    [House Hearing, 110 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

    THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY'S PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE TO
                                  ALL HAZARDS

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

                                    (110-35)

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
        ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

                                     OF THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                       TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 26, 2007

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
                 Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

                      U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
    35-917                    WASHINGTON : 2007
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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                 COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

                     JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman

    NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia    JOHN L. MICA, Florida
    PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon             DON YOUNG, Alaska
    JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois          THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
    ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of   HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
    Columbia                             JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
    JERROLD NADLER, New York             WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
    CORRINE BROWN, Florida               VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
    BOB FILNER, California               STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
    EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas         RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
    GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi             FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
    ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland         JERRY MORAN, Kansas
    ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California        GARY G. MILLER, California
    LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa             ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
    TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania             HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
    BRIAN BAIRD, Washington              Carolina
    RICK LARSEN, Washington              TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
    MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
    JULIA CARSON, Indiana                SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York          BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
    MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine            JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York              SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
    RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri              Virginia
    JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado            JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
    GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California      MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
    DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois            CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
    DORIS O. MATSUI, California          TED POE, Texas
    NICK LAMPSON, Texas                  DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
    ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio               CONNIE MACK, Florida
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
    BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa                York
    JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania          LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
    TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota           CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
    HEATH SHULER, North Carolina         Louisiana
    MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York           JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
    HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona           CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
    CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania  THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
    JOHN J. HALL, New York               MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
    STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin               VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    JERRY McNERNEY, California
    VACANCY

                                      (ii)

     Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
                                   Management

            ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman

    MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine            SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania          BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
    MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York          SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
    CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania  Virginia
    TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota           CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
    JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota         York
      (Ex Officio)                       JOHN L. MICA, Florida
                                           (Ex Officio)

                                     (iii)

                                    CONTENTS

                                                                       Page

    Summary of Subject Matter........................................    vi
    Chart of Presidential disaster declarations and chart of disaster
      occurences by type, provided by Subcommittee...................   xii

                                   TESTIMONY

    Canterbury, Chuck, President, Fraternal Order of Police..........    49
    Carr, Chief Tom, Montgomery County, Maryland, Fire Rescue
      Service, International Association of Fire Chiefs..............    49
    Endrikat, Chief Fred, Special Operations Chief, City of
      Philadelphia Fire Department, Special Operations Command.......    49
    Fugate, William ``Craig,'' Director, Florida Division Of
      Emergency Management, Member, National Emergency Management
      Association....................................................    25
    Johnson, Vice Admiral Harvey, Deputy Administrator, Federal
      Emergency Management Agency....................................     8
    Selves, Michael D., CEM, President, International Association of
      Emergency Managers.............................................    25
    Sexton, Sr., Sheriff Edmund M. ``Ted,'' Former President,
      National Sheriffs' Association.................................    49
    Witt, James Lee, CEO Of James Lee Witt Associates, a part of
      GlobalOptions Group............................................    25

              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania.............................    63
    Arcuri, Hon. Michael A., of New York.............................    00

                   PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

    Canterbury, Chuck................................................    65
    Carr, Chief Tom..................................................    69
    Endrikat, Fred...................................................    76
    Fugate, William ``Craig''........................................    79
    Johnson, Harvey..................................................    87
    Selves, Michael D................................................   104
    Sexton Sr., Sheriff Edmund M. ``Ted''............................   114
    Witt, James Lee..................................................   117

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           HEARING ON FEMA'S PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE TO ALL HAZARDS

                                  ----------

                            Thursday, April 26, 2007

                       House of Representatives
        Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
    Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and
                                          Emergency Management,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
    Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Eleanor
    Holmes Norton [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Ms. Norton. I am pleased to welcome everyone to this very
    important hearing on new legislation that gives FEMA new
    authorities, new independence to see how the agency intends to
    move forward.
        Let me ask for unanimous consent, pursuant to Rule 3(d) of
    the rules of our Committee, that the gentleman from Louisiana,
    Mr. Baker, a Member of the Full Committee, be allowed to
    participate in today's Subcommittee hearing should he be able
    to appear.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        Today's hearing will address the Post-Katrina Emergency
    Management Reform Act of 2007, which has just become effective.
    The Subcommittee called this early hearing when the slate is
    clean and FEMA has the opportunity to start anew, to allow the
    agency to indicate its way forward in its own words under the
    Post-Katrina Act and to permit first responder experts to
    explain their understanding.
        The Post-Katrina Act specifically clarifies this term ``all
    hazards.'' It is a term that needed clarification when FEMA
    became a part of the Department of Homeland Security. It
    clarifies the all hazards strategy by mandating preparedness
    strategies that acknowledge the necessity of building common
    response capabilities to meet specific disasters, whatever
    their origin.
        The Subcommittee is eager to assist FEMA in carrying out
    the Post-Katrina Act for an integrated FEMA where preparedness,
    response, and recovery present a seamless continuum and natural
    and non-terrorist events take the appropriately prominent place
    within FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. There is
    no need to rehash the details of how the Department responded
    to four major Florida hurricanes during the 2004 season, which
    were precursors of the larger problems that emerged from
    Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
        The agency's reaction to Katrina exposed the weakness of
    segregating preparedness from the necessary functions of
    response and recovery. Congress responded with the Post-Katrina
    Act that requires more autonomy for FEMA. The point of the
    hearing today is to give FEMA and the expert witnesses the
    opportunity to seize the initiative in describing how they
    believe the new mandate to prepare for all hazards should
    operate, and any differences they perceive between operations
    in the past and what they expect under the Post-Katrina Act.
        Hurricane Katrina taught us that notwithstanding the unique
    9/11 tragedy and preparedness in an era of global terrorism,
    our citizens face other serious risks every day, almost none of
    them terror related. The emergency responders who receive FEMA
    grants are expected to use these funds even for the unexpected,
    whether from the effects of power outages like the total New
    York blackout of 1977--I was there then--the blackouts of 2003
    that traveled throughout the Midwest to the Northeast; hazmat
    rail accidents in South Carolina and elsewhere; or Tractor Man,
    who dangerously tied up downtown Washington in 2003.
        Of course, responders must also prepare for serious
    seasonal acts of nature, as well as highly unusual natural
    events, most recently, for example, a tornado in hurricane-
    prone Florida. At the same time, FEMA and emergency responders
    must plan for natural disasters we hope never come, such as
    Governor Schwarzenegger's warnings about the California levees
    deteriorating or earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault.
        The endless list of possible events suggest the seriously
    unpredictable nature of what is expected of the agency. How
    will the new FEMA and our responders reconcile planning for an
    act of nature in hazard-prone parts of the Country, such as
    California, Florida, and the Great Plains, with preparing for
    random acts of terror that could in targeted and un-targeted
    cities?
        When FEMA was created as an independent agency, it seemed
    no more likely that a section of the District of Columbia would
    be declared a disaster area as occurred because of flooding
    following Hurricane Isabel, then that the Pentagon would be
    attacked. Yet, even today a natural disaster is a more likely
    event here, even though the Nation's capital is in the first
    tier for a terrorist attack and the last for flooding.
        Because the Post-Katrina Act is new, the Subcommittee, of
    course, can have no criticism concerning its implementation,
    but today the Subcommittee seeks the agency's vision and plans
    for assuring Congress that the lessons of Katrina have been
    absorbed and all hazards will receive the requisite attention.
        The agency Administrator is responsible for developing
    FEMA's approach for carrying out the Act's new mandate.
    Ironically, however, the Administrator chose to go to a meeting
    with others from the Department of Homeland Security at the
    Israeli Embassy. Only after I called the agency director was
    the Subcommittee assured of testimony from Vice Admiral Harvey
    Johnson, the agency's deputy administrator, leaving the
    unfortunate impression that the post-Katrina emphasis can
    always be trumped, even by a meeting with foreigners on an
    issue probably related to terrorism or its possibilities.
        I hope the testimony from the agency today shows otherwise,
    especially considering that we have sought here to do oversight
    on the new Act by allowing the head of the agency to lay out
    his own vision and views in the first instance, rather than
    only rely after the fact on oversight criticism.
        We are very pleased to welcome Vice Admiral Johnson and
    thank him for agreeing to testify. We especially welcome our
    expert witnesses from the emergency response sectors that must
    work with FEMA to assure success.
        I see that the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr.
    Mica, is here. I referenced the Florida hurricanes. I would
    like to ask Mr. Mica if he has any statement to make at this
    point.
        Mr. Mica. Thank you. I see Mrs. Capito is acting as our
    Ranking Member this morning, but I did have a couple of
    comments.
        First of all, I want to thank you, Ms. Norton, for putting
    this important hearing together and working with both sides of
    the aisle to make certain that the Post-Katrina Emergency
    Management Reform Act of 2006 and the various revisions we have
    made to try to make certain that we are prepared, that we have
    the best emergency management system in place possible. So I
    want to commend you on holding the hearing.
        Unfortunately, I am now serving on six of the Subcommittees
    as the Ranking Member. I won't be able to stay; I have got
    other commitments. But I did want to take a minute and also
    welcome the witnesses. I see Mr. Johnson who is with us. I want
    to also welcome Craig Fugate, who is the Director of Florida's
    Division of Emergency Management.
        As you have pointed out, Florida has, unfortunately,
    experienced a number of disasters. But Florida is also widely
    recognized as having one of the best systems in place to deal
    with disasters and hazards systems in the Nation.
    Unfortunately, also, from some practical experience, my
    district has seen three major hurricanes and two tornadoes in
    the past two years, and we provide a lot of practical
    experience for FEMA, and I think it is very important to me and
    also the people of Florida that we ensure that the Post-Katrina
    Emergency Management Reform Act is implemented properly.
        Before Katrina, our State emergency managers had warned us
    that removing preparedness from FEMA would cause the Federal
    Government's disaster response capabilities to in fact decline.
    We had a failed response to Hurricane Katrina in part because
    DHS removed preparedness programs from FEMA. In the Reform Act,
    we put preparedness back in FEMA, and I think that is an
    important step.
        After Katrina, many States were concerned that the Federal
    Government would attempt to take over the response to every
    significant disaster, whether necessary or not. Some States are
    more prepared than others. For example, my own home State of
    Florida has, as I said, a first-rate all hazards preparedness
    system. We have had very excellent response from State and
    local level, with good Federal cooperation in the past.
        In Florida, we have also learned how important it is to
    have an adequate alert and warning system. During the recent
    tornadoes in my district, warning people was a problem.
    Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and that is something that
    we need to look at.
        FEMA's alert and warning system uses 1960s technology. We
    need to look at integrating and modernizing the system and
    using the very latest modern technology that is available so
    that we can warn people at the right time to save lives,
    whether it is in a tornado or maybe, as we saw a week ago on
    the Virginia Tech campus. We can and we must do better in being
    able to warn people.
        I know FEMA has a couple of pilot programs to test new
    technology. I think that is great, but I think we even need
    more. I look forward to working with you to develop a
    comprehensive modern warning program.
        State emergency managers have also told me the speed of the
    declaration process is problematic, particularly for individual
    assistance. We have seen some problems there. Unfortunately,
    the criteria are subjective and, as a result, States often ask
    for a declaration when they shouldn't, and fail to request one
    sometimes when they should. Craig Fugate, our Florida emergency
    manager, and I have had discussions about this. I also had an
    opportunity to meet with other State managers of emergency
    operations, and I think we all agree that this continues to be
    a problem. I hope we can work on finding a solution there.
        Also, finally, I want to mention that I have developed
    draft legislation that helps FEMA provide States with excess
    resources and, in some cases, trailers, mobile homes to house
    disaster victims outside of a Federally-declared disaster. We
    have seen the difficulty in sometimes getting these idle assets
    to where they should be and, again, difficulty in some of these
    declarations.
        I look forward to working with Chairwoman Norton and other
    Members interested in resolving these problems. This Committee
    has had a long history of supporting FEMA. I think we care
    about these issues, and we look forward to working with you on
    a regular basis.
        Thank you for deferring to me. I wish I had less experience
    in this field, but, unfortunately, Florida has been victimized
    by natural disasters and we have a lot of experience in this
    area.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Mica.
        I would like to Mr. Arcuri if he has a statement to make at
    this time. The gentleman from New York.
        Mr. Arcuri. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I would like to
    thank the witnesses for being here today. We appreciate it very
    much.
        Many lessons have been learned in the aftermath of the
    Katrina disaster. Most troubling of all is that FEMA's
    preparedness functions and assets have been redirected to a
    newly created preparedness directorate within the Department of
    Homeland Security in order to also undertake response to
    terrorism. We now have learned that eroding FEMA's core
    responsibilities of disaster preparedness made it more
    difficult for FEMA to execute a responsible and effective
    response to the Katrina catastrophe.
        Straining the agency to balance responsibilities,
    terrorism, and disaster response without balanced funding is
    not a responsible way to ensure that a community or government
    will have an adequate response system prepared to handle any
    disaster, be it earthquake, flood, or terrorist attack.
        Some may think that local emergency management is as simple
    as sending firefighters to put out a fire or clearing snow off
    roadways after a large snowstorm. However, effective responses
    to these types of disasters require local communities to
    develop a comprehensive approach to ensure the proper
    equipment, infrastructure, and first responders are in place
    before the disaster even occurs.
        FEMA is tasked with helping communities prepare their State
    and local emergency management officials with capabilities to
    adequately respond to a disaster. FEMA's ability to execute
    this core responsibility was severely handicapped as a result
    of its reorganization within DHS.
        The threat of terrorist attack in my upstate New York
    district is far less commonplace than the threat of heavy
    rains, flooding, or severe snowstorms. Therefore, it is
    necessary to make certain that areas of the Country, including
    the district I am privileged to represent, are not left without
    sufficient emergency management resources to respond to the
    more probable disasters that plague them more frequently.
        The City of Oneonta, which I represent, was devastated last
    year by heavy rains and severe flooding, and is still in the
    process of fully recovering. FEMA's response and recovery
    efforts in Oneonta have been less than exemplary, and I hope,
    as the agency is reconstructed, future emergency responses are
    adequate and timely. For example, there was $560,000 that has
    been approved for damage, and yet only $134,000 has to date
    been paid out to residents of that area. So something has to be
    done about that to speed up the response of FEMA.
        I look forward to hearing on the progress being made at DHS
    to ensure that FEMA resumes a balanced all hazards approach to
    emergency management.
        Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Arcuri.
        I want to welcome Mrs. Capito and thank her for sitting in
    for the Ranking Member, Mr. Graves, and ask the gentlelady from
    West Virginia if she has a statement.
        Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank
    you for holding this hearing. Before I begin, I want to mention
    that Ranking Member Graves is at a classified briefing
    regarding a constituent of his that was recently kidnaped in
    Iraq. As you can imagine, he is doing whatever he can to assist
    the family, and he will be here as soon as he can.
        Thank you again for holding this hearing on FEMA's
    preparedness in response to all hazards. Returning the
    preparedness function to FEMA and establishing the national
    preparedness system were central components of the Post-Katrina
    Emergency Management Reform Act. After Hurricane Katrina, the
    House conducted an exhaustive review of what went wrong with
    the Government's response to that terrible storm. One of the
    key findings of the investigation was that the Federal
    Government's preparedness efforts were disconnected from its
    response operations and this contributed to an ineffective
    disaster response.
        After FEMA was transferred to the Department of Homeland
    Security, its preparedness functions were removed. At the time,
    emergency management professionals warned that the four
    cornerstones of comprehensive emergency management--
    preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation--must be
    closely joined and jointly managed. As a result, recombining
    preparedness with the other three elements of comprehensive
    emergency management was one of the central reforms of our
    bill.
        We also established an all hazards national preparedness
    system. The national preparedness system is intended to be a
    partnership between all levels of government. That is why we
    created the National Advisory Council with representatives from
    the National, State, and local levels. We intend the Council to
    participate in the development of every major component of the
    system. Similarly, we created regional advisory councils to
    improve preparedness at the local level. We also elevated the
    role of the fire administrator and created a special law
    enforcement advisor to the fire administrator. Law enforcement
    plays a critical role in disasters, and FEMA needs to ensure
    their requirements are fully addressed.
        Another important lessons of Katrina was DHS cannot afford
    to ignore natural disasters and other emergencies in its effort
    to address the terrorism threat. We must do both.
        This Committee supports separate grant programs for
    improving different aspects of the all hazards system. It is
    entirely appropriate to have terrorism preparedness grants
    where money is allocated based on the risk of terrorism as long
    as they all enhance the all hazards system. Similarly, we have
    fire grants and emergency management performance grants
    directed to the first responder and emergency management
    disciplines as long as they are consistent with the all hazards
    system.
        Another lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that we need to
    reform the Federal chain of command. The Stafford Act, which
    governs Federal emergency management, provides the President
    with the authority to direct all Federal agencies during a
    disaster. Ultimately, the President is the only one who can
    direct the Secretary of Defense and the assets of the entire
    Federal Government.
        To execute his responsibilities effectively, the President
    needs the advice of a disaster professional. As a result, our
    reform bill gave the FEMA Administrator the authority to manage
    disasters on behalf of the President, and we expect the
    national response plan to reflect these changes.
        Our Committee has a long history with FEMA, and I want you
    to know that we want you to succeed, and we are here to help
    you.
        Again, I would like to thank our witnesses for being here,
    and I look forward to your expert testimony.
        I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Madam Ranking Member for
    the day.
        I want to ask Mr. Walz of Minnesota if he has any
    statement.
        Mr. Baker, I have indicated and gotten unanimous consent
    for you to sit in, if you want to say a few words. You are
    welcome at this time.
        Mr. Baker. Madam Chair, I appreciate the courtesy extended.
    I will be brief. I am here out of a sincere sense of motivation
    on this topic.
        I think that there has been a great deal of discussion
    about the general environment in which the Government responded
    to this inordinate disaster, but I want to frame the scope of
    the response in a slightly different way. All too often, people
    hear Katrina and think $100 billion. The actual allocated funds
    made available for Katrina response for all purposes was
    slightly in excess of $32 billion.
        Now, my comment at this point is certainly not directed to
    our distinguished witness, but to the system. I wish to make
    that clear. But when people think of $32 billion, which, by the
    way, is a lot of money, but it is not $100 billion, 22 percent
    of that went to FEMA for its own administrative operations,
    $7.2 billion. Now, there are very few operations in business
    that take a 22 percent cut off the top, but let's keep that in
    perspective. $7.2 billion from $32 billion gets us down to $25
    billion.
        Okay, let's assume for the moment we are going to side step
    the administrative issues, what did we do for $7 billion worth
    of administration. It left a net of $25 billion to be allocated
    to the subject target area. Just in one category alone, $2.1
    billion was spent on the acquisition of trailers. As of this
    moment, there are 60,000 trailers in storage in FEMA's
    possession around the Country, many of which were never
    deployed to the intended user.
        Of those which were deployed, you have to take into account
    not the cost of acquisition, but the cost of siting the
    trailer; that is, physically getting it on the ground,
    delivery; that is hooking it up to things which make it work,
    like utilities; and that is handing over the key to the person
    who will occupy it, notwithstanding the fact there were 118,000
    trailers keyed with the same lock. That created some
    interesting issues for people who wished to venue shop, looking
    for a TV.
        Let's set that aside. The cost to put those trailers on
    that pad averaged slightly in excess of $70,000, troubling for
    the taxpayer, because those were temporary locations where we
    could have built modular housing on a slab for about $60,000 a
    site. The site as my source Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.
        There is not a way on earth that we could take $32 billion
    and as poorly respond to the environment in which we responded
    without having it been by a plan. You couldn't do it this badly
    by accident. There had to be somebody thinking this out.
        At the end of the day, I hope the Committee will look very
    carefully at the rules-based nature of emergency response. By
    that I mean there are a set of standards which the Congress and
    bureaucracy has put into place in contemplation of a small
    geographic fixed, previously studied type of disaster. This one
    was beyond all the books. Notwithstanding, the rules had to be
    applied.
        For example, we had a law enforcement entity that responded
    to the disaster by deploying its assets to help people in
    search and rescue and in restoring civil order. Now, the way in
    which that law enforcement entity would normally get reimbursed
    is to get an invoice from the benefitted entity, meaning the
    City of Orleans, as one example.
        Well, there is a problem. That entity doesn't have a
    mailbox; it doesn't have an office; it doesn't have employees.
    There is nobody there with which you can create the invoice. So
    the guy who went out of his way to do the right thing for the
    right reason, who is looking to FEMA to get reimbursed for
    legitimate law enforcement response activities can't get
    reimbursed because there is nobody to give him an invoice.
        Now, that is an illogical conclusion to someone who acts in
    good faith, motivated for the right reasons.
        Madam Chair, there is a long litany of things I could bore
    this Committee with, but I want to say I appreciate your
    courtesy in extending this brief opportunity for me to speak.
    And on any occasion that I can work with the Members of this
    Committee to bring about some rational thought in disposing of
    these types of illogical rules, I would be most happy and
    appreciative.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Norton. Well, the gentleman speaks from great
    experience, experience we hope never to be repeated in anyone
    else's State.
        The Subcommittee is very concerned that some quick FEMA
    fixes, particularly that would serve the Gulf Region, happened.
    We, of course, have just done perhaps the most important fix of
    all, and that is the 10 percent waiver. But we certainly have,
    and we would be most interested in the agency's view. You will
    have an opportunity to give those views on May 11th, when we
    have a hearing on fixes that, in a real sense, are low hanging
    fruit, but they are the kinds of circumstances that you have
    just described that drive people crazy. So point well taken.
        I am pleased now to have the testimony of the deputy, Rear
    Admiral Johnson.

    TESTIMONY OF VICE ADMIRAL HARVEY JOHNSON, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR,
                  FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

        Admiral Johnson. Chairwoman Norton, Members of the
    Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss
    FEMA's all hazards preparedness planning efforts and how that
    capability will contribute in significant measure to
    accomplishing Administrator Paulison's vision for a new FEMA.
        In May of 2006, as FEMA was being pilloried in the wake of
    Hurricane Katrina, the President nominated and the Senate
    confirmed David Paulison as the Director of FEMA. One of his
    first demonstrations of leadership was to establish a vision
    for a new FEMA, that we should aspire to become the Nation's
    preeminent emergency management and preparedness agency. This
    vision pointed us in the direction of all hazards response,
    recovery and mitigation, and it emphasized for the first time
    in FEMA taxonomy the development of core competencies, among
    them, all hazards operational planning. He challenged the
    agency to develop and sharpen those competencies so that they
    would distinguish professionalism and build a sense of purpose
    within FEMA to better meet the expectations of our agency, of
    Congress, and the American people.
        In October of 2006, Congress passed the Post-Katrina
    Emergency Reform Act, and in that legislation you expanded our
    mission set to include protection and preparedness, and you
    emphasized again your intent that our perspectives encompass
    all hazards threats. Administrator Paulison added another core
    competency to his vision, that of integrated preparedness,
    which sent the strong signal inside FEMA and to our now
    broadened constituency that we would indeed reach beyond
    natural hazards to advance preparedness and protection with
    those now having influence as we respond, recover, and mitigate
    against manmade disasters and acts of terrorism.
        A mentor of mine had a favorite expression. He said that a
    vision without action is nothing more than a dream.
    Administrator Paulison's vision for a new FEMA is all about
    action. We have set a course to demonstrate our determination
    to embrace an all hazards approach to emergency management and
    preparedness.
        Mile markers on this course include the following: building
    robust regions, which means more people, more authority for the
    regional administrator, and higher expectations for mission
    performance; reaching out to embrace State homeland security
    administrators with the same attentiveness that we do to State
    emergency managers; establish a new law enforcement liaison to
    the Administrator, a direct report who will represent law
    enforcement interest and bring that perspective to all of our
    headquarters policy and program development; opening our once
    region response coordination centers from lights out waiting
    for a declaration to 7 by 24 reaching out to State fusion
    centers and other agency operation centers to maintain constant
    situational awareness; establishing FEMA's first cadre of
    operational planners in headquarters and in the regions;
    establishing Federal preparedness coordinators at the regions
    to work more deliberately with Federal and State partners at
    the field level; and establish preparedness relationships with
    counterparts in major urban areas, in addition to our
    traditional relationships with States.
        These actions are all in play and are all about
    reconnecting and fortifying relationships with emergency
    managers and establishing new relationships with the law
    enforcement community at the Federal and State level to
    actualize our vision of becoming the Nation's preeminent
    emergency management and preparedness agency. As testament to
    this new approach, you and our Federal and State partners will
    see a FEMA more engaged in operational planning.
        That means we will sit down across the table to consider
    and advance the potential disasters and better plan for an
    integrated response and recovery. Joint terrorism task forces
    around the Nation will see for the first time FEMA preparedness
    coordinators and operational planners as teammates, we will be
    come informed of the current threats and be better able to
    initiate and support a timely response tailored to the nature
    of the threat, and they at the JTTF will be better informed as
    to how Federal and State response agencies will react and
    effect response to any manmade or terrorist event.
        Make no doubt about it, this is a new direction for FEMA.
    It reflects a broader mission challenge, it reflects a wider
    set of partners, and it reflects a greater depth of mission
    perspective. The new FEMA will require new skill sets, a
    greater investment in our people, and new tools to ensure the
    outcomes of safer communities and more effective response,
    recovery, and mitigation.
        Success will depend upon two primary factors: one where you
    have influence and one where I have influence. On your part, I
    ask that you act on your desires for a stronger, more capable
    FEMA by supporting the President's request for our 2008 budget.
    That budget asks for new operational planners, it asks for
    Federal preparedness coordinators, it asks for additional watch
    standards, it asks for full-time incident management teams and
    more effective information management systems.
        For my part, I take on the challenge to motivate a
    workforce, to bring about a culture change, and to institute
    operational doctrine and improve business processes that will
    affirm your investment in FEMA.
        To the extent that each of us is successful in our
    challenges, the American people will benefit, as they too want
    a stronger and more responsive FEMA equally capable of helping
    to prevent disasters across the all hazards spectrum, prepare
    communities to be more resilient in the event a disaster
    occurs, and to be present more quickly and to offer assistance
    more compassionately when that assistance is required.
        I thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I
    would be pleased to respond to any of your questions.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Admiral Johnson.
        In trying to understand all hazards, would you agree that
    if the agency and responders are prepared for a natural
    disaster, they are almost surely prepared for a terrorist
    attack and disaster? But if they are prepared only for a
    terrorist attack and disaster, they may not be prepared for a
    natural disaster?
        Admiral Johnson. Madam Chairwoman, I would not agree with
    that proposition. In our view, there are a number of manmade or
    terrorist evens that have characteristics that go far beyond
    the challenges of a natural disaster. For example, any
    chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. In those situations,
    rather than run to the event----
        Ms. Norton. Let's stop right there. Because terrorist
    disasters are quite specialized, we don't know whether to
    expect something to blow up; we don't know whether to expect a
    chemical disaster; we don't know whether someone will be
    bringing in a nuclear device. Those require people to be very--
    in fact, they require specialists. The police department in a
    city, for example, has people who you send out on those things
    that are specially trained.
        I am trying to understand the relationship between these
    two as the agency understands the relationship between these
    two, the specialized nature of preparing for and responding
    sometimes to terrorist attacks and the more predictable natural
    disasters where responders often have, across the board,
    training. And you have just started with what it seems to me
    are differences of the kind that, in my other capacity as a
    Member of the Homeland Security Committee, we have had many
    hearings concerning.
        So we understand all hazards in the sense that you have got
    to be prepared for either. The question I am putting to you has
    to do with the difference between the two and whether they are
    entirely interchangeable or how you think that operates.
        Admiral Johnson. Madam Chairwoman, I agree with your
    premise that natural disasters occur far more frequently than
    does a manmade disaster or a terrorist event. So I agree with
    that premise. As a baseline, we must be better prepared to
    respond to natural disasters. What I would offer to you is that
    some of the nature of a non-natural disaster, if those first
    responders are more prepared, informed about the challenges of
    a terrorist event, then they will respond more effectively
    across the board. But I think it does take some training and
    education, preparedness, and perhaps equipment to be able to
    respond across that full spectrum.
        We probably aren't very far apart in our views, but I do
    think that preparing for natural disasters alone would not be
    sufficient.
        Ms. Norton. I just want to say, Rear Admiral Johnson, just
    to give you an example, sitting here in target city number one,
    I have had to say time and again to my own constituents stay
    where you are if you hear that there is an event. You want the
    honest to goodness truth? If and when there is a disaster here,
    I expect it to be far more contained. I expect that if people
    ran out into the streets from this building or from their
    homes, they may run into the chemical that could explode, that
    could come from a hazmat train wreck. I expect that if somebody
    is carrying a nuclear device, that they had really better stay
    put, because the whole notion of what effect it will have would
    be something that people would have to look at and take some
    time to look at.
        The reason I raise these points is because people have
    learned how to respond to disasters essentially by evacuating
    and by, indeed, assuming that a disaster is the same thing and
    means the same thing for all of us. I want you to take a look
    at the copy of the map that was up here and I hope will
    reappear.
        Where is the map? Would audio-visual please put the map up
    again? I don't want it to disappear; I wanted to speak about
    it. Thank you.
        The map is too busy, and I am not inviting people to look
    at all those boxes. In fact, I don't even like the map. I like
    maps that say things, come right out and say. But the map is
    intended and divides the Country into its various regions. If
    you will look even from afar at that map, you may be surprised
    to see that there is no part of the Country that escapes
    natural disasters. The only part of the Country that has had a
    terrorist event are, of course, the Pentagon, this region, and
    New York City.
        It is very easy--and I sit on both Committees, so I try to
    keep my balance. I have to keep my balance since it is perhaps
    easier for me to see the whole world in terrorist terms. One of
    the criticisms of the agency, when it was incorporated into
    Homeland Security and Katrina came, was that terrorism had in
    fact become the vision of the agency and that it was not
    prepared for the old-fashioned natural attack, which is I would
    say 99 percent, except that that doesn't say it enough, it must
    be 99 point something percent.
        Somehow or the other, the Post-Katrina Act is meant to get
    us back into balance and show us that every single American
    somewhere can expect a natural event of some sort. I haven't
    even covered the acts that are not of nature, that I mentioned
    in my statement, like the blackouts. I don't know how many
    remember when there was a plane that hit the 14th Street Bridge
    here, a huge and terrible, unpredictable disaster.
        Emergency responders, the people with whom you relate, have
    to be far more alert in the ordinary course of business to the
    unpredictable events of that kind and to the natural disasters,
    some of which are expected and some of which are not. Yet, over
    90 percent of homeland security grants are focused on
    terrorism, while 10 percent go to all hazards management.
        I am a Member of the Homeland Security Committee. I am not
    here criticizing that division, because that division has in
    part to do with how I responded to your original notion about
    chemical spills, nuclear possibilities, the kinds of things for
    which obviously emergency responders had no reason to be
    prepared. So there has been a huge, huge amount of money going
    to cities, so much so that the Homeland Security Committee has
    had hearings showing that so much money was thrown at them for
    terrorism that they had to find other uses for it, and I will
    tell you they did find some uses for it, and some of it, I
    hope, spilled over into what is needed for natural events.
        But the second chart, the large red part shows the 90/10
    percent distinction. I am not suggesting that our Country spend
    less on homeland security grants at this time, but the
    Committee is concerned that the Administration and, for that
    matter, others appear to still want to turn the relatively
    small 10 percent of the EMG emergency grant program from an all
    hazards program to a terrorist program, despite what we have
    learned from Katrina. That is of great concern in the post-
    Katrina period.
        What would be your response, sir, to that?
        Admiral Johnson. Well, Madam Chairwoman, FEMA certainly
    agrees with you of the value of the emergency management
    performance grant program, and we agree that FEMA will
    administer the grant programs as they are designed and funded
    by Congress, which, of course, provides an array of grants for
    various purposes. We believe that in those grants that there is
    benefits, as you mentioned, spillover benefits from one grant
    and a port security grant that benefits emergency management.
    So I believe that we think that the grants have a purpose. They
    meet their purpose. They have improved preparedness at large
    across the Nation, and that preparedness has brought value to
    natural disaster preparedness, as well as preparedness for a
    terrorist event.
        So if that addresses your concern.
        Ms. Norton. I am going to go to the Ranking Member in a
    moment, but the evidence for this from the Committee really
    comes from first responders. They complain that the application
    process is so tilted toward terrorism that it becomes difficult
    to use the grants for the 99.999, whatever it is, that they
    use. That is of great concern when you have got only 10 percent
    of the funds.
        I am asking that you look at that application process, Mr.
    Johnson. Give it a review and report within 10 days any self-
    criticism you may have or any changes you might want to suggest
    with respect to that application.
        Could I ask the Ranking Member, Mrs. Capito? I will come
    back with some further questions, but I would like to pass on
    to other Members.
        Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        In preparing for the all hazards, the first thing, I
    understand, is a risk assessment of, I guess, all kinds of
    risks in a certain community. Are those risk assessments done
    community-wise, regionally, nationally? How are those done and
    how often are they reassessed?
        Admiral Johnson. We have a preparedness goal for the
    Nation, and out of that goal came 15 likely scenarios of events
    that could occur, and the intent is to use those scenarios and
    prepare assessments against those scenarios which leads to a
    consistent approach across the Nation. Those assessments are
    primarily done at the State and local level, which guidance
    provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Certainly,
    each State has a choice into how they approach those. Some
    scenarios may be more likely in one State than another, but
    then we use the grant funds to help and assist in those
    assessments, identify what gaps exist and how best to mitigate
    those gaps.
        Mrs. Capito. And how often are they reassessed, or is that
    dependent on what the State decides?
        Admiral Johnson. I think it is done perhaps unevenly across
    the Country, dependent on the progress of a State in a
    particular area.
        Mrs. Capito. Well, I like the emphasis on the State and
    local. I mean, I am from a community, West Virginia, who has--
    we are filling in your flood area here and, by the way, FEMA
    has been very good with our flash flood response. But we also
    have a lot of chemical plants, and we had one of the plants
    that leaked right after the Bhopal incident, you probably
    remember, in the 1980s. Our local community, I am sure in
    conjunction with FEMA, got together and has a very good local
    emergency response plan, and we all know, when we heard that
    siren go off, what that could possibly mean, and your response
    could be so much quicker if your coordination and assessment is
    in the community. So I like that.
        I have two other quick questions. I know in the bill that
    was passed last year there were certain milestones that were
    asked for. That would be a Federal Coordinating Officer,
    national response plans, development of incident--you know what
    the milestones are. I think it would be very helpful if you
    could line out all of the different most specific requirements
    in that Act and give the Members of this Committee a time line
    on where you are in completing that so that we could then
    follow along and see the progress that has been made and maybe
    gig you a little more where we think more progress needs to be
    made.
        Admiral Johnson. We would be very pleased to do that. In
    fact, we have looked at--there were about 139 different
    specific requirements to FEMA in that legislation. Many due
    dates are passed without us responding yet. We are prepared to
    meet with your Committee and to review all of the tasks in the
    post-Katrina reform legislation and advise you where we are in
    the progress toward those and when we expect to deliver results
    for you. We would be very pleased to do that.
        Mrs. Capito. I think that would be very helpful.
        The last question I have is certainly in the Katrina
    disaster, my understanding is the lack of a primary decision
    maker, somebody who could make a decision quickly or was
    willing to make a decision or made a decision was one of the
    things that came to light that was sorely lacking. In the
    legislation there is a Federal Coordinating Officer, but I
    understand there has also been created a Principal Federal
    Official. Who is going to be making the decision here, one
    person, two people? How is this going to work? Certainly, in
    terms of not only cost, but saving lives and being able to
    respond, I think that has got to be a critical element here.
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am. You are very astute in that
    observation. We are currently in the latter stages of the
    rewrite of the national response plan. One of the key elements
    in that rewrite is to bring distinction between the role of the
    Principal Federal Official and FEMA's Federal Coordinating
    Officer. In our view, the FCO is the primary Federal official
    who engages with State officials in all emergency management
    issues at a joint field office. It is our view that the FCO is
    the primary Federal official in that joint field office and is
    the primary official to make those operational decisions.
        The role of the Principal Federal Official is, in sum, to
    make sure that all of the agencies that are there at the JFO
    play well and synchronize their efforts in support of the
    objectives that are jointly developed by the State and the FCO.
        Mrs. Capito. All right, I thank you and I look forward to
    the report with the milestones listed and time lines. And if
    you get a chance to talk a little bit, I am interested in your
    reserve workforce, but we will save that for another day.
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
        Ms. Norton. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Arcuri.
        Mr. Arcuri. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Admiral, you talked about 15 likely scenarios that have
    been identified. Could you tell us how many of those are
    natural, of the 15, and how many of those are manmade?
        Admiral Johnson. There is one natural disaster scenario and
    the others are manmade, and they are, for example, pandemic.
    They are created to have us look at the range of events that
    could occur and to make sure that we understand we to be
    prepared in those scenarios or how each may be different and
    how those would apply.
        So based on your Committee premise that natural disasters
    is the common, that is only one scenario, but that will then
    support response to all the other scenarios.
        Mr. Arcuri. And of the money that you spend on
    preparedness, how much of that goes to the manmade and how much
    to preparing for natural disasters?
        Admiral Johnson. Well, I think your chart, in terms of
    grants and the direction of grants, your chart is accurate,
    that if you want to--for example, if you were to say emergency
    management performance grants is the sole grant for emergency
    preparedness for natural disasters, you could take that
    perspective and say that a small slice goes in that direction.
    But I believe that all of the grants in some form do provide
    common benefits that help us in natural disasters. So I think
    it is very hard to slice across that way, but I think the EMPG
    grant is certainly a primary that tells you perhaps not enough
    money is going to natural disasters.
        Mr. Arcuri. My concern is that you always think of FEMA, at
    least I always thought of FEMA, as the agency that helps us
    respond and prepare for natural disasters, and my concern is
    that the preparation for natural disasters is being slighted
    because of the priority that may be being placed on trying to
    determine different manmade scenarios. And I will bet if there
    are 14 that you have identified, there are probably 20 more
    that other people in the agency think probably should be in the
    top 15, and you probably spend a great deal of your time trying
    to identify what new manmade scenarios could develop and how to
    respond to them. My concern always is that because of that we
    are somehow slighting the natural disasters that we know are
    going to happen in many places, including in my district, where
    we have had some severe flooding over the past five years.
        Admiral Johnson. As a Member of this Committee, I think
    that your concern for any kind of a detriment to natural
    disasters is a good concern to have, and from your perspective
    you should provide to FEMA to make sure that does not occur.
        From inside FEMA, I feel that our competency to respond to
    natural disasters is significantly greater now than it was
    certainly at the time of Katrina, and I think we have
    demonstrated that in the disasters that have occurred as
    recently as the noreaster this past week, and we will
    demonstrate that preparedness in the upcoming hurricane season.
        But at the same time, if we do have a non-natural disaster,
    you will expect us to be prepared and to lead the response to
    that event. So I think that we do need to look at those events,
    those challenges that perhaps we haven't paid as much attention
    to, and to be equally prepared those, in those eventualities,
    to meet your expectations as we will in a natural disaster, but
    do that in a manner that does not detriment our ability to be
    prepared and respond to natural disasters.
        Mr. Arcuri. I want to ask you one more question, and it may
    be a soft ball, but I think it is important. Do you think,
    having changed the way FEMA views its role in terms of
    developing for manmade disasters, you are in a better position
    to assist people who have been victims of natural disasters?
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir, I think that is an excellent
    point to make, not necessarily a soft ball because is the point
    of your legislation. When you bring the pieces together--
    preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation--there has got to
    be value in the synergy of bringing those pieces together, and
    we are seeing that just in the last month that we have been a
    new FEMA, that there is synergy. Looking at the grants in the
    non-EMPG grants, finding synergy in the purpose of those
    grants. So I think your observation is exactly correct, that
    that is going to lead to overall better preparedness as well as
    preparedness for natural disasters.
        Mr. Arcuri. And you don't think we will, in the long run,
    have slighted our ability to respond to natural disasters by
    giving FEMA a larger role and a larger task?
        Admiral Johnson. Just like, as you approach other
    responsibilities, if you give FEMA more responsibilities and
    you follow that authorization with appropriate resources to do
    those jobs, then you will get exactly what you are looking for.
    That is why I asked for your support in the President's 2008
    budget request. If we assume more responsibility and
    accountability, but aren't also resourced to meet those, then
    we are all going to have a tough day.
        Mr. Arcuri. Thank you, sir.
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Arcuri. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Norton. Does Mr. Dent have any questions?
        Mr. Dent. Yes, thank you, Madam Chairman. I will be brief.
        Admiral Johnson, the FEMA reform bill requires that FEMA
    develop a strategy for rebuilding your permanent and your
    reserve workforces. When do you expect to complete those plans
    and can you tell the Committee what the proposed personnel
    levels are going to be, and are you considering a reserve model
    like the military reserves or the National Guard?
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir, and thank you for that question.
    When you ask us how we respond and meet your expectations, it
    relies in large part of our disaster assistance employees,
    which is our reserve force. They are the backbone of FEMA. They
    are, in large part, the people that you see at all disasters.
    And, yet, that system has become quite a bureaucracy. It
    doesn't provide FEMA consistently with the right number of
    people that we need to respond to disasters; it doesn't assure
    those people that FEMA has the resources to invest in them with
    professional development. So our current reserve workforce
    system has many, many challenges.
        We are currently undergoing a study that we hope to come
    back to you in the June-July time frame and describe to you
    what we think might be a more efficient and effective reserve
    program. Efficient and effective for FEMA, but also one that
    protects the interest, the development, the pay, the benefits
    of those employees themselves, and in our view that may
    require, in large sum, fewer resources and fewer numbers of
    people than we currently have today, and it will be modeled in
    large part, from lessons we have learned from military reserve
    forces.
        Mr. Dent. Thank you for that answer. I guess my final
    comment or question will be what progress has FEMA been making
    on forming the regional advisory councils and also those
    regional incident management teams.
        Admiral Johnson. We are probably within less than a couple
    weeks of solidifying the membership of the national advisory
    council, and our target is to have the first meeting of the
    national advisory council before the 1st of July. We are
    developing a process to establish our regional advisory
    councils based on how we approach the national advisory council
    so they become supportive. So I don't believe we will have
    those councils identified and resolved until the end of summer.
        Separately, on the incident management teams, which is
    referred to as a strike team in the legislation, those will be
    an excellent capability for FEMA and for the Nation. Right now,
    we have sort of pickup teams, we don't have full-time members,
    and that is what I think you expect us to provide.
        I had a brief just before I left the office this morning on
    the incident management team concept, and we hope to have those
    teams in place before the beginning of hurricane season this
    summer.
        Mr. Dent. Just a point of clarification on this
    presidential disaster declaration that you handed out, I live
    in Pennsylvania and we have probably more running water than
    any of the lower 48 States, so we are very susceptible to
    flooding. I was just trying to understand. You are showing on
    the map floods and severe storms. How many of those severe
    storms generally result in flooding? In my State, it seems most
    disaster declarations are flood-related or storm-related, and
    sometimes it is hard to tell the difference after the storms.
        Admiral Johnson. That is a great question. I think that we
    can probably provide you later with exactly what our
    definitions of each of these columns are. In the severe storm,
    our view of those is that is more like the tornado, where
    predominant damage in terms of both public assistance and
    individual assistance was not in the area of flood. But we can
    provide better statistics for you.
        Mr. Dent. I am just curious because it seems a lot of
    flooding would result after hurricanes or tropical storms. We
    have been having a lot more severe weather incidents where just
    a thunder shower turns into a major storm that results in
    significant damage and disaster declarations, and I am just
    trying to get a better sense of this.
        Admiral Johnson. For your region in particular, we will
    provide your staff with a greater breakdown of those incidents.
        Let me also just follow up on your question in terms of the
    incident management teams. I want to be clear that the
    legislation required three national teams and one regional
    team, one for each of the 10 regions. We won't have all 13
    teams this coming summer, but we will have a number of teams in
    order to assist in our hurricane preparedness efforts.
        Mr. Dent. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I yield back.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Dent.
        I just have a follow-up question on regional office strike
    teams. My sense of FEMA is that FEMA ought to be, itself, a
    strike team; it ought to be a mobile team strike team. It seems
    to me the regional office strike teams are the major way for
    the public to regain confidence in FEMA if they see people who
    are mobile. Strike teams are just the word for it. I think it
    was special forces. You see, I think FEMA ought to be like the
    special forces, with no holds barred; they are ready to do what
    has to be done. What is your progress again on establishing
    them in every region?
        Admiral Johnson. Madam Chairwoman, again, the legislation
    requires 13 teams and those teams to be full-time members, and
    that requires that we have the PFTs, the actual FTE and the
    funds to support those teams. The legislation authorized those
    teams but did not appropriate for those teams, so we----
        Ms. Norton. You have no appropriations for these teams?
        Admiral Johnson. That is correct.
        Ms. Norton. Did you ask? You mean to say this year's
    budget. How about the budget for next year that you have before
    us?
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am. In the fiscal year 2008 budget
    that is before you, there are resource requests in there to
    establish one of the national teams and one of the regional
    teams. Our intent is to reprogram internal resources this
    summer in order to establish some minimal capability.
        Ms. Norton. This summer to do what? I am sorry.
        Admiral Johnson. We will reprogram some of our internal
    resources to establish the first regional team, and we may very
    well----
        Ms. Norton. And where will that be, Admiral Johnson?
        Admiral Johnson. We will have the first regional team
    before the hurricane season.
        Ms. Norton. Located where?
        Admiral Johnson. That team will likely be in Region 4,
    which is in Atlanta. Now, we may very well approach Congress
    within the next coming weeks with a reprogramming request that
    may allow us to go further this fiscal year, but at this point
    there have been no direct appropriations for these teams.
        Ms. Norton. Well, the budget doesn't seem to have asked for
    appropriations for all of the regions. I can only think that if
    there is a disaster in some region and there isn't a strike
    team there, that is the first criticism that is going to be
    made of the agency, so I hear you on that and I think that the
    agency has to give the greatest priority to these teams,
    somebody on the ground the moment it occurs. For example, does
    there have to be a disaster declared before such a team is
    deployed?
        Admiral Johnson. Well, let me say again that what the
    legislation asks for, which I 100 percent agree with, is full-
    time teams. Please understand that right now FEMA has emergency
    response teams, but they aren't full-time members; they have
    another job they are doing today. And when that emergency
    response team deploys----
        Ms. Norton. Would you explain that? They are employees of
    FEMA?
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am. I am trying to think of an
    example in your congressional world. I may be the director of
    response in Region 1, and that is my full-time job, but if I
    become a member of a response team, I am taken from my full-
    time job; my seat becomes empty because I leave and respond to
    the event.
        Ms. Norton. Well, I would be more concerned about whether
    the people on the ground there now are trained to be the kind
    of mobile force that the Congress had in mind when it wanted
    these teams established.
        Admiral Johnson. Well, I think Congress had a perfect model
    in mind, and what you wanted us to do was to have a capacity to
    respond, but when we respond, not to detriment our capacity in
    our management in our regional offices.
        Ms. Norton. Are the people who would have to do this now
    trained to do whatever they have to do, the same thing that the
    regional office strike teams would do if they were there, just
    not enough of them, is that what you are saying?
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am. We have teams now that can
    respond, do respond, and, in fact, States welcome when an
    emergency response team from FEMA arrives at their emergency
    operation center. We just want to have full-time teams that can
    exercise with them, train with them, as well as respond to
    events, without having those people depart their full-time job.
        Ms. Norton. I think you are probably going to find some
    interchangeability in any case, rather than have people only be
    full-time waiting for an emergency. You probably, as a matter
    of efficiency, are going to have some interchangeability. My
    only concern is are people being trained now to be a strike
    team? That is really my question.
        Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am. We have emergency response
    teams now that did respond this last week to the noreasters,
    that did respond to tornadoes in Florida and Georgia and
    Alabama, that will respond to an event that occurs tomorrow.
        Ms. Norton. Actually, they may get there and you might not
    even need anybody else there. In fact, we have seen, Admiral
    Johnson, some evidence of better preparation and response in
    the tornadoes that came this year in Florida. You know, the
    Committee takes real note of that, just as it took note of the
    problems with the trailers. We had to have a hearing and,
    unfortunately, as you know--and that is why I want to be clear
    that we did take note of it. People have oversight hearings
    when something happens that they think needs attention. They
    don't have an oversight hearing when, in fact, you have the
    kind of response time and clear evidence of good response that
    you had in the tornadoes and in Florida.
        Here, I am trying to see how the new FEMA operates. Let me
    ask you if you would ask a member of the public to name five
    things that gave them less confidence in the agency, it was the
    confusion over the chain of command and, indeed, contradictory
    statements from within Homeland Security and FEMA about what
    happens and, indeed, what happened when Katrina broke, and who
    did what when and who should have done what when. Here is where
    people began to have real doubts about FEMA being in the
    Department of Homeland Security in the first place.
        Some of us were around when FEMA didn't have to ask
    anybody. FEMA didn't report to anybody but the President of the
    United States, and he said, what? Just go. I don't even want to
    hear it. So that is when you got this entire Committee, 100
    percent of the Committee, all of the Chairs and the Committee
    itself, sponsoring a bill to take FEMA out of the Department of
    Homeland Security. That was about, in no small measure, who is
    in charge and who thinks he is in charge when there is a
    disaster.
        You would help us by positing an event or an incident and
    walking us through the chain of command in the agency today.
    There is a hurricane.
        Admiral Johnson. Well, I will describe a hurricane that may
    occur this coming summer. There is a chain of command that
    exists at the field level. At the field level, on the Federal
    side, we will stand up a joint field office. At that joint
    field office----
        Ms. Norton. Wait a minute. Help us now. There is a
    hurricane.
        Admiral Johnson. Right.
        Ms. Norton. Then when you get into levels and all, I am
    trying to make the public understand, not to mention me, what
    happens.
        Admiral Johnson. Right. Hurricane hits in Florida. Craig
    Fugate, who will talk to you in just a few minutes, will stand
    his emergency operation center up and the State of Florida will
    begin to respond to the requirements of that hurricane. In some
    areas----
        Ms. Norton. Now, I know what Florida will do. By the way,
    they are perhaps better than the Federal Government. I am
    trying to find out there is a hurricane. Let me go further and
    say there is a disaster declaration, because I guess you can't
    do much, at least at the headquarters level--and that is what I
    am interested in, chain of command. By the way, how long did it
    take a disaster to be declared in Katrina?
        Admiral Johnson. I believe a disaster was declared--I don't
    know the exact date that the disaster declaration was signed by
    the President post-Katrina----
        Ms. Norton. Now, did you say whether the strike teams
    needed to have the disaster declared before they moved?
        Admiral Johnson. They do not.
        Ms. Norton. Okay. So let's assume the kind of situation
    that I think is more likely to occur than not. You have the
    beginning of what could be a major disaster. The President
    will, I think, quite justifiably say, wait one minute, when I
    say disaster declaration, I say money. And I don't think he
    should go around just declaring, you know, from the newspapers.
        Admiral Johnson. Right.
        Ms. Norton. So your strike teams don't have to wait. That
    is good. What is the chain of command? This is an agency within
    an agency. The strike teams don't need anything from
    headquarters, they just move, or do they need anything from
    headquarters?
        Admiral Johnson. The region strike team will work for the
    regional administrator, and he will direct them to respond to
    an event in advance of a declaration.
        Ms. Norton. Okay. We have got the strike team not waiting
    for the declaration. What is the chain of command for what
    happens next at the Department of Homeland Security, which has
    the oversight for FEMA?
        Admiral Johnson. A Federal Coordinating Officer, FCO, has
    been predesignated for the hurricane season, so----
        Ms. Norton. That officer is part of FEMA or a part of the
    Department of Homeland Security?
        Admiral Johnson. A part of FEMA.
        Ms. Norton. Okay.
        Admiral Johnson. And that person comes with authorities in
    the Stafford Act. So for the hurricane season we have
    predesignated them already. So for each of the 11 hurricane
    impact States we can have you meet the individual who is the
    FCO. We predesignate so they go to the State now, in advance of
    hurricane season, meet with the State Office of Emergency
    Management----
        Ms. Norton. He goes when FEMA tells him to go.
        Admiral Johnson. That is correct.
        Ms. Norton. He doesn't have to go beyond the Administrator
    of FEMA.
        Admiral Johnson. No, ma'am.
        Ms. Norton. Okay.
        Admiral Johnson. It is at our direction. The FCO arrives
    and the FCO works for Director Paulison, and the FCO has a
    staff that works for him or her. So that chain of the command
    is from the FCO back to the Administrator of FEMA. And if we
    resolve all those issues, that is where it stops. If the FCO
    identifies either policy or resource issues that we can't
    satisfy in FEMA, then we will go to the Secretary.
        Ms. Norton. So you are telling me that FEMA gets to act on
    its own unless you need more resources or unless there is a new
    policy issue.
        Admiral Johnson. That is correct.
        Ms. Norton. That is very important. Otherwise, most Federal
    agencies never have to ask question, because policy has long
    been set by the Congress and by the agency Secretary, and
    resources are all you have got. Resources here, of course, if
    there are additional resources for an agency declaration, how
    do they come? The President declares a declaration. Are
    resources immediately available?
        Admiral Johnson. That is correct. Resources are available
    and the Federal Coordinating Officer can use----
        Ms. Norton. And he gets those from where? He gets those
    resources from whom?
        Admiral Johnson. Out of the Disaster Relief Fund. So he or
    she will issue mission assignments to other agencies, and those
    mission assignments will be paid for out of the Disaster Relief
    Fund. We will reimburse agencies for costs incurred.
        Ms. Norton. As I hear it, never again will we hear somebody
    having to go to the Secretary of Homeland Security once there
    is a disaster, unless the disaster presents new issues. I don't
    see that Katrina presented any new issue. I recognize that the
    Post-Katrina Act had not been passed.
        Admiral Johnson. Right.
        Ms. Norton. But I don't think that Katrina presented any
    new issue. It was clearly a hurricane; there was, you indicate,
    almost immediately a declaration and, voila, you are there. Of
    course, once one saw the size of the hurricane, one would have
    expected the entire Department to be involved.
        Before I ask any more questions, Mr. Arcuri, do you have
    any? I have only a few more questions that I just want to make
    sure I ask for the record.
        The Committee would be very concerned about the national
    response plan. Now, for the national response plan could not be
    more important--here is another one of those Federal words--
    because the first time that there would be a plan that
    incorporated the entire United States and all of its sectors:
    the private sector, the Federal sector, the States, and the
    local sectors. It obviously doesn't say what each does in some
    kind of diagram fashion, but it sends the signal that there is
    a national or comprehensive vision as to what ought to happen
    in the event of an event, no matter what the event. Now, that
    is something that we are very focused on. We know that it is
    due by June, and I must ask you will we have it by June?
        Admiral Johnson. We have a team, a cross-agency team, a
    team that includes private sector, a team that includes State
    and local representation. They are working very intently to
    incorporate recommendations into the rewrite of the national
    response plan. We have indicated an intent to have that plan
    out on the 1st of June, and we still hope to make that target.
        Ms. Norton. The comment period for that plan is as
    prescribed by the APA, the Administrative Procedure Act?
        Admiral Johnson. The comment period, when we have a draft
    of rewritten NRP, then we will put that draft out for comment,
    and that draft will go out to all the State and local agencies,
    private sector entities, all of the Federal agencies, and
    expect their comments to come back.
        Ms. Norton. I am sorry, did you say what the time period
    was?
        Admiral Johnson. It will go out, likely, later in May.
        Ms. Norton. No, for comment.
        Admiral Johnson. Oh, it will go out for about a two week
    comment period.
        Ms. Norton. Oh, my goodness.
        Admiral Johnson. When they did the 2004 plan, more than
    9,000 comments came back, so we expect a lot of comments to
    come back that will be adjudicated by our team.
        Ms. Norton. You know, it may take two weeks to read and
    understand the plan, Admiral Johnson. Where did you get the two
    week period from? You mean in June, once it gets put out in the
    first place?
        Admiral Johnson. No, ma'am. We will take the draft of the
    plan and that will go out for comment to our constituency
    groups so they get a chance to see and comment on the draft
    plan before it becomes a final plan.
        Ms. Norton. So I guess you are trying to beat the June
    deadline if you are putting it out. The nature of the plan, the
    cosmic nature of the plan, I recognize there have been some
    comments, makes it very important that there be adequate time,
    and you may have to extend the period if there are complaints
    about it.
        Let me ask a final question on agency personnel. The Post-
    Katrina Act authorizes the Administrator to pay a bonus of 25
    percent of basic pay to retain an employee whose qualifications
    are important to the agency. Has the Administrator paid any
    retention bonus since the beginning of the year?
        Admiral Johnson. I would have to come back and give you the
    specific numbers. I will say yes, that we have used that
    authorization, and we have used other authorizations within the
    legislation. In the middle of March we reached 90 percent
    staffing inside FEMA. It has been a long time since FEMA
    reached that level of staffing, and our objective----
        Ms. Norton. Say the level again, I am sorry.
        Admiral Johnson. Ninety percent. So we have less than 10
    percent vacant positions. At times we have had as many as 20
    percent vacant positions. Last year we had 15 percent vacant
    positions. So now we are down to less than 10, and our target
    is to be at 95 percent staffing before hurricane season.
        Ms. Norton. Yes, the Act requires a report on vacant
    positions, number of applications for those positions, reducing
    the time and so forth. If you have got 90 percent, you may well
    be meeting what we expected; however, there are very serious
    issues from your headquarters staff that I mentioned to you the
    last time that seem to indicate a morale issue. Is the rate of
    retention of senior management at FEMA in your headquarters at
    90 percent as well?
        Admiral Johnson. I don't have----
        Ms. Norton. I am sorry, is there attrition of your senior
    managers or are you at 90 percent there as well?
        Admiral Johnson. We are at 90 percent staffing across the
    board. I believe we are at 90 percent staffing with our senior
    management. But we are seeing, and have seen for a couple
    years, significant attrition from FEMA both in terms of
    retirements, people who choose to leave FEMA to work in some
    other location.
        So when I indicate that we are at 90 percent, that is a
    significant accomplishment because it means that not only have
    we hired to cover those who depart FEMA and hired in order to
    cover new positions created, but also hired to fill positions
    that have long time been vacant. So it is an issue. Attrition
    is always an issue. But we are able to move beyond that to
    achieve our staffing level.
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Johnson, what have you done to address the
    serious morale problems that are reported out of the
    headquarters that I mentioned to you at the last hearing?
        Admiral Johnson. First, it would be my contention, Madam
    Chairwoman, that the letter you are referring to overstates
    that problem.
        Ms. Norton. Well, we certainly do not----
        Admiral Johnson. I understand.
        Ms. Norton. We would never accept as gospel such
    complaints.
        Admiral Johnson. And as you indicated at our last hearing,
    I appreciate the context that you raise that issue and context
    that you have read many of these before and you understand that
    environment. What I would say is that we have addressed the
    morale issue in a number of ways, number one, by staffing. So
    we are filling vacant positions. More than 60 percent of the
    positions that we have filled have been internal hires, so FEMA
    people have had a chance to improve themselves and receive
    higher pay, more responsibility by advancing in the new
    positions.
        We have addressed the morale issues by bringing in good
    solid leadership, not the least of which is Director Paulison.
    He holds quarterly meetings with all hands, and held one just
    two weeks ago, at which he gets a lot of tough questions and a
    lot of satisfaction both for him and for the employees who get
    a good chance to engage their administrator and address their
    issues.
        We are very conscious of morale issues and we are very
    conscious of weariness in FEMA, people who work very, very long
    hours, all focused on trying to provide good service to the
    American public.
        Ms. Norton. Have you met with employees, whether with the
    union or not, or with employees since our last hearing?
        Admiral Johnson. No, ma'am. I believe our hearing with you
    was on a Friday, and just the day before, on Thursday, we held
    an all hands meeting that was attended by several hundred, as
    well as a video link to all of our 10 regions. That is
    typically every quarter the Secretary will hold an all hands
    that links by video to all of FEMA.
        Ms. Norton. Well, if it happens every quarter and you have
    these problems here, I again say that they must be addressed
    and again I told you we are really grown up about complaints
    from the point of view of management or labor. So I would be
    concerned about morale and indicate whatever the problem, a
    morale problem is a problem.
        Finally, as you are aware, Admiral Johnson, I was concerned
    in our hearing on the Federal Protective Service that the
    Department of Homeland Security did not require the new hire
    for the position of Director of that service to have the
    traditional law enforcement background. Apparently, he had had
    some training background, he was in the military.
        I spoke with the Chairman of the Full Committee, who has
    indicated that he has similar concerns, but joins me in having
    concerns about another of the criticisms of what I am sure you
    would call the old FEMA, and that was whether people had the
    requisite emergency service background. I have indicated ways
    in which you are beginning, I think, to restore confidence in
    the agency in some of the things, for example, the chain of
    command that you reports, the way you handled the most recent
    events in the Midwest and in Florida.
        But I am very concerned about reports about who new hires
    may be with respect to their background and emergency
    management, since that was seen as the--if you would name
    again, the top 5, it would be that top personnel had not had
    emergency management training. For that matter, the Secretary
    was a judge when he was appointed. He was a smart man, but he
    had been a Court of Appeals judge. I can tell you, as a lawyer,
    the last thing you have done is to manage anything. Lawyers are
    paid to slow things down; they are experts at bureaucracy. I
    don't have any particular beef with the Secretary with respect
    to that, but you can see that from the top on down--and that
    does not include you, Admiral Johnson--that kind of experience
    was not exactly very clear.
        Therefore, the Chairman and I have decided to ask the
    Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the new
    hires and personnel transfers into FEMA since January 2007, to
    ensure the Committee that the new hires--and you tell us that
    there are a very substantial number of them--have adequate
    background in emergency response, which would further assure us
    that there is a new FEMA. We will also ask the Ranking Member
    and Chairs of the appropriate Subcommittee to join us in asking
    for that GAO study.
        Thank you very much for coming forward today. That is a
    vote. And would you believe it, I think even I have to vote. I
    can vote in the Committee of the Whole, so I am going to go to
    the floor. I will return forthwith. I will return almost
    immediately. I think other Members will have to remain for
    final passage, a motion to recommit, but I will return because
    I am very anxious to move forward with the second panel, and
    ask your indulgence.
        Thank you very much, Admiral Johnson, for appearing.
        The hearing will resume in approximately 15 or 20 minutes.
        [Recess.]
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. I have spoken with the
    Ranking Member, Mr. Graves, who came at the end of the last
    part of the hearing, with Admiral Johnson, and he indicated to
    me that he did not want to detain the witnesses. He is likely
    to be held past the motion to recommit and the vote, and he
    will get here if he possibly can, but he said he did not want
    to detain the witness. I had a good conversation with him and
    that was his preference.
        We have with us--we think the Committee will be best
    informed by asking Mr. Witt to appear on the panel with Mr.
    Fugate and Mr. Selves. Mr. James Lee Witt, who, of course, is
    much remembered here as the first head of FEMA in the Clinton
    Administration, today is CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, of
    GlobalOptions Group; William ``Craig'' Fugate, who is Director
    of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and a member of
    the National Emergency Management Association; and Michael D.
    Selves, who is the President of the International Association
    of Emergency Managers.
        Let's start with Mr. Witt.

    TESTIMONY OF JAMES LEE WITT, CEO OF JAMES LEE WITT ASSOCIATES,
       A PART OF GLOBALOPTIONS GROUP; WILLIAM ``CRAIG`` FUGATE,
      DIRECTOR, FLORIDA DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, MEMBER,
       NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION; AND MICHAEL D.
    SELVES, CEM, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EMERGENCY
                                MANAGERS

        Mr. Witt. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for asking me to
    participate in this hearing today. Let me just say I appreciate
    the support of emergency management by Chairman Oberstar,
    Congressman Young, and the hard working staff of this Committee
    that has been offered over the years. You were the lone voices
    expressing concern and raising objections to the inclusion of
    FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, and a
    lot of us thank you for that.
        My concern at the time was that including FEMA as part of
    the newly formed Department of Homeland Security would dilute
    the mission of the Department and force FEMA to be overly
    focused on mitigating one hazard at the expense of others. It
    was my experience, when serving as Arkansas State Director of
    Emergency Management in 1980 that FEMA had been overly focused
    in a particular hazard at that time at the expense of others,
    and that was because of the cold war and nuclear preparedness.
        I see the current situation as being very similar to what
    we faced when I became FEMA Administrator in 1993. While the
    threat of terrorism in our world is still very real, I have
    always feared that FEMA's position within DHS would result in a
    diversion of resources away from natural hazards in favor of
    counter-terrorism efforts. When I became Administrator of FEMA
    in 1993, we needed to refocus the agency's priorities and
    resources so that many of the national security assets would
    have dual use for natural disasters as well in an all hazards
    approach. We realigned personnel and made sure that everything
    was consistent with our risk-based all hazards focus.
        Congress, through the Oversight Appropriations Committee,
    played a critical role in this reinvent of FEMA, which is why I
    believe your work here today is so important. Leaders like
    Congressman Louis Stokes, Congressman Jerry Lewis, Senator
    Barbara Mikulski, Senator Kip Bond, who worked with us and
    provided the funds to support in a bipartisan way to get things
    turned around was very, very important. The partnership between
    the administration and Congress allowed us to look at
    legislation changes and clarifications that made FEMA even more
    effective in responding.
        Let me just say the eight years I was at FEMA and the
    reorganization of FEMA, and the change that happened in FEMA to
    make it one of the most successful Federal agencies in the
    Federal Government at that time, that change happened because
    the employees in FEMA helped make change happen. We empowered
    the career FEMA employees who had been working on these issues
    for 20 years and we listened to their ideas and encouraged
    their innovation. We instituted a new customer service training
    program where we would focus on not only external customers,
    but internal customers as well, how we treated each other. We
    were able to work together and focused on one mission, a new
    mission for the agency.
        However, the career civil servants of emergency management
    knew how we could turn FEMA around. All that I and my
    management team needed to do was to listen and to work with
    them and establish the goals and priorities for the first year
    to move the agency forward. This effort to empower the career
    employees not only happened in Washington, but I think it is
    important to stress how involved the 10 FEMA regional offices
    were as well. The regional office staff established good
    relationships in partner with State and local governments, and
    we felt it was very important that we planned, trained, and
    exercised together with our State and local partners.
        We worked with our State and local partners to create
    State-wide plans that mirrored the Federal response plan. We
    believed that it was our responsibility to make sure that the
    State and local governments never failed in their response to a
    disaster, and it was our job to help make sure that they were
    successful in protecting the lives of property to a community.
        I think today, with the risks that we face in our Country,
    and the risks that State and local governments face, with them
    being the frontline defense of everything that happens, from
    natural disasters to terrorist risks, I think it is absolutely
    critical that we do risk-based, all hazard planning, training,
    and exercising because a risk-based, all hazard approach is the
    foundation of everything that we do and how we respond.
        When it comes to consequence management, it does not really
    matter whether it is an earthquake or an explosion that brings
    down a building. The response and recovery efforts are the
    same. When the Oklahoma City bombing happened, that was a
    presidential declared disaster as well as a crime scene.
    Working the consequence management classes management with the
    FBI, ATF, and other Federal agencies, it was a very good
    example of what worked, how it could work, and it was a huge
    success in that response, with 15 national search and rescue
    teams working that building, helping the FBI, local law
    enforcement to preserve evidence at the same time.
        But, in closing, let me say this. I think we, as a Nation,
    need more support for State and local governments, not only the
    funding grants and EMPG program, but we need more support for
    them for preparedness training and exercises. And I have not
    heard once today, but we need to support them in public
    awareness, public education campaigns so individuals can help
    themselves to be better prepared.
        Thank you for having me.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Witt, for your
    testimony.
        Could we hear from Mr. Fugate, Florida Division of
    Emergency Management?
        Mr. Fugate. Thank you, Chairman Norton, Members. I have
    submitted my written testimony, so I am going to go into an
    oral statement.
        My representation here is as a State Secretary, but also
    representing my counterparts through the National Emergency
    Management Association, the State secretaries of the other 50
    States and territories and the District of Columbia.
        Three issues that are very important to us is to maintain
    the all hazards approach. Madam Chair, you have asked this
    question, and I am going to give you an answer different than
    anything you have heard about all hazards. I am going to come
    back to that.
        The continued need by your Committee and Congress in the
    oversight of FEMA. Again, since the Disaster Mitigation Act of
    2000, this is really the first time Congress has actually laid
    out outcomes an expectations of FEMA. Remember, FEMA doesn't
    really have any legislation that you can point to that actually
    describes it; it has always been done through variations of the
    Civil Defense Act, the Stafford Act, and budget language.
        This is the first attempt, really, to say that you should
    have a director that is qualified, you lay out expectations.
    Since we all work for the people and you represent the people,
    it is important that you maintain what those outcomes and
    expectations of FEMA should be by defining FEMA, versus only
    allowing it to be defined by budget or the interpretation of
    policy.
        Finally, the last thing is always it requires money. So,
    Madam Chair, as usual, you can't make this work without
    funding, and if you only fix FEMA and you only fix FEMA, I ask
    you this: how many fire trucks does FEMA have here in the
    District versus how many fire trucks does the District of
    Columbia have? If there is not a partnership and a team built
    where most of our resources are, which are not the Federal
    level, I am sorry to say, even the Department of Defense does
    not even come close to the number of fire trucks, ambulances,
    and sworn law enforcement officers, as well as skid loaders,
    dump trucks, and public works employees in every community in
    this Country. That is the team. Those are the resources. We
    need to continue the Emergency Management Performance Grant
    funding and increase that to continue building that team, so in
    a disaster we not only look to the Federal Government, we are
    able to look to every other non-impacted State and community,
    and look at those resources as part of the national team that
    can meet our citizens' needs in time of disaster.
        So with those three things, let's talk about all hazards.
    We usually try to define it by disaster. I think that is the
    wrong approach. I also think it is the wrong approach to say
    there are natural disasters. There is no such thing. There are
    hazards that are out there that are only a disaster when we
    build and live in such a way to make ourselves vulnerable. But
    what do a hurricane, a wildfire, a drought, a foreign disease
    outbreak all have in common? We call them natural, but the
    reality is the response is entirely different. The agencies and
    equipment are entirely different.
        A terrorist sets off a bomb in your community. You get a
    letter with anthrax, as we did at the AMI Building in Florida.
    That is a terrorist event. Well, how do you respond to that?
    What is unique about that? What is different? Well, it is going
    to take an entirely different response for each one of those.
    What is the common element? This is what all hazards really
    means, Madam Chairman. Guess what? The governor of the State of
    Florida, Governor Charlie Crist, who serves the people that
    elected him, will be the governor in every one of those events.
    The sheriff of those jurisdictions will be the lead law
    enforcement agency in every one of those events. The local fire
    department will be the first units on those scenes in every one
    of those events.
        All hazards is you need to build teams based upon your
    community's resources, not the disaster, because we don't even
    know what the next disaster is going to be. I know hurricane
    season starts June 1st, it ends November 30th, but I don't know
    if we are going to have a storm. I cannot tell you what the
    next disaster will be. Nor can I plan for every disaster. But
    if I build a team based upon the key elements that need to
    occur in a disaster: to be able to make sure we can make our
    community safe by securing it; that we can reach the injured
    and get them the medical care not in 72 or 96 hours, but in 24
    hours, when you can make a difference, which means it has got
    to be local or regional-based; that you can meet the basic
    needs of your community and stabilize that loss and rebuild and
    recovery, that is what all hazard is.
        You may have different agencies that lead, just like we are
    facing wildfires and drought in Florida. Water management
    districts are the lead agencies for the droughts; our Division
    of Forestry is the lead agency for the wildfires. Entirely
    different issues, entirely different challenges, but it is the
    same team. It allows us to bring together all of our agencies
    at the State level--our National Guard, our local governments,
    our private sector, and our voluntary groups--as one team
    focusing on the impacts and the consequences of the hazard and
    its impacts on the community, many of which share many
    similarities, but occasionally are very unique.
        So that is how we have been using the homeland security
    funds, to build the capability and capacity unique to terrorist
    threats, weaponized chemicals, biologicals, blasts, and the
    unfortunate real big concern, improved nuclear devices. But
    look at what you are going to end up doing in every one of
    those disasters. You have to reestablish communication with the
    community; you have got to secure it; you have got to rescue
    the injured; you have got to stabilize it.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Fugate.
        Mr. Selves?
        Mr. Selves. Madam Chairman, thank you for allowing me the
    opportunity to provide testimony on this important topic today.
    I want to express our sincerest gratitude for the great support
    this Subcommittee has always provided to emergency management
    community, particularly your support of the Emergency
    Management Performance Grant and, most recently, for the reform
    of FEMA.
        As President of the International Association of Emergency
    Managers, I represent 3,000 members, most of whom are local
    emergency managers. Because of the nature of our jobs, I am
    often asked what do emergency managers do, and I have told my
    county commissioners that emergency managers are the people you
    hire to tell you things you don't want to hear, ask you to
    spend money that you don't have, and prepare preparation for
    something you don't believe will ever happen. So that is
    basically what we do.
        In order to address today's topic, we need to look at a
    total national system of emergency management. In the past,
    this system has been characterized by a cycle of neglect,
    crisis, and further neglect. One of my colleagues refers to
    this as the spare tire cycle of emergency management. Just like
    we forget and neglect the condition of our car's spare tire
    until we have a flat; likewise, we forget about and neglect the
    emergency management system until we need it.
        This is very evident by looking at the flawed responses to
    Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Andrew, which were essentially
    repeated in Hurricane Katrina. Why do we seem to bounce from
    one disaster to the next? The answer, I believe, is that we
    have failed to commit to a solid, consistent, and enduring all
    hazards system that links critical partners all the time. If we
    had such a system, our chances of success would be enhanced
    regardless of the nature of the last disaster or of the next
    one. There are some very basic elements which characterize this
    kind of system. First, it must be comprehensive; it must
    encompass all potential hazards, all potential impacts relevant
    to any community. This must take into account all of the
    impacts of a disaster, not only the physical ones, but the
    economic ones, the political ones, the sociological ones.
        Second, it must be integrated. Such integration demands
    that linkages are in place and that all relevant agencies at
    the local, State, and national level are involved and engaged.
    Without unity of effort before, during, and after any disaster,
    the effort is going to be chaotic at best and, at worst, doomed
    to failure. Comprehensive and integrated plans on paper are not
    sufficient, however. There must be a well established
    collaborative attitude driving the system. Key stakeholders
    must be broadly involved, frequently consulted, and their
    inputs sincerely valued in order to ensure that roles,
    responsibilities, and relationships are fully understood and
    adopted. In other words, if we shake hands before the disaster,
    we won't have to point fingers afterward.
        In order to revitalize and maintain this comprehensive
    system, IAEM would emphasize three critical areas: first, the
    restoration of the authority and the capability of Federal
    emergency management agency so that the national effort can be
    fully integrated once again. Included in this would be your
    continued oversight of the implementation of the Emergency
    Management Reform Act of 2006.
        Second is the adequate funding of State and local emergency
    management agencies. Director Witt and Director Fugate have
    discussed EMPG and its importance, and we would simply say that
    that needs to be retained as a separate account; it needs to be
    funded at the full $375 million authorization that it currently
    has; and it must be based on an all hazards approach.
        Thirdly, we believe that there needs to be establishment
    and support of programs and institutions which sustain a
    culture of preparedness and answerability to be ready in times
    of crisis. That includes such things as the Emergency
    Management Assistance Compact, which allows us to share
    personnel across State lines in times of emergency; the
    Emergency Management Accreditation Program, which is a joint
    NEMA-IAEM program, to ensure that State and local and
    territorial emergency management functions are consistent and
    accredited; and then, finally, the Certified Emergency Manager
    Program, which is an accreditation, a credentialing system that
    IAEM has for emergency managers to ensure that they have the
    necessary skills land the necessary background and training
    that they need to do the job under any circumstances. Finally,
    we would support the Emergency Management Institute as the
    primary Federal entity for the development of general emergency
    management education, training, and doctrine.
        In closing, your emergency managers at all levels of
    government are constantly working to restore and improve this
    national system upon which so much depends. We thank you for
    your support and understanding in the past, and we ask for your
    consideration of our needs and our recommendations in the
    future. Thank you.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Selves.
        I appreciate the testimony of all three of you. We have a
    few questions.
        They first relate to the chart that we used showing various
    parts of the Country, and, of course, some parts of the Country
    have more severe natural disasters than others. Only one part
    of the Country, where we sit, has had a terrorist disaster,
    yet, we have every reason to be mindful and prepared that that
    is the kind of disaster we were least prepared for, leaving
    aside the example of Katrina, I might add.
        This notion of all hazards you heard me ask Admiral Johnson
    about and the notion of comprehensiveness and being able to do
    everything because, come what may, you are going to have to do
    it anyway, was, from the very beginning, what FEMA understood,
    and once it went into Homeland Security, there was testimony
    after testimony that said that is the way it was going to be;
    we just prepared to do whatever comes up.
        A number of changes were made simply because FEMA was in
    another agency, and one of those changes was the fusing of
    funds for terrorism, prevention, and natural hazards. You heard
    me ask Mr. Johnson, perhaps, about the very small amount, the
    second chart, only 10 percent for natural hazards. I said at
    the same time I wasn't suggesting that Homeland Security should
    not get the same funding, but I did note that keeping the 10
    percent has been very difficult because of the application
    process, among other things.
        I have stopped using the word ``all hazards'' because I
    think that once you say that, I still don't know what people
    are talking about and hazards have been redefined in terms of
    terrorism. People are aware that emergency managers get most of
    their equipment from the States and localities that deal with
    emergencies, and that terrorism presented a need for entirely
    new strategies, new equipment that the States had no reason to
    have.
        I would like your view of the fusing of funding; your view
    of the 10 percent, bearing in mind that the Federal Government
    is not supposed to be paying for most of what emergency
    responders to because most of what they do comes out of their
    local budgets and we are not trying to displace that, nor could
    we. Whereas, of course, neither local nor the national budget
    dealt with so-called terrorist funding.
        What is your understanding of the way this funding is
    divided, and do you think it is appropriate?
        Does Mr. Witt want to go first? Actually, whoever wants to
    go first.
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, our experience in Florida is that,
    immediately after the attack, the primary focus on terrorism,
    which was actually pre-September 11th, was on chem and bio
    threats. We saw that continue in the initial appropriations
    after 2001, although we saw in the attacks the primary threat
    was blast crush and the types of injuries and deaths you were
    going to see with explosives, which had been primarily the tool
    we have seen in the Middle East, suicide bombers, suicide
    trucks, and those types of events, going all the way back to
    the Oklahoma City bombing. But recognizing that chem and bio
    was a threat, we began looking at those funds and how you build
    capacity.
        Now, Florida faces unique challenges because we are a major
    tourist destination, we have major ports. The terrorists
    trained for the attack in Florida. We had the first anthrax----
        Ms. Norton. Did all that come out of the terrorist funding?
        Mr. Witt. Well, the funding was coming out, for this
    particular area, was predating September 11th, were funds that
    were already made available to States began planning for
    weapons of mass destruction. So when you really started talking
    about----
        Ms. Norton. So those funds came from where, then?
        Mr. Witt. They came from the Federal Government as part
    of----
        Ms. Norton. Was this before the establishment of the
    Department of Homeland Security?
        Mr. Witt. Yes, ma'am. These were funds that were coming out
    of the Department of Justice, which, if you go back in history,
    explains some of the trouble we had as these programs began
    merging together. You were taking programs out of the
    Department of Justice, with their management style and
    application, bringing them in to the Homeland Security
    Department that had a totally different--well, first of all,
    Homeland Security had no culture because it was a collection of
    pieces.
        So you have one set of programming and guidance coming down
    from the Justice Department; you have another set of funding
    that was coming down from FEMA; you had other funding that was
    coming down from Transportation, all being merged into those
    programs. So we actually went through several years of changing
    and conflicting prioritizations based upon which way
    organizations were trying to implement these plans based upon
    where they had come from. So as programs moved, program
    guidance would change, even though the intent from Congress was
    the same.
        We saw money moved out of Transportation that went to
    Homeland Security that under Transportation would have made it
    eligible for Florida to fence our ports, but when it got to
    Homeland Security under the Justice programs, they did not do
    capital projects, so they disallowed the fencing issues but
    said find a way to spend the money.
        These were some of the challenges we faced in building our
    capability of responding to these threats, building capacity on
    top of resources we already had, and looking at the threats of
    weapons of mass destruction, but also looking at, increasingly,
    the real risk, which was going to be bomb and blast type
    destruction. So we had to build more search and rescue teams;
    we had to increase our hospital capacity for burn and crush
    injuries, which we did not have.
        As we saw on September 11th, you literally had to fly burn
    patients from this area all over the Country because our
    ability to deal with those types of patients wasn't very
    robust. Yet, we were spending lots of money on doing chemical
    protection with antidotes for chemical weapons that have yet to
    be used in the States.
        So we went through, as the States, oftentimes year-to-year,
    a lot of conflicting and often changing parties trying to build
    systems and capacities to deal with these threats, and the one
    thing that we didn't see early on was the prevention element.
    We were spending a lot of time focusing on the consequence of
    an event and not as much on how to prevent and harden against
    events.
        Now, that has been rectified. Congress has come back and
    put more emphasis in prevention. But when you dump all this
    into the States and the local governments in what we considered
    a state of war, and trying to get ready, it produced huge
    challenges. To this day, even moving these programs back to
    FEMA, there won't be a quick fix as we try to reconcile how we
    prioritize, what is the responsibility and role of the Federal
    Government to fund what in many cases is a national threat
    versus roles and responsibilities local governments have for
    the day-to-day emergencies and challenges they face, and making
    sure that is balanced.
        I think it has been one way on the weapons of mass
    destruction and terrorism. I think it needs to switch back. But
    I think there also has to be buy-in. You give us money for
    homeland security at 100 percent; everything else is a match
    requirement. I think match kind of goes against being a State
    and local. But unless you have some ownership of the process, I
    think you get some of the results you have with 100 percent
    Federal programs. When locals have to punt up and those boards
    have to vote money for it, I think you start seeing where the
    community really puts their parties and their issues.
        Ms. Norton. Do either of you have anything to say about
    that question?
        Mr. Witt. Madam Chairman, I would just say this. The money
    that has gone through the Department of Homeland Security to
    State and local governments to buy the type of equipment that
    they might need for a biological terrorist type event is
    basically to mitigate and prevent responders and communities
    from becoming a victim.
        But if you look at it generically across the Country,
    Florida has probably done a better of intertwining homeland
    security terrorism funding with the CDBG and everything that
    they are doing with State funds and all the different ones, and
    working with their communities. But you go into other areas and
    the terrorism funding down into some States, a lot of time it
    has created problems and making emergency management less
    effective than it was before the funds ever came there, because
    everybody is focusing on terrorism.
        So I have seen it working both ways. I think there needs to
    be, through this Committee and what you are doing, moving
    preparedness training and exercising grants back under FEMA is
    an excellent step, but I think as this evolves and this
    oversight Committee continues to look at this, then I think it
    is going to be important that you look at what kind of
    standards are established--there are still yet no standards for
    inoperability of public safety communications--and other
    standards that people are going to have to come up to and meet.
    They are not there right now, and I don't know what you--but is
    not good.
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Selves?
        Mr. Selves. Well, I think Director Witt referred to
    something earlier called crisis management and consequence
    management, and I think those are important concepts that we
    need to keep in mind. FEMA had always been consequence
    management oriented. In other words, it didn't matter what the
    nature of the disaster or the event was, we planned and
    organized ourselves to perform functions that were necessary to
    deal with the impact of that disaster.
        All disasters pretty much have certain things in common:
    they have sick people; they have injured people; they have dead
    people; they have destroyed infrastructure; they have building
    collapsed; transportation that is disrupted. And all of those
    things fell under FEMA's responsibility under the consequence
    management part of that.
        Certainly, FBI and the Department of Justice had equally
    important, if not more important, responsibilities for
    investigating, preventing, capturing, prosecuting, and doing
    all the things necessary to deal with the terrorist event, but
    when we talk about all hazards from an emergency management
    point of view, we mean all.
        And the priorities that we would set on the kinds of
    equipment that we would have, the kind of training that we
    would put forward would be, first of all, those things that are
    common to all hazards that we need to be able to provide for at
    the local level, and that would be our approach to it, and that
    is what we mean by all hazards, is that it doesn't matter what
    the hazard is. We try to create a capability that is ongoing to
    deal with it regardless of what it is and when it might occur.
        Ms. Norton. Well, when you create a whole new department
    based on a terrorist attack, then obviously you lose your
    balance, and one of the things we tried to do with the Post-
    Katrina Act--you lose the balance so bad that you have a
    Katrina. And one of the things that we are trying to do with
    the Post-Katrina Act was somehow to get that balance back.
        What all three of you have had to say about all the hazards
    is very important to us. Obviously, it hides a multitude of
    subsets when you consider what the day-to-day work of emergency
    responders are and consider that, nevertheless, they have to be
    responsible for whatever happens, including a terrorist event.
    We expect the Department to be able to find its way, but we are
    concerned that it be flexible enough to do so because, as it
    learns more, all hazards and some greater balance will occur,
    you are aware that the Congress gave FEMA more autonomy after
    there was a serious disagreement among Committees, indeed,
    three Committees, I guess, as to whether FEMA ought to be
    entirely independent.
        You heard me ask about the reporting relationship. Having
    made a compromise that leaves FEMA within the Department of
    Homeland Security, but with some greater autonomy, I was trying
    to find out what that means. Are you convinced that the
    reporting relationship created by the Post-Katrina Act within
    the Department of Homeland Security makes FEMA nimble enough to
    move even though it is within a super-agency? Move and get the
    job done everywhere, all the time, to assist first responders?
        Yes, Mr. Witt.
        Mr. Witt. Madam Chair, I think that it is a move in the
    right direction, making FEMA autonomous with its own budget. I
    think it is important that the Administrator of FEMA reports
    directly to the President during presidential disaster
    declarations. I have----
        Ms. Norton. I am sorry, what was that last thing you said?
        Mr. Witt. I think it is important that the Administrator of
    FEMA report directly to the President during presidential
    disaster declarations.
        Ms. Norton. Well, wait a minute. Even though he reports to
    the Secretary, I suppose, all the time because he is within
    DHS, you think his reporting relationship should shift, is that
    what you are saying?
        Mr. Witt. The Administrator should report directly to the
    President during a presidential disaster.
        Also, I have a tremendous concern and cannot understand why
    they have an FCO and a PFO.
        Ms. Norton. Well, would you describe--Mr. Selves spoke
    about that. There seems to be some real concern about this.
    Here we go with another bureaucratic term, principal Federal
    official. Would you speak in layman terms about----
        Mr. Witt. Okay. Let me just say this.
        Ms. Norton.--both the functions and why you think that it
    is appropriate?
        Mr. Witt. When I was Administrator of FEMA, we created the
    Federal Coordinating Officer Program. The Federal Coordinating
    Officer, the intent of that was to be the President's person on
    the ground to make the decisions that needed to be made
    quickly, working with the State Secretary of that State during
    a crisis. And then they added a PFO. What authority does a PFO
    have or what is the intent of a PFO? I have never understood
    that.
        Ms. Norton. Well, does that mean that there is a dual
    report----
        Mr. Witt. I am not sure how they report. It is another
    added layer of bureaucracy between the----
        Ms. Norton. What did they say? Why was he added? I suppose
    I should be asking Admiral Johnson.
        Mr. Selves. Maybe Craig knows.
        Ms. Norton. You may be aware of what their rationale was.
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, the Principal Federal Official, as
    it was originally intended to be, was for, prior to an event
    being declared, to help coordinate between the Department of
    Justice and FEMA. That was the original role. As it has been
    utilized, I have to take into question why Admiral Johnson
    stated that the Federal Coordinating Officer has the full
    authority of the President to direct activities of all Federal
    agencies.
        Yet, we also heard that the Principal Federal Official was
    there to referee if the Federal agencies weren't playing nice
    with the FCO. That either tells me the FCO is impotent or the
    FCO doesn't have any authority, because as you see it, the
    Principal Federal Official is usually, in the hierarchy of
    Federal Government, a senior Federal official who outranks the
    Federal Coordinating Officer. My job representing Governor
    Crist is to go into a unified command with the person that
    represents the President and the Federal response plan or the
    national response plan, which just----
        Ms. Norton. And who would that be in your case?
        Mr. Fugate. Under the Stafford Act and under statutes, the
    authority is vested in the Federal Coordinating Officer. Yet, I
    will have a Principal Federal Official assigned to us who will
    be, again, as we understand it, providing information back to
    the Secretary of Homeland Security and providing coordination
    between the Federal agencies. So either the FCO has authority--
    --
        Ms. Norton. How is coordination with the Federal agencies
    done before
        Mr. Fugate. Through the Federal Coordinating Officer. And
    it wasn't so much that the Federal Coordinating Officer was in
    negotiation with other Federal agencies. The Federal
    Coordinating Officer in a declared disaster, ideally responding
    to a governor's request for assistance, had directive authority
    to other Federal agencies. It was a tasking ability to get
    Federal resources quickly to save lives, property, and mitigate
    the impacts of a disaster.
        Ms. Norton. Well, the allegation is that this is Homeland
    Security's way of keeping in the game.
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chairman, I cannot go into the intent or
    what----
        Ms. Norton. I want to know what the effect is.
        Mr. Fugate. But I can tell you that when a Principal
    Federal Official is assigned to Florida, I immediately ask that
    they be made the Federal Coordinating Officer. It makes no
    sense to have a Federal Coordinating Officer who then has a PFO
    over them and a reporting relationship between the governor of
    the State of Florida----
        Ms. Norton. You think the both of those would be reporting
    to FEMA, in effect? Or do you think it stops with FEMA or the
    Principal Federal Official goes somewhere else, like to
    Department of Homeland Security?
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, my understanding is the Principal
    Federal Official does part of the reporting back to the
    Secretary of Homeland Security. We have only asked that those
    two positions, if they are applied in Florida, be combined so
    that, for Governor Crist, he is dealing with the President's
    representative, not two different people.
        Ms. Norton. I tell you one thing. If the whole point in a
    deficit-ridden budget, is efficiency and saving funds, I can't
    imagine that this would be the Administration that wants to add
    to the bureaucracy. This is a matter of efficiency that I think
    should be brought to the attention of the appropriators and of
    our Committee.
        You see no separate function once a disaster has occurred?
    Do any of you see a separate function?
        Mr. Selves. No.
        Mr. Witt. No, ma'am.
        Ms. Norton. Have you seen them in action? How do they
    operate; they are both there?
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair----
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Selves raised this point too. Yes.
        Mr. Selves. I think the important point that our members
    who have been affected by this see--and obviously the State
    government is more involved in this process than we are, but
    our members are talking about the effects, and the effects are
    a degree of confusion. In any particular situation, especially
    a chaotic situation like a disaster, you want to have clear
    guidance and clear understanding of what your major partner,
    the Federal Government, is going to do.
        What our members are reporting is that, in Hurricane
    Katrina and other situations, the existence of a Principal
    Federal Official and a Federal Coordinating Officer, which is
    what we have traditionally dealt with, is very confusing
    because you don't know--unless, as Craig has suggested, you
    have one person be the same two functions, you don't really
    trust and know whether or not you are going to have that the
    decisions that are made, and that you have to act on as a State
    or local official, are going to be supported once it gets back
    to Washington. I think that is the main concern that most
    people have with this dual positions; not so much that there
    are two of them, but that they create a confusion as to exactly
    who should we listen to as far as what we can and can't do.
        Ms. Norton. That sounds like a disaster in the making.
    Suppose they disagree? Nobody is trying to cut the Department
    of Homeland Security out; okay, they are in FEMA. But it does
    seem to me that that is what the head of FEMA is for, is to
    keep the Department of Homeland Security informed. And if he
    wants to have special assistants and the rest that he learns
    stuff from. How many of these Principal Federal Officials do we
    have? Committee will find out. If trying to use money where it
    is needed, then I would be very concerned about that.
        Leaving aside the Principal Federal Official, do you think
    that, given what you know about pre-Katrina, do you think that
    the agency will be able to function adequately within the
    Department of Homeland Security? Whichever of you wishes to
    step up to that one.
        Mr. Witt. Madam Chairman, I have always advocated that FEMA
    needed to be independent and outside the Homeland Security.
        Ms. Norton. But that is where we are now, so I need to know
    what are the--you know what the chain of command is. You have
    already told us one way to improve it: not have these two
    officers who overlap with one another. I am interested in
    knowing, given that this is where we are, what do you think is
    the effect and are there things we can do, given the present
    structure, to make sure that that is as flexible and nimble as
    the agency needs to be.
        Mr. Witt. Let me just add I think the changes you have made
    is a step forward. It is how those changes are implemented and
    carried out is whether or not the agency will move forward to
    be better prepared and be able to respond in support of State
    and local government. One of the biggest problems that I would
    suggest, Madam Chairman, that the Committee look at is not only
    the decision process in the declaration as well as the response
    to a hazard or an event, it is the decision process that is
    made in the recovery of that event, and what chain of command
    in and who has the authority to do it, because I can tell you
    it is really, really difficult at different times in getting
    decisions made in a timely way to be able to not only reimburse
    local governments in recovery efforts, but to move it forward
    much faster than it is in today's process.
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, from the State of Florida's
    perspective, FEMA is already part of DHS. I think moving FEMA
    again isn't really getting to the bottom line. I think the
    bottom line is to continue oversight of the Katrina Reform Act.
    I think we lose more by trying to move it once again, as much
    as to continue the oversight and go with the basic principal
    that was established with the late Governor Chiles, Governor
    Bush, and now with Governor Crist, that in a disaster they have
    to have the person they trust managing their team that is
    working all those resources on behalf of the people that we
    represent.
        I think that is the important relationship. The FEMA
    Director must have clear and unabridged access to the President
    and must be seen as the President's principal in dealing with
    and managing a disaster on behalf of the Federal Government. If
    they are seen as subordinate to the Secretary of Homeland
    Security during a disaster, that gives other departments the
    ability to negotiate with the Secretary for those things that
    they wish not to do at the direction of FEMA. And in a disaster
    the President needs one captain, one coach, one leader, not a
    Committee vetoing each other's decisions when issues are being
    raised and governors need answers and citizens need help.
        Ms. Norton. I would like all of you to comment on something
    in Mr. Witt's testimony. Normally, everybody talks about one-
    stop shopping, but he uses another word: one-stop grants
    shopping for State and local governments. And you state, Mr.
    Witt, that it doesn't allow the Country to prepare effectively
    for natural hazards or terrorism. Could you elaborate? Then
    perhaps Mr. Selves and Mr. Fugate would comment on that idea.
        Mr. Witt. I think when it was shifted over through the
    grant programs into the Department of Homeland Security, I
    think it was problematic for them. What is a one-stop shop
    grant program? What does that cover? I think the primary focus
    of it as a one-stop grant program under Homeland Security was
    it was leaning towards terrorism, not an all hazard approach in
    grants. I think that the grant program being shifted back to
    FEMA will add some value, and I think, as you look at it and as
    it evolves, I think it will improve.
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Selves?
        Mr. Selves. Yes. When this occurred, I think a lot of us in
    our community were in favor. In fact, we probably were
    complaining about the number of different stovepipe grant
    programs that were out there. How do you go about identifying
    where those programs are, who has them? How do you go about
    applying for them? So I think a lot of us in the community
    said, you know, we really wish that you would have one place
    within DHS where we can go and get whatever applicable grant
    for our community.
        I think the law of unintended consequences came into play
    here and what we got was a mind-set that we have to make all of
    these grants, in terms of policy, the same, and that was not
    what we were asking for. What we were asking for was one
    central administrative agency that we could go to and say,
    okay, if we need grants for emergency management performance
    type activities, we go here; if we need money for chem bio
    equipment, we go to the same place, rather than the stovepipe
    systems that we had before.
        What we did not advocate, and do not advocate, is that all
    these grant programs now become similar in terms of what they
    are trying to achieve and so on, and I think maybe that is what
    Director Witt was referring to when he said that the impetus
    seems to be on making all of these terrorism-related because
    they were in DHS GNT and are now in FEMA. Hopefully, when they
    get back under FEMA, the folks in FEMA understand the purposes
    of a number of these grants, particularly EMPG, and understand
    that it is an all hazard grant, and has to be; otherwise, it is
    basically there to provide the people power necessary to do all
    the coordination, all of the answers to all of the questions at
    the local level and the State level that you have been asking
    today. That is what the emergency managers are there for.
        We originally had some issues because DHS says, well, you
    can't use this for personnel. Well, that is like asking the
    chef to make a hamburger, but don't give him any meat. You
    know, you have got to have people that make this happen, and
    that is one of the issues that we had with what has occurred
    with respect to the grants; not that they are administered in
    one place, but that there seemed to be some impetus to put them
    together in kind of a vanilla type situation.
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, the rule of unintended
    consequences applied here. We thought, by bringing the grants
    into one shop, we would tear down the silos, break down the
    walls, and began to use those grants more systemically to solve
    problems than each program. The unintended consequence of
    that--and I don't think this is an evil intent, I just think it
    is a natural nature within the bureaucracy--was since you had
    brought in Justice and those programs from there, they tried to
    move those grants in to fit in the programs that they were used
    to administering, they were comfortable with, they had the
    tools developed to assess and audit. Unfortunately, the other
    programs were never designed that way, so they didn't fit and
    there was a lot of frustration.
        I think that, yes, one-stop shops are good as long as you
    understand that you need different tools and different measures
    for the different grants, because Congress has intended
    different things to happen with those monies.
        But here is my question. How many times do we have to audit
    the program? We haven't basically operated under a single audit
    act, but I find that the variety of grants--I get asked the
    same questions by different staffers, generally during spring
    and winter months in Florida, on programs that are very
    commonly related and oftentimes share the same results. Yet,
    because it was funded out of this pocket or this pocket, those
    folks come down and do the same audits and over and over and
    over again. We follow a single audit act. We follow the law.
    Yet, we get audited over and over again.
        Ms. Norton. Were they trying to find out whether you were
    using for terrorism or for some other purpose, is that it?
        Mr. Fugate. Ma'am, they are asking us and going back
    through the way they designed those grants, trying to look at
    performance. They are trying to answer questions Congress has
    asked. They are trying to answer questions the Administration
    has asked. It just seems that if we were trying to make the
    commonality elements in a one-stop shop work, we could answer
    those questions once and not multiple times.
        In fact, I believe FEMA has actually commissioned a study
    of going out and assessing how many different programs are
    asking the same questions in different areas, trying to measure
    what we are doing. We have Accreditation, we have the Emergency
    Management Performance Grants, we have the Homeland Security
    Grants, we have the Urban Security Initiative Grants. Well,
    many of them overlap and the questions are the same, but you
    are asked differently because they are different pots of money.
        Ms. Norton. Now that Congress has at least now said, okay,
    what little bit of money FEMA has is going to be given out by
    FEMA, the tilt--it is a whole lot more than a tilt, and we
    heard the complaints, that we are too early in the Act to know
    whether it makes a different. The Committee feels very strongly
    that if we are talking about only 10 percent, the kind of
    soundings we get, that even now there are complaints about the
    terrorism tilt, that would be very disturbing.
        But bear this in mind: nobody would have funded emergency
    responders in the first place in these large amounts but for a
    terrorist event. So what you are having is a kind of mechanical
    distinction. People say all hazards and then they try to parse
    money as if, in fact, hazards occur as terrorist hazards, and
    that is all we fund because we are the Federal Government; you
    are supposed to fund the rest of those hazards. All hazards
    occur as natural disasters. And I don't know if the Government
    will ever learn, but we are trying to learn from this last
    iteration of the Stafford Act.
        I have a question for Mr. Fugate from Mr. Mica, who asked
    that I ask how do we ensure the Federal response to a
    catastrophic disaster is proactive enough to meet the need but
    does not overstep the State's authority?
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, you build a team. We have to
    recognize that there are two directions I see us going in: one
    is trying to beef up on the Federal side, FEMA and the Federal
    apparatus. Without recognizing without strong State and local
    emergency management programs, that system is too expensive and
    will fail. The way we do it is local government, State
    government, Federal Government have to work as partners, as one
    team. That means when the Federal Coordinating Officer is
    appointed, we go into a unified command meeting; I sit with
    them and we make decisions jointly. It isn't a State mission;
    it is not a Federal mission; it is the team's mission to meet
    those needs, and we have resources on both sides.
        But in a catastrophic disaster, I have often heard this
    term, Madam Chair, I want to define catastrophic disaster
    because I am tired of the media defining it for me. I look at a
    catastrophic disaster as this: when the State of Florida loses
    its constitutional ability to carry out its mandate to its
    citizens, then it is catastrophic and the President needs to
    step in.
        But until such time as the governor of the State of Florida
    cannot carry out or is unwilling to carry out their
    constitutional responsibility to protect the civil rights of
    their citizens, the Federal Government is our partner, not our
    boss, and they come in to support the governor and his team,
    which is local and working with all local governments to meet
    those challenges. It becomes the skill of disaster.
        But we do recognize that with the threat of terrorism there
    may be that unthinkable event that results in the State
    government being the casualty and there not being a governor or
    not being able to carry out their constitutional mandate to
    meet the basic civil rights that our citizens demand, and that
    is when it is appropriate for the Federal Government to take
    the lead role until State government can be reconstituted. That
    is the history of our Country through civil rights, through
    war, and through disasters. So we think a catastrophic
    disaster, in our definition, is when we fail and our governor
    is not able to carry out, because of death or injury, their
    constitutional responsibilities; otherwise,----
        Ms. Norton. Well, that certainly would not be most of the
    time.
        Mr. Fugate. That is it.
        Ms. Norton. It is interesting that you say that. It is
    interesting Mr. Mica thought he had to ask that question
    because one had the authority that you always hear the Federal
    Government say they defer to the States and, of course, they
    don't know what is happening on the ground nearly as much as
    the States would, so it is interesting if you say in non-
    catastrophic disasters you still have a problem of the Federal
    Government wanting to take the lead.
        Mr. Fugate. Madam Chair, you pass the law as a body--I hope
    you agree with it--that places the National Guard under the
    President in a natural disaster, but doesn't take the authority
    of the governor to manage the disaster away from the governor.
    You just take his National Guard and federalize them. That is
    an option the President has. That is really troublesome, that
    we have seen all that type of legislation come out, thinking we
    learned the lessons of Katrina.
        If the local governments and State governments are going to
    truly be the front line, we need to support and fund them. But
    every time we come in at the Federal level and we assume more
    responsibility for their responsibilities, we develop
    capabilities and respond without really putting some onus on
    them to do it, you literally force State governments to make
    decisions about funding. Well, if the Federal Government is
    going to do it, why should we fund it? If the Federal
    Government is going to show up and do everything for us, why
    should we do it?
        Ms. Norton. Well, let me ask you this. Does the fact that,
    for example, after a declaration, Federal funds begin to flow
    mean that the Federal Government feels it has got to take more
    responsibility because Federal funds are involved?
        Mr. Fugate. Director Witt?
        Mr. Witt. Let me just say this. FEMA's role and
    responsibility was to work with the States in making sure that
    they could provide the resources to the States that the States
    asked for, not to go in and take over a disaster. We were there
    in support of the States and----
        Ms. Norton. Do you really think FEMA has been taking
    control of disasters, taking over disasters in the States? Did
    that happen in the tornadoes? Something happened, because Mr.
    Mica asked me to ask this question about make sure it does not
    step over the State's authority.
        Mr. Witt. And you shouldn't. The Federal Government is
    there as a resource to State government.
        Ms. Norton. Is this a common complaint?
        Mr. Witt? What now?
        Mr. Witt. Is this a common complaint, that when there is a
    declaration, that the Federal Government does not operate as a
    team, FEMA and the rest do not operate as a team, but seem to
    want to take over the handling of the disaster? Mr. Selves?
        Mr. Selves. I am not sure I would characterize it as
    wanting to take over after a disaster. Over the last few years,
    I think those of us at the local level have seen FEMA and the
    Federal partnership that has been talked about here becoming
    more remote. There is less of a person-to-person interaction so
    that we are working with people we know and trust and who
    understand those boundaries that we have just been talking
    about.
        I think one of the problems that occurs when we emphasize
    catastrophic disasters as we have is that in addition to what
    has already been said, there is also a tendency to look at the
    funding formulas and the emphasis on funding. If the Federal
    Government is expected to come in and play a major role because
    the local officials, or the State officials in some cases,
    can't do the job, then, naturally, that funding is going to
    look to provide a Federal capability instead of a State and
    local one.
        This is a vicious cycle, because if you give us less money
    and give us less authority and so on and so forth, then the
    attitude is going to be, well, you know, they are really
    incapable of doing the job, so we have got to do it for them,
    and pretty soon you will come to a Federal allocation or
    appropriation that is going to stagger you because the Federal
    Government cannot do it; it has to be a partnership.
        And I think that is, over the last few years, what we have
    found to be the issue, is the remoteness of the Federal
    Government, the lack of knowledge of who those folks are, and
    the respect of the boundaries that might take place, maybe not
    out of any malintent, but because of a misunderstanding or a
    feeling that, well, if we don't get in there and do something,
    right or wrong, then we are going to be criticized for it, so
    we have got to be much more aggressive with the States and
    locals.
        Ms. Norton. I will ask one last question, because we want
    to get on to the next panel, that the Ranking Member, Mr.
    Graves has asked me to ask of you because you both are from
    Kansas City. In your written testimony you mention the
    potential impacts on Kansas City from an earthquake on the new
    Madrid Fault. Could you describe what you might face in Kansas
    City and what Congress should be doing to help Kansas City
    prepare?
        Mr. Selves. Thank you. Yes, I belong to an organization
    within the Kansas City metropolitan area. I represent the
    southwest suburbs of the Kansas City Metro area on the Kansas
    side. We have about a half a million folks, 20 cities in my
    county. But we work with all of the 8 counties in the Kansas
    City Metro and their emergency managers, and over the last few
    months, especially, we have been asked by the Federal
    Government to prepare catastrophic plans for catastrophic
    events.
        Well, if you look at Kansas City, we don't have hazards
    that are very likely to create a catastrophic event. What we do
    have come to the conclusion is that if there is a catastrophic
    event on the new Madrid Fault, that the City of St. Louis will
    be rendered pretty much in the same situation or worse as the
    City of New Orleans was during Katrina, and we look at our
    major responsibility in a catastrophe to act as the Houston to
    St. Louis's New Orleans, and that is something that we have
    just come to realize and begun to look at our ability to
    provide mass care, our ability to house and to take care of.
        And I think that that brings up a point that I would like
    this Committee and others to consider, and that is the support
    and the programs that are available to communities and States
    who are required to serve as the receivers of evacuees from
    disaster areas. We saw tremendous burdens placed on areas in
    Northern Louisiana and certainly in the City of Houston and
    various other places around the Country, and those folks were
    willing to step up and do that job, but there didn't seem to be
    a lot of good policy and good procedures in place to help those
    communities out that reached out and helped those evacuees. So
    that is something we are concerned about in our area.
        Ms. Norton. Well, we will make sure that Mr. Graves hears
    that response, because if ever there was an afterthought, it
    was about the receiving areas, and they still are coming back.
    And every time we do something, for example, for the Louisiana
    area, we have to do something for those other areas as well.
    But, again, I am not sure the statute makes that clear enough,
    and I am asking staff to look and see whether or not--we should
    not be doing that on an ad hoc basis, and if they need to be
    prepared to receive people, then that too ought to be a part of
    the homeland security mission.
        Mr. Selves. You can tell the Ranking Member that we will be
    happy to send some of those folks up to St. Joseph as well.
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Witt, you wanted to comment on that matter?
        Mr. Witt. No, I think Mike did a good job.
        I would like to make a statement, if it is appropriate,
    before we leave.
        Ms. Norton. Please do.
        Mr. Witt. You know, the eight years I was at FEMA we had
    the opportunity to reorganize and refocus the agency into a
    more responsive plan and preparedness, and we focused on
    mitigation and prevention, and I would encourage you to keep
    the mitigation side of funding to States and local governments
    to mitigate the risks in these States' cities and counties. It
    is so important.
        Also, let me just say I think Director Paulison is a very
    good man. I have known him for a long time; I worked with him
    over the years when he was fire chief in Miami Dade and
    director of emergency management. I think if this Committee
    will empower him and support him to make those changes
    necessary, I think you will see an agency come back strong.
        Ms. Norton. Well, I know he will be glad to have that seal
    of approval from you.
        Mr. Witt. Let me just say----
        Ms. Norton. We know that he had emergency management
    experience, and that is why he has our confidence. We want to
    make sure the GAO report that, down the line, we have got
    people with emergency management experience, because you saw
    what happened when the top of the agency didn't have it, then
    it turns out that below the agency you had the same problem.
    They are bringing many people in, and the Chairman and I have
    asked for a GAO audit right now, before we get locked in with
    people who may not have the necessary experience. It was a shot
    across our bow when another agency in the Department of
    Homeland Security, the Federal Protective Service, takes on
    somebody who was rated most qualified who had indeed had deep
    police experience and he did not get the job. So that is all I
    need to know to know that we have to take a look.
        Mr. Chairman, I have already indicated that you and I will
    be asking for a GAO report to audit personnel selections in the
    agency, and I have already said that we will ask the Chair and
    the Ranking Members of the Full Committee and of our
    Subcommittee to join us in asking for that report. And I am
    very pleased you were able to come. I know how busy the
    Chairman is. He had told me personally that I am going to come
    to that hearing. This is how important he believed this hearing
    to be, and I am happy to welcome a man that all of you know,
    because anyone who knows anything about this field knows Jim
    Oberstar, the Chairman of the Full Committee.
        Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Madam Chair. You are doing
    wonderfully on your own. I appreciate that, but I do have so
    many requests from our colleagues to participate with
    delegations coming from their districts here, so I regret I was
    not able to be here at the outset.
        While it is delightful and important for us, beneficial to
    have the former Director of FEMA, I am disappointed we don't
    have the current Director. He felt it more important to be at
    an embassy briefing than to be at a Committee hearing, and that
    is unacceptable.
        I listened with great interest to the discussion that
    unfolded. I read the testimony from all the participants at our
    hearing late last night, into the early hours. FEMA didn't
    start out to be FEMA, it started out as Civil Defense.
        I think I just need to create a little historical context,
    not for the edification of the participants at the witness
    table, but for the historical record of the Committee.
        Over time, as we moved away from fear of nuclear holocaust
    and stocked up our cellars with provisions, water and cans of
    food, and learned how to dig a hole in the backyard and pull
    the door over the top of our little shelter, events were
    happening, tornadoes, snowstorms in the northern tier,
    hurricanes in the southern coastal region, and folks said we
    need help, and they turned to the Civil Defense directors
    respectively across the Country, because they had the sense of
    organization, a response plan, a departure plan from the cities
    in case of tragedy; they had the organizational ability, they
    had the communications equipment.
        And as more demands were made upon the Civil Defense, there
    were more needs, and there were also more requests from States
    to the Federal Government to provide financial help, and in
    various cases support from the National Guard. Disaster
    declarations by the President were few in number up into the
    1970s.
        But then, if you look back at the history, we began to see
    the rise of cost and frequency of natural disasters and
    increasing pressure on the Civil Defense organizations who were
    evolving into an all hazards response organization. Then came
    the Reagan Administration and they took a look at the funding
    and the response, and the president submitted, in 1987, a
    budget which totally turned on its head the Federal-State-local
    participation formula that you were talking about earlier with
    the distinguished Chair.
        In most cases there would be no Federal support under this
    Reagan Administration plan; in some cases there would be 75
    local, 25 Federal. And it was a Member of Congress from
    Pennsylvania, Republican, who came to me as Chair of the
    Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee and my counterpart,
    Ranking Republican Member Mr. Klinger of Pennsylvania and said
    this is terrible; we have just had a tragedy in Pennsylvania.
    We couldn't afford all the costs ourselves. This new policy
    will bankrupt towns and counties and townships, and we would
    like you to have a hearing on the subject matter. He was even
    proposing that we have legislative initiative to address the
    problem. So we had the hearing.
        They brought in the Civil Defense directors from all over
    the Country. We found that there was unanimous objection to
    this new policy, pointing out that these massive storms cover
    multi-counties, multi-States. They are national in interest and
    in effect, and we established quite a hearing record. Out of
    this developed legislation that created the structure for what
    became FEMA.
        And I gave the legislative draft to the Member from
    Pennsylvania, I said, you introduce the bill and we will have
    the legislative Committee hold hearings on it and we will move
    this bill through. He was surprised, because that doesn't
    happen when you are in the minority, that the majority gives
    you a bill and says, here, you go and manage it, handle it. I
    said, no, you have done the right thing. You had the courage to
    stand up against your own administration on a matter that has
    now taken on national significance.
        So he introduced the bill, I co-sponsored it, Mr. Klinger
    co-sponsored it. The bill passed the House, the Senate,
    eventually was signed into law under--wrapped it into something
    else because, of course, that White House was not going to sign
    such a bill. We wrapped it into another omnibus bill and it
    became law.
        That Member was Tom Ridge, later the first Secretary of
    Homeland Security. I will never forget, after he was appointed,
    he came up to see me, he said, it all started with you. But it
    started with good public policy and, Mr. Witt, you extended
    that good public policy. I think the apogee of FEMA's service
    to the Country. I know Mr. Shuster, our former Chairman of the
    Committee, would concur in this judgement of the apogee of
    service of FEMA was under your distinguished leadership. You
    developed a pre-disaster mitigation program.
        Now we have seen this thing sort of coming full circle, and
    when the Administration proposed the development of the
    Homeland Security Department, both then Chairman Young and I
    opposed inclusion of FEMA and Coast Guard in this Department.
    We opposed it at the White House in a meeting with the
    President; we opposed it at the hearing of the Committee to
    create Homeland Security; and on the House floor I offered an
    amendment to delete FEMA from the Homeland Security Department.
        I said in my closing argument for my amendment, imagine the
    scenario, the flood waters are creeping up to the eaves of your
    house; you are standing on the roof with your cell phone and a
    white handkerchief, trying to call FEMA and you get the
    Department of Homeland Security and they tell you, well, they
    are out looking for terrorists. That is what you are going to
    see if you do this. That is what will happen with this
    Department, it will be absorbed with this agency, it will be
    absorbed into this new Department. And the staff will be
    syphoned off and the money which is fungible will be dispersed
    to other parts of this grass department.
        Well, it was hardly a year and a half later that Katrina
    struck and how many images are engraved in our minds of people
    standing on their rooftops, waving white handkerchiefs and on
    their cell phones? Now, I was not a Nostradamus predicting the
    future, but just my own years of experience around the Capitol
    and in government know that when you create something this big,
    that is what is going to happen. And it did happen, tragically.
        So now the Department has come up with a new plan to
    recreate what they in effect destroyed, and, in fact, what I
    predicted did happen. Staff were syphoned off; half of them
    were bled from FEMA and shipped elsewhere, or the really
    dedicated professionals left. The funding for FEMA was
    dispersed around the Department. Now we are trying to reclaim
    it. The result was well experienced managers left or were
    redistributed; morale sank; well-intentioned, unexperienced
    people came in; and we need not repeat all the horror show of
    post-Katrina.
        Now I have confidence in Administrator Paulison;
    disappointed that he is not here today. He should have been
    here. He can go to an embassy event any other time of the week.
    This is a Committee of the Congress. And also in Michael
    Jackson, the Deputy Secretary who has certainly made his mark
    as an effective government manager. Now they are putting
    together a new program or a new management structure for FEMA,
    but we need to have assurance that personnel have experience in
    disaster preparedness, planning, and response.
        This is not a throw-away job. This is critically important
    work. We also have to have some structure that separates the
    terrorism response, the terrorism preparedness and planning and
    all the rest of that, which is less than 2 percent of the work
    of FEMA, from its response to natural disasters. As the then
    Chairman Don Young said many times over the last five years,
    four years since the Department was created, the biggest terror
    is a hurricane. The biggest terror is a tornado. They strike
    regularly. We need to be prepared more efficiency and more
    effectively and more currently against those disasters.
        What I see, among many other concerns, is that fire grants,
    the administration of which, under your leadership, Mr. Witt,
    was highly professionalized. Now those fire grants are being
    shifted away from small communities into urban areas. Those
    little fire departments, those rural fire departments in my
    area--I am sure they are in Florida; I am sure they are in
    other areas of the Country--they are the first line of
    response.
        Breathing apparatus, protective clothing, new gear,
    occasionally a new fire truck means all the world in the
    response to a fire in a rural area where, if you don't have the
    right equipment, the home can be gone, the summer recreation
    lakeside home can be just gone, vaporized in a very short time.
    Or, as we are seeing with methamphetamine, where fire
    departments are called upon to respond to a fire, they have
    never seen these toxic fumes before; green, orange, yellow,
    black, acrid. They need breathing apparatus to respond to this.
    This is every bit at serious as a terrorist attack.
        First of all, I would like to ask Mr. Fugate, you have had
    more than your share of experience with disaster in Florida
    from natural events, whether you have taken a look at this new
    management plan for FEMA, whether the steps taken to
    reestablish pre-disaster mitigation, whether the efforts at all
    hazards approach give you some confidence about the future of
    this agency.
        Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, I started out as a volunteer fire
    department firefighter, just like you talked about, the rural
    departments. That is where I came from. I was actually a
    responder before I got into emergency management. I look at
    three rules in a disaster or an emergency: you meet the needs
    of your victims; you take care of your responders; and the
    third rule is to see the first rule.
        So with the management plan, the changes, and everything
    they are doing, yes, I think they are going in the right
    direction. But I think it is going to take continual oversight
    of the people's representatives to make sure that that
    direction doesn't change. The problem you are going to always
    have with FEMA as part of a big organization is when the other
    competing needs are expressed without funding, they are going
    to look within the organization to shift priorities and
    resources.
        That is just the nature of how, as managers, we try to deal
    with increasing demands and increasing issues. So that is where
    I think FEMA, initially, going into Homeland Security, was in
    such a bad position, was that the Department of Homeland
    Security looked to FEMA because they had funds, they had
    personnel, and in meeting other challenges they stole from
    Peter to pay Paul, hoping that the system would no break, and
    it did.
        So that will be the continual responsibility that you and
    your members have, sir, is to make sure that that oversight
    continues. These are the important steps. But I can tell you
    that as much as Dave Paulison has my support and respect, Dave
    cannot fix everything before hurricane season. He probably
    won't have everything fixed at the end of his term. But he has
    got to lay the groundwork, get the people hired, get them
    trained, move the program.
        It is going to take time to rebuild FEMA and to make it
    stronger and better, and it will never be completed because
    hopefully it will always be a work in progress to continue to
    improve so its role of supporting State and local governments
    never ends. But the groundwork has got to be laid, the
    foundation has to be built. We think that is happening, but it
    is very fragile at this point. As you pointed out, we ran this
    cycle before, and without the oversight of Congress, that will
    occur again.
        I think your advantage, sir, is previously you were often
    fighting these battles and not really have the rest of the
    Congress understand how this was a national issue, not a State
    and local issue. I think Katrina has shown us that natural
    disasters, manmade and terrorism, can impact the entire
    Country, even when we are not hit by that disaster.
        Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much. That is a very sound,
    very wise, balanced, thoughtful approach.
        Mr. Witt, I would like to have your observations.
        Mr. Witt. I agree totally with Craig, Mr. Oberstar. I think
    that, first of all, I think it was the right move to put
    preparedness training and exercise the grant program back under
    FEMA. I also think it is important that the Director of FEMA is
    reporting directly to the President when there is a Federal
    disaster declaration.
        I think that decision process from the State level, with
    the State director and the State, from the Federal Coordinating
    Officer to the Director of FEMA and to the President is
    absolutely critical, because information flow in data, flow
    back in with situation reports helps people to make good
    decisions faster. You cannot have a line of bureaucracy of
    reporting systems which you know very well that will expedite
    the process and the resources.
        So I agree, I think it is going to take some time to do
    this. I think that it is going to take some time to get to the
    moral of the agency back to the level that it needs to be, like
    it used to be. They took pride in what they did and worked some
    extremely hard, long days. So I think it is evolving, and I
    think with your oversight and your support and your guidance,
    then I think it can evolve to a premier agency in the Federal
    Government.
        Mr. Oberstar. I assure you the oversight will continue. We
    have just begun.
        Mr. Selves, do you have an observation?
        Mr. Selves. Well, for seven years, before I took this
    particular job with Johnson County, I worked for the State of
    Kansas Emergency Management Division, and one of my
    responsibilities, my major responsibility was to go out and to
    try to help the counties in the State of Kansas who are
    responsible for emergency management to create better, more
    effective programs, and I was frequently called before county
    commissioners who asked me, well, we don't really have the
    money to have a full-time emergency manager in this county, but
    could we make the public works director or the sheriff or
    somebody else do that job?
        I would tell them, you know, it is up to you; you have the
    authority to put the position wherever you want it, but if you
    don't make it a separate agency reporting directly to you in
    times of disaster, you are going to have significant problems.
    I said, you can put it wherever you want, but if you choose to
    make it something other than a direct report to you, you need
    to make sure that you have that relationship with that
    individual, wherever they might work, that in time of disaster,
    they are there to support you in the overall response, a
    comprehensive response to this disaster. They can't be a deputy
    out working traffic or saving lives; they have got to be
    somewhere there who can work with you and coordinate things.
        So I think the situation is similar here. The decision has
    been made to put FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security.
    That is a decision that Congress made and the President asked
    for, but you have to be very careful. You have to make sure
    that it works, that the relationships are there and that the
    advice is provided when it needs to be provided directly to the
    person responsible.
        Mr. Oberstar. Right on.
        Mr. Witt?
        Mr. Witt. Mr. Chairman, let me also, on the fire grant
    program. We had a huge wildfire in Montana. Senator Backus and
    we went up, we did a fire declaration, and we went out with
    Governor Roscoe, we went out on the fire line, and this is how
    important those fire grants are you that mentioned. We went out
    on the fire line and we had an instant command post set up, and
    here were the volunteer firefighters responding with the U.S.
    Forest Service that none of them had turnout gear. They were in
    their blue jeans and boots.
        Another example how important this is, our son, in our
    hometown of Darnell, Arkansas, is a volunteer firefighter and a
    banker. I said, well, what are you all going to need this year?
    He said, we don't have any turnout suits. This was two years
    ago. So we bought him a turnout suit and his department. So
    these fire grants are really important because they support
    emergency management as a resource and they are the fire line.
        Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much. My staff representative
    for the northern tier of my district, Peter Makowski, is a
    volunteer firefighter. Not only that, he has his own fire
    truck. I mean, he is really into this. He bought a surplus fire
    truck that some department in southern Minnesota was selling.
    He goes out on those and he knows first-hand what the equipment
    is needed, the breathing apparatus that is required, the
    protective gear that is needed, and the latest technology.
        Crime is moving out from urban areas to rural areas, and we
    have a lot of hunting shacks in northern Minnesota. You
    probably have got those all around Arkansas., where they are
    just sitting there much of the year, and someone passing by in
    January sees one of those shacks, there is no snow on the roof.
    Oh, oh, someone is in there cooking meth. What is going on?
    Pretty soon there is going to be a fire, and who has to
    respond?
        And what has FEMA and Homeland Security been doing for the
    last couple of years? Creeping along. I heard this from the
    Fire Chiefs Association of Minnesota. They are telling us you
    submit your fire grant application, you have to show a
    connection with terrorism. Well, the terror is the fire. The
    terror is the meth lab. The terror is the tornado. The straight
    line winds at 100 miles an hour blew down 26 million trees in
    northern Minnesota. That is the terror. We have got to be
    prepared against that.
        I am just grateful to you. Thank you. I don't want to
    prolong this. There are other witnesses waiting to be heard. We
    need to hear from them.
        Madam Chair, thank you very much. Thank you for also
    including the questions of the minority who unfortunately were
    not able to be here this afternoon.
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, you never prolong; you only
    educate. We all sit and listen to a man who knows more about--
    you have never seen anything like it. Whatever Subcommittee it
    was, you are astounded to hear. You understand the Chairman has
    sat through all these things. The question you have to ask
    yourself is what kind of brain does he have that has actually
    absorbed all these things.
        Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Chairman.
        And I want to thank you very much. I want to say to this
    panel I have learned something. This is what hearings do for
    me, not tell me what I already know. When I learn from you, it
    gives me ideas about what to do. Vast and deeply informed
    experience. I very much appreciate your waiting through the
    last panel and waiting so long for us during the vote. Thank
    you again for coming.
        I am going to call up the next set of witnesses. And I
    certainly have to thank the next set of witnesses, because they
    have been most patient, and I certainly appreciate their
    indulgence. The fact that they are coming last says nothing
    about their importance; it says something about the protocol of
    the Congress, and the protocol, of course, is you start with
    the agency head and you hope, frankly, that from their
    testimony you will gather questions beyond those that have
    already occurred to you to ask the people that are on the job
    and on the ground, and I have to tell you that we certainly
    have some of those questions.
        We want to proceed quite quickly so as not to detain you
    much longer, and to ask that you summarize your testimony, if
    at all possible, because we will look more deeply at it.
        I want to thank Mr. Chuck Canterbury in particular, who is
    the President of the Fraternal Order of Police, because we just
    called him as a witness just, I think it was, last week, and I
    so appreciate your coming again; Chief Tom Carr, Montgomery
    County, Maryland, Fire Rescue Service, our neighbors here and
    part of the National Capital area response; Chief Fred
    Endrikat, Special Operations Chief, City of Philadelphia; and
    Sheriff Edmund ``Ted'' Sexton, Sr., of the National Sheriffs'
    Association.
        I will leave it up to you as to in which order you would
    like to proceed. Please summarize your testimony and proceed
    whoever thinks he wants to step up first.
        Yes, Mr. Canterbury. See, he has been here before, that is
    why he is stepping up this way.

     TESTIMONY OF CHUCK CANTERBURY, PRESIDENT, FRATERNAL ORDER OF
       POLICE; CHIEF TOM CARR, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, FIRE
    RESCUE SERVICE, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS; CHIEF
     FRED ENDRIKAT, SPECIAL OPERATIONS CHIEF, CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
    FIRE DEPARTMENT, SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND; SHERIFF EDMUND M.
       ``TED'' SEXTON, SR., FORMER PRESIDENT, NATIONAL SHERIFFS'
                              ASSOCIATION

        Mr. Canterbury. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the
    opportunity. I am going to take a personal privilege. I would
    like to thank the Montgomery County officers for being here.
    They lost a first responder this morning, who died from an
    incident that occurred on the 25th, Officer Lou Kaufman of the
    Montgomery County Police was killed in the line of duty.
        Ms. Norton. We join you.
        Mr. Canterbury. Thank you.
        I am here today to represent the views of the Fraternal
    Order of Police, 325,000 rank and file officers, with respect
    to the challenges faced by DHS and FEMA, and the entire public
    safety community in responding to all hazard critical
    incidents.
        As you know, Madam Chairman, the FOP was initially very
    skeptical or charging FEMA with expanding authority over the
    law enforcement mission at DHS, and we believe that that
    response-oriented organization like FEMA would be ill suited to
    perform, oversee, and fund terrorism prevention activity. We
    were scared that there was something in that that just didn't
    fit in FEMA's traditional role.
        First of all, let me say that FEMA Administrator Paulison
    has been in contact with the FOP to discuss a number of the
    issues related to law enforcement's role within FEMA, and since
    that conversation FEMA senior staff has been engaging us in
    ongoing dialog, and we are very pleased with that.
    Administrator Paulison has created the position of a law
    enforcement advisor to the Administrator of FEMA and, of
    course, we hope that they will be able to fill that position
    very quickly. He has also included in his staff people from the
    law enforcement community who bring some expertise and know-how
    to FEMA which was not there previously.
        We believe that Mr. Paulison will help to integrate law
    enforcement into the structure of FEMA more appropriately. To
    do this, though, he is going to need to be tenacious and work
    hard to ensure that there is a greater respect and
    understanding for the extremely important work that we do in
    the instance of an attack or a disaster. We believe he
    understands this and he has our full support.
        As you know, FEMA has historically been a culturally
    reactive agency, and we understand that law enforcement cannot
    prevent hurricanes or tornadoes or floods. But we do know that
    we can and do, however, prevent terrorist incidents from
    occurring on our Nation's soil by preventing threatening goods
    or people from entering this Country.
        This is going to require a paradigm shift in the way FEMA
    works with law enforcement. It means that FEMA must work
    quickly and responsibly to fill the position of the Assistant
    Administrator for Grants Management and Operations. We are
    ready to support FEMA in this effort. We ask for the same
    respect and understanding be granted to the law enforcement
    community that we are granting FEMA in this ongoing process,
    and we look forward to working with this Committee, as well, in
    that, and we hope that with our written testimony, if there are
    any questions that we can answer from the rank and file law
    enforcement.
        We are very concerned with some of the changes recently at
    DHS. As you know, Madam Chairman, we testified on the reduction
    in force at Federal Protective Service, and in this time of
    disaster, today's USA Today newspaper this morning showed two
    Federal officers on the border in Texas doing recovery efforts
    in the tornados that occurred on the Texas border, and I
    thought it very apropos I was coming here today. Again,
    reaction of two Federal law enforcement officers that reacted
    with the first responders searching for victims of that
    tornado. So it does show a much more concerted effort than we
    had in the past.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Canterbury. Appreciate
    that testimony.
        Chief Carr, do you want to go next?
        Mr. Carr. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman. I am
    Tom Carr of the Montgomery County, Maryland Fire Rescue Service
    and one of nearly 13,000 members of the International
    Association of Fire Chiefs.
        The IAFC represents the leadership of America's fire,
    rescue, and emergency medical services, including rural
    volunteer fire departments, combination departments, and
    metropolitan career fire departments.
        The Committee has wisely entitled today's hearing FEMA's
    Preparedness for All Hazards. Last year, America's fire service
    responded to more than 23 million fire and emergency calls
    covering all hazards, including structure fires, emergency
    medical service incidents, hazmat incidents, and wildland
    fires. While most of the calls are local, the fire service has
    demonstrated its national role in disasters like Hurricane
    Katrina and the attacks of September 11th.
        When fire departments take on such a natural role, their
    lead partner within the Federal Government is FEMA. Since 9/11,
    much of the focus of the Department of Homeland Security has
    been on building terrorism response capabilities. While gaps
    still exist, these efforts have helped local fire and EMS
    providers become better prepared than ever before for chemical,
    biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive incidents. The
    IAFC understands this focus on counter-terrorism as a natural
    reaction to September 11th; however, it is important to point
    out that the response to most incidents, whether natural or
    manmade, is strikingly similar. To a firefighter responding to
    a scene, a WMD attack is simply a hazmat incident with an
    attitude and requires many of the same basic equipment,
    tactics, and skills.
        The backdrop for today's hearing is so-called ``New FEMA,''
    which is authorized by the fiscal year 2007 DHS Appropriations
    Act. IAFC supports this law and the direction FEMA has begun to
    take in implementing it. In particular, we believe that it is
    essential that FEMA's budget and mission be protected from
    constant DHS reorganizations.
        Additionally, we endorse the return of the U.S. Fire
    Administration and the Office of Grants and Training to FEMA.
    These transfers create an opportunity to link response planning
    with training programs and grant distribution in a very
    effective manner.
        Administrator Paulison, a former IAFC president and Miami-
    Dade fire chief, also has made a number of changes to improve
    FEMA's logistics, disaster response expertise, and regional
    offices. We urge Subcommittee Members to continue to support
    FEMA's new direction by giving the agency time to complete its
    transformation plans and by supporting its programs through the
    appropriations process.
        Creation of a new FEMA, however, is far from the final step
    in making sure the United States is truly prepared for future
    disasters. Considerable work remains for the Administration,
    Congress, States, localities, and the Fire Service in terms of
    continuing to ensure that the Nation is able to respond
    effectively when the next major emergency occurs.
        As FEMA integrates the Office of Grants and Training into
    the post-Katrina structure, it must do a better job of
    understanding the basic fire and emergency service capabilities
    are essential not only for response to terrorism, but to other
    types of disasters as well. Creating an emphasis in grant
    programs on specialized equipment for CBRNE events may steer
    resources away from more fundamental areas of need. Over the
    long term, this approach could deprive local responders of
    tools necessary for an effective response to the next major
    natural disaster. Congress can play a constructive role by
    ensuring that FEMA administers programs such as the FIRE Act
    grants are well-funded and remain focused on the response to
    all hazards.
        In October 2006, a needs assessment by the NFPA and the
    Department of Homeland Security drives home the basic all
    hazards need that currently exists within the Fire Service.
    Nearly 60 percent of fire departments don't have enough SCBA,
    65 percent of the fire departments don't have enough portable
    radios, and it is on and on with basic equipment.
        The FIRE Act program currently goes a long way towards
    helping departments address these shortfalls. Likewise, the
    SAFER Act grant program aids departments in meeting important
    staffing needs, as identified in NFPA 1710.
        Though the Fire Administration has remained in Emmitsburg
    the entire time, the agency has moved around quite a bit in
    departmental organization charts over the past several years.
    Most recently, the USFA was transferred back into FEMA, after
    being removed just a year ago. As this transfer takes place,
    FEMA has several opportunities to strengthen the USFA and
    better prepare both the Federal Government and the Fire Service
    for future disasters.
        The USFA should continue to work to staff a desk at the
    National Operations Center. This development is important
    because it increases the ability of local fire chiefs and
    police to plan to comprehensively respond to future threats
    based on the same information. The USFA also needs to update
    the National Incident Fire Reporting System.
        Furthermore, the USFA needs strong leadership at the top.
    Though the U.S. Fire Administrator position remains an
    assistant secretary, it has not been filled with a permanent
    occupant for a extended period of time. The IAFC supports the
    nomination of Chief Craig Cade of Virginia Beach to serve as
    the U.S. Fire Administrator. Congress can aid in these efforts
    by providing $50 million to USFA in 2008. Last year, the USFA
    received $47 million, but the President's budget requests only
    $43 million for 2008.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to address this
    Committee. On behalf of America's fire chiefs and emergency
    medical service officers, I would like to thank Congress, and
    especially Members of this Committee, for your continued
    support.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Chief Carr.
        We want to go now to Chief Endrikat, City of Philadelphia
    Fire Department.
        Mr. Endrikat. Thank you, Madam Chairman and distinguished
    Members of the Committee, for this opportunity to discuss the
    Nation's preparedness in relation to all hazard response.
        By way of introduction, my name Fred Endrikat. I have been
    a Philadelphia firefighter for 32 years. I also served the
    Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue
    National Response System in concurrent duty assignments as the
    National Task Force Leader's Representative, Incident Support
    Team Operations Chief and Task Force Leader for Pennsylvania
    Task Force 1.
        I have served in various capacities at the local, State and
    Federal levels in disaster response operations including a 40
    day field assignment as the FEMA US&R Incident Support Team
    Operations Chief at the September 11th attack and collapse of
    the World Trade Center in New York City and a 30 day field
    assignment with the FEMA US&R Incident Support Team as the
    Operations Chief for Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and
    Hurricane Rita.
        I am speaking today as a first responder, but I also have
    the responsibility and the privilege to speak on behalf of the
    nearly 6,000 members of the Federal Emergency Management
    Agency's Urban Search and Rescue National Response System.
        FEMA Administrator Paulison and the vision for a new FEMA
    speak to a shared responsibility approach for emergency
    management. A cornerstone of this shared responsibility is
    partnerships between Federal, State and local government. The
    concept of an all hazards approach to this responsibility is
    critical to ensure that we are prepared to respond effectively
    to any significant disaster event anywhere in our Nation.
        Prior to the September 11th attacks, the FEMA US&R task
    forces were faced with a shift in focus due to our response to
    the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
    This incident made us aware that we needed to be ready for more
    than natural disasters as had been our focus up until that
    point in time.
        When the 9/11 attacks occurred, the US&R task forces had
    already begun preparing for response to a terrorist type
    attack. Six US&R task forces had been selected by FEMA to begin
    to achieve capabilities to respond to weapons of mass
    destruction incidents. After 9/11, all 28 FEMA US&R task forces
    were issued identical equipment and training for response to
    this type of event.
        While 9/11 may have shifted the national focus to
    terrorism, the FEMA US&R program maintained the all risk focus
    that had been previously developed. As evidenced by the FEMA
    US&R program's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and as
    highlighted by Secretary Chertoff in his report to Congress
    last year, the FEMA US&R program was one of the Federal
    response entities along with the United States Coast Guard that
    was acknowledged for successful response operations.
        Immediately after the September 11th attacks, we as a
    Nation understandably focused our efforts on homeland security
    and terrorism and allocated significant funds to increase our
    capabilities in this one specific area. As a result, we, again
    as a Nation, may have unintentionally subordinated our efforts
    and our capability related to other risks that we continually
    face.
        With limited funding amounts, we end up competing for funds
    to prepare for individual specific types of events when it
    would be more prudent and cost effective to approach our
    funding for preparedness from the all hazard perspective.
    Simply stated, there are too many worthy causes that have vying
    for a very finite amount of funds.
        Large scale building collapse rescue operations in a water
    environment in the collapsed flooded underground subway tunnels
    under the World Trade Center require the same operational
    capabilities, highly trained personnel, incident management
    protocol, planning functions and significant logistical support
    requirements as collapsed building water rescue operations in
    flooded environments in urban, suburban and rural areas of
    North Carolina when they experienced that during Hurricane
    Floyd or in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
        I believe that our focus should not be on the triggering
    mechanism that causes a disaster. The stronger our foundation
    in the concept of all hazard preparedness, the more likely we
    will successfully and safely resolve any incident that we
    respond to.
        All disasters start as local level events, and as the
    response element builds ins cope and complexity, each event
    presents very similar challenges in all phases of the emergency
    management cycle: preparedness, response, recovery and
    mitigation. The preparedness cycle and its relationship to the
    other phases is key.
        As we prepare to respond to any type of disaster, far
    reaching benefits will be achieved by consistently training
    together, sharing information and building relationships at all
    levels of government and all tiers of response from first
    responders to fourth tier, stand-alone, self-sufficient
    resources like the FEMA US&R task forces.
        Integrating common doctrine, a common concept of
    operations, similar equipment and techniques for individual
    response disciplines and interoperable communications through
    all of these tiers of response in the preparedness phase will
    allow for the most effective service delivery to our citizens
    during the response and subsequent phases.
        I would respectfully ask that the Committee consider the
    continued support of successful programs like the FEMA US&R
    National Response System. Corresponding adequate funding would
    ensure a robust all hazard emergency management system for
    Federal, State and local governments through all tiers of
    response.
        I would also ask the Committee to consider continued
    support for the Post-Katrina Reform Act and support for the
    preparedness function, particularly training and exercises.
        Thank you for the privilege of testifying.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Endrikat.
        Ms. Norton. Sheriff Sexton, National Sheriffs' Association.
        Mr. Sexton. Thank you.
        My name is Ted Sexton, Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County,
    Alabama and Immediate Past President of the National Sheriffs'
    Association. I am here today representing our 3,087 elected
    sheriffs as well as the membership of over 25,000 law
    enforcement professionals.
        The State of Alabama has pioneered all hazard response by
    public safety entities by forming a mutual aid task force
    divided into eight regions. My office is the home for Region 3
    Law Enforcement Response Team that is largely comprised of
    members from my office, the Tuscaloosa Police Department,
    Northport Police and the University of Alabama Police
    Department along with nine other agencies that contribute over
    100 law enforcement officials to participate.
        Region 3 has the ability to function for five days in a
    completely self-contained manner for any necessary response
    event. Our team assets range from interoperable communications
    vehicles, mobile command posts, law enforcement response
    personnel, K-9 tactical, detection and protection equipment.
    Our Region 3 Response Team has experienced five hurricane
    deployments and numerous requests for law enforcement
    functions.
        The National Sheriffs' Association has been a supporter of
    FEMA's all hazard response but does feel that deficiencies
    still remain that must be addressed. First is the need for a
    law enforcement representative in the administrative hierarchy
    of FEMA. Local law enforcement officials will always be the
    first to respond to any terrorist event or in times of other
    disaster and has a unique responsibility to ensure that public
    safety is not compromised in the immediate aftermath of such a
    crisis.
        A law enforcement representative would be able to work with
    local and State governments to ensure adequate response needs
    are met by responding law enforcement entities while meeting
    the requirements of being self-contained.
        In a post-9/11 era, no public safety entity has seen
    greater change than law enforcement and its responsibility to
    prevention and protection. This law enforcement representative
    would ensure that law enforcement capabilities remain balanced
    among response, prevention and protection.
        Local law enforcement is now involved in sharing of
    classified information and intelligence gathering in a shared
    capacity with Federal and State partners.
        Secondly, NSA also believes that regional first responder
    committees must be implemented within the Federal legislation
    and sheriffs, as chief elected officials, need to be among a
    wide variety of public safety responders involved.
        One example of an issue that needs addressing is the need
    for reconfigurement of FEMA law enforcement reimbursement
    schedules to include aviation assets or other specialized
    equipment.
        Third, there a mindset and pattern of waiting for a tragic
    catastrophe to occur, then assessing it, then responding to it.
    If Katrina and Rita taught us anything, it is the need to make
    prior contact with responding entities so that you have peace
    of mind as a law enforcement administrator to know who is
    coming, what resources are they bringing and when can they
    arrive. Sheriffs I have spoken to and responded to, hit by
    Katrina, did not have means to communicate by phone or radio.
        The National Sheriffs' Association prepared a white paper
    entitled Response in a Heartbeat: An Immediate Fix and a Long
    Term Solution to Response. This blue ribbon panel of sheriffs
    convened to examine lessons learned in the response to
    Hurricane Katrina.
        A gap that we feel FEMA can take care with a law
    enforcement representative in and committees is to form
    regionally based organized mobile flexible forces that are able
    to respond immediately to a disaster to support local
    governments, much like what the State of Alabama has already
    done. Mobilization would be a simple process. There would be no
    need for massive negotiation and endless streams of red tape.
    Responses need to be based on seconds and minutes, not on hours
    and days.
        Fourth and possibly the most important is that
    reimbursement funding needs to be streamlined so that assets
    that can be called upon multiple times and can be reimbursed
    without stressing unaffected local government revenues. If we
    could fund EMAC support as FEMA does immediate needs funding
    for Category A and B--and the work we do is Category B work,
    emergency protective measures--we could receive 50 percent of
    the estimated costs up front or within 30 days of that duty.
        That would give local governments and States with a lower
    tax base the ability to more easily absorb the up-front costs.
    The claims would still have to be appropriately documented and
    justified, however, the long term expense to the State and/or
    local government would be mitigated.
        This could also be aided by the development and
    distribution of preplanned guidelines, a package of checklists,
    templates, forms and sample agreements that would be compiled
    and distributed to first responders. This material would guide
    first responder efforts to develop and enhance emergency
    operations plans, incident accident plans, prepare memoranda of
    understanding and complete NIMS, FEMA, DHS and EMAC compliant
    pre and post-event plans, reports and claims.
        Simply put, we need to streamline the process and have
    everyone on the same sheet of music.
        It has been an honor to appear before this Committee on
    behalf of the National Sheriffs' Association, and I look
    forward to answering any questions you may have.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Sexton, and may I
    thank all four of you for very helpful testimony to this
    Subcommitee.
        Ms. Norton. Let me just try to get at some of the issues
    raised by your testimony, particularly in relation to prior
    testimony.
        Mr. Carr mentions, perhaps explicitly when he says, Chief
    Carr, when he says in his testimony that there was some concern
    that chemical and biological, radiological, nuclear, that kind
    of funding and the like was overwhelming funding for more
    traditional areas of need. In what way?
        Are you referring to the application process?
        Do you feel that you must apply for those funds in order to
    get the necessary funds?
        Are those funds coming out of the Department of Homeland
    Security and not FEMA grants?
        Would you, or for that matter the others, elaborate if you
    agree on that notion about terrorism funding overwhelming
    traditional areas?
        Mr. Carr. Well, most importantly, there needs to be a
    balance, and certainly the programs in place, the FIRE Act
    Grants and the SAFER Grants, provide some opportunity for
    balance if they are adequately funding. UIC funding provides,
    and especially in the National Capital Region, a good balance
    of perspective on regional preparedness as it relates to
    terrorism response but also all hazards response.
        So the concern is that we continue the all hazards approach
    to funding and not focus only on the terrorism specific
    response.
        Ms. Norton. Do any of the others of you have a response to
    this notion about terrorism funding?
        The reason that I was drawn to Chief Carr's notion is he
    actually spelled out the kinds of funding one would expect to
    be terrorism funding. Part of this artificial. But, after all,
    probably first responders weren't doing as much in
    radiological, nuclear, chemical and the rest when they filed
    for grants before.
        So I am trying to find out whether or not you really feel
    if you want some money, this is where you have got to go
    because this is where the money is. We know that is where 90
    percent is, and of course you are eligible for both.
        We have a pretty unique situation here, Chief Carr.
        Anything the rest of you have to say, I would be pleased to
    hear.
        Yes, Mr. Canterbury.
        Mr. Canterbury. Madam Chairman, I think in the UIC areas
    and in the all hazards response equipment, in the law
    enforcement arena, one of the most important pieces that is not
    there is the human intelligence and prevention mode in the
    grants, and I know there are other justice grants
        But in the Homeland Security area for law enforcement,
    first of all, we were very lacking of any equipment for
    response. I believe the proper term for law enforcement, prior
    to 9/11, is canary. The firemen will understand what I am
    talking about. If they wanted to know something was biohazard
    at a truck spill, you send the policemen up. It is just kind of
    a joke in the first responder community. But we had no
    equipment.
        Now that we have got an abundance of that equipment but the
    one thing that we don't have. You have the JTTS, but that is
    very lacking, and I think in the local arena, human
    intelligence gathering capabilities and prevention techniques
    have been very limited.
        Ms. Norton. Is that funded out of Homeland Security?
        Mr. Canterbury. Yes.
        Ms. Norton. So you can get that out of Homeland Security.
        Mr. Canterbury. Predominantly, it was, but now that the
    money has been moved back to FEMA, we are not sure how that is
    going to work.
        Ms. Norton. Can't local law enforcement also apply for
    Homeland Security grants in its various categories?
        Yes, Sheriff Sexton?
        Mr. Sexton. Ma'am, I think one of the problems, I will just
    come right to the core. I think what we have done is make
    everybody fight so much over the same piece of pie, it is
    unbelievable. We are all at the dinner table together but when
    it comes to dessert.
        Ms. Norton. But they have got 90 percent, Sheriff Sexton.
        Mr. Sexton. Yes, but the terrorism funds right now, you
    have police and fire and sheriffs, we are fighting and elbowing
    at the pie.
        The problem is for law enforcement is we have lost 64
    percent since 9/11 of our justice funding for under Burn, under
    the things that Mr. Oberstar was talking about for methamphet,
    the programs. You know we can't throw the baby out with the
    bathwater.
        We still have got domestic violence. We have still got
    campus problems that we are dealing with now, mental health
    issues that are coming into play. Everything is being tied into
    terrorism. I would assume that the Virginia Tech incident will
    soon be labeled a domestic terrorist incident in order to open
    everybody up for additional funding.
        That is the problem with this is that we are all fighting,
    and I would love to push all these guys to the end of the table
    and fight for the same dollar, and they would like to push me
    back the other way, but that is what we have done. We have
    thrown police and fire together in the funding mechanism, and
    some of the things that we had in place prior to would have
    made it much more simple and make sure that we are providing in
    the areas we should be.
        Ms. Norton. This is quite a dilemma, isn't it? Ninety
    percent of the money is in terrorism. What we are talking about
    here is terrorism, and yet the police and fire have to compete
    because essentially they are expected to go, I guess, for FEMA
    grants.
        Mr. Sexton. If I could say one last thing, ma'am, I think
    you are seeing police officers are now trying to do things that
    we traditionally have not done in the area of hazmat and other
    areas just be able to compete for these funds under the
    auspices that it is a crime.
        Ms. Norton. Because that is where the money is, yes.
        Let me give you an example. I learn from examples. This is
    an example I know from Committee work in Homeland Security but
    here it comes up in Chief Carr's testimony.
        The 65 percent number of fire departments do not have
    enough portable radios to equip all their emergency responders
    on a shift. Okay, there you have got it, all hazards. I don't
    think anybody in the world would say that doesn't apply across
    the board.
        I, by the way, am one of those Members of Congress that did
    not stand up and applaud Mr. Giuliani, and that is not because
    he is not in my party. It is because I kept reading the New
    York Times that said that the basic problem, the reason all
    those firefighters lost their lives, was that there was no
    interoperability, so that they knew not to run into that
    building. By the way, you had more firefighters than anybody
    else lost.
        Here, you are looking at the granddaughter of Lieutenant
    Richard Holmes who entered the D.C. Fire Department in 1902. So
    I feel this one real up close and personal.
        But, here, you have got the best example. Nobody would try
    to disaggregate portable equipment. You have got 9/11. Hey,
    that just says it all. Then you have got firefighters going
    into a building. You have got the canary and the policemen.
        Where do you apply for those funds and why do 65 percent
    not have it?
        Mr. Carr. Well, one thing that is imminent is the Senate
    passing the 9/11 Commission Implementation Bill, and hopefully
    the House will pass the same bill that provides $3.3 billion in
    grant funds to deal with these specific types of issues,
    communications interoperability and things of that nature.
        Ms. Norton. You can't get that now through either of the
    fundings.
        Mr. Carr. Yes, absolutely you can. FIRE Act grants are.
    Communications equipment is appropriate for FIRE Act grants as
    long as the FIRE Act program is properly funded. So, yes, you
    can get it through that program.
        Ms. Norton. What is the interoperability funding problem
    then?
        This keeps coming up in the Homeland Security Committee
    too. What is the problem?
        It seems to me that is the first thing everybody would want
    want, to be able to talk back and forth. Is it a technological
    problem that we don't know what system to get?
        Why aren't fire and, for that matter, all first responders
    talking to each other?
        Mr. Sexton. Well, in our area, they are. But it is my
    understanding for the upcoming Homeland Security funds starting
    this year, the focus of that is on interoperability. They have
    dealt with equipment. They have dealt with training issues,
    building of teams. It is my understanding that funds this year,
    the priority is interoperability.
        In our State, we have 67 ACU 1,000s out plus in eight
    mobile regions. So they have done that.
        But the question that you are mentioning is that there is
    just so much technology and so much that has come up in regard
    to. In some cases, there are folks out there that want to argue
    about Federal regulations and APCO P25 standards and radio
    systems that are there that would allow for a cheaper mechanism
    So everybody is trying to figure out how to do this and stay
    within the mechanisms to be funded.
        Ms. Norton. You shouldn't have to figure that. First of
    all, this speaks to one of the perennial criticisms of the
    Department. If they were there, they were there for leadership.
        One of the things the Department, it seems to me, should
    have done would be to say there are priorities on things that
    everybody ought to have right now. Instead, of course, all this
    money went out, and people bought everything they could buy
    with the money.
        The notion that interoperability was not at or near the top
    of the list is absolutely befuddling to me. I understand the
    other problems, which system and the rest but in terms of
    priorities.
        Here you are sitting as an emergency responder, so you know
    about the firefighters problem. You know now, though, about 9/
    11. It does seem to me that if you say, all right, you all
    apply for grants and, of course, you know best of all what you
    need and no recommendations from the Department about what one
    minimally needs to have in the post-9/11 era to convert, and
    that is what each of you have done.
        You have converted from cops and firefighters to emergency
    responders and security officials. That is exactly what you are
    now. Nobody would have called you the fancy things before.
        So somebody has to say, look, you don't have to do this,
    but given what we saw in 9/11, given what we know is on the
    ground already, for example, in the firefighters case involving
    both firefighters and police, here are our recommendations. Now
    we have got to go out and figure out how to do it.
        This is what if I was trying to think this through based on
    what we have done wrong, so that I have some notion of what to
    do now.
        I am going to have a lot of other questions. I do want to
    ask you this. What kind of grants, given what is now available
    in the Administration's proposal?
        I am sure you haven't looked at it in great detail, but you
    have some sense of the kind of grants that are available, and
    we have all these concerns, some of which you have in your own
    ways articulated.
        What type of grants would not be eligible if we proceed in
    the Post-Katrina Act funding under the President's proposal, do
    you think, of the kind you would be most eligible for?
        Mr. Sexton. I think there is some confusion as to where
    people do come in and fall in regard to this in the way that
    the grant funding is coming down to the States and then
    applying back to the States again, nine times out of ten tying
    into some sort of Homeland Security.
        The thing that I think law enforcement is concerned with
    is, again, that 64 percent loss of funding that we have had
    since 9/11. Many of the issues, as I believe it was Chief Carr
    mentioned, are similar for law enforcement. We are dealing.
        Ms. Norton. Give me examples of the kind of funding you
    lost?
        Mr. Sexton. Your Burn Jag, your narcotics units.
        Ms. Norton. Your what?
        Mr. Sexton. Narcotics units, that has been one of the
    greatest areas of gathering intelligence, for example, on who
    is dealing with drugs, who many funding, where is the money
    going that may be going out of your State up into another
    banking jurisdiction and then over into the Middle East.
        Ms. Norton. They will say that that is not terrorism
    funding because I have just been south of the border to various
    countries. While they spoke to us about narcotics, our concern_
    I went as a Member of the Homeland Security Committee_was that
    narcotics funds are certainly capable of funding terrorism, and
    whoever comes across the border with some narcotics can come
    across the border with anything else including a terrorist
    device.
        Mr. Sexton. Yes, ma'am, 70 percent of the methamphet in my
    county is coming out of Mexico. So, again, there is the type of
    activity that we have lost funding for that ties back directly
    to terrorism and homeland security. Those are the types of
    things that we are concerned about.
        Ms. Norton. It is interesting because again this came
    across in the Congressional delegate of Homeland Security.
        I believe it is going to be difficult. The notion of you
    losing funding, that kills me. I am from a big city, and that
    kills me, and I see what meth has done throughout the Country.
    But this is the kind of thing where the central need is
    connected to narcotics that we have not yet gotten the
    Department to understand is interchangeable with a terrorist
    event, given how wide open the Mexican border, in particular,
    is.
        This notion of competing for funds, finally, concerns me.
    You talk about you actually feel you are sometimes competing
    among departments.
        In the National Capital Area, we all sit at the same table.
    That is rare. It was because I put an amendment in the House
    and there was an amendment put in the Senate that said we ought
    to have a regional body and because it is where the Federal
    presence is, we were able to get it funded for a person to be
    there. But, actually, what has mattered is not so much that
    person. What matters is that everybody now sits at the same
    table.
        That could happen elsewhere without funding because to fund
    some body, I don't think has made a lot of difference. What has
    made a lot of difference is Montgomery County, Prince Georges
    County, the District of Columbia and Fairfax sit at the same
    table, and the money goes to them as a region. Then they sit
    together at the same table and figure out where it goes.
        Is anything like that happening anywhere else in the
    Country?
        Mr. Endrikat. Madam Chairman, that happens in Pennsylvania
    through counterterrorism regions. The State is divided into
    nine counterterrorism regions, and the same thing occurs. We
    sit at the table with our neighbors. In the Philadelphia USACE
    Region, it is five counties including Philadelphia.
        But I think, as Sheriff Sexton mentioned, we do compete for
    funds, and maybe the solution for that is more funding. As we
    establish priorities in each of those regional counterterrorism
    areas and each of us try to build our own capabilities, without
    adequate funding, then we have to compete.
        Ms. Norton. I think Sheriff Sexton and the law enforcement
    community have literally been robbed. I don't think that
    Homeland Security is going to do much for meth, and yet meth is
    spreading like wildfire, and yet those funds were available.
        I am bothered tremendously that you move from one
    department and another, and the major effect you see is the
    loss of funding.
        Mr. Sexton. Yes, ma'am, you are absolutely right. Right
    now, we compete for the same funds, and I think at times it
    does cause friction. Even in the State of Alabama, we divide
    our funds up through regions and through counties and so on and
    so forth. The money is there, but we are seeing it become much
    more difficult to find.
        We are still dealing, and I go back to Virginia Tech, one
    of the things that is coming out of Virginia Tech is the mental
    health element. So we are still dealing with some urgently
    desperate needs that have been funded in the past that we are
    losing, and they all come back.
        I have traveled to England and Pakistan and other places to
    look at terrorism, and one of the things that we are seeing in
    England is the attacks that come from within. I think as we
    look at what comes from within, we need to continue to look at
    some of those issues that give us prime indicators:
    intelligence, mental health and so on and so forth.
        That is my concern for continued funding for law
    enforcement and the fire service, certainly, and EMS needs to
    have continued funding. But I would like to see more funds
    channeled, so that we are not necessarily competing to try to
    get dollars out of the fire department's pocket.
        Ms. Norton. If any of the rest of you have anything to say,
    I would like to hear it before I adjourn the hearing.
        I do want to say that your testimony, Mr. Sexton, very
    dramatically, perhaps more so than FEMA, illustrates what
    simply moving your home can do to funding.
        I have got to be frank. As I hear it, it is clear to me if
    I do a deeper analysis about where drugs come from, meth is
    even harder, although now Mexico is a major site for meth as it
    was not always. Unless you do a deeper analysis, it is going to
    be difficult to get Homeland Security to look at what they will
    see as basically a domestic problem.
        The answer, it seems to me, is some kind of make-whole
    remedy. The grants, the FIRE grants, look what they are called.
    FIRE grants. The very definition tells you that law enforcement
    was somewhere else.
        Mr. Sexton. Ma'am, can I just give you an idea? When you
    dial 911, you are calling folks at this table. FEMA does not
    answer that 911 call. But with the capabilities that we are
    getting and we are hearing about trying to put together Federal
    strike teams, why not contract with the resources that are
    already there in your local governments?
        For example, they are talking about hurricane season. Why
    not contract with folks for those resources during that four to
    five month period?
        Those resources are available now if we go look throughout
    the southeastern district of the United States. So there are
    some ideas out there that local law enforcement and local fire
    service have tried to bring forward in regards to ideas to be
    able to better respond to national problems.
        Ms. Norton. This is an idea that makes such common sense,
    one doesn't understand why it hasn't already taken hold.
        Gentlemen, I want to thank each of you for this testimony,
    very helpful to us, tells us things we don't know, need to
    know, gives us ideas of what we need to do.
        I very much appreciate your indulgence. That is all it can
    be called in waiting for us through to the third panel.
        I want to say, of course, the record will be open for five
    legislative days, and I have a number of documents to be added
    to the record which I will transmit at this time.
        Again, you have my sincere thanks and the thanks of the
    entire Subcommittee for coming forward with indispensable
    testimony to our mission today.
        The hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 2:15 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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