercise
    today, board of finance, but not board of ed, correct?
        Mr. Bruhl. I believe that is correct.
        Mr. Shays. I am struck with the fact that if you knew
    beforehand that the various board of eds had a very sound
    program that could make you feel a little more comfortable--but
    obviously you are working and they are then sent home and who
    is at home to take care of them. So it raises some interesting
    points.
        Mr. Bruhl. Yes, sir. The mayor of Stamford pointed out that
    in Stamford, the decision was made that children are not
    dismissed in the middle of the day and yet in many other school
    districts, and in fact in my own, there was a different
    building-by-building decision with the principal. Some form of
    cooperative understanding of how we are going to keep these
    children until called for is a very simple thing for a regional
    community to address. But it needs to be facilitated, I think,
    and encouraged, not just by the State but by the Federal
    Government in its overall protocol, so we do not add
    unnecessary pressures on parents to then lead them to act in a
    way that complicates everyone's lives.
        Mr. Shays. Real Briefly, Mr. Petri.
        Mr. Petri. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to address
    the committee concerning a comment previously made about Region
    I and whether or not it should be part of New York or New York
    part of us.
        I would like for you to know that for the past several
    months, Connecticut has been engaged in spear heading a
    collaborative effort taking place with the city of New York,
    State of New York and with New Jersey, as it pertains to
    planning for evacuation purposes. The level of effort being put
    into this has been substantial as traffic management is of
    critical importance. Both New York City, New York State and New
    Jersey have opened their doors in terms of cooperation and we
    are taking advantage of that cooperation by working together to
    bring about a coordinated and integrated tri-State plan for
    this region.
        Mr. Shays. We are going to have to break in 2 minutes here,
    but I did want to talk about standards and density, but I am
    going to wait until the afternoon. But I do just want to have
    you respond to this, mayor. No large cities in Connecticut, no
    county governments, so is your sense that--and you have got a
    Federal Government that is going to set standards for density
    and so on ultimately I think. Do you think we can make the
    State system work or do you still, as mayor, want to see direct
    pass-throughs?
        Mayor Malloy. I am concerned that the State's approach in
    distributing assets is not the right one, that an across-the-
    board formula-driven approach----
        Mr. Shays. Just by population.
        Mayor Malloy. Yes, just by population. And I think that
    there is a greater willingness in regions to recognize lead
    organizations than the State is recognizing. I can assure you
    that, for instance, Darien and New Canaan, if they had that
    incident that is presenting itself in today's scenario, would
    expect Stamford to respond a lot quicker than anyone out of
    Hartford is going to respond. And although I believe the FBI
    agent's discussion today about how quickly they would respond
    is what he intends to do, I doubt that the FBI is going to
    respond from New Haven to Stamford in 20 minutes.
        Mr. Shays. What we are going to do right now is we are
    going to be at recess and we will come back afterwards.
        We do thank you all for letting us interrupt your tabletop
    and we will invite others to testify afterwards as well. Thank
    you, we are at recess.
        [Recess.]
        Mr. Shays. I would like to call this hearing back to order
    and what we are going to do is we are going to first hear from
    elected officials--first selectmen, mayors, State
    representatives--and then we are going to have an individual
    from each of the tables explain, make comments on what they
    want us to know, what they have learned, and then we will open
    this to anyone who has general comments.
        I will first start in Greenwich and just go up the State
    here. So Mr. Bergstresser, you are on. If you would state your
    name and your title, please.

      STATEMENT OF RICHARD BERGSTRESSER, FIRST SELECTMAN, TOWN OF
                             GREENWICH, CT

        Mr. Bergstresser. Richard Bergstresser, first selectman for
    the town of Greenwich.
        I just wanted to emphasize one point, and that is about the
    allocation of funding. And I second some of the comments that--
    I have had conversation with Andy Spado in Westchester County--
    it is vital that the funding be done on some sort of a priority
    basis and with some focus on risk assessment because we sit
    just over the State line from Westchester County and of course
    New York City, we feel, has unfortunately demonstrated they are
    a primary target.
        We need to focus not only on the funding--I guess I will
    expand my comments to also say in terms of incident management,
    to really get a focus on regional control. If an incident
    happens in New York City, one of the things we saw was an
    outpouring from our emergency services people and some people
    just going down--getting on the train and going down to New
    York City. That obviously was not good staffing. So we need to
    really organize ourselves so that we have a turnout on a
    controlled basis.
        Thank you very much for the opportunity.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you, Dick, I appreciate it a lot.
        Going up, we will go to New Canaan. I just want the record
    to note in my 16 years at a hearing, this is the first hearing
    I have ever conducted where a witness is eating at the table.
    [Laughter.]
        I want you to know that that was First Selectman Bond. Mr.
    Bond, you are on.

       STATEMENT OF RICHARD BOND, FIRST SELECTMAN, NEW CANAAN, CT

        Mr. Bond. Jealousy will get you nowhere.
        Mr. Shays. Would you state your name and title, please?
        Mr. Bond. My name is Richard Bond, I am the first
    selectman, New Canaan, CT. Gentlemen, thank you for giving us
    this opportunity.
        The concern I have is probably a concern we all have, the
    timing of the whole incident. With the transportation situation
    as it is in New Canaan, whether it is I-95 in New Canaan or
    Fairfield County, I-95, Route 1 and Merritt Parkway is--today,
    given certain hours of the day, particularly commuting hours,
    as Mr. Malloy said, probably from 6:30 a.m., until 9 and then
    around 3 to 6 p.m., the highways are absolutely jammed. The
    ability to get additional support in, whether it is individuals
    or equipment, and to get people out is almost impossible.
        And I think we are all aware of that and we know that the
    State is trying to address that, but the timing in which they
    will be able to address it is years. This is a concern to me
    for Fairfield County, not as much for New Canaan because we are
    not quite faced with the same problems. But if we were to
    supply help to Stamford or Westport, it would be very difficult
    for us to get police, fire, ambulances down there to help.
        We do not know the answer to it, but the answer, as is
    presented today, is a long, long term situation. And some of
    the solutions are not too favorable. But whatever the solution
    is, it has to be something other than on these major roads at
    this time.
        Mr. Shays. Was it your sense that there was not as much
    intensity in this tabletop as would have been in the real
    world, given this kind of challenge that you are talking about?
        Mr. Bond. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Shays. Any other comment?
        Mr. Bond. No. May I go back to eating? [Laughter.]
        Mr. Shays. We will go with you. Diane, if you will give
    your title.

        STATEMENT OF DIANE FARRELL, FIRST SELECTWOMAN, TOWN OF
                              WESTPORT, CT

        Ms. Farrell. First of all--and I will not belabor, Chris,
    because I know you do not appreciate all the accolades, but I
    say thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you are doing,
    because it has been terrific.
        Second thing is, in response to the exercises, I think that
    today was very good. We have done a number of tabletop
    exercises in Westport, we have done a number of cooperative
    exercises with metro north and with the city of Bridgeport and
    each time, as the chief elected official and therefore, a non-
    emergency response professional, I remain very, very impressed
    with the level of professionalism that we have in lower
    Fairfield County, and I think today was another illustration in
    point.
        However, you can never practice enough and you can never
    anticipate every subtlety or nuance that may occur during a
    real time event, so the more we do this and the more we talk to
    each other, the better. So I think today was a success from
    that standpoint.
        I did want to respond to a couple of the statements/
    comments that were made at the hearing prior to our going to
    back to phase 3 and I do want to thank Congressman Turner for
    coming. And I wanted to add something, you had asked the
    question about standards and I certainly support the idea that
    we try to work with the two primary organizations--police and
    fire--as it relates to standards by a municipality.
        One that is going to be very difficult to tackle and one
    that you never think about is how we handle the issue of
    smallpox inoculations. And that is something that we have
    wrestled with in our municipalities. When we were originally
    informed that we needed to begin this rolling inoculation,
    first with our first responders and then anticipating a mass
    inoculation with the population, a number of very critical
    questions came up as it relates to whether or not you make this
    a condition of employment, for first responders for example;
    whether or not you suffer certain liabilities because there
    obviously are certain risks to the smallpox inoculation.
        And you know, it comes down to the practical level. Do you
    literally say as a police chief, well, you do not have to be
    inoculated, but you do, and therefore when something happens,
    the person who agreed to be inoculated is suddenly placed in a
    greater level of danger than say the individual who chose not
    to. So it is a real tricky issue, it is a liability issue and I
    do not think it is necessarily going to be answered at even the
    State level, let alone at the local level. So it is something
    to think about when you are working with those organizations.
        With regard to money, I have to agree with Mayor Malloy
    that we are beginning to see funds coming from the Federal
    Government and we are very grateful for that. Primarily they
    are coming through the States and, as has already been
    mentioned, Connecticut is a little bit complicated because we
    do not have a regional government.
        I do have to say that distributing on a population basis to
    me makes absolutely no sense. It has to be a qualitative
    decision on the basis of threat level. And the individuals
    sitting here before you this afternoon are all at least within
    50 miles of New York City, if not closer. And given that fact
    that that is the de facto target, it would be silly to just
    look at us on the basis of population and not as a threat
    assessment.
        The other problem with money is that while we are grateful
    for it, I have observed frustration both at the State and in
    our own level in terms of the amount of time that we are
    allowed to apply. And I will give you a perfect case in point.
    We were invited by the Department of Justice to apply for an
    interoperability communications grant and it was a significant
    sum, I want to say $78 million to be distributed across the 50
    States, and theoretically municipalities were invited to apply.
    We were given 30 days to respond to a fairly lengthy
    application and the Federal Government put together a panel and
    only had 30 days to make the decision. So that is a total of 60
    days to decide upon tens of millions of dollars and how best
    they could be spent. And given the fact that each of us are
    trying to squeeze everything we can out of every dollar that we
    are given, it just does not seem the best process. And I do
    understand the use it or lose it aspect of things and I
    understand that we were coming to the end of the Federal budget
    year, but I would like to think that if we are given that kind
    of money that we can seriously look at our taxpayers and say we
    are spending it as efficiently as possible because every dollar
    is so valuable. So that is something that has been a bit
    frustrating.
        The final comment I will have is that you heard from Don
    Petri today from the Office of Homeland Security for
    Connecticut, and Don is wearing many hats. One is that he has
    been tasked with looking at evacuation planning for the State
    of Connecticut. And as he mentioned, he is working with New
    York and New Jersey to come together--clearly this has to be a
    tri-State effort. If we just looked at Connecticut, it would be
    a very naive view and he understands that. It is not easy to
    get Governors to all agree, as evidenced by the power line
    issue right now between New York and Connecticut.
        And a thought that I had that perhaps might help and might
    help us to not reinvent the wheel is whether or not this could
    be looked at as a Federal challenge; again, considering that we
    are talking about New York as the epicenter here. And perhaps
    the Department of the Army or another Federal agency could be
    looking at this, which would sort of take it out of the local
    jurisdictions; i.e., the States, and working it through on a
    logistics basis. I mean I am anecdotally reminded from that
    famous scene in Patton where George C. Scott is standing on a
    jeep and directing troops. And it occurs to me--we need George
    C. Scott in Connecticut I guess--but it occurs to me that
    perhaps there is a Federal agency like the Department of the
    Army, the Army Corps or through the National Guard where this
    could really be treated as a Federal response to what is a tri-
    State problem.
        So those were my thoughts for the day and once again, I do
    thank you both for your time and attention. This is obviously a
    very critical issue.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
        Next we will go to Ms. Powers. If you would state your name
    and title.

         STATEMENT OF CLAUDIA DOLLY POWERS, CONNECTICUT STATE
                             REPRESENTATIVE

        Ms. Powers. That is right. I am State Representative
    Claudia Dolly Powers, I am the deputy minority leader in the
    House.
        I am going to make some recommendations and ask some
    questions that maybe need to be looked into a little bit at the
    Federal level as opposed to the State level, because we are
    limited. We like to talk about working together, but we all
    know State lines can stop discussions even though they should
    not.
        The question I asked in the exercise about the privacy of
    medical information. Perhaps a very small amendment could
    remedy that situation whereby in an emergency that has been
    declared by a Governor or the President, that particular issue
    in terms of locating a patient in a hospital could be
    addressed.
        Next, this particular issue I have heard at other
    discussions that we have had on the local and State level which
    is, once we have had an incident, localities need help with
    replacement of equipment that they have used, because as we
    noted in several of the discussions, masks are only good for 20
    minutes and the filter, replacement filter is only good for 20
    minutes and then you have to throw the whole thing away because
    it has been contaminated. Same thing with suits and boots and
    gloves.
        Every group that spoke in this tabletop exercise mentioned
    communications, some more than once and in some level of
    frustration. I would hope that perhaps we could look at
    something in terms of newer, faster technology, perhaps
    something in terms of an emergency that has been declared by a
    Governor or the President, taking over a frequency for a
    specific period of time to--aside from the 800 megahertz which
    we are in the process of implementing, but as we all know, it
    is lengthy and expensive.
        Another issue that actually has been brought to me by a
    number of constituents which is the cell phone network, which
    we saw fail completely on September 11, it failed completely on
    the blackout. And whether or not there is something that we can
    do at the Federal level in terms of requiring some kind of a
    backup system or relaying to--I am not an engineer so I do not
    know the right terminology to use, but the total frustration of
    individuals who have become dependent on their cell phones and
    at the very instant of an emergency, they are completely cutoff
    and then they are standing in the old fashioned line to get to
    a land line, you know, in a phone booth on the street.
        Mr. Shays. Let me just interrupt you. I just want to make
    you all feel that if you need to get on your way, because you
    told me you needed to get on your way. We are going to kind of
    just go through and hear and not ask a lot of questions. Thank
    you very much.
        Ms. Powers. Next, there was discussion about using
    helicopters to bring in personnel, emergency personnel,
    specialized personnel and pharmaceuticals on an emergency
    basis. My question was who controls that? Is that the FAA, is
    that the nearest airport, is that the State police? Again, that
    may be a State/Federal issue that maybe Homeland Security on
    the national level could set up a standardized system so people
    would know where to turn for that particular issue.
        Another issue that we have been dealing with on the State
    level, and it ties into the liability issue, which is if you
    have--and it is especially pertinent to here because we are so
    close to the New York line--if in the event of an emergency,
    you call people in from Westchester County, identity in terms
    of individuals. We have passed bills to mitigate, you know, the
    good samaritan issue, someone comes in in an emergency to help,
    whether they are an engineer, whether they are a doctor, a
    nurse, something--you know, whether there is someone who runs a
    company that actually mitigates spills and helps out in an
    emergency, the liability issues. The question has been raised
    how in the middle of an emergency do you identify that person
    absolutely. Perhaps there would be some system of a smart card
    ID for those people who would be available in terms of
    emergencies.
        I am glad you are all looking at standards in terms of
    equipment and training. I think a Federal minimum for--maybe do
    not tie it right away to the funding because people get
    hysterical when you do that, but setting up Federal minimums in
    terms of the level of equipment and training, I think it would
    be helpful because it gives everyone at least a starting point
    that is, you know, community-wide, statewide, nationwide.
        And on a lighter note, I, as a Navy kid, was given the
    smallpox vaccination three times and I am here and I am fine.
    So if you are worried about the smallpox, I have even
    volunteered to go have it done again.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Representative Duff.

       STATEMENT OF BOB DUFF, CONNECTICUT STATE REPRESENTATIVE,
                              NORWALK, CT

        Mr. Duff. Thank you. My name is Bob Duff, I am a State
    Representative from Norwalk, and I just want to thank you
    again, Congressman, and thank you, Congressman Turner, for
    coming and thank you for letting us be both observers and
    participants today.
        Frankly, I found this day to be very sobering and I think
    that we have come a long way in our 2 years since September 11
    but obviously more needs to be done. What I am walking away
    with is I am very thankful that we have such professional
    people who are helping us and protecting us and they have a
    tremendous amount of skill, as we saw today. I mean they know
    the agencies and different types of chemicals and different
    types of things that are needed to go through this maze and I
    just want to compliment them. And just to make sure that we
    make sure that they continue to have the tools that they need
    to better protect us.
        The way I see this is I think this is a multi-pronged
    approach. We need communication, we need people to be prepared
    and we need coordination. I think we are on our way to that,
    but I think the blackout was a very good rehearsal toward
    something that could happen that could be disastrous.
        One of the things I think we need to do is make sure we
    keep the business community involved. They have to take steps
    obviously because we have our reliance on our electrical grid,
    and as we saw during the blackout, I had people who I know who
    had no idea really what was going on. I think a lot of us
    thought that there was terrorism in the beginning, but did not
    know what was going on because they missed one of the
    essentials. And this may sound over-simplistic, but one of the
    things I think some of our businesses need is they need radios
    with batteries. I went to my car and drove home so I could
    listen to the radio to hear what was going on. And there were
    those in office buildings who had no lights and nobody had any
    idea what was going on because, as the mayor said, one of the
    best ways of communication was the radio at that point.
        The other concern I have is that we had Federal and State
    officials testifying about money given and trickling down to
    municipalities but then you had the mayors and first selectmen
    who said that they have not seen it or it was very much of a
    spend it or lose it in a very quick amount of time. So I think
    we need to make sure we keep our cooperation together and that
    we work well together and make sure that the money that does
    come down comes down in the proper channels.
        Again, I just wanted to thank you for your leadership and
    for this continuing dialog because I think this is the only way
    we can improve the safety of our citizens. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you, Representative Duff. Mayor.
        Mayor Malloy. I just wanted to reflect a little bit
    further, Chris, on the issue that was raised in our earlier
    discussions. And that is this top down driven allocation of
    resources. I was reflecting in the afternoon session and I
    believe that Members of Congress need to understand that at
    least within our region, there is a built-in political
    incentive to getting this done right on the local level. And as
    much as Congressmen or Senators, from time to time, may worry
    about whether Federal dollars are going to be used for some
    other purpose, in this particular area, I can honestly look you
    straight in the eye and say every cent that has come to the
    community with respect to homeland defense has been spent
    appropriately and in the area that was designed. I believe that
    the Fire Department, either Chief McGrath or someone else, will
    speak as to what some of the things that we have identified we
    would add if we could and if direct allocations were made.
        The other thing I wanted to assure----
        Mr. Shays. Let me just interrupt you to say that is one
    vehicle we still have because we have the fire grant.
        Mayor Malloy. Right.
        Mr. Shays. That comes direct to local communities.
        Mayor Malloy. The fire grant does. And interestingly
    enough, the fire grant predated September 11, but the dollars
    have been useful in our preparation for a post-September 11
    world, although that clearly was not the intent at the time
    that the fire legislation was passed. But even the way we look
    at vehicles and what we want on vehicles has been impacted I
    think by September 11.
        The other point I wanted to make is that there may from
    time to time be a disbelief on the State level--or a belief on
    the State level of the inability of local communities to work
    together on a regional basis in a State which does not have a
    regional form of government. And I think what you saw
    demonstrated today by the first selectmen and myself and the
    mayor of Norwalk is this willingness to work these issues out
    between ourselves, to identify who is a more likely victim of a
    particular type of activity, to input as to where resources
    should be housed so that they can get most quickly to an event.
    We are prepared to work together and this is one of those
    issues that just simply cuts across, and you should feel good
    about that.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Mr. Bond, do you have any
    closing comment you would like to make?
        Mr. Bond. No, I agree with Mr. Malloy that the ability to
    work together is absolutely there. No one has any other thing
    in mind than to help each other if and when needed, not a
    problem.
        Mr. Shays. That is a nice way to close. Gentlemen, thank
    you so very much. And again, mayor, thank you.
        We are now going to invite five table representatives--law
    enforcement, business, city administration, firefighters,
    emergency medical services and public health to come forward. I
    hope we assigned someone from each table.
        While one is testifying, if you all would just fill out
    your name and your address, title and so on. I count four, we
    had five, who is missing, what table is not represented here?
        Voice. Medical community.
        Mr. Shays. Medical community. Is there anyone from--he is
    out there. So we have the medical community here, public
    health--you know it would have been the mayors of the city. If
    you are going to still be here, mayor, maybe we should have you
    just----
        Mayor Malloy. I thought you might have gotten tired of me.
        Mr. Shays. No, we have not gotten tired of you. I enjoy
    competence.
        The sound is a little dead in the back here so I am going
    to ask all of us to speak much closer into these mics.
        OK, why do we not just start. First, why do we not begin
    with law enforcement--name, title and so on.

       STATEMENT OF THOMAS WUENNEMANN, CAPTAIN, STAMFORD POLICE
                               DEPARTMENT

        Captain Wuennemann. My name is Thomas Wuennemann, I am a
    captain with the Stamford Police Department.
        We thought today was a great start, but we also realize
    that our officers need a lot more training, and we also would
    like to see a practical drill for the front line officers,
    because they are the ones that are going to make the critical
    decisions early on that is going to shape which way this goes.
        A big thing for law enforcement is the interoperability
    communications. The fire department is way ahead of us on this.
    We are well behind on that and that is something that greatly
    concerns us.
        As mentioned before, equipment is starting to come in, but
    what we are concerned about is the upkeep of the equipment. A
    lot of this stuff has filters and the maintenance type money to
    keep it going. That is a big issue for us because a lot of this
    stuff in 2 years, or even annually, needs to be updated.
        Those are our main things, but the big thing for us is
    training.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. We will go to fire.

     STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. MCGRATH, FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF STAMFORD,
                                   CT

        Chief McGrath. Yes. My name is Robert McGrath, I am the
    fire chief, city of Stamford.
        Reflecting on training, I agree with Captain Wuennemann, we
    are doing most of our training in-house. It is becoming a
    burden on our taxpayers here in Stamford. While we are doing a
    regional response, we feel as though that some of the money
    should come from a regional aspect to train people if we are
    going to respond to their towns and basically take over and
    mitigate situations there.
        Referring to the Fire Act you mentioned earlier, it seems a
    little bit unfair as to where that money is being allocated.
    The larger municipalities have to come up with a 30 percent
    match, whereas the smaller ones only have to come up with a 10
    percent match. Cities like Philadelphia have turned money back
    because they do not have the 30 percent match. And here in
    Stamford, we have seen very little come this way, while a lot
    of the other smaller municipalities upstate have been getting a
    lot more. We feel as though we would like to see more come this
    way toward training, equipment and so forth.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Shays. I am going to react by saying I wonder if it is
    a perception that they have more or whether they do have more,
    and it would be something we can check on. But your point is
    though you actually need a higher match in Stamford than you
    would need somewhere else here in the State?
        Chief McGrath. In the State of Connecticut. The
    municipalities I believe with 100,000--or 50,000 and less only
    have to come up with 10 percent and those over 50,000 I believe
    have to come up with a 30 percent match.
        So some of the cities I have spoke to have not even applied
    for it because they could not come up with that match.
        Mr. Shays. Is that for Federal dollars?
        Chief McGrath. That is for the fire grant, sir.
        Mr. Shays. The main fire grant, OK. That is very
    interesting.
        I tell people I learn lots of new things every day here.
        Shall we go to the public health?

           STATEMENT OF ED MCCORMACK, STAMFORD HEALTH SYSTEM

        Mr. McCormack. Ed McCormack from Stamford Health System, I
    was participating at the table from the medical community. So I
    do not speak particularly for public health.
        Mr. Shays. OK, but just as you see what happened in your
    table, where were the biggest challenges?
        Mr. McCormack. I would say they involve communication--not
    surprising. Our issue from the hospital's perspective is
    through providing decontamination immediately, recognition of
    the need and providing the decontamination. We have a lot of
    equipment that has been purchased toward that end, we are
    looking to do training--it is expensive and will pose some
    challenges--but the plan we are putting in place calls for our
    ability to decontaminate initially. So we still rely upon the
    fire department to help with that.
        Mr. Shays. We did not have the opportunity to interact with
    Greenwich and Norwalk, correct, in this exercise?
        Mr McCormack. They were not represented at the table.
        Mr. Shays. Right. So tell me how you do interact.
        Mr. McCormack. Normally what happens, once an emergency is
    activated, much like the city's model, we have an incident
    command structure within the hospital, we set up incident
    command and EOC and we communicate with the city's emergency
    operations center of course and we usually reach out, as part
    of that process, to the neighboring hospitals. There is also a
    CMED communication system which immediately tends to poll the
    hospitals as to their bed availability and relay that
    information between the hospitals. I am sure there is also
    informal communication that goes on, but from a formal
    structure, it is through the EOC to contact the surrounding
    hospitals, advise them of where we stand in terms of a certain
    event and exchange information, you know, through that
    structure.
        We are aware of the fact that both neighboring hospitals
    are probably somewhere in the same process that we are in, of
    revisiting our emergency management planning, updating it,
    implementing some of the newer concepts. Certainly for Stamford
    Hospital, that is what we have been engaged in for at least a
    2-year period, actually pursuing that. And we are in the
    process right now of putting our plan in place, which mirrors
    the process that the fire and police departments use to do
    command and control and it allows us to probably better manage
    our resources and direct them to where they are needed.
        Some of our issues that were identified through this
    tabletop exercise are the continuing need for training, which
    we have a plan to accomplish; some of the issues with locking
    down the facility, securing it in the event of a terrorist type
    of event. There are issues with transportation, whether it is
    bringing supplies in or moving patients out, both situations
    would probably occur in this scenario. There is limitation to
    ground resources from the demands that are put on the local
    emergency services and there are limitations to air resources
    due to what access the hospital has to a helicopter landing
    site. Currently we use corporate sites which are off campus and
    I am sure that in the bigger picture of planning for the
    hospital, there would be a need to somehow be able to access
    air resources closer to the facility. That came up with
    September 11 and it came up again in the recent situation where
    we were trying to bring in parts that were critical to the
    infrastructure of the hospital in the power outage, and they
    had to be transported by ground.
        So issues like that came up again in today's exercise.
    Those would be the main ones. And I just wanted to say that I
    appreciate, speaking for the hospital, the opportunity to
    participate in this exercise and that it was very helpful.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. I just want to pursue one little
    part.
        I just want to be clear as to what type of communications
    the hospitals have.
        Mr. McCormack. Internally we have a pretty good state of
    affairs, we have probably 40 walkie talkie type devices that
    can be distributed throughout the facility. We have phones that
    are working without power, we have a couple of other
    communication systems within the hospital. So that is
    relatively strong.
        We communicate externally through cellular means, through--
    we have a dedicated network, a radio system which is available
    through the CMED network which is probably the primary
    communication line and there are additional resources being
    brought to bear such as a satellite phone system, which is to
    be installed through the southern Connecticut regional group
    that has been meeting regularly to work on some of these
    issues.
        Mr. Shays. Mayor.
        Mayor Malloy. Congressman, I think your question can also
    be answered by there is a regional CMED organization that helps
    distribute--in the time of a crisis or mass crisis, would help
    distribute the traffic flow between the hospitals that are
    nearest to the event, in this case, for our discussion
    purposes, it likely would have been Greenwich, Norwalk and
    Bridgeport, perhaps Danbury. There is an organization who would
    then help coordinate that transportation.
        Mr. Shays. Great, thank you. That is very helpful.
        Business community. Thank you.

      STATEMENT OF DAN ARENOVSKI, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF SECURITY,
                             PURDUE PHARMA

        Mr. Arenovski. Dan Arenovski, associate director of
    security for Purdue Pharma.
        The exercise today was definitely needed and we thank you
    for including the business community. Funding for additional
    exercises, tabletop and other outside scenarios, is definitely
    needed and we would like to see the continued inclusion of the
    business community in that.
        We identified at our table today one area that was probably
    most important and had the most significant impact on how we in
    the private sector effect our crisis management plans or
    disaster recovery and most importantly our business continuity
    plans, and that was communications.
        With our 15-story high rises here in Stamford, you know, we
    have an enormous amount of people that want to evacuate and get
    home. We do not know--we were looking for that type of
    information conduit, either from local police, fire or other
    State and Federal Governments to be able to disseminate that
    information either to the directors of security or the business
    leaders, to let us know what we need to do in order to help the
    city and to be able to facilitate business continuity. That
    type of conduit, that information conduit that we have either
    available to us would be either through Web sites or e-mail,
    telecommunications, sat phones and what-not, just the
    establishment of a couple of information clearinghouses that we
    can go to to get that information and stop bothering the 911
    centers.
        That was the largest area that we looked at today as a
    major problem. The sooner we gather that information, the
    sooner we were able to direct our people to go in the right
    direction or keep them in our facilities, especially with
    today's scenario.
        That is all.
        Mr. Shays. Mayor, did you want to make a comment?
        Mayor Malloy. Yes, the last thing I would say as far as our
    group, we were very grateful that the private sector
    participated today. I think we learned a lot of things and
    including what we need to bone up on with respect to our
    communications with that sector, as well as the education
    operations. For instance, we probably should have had
    superintendents of schools here today. We did not do that and
    that was perhaps a weakness on our part. So we certainly
    learned a couple of lessons, not the least of which, those two
    come to mind and are important. And we will have to build
    better ways to communicate with those outside agencies, there
    is no doubt about it.
        Mr. Shays. I just react, it would not have occurred to me
    to do that, to have the board of education here, and yet it is
    like hello. Parents want to be with their kids and want to make
    sure they are well.
        I do not want this to seem a bit negative here, but I want
    to make sure the committee is doing its work in regard to this
    particular exercise, and I will react to--I have seen a few,
    and I thought this was very good, but I wondered if there was
    the intensity level that needed to be, and I am thinking that
    it could have been--they did one radio, TV station, I could
    have seen them jump in with three or four, one trying to trump
    the other, and instead of you learning your information by the
    bullets of how many were in the hospital, you learn it from the
    TV saying, you know, there are 600 and then you find out there
    is a correction, it is only 300. And confusing you all a little
    bit in the beginning.
        I am just wondering if you felt that the intensity level--
    first, did you think that the event was realistic; in other
    words, that that could happen. And I will say I thought it was,
    but I would be curious to know if you did.
        And second, do you think that we could make this a more
    intense effort, is there value in doing that? Intense by a
    little more pressure on you.
        Chief McGrath. I think that if you changed the area where
    this happened to perhaps a more rural setting that does not
    have the equipment and the first responders to be able to get
    to the situation in a timely fashion and have to rely more and
    more on mutual aid, that may be able to be more realistic as to
    what probably could happen.
        Mr. Shays. Other thoughts?
        Mr. Arenovski. I think if we rely strictly on the media to
    disseminate the information coming out of our local government,
    that there is the opportunity for misinterpretation. That we
    would look for the offices of our local and elected officials
    to be able to come forward and release those statements and
    mandate that the media disseminate that information verbatim so
    that there is a representation of strong government and that we
    understand that this is coming directly from our people, the
    people in the official capacity.
        Mr. Shays. I am just wondering what is in the real world
    though. It is in the real world though you are going to have
    your TV sets on hearing this, or are you going to be able--and
    then you are going to have better information come to you
    privately and you are going to have to deal with it. I wondered
    if your sector was challenged enough because it seemed to me
    you should have been forced to have to deal with rumors and
    innuendo and a whole host of other things.
        Mayor Malloy. I think those are valid points, Congressman,
    but it takes me back to September 11 and in the discussion at
    my table, when we opened the EOC at the Stamford Government
    Center on September 11, 2001, we did so assuming we were a
    target. We had two of the major non-New York traders, GE
    Capital at the time, and USB Warburg at the time, in our
    community. So for all of our planning purposes, we made that
    assumption. So we had a real test that day and we had to
    respond to that. I mean as we watched the TV, there could be
    20,000 people injured--dead or injured--at the World Trade
    Center.
        We started making and laying plans as to how we would
    respond, meet the trains, for instance, and all the rest of it.
    So we have had that.
        I think you are in a community in which we have drilled
    this. I mean tomorrow, we will probably have our first
    meeting--depending on weather reports--have our first meeting
    at 1 tomorrow in preparation of a hurricane.
        Mr. Shays. I guess what I am asking is a little more subtle
    because what you are saying is you think you are capable to
    deal with it. But in the real world, would you have had to turn
    on the TV and find that there was this outrageous rumor on TV
    which then, you as the command post for information, would have
    to figure out how do you correct that information and how
    quickly can you, because that incorrect--you know, for
    instance, the plume is three times larger than we think and it
    is headed right downtown Stamford and the entire building was
    destroyed. And you know the building was not destroyed, you
    know the plume was not as bad, but in the meantime, all your
    workers are headed out of their community.
        So I am asking, did you feel you were faced with
    misinformation during the course of the day, and should you
    have been.
        Mayor Malloy. It might have been valuable. You know, I am
    certainly familiar with other exercises such as the virus
    exercises that have occurred elsewhere, and they present very
    different situations than the one today. The one today is much
    more likely to happen, the virus scenario or the scenarios that
    could be presented might be more challenging.
        Mr. Shays. Well, the event is more likely, the question is
    maybe I am----
        Mayor Malloy. No, no, I am agreeing with you. I think it
    would present substantially more challenges and we probably
    would learn how to handle those challenges, or at least test
    our ability to handle those challenges in a more meaningful
    way.
        Mr. Shays. I just want to make sure for the record--I am
    not talking about an outrageous example, I am talking about
    just total misinformation.
        Mayor Malloy. Yes.
        Mr. Turner. Let me jump in, Mr. Chairman, to give you an
    example.
        Your scenario is not that outrageous. On September 11, in
    Dayton, OH, at 3 p.m., on the major news channel of our market,
    they go live with the report that they have just heard from our
    emergency responders that an airplane has been crashed into the
    Veterans Administration Hospital in Dayton, OH.
        I walk out of the City Hall, I look to the direction of the
    city where the Veterans Hospital is and there is a tremendous
    amount of smoke rising from the community. We had all just
    heard in the entire city a huge boom, just right before the
    media made this report.
        What had happened was one of the planes that was chasing
    the President's detail, the jets, had gone supersonic over the
    city, we had a sonic boom and a house fire occurred near the
    Veterans Affairs Hospital.
        Mr. Shays. Wow.
        Mr. Turner. And so we were dealing with suddenly trying to
    come up to speed with what really is going on over there and do
    we really just have a fire.
        Now we were blessed with the fact that we were not at the
    site, so all of our communication systems worked, we were able
    to work with our police department, our fire department, but we
    had a community where we had to play catch up. And that is an
    outrageous rumor, one that did not prove to be the case, and
    that you would face because of the level of hysteria that you
    have when something real is happening.
        Mr. Shays. Any other comment about today before we invite
    comments from the floor?
        Captain Wuennemann. I just have one. I think in a real time
    exercise, I think the transportation issue in this area of the
    State is something that cannot be overlooked. We are talking
    about getting assets here in several hours where you cannot
    make that on a normal commute day. I think when you have a real
    event, that is something that we kind of misled ourselves a
    little bit today.
        Mr. Shays. I would ask one more thing about the--and thank
    you for that point. I am not quite sure if the business
    community was recording events or helping to shape events.
    Because you mentioned basically your employees are going to
    leave whether or not you want them to. Are you saying that by
    providing some quality information, some may have decided to
    leave and some may have decided to go in a different direction?
    How do you think you can shape the conduct of your employees?
        Mr. Arenovski. I think we can certainly shape the amount of
    panic that would come out of a scenario like this, being that
    business and industry is so close to where today's scenario
    took place. By disseminating more timely, up to date
    information regarding the incident, we can probably quell some
    of that panic and either keep people where they need to stay--
    now we are not going to stop everyone, we know that. We know we
    are going to have the factor of families, but the timely
    information and then having us within the facilities being able
    to disseminate that through our employees, either through our
    internal Web sites or PA systems or what-not, will quell some
    of that panic and it will be better, more inclusive
    information.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Any other comments?
        [No response.]
        Mr. Shays. Gentlemen, thank you so very much.
        Let me ask by a show of hands, it may be zero or it may be
    a few, how many people would like to make a comment before we
    adjourn this hearing?
        [Show of hands.]
        Mr. Shays. I see one, two, three, four--Chris, did you want
    to make a comment as well?
        Mr. Bruhl. I will followup at the end.
        Mr. Shays. OK, so why don't we do this, all of you come
    forward and I am going to make an assumption. I am more than
    happy to have anyone who would like to, but I need to know now
    not before we adjourn, just so we have a sense of time here. Is
    there anyone else that would like to come to the table?
        So what I am going to ask you each to do is write your
    names and addresses and titles if you have them, if you do not
    have a card, and for the record just state your name and title.

           STATEMENT OF JIM LARKIN, GLOBAL STRATEGY ADVISORS

        Mr. Larkin. My name is Jim Larkin. I run my own consulting
    company, Global Strategy Advisors, I am a retired vice chairman
    of American Express and I am a former Marine Corps officer,
    with a great deal of experience in the Middle East and the
    Persian Gulf.
        Mr. Shays. Little closer to the mic, just bring that mic
    closer. Thank you.
        Mr. Larkin. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, this morning I heard
    the word communicate and communications probably 1,000 times.
    Permit me to make some observations if I might. It is gospel or
    classic today in conventional war, guerilla war and the war on
    terror to disrupt or destroy the adversary's ability to
    coordinate response. I point out that even bin Laden at this
    particular juncture has been reduced to camels.
        It cannot be ruled out that a sophisticated terror attack
    in the United States or in Stamford in the future will include
    multiple targets including the disruption or the destruction of
    local communications. And by the way, if I were doing it, that
    is exactly what I would do.
        While it was not part of the September 11 episode in New
    York, the NYPD in New York, because its headquarter's proximity
    to the World Trade Center tower, lost communications, had no
    backup and had to depend several hours later on hastily
    installed landlines installed by Verizon. And of course, New
    York's EOC went down with the buildings.
        What I believe needs to be addressed urgently in Stamford,
    in the State, in the region, is what happens if an EOC or its
    communications are taken down at the same time as another
    episode. What happens if a communication system is taken down
    individually in a terror attack.
        I heard Mayor Malloy this morning, who by the way has run
    an excellent operation here, I heard him say when somebody said
    to him how will you be in touch with your people, he said well,
    everyone has a cell phone today.
        What if the towers are destroyed or the electric grid makes
    them inoperable as happened exactly 4 weeks ago for
    approximately 8 to 10 hours here in the east?
        With the proper device, I could take down the Greenwich
    unguarded emergency communication system in 10 minutes. By the
    way, it does not exist on top of the police station. Some will
    say we always have backup systems. There are no backup systems
    except a couple operated by the Federal Government that can be
    taken down also.
        Therefore, should not coordination with public utilities
    come into the mix of your discussions? There has to be
    compatibility of systems, there is not compatibility of systems
    even in Fairfield County, not to speak of the State. There are
    dead areas in the State of Connecticut.
        What do we do in the event of a communications overload? In
    1993 and at September 11, and I was present for both of them,
    it was impossible for citizens to communicate with the New York
    Police Department or the Fire Department in New York for hours.
    I heard two hopeful words introduced into today's hearings--one
    was interoperable communications, as it related to the State I
    think. And I heard another word from the private sector called
    same protocols are important. I recommend that this be
    introduced also.
        Two final comments, Mr. Chairman. The people, not just the
    emergency responders, need to be reassured that both the
    response and prevention are being carefully planned and
    executed. The word carefully planned and executed is very
    important. People must be reassured. While there are some fine
    people in the State of Connecticut Homeland Security, the
    people need to be reassured. They are not being reassured. We
    have an excellent man from Homeland Security here, if not two,
    but papers report he is overworked. I can understand that.
        And finally, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, there is
    an absence of county government in Fairfield County. The
    nearest thing we have to county government, Mr. Chairman, is
    yourself. You cover the county.
        The terrorist attack war gaming and response at the Naval
    War College in Newport, RI, is run at the war facility down
    there. I am a trustee of that organization and treasurer of the
    foundation. We have war games, not the response war game that
    we saw today, but the actual attack itself and the response.
    And had the New York Fire Department twice. We have done the
    New York Police Department twice, and the reason we did it a
    second time is because Commissioner Kelly and General LaBoudy
    said we have got to do this once more, and that went for 3
    days. We have done it with the entire State of Rhode Island and
    I suggest to you that we could do that for Fairfield County, if
    not the State of Connecticut. There seems to be resistance in
    the State of Connecticut. There is no reason also--and I am
    sorry that Congressman Maloney is not here--there is no reason
    why we cannot do the same for Fairfield County and Westchester
    County together at the Naval War College. We are not
    constrained by regions.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Colonel.

       STATEMENT OF DAVID HAWRELUK, ADVISOR-DIRECTOR, DARIEN EMS

        Mr. Hawreluk. David Hawreluk, Advisor-Director, Darien EMS.
        Mr. Shays. Welcome.
        Mr. Hawreluk. Thank you. Thank you for coming.
        Mr. Shays. Pull the mic, if you would, a little closer.
        Mr. Hawreluk. Most of the major concerns that I have been
    thinking about have already been brought up, but some of the
    minor ones that I think we could address a little bit more with
    some money toward it is the public awareness ahead of the
    incident and post-after. Standards of actions, expectations
    that people get immediate information. We should prepare them
    that they are not going to be getting things like that.
    Expectations like opening up the emergency lanes for traffic
    control at rush hour sets expectations of putting us in
    gridlock long before there is a problem. So looking at things
    like that would probably help us in the long term deal with
    issues that could arise after the fact where people want all
    this information right away. And I do not think that is being
    addressed. It is kind of a minor problem behind the scenes, but
    we need to work on it before an incident happens.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. Thank you for being here, by the way,
    too.

       STATEMENT OF JOHN CONTE, CAPTAIN, STAMFORD FIRE DEPARTMENT

        Captain Conte. Yes, I am John Conte, I am a captain with
    the Stamford Fire Department, I am one of the city's hazmat
    officers.
        A couple of things I would like to say. No. 1, from the
    emergency response side, it is just ordinary people in
    extraordinary circumstances. We have talked a lot today about
    incident command system. The incident command system works
    because it is used at basic incidents and it gets extrapolated
    out to major incidents.
        With that in mind, there has been some discussion about
    standards, you were talking about earlier, Congressman Turner,
    and I think Congresswoman Maloney was also speaking about that.
    The ICS system works because it is extrapolated out, our
    standard system uses airpacks and our airpacks are presently
    not set up for standards of NIOSH, which comes out before CBRNE
    systems. In order for us to retrofit to that type of system,
    they would cost roughly $400 apiece, you are looking at
    $100,000 for our size city. If you looked at a regional type
    basis, you are talking about millions of dollars in order to
    extrapolate out. This is equipment the fire department people
    use on a daily basis, again it would be extrapolating existing
    equipment to extraordinary circumstances.
        If you run out the numbers even further, looking at the
    World Trade Center, for example, you would wean off of an SCBA
    system to a filtration system. Presently, fire departments are
    not set up to switch down to a filtration type system where you
    could use those for a longer period of time. That is an area
    which needs to be addressed from a stockpiling system and how
    the individual departments would have access to that.
        Getting down to metering equipment, a lot of metering
    equipment has come down to the basic local level. One of the
    problems that we have seen is that the upgrade, the
    calibration, the necessary replacements that occur 3, 5 years
    down the line is not in place for it. So you might have a meter
    now, 3 years from now the battery or the sensor goes out, there
    is really no system in place to get the replacements for it.
        The last thing I would like to say, and this sort of like
    brings around full cycle, is that FEMA has some excellent
    training programs out there. I have had the ability to go out
    and take some of these programs. For example, there are several
    excellent radiological programs. The problem is that their
    funding has been in jeopardy for the past couple of years and
    those programs are the ones that our ancillary people are going
    to be the ones taking, people coming down from the State,
    people coming from the Federal Government are going to be
    trained to that level, not necessarily trained on terrorist
    prevention type things, but these are courses that are used by
    people day in and day out, they are necessary skills that get
    brought out on a daily basis. And again, they would be
    extrapolated out into an extraordinary circumstance.
        So I would echo what Chief McGrath was talking about
    earlier, the funding is needed in various areas, but it is just
    not making its way into what is needed.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.

    STATEMENT OF E. MICHAEL LATESSA, EMS DIRECTOR, CITY OF NORWALK,
                                   CT

        Mr. Latessa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Michael
    Latessa. I am the Emergency Management Director for the city of
    Norwalk, also the Emergency Communications Director.
        I would like to briefly speak on two continuous themes that
    I have heard over the 30 years of my public safety career, and
    that is communications and training.
        In the first aspect of communications, we have heard this
    term interoperability kicked around all day and assuming
    tomorrow we were flushed with money to solve that problem, we
    desperately need Congress to motivate the Federal
    Communications Commission to work diligently with respect to
    spectrum allocation for public safety services. From what I
    understand, especially in this region of Connecticut, it is
    almost impossible to get a license for 800 megahertz channels,
    short of what you already have allocated, for a variety of
    reasons which I do not quite understand yet, because I am very
    new to the area. But I would encourage Congress to pursue that.
        Mr. Shays. I am going to ask a really dumb question but it
    will help me understand the problem.
        I see limousine services, they have their cell phone and
    then they have their walkie talkies and so on. They do not seem
    to have any trouble. Why do they not have trouble? They seem to
    be able to get what they need when they need it. What is
    happening there?
        Mr. Latessa. Sir, I am not sure I know the answer to that
    question, but what I do know is that it is very difficult for a
    public safety agency to make application and receive additional
    spectrum allocation in just about any spectrum that you choose,
    whether it is high band, ultra high or 800-900 spectrum radio
    systems.
        Mr. Shays. I am just going to have my staff respond.
        Mr. Halloran. One of the issues is that State and local
    governments compete with every phone company and every other
    commercial operator in the world----
        Mr. Latessa. That is right.
        Mr. Halloran [continuing]. In front of the FCC for access
    to spectrum. The Federal NTIA handles Federal user needs and
    DOD and other Federal users have a chunks of spectrum they can
    use, but you folks compete with Motorola and everybody else for
    what you are going to get out of the spectrum.
        Mr. Latessa. And that is what I understand, you know, that
    most spectrum allocation is being eaten up by commercial,
    cellular phone operators.
        Mr. Shays. I hear you. And this clearly is a problem.
        Mr. Latessa. But that is really key. Even if we were
    flushed with money, we would still have difficulty solving the
    problem.
        The second is to encourage again Congress for the continual
    financial and political support for the National Emergency
    Training Center in Emmitsburg, MD. This is really a key
    training facility for the emergency responder community
    throughout the United States. For example, the----
        Mr. Shays. Should there be a few of them located in
    different places or does it make sense just to have one?
        Mr. Latessa. Well, that is an often debated subject. I
    think currently because of the way that the National
    Emergency--where it is at, it is a tremendous facility and it
    is publicly supported with respect that if you live in
    California, your stipend for travel, your expenses are paid for
    to bring you to Emmitsburg, MD to where you can basically
    network with emergency responders from throughout the Nation.
    So that is beneficial.
        Mr. Shays. Is there anyone else who has utilized that
    facility or can speak to it? OK.
        Mr. Latessa. I think most of us that have been in this
    business for any length of time have either been there--
    personally, I am an adjunct instructor there and have seen the
    benefits over the years of, you know, this facility.
        But I want to focus on one particular program, and that is
    the integrated incident command system program that they have
    there, which is a 4-day course which basically sees what you
    saw today in a 4 or 5 hour period of time stretched out over a
    4-day period of time. It allows whole communities to bring
    their key first responder staff to the facility and they do a
    scenario, based on your location, and it is not just some
    canned scenario. But integrate all of the elements that we were
    referring to, what if this happens and what if this happens and
    what if this happens. Because it is over a 4-day period, you
    can do a lot more of that kind of think tanking and, you know,
    throwing a few curve balls into the emergency responders. And
    it involves the community, the business community, the first
    responder community and political community. They actually go
    down there and participate in this 3 or 4-day program. I
    encourage your continued support of that institution.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
        Is there anyone who has not been invited to speak or has
    been invited and chosen not to, but just really feels we need
    to put something in the record, or can we adjourn?
        [No response.]
        Mr. Shays. Is that OK? Any other comments from the
    gentlemen here?
        [No response.]
        Mr. Shays. With that, I thank my colleague, Mr. Turner, for
    spending his day in Stamford instead of Ohio with his family
    and I thank all of you for your participation. I thank the
    recorder for his good work and the staff from our committee,
    the National Security Subcommittee. Job well done.
        Thank you all very much.
        [Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]