[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2009
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina, Chairman
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
NITA M. LOWEY, New York
CHET EDWARDS, Texas
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
SAM FARR, California
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
KAY GRANGER, Texas
JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Beverly Pheto, Stephanie Gupta, Jeff Ashford, Shalanda Young,
Jim Holm, and Adam Wilson,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 4
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Office of Health Affairs--Department of Homeland Security........ 1
Federal Emergency Management Agency: Is the Agency on the Right
Track?............................................................ 53
Homeland Security Grants: Supporting a National Preparedness and
Response System................................................... 501
S
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
PART 4--DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2009
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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2009
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina, Chairman
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
NITA M. LOWEY, New York
CHET EDWARDS, Texas
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
SAM FARR, California
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
KAY GRANGER, Texas
JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Beverly Pheto, Stephanie Gupta, Jeff Ashford, Shalanda Young,
Jim Holm, and Adam Wilson,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 4
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Office of Health Affairs--Department of Homeland Security........ 1
Federal Emergency Management Agency: Is the Agency on the Right
Track?............................................................ 53
Homeland Security Grants: Supporting a National Preparedness and
Response System................................................... 501
S
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
43-384 WASHINGTON : 2008
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
NITA M. LOWEY, New York
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
ED PASTOR, Arizona
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
CHET EDWARDS, Texas
ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr.,
Alabama
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
SAM FARR, California
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
ALLEN BOYD, Florida
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
BARBARA LEE, California
TOM UDALL, New Mexico
ADAM SCHIFF, California
MICHAEL HONDA, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
Maryland
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas JERRY LEWIS, California
C.W. BILL YOUNG, Florida
RALPH REGULA, Ohio
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
JAMES T. WALSH, New York
DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio
JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
ZACH WAMP, Tennessee
TOM LATHAM, Iowa
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
KAY GRANGER, Texas
JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
KEN CALVERT, California
JO BONNER, Alabama
Rob Nabors, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2009
----------
Tuesday, April 1, 2008.
OFFICE OF HEALTH AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
WITNESS
JEFFREY W. RUNGE, M.D., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AFFAIRS AND
CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Opening Statement of Chairman Price
Mr. Price. Good morning. Today we have Dr. Jeff Runge, the
Department of Homeland Security's Assistant Secretary for
Health Affairs and the Chief Medical Officer.
Dr. Runge, welcome again to the subcommittee. We appreciate
your service to the country, and we appreciate the challenging
and important role you are playing. This is the first hearing
when we have only one witness, so we hope that is going to give
us time to engage in extensive discussions of the work of your
office.
Today we will cover the Office of Health Affairs fiscal
year 2009 budget request, which includes the BioWatch program,
the Office of Health Affairs coordination with other federal
agencies on Project BioShield and the office's overall role
within the Department.
The fiscal 2009 budget request for the Office of Health
Affairs is $161 million, an increase of $44.8 million or 38
percent above the fiscal year 2008 level. The majority of this
increase is for BioWatch, which would receive $111.6 million or
$34.5 million above the fiscal year 2008 level of $77 million.
While part of that increase would be used to expand the
field testing of Generation 3 technology, the bulk of the
increase, $20 million, would be used to procure and deploy 150
automated pathogen detection systems. These systems are also
known as BioWatch Generation 2.5.
Dr. Runge, I would like to hear more from you about the
rationale for investing tens of millions of dollars in these
Generation 2.5 systems when OHA is in the process of field
testing Generation 3 technologies and before the National
Academies of Science assessment of BioWatch that Congress
directed is complete. In answering, our ability to detect
biological attacks is a high priority, and for that very reason
it is important not only to do it quickly, but to do it right.
During last year's bioterrorism hearing I expressed concern
that the federal government's bioterrorism strategy is spread
across a multitude of agencies. In August of last year the
Government Accountability Office expressed a similar concern
regarding the clarity of federal roles and responsibilities for
pandemic flu preparedness, so I am pleased to see that the
request for planning and coordination is almost $10 million, an
increase of $5.4 million from the fiscal year 2008 level of
$4.4 million.
I do not have a good sense, however, about the extent to
which your office has improved the coordination of the federal
government's bioterrorism strategy over the last year or how
you plan to further improvement in the coming years.
Do you have specific goals and timelines against which to
measure your progress in this area? I look forward to hearing
your frank assessment about what it will take to overcome the
many jurisdictional obstacles that you face.
One of the more important coordinating roles that you play
is associated with Project BioShield. We understand you have no
direct authority over this Health and Human Services program,
but it was funded through Homeland Security and you are the
lead for the Department's biodefense interactions with other
departments and agencies, so we look to you for opinions and
solutions on how DHS and other agencies can ensure that the
nation's medical system is capable of managing national
biological emergencies.
Since last year, unfortunately, there has been only minor
progress in this program. Smallpox and anthrax countermeasures
have been purchased, but the program has not lived up to the
President's assertion that it would ensure that ``our drug
stockpile remain safe, effective and advanced.''
Of the $3.4 billion available under the program, only $1.9
billion has been obligated. An additional $2.175 billion is set
to become available in fiscal year 2009. Dr. Runge, we want
your frank assessment of whether the threat assumptions that
led us to appropriate these funds in the first place to make
these advance appropriations still hold, and if they still hold
I would like your assessment of why Project BioShield has
failed to live up to expectations.
Is there some flaw in the structure that we could fix? What
can this committee do to ensure that this $2.2 billion in
fiscal 2009 funding does not sit unused, but is applied to its
intended purposes?
In a moment I will ask you to summarize your written
statement and ask that you limit your oral statement to five
minutes. The full statement will of course be put in the
record.
Let me first yield to Mr. Rogers for any statement he wants
to make.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Rogers
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Dr.
Runge.
The Office of Health Affairs and the Chief Medical Officer
are functions that seem to be continuously evolving. Just three
years ago the Office of the Chief Medical Officer started with
only 10 FTEs and $2 million. When compared to your 2009 request
for the Office of Health Affairs of more than $161 million
supporting 80 FTEs, I would say you have come a long way in a
short period of time.
With this sizeable increase comes considerably more
responsibility. What started out as a medical advisor role
appears to be growing into DHS's principal agent for all
medical and health matters charged with several vital tasks,
including leadership of DHS's biodefense responsibilities,
including early threat detection and biosurveillance
integration, development of a coordinated and unified national
architecture for medical preparedness, WMD planning and
catastrophic consequence management and ensuring DHS employees
are supported by an effective occupational health and safety
program.
I do not need to tell you or anyone else that these are
important missions, missions that not only involve multiple DHS
components, but other cabinet agencies such as HHS and
Agriculture, so your job as I believe you are defining it is
not just to support the internal workings of DHS, but also to
support medical preparedness across the federal government, and
that is certainly no small chore.
Which leads us to the very question posed by today's
hearing, the role of the Office of Health Affairs. In some ways
I see your office as an expanded technical resource for the
Secretary, but on the other hand I see it as an emerging office
with an expansive mission across multiple agencies and
departments.
In either case, I am not sure if you are properly equipped
with sufficient staff or authority to fulfill the mission
requirements you are being assigned. This is something I hope
we can discuss in greater detail in your testimony today
because as I read down the list of program areas that are
maturing under your watch, a list that includes BioShield,
BioWatch, biosurveillance, biodefense, chemical defense and a
whole host of medical readiness programs, I am somewhat
concerned that an office, an emerging office that is but a few
years old and located within a Department, whether it can
effectively coordinate such tasks across jurisdictional
boundaries and inherent bureaucratic obstacles.
These are tough problems that do not have easy solutions.
Despite that fact, Dr. Runge, we are looking to you for
answers. We are looking to understand the role you and your
office plays in the larger picture of homeland security and how
the 2009 budget request moves you toward fulfilling that role.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Dr. Runge, please proceed.
Statement of Mr. Jeffrey W. Runge, Assistant Secretary for Health
Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Dr. Runge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Rogers,
for your incredibly insightful comments. I think you seem to
know a tremendous amount about us already. I will try and fill
in the gaps as best I can.
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for
your support of our new office and its mission. Yesterday,
March 31, marked our first anniversary of the Office of Health
Affairs. We became official exactly one year ago. I am really
gratified by the support we have received to get the program
off the ground, but I also recognize that we are still in the
early stage of development. We are evolving. We have a great
deal of work to do.
As of December 26, when the President signed the fiscal
year 2008 appropriation, which was our first budget, we set
about putting that first budget to good use. We have already
hired nearly all of the slots for which we were funded for
federal employees. The NBIS 2.0 software is now operational as
of yesterday and powering the Biological Common Operating
Picture, which I promised you last year.
We have executed a contract to purchase the first cache of
automated biodetection equipment for our biodefense arsenal,
and now we have a critical mass of employees. We are doing a
much better job of discharging the duties for which we were
authorized in the Post-Katrina Act, and I believe we are on
track to meet the goals that I discussed with you last year at
my hearing.
As you said, Mr. Rogers, the Office of Health Affairs has
grown very quickly during our first year. We actually came in
as the CMO with two people and a budget of $2 million;
authorized for 10 but not funded for 10. We were able to get 10
on board by about a year ago, and we are now at 41 federal
employees plus 26 officers the Public Health Service detailed
to us and a bunch of support contractors that are standing up
our various BioWatch and the National BioSurveillance
Integration Center. Seven of those 41 were hired in the last
few weeks and will be on board as soon as they get through
security clearance.
This fast, and I would say, efficient growth was possible
because this subcommittee supported our mission and provided
the funding to hire people to get the job done. So again, I
would like to thank you all for the support that you have given
us in this past year.
This year we are going to focus on our strategy to protect
our nation from the threat of bioterrorist attacks or a
pandemic, as well as our efforts to enhance our medical
readiness and to protect the health and safety of the
Department's workforce.
We recognize also that there will be the unexpected, and we
will handle it as we did last year, whether it was formaldehyde
in temporary housing in the Gulf region, whether it was
tuberculosis coming over the border, threats to the food
supply, which we can do only with critical expert manpower.
Prior to the office standing up, there was no principal
agent for the Department's biodefense responsibilities,
including our obligations under HSPDs (Homeland Security
Presidential Directives) for biodefense and agriculture and
food. This year we are closer to having this covered. We are
deploying automated biodetection technology, providing an
integrated biosurveillance capability, and we are working to
secure the nation's food, agriculture and veterinary defenses.
We are fulfilling our responsibility to the Secretary to
manage DHS's role in Project BioShield, and we are also able to
manage the Department's role in the President's Import Safety
Working Group, which was issued up with an Executive Order last
August, recognizing that managing this issue is not the job of
any single federal agency, but requires an integrated response
approach just like any other major incident.
Before the creation of the Office of Health Affairs, the
Department had no element responsible for subject matter driven
end-to-end planning for bioterrorism and other catastrophic
scenarios involving threats to the health of the population.
This year we have brought aboard some highly qualified and
trained staff of professionals who work across the interagency
with states, local governments and the private sector to devise
plans that span the entire continuum from threat awareness
through surveillance and detection, prevention and protection
and finally response and recovery.
Before OHA was established the Department had no consistent
policy standards or metrics for occupational safety and health
or for tactical operational medicine. Today, we work very
closely with the Under Secretary for Management to develop
departmentwide best practices for occupational health and
tactical and operational medical support for our folks in the
field.
In the next couple of weeks we are to be joined by a
physician specialist in occupational medicine who will guide
that program as soon as she clears security clearances. We
think this is a core element in employee satisfaction which, as
you know, we have had some difficulty in the past, which the
Secretary very much wishes to enhance.
The President has requested $161.3 million for fiscal year
2009, an increase of $44.8 million over fiscal year 2008. This
increase will allow for our current level of services to
continue plus the necessary enhancements for automated
biological detection and biodefense planning, as well as a very
modest increase for a few people to improve our financial
management.
Mr. Chairman, I want to emphasize the importance of the
program that is the bulk of the President's requested increase.
I have come to you and briefed you on what I believe the
urgency of reducing the ``time-to-warning'' of our BioWatch
detectors and the vulnerability we face to certain agents of
bioterrorism as a result of our current manual processes.
At my hearing last year Ranking Member Rogers raised some
serious concerns about the pace of the development of
Generation 3 or the automated BioWatch systems. Since then we
have identified a bridging technology that is out there that
will enable us to deploy automated detection in certain high-
threat locations appropriate to these devices while we await
the development of Generation 3 technology from S&T.
We are collaborating with S&T to ensure that this bridging
technology ready for deployment will reach an improved state of
advanced commercialization so that it might actually meet the
same Generation 3 requirements that the S&T program does so
that the government will have a choice in 2009 as to which
systems to buy, rather than putting all our eggs in one basket.
We think it is important to have a choice of performers when it
is time to spend more money on this particular problem.
So as you both alluded to, we are small in size, but our
mission is widespread across DHS and the interagency. The
program dollars we receive are essential, and every dollar we
have is put to good use.
I want to thank you again for your support of us in
Homeland Security, and I would be happy to answer all the
questions that you have.
Mr. Price. Thank you very much for that statement, and we
will proceed now to questions.
I will start where you left off with the BioWatch effort.
It is an important part of your budget and your budget's
requested increases, so it is appropriate that we focus on
this.
In my opening statement I questioned the current BioWatch
strategy of operating BioWatch Generation 2.5 in addition to
the current system when your goal is to have a BioWatch
Generation 3 system in place in the near future. One of our
problems perhaps is that we do not fully understand how similar
or dissimilar these systems may be and how easily or how with
great difficulty perhaps one system could be replaced by the
other.
In any case, this is not a new concern. In the context of
the 2008 appropriations we expressed concern that OHA is not
field testing and piloting similar technologies together and
urged you to incorporate all systems into the field testing and
pilot program. It seems that instead of doing that these
Generation 2.5 systems have become fully operational in at
least one city.
So my initial question is, where does this fit into your
overall strategy, this Generation 2.5 system? $20 million of
the $34.5 million increase is to procure and deploy Generation
2.5 or BioWatch 2.5 systems. Are we investing all of this money
to have to turn around perhaps and purchase Generation 3
systems next year or the year after to replace them?
What would you say about the kind of transition you
envision and particularly for what seems to be a sizeable
investment in a system that will at some point be superseded?
BIOWATCH GENERATION 2.5
Dr. Runge. This is worth spending some time on, and I hope
I can fully develop this discussion.
First of all, you should know, Mr. Chairman, and it has
been testified to before; however, we will not get into the
details of the classified stratification of the biothreats. It
has been testified to before, and it is well known, that
anthrax is our number one biological threat by an order of
magnitude above the others.
It is not difficult to procure, and the methods of
spreading anthrax in a major city are fairly well known. This
puts us at a tremendous vulnerability. To save people's lives
from anthrax, we have to deliver antibiotics to them before
they get sick, so after exposure but before they get sick, and
that period of time is about 72 hours.
Without post-exposure prophylaxis in that 72-hour window we
will have tens of thousands of cases of untreatable pneumonia,
an overwhelmed health care system, and I dare say, a problem of
civil order of a magnitude we have not seen before.
I think Dr. O'Toole testified last year at this hearing
that this would have as significant an impact as a nuclear
detonation on the numbers of people killed, particularly since
it is easy to acquire, lends itself to a multiple city attack
rather than just one 10 pounds of highly enriched uranium,
which would make one bomb. This can be grown and disseminated
simultaneously. This is a very serious issue.
Without an environmental warning, the first notification
that we have been attacked will be when those tens of thousands
of people start getting sick and go to the emergency
departments and their doctor offices. By then, the game is up.
Too late. We will have lost that war.
We are hanging a tremendous amount of our national security
on environmental detection. As you well know, BioWatch stood up
in 32 days under order of the President five years ago, and the
technology is fairly primitive.
At that point, when I was still happily over at the
National Highway Traffic & Safety Administration, the folks at
Homeland Security were busy figuring out the technology that
would take that potentially 30-hour delay and drive that
decisionmaking down to a few hours so that the time left in
that 72 hours could be used to get antibiotics into the bodies
of people. Without that, we are dead, literally.
I heard your frustration last year. The Ranking Member took
us to task for the slow pace of this development. Dr. Vitko,
who was here, made the case that no one has ever done this
before. Well, we left that hearing, and I think I talked to you
later about this, about our pace.
There is a system that has been developed by Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratories that is actually using the same
technology that the post offices have used since the anthrax
attacks. This is the same assay approved by the CDC. It is
public health actionable, but the box is big. It is not
weatherproof.
It really is not appropriate for outdoor use, but there are
certain applications in certain cities of tremendous
vulnerability where it would be appropriate in an indoor
location where the machines, and they are not as sensitive as
the Generation 3 machines will be, but it does not matter in an
indoor location such as transportation hubs in some major
cities.
So we procured six of these, what we call Block 0. They are
not fully commercialized, but they are sufficiently
commercialized, so that we were able to deploy them in New York
City, and they have been running now since December. The people
in New York City are very happy with them. The public health
folks who will make the call on whether the signal is real are
also happy because the assays are the same CDC assays that they
use in the laboratory.
To get to the next commercialization phase, the vendor that
Livermore is working with went into a joint venture with them
to make a Block 1 unit, which has a greater sensitivity, is
more weatherproof. The box is a bit smaller. The reagents are
used more efficiently. That Block 1 unit is what we intend to--
well, we are purchasing 24 of those this year in fiscal year
2008 to deploy in operational field tests in Chicago and one
other city that is not yet disclosed.
BIOWATCH GEN 2.5 CONT'D
Before we will deploy those we will have a thorough
technology readiness assessment done by an independent third
party. S&T has an ex-DOD acquisitions expert on board that
already has been engaged here that will tell us when this
technology is ready.
Now, the other thing you should know is that I stole away a
fabulous professional from S&T who was the director of their
Technology Transition Office, Mr. Bob Hooks, who is now the
Deputy Secretary for WMD Biodefense, who is responsible for
this program. He understands the technology. I think we have
the management in place to get this done.
The fiscal year 2009 request is to procure more of those
Block 1 units to deploy in appropriate locations, which may be
indoors if they are not weatherproof, but there are transit
systems around and airports that are clearly at risk, and we
believe we would have significant benefit by deploying these
systems there. We will also gain a tremendous amount of
knowledge about how they work.
What we have not solved yet is whether their Block 2 unit
will meet all of the requirements that the Generation 3
machines are contracted to meet, and we are hoping that in 2009
we can actually have a fly-off between a more advanced version
of this bridging technology and whatever Generation 3
contractors are able to field a Generation 3 box.
Our target is April of 2009 to do that head-to-head fly-off
with whoever is ready because we need to get technology ready
tested, thoroughly evaluated boxes into the field in a larger
volume in 2010 and 2011. We cannot do that without a good head-
to-head operational test in environments that are appropriate
in cold climates and hot climates, to make sure that whatever
you all authorize for us to purchase next year will in fact be
ready for that deployment.
So this is a bridging technology to meet the Ranking
Member's concern and clearly my concern, given the anthrax con
ops problem that we are up against with a 72 hour window, and
right now we are eating up almost half of that with our rather
primitive technology.
I do not look at this as discretionary, Mr. Chairman. I
think given what we know about the threat, we owe it to our
highest threat cities to get something out there that will meet
the requirement until this Generation 3 is ready, whenever it
is ready.
Mr. Price. Well, your sense of urgency comes across very
clearly. I want to make sure I understand though the
relationship of the 2.5 systems and the 3.0 systems. You say
that the 2.5 systems will be mainly in indoor locations. Is
that true?
Dr. Runge. We think so right now. Now, the developer knows
how to make the box weatherproof, and it may be that they could
get to a stage of development that will allow for some testing
in an outdoor location, but they will be in the same cities
where we currently have the Generation 1 and 2 technologies so
that we will be able to test them against each other.
Mr. Price. So what you are saying is that the 2.5
technologies are suitable for certain kinds of environments and
would not be immediately replaced when the better technology
comes along? I want to make sure I understand.
Dr. Runge. That is correct. You know, we do not know the
longevity of these things, but there is no reason to suggest
that, and this manufacturer also makes all the post office
machines that have been in operation now for seven years or six
years, six and a half years, and doing very well.
So we do have confidence that they will last long enough
until the next generation and some smart guy in Silicon Valley
or in Osaka figures out how to make it this big and so forth,
but those things are not meant to be thrown away if we put them
in the locations appropriate for the application.
Mr. Price. For these locations that are being covered with
these Block 1 machines, will the later machines offer enhanced
capabilities or is it mainly a matter of the 3.0 machines
letting you go into outdoor environments and more challenging
situations?
BIOWATCH GENERATION 3
Dr. Runge. Well, that is clearly one, but also the cost of
operations and maintenance is too high on these Block 0 and
Block 1 machines, so that has to be made more efficient. The
target that S&T has set for the band contractors--band is their
name for the S&T Gen 3 program--is much, much lower than what
the bridging technology can meet right now.
So that is a problem for us. It is a problem for
appropriators too. We cannot spend money on operations and
maintenance when there is a more efficient operations and
maintenance technology that is down the road. We have to
balance our need for urgency with a more efficient and
potentially less expensive Generation 3 machine.
By the way, also the Generation 3 ones will be more
sensitive so if you think about the spread of anthrax, if you
do it in an indoor location you will have a more concentrated
spread of spores. Sensitivity is not that big of an issue.
If it is spread outdoors clearly we want the machines to
signal when there are any spores. Obviously you cannot get down
to zero, but we can get down to in the hundreds. What this does
is that it will allow us to geographically map, hopefully to
pinpoint a point source for the spread, which the folks at the
FBI and in law enforcement are very interested in. If it
happens in New York and if we have the point source there is an
excellent source that they can figure out where it came from,
and that is very important in preventing second attacks and
third attacks.
This is not a scenario where we can bring all the planes
out of the sky at once to keep them from flying into buildings.
Solving this issue of second and subsequent attacks is a much
more complex thing, and it requires everything from good
intelligence to the use of these BioWatch assays to figure out,
``where did this come from?'', so the sensitivity is very
important in an outdoor environment not only for public health,
but for law enforcement.
Mr. Price. Well, let me ask you a big question and ask you
for a brief answer, and we can maybe elaborate later.
Dr. Runge. I am not very good at those.
Mr. Price. I am sensitive to our time situation here, but
this budget request and your discussion just now does raise
questions about where we are headed with this.
Are we going to be do you think in the Congress confronted
now for years to come with research budgets that go to
Generation 4, Generation 5? I mean, what is the trajectory here
that you would envision in terms of continuing needs to update
this technology, and then what about deployment?
I mean, clearly there are physical limitations as to where
you can deploy these machines no matter how large our budget
is. How much funding is it going to take? Are there natural
limits to this strategy of choice, or is the need just endless?
LONG TERM OUTLOOK ON BIOWATCH
Dr. Runge. Well, not to segue prematurely into BioShield,
but this is why it is so important to have a vaccine. This
stuff always is tied up together.
As long as there is a threat from Al-Qaeda, and we know
that they are very interested in this particular organism, and
as long as we have to rely on post-exposure prophylaxis after
exposure to save people's lives, we are going to have a problem
with environmental detection.
When we have a universal vaccine--and I say when because I
do think that it is possible to have a universal vaccine that
does not require six doses or four doses and does not hurt like
crazy when you put it under your skin and people will actually
comply--we can take this problem off the table, so the job that
HHS has in developing a vaccine is a key adjunct to this long-
term strategy.
If that does not happen we are going to have a long-term
problem in covering areas, some cities that are very near to
you and me, that are currently not covered. The states and
local folks are going to start asking the question, ``Gee, how
do we protect ourselves?''
Eventually, Mr. Chairman, and this is my opinion, and I do
not think we have policy on this, but the federal government is
responsible for an architecture. We should be designing the
architecture for states and local or private sector owners to
plug into. If they wish to purchase biodetection, we should
furnish a place for them to plug into so that when the signal
goes off we are assured that that signal means something and we
will be coming.
I do not know how long we are going to be able to sustain
buying gizmos and deploying them across the country. You know,
you all have appropriated billions in grant funds. I think
scrutiny would have to admit that perhaps the priorities of how
those grant funds are spent maybe are not consistent with what
we know about our national security needs, and we may be able
to steer states and locals into taking responsibility for their
own equipment. That is one point of view.
Another point of view is wait a minute. This is a national
security issue, and we would not give Mayor Bloomberg missile
radar and antiballistic missile technology and tell him to
shoot down the incoming, which is what we are essentially doing
with BioWatch. We have centralized this and pushed it out into
the community and said this is a local security issue.
I am not sure that I agree with that. I am sort of walking
on both sides of this fence here. This is, as you suggested,
not a sustainable model. We have to get the vaccine done or we
are going to be buying these things for a long time either
through grant funds or in a budget like mine.
Mr. Price. Thank you. I am sure we will return to this.
Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Briefly to follow up on that. In last year's
bill we provided $2 million for you to enter into a grant or
contract with the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the
effectiveness of BioWatch, and I am reading from the report,
including the reliability of monitoring data and the ability of
hospitals and public health officials to respond based on
information received from those systems.
As part of the analysis, NAS should compare the benefits of
cost of Generation 2 BioWatch technology with Generation 3
technology. They should also assess the cost and benefits of an
enhanced national surveillance system that relies on U.S.
hospitals and the U.S. public health system and compare the
effectiveness of such a system with the current BioWatch
approach.
A final report, it says, should be completed before the end
of fiscal 2008 and provided to the committee. Do you know
anything about where they are with that?
NAS STUDY ON BIOWATCH
Dr. Runge. We have been negotiating with them about the
statement of work. It is in Contracts, I believe. I think we
are on track to do that. We have met with them. We also came
over and briefed the Chairman on the language. I think I have
done that for you for free. It did not cost $2 million.
We have briefed them on the issue. You know, they do not
have a lot of people in-house that understand this completely
and so they are putting together a committee of people who are
familiar with technologies like this, with assays, with
environmental detection, with biosurveillance and the pathology
of anthrax, so they are on track.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we are six months away or less.
Dr. Runge. That is right.
Mr. Rogers. It sounds to me like you are just sort of
beginning the conversation.
Dr. Runge. We started the conversation with them on
December 27 I think, the day after the bill was signed. We met
with them in February. Dr. Pope, who is the staff person in
charge of this for the Institute of Medicine, and I have been
on the phone constantly.
I have to tell you, sir. I have serious doubts that they
are going to be able to do any kind of a full evaluation in six
months. I have talked to the folks that I know who do cost
benefit work, and they have come in and they have said, first
of all, it is an incalculable benefit. You know, the numbers,
the sheer numbers of an attack would dwarf any cost that you
could think of.
The NAS has said we are not going to do a cost/benefit
analysis. We are going to look at the cost and we are going to
look at the benefit, but we are not going to do a cost benefit
analysis.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we are interested to hear what they have
to say, but I sort of am absorbing that this is not a critical
matter with you, the NAS report.
Dr. Runge. I think that it will add additional fire to our
zeal on this. It will provide a third party credibility to what
we are shouting right now.
Mr. Rogers. We both alluded in our opening statements to
the question of who is in charge of health for the federal
government. I subscribe to the theory that two people in charge
means nobody is in charge.
One of the Department of Health and Human Service's
strategic goals is, and I am quoting, ``Public health promotion
and protection, disease prevention and emergency response,''
which according to HHS includes protection of the public from
infectious and terrorist threats and preparedness for natural
and manmade disasters. I thought that was what you were doing.
ROLE OF NAS VERSUS HHS
Dr. Runge. My view of this, sir, and this is also a long
and somewhat protracted policy discussion about the nature of
Homeland Security.
I view our Department as the architects and building
managers for the building. With respect to human health, HHS is
one of the contractors. That is their job. It is not my job to
provide human health. My job is to make sure, as part of the
Secretary of Homeland Security's Office, that that is being
done; that the wiring and the HVAC and the plumbing all have to
be done by people who are specialists in that field.
HHS has been given authority through PAHPA to develop
countermeasures, to do advanced development and to acquire
medical countermeasures through Project BioShield as long as
the Secretary of Homeland Security signs off on use of the
special reserve fund.
They control the stockpile. We do not control the
stockpile. They control the national disaster medical system.
We do not. They are responsible for ESF-8, which is the
emergency support function for public health and medical
services. We do not do that. That is their job.
As best I can explain it, HHS is not a shadow DHS for
health care. They have a role to perform in the great
architecture of homeland security, and I think they do that.
They are working very, very hard on doing that well.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I am confused, and I suspect others are,
about the respective authority and responsibility of each of
these agencies. You have not allayed my concerns.
Dr. Runge. Okay. I mean, I can go on. You know, we have
three buckets of activity. WMD and biodefense is pretty
straightforward. We are responsible for BioWatch. We are
responsible for setting up the National Biosurveillance
Integration Center. DHS has responsibilities under HSPD-9 now
for food and ag, so we have a Food, Agriculture and Veterinary
Defense Office.
We have a role in Project BioShield, a very narrow role. I
have one person who is devoted to making sure that the threats
and countermeasures are delivered to HHS and then to make the
decisions about what countermeasures to buy. That is a very
clear role.
Another bucket of activity in our office is the
occupational safety and health. Right now, I have four or five
people who are focused on the development of policy
requirements and metrics for occupational safety and health and
tactical and medical support. It has nothing to do with HHS.
The place where there is a tremendous amount of interaction
is in the medical readiness area. I can divide that up into two
lanes. One is end-to-end planning, and this is everything from
intelligence and biosecurity all the way through environmental,
physical and psychological recovery.
HHS has a piece of that plan: The delivery of medical care
to people in the wake of a disaster and the development of
countermeasures in order to fulfill that task. They do not do
intelligence. They do human biosurveillance, but they do not
integrate biosurveillance across the spectrum. They have
prevention activities through the CDC's grants to states to do
public education.
We do not do that. We try to coordinate what we do. We have
another grants officer in our Office of Medical Readiness who
then sits down every week with HHS to discuss the grants that
they have and the grants that DHS has to make sure that there
is synergy in how they are used. It is not an easy task to
coordinate, but we have to do that.
Now, I would say that I am probably not the only person in
DHS that has that issue with respective agencies, whether it is
Justice or Transportation or another department. The Secretary
of Homeland Security, if something fails, if something goes
wrong and we lose thousands of people, he is going to be held
accountable.
We saw this in Katrina where it was not just Secretary
Chertoff's problem, and yet the focus of the problem seemed to
be on him for some reason. There were other cabinet secretaries
that had an equal share of responsibility, but somehow it came
back to Homeland Security.
I have taken that to heart, and we are doing everything we
can to make sure that they are successful in that mission of
health care delivery on behalf of my boss who wants that role
to be done well, who wants that contractor to fulfill that
function with aplomb.
We do not supplant HHS. We do not duplicate anything that
they do. We are very much in support of their operation and
very hopeful of their success.
Mr. Rogers. Well, compared to HHS your agency with 42
FTEs----
Dr. Runge. Precisely.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Is a fly on their windshield.
Dr. Runge. Right.
Mr. Rogers. I mean, they are a huge bureaucracy. I wonder
whether or not we need to clarify legislatively even more so
the precise roles of each of these agencies because we cannot
afford to have confusion and nothing happening because of that
divided authority.
Dr. Runge. That is very insightful, sir. I would support
that, and I will be happy to help you any way I can.
Mr. Rogers. BioShield. Are we making progress?
BIOSHIELD PROGRESS
Dr. Runge. This is also worthy of a discussion. I believe
that some progress is being made. However, we have a long ways
to go, and it is no secret to you. The numbers are out there.
It is important to understand what DHS's role is in Project
BioShield, and just so there is no mistake about this, this has
been clarified over a series of MOUs and meetings and so forth
that have gone on over the last year and a half that my office
has been very much a part of, as well as our counsel and
others.
We are responsible for determining what constitutes a
material threat to national security with respect to biological
agents. We have issued 13 material threat determinations signed
by the Secretary of DHS, and the second piece is to then use
the best possible science and economical scenario to estimate
the threat to a population so that gives it a size, gives a
magnitude of the problem.
So we give them the what and the how much. That information
is given to HHS, and then, from there, they say, ``Okay, what
have we got on the shelf that we can put in the Stockpile that
did not have to be part of BioShield? What do we have to go
through basic development with the NIH? What do we need
advanced development for that BARDA should handle? And,
finally, what can we acquire out there?''
BioShield, as I understand it, was thought of as an
acquisition program, but that presupposed that there were
things to acquire, and some of the needs that we have for some
of these agents do not have a countermeasure and, therefore,
require countermeasure development. The NIH is well funded to
do the basic development, I think. Others might dispute that,
but they have been very productive in doing so, but the problem
is, is that once they do the basic development of a molecule,
there really is no advanced development that is operable right
now to get it to a point where it can be acquired by BioShield
funds.
So the so-called ``valley of death'' that the drug
companies talk about is still unaddressed. BARDA was authorized
by Congress, I think, around a billion dollars to do this. A
science board was created to bring in people who know how to do
advanced development. They have put that together.
There is money for acquisition, and there is money for
basic development, but it still lacks the wherewithal to do
advanced development, whether that is partnering with the right
companies or whether that is somebody else doing it, partnering
with the DoD and their advanced development process, that
really is BARDA's problem, an HHS issue.
We are rooting for them, but we do not have authority over
that, and sometimes it is a bit frustrating, and it is
frustrating, frankly, to Assistant Secretary Vanderwagen and
Deputy Assistant Secretary Parker. They want to get this job
done, but it is very difficult.
Mr. Rogers. Well, there is another example of two agencies
of the government with ill-defined responsibilities both
telling us it is the other guy's fault, and this is something
we cannot afford.
Dr. Runge. I would be curious to know how they characterize
that because we have issued material threat determinations, we
have issued population risk assessments, and we are
participating in their governance process as an ex-officio,
nonvoting member, by the way. That is our responsibility, and
we are fulfilling that.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Rodriguez.
Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some
military installations in my community, through the Federal
Partners program. How are we coordinating those efforts? How
are we making sure that we get some results in those efforts? I
know one of the main difficulties is the coordination with
other agencies and localities, and how do we make sure that, as
we have that Federal Partners program, how do we coordinate
with the other federal agencies?
FEDERAL PARTNERS PROGRAM
Dr. Runge. Mr. Rodriguez, I am not sure what Federal
Partners program you are referring to.
Mr. Rodriguez. In the process of doing what you need to do
in securing this nation, I gather that you have some efforts,
in terms of reaching out and coordinating.
Dr. Runge. Certainly.
Mr. Rodriguez. And my understanding is that there is some
Federal Partners program to help in that process of getting
data and information.
BIOWATCH COORDINATION WITH DOD
Dr. Runge. Within the scope of my responsibility, I can
tell you that, for environmental detection, the Defense
Department's counterpart to BioWatch is called Guardian, and
this year we have made an agreement with the DoD on assays so
that whatever signal they produce will be public health
actionable by the civilian sector, whatever signals BioWatch
produces will be public health actionable by the defense
sector.
So we have put the two programs on equal footing, and they
are collaborating very closely. That is one area.
Another area is in response, and, as you know, NORTHCOM is
the combatant command that has been made responsible for
response for disasters in North America. Captain Jim Terbush,
who is the command surgeon there, is on my speed dial. We talk
to each other all of the time. We actually are concocting a
scheme to do some joint training, or finding a place to do
joint training, so that civilian folks can know what the inside
of a C-130 looks like, and defense folks know what a civilian
federal medical station looks like that the CDC deploys.
Mr. Rodriguez. How do we tie it in? For example, you
mentioned initialing your discussions with the anthrax
situation. How do we tie into the community to be able to pick
that up as quickly as possible?
BIOSURVEILLANCE
Dr. Runge. Well, again, the DoD system, they do have an
environmental detection system of their own. We are in constant
communication.
Now, another way that we are cooperating, and I left this
out, is in biosurveillance. The Armed Forces Medical
Intelligence Center at Fort Detrick does intelligence. They do
the classified side of biosurveillance, but they are a direct
input into our National Biosurveillance Integration Center that
we are setting up that the common operating picture, that
became live yesterday.
So the data feeds that will come from AFMIC will go into
the common operating picture in a sensitive but unclassified
setting so that every decision-maker will be able to know what
AFMIC knows about outbreaks around the world, and they will
know what we know domestically, which comes from the CDC and
from the USDA and the Department of the Interior.
Mr. Rodriguez. The president requested, I think, about 700
or less than $800,000 for the food and agriculture, and
veterinarian. What are we expected to do with those seven or
$800,000? What are the implications?
FOOD, AGRICULTURE AND VETERINARY COORDINATION
Dr. Runge. Our job there, again, USDA has authority over
meat and eggs. FDA has food authority over everything else, and
we have some problems. We have had an import-safety issue that
we have dealt with. HSPD-9 is the President's Homeland Security
Presidential Directive on food and agricultural security, and
this is a list of all of the items that have to be done under
HSPD-9. The first column is homeland security, and the things
in red are the things that we are in the lead for.
So, yes, it is a daunting challenge for this small band of
passionate veterinarians and food experts to tackle this issue,
but that is their primary goal, and it is one of coordination
and, again, cooperating with the National Biosurveillance
Integration Center to make sure that food and agriculture
information is part of the common operating picture, working
with the FDA on their issues, whether it was the melamine
incident or----
Mr. Rodriguez. Excuse me. Is this $700,000 supposed to do
that for the country?
Dr. Runge. It is challenging, but we have a set of
objectives that, we believe, will considerably advance where we
are right now.
Mr. Rodriguez. I know I had an incident some time back, in
terms of some cattle that had some kind of tuberculosis or
something, and I think, you know, I had the hardest time just
trying to find out if anybody knew about it. It was a little
article that I had run into about that issue. I know that, on
the border down there, we have a series of things, items such
as rabies and ticks and other items that occur, that impact the
livestock as well as the animals in the area.
Dr. Runge. Yes, sir. We will be one-stop shopping for you.
If you want to just call us, have your staff call over, we will
get you all of the information that is available on anything
going on with food, ag., and vet. in the country.
Mr. Rodriguez. So what are the other agencies? Is it the
Department of Agriculture that is overseeing some of that?
Dr. Runge. Well, certainly, they have responsibility for
veterinary health, for maintaining the health of the U.S. food
supply when it comes to meat and eggs. They work very closely
with their state agriculture departments on implementing
regulations at the state level. That is their issue.
Ours is more to be the eyes and ears of the Secretary when
it comes to threats to the nation's food supply, which is the
same issue that we had with FDA, which is why our little
ambassadorial office here spends all of its time coordinating
and collaborating with primarily those two agencies, as well as
the private sector.
I should point out that my eyes were opened. I went to
North Carolina, and I went to visit Goldsboro Milling, which is
one of the largest pork producers in the country. The amount of
information that they have on diseases, viruses that are in
their hog houses and in their chicken houses far exceeds what
we know in the public sector.
So we have to figure out a way to collaborate and get the
information, in a proprietary, sensitive way, from the private
sector so that we can have a better picture of what is going on
in the country with potential outbreaks that are out there.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Dr. Runge, as you know, early
recognition of bioterrorism is an inherently complicated matter
because the health and medical information on a situation could
be delayed, or perhaps it could be presented in a manner that
looks like a regular disease pattern.
One critical way to help sort through this challenge is to
ensure that the information that law enforcement may have on a
particular case or situation is shared in a timely manner with
public health officials. However, it is my understanding that
DHS guidelines for labeling and sharing documents that are
marked ``law enforcement sensitive'' can result in excluding
public health officials from receiving information that is
critical to determining whether there is an emerging health
threat.
It is also my understanding that the decision to share
information labeled as ``law enforcement sensitive'' is often
made by law enforcement personnel who lack the knowledge needed
to determine what information should be useful to public health
officials in determining the existence of a health threat.
So my question is, being that your office is charged with
leading the response to bioterror incidents, what is being done
to ensure that law enforcement officers share relevant
information with public health agencies in a timely manner so
that they can effectively assess and respond to a bioterrorism
threat?
SHARING LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE INFORMATION
Dr. Runge. That is an eloquent statement of the problem.
There is a solution. As a matter of fact, three weeks ago, I
was talking with Secretary Chertoff about this exact problem,
and he looked over at the Deputy Under Secretary for
Intelligence and Analysis and said, ``you know, where are we
with getting public health people into the fusion centers?''
This has been a goal of ours that we have been working on
not hard enough. We have been raising this on the radar screen
of the I&A folks, and they actually, as of a few weeks ago, now
have a program to begin to incorporate public health into the
fusion centers. This is useful for us in a couple of ways.
Number one, it is great to have those eyes and ears out
there that can let us know what they are seeing at the local
level in a coordinated fashion with law enforcement. It is also
an advantage to us to have them there to push information out
when the time comes. They have typically not had security
clearances. Public health folks, for a myriad of reasons, have
a difficult time designating somebody who will be around for
years who will go through all of the necessary security
clearances and information analysis training to be able to be
an effective fusion center participant over a period of time.
So those issues are worked on.
HSPD-21, which was signed by the President a few months
ago, actually has a mandate in there for our I&A office to go
out and, with our help, do briefings for local public health on
the threats. Now, a one-time thing is going to be okay, but it
is not ideal. What they need is a constant presence in those
fusion centers so that when new information comes down the
pike, they will be privy to it, and they can apply their
knowledge to it. So we are on this case.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Am I understanding that you are saying
you cannot find qualified public health people to be a part of
that?
PARTICIPATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS
Dr. Runge. No. That is not what I said. It is difficult to
find someone who a public health system can designate for three
or four years, who will go through the security clearance
process, who will get the analytical training, and then will be
part of the system for a period of years. It is hard for them
to commit to that, and we have heard this from NACHHO folks
with whom we have talked to about this.
They will solve that problem, but, you know, there has been
an issue with security clearances for police officers, for
instance, that Charlie Allen has solved. We will set about
solving the problem for public health people as well, but we
cannot have people coming in for six months and then being
reassigned to do some other public health chore. We have to
have a commitment at the local level that they will actually be
part of this fusion cell for the long haul.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Do you have any sense of how long or how
close you are to solving the problem so that we do have these
public health people in place?
Dr. Runge. It is a high priority. Let me get back to you on
that. We will actually come in and brief you on the plan that
we have. I appreciate your support for that.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Okay.
Dr. Runge. It is one more thing that we need to do, but we
need to do it.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Let me return, Dr. Runge, to the
BioShield discussion. Congressman Rogers was focusing on some
of the interagency divisions of responsibility, which, as he
said, sometimes amounts to the buck stopping nowhere, but I
know you watch this closely. I know you are concerned about it.
You have certainly left no doubt about that.
So I do have some questions about this intergovernmental
aspect, the kind of coordination that is required, but then we
also have this matter of a budget, a sizable budget, item to
deal with.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, an additional $2.2
billion is coming available in Fiscal Year 2009 for Project
BioShield. That decision was made back in 2004, and those
assumptions that govern that decision may or may not still be
operative. We have had close to four years to assess the
viability of this program. We know that right today almost two
billion has not been obligated.
We know some of the reasons for that money not being
obligated. There have been shortfalls in acquiring advanced
countermeasures, as you indicated, for most of the threats,
really, that have been identified by DHS, and there is a debate
under way, which you have alluded to. Is this just a matter of
failures of management and coordination, or is it just not
properly designed? Have we somehow failed to put the incentives
in place to bring this development process along?
The bottom line is that BioShield has not been able to
develop the countermeasures, as originally intended. This
raises obvious questions about the present money available and
the money coming online.
So I would welcome any comments that you have about this,
but I want to ask you how we should direct these funds when
they do come online. Are we talking here about putting money
into BARDA, for example? Would that be a better strategy, as
opposed to having this unused money out there for drug
acquisition? Can you help us with the obvious budgetary issues
that we are facing?
PROJECT BIOSHIELD
Dr. Runge. Mr. Chairman, you have asked a bunch of
questions there. I certainly have opinions on most of them.
Your understanding of the budget issue is accurate, I
think. The fact that it is in the coffers of the Office of
Health Affairs is just a function of where the money was
appropriated, to begin with. Right now, I have one financial
person, Rich Aaronson, a fabulous guy, sitting back there, but
he is one guy. He has another one in the pipeline who will be
coming at the end of April, and there is a third one being
advertised. So that cadre of three financial people will be who
we have.
The President has proposed four more in our budget. That
will be the delta in our FTEs for this year, which we
desperately need. But there is no way that we can exert any
sort of financial management or any credible financial control
over $2.8 billion and how it is spent.
The accountability of DHS for how this is spent is
illusory. It is a figment of our imagination. The fact is, is
that when we issue a material threat, and the Secretary of HHS
determines that they are going to spend money from the special
reserve fund on that material threat, a letter comes to
Secretary Chertoff and asks for his concurrence to use the
special reserve fund to deal with that threat, and that is the
co-signature that then goes to the head of OMB, who has the
President's delegation for the use of the special reserve fund.
At that point, that is pretty much it, as far as our co-
management of those funds.
When HHS does a procurement and--countermeasure, they send
over a note that says, ``Pay the bill,'' and that is what we
do.
So the way it is set up is not ideal, and I am not sure
what the crafters of the legislation initially had in mind.
When I opened up the budget in brief and saw that I had $2.8
billion in my budget line, I was slightly taken aback because
it is illusory, and we cannot exert financial control over this
in any reasonable way.
So this is also a fund that does not allow an
administrative take-down. Whatever you do with BioShield funds,
you do it out of hide, so that is a bit of a problem for us,
unlike other grant funds that allow administrative overhead.
This is not one that does that. Did that answer your question?
Mr. Price. It answers part of my question having to do with
how this coordination takes place and what your role is. You
did not really address my question, and I would appreciate your
trying to do so, about whether these funds are misplaced in the
first place, whether these assumptions still hold, whether, for
example, the annual appropriation for BARDA is $102 million,
way, way below the kind of sums we are talking about. You
cited, in your answer to Mr. Rogers, the ``valley of death''
problem as a major component of this. It apparently is.
Obviously, these drugs have not been developed. The program has
not moved forward.
Are we dealing here with a misallocation of funds that we
need to correct?
Dr. Runge. I think that part of it is where we are in the
phase of things. Initially, there was some low-hanging fruit
that BioShield actually was able to acquire. For instance,
botulinum is one of the things on the threat list, and there
was actually a technology for making botulinum antitoxin that
did not require a lot of advanced development, so they were
able to pick that fruit.
Smallpox vaccine; they were able to deal with that.
Anthrax antitoxin was already somewhat through the advanced
development process. They were able to buy a couple of hundred
thousand doses of that.
So, initially, it seemed to be working okay, but we plucked
that fruit. The higher hanging fruit is dependent on advanced
development, so now it looks like it may be a little bit out of
sequence, where we funded the acquisition and did not fund the
advanced development.
You know, the big cop-out that I used to use on Chairman
Rogers when he was the chairman of my oversight committee at
NHTSA was, ``You all make the law; we just administer it.''
This is a tough one. I hesitate to suggest that we diminish
the acquisition money because it needs to be there. On the
other hand, there is a need for some creative advanced
development that HHS has to do, whether it is through joint
ventures or whether it is funding their own advanced
development, like DoD does in some ways. I do not know much
about the DoD model, but they do advanced development a little
bit differently, and it may be wise to look at best practices.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mrs. Lowey, you came in just as the
first round was ending, and having been in your situation, I
think we should turn to you because we are now into the second
round, but with Mr. Rogers's concurrence, we would like to turn
to you for your questions.
Mrs. Lowey. I really appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
Unfortunately, we are pulled in many directions with many
hearings, and I thank you for understanding.
I also appreciate, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rogers's focus on
coordination, as well as yours, so I will not continue on that
issue. But I would like to talk about the hospital surge
capacity.
This is an issue I have been interested in for quite a
while because, in the case of a public health emergency, such
as bioterrorism or a pandemic, one of the critical elements
necessary for an effective response is adequate surge capacity
at hospitals or other medical facilities.
We all know, certainly in my district and many of the other
surrounding districts, many hospitals are currently having
difficulty dealing with the emergencies coming through their
doors on an average Saturday night, let alone what would happen
in a bioterrorism or pandemic scenario.
So before I get to specific questions, Mr. Chairman, I do
not know whether Mr. Rogers or you ever visited that command
center that Tommy Thompson put together. Now, I have checked
with several staff people, and no one knows anything about it.
Mega-millions was spent on that command center. Perhaps you can
tell us if you know something about that command center.
Whatever happened to that command center?
HHS SECRETARY'S OPERATIONS CENTER
Dr. Runge. Would this be the Secretary's operations center
at HHS?
Mrs. Lowey. Yes. It was an incredible thing. A lot of money
was spent on all of the TV screens, and he could pinpoint
exactly where my hospital is or your hospital is, and,
supposedly, in an emergency, they would absolutely know what
was happening. Are you aware of this?
Dr. Runge. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Lowey. Are you using it?
Dr. Runge. Well, the Secretary's operations center gives us
daily situation reports that go both to us in our office as
well as the National Operations Center. Secretary Leavitt, this
past year, at our request, filled the chair of the National
Operations Center with one of his Secretary's operations center
people so that there is a real-time, common operating picture
with the National Operations Center and the Secretary's
operations center at HHS.
So, yes, there is definitely connectivity, and they have
been working very, very hard since they stood up the
Secretary's Preparedness and Response Office in increasing
their operational efficiency.
Mrs. Lowey. I think it just might be helpful if someone
came down and briefed people on that center because no one
seemed to be able to follow up on it, but I am glad that all of
those millions of dollars are currently being used effectively
to keep, God forbid, there is an emergency.
Now, the President, in the budget, proposed to cut the HRSA
Hospital Preparedness program, which is designed to increase
hospital surge capacity, by more than $61 million for Fiscal
Year 2009. From your position at DHS, does this mean that the
administration believes that states and hospitals are
adequately prepared for bioterrorism or another medical
catastrophe?
HHS HOSPITAL PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM
Dr. Runge. I really cannot comment on the decisions that
were made around the HHS budget, so I will pass on that.
Mrs. Lowey. You just have to accept it.
Dr. Runge. That would be a question that you would more
appropriately pose to them. However, I do not think anybody who
has looked at the news, looked at the IOM report on the state
of emergency care in the country, would be under the mistaken
notion that we are adequately prepared for a hospital surge. We
have squeezed all of the capacity out of hospitals' budgets,
and it is just not there.
Mrs. Lowey. Has the federal government estimated the cost
of creating a minimum level of surge capacity?
HOSPITAL SURGE CAPACITY
Dr. Runge. Well, any time we create surge capacity, it gets
filled up with patients that would be boarding in the emergency
department. So it is a fallacy to suggest that we can actually
create surge capacity any more than any business can afford to
have a bunch of people that are sitting around not working.
By the way, way up in the 90 percent of health care in this
country is delivered by the private sector, so we have not
asked the private sector to make an investment in unused beds
or unused people or unused equipment. It is not a very
practical solution. I do not have a practical solution for you,
but this is the state that we are in.
Mrs. Lowey. But it would seem to me that the Chief Medical
Officer at DHS should have an estimate of what is needed to
achieve a minimum level of surge capacity. How do you make us
feel secure on health matters if we do not have those figures?
I know that is a difficult position to put you in.
Dr. Runge. It is, and, as a matter of fact----
Mrs. Lowey. But you are in that position.
Dr. Runge. As a matter of fact, HHS would say, and I would
agree with them, that that is their issue, that is their
problem. You sort of missed my analogy of where Homeland
Security is in the great scheme of things. If we are the
building manager and the prime contractor, HHS is a
subcontractor for the health care piece. They do ESF-8. They
are responsible for the emergency-support function for public
health and medical care in the event of a disaster.
I know that this is very much on their radar screen. This
is a problem that we talk about, but we, frankly, do not have a
lot of solutions for it, other than surging federal assets when
it comes time to answer a call with field hospitals and
volunteer national disaster medical system of people, medical
reserve corps. The Uniform Public Health Service is available,
with 6,000 people.
So there is some surge capacity through federal resources,
but surge capacity does not exist in the world of private or
quasi-public hospitals.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, let me just say, because the Chairman is
looking at me, which must mean my time is up, but I know Mr.
Rogers was talking before about coordination. One of the main
problems, as you know, in Louisiana was the lack of
coordination, and we heard that from everybody, after you,
after you, after you.
Dr. Runge. Absolutely.
Mrs. Lowey. So I would hope that, as the Chief Medical
Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, that there is
adequate coordination and that there is some planning, and
there is some estimate on what is an appropriate surge capacity
number and that you ask for it because we certainly have to be
ready, and it seems to me, this is an important part of your
responsibility. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Pandemic influenza: A formidable challenge, not
to mention the devastation to the country, but a real challenge
to the continuity of critical government operations, as well as
the public health.
To date, over $6 billion has been provided to support the
National Strategy on Pandemic Influenza, most of that to
stockpiling vaccines out of our Office of Medical Equipment by
the federal government and the states, as well as to support
response plans. What I want to ask you about is how do we
protect the essential governmental services during that kind of
an attack?
DoD has reportedly stockpiled over six million courses of
antiviral treatments for essential military personnel, and the
State Department has bought 100,000 courses of antiviral
treatments to protect its employees worldwide. What are we
doing to protect what a lot of us consider to be one of the
most important government agencies, yours, DHS, from that kind
of pandemic attack? Not just influenza perhaps but----
PANDEMIC INFLUENZA CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT
Dr. Runge. Your question is a very potent one. I will deal
first with the issue of a pandemic.
By the way, of the $6 billion, DHS's share was about $47
million. About a third of that we spend on stuff, on buying and
stockpiling things. We bought $6 million in respirators, $10
million in pairs of gloves, hand gels, goggles, disposable
suits. They are stockpiled with the operating components in 52
locations throughout the U.S.
We are in the process of purchasing 135,000 courses of
antivirals, which would be used for treatment and not
prophylaxis under current guidelines. The funding for that was
about $2.7 million. There is a contract in OPO for execution
that falls within that amount for some more tens of thousands,
or perhaps hundreds of thousands, of doses. I will get you the
exact number, if you are interested.
It is clearly a concern of ours. Continuity of government
is extremely important, and we took that very, very seriously
and put a significant amount of the money that we were allotted
into a provision for that purpose.
We are also buying surgical masks that provide a little
lower level of protection, but CDC has given us some guidance
that they will be useful in some applications.
So we are on the case. Now, with respect to the larger
issue, our workforce-protection issue is a huge deal for us,
and Dr. Bill Lang, who has been a detailee from DoD that I have
had in that slot because I have not had an FTE for it, has done
a fabulous job in scoping out what these requirements are. We
have put in a travel medicine system so that our deployed
forces will know what diseases are present in the places that
they are going to, what sort of immunizations and antibiotics
they need to take with them.
For other biological events, we are behind the curve. If we
were attacked by anthrax, our workforce does not have
medication kits with the necessary antibiotics in them. We are
trying to identify a cadre of people who have had previous
anthrax vaccine that we could give a booster to so that we
could have a cadre of people who would be willing to respond
who are vaccinated in an anthrax emergency. But as you might
imagine, it is a very complex issue. There is a funding issue,
and there is also an operational issue that we are tackling.
Mr. Rogers. Tell me how this works. We have got a pandemic
influenza outbreak across the country. What do you do? What
does DHS do? What does FEMA perhaps do, and what does HHS or
anyone else do? Who does this work, and what kind of work is
it?
Dr. Runge. To the extent that there is an outbreak across
the country, Secretary Chertoff has a predesignated Principal
Federal Official, Vice Admiral Vivian Crea, the Deputy
Commandant of the Coast Guard, who is the predesignated PFO for
a pandemic.
We have also identified five regional PFOs and 10 deputy
PFOs, all of whom now are trained in the management of this
particular incident. We have had communications exercises where
we have been present at an assistant secretary level,
governmentwide exercise.
So we believe that our response capacity is how we would
handle any other major event, with the exception that this
event would occur across the entire country, so we need a bunch
of PFOs for----
Mr. Rogers. What I am trying to get at is what is the role
of HHS, what is DHS, and what is FEMA's role, or anybody else?
Dr. Runge. HHS's role is to take care of the people. Their
role is to take care of sick people. So, in preparation for
that, they have invested three-plus billion dollars in vaccine
technology, and they are working very, very hard at that. The
have given $500 million in a couple of tranches out to states
to do state and local planning, to public health. The issue of
public health and health care is their responsibility. That is
not DHS's responsibility. They are the contractor for that
element.
However, we recognize that it is not just a health problem,
as you well know. This is an issue of critical infrastructures,
it is an issue of continuity of government, and it is an issue
of potential civil unrest. There are issues of quarantine
enforcement and so forth, all of which will be dealt with by
DHS through its HSPD-5 authorities.
Mr. Rogers. That includes protecting essential personnel--
--
Dr. Runge. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Not only in DHS but in other
departments.
Dr. Runge. That is correct.
Mr. Rogers. Are you the sole agency for that kind of
effort?
Dr. Runge. The pandemic planning lives with us, and so our
Medical Readiness Office has been working diligently with HHS,
and the CDC which is part of the HHS, on things like community
mitigation strategies. What will people do before they have the
vaccine in order to minimize their risk of exposure?
We have developed a set of priorities for vaccine usage,
when vaccine is available, by critical infrastructure sector,
with the help of our sector coordinating councils at DHS, to
identify how many critical people are in the 17 critical
infrastructures key resources. So we have been building a
matrix around that to help HHS prioritize who will get the
vaccine first.
There have been public meetings on the subject, so our
office is very much involved with that coordinating role with
them and the VA and DoD with respect to how this sort of care
is delivered.
Mr. Rogers. Does your responsibility go toward the White
House as well, to protect their personnel?
Dr. Runge. The White House has its own ability to maintain
its workforce.
Mr. Rogers. Does FEMA have a role in this?
Dr. Runge. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. What role?
FEMA ROLE IN A PANDEMIC
Dr. Runge. Well, insofar as when there is a national event,
and Homeland Security will surge its forces, FEMA then stands
up the National Resource Coordination Center, and all of the
various ESFs then are discharging their responsibilities.
Whether it is transportation or law enforcement or public
health and medical care or communications, they are the hub for
response.
Mr. Rogers. Who distributes the vaccines and that type of
thing around the countryside?
VACCINE DISTRIBUTION
Dr. Runge. That is a stockpile issue. HHS is responsible
for the Strategic National Stockpile.
Mr. Rogers. And they deliver it?
Dr. Runge. Yes, sir. We are in the process of purchasing
our own for our workforce, as do many private companies, but
they and the states are responsible for that distribution.
Mr. Rogers. For the public distribution.
Dr. Runge. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Price. Mrs. Lowey.
Mrs. Lowey. One of the issues I would like to follow up on
from Mr. Rogers's comments is regarding the state stockpiles.
Many of us have been talking about this for quite a few years,
not only on this Committee but on Labor-HHS, and we know that,
to date, the federal government has purchased the 50 million
courses of treatment, as recommended under the NSPI. States, on
the other hand, have still only stockpiled approximately 19
million of the 31 million courses of antivirals called for in
the NSPI, leaving us 12 million courses short of the National
Preparedness Plan.
As you are aware, some states have completed their
stockpiles, some states are partially done, and others have yet
to act. My own state of New York has purchased about 1.27
million courses of treatment as of November 2007, which is
about 63 percent of the state's allocation. It should reach 80
percent of its allocation by the end of 2008.
What are you doing to encourage more states to purchase
enough antivirals to cover their populations, and if you could
provide the Committee with an update on progress by each state
to complete their purchases, it would be very helpful to us. So
what are you doing about that?
VACCINE STOCKPILES
Dr. Runge. Well, first of all, we will be happy to get the
data from HHS and pass it on to you. We will take care of you
there. Under a program that they administer, states were able
to purchase and stockpile antivirals at a favorable price and
with a subsidy. They are encouraged to come to the full $30
million. All we have is the bully pulpit on this issue. We do
not control that program. That is an HHS-CDC issue. We can
cheerlead and hoop and holler, but that is HHS's
responsibility.
Mrs. Lowey. So, from the Department of Homeland Security,
and I know Mr. Rogers was trying to clarify that, in the event
of a pandemic influenza outbreak, you have no responsibility in
ensuring that states who do not make preparations are going to
be in a difficult situation versus those that have failed to
act. That is all HHS?
Dr. Runge. That is. Unfortunately, we understand that that
puts us at risk, and it is just like, you know, this is the
contractor analogy. We are dependent on their success, so we
encourage, we can issue requirements, we can discuss with them
relative merits of encouragement or bully pulpit or strong-arm
techniques. We have had this discussion around community-
mitigation strategies.
If you look back at the 1918 pandemic, St. Louis, which
employed very effective community-mitigation strategies, had a
very low mortality curve, whereas Philadelphia, that did not,
had a very high mortality curve. So I look at this, and I am
saying, well, it is pretty darned important to make sure we
have more St. Louises than Philadelphias in a 2011 pandemic,
and yet there is a hesitancy to tell states what to do. I,
frankly, do not have that problem, but there are people who are
responsible for these sovereign entities that do have that
problem, and they are not going to do what you tell them to do,
no matter what, because they are sovereign entities.
So we have the bully pulpit. We can issue, this is the
standard, this is what the CDC has said is best practice, and
we encourage you to comply. But that is where we are stuck, and
we also know that if they do not, they become our problem, just
like any community that does not prepare, does not have a good
evacuation plan, does not have a communications plan, does not
have interoperable communications, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera. They become our problem.
So it is in our interest to do what we can to make sure
that they do have 30 million courses of antivirals, but we do
not control that. It is a tough spot to be in.
Mrs. Lowey. It is because the plan calls for 25 percent of
the population, if I am correct, to be covered, so I would
think that the Department of Homeland Security that has the
overall primary responsibility, working with HHS, would be able
to use some extraordinary persuasiveness.
Dr. Runge. Unfortunately, we do not have that authority,
and we will use the bully pulpit, and we will encourage them,
and, again, working with HHS, we will do whatever we can do
to----
Mrs. Lowey. Should you have more authority?
Dr. Runge. That is perhaps a much longer, protracted
discussion. The Secretary of Homeland Security, as I said
before you came into the room, really is on the hook for making
sure that everyone else fulfills their responsibility and is
successful. It is a tough spot to be in when you do not have
authority over that.
I think there are some similarities to what you all did
with the DNI, for instance, with budgetary authority over
intelligence. As I leave government next year, I will write
about that. I think that we have seen the deficiencies that we
have in trying to coordinate and collaborate with various
entities that are reticent, and that is where we are.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think this would be very
helpful. I understand there are certain things you may not be
able to give us for the record until you leave the government,
but we would not want to wait until, God forbid, there is a
real emergency to get your advice, and I think that would be
very helpful.
Dr. Runge. I think the Congress is understanding that there
are some tweaks that need to be made to the Homeland Security
Act at some point, and, certainly, from your point of view as a
subcommittee Appropriations Committee for Homeland Security, I
think you probably sense some of the issues that we have. We
simply are totally dependent on other people's success, and yet
we have no authority over ensuring that that happens.
Mrs. Lowey. That is the problem, and I think that is
something that Mr. Rogers and the Chair have been trying to get
to. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being
late. I was chairing my own subcommittee.
It is a combined issue here. I spent quite a bit of time
speaking about fairness to the territories--Puerto Rico, Guam,
the Virgin Islands, Samoa--and I have noticed throughout the
years that there seems to be an indifference to how the federal
government deals with the territories: Not including them in
legislation, making assignment of dollars as sort of an add-on.
But now, under the issue of homeland security and the War
on Terror, that indifference could be very dangerous to the 50
states, as it is to the folks that are there in the
territories.
So my question to you is, especially when it comes to food
safety, items coming into the territories and items leaving
that originate in the territories; are we doing what we should
be doing? Do we have the manpower and womanpower to deal with
this issue?
Secondly, if you might slightly or wholly agree with me
that there has been an indifference to the territories, is
there an indifference also when it comes to homeland security
in terms of securing them and, therefore, securing ourselves
from, in this case, items coming through the territories?
INDIFFERENCE TO THE TERRITORIES
Dr. Runge. Mr. Serrano, I am probably guilty as charged
with respect to my area. We say, you know, the politically
correct term ``states, territories, and tribal governments''
all of the time, and yet I have not visited a territory to sit
down with the officials to find out what their concerns are.
This is just a part of the slow evolution of our office.
So I would not say ``indifference'' as much as an issue of
prioritization, in general. Now, that is not true of DHS in
general. FEMA is very involved with the territories,
particularly in the Caribbean region. They very much watch
very, very closely what goes on with Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands, obviously, because of their role in hurricane
relief.
When I was at the Department of Transportation, I had a
regional office that actually had responsibility for traffic
safety in Puerto Rico, and we had a very close relationship on
that issue. We have not had a regional presence. We do not have
anybody in the regional office to support the FEMA
administrator, which I hope to correct in the out years.
OHA SUPPORT TO THE SECRETARY, FEMA, FDA AND USDA
It is very important. Our authority, under PKEMRA, said
that we are to support the Secretary and the FEMA Administrator
in public health and medical matters. Well, in order to do
that, we actually, by extension, need to support the regional
FEMA administrators, and they all have different, very unique
needs. Since NDMS was pulled out, they have no health people
advising them on VX nerve gas or anthrax or their kid's ear
infection. So we would like to do that in the out years, and I
think that is part and parcel of the requirement that you are
setting.
With respect to food safety, that is a huge issue, and Dr.
Tom McGrinn, who is the head of our Food, Ag. and Veterinary
Defense Office, I am sure he would love to come brief you on
what we are doing in that area in coordination with FDA and
USDA.
The Secretary made the observation to me, the other day,
that this is a difficult problem to enforce our way out of, and
Secretary Leavitt has said the same thing as the head of the
President's Import Safety Working Group. CBP cannot stop what
it does not know is coming in, and the solutions to food safety
have to occur on the other side of the oceans, whether it is
adulterated chondroitin and pork heparin or whether it is lead
in toys or if it is bad tires or drugs and devices. This is an
issue that CBP cannot stop at our border, and there is a lot of
anxiety about that.
So we have to have a more systemic, global solution to
this. It has to involve the private sector. It has to involve
the food importers and the grocers. When there is a recall, FDA
has to have the authority to actually enforce a recall, which
they do not have right now. If you have a VIC card from Harris
Teeter or a favorite customer card from any grocer, they know
if you bought Castleberry chile, and yet we do not have the
institutions in place to be able to contact people to say, ``Do
not eat that chile. It is contaminated.''
So we have a long way to go in this area, and it does
involve the interagency, and it involves authorities for them,
not necessarily for us. We would love to come talk to you about
this at great length. It is a vulnerability. The President
recognized it when he signed HSPD-9, and we have a long way to
go.
Mr. Serrano. Well, I appreciate that, and I would like to
continue our conversation.
Mr. Chairman, I have discussed this, throughout the years,
with Mr. Rogers also, and it is the lack of thinking globally
under the American flag. In other words, we think 50 states,
and then there are the territories. So it is not just the issue
of protecting the territories from items coming and people, in
the case of Homeland Security and the War on Terror, people
coming into the territories, but then how easy it is for those
items and those people to just, in the case of people, get on a
plane in San Juan and be in New York in three hours.
We do not seem to look at it as one global network. We seem
to say, we will protect the 50 states, and then maybe we will
protect the territories. At the expense of being self-serving
here, if you do not protect the territories, you are not
protecting yourself because those items and those folks travel
here freely.
Mr. Price. I think, if I may interject, the concept is
deficient, if we are simply looking at this as a kind of
distributional problem among the states in terms of available
protection. You are right. The territories are a point of entry
into this country, and we should be concerned about them but
also about the ease of transition then.
Mr. Serrano. Absolutely. When you enter a territory, you
know you are entering the United States. A study is being done
now, for instance, of how many people become American citizens,
never stepping into a state, whereas they applied for that
citizenship in the territories, and they get it, and they
become American citizen foreigners. You sometimes wonder just
how tight do we handle all of this stuff, so this is a concern,
and I am glad that, at least, we have brought it up, and maybe
some people will think about it.
COORDINATION WITH TERRITORIES
Dr. Runge. Thank you very much. I would also point out that
we learned a lot by including Guam in the TOPOFF 4 exercise
where there was a radiological dispersion device notionally
detonated there. Our Coast Guard is all over the place, and
they have a huge presence in the territories because most of
them are maritime. But we learned a tremendous amount with how
they respond and what they do, and I think it would be a model
for future exercises.
Mr. Serrano. Very briefly, to close, Mr. Chairman, it
happens at every level. It is not just us. The well-renowned
Wolf Blitzer was reporting on the primaries in Samoa, and his
comment was, ``Why are they voting?'' So I called up and said
something about citizenship and the fact that they are fighting
in Iraq at this very moment. Thank you.
Mr. Price. It looks like, on the Democratic side of the
equation, the Puerto Rican primary might yet be more important
than anyone assumed. I have been attentive of that because
North Carolina happens to be in the same category as is
Kentucky. That is right. You never know.
Mr. Serrano. They had better listen to this Committee.
Mr. Price. Well, as we undertake a final round here, Dr.
Runge, let me ask you one brief question, back on this
organizational theme and in the pandemic flu area that Mr.
Rogers raised. Then I would ask you about environmental
exposure and what kind of responsibility you and the Department
are taking on for that.
You know about the GAO report last year that did recommend
further clarification of leadership roles and responsibilities
across agencies for pandemic flu. GAO recommended that the
secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services
work together to develop and conduct rigorous testing,
training, exercises for pandemic flu to ensure that the roles
are clearly defined.
Now, the Homeland Security Department agreed with that
recommendation and stated that its Incident Management Planning
Teams were addressing the shortfalls identified by GAO. Now,
these teams are part of the DHS Operations Directorate.
I would think, as principal medical adviser, you would be
responsible for this kind of coordination with HHS and other
DHS components, so I just wonder what explanation you would
have as to why the Operations Directorate is taking the lead,
and then I would appreciate any clarification you could offer
as to your role in this overall strategy.
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT PLANNING TEAMS COORDINATION
Dr. Runge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are very, very
involved with this. We have spent countless hours. Dr. Til
Jolly, my Assistant Chief Medical Officer for Medical
Readiness, and his team have worked arm in arm with the Ops
Coordination folks, the IMPT--the Incident Management Planning
Team--as part of that, and they developed a plan, an
operational plan, submitted it to the White House Homeland
Security Council. There are some unresolved policy issues that
they are continuing to work on before that plan is actually
blessed. So we are way into this.
I would also point out that the planning system at DHS is
still a bit unsettled right now because of the various levels
of planning. Under the National Response Framework, Annex 1
talks about a Strategic Planning Guidance Statement, which is a
short document that basically says what the desired end-state
is and who the players are. It is issued by the Secretary of
Homeland Security.
Then a strategic plan is done, which basically defines the
actions to be taken, the ends, ways, and means; the actions to
be taken, the roles and responsibilities of the various
departments, agencies, state and local governments, and then
gaps that need to be addressed.
From that, FEMA takes and works with the states and locals
on developing operational planning at the state and local level
in order to do that. So it is a pyramid, kind of a cascade of
plans that need to emanate from the Strategic Planning Guidance
Statement.
We are finished with the one for anthrax, for instance,
that needs to be blessed by the appropriate parties. We have a
draft Strategic Plan for anthrax. That is our number-one deal.
We, as subject matter experts, believe that we own the
assurance that these plans get done for the biological
scenarios and for the ones that really nobody else owns, like
nerve agents, for instance.
So we cannot do everything at one time. We have got two
feds, FTEs that are devoted to this and a couple of hundred
thousand dollars in contract support for this fiscal year to be
able to generate these plans.
We then give them to the Ops Coordination Directorate and
work closely with them. We pull in subject matter experts from
the Interagency to make sure that their concerns are addressed
during the process, so it is quite iterative when this is done.
We believe that we do own that responsibility to get these
things out for animal diseases--foot-and-mouth disease is our
next one. Anthrax, as I said; endemic food-borne illness; and
plague are the ones that are on our radar screen.
Mr. Price. So you portray a collaborative process, an
``iterative process,'' as you call it, but the office in charge
is the Operations Directorate. Is that right?
Dr. Runge. Yes. The Director of the Operations Coordination
Directorate is our representative to the Domestic Readiness
Group at the White House. That is where the plans are
delivered. His Incident Management Planning Team is the one
that actually takes the plan and gets it into the shape, the
format, for being taken to the White House and blessed by the
appropriate authorities.
Mr. Price. All right. Well, it does raise a question, where
your place in this is or should be, given the fact that the
subject matter expertise resides in your office. So we need to,
I would say, monitor that pretty carefully and would appreciate
any further information you wish to furnish.
Let me briefly raise an additional issue. You and I have
discussed this briefly. My thinking about it was stimulated by
a panel discussion I participated in last year, hosted by the
International Society of Exposure Analysis, and
interdisciplinary, interagency group.
It is worth noting that while we focus on biological and
chemical attacks, and properly so, that the 9/11 attacks were
neither biological nor chemical, but they had huge public
health effects. There were long-term public health effects as a
result of the toxic cloud of dust that was inhaled by New
Yorkers, first by the first responders, then by civilians. I
doubt that the terrorists intended this to be a major impact,
but that is the way it has turned out.
Now, the problem in 2001 was that we were not prepared to
quickly characterize the content of that dust cloud to
determine its impact on public health and to respond
accordingly, and, from what I can tell, this has not been an
area of much progress since then.
Hurricane Katrina was another example. We were
insufficiently prepared to quickly characterize and react to
environmental contaminants that threatened public health.
Now, GAO has addressed this. They have identified some
flaws in the characterization or risks following Katrina, and
they have noted that the three key reports on EPA sampling in
New Orleans were limited by a lack of timeliness and
insufficient disclosures about the EPA sampling program.
So this is an area where several federal agencies have a
role to play, another one of these challenges to coordination
and collaboration. EPA would certainly be on the list, NIEHS,
ATSDR, OSHA. It seems like an area that is ripe for the kind of
coordination role for which your office was designed, and that
is why I ask you the question, what role do you think you can
play in bringing coherence to the federal government's exposure
characterization preparedness and response efforts?
EXPOSURE PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
Dr. Runge. Mr. Chairman, I did read the executive summary
of that meeting that occurred. I had to read it a couple of
times, but I think I got it.
Exposure science really is a basic underpinning of
epidemiology. To understand the population effects of anything,
you have to have an understanding of how people are exposed.
Dr. Til Jolly has asked for a meeting with those people to
bring them in and try to better understand how they think the
federal government should be using this discipline. We will
engage our Science and Technology Directorate and the folks who
do this sort of work in the University Centers and others to
help understand this better.
This clearly is an issue that is not surprising. Clearly,
when you are determining how a population is affected of any
disease, we need to understand the exposure. So whether it is a
cloud of anthrax spores, or whether it is human-to-human
transmission of smallpox, it is a basic underpinning. So we
will talk with them and see how they can contribute to the
dialogue.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further. We could
go on all day. Some people think we have. You cover such a huge
spectrum of issues, and it is a challenge to you, and you are
so dependent upon what other agencies do, not to mention
individuals, and I know it is frustrating. We appreciate your
service to the country.
Dr. Runge. Thank you, sir. I should point out that we
talked a lot about HHS. As we do this end-to-end plan, and if
you read the strategy, you will see how dependent we are on
everybody, whether it is EPA for environmental cleanup, or
whether it is the IC for overseas biosecurity. Whoever it is,
there is this interdependence that we have to figure out how to
make this work, if this homeland security concept is actually
going to work.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we have had six years at it. We have not
figured it out yet?
Dr. Runge. I think I have got it figured out, but
implementing it is another matter.
Mr. Rogers. It is a matter of execution, not policy.
Dr. Runge. Yes, sir, I think so.
Mr. Price. Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further, now that
I have put the territories back on the map.
Mr. Price. You consider that a day's work.
Mr. Serrano. Yes, sir.
Mr. Price. Well, with that, we will adjourn, with thanks to
you, Dr. Runge, for your testimony and for your work.
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Thursday, March 13, 2008.
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: IS THE AGENCY ON THE RIGHT TRACK?
WITNESSES
DAVID PAULISON, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
DAVID MILLER, LEGISLATIVE CHAIR, NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
ASSOCIATION
LARRY J. GISPERT, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EMERGENCY
MANAGERS
MATT JADACKI, DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PRICE
Mr. Price. The Subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning, everyone. I would like to welcome our witnesses: FEMA
Administrator David Paulison, back for a second appearance this
week, along with Mr. Matt Jadacki, DHS Deputy Inspector
General; David Miller, the Legislative Committee Chairman of
the National Emergency Management Association; and Larry
Gispert, the president of the International Association of
Emergency Managers.
We are glad to have you here this morning, and we are going
to focus on the other part of FEMA's portfolio, having
discussed the grants budget earlier this week. We are now going
to look at other FEMA programs, including the Disaster Housing
program and the Flood Insurance program, the implementation of
the Post-Katrina Reform Act, Gulf Coast recovery, and FEMA
management challenges.
However, I am sure that some of our witnesses may want to
provide their position on grant programs, such as the Emergency
Management Performance Grants, and we will welcome those
comments as well.
The Fiscal Year 2008 appropriation increased FEMA's
management and operations budget by $175 million, an increase
of 24 percent. That increase was aimed at strengthening FEMA's
core competencies, including logistics, financial management,
operational planning, and service to disaster victims. With
that funding comes expectations.
FEMA has made progress in some areas. It still has work to
do, however, to reassure state and local governments that it is
a reliable partner when their capabilities are overwhelmed by a
disaster.
FEMA must step up its game, and this additional operations
funding should help the agency do that. We want to hear from
you about how those funds are being productively used, and we
will want to know how you are measuring the agency's
performance in these core areas. We cannot want until a major
disaster strikes to find out whether FEMA's investments in core
competencies are paying off.
FEMA's Fiscal Year 2009 budget seeks an additional $46
million to modernize the agency's information technology and
strengthen its disaster workforce. I have no doubt that this
funding is needed, but, again, I am concerned about how you
plan to evaluate whether those funds are productively used.
FEMA must have a strategic vision that is communicated to
its own personnel and to its many stakeholders. It must have
clear goals and way of measuring progress toward reaching them.
At the hearing two days ago, we wanted some method of
showing how our investment in grant funding is helping to
prepare state and local governments. We need the same
information and the same performance-and-evaluation tools for
FEMA itself.
Our Subcommittee has tried to push FEMA in this sort of
planning-and-goal-setting direction in the past by requiring
reports to the Committee on particular program activities.
Unfortunately, FEMA has not always been responsive in meeting
the planning requirements we set.
FEMA was supposed to deliver a plan to improve its
workforce to this Committee 11 months ago. Why do not we have
that?
There have been improvements in personnel. We know that.
Last year, you were able to have 95 percent of positions
filled. However, you have, or will soon have, big holes in
senior leadership. The chief financial officer is leaving.
There are already vacancies at the heads of the Offices of
Acquisition and Information Technology.
Another example is the Comprehensive Housing Plan that was
due seven months ago. Where is that plan, and how is it going
to address the Centers for Disease Control finding of elevated
levels of formaldehyde in occupied trailers in the Gulf Coast?
How is it going to address the still-nagging problem of people
without housing alternatives? We know FEMA is not supposed to
be in the housing business, but the handoff to HUD and to other
housing alternatives continues to lag.
Last year, you said, ``We are actively engaging federal,
state, and local partners and are establishing a working group
to develop the strategy.''
If those steps were taken in April of last year, I am not
sure why there is still no strategy for FEMA to provide to us.
Another critical element for FEMA operations that needs
urgent attention is the agency's financial system, which is one
of the worst performing in the Department. In the DHS inspector
general's testimony on financial audits, he concluded that
conditions at FEMA actually deteriorated in Fiscal Year 2007,
with FEMA now contributing to six material weaknesses to the
overall DHS evaluation. This is compared to Fiscal Year 2006,
when FEMA contributed to only two material witnesses.
Administrator, I know you are working hard, and I know FEMA
is working hard, to address the many challenges it faces, but
without aggressive and proactive planning and evaluation, I am
not confident that you can be successful. So we want to work
with you to address these concerns.
We will begin in just a moment with Mr. Paulison first,
following by Mr. Gispert, Mr. Miller, and then Mr. Jadacki. In
the interest of time, we are going to ask all of you to limit
your oral statements to five minutes. Your prepared testimony
will be entered into the record, but, that way, we can move on
to, I hope, a productive discussion.
Let me, first, yield to Mr. Rogers for any statement that
he would like to make.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Rogers
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Chief
Paulison, and our other distinguished guests.
It was a little over two and a half years ago that FEMA was
literally on life support. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita, words like ``broken,'' ``failure,''
``dysfunctional,'' ``mismanaged''; those words were used to
describe what is supposed to be our nation's preeminent
preparedness and emergency-management agency.
But now FEMA is in the midst of a major recapitalization in
terms of both personnel and capabilities. The Congress has
given you the direction, through the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act. It has also given you the means by way
of a significant influx of both annual and supplemental
appropriations.
Now, it is up to the men and women of FEMA to make this
resurrection a reality, and we are seeing hints of progress,
Mr. Chief, evidenced by FEMA's largely positive response to the
recent southern California wildfires and the tornadoes that
devastated Arkansas, Tennessee, western Kentucky; positive
signs for sure but also a sobering reminder that our nation is
constantly under the threat of natural disasters, as well as
acts of terrorism, which brings us to today's hearing, which is
posing the question of whether FEMA is on the right track.
A fair question perhaps, but a wise man named Will Rogers,
no kin, once cautioned such an approach when he said, ``Even if
you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just
sit there.''
So, today, Chief Paulison, I find myself asking you a
question that I asked just two days ago: What is your plan?
What is your plan for moving forward and turning what you
described as the ``FEMA Vision'' into real capabilities? What
is your plan for connecting the millions of dollars' worth of
infrastructure and information technology improvements, as well
as hundreds of additional employees, into a more functional
preparedness and emergency-management organization?
Difficult questions to answer, of course, but answers that
should link funding to results, and that is the touchstone of
this Subcommittee. That is what we are supposed to do.
Now, I fully recognize, and truly value, the important
mission of FEMA and its vital role in our homeland security,
but we could literally throw billions at the FEMA Vision
Initiative and not necessarily be more prepared.
So, today, I am interested in understanding your progress
at rebuilding FEMA and what the enhanced operating capability
will look like in terms of staffing and capital investments.
Today, I am interested in understanding how far the 2009
budget request moves FEMA towards the post-Katrina vision that
we all supported.
No one ever said that the rejuvenation of FEMA would be
easy, but that does not relieve you of the responsibility to
provide this Subcommittee a plan that clearly demonstrates how
the funding you are requesting will materialize into real
improvements for what has been a beleaguered agency.
We are your partners in this endeavor. We are here to
support, and I can assure you that no one wants to see you
succeed more than this Member, as well as the other Members of
this Subcommittee.
So, Mr. Chief and all of you, we welcome you here, and we
look forward to hearing from you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Paulison, please proceed.
Statement of R. David Paulison, Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Chairman Price and Ranking Member
Rogers and other Members of the Committee.
When I was asked to lead FEMA, my mission was very clear:
Rebuild and strengthen FEMA's ability to plan, prepare, and
respond to disasters in light of natural and man-made disasters
that have struck our country. The new leadership at FEMA
brought in experts to discuss assessments and incorporated
these lessons learned into a new vision for this agency.
The President, Secretary Chertoff, and you in Congress
supported this effort and have provided resources and other
tools to make these improvements.
In my first appearance before this Committee, together, and
I say that, ``together,'' we began repairing the damage to what
was, quite frankly, a very challenged agency.
Last year, we implemented our new FEMA with this vision
initiative, and you, this Committee, and Congress provided the
tools that we needed to get back on our feet, use lessons
learned to set a new course, and begin that journey.
Today, I am here with a budget that will build on our work
for these last two years and will definitely put FEMA on track
for a brighter and stronger future. Today, I am here to tell
you that, with the President's and the Secretary's backing and
your continued support, we are laying the groundwork for a
better tomorrow. Our goal is to leave FEMA stronger than we
found it. It is for this reason that my testimony today is
entitled ``The Way Forward.''
Let me take a moment to say something that we do not often
hear in Washington. I want to say, ``Thank you.'' You have done
more than just note the challenges facing us. You have provided
the resources and the tools necessary to overcome these
challenges. So I want to thank you for your support and in
working with us jointly to build this new FEMA.
This is not the FEMA of two years ago, as our responses to
recent disasters have demonstrated. We have made major changes
over the year as we have integrated the National Preparedness
and Grants Program Directorates into the FEMA fold. We have
added capabilities and strength through our existing
Preparedness and Assistance program.
We have built out our capabilities. We have brought in new
leaders and expanded our professional staff with experienced
professionals.
I want to stress that these improvements and reforms are
only as effective as the men and women at FEMA that we have to
execute them. Our existing staff provided a firm foundation as
we expanded. I am very proud of the people at FEMA, both those
new to the organization and its veterans, for the great work
they have done in moving this organization forward, and they
have supported me every step of the way.
When disaster strikes today, FEMA moves early and often.
Our response to events ranging from last year's California
fires to the floods and storms that struck this winter to this
year's tornadoes across the Mississippi Valley, I think we have
demonstrated the abilities of this new FEMA.
In each case, we saw the potential for disaster. We began
planning and moving even before it struck. When a disaster was
declared, resources were already there, and FEMA was ready to
support them.
The American people, like you, deserve to have high
expectations of FEMA, and we have to continue this progress.
We have a way forward that uses tools and resources that
you have previously provided and those proposed this year so we
can continue this transformation. We will continue to
strengthen our nation's abilities.
This budget adds $25.7 million to strengthen core
capabilities, planning competencies and capacities, our
regional operations, our partnerships with states, and our
National Emergency Management System. We will continue to build
our capabilities and integrate our efforts with all of our
partners, public and private, in a holistic approach that will
strengthen the National Emergency Management System and improve
this nation's abilities to address disasters, emergencies, and
even terrorist events.
This budget includes resources to improve our ability to
deliver assistance, with additional funding and new staff for
our Disaster Assistance and Logistics Management Directorates.
FEMA is focused on providing assistance, both before and
after events, in an easily accessible, coordinated manner
through simple and effective delivery mechanisms while also
minimizing the possibility of waste, fraud, and abuse that we
saw in the past.
To be able to accomplish this on the ground, we also need
to strengthen FEMA as an organization by investing in our
people, developing a capable, motivated workforce who will
ensure mission success, and building a culture that rewards
performance through personal stewardship, innovation, and
accountability.
The budget includes added resources for training: $10
million for basic infrastructure needs that will give us the
space and equipment we need to expand the workforce to do its
job. It also includes $20 million to bring FEMA into the 21st
Century in terms of information technology and financial
management, as both of you all have pointed out.
When Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act,
together we set a vision for what FEMA could become, but, as
the author and innovator, Joe Barker said, ``Vision without
action is merely a dream, action without vision just passes the
time, and vision with action can change the world.''
The budget shows that President Bush, Secretary Chertoff,
and I are committed to this vision with action, and I know, by
your actions, that you are committed also. I look forward to
working with you as we make the vision for the new FEMA a
reality. Thank you very much, and I would be happy to answer
any questions that you have.
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Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Gispert.
Statement of Larry J. Gispert, President, International Association of
Emergency Managers
Mr. Gispert. Good morning. Let me apologize. I usually have
a very strong speaking voice, but I have got some sinus
problems, but we will get through it.
Chairman Price, Ranking Member Rogers, and distinguished
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for allowing me the
opportunity to provide testimony on this critically important
topic.
I am Larry Gispert, and I serve Hillsborough County on the
west coast of Florida as director of emergency management, a
position I have held for 14 of my 27 years in the career field.
I have the privilege of serving nearly 1.2 million folks who
call Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa home. I am
currently serving as the president of the International
Association of Emergency Managers.
I want to express my sincerest gratitude to this
Subcommittee for your support for increasing the funding for
the Emergency Management Performance Grant program, the major
source for building state and local emergency-management
capabilities, and for your support for reforming the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
We urge you to continue that support by increasing EMPG
funding to $487 million for Fiscal Year 2009 and maintaining
its status as a separate account within FEMA.
We urge you to continue your funding limitation on the
principal federal official position.
We strongly support the Emergency Management Institute,
once the crown jewel of emergency management. A lack of funding
and a loss of focus on the primary objectives of the Integrated
Emergency Management System have left EMI adrift, without an
up-to-date, cohesive, professional, EM curriculum.
We respectfully request that you establish a separate line
item for EMI in the FEMA budget and provide $2.2 million
annually for developing and revising courses.
The EMI Higher Education Project is an investment in the
future. This underfunded project has reached over 130 colleges
and universities. We urge the Committee to provide additional
funding to this project for two additional positions and, at
least, an additional $400,000 annually for course development
and related activities.
The stated purpose of this hearing is to determine whether
FEMA is on the right track. We think FEMA wants to be on the
right track, but it is still not clear that they have the full
authority to drive the train.
IAEM wants to see a revitalized FEMA, and we are seeing
improvements. The leadership is working with us more closely.
However, we remain concerned about the role of FEMA within DHS,
whether FEMA truly has been given all of the responsibilities
for preparedness in managing disaster response, as the law
requires, and whether DHS has truly bought into the all-hazards
doctrine, which is so vital to us.
With these caveats in mind, I think it is possible to say
that improvements have been made, but many more are needed.
I would like to extend our appreciation to our colleagues
at FEMA for increasing the level of involvement and
communication with IAEM on key initiatives. Documents impacting
how we plan, exercise, train, respond, and recover should not
be written without the involvement of state and local
government emergency managers.
If you expect us there during the crash landing, please
make sure we are part of the take-off.
We urge FEMA to include key stakeholders in an open
discussion of the Integrated Planning System, IPS, which you
will hear lots about. While it is being developed, IAEM and
FEMA share the same goal: To develop the best product, which is
only possible when state and local emergency managers are
included.
The failures manifested during Hurricane Katrina were not
entirely rooted in the lack of planning. Many would say the
failure was due to the lack of execution of existing plans.
IAEM realizes that there are differences in the way we
approach things, based on our perspectives. DHS and OMB are at
the 50,000-foot level, and the local governments, down where
the boots meet the ground. The view is different.
An example is the EMPG program. The guidance for Fiscal
Year 2008 appears to be overly restrictive, by requiring 25
percent be devoted to planning. EMPG is authorized by the
Stafford Act, and the authorization is broad for a reason: It
recognizes that one size does not fit all.
Another troubling element is the explanatory language in
the president's budget that EMPG is for state and urban areas.
That is, in fact, not correct and needs to be retracted.
We are concerned about the national planning scenarios,
which are narrowly focused, primarily on terrorism. They do not
reflect the full range of threats to which we are subject. The
solution to the situation is not to develop more scenarios but
to use the scenarios properly in the development of a single
emergency operations plan identifying the functions and
capabilities common to all emergencies, as well as the roles
and responsibilities of government.
Utilizing a multiplan, military-style approach is great if
you are the military and funded and equipped with the resources
of the military. State and local governments do not have the
luxury, nor ever will they.
Congress made it clear, in the Post-Katrina Reform Act,
that they wanted a strong FEMA with an administrator with clear
authority for managing all aspects of disasters and
emergencies. We believe that parts of this act are not being
followed and have specific examples in our written testimony.
We are concerned about the Office of Operations and
Coordination, which was created after the Post-Katrina Reform
Act and was signed into law and whether the role that this
office will perform is consistent with the implementation of
the act.
The Post-Katrina Act clearly assigned the FEMA
administrator responsibility for the National Preparedness
System.
Emergency management is the broader, overarching, and
system-of-systems approach to the issue of dealing with all
disasters and emergencies, whether natural, technology, or
homeland security. Incident management is a narrowly focused,
subelement of response, one of the four phases of emergency
management.
To insist otherwise, as DHS is currently doing, shows a
lack of understanding of the overall Emergency Management
System.
In summary, we urge the Committee to increase the EMPG to
$487 million for Fiscal Year 2009, to insist on the full
implementation of the Post-Katrina Act, increase support to EMI
and its Higher Education Project.
Finally, we would remind our colleagues at DHS and FEMA
that success is an equal-opportunity vendor. There will be
enough for reason, as long as we coordinate and cooperate in
our joint responsibility to our citizens. Thank you.
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Mr. Price. Thank you very much, Mr. Gispert. Mr. Miller, we
will now turn to you.
Statement of David Miller, Legislative Chair, National Emergency
Management Association
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Price, Ranking Member
Rogers, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you
for allowing me the opportunity to appear before you today. In
my statement, I am representing the National Emergency
Management Association, whose members are the state emergency
association directors of the U.S. territories and the District
of Columbia.
As we discussed the Department of Homeland Security and the
role of FEMA, I would like to briefly discuss three issues with
you today.
First is the need to address the shortfall and the total
need for funding of the emergency management programs through
the Emergency Management Performance Grant.
Second is the needed federal support of the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact.
Third is the need to address significant deficiencies for
improving state and local emergency operations centers.
EMPG grants are primarily used to support the emergency-
management activities of state and local governments to include
planning, training, and exercise activities, as well as
assisting in covering the costs for equipment and
administration.
EMPG is the only DHS FEMA grant dedicated to emergency
management. Activities achieved under this grant represent the
backbone of an all-hazards emergency-management system. EMPG
requires a matching contribution by state and local
governments. Every federal dollar received must be matched by a
nonfederal dollar. In fact, a recent survey shows that state
and local contributions exceed the federal commitment by a
ratio of 80 percent state and local to a 20-percent federal
contribution.
According to the NEMA 2006 Biannual Report, there is a
significant shortfall in the funding provided to state and
local governments. The current total need is $487 million. The
9/11 Implementation Act authorized EMPG at $535 million for
Fiscal Year 2009.
In addition, we feel that EMPG must be maintained as a
separate line item account and not be subsumed into other
grants. Congress has affirmed this position since 2003. EMPG
funding must retain its flexibility, and the method of
distribution should be similar to the language provided in the
Fiscal Year 2006 appropriation.
The Emergency Management Assistance Compact, ratified by
Congress in 1996, continues to be one of the success stories
for emergency management. This compact, which provides for a
system of mutual aid between states and territories and has
proved its worth repeatedly in disasters, including the
terrorist attacks of September 11th and Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, has demonstrated the need and provided the model for a
unified mutual aid system, intrastate to interstate.
We continue to examine the lessons learned from our prior
applications of EMAC and have established a strategic plan to
put those lessons learned into practice.
In 2006, under the Post-Katrina Reform Act, Congress
authorized FEMA to appropriate up to $4 million annually in
support of EMAC operations and coordination activities. NEMA is
seeking the reauthorization at $4 million annually to 2009 and
beyond, and we are seeking an annual $2 million line item for
building EMAC capabilities and growing our nation's mutual aid
system.
During emergencies and disasters, EOCs, Emergency
Operations Centers, serve as the nerve centers for state,
local, and, at times, federal coordination. After the 2001
terrorist attacks, Congress provided some funding to support
the update of state EOCs.
In 2008, Congress recognized the continued need for EOC
improvements and appropriated $15 million towards those
efforts. While we appreciate these actions, the 2006 NEMA
Biannual Report estimated that almost $393 million would be
needed to sufficiently build, retrofit, and upgrade EOC
facilities. We urge Congress to make a $160 million commitment
as a separate line item to begin to address this significant
shortfall.
In closing, I want to mention two further issues of major
concern to NEMA. First, NEMA remains concerned about the
language that is included in the FEMA Reform Bill that allows
for, but limits the role of, the principal federal official in
times of emergency or disaster.
NEMA continues to urge that Congress abolish the position
and role of the PFO and reaffirm the role of the federal
coordinating officer, as it is clearly established and defined
in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Relief
Act.
Second, the Predisaster Mitigation Act, as authorized by
the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, is scheduled to sunset on
September 30, 2008. Mitigation continues to be a vital function
in the cycle of emergency management, and reauthorization of
the Predisaster Mitigation Act would help to ensure that
resources are provided to lessen the effects, impacts, and
consequences of future disasters.
We thank Congress and the Members of this Committee for
their continued commitment to emergency management and for
supporting our efforts to ensure we are prepared to respond to,
and recover from, any disaster, regardless of whether caused by
man or nature. Thank you.
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Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Mr. Jadacki.
Opening Statement of Mr. Matt Jadacki, Deputy Inspector General, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Jadacki. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Price,
Ranking Member Rogers, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for the opportunity to be here today to answer the
question: Is FEMA on the right track?
To answer, I will focus my remarks on FEMA's progress to
prepare for the next catastrophic incident.
FEMA is in the process of addressing many of the areas
identified in Katrina reports issued to date and is in various
stages of implementing the requirements of the Post-Katrina
Reform Act.
The work we have conducted shows that FEMA is making some
progress in preparedness areas. However, since much of the work
has not been completed, and many statutory deadlines have been
missed, overall progress is limited.
There are a number of critical preparedness areas that FEMA
is currently addressing. By remaining focused on these areas,
FEMA will be able to improve its overall preparedness posture.
To begin on a positive note, the development and issuance
of the National Response Framework is an important milestone,
but is also important to keep in mind that the framework is
only a single component in the national preparedness
architecture, and much more needs to be done, particularly with
respect to developing operational plans that describe specific
federal department and agency resources, personnel, and asset
allocations. It should also be noted that the framework has yet
to be tested or exercised.
Communication among those responding to a disaster is an
essential element of a successful response-and-recovery effort,
yet it is generally recognized that the inability to
communicate effectively was one of the major impediments to the
Hurricane Katrina response efforts.
The 9/11 Commission had previously identified interoperable
communications between emergency responders as a major
challenge. Multiple components within DHA and FEMA are taking
an active role and responsibility for improving interoperable
communications.
That takes us to evacuation planning, which is complex and
must consider a number of scenarios. Local and state officials
are in the best position to develop evacuation plans based on
local demographics. However, it is critical that the federal
government can coordinate with state and local governments
because, in a catastrophic event, it is likely that the federal
government will play a major role in evacuation.
FEMA is now working with state and local officials to
identify shortcomings in existing evacuation plans and looking
to find ways to address those shortcomings prior to a disaster.
After a presidential disaster declaration, FEMA leads the
federal response by coordinating federal resources and
providing houses to those displaced by disaster. One of the
major criticisms of FEMA after Hurricane Katrina focused on
FEMA's inability to provide immediate, short-term housing
assistance to evacuees and then transitioning to more permanent
forms of housing.
FEMA is nearing completion of the National Disaster Housing
Strategy. This long-overdue strategy needs to focus on
sheltering, interim or permanent housing, as well as addressing
the needs of the various populations to be served. The strategy
should not only guide FEMA and other federal agencies during
disasters but help identify operational gaps and additional
authorities needed to improve sheltering and housing
operations. The strategy should be flexible and scalable to
meet the unique needs of individual disasters.
FEMA needs to improve communications with state and local
governments and other agencies with respect to disaster housing
assistance, as well as to improve program guidance for state
and local governments. These efforts should improve housing
coordination but, again, remain untested.
The need for a trained, effective disaster workforce is one
issue mentioned consistently in reports regarding FEMA's
response to Hurricane Katrina. FEMA's disaster workforce
consists mainly of reservists who serve temporarily during the
disaster. The shortage of qualified staff for key positions
responding to Hurricane Katrina negatively impacted the
effectiveness of FEMA's response-and-recovery operation. FEMA
is in the process of developing a strategic human capital plan,
but it is not yet final.
FEMA uses mission assignments to coordinate the urgent,
short-term emergency deployment of federal resources to address
disaster needs. Past audits and reviews have concluded that
FEMA's management controls were generally not adequate. FEMA
put into place a working group to try to address these
shortcomings and has developed a number of prescripted mission
assignments.
Acquisition is another important area in disaster response.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we focused substantial work
on FEMA acquisitions. FEMA was not well prepared to provide the
kind of acquisition support needed for a catastrophic disaster.
FEMA's contract actions went from about $1 billion in Fiscal
Year 2004 to over $4.6 billion in 2005, the year Katrina
struck.
In Fiscal Year 2006, FEMA's contract actions grew to $7
billion. This growth occurred without a commensurate increase
in contracting personnel and resources, which increased FEMA's
vulnerability to waste, fraud, and abuse.
Post-Katrina, FEMA management has focused on developing the
acquisition workforce to a level that can better respond to
another catastrophic disaster. When Hurricane Katrina struck,
FEMA had 35 contracting staff. There are now 136 contracting
staff on board. Additionally, the contract-writing system is
being upgraded. The Emergency Acquisition Field Guide, which
helps disaster team members follow proper acquisition
procedures, has been updated, and more than 700 program
officials have been trained and certified as COTRs.
FEMA has also developed the Contract Administration Plan,
which provides guidance for post-award contract execution.
In conclusion, we are currently working on a more in-depth
review and evaluation of FEMA's preparedness efforts for
effective disaster response, particularly for a catastrophic
event.
The project stems from a July 31, 2007, hearing before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The hearing
objective was to review FEMA's preparedness to handle a future
catastrophic event. During that hearing, I testified that the
new FEMA has made progress in many areas related to disaster
preparedness but that, generally, FEMA was not prepared for a
catastrophic disaster.
The Committee, in turn, requested that we provide a high-
level assessment of FEMA's preparedness for the next
catastrophic disaster. Our plan is to issue a report in April.
We hope the report will provide additional insight on what can
be done.
In closing, the title of this hearing asks: Is the agency
on the right track? We believe the answer is yes. However, I
would like to mention three broad concerns that merit attention
and the interest of this Committee.
One is strategic planning. As FEMA engaged in a
comprehensive planning effort that spans directorates,
prioritizes needs and actions, and maximizes federal resources,
does FEMA require more full-time personnel and a larger budget
so that it can plan, mitigate, and respond all at the same
time?
If planners and responders are one and the same, when a
disaster strikes, and responders are deployed to the field,
planning is often delayed or stopped.
The second is sustainability. Can the agency maintain
momentum and continue to implement the needed changes,
particularly in light of the budget and personnel challenges?
And, finally, staffing: In an environment rife with
turnover, especially in leadership positions, how can FEMA
retain experienced staff and also recruit and train new staff
to build a highly qualified disaster-management workforce?
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would
be happy to answer any questions that you or Committee Members
may have.
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DISASTER HOUSING
Mr. Price. Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you.
Chief Paulison, let me begin with the housing issue. There
has been a great deal of publicity, a great deal of concern,
over the trailers and the discovery that there were dangerously
high levels of formaldehyde in those trailers. I know your
agency has been moving people out of those trailers. Can you
report on the progress of that?
But this morning, I want to put that question into a
broader context of housing and the ability of people to find
affordable housing in the Gulf area. There was to be a report,
by July of 2007, on this issue, and we are distressed that that
report is not available. I want to give you a chance this
morning to talk orally and to submit for the record whatever
you have to report about the successful housing transition that
people have made or the frustrations in finding good housing.
We asked, last year, for the best figures that you and the
Gulf Coast coordinator could provide about the before-and-after
utilization of various HUD programs. We got some partial data
in that regard, but we need this report. We need to have some
precision about this and some understanding about what is going
on in the housing situation in the Gulf Coast.
So it is not a plan for a plan's sake; it is a plan so that
we can work with you in monitoring progress and figuring out
how the slack is going to be taken up here in the available
housing.
This is serious. This is costly. We cannot let it linger.
So I would like to know what you can tell us about the housing
situation, as you have monitored it, and I know you are not
solely responsible for this, but you are the one who has been
left with these trailers and with this dilemma, and also, of
course, about the timeframe within which we can expect a more
systematic report.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The questions you are
asking are right on target and very timely.
It has been a major issue for FEMA. Right after Katrina, as
Mr. Jadacki reported, we were challenged that we were not
providing enough housing. We wanted more and more trailers,
more and more travel trailers, more and more mobile homes, and
putting them down as quickly as we could.
Now that we have them down there, and people are in them,
now we are finding out that some of the trailers and mobile
homes we bought have high levels of formaldehyde. A lot of them
do not, but some of them do.
The answer is to move people out of those as quickly as
possible, and we are doing that. Eight hundred to nine hundred
families a week are being moved out into either, first, hotels
and motels and then available apartments, as we find them. The
shortage of apartments is primarily a Mississippi issue. We are
finding more apartments in New Orleans and Louisiana than we
thought we would find. However, there is still a shortage of
affordable housing for people who were primarily renters before
Hurricane Katrina hit. That is the population right now that
seems to be the most vulnerable.
One of the reasons for the delay in the housing strategy is
because things have been changing so rapidly: The transitioning
of our long-term housing from FEMA, where it does not belong,
into HUD, where it does belong.
We have a new governor in Louisiana, and they have got a
different philosophy of how to work with us, and that is
starting to work extremely well.
The fact is that now we have the formaldehyde in travel
trailers and in some of the mobile homes.
So we are working with a housing strategy, and we should
have it out fairly soon. I have got some rough drafts, and we
sent it back a couple of times because I was not quite happy
with where we were with it. But it is coming, and we should
have it to you in a short manner.
The issues that we are dealing with are beyond FEMA's
control, and that is affordable housing in areas that have been
hit by this storm. The Louisiana-New Orleans area and
Mississippi, where the hurricane went through, there simply is
not enough affordable housing for the people that need them. It
is not within FEMA's authority, nor within its budget capacity,
to build affordable housing. That has to fall somewhere else.
However, we are not turning our backs on it. We are trying
to put people into housing as quickly as possible. We are
paying for it, and we are funding it, but we know that some of
the units we are putting people in, should FEMA walk away, they
would not be able to stay where they are; they could not afford
it. It is a long-term issue that requires a joint housing
authority that we have put together, working with the state,
working with the local community, working with HUD, and working
with other people to try to find a solution that, quite
frankly, there is not a simple answer for.
So that is kind of where we are. We are committed and are
moving very quickly to focus on several areas.
One, people who have health concerns or are at risk:
elderly, people very young, or people who have complained about
effects of formaldehyde in the trailers, or just the fact of
living in the trailers. Those are being moved out first.
The second group is the people who are in the group sites.
Those are the most vulnerable. Those are the ones who, almost
100 percent, were renters before. They cannot either move back
into their apartment that they had before because it has not
been rebuilt, or, in a lot of cases, they have been rebuilt,
but the monthly cost of that unit has raised so much, they can
no longer afford it.
Then, in the third group, is people who were renters but
are in mobile homes or travel trailers on private property.
And then the last group is going to be those who literally
have a travel trailer or mobile home backed up into the
driveway and are in the process of rebuilding their homes. That
group is going to be very difficult to move out. They are not
going to want to move. They are not going to leave their homes.
So that is the priority we have, and we are on track and
have a very rapid removal of people out of those trailers,
again, into hotels and motels first, and then they are there a
few weeks or so until we can find an apartment for them.
That is where we are. It is what it is. I think one of the
things that I have not said too much in the past but, I think,
needs to be said publicly: We bought travel trailers and mobile
homes in good faith from manufacturers. A lot of them,
particularly the mobile homes, were bought right off the lots.
The mobile home issue is larger than Katrina. There are some
eight million families living in these across the country, and
they are not any different than the ones FEMA has purchased.
So that is another issue that we are going to have to look
at, again, outside of FEMA's purview, but this whole process of
having travel trailers, finding a formaldehyde issue, finding
them in mobile homes is going to be a long-term issue that we
are going to have to look at as the federal government and as
the state government.
I am happy to tell you that we are now testing every mobile
home. We are no longer using travel trailers. We are testing
every mobile home before we give it out to states. The last
group that we just tested for the State of Oregon came in very,
very low on the formaldehyde level, so that is a good sign.
So, I think the manufacturers are recognizing that they
have an issue that they have to deal with also, but they need
to be partners with us. This is not something that should fall
in FEMA's lap alone.
AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE FOR THE REPAIR AND IMPROVEMENT OF MULTIFAMILY
RENTAL PROPERTIES
Mr. Price. On the issue of the authority which FEMA has,
there is a provision in the Post-Katrina Reform Act, which
expires at the end of this calendar year, that does allow you
to provide for the repair and improvement of multifamily rental
properties in disaster areas to increase the rental stock. Is
that an authority that you have utilized?
Mr. Paulison. No, sir, not yet. We have not done any of the
rebuilding itself. We feel like that is primarily a HUD issue.
We are working with them so that, as we transition people out
of these travel trailers into apartments, then we can
transition them into a HUD program to provide for rental
assistance, but we have not done any rebuilding of apartments.
Mr. Price. That was a grant of authority, though, with a
purpose. I think we would agree with you that the provision of
long-term, affordable-housing alternatives is a HUD
responsibility, but this is not an ordinary situation, and the
Congress has looked at it and has provided this authority
temporarily to FEMA. So it is puzzling that you would just
totally fail to act. I do not think it is just a negative grant
of authority. There is implied here a positive responsibility.
Mr. Paulison. It is my understanding that this authority
was not retroactive but a pilot program to start for future
disasters. I will look into that, Mr. Chair. If I am wrong with
that, then we will go back and look at that very carefully.
GULF COAST COORDINATION
Mr. Price. That is not our understanding, so we have----
Mr. Paulison. Again, that is my understanding now, and I
will go back and look at that. I am not adamant about it. That
is just what is my understanding now. I will look at that very
carefully.
Mr. Price. Can you be more precise about when we might
expect this report?
Mr. Paulison. I am sorry, sir.
Mr. Price. This report. You said you would get it moved
along.
Mr. Paulison. We are working on it very carefully. Again,
there have been several things, events, that have happened
along the way that have caused us to go back and relook at that
report as we are working on it.
I do not want to tell you two weeks or 30 days because I
want to make sure we get it right, but it will be coming out
shortly. I do have it in draft already, and I am making changes
to it as we move along and as we get new information.
But it should be out. It should not have been as long as it
is, but there have been reasons for that, not excuses, but some
reasons, and we will get that out as quickly as possible.
Mr. Price. We understand that the report is not just about
FEMA activity, but it requires some tracking of people and
families and some accounting of how other agencies have
performed and where these people have found housing where they
have transitioned, and to what extent the array of HUD programs
have been restored to their pre-Katrina levels.
So it is a cooperative venture, and, along those lines, I
know you are aware that the Gulf Coast coordinator has
resigned, and the budget for his office is a mere $291,000 for
Fiscal Year 2009. I wonder what that request means for the Gulf
Coast.
If you will remember, at last year's hearings, we had the
coordinator in here, and we talked a good deal about the
challenge of coordinating with your agency and other federal
agencies. Of course, that was a major part of the coordinator's
job. How does his departure affect that prospect of
coordination, and what are the implications for FEMA's future
role when it comes to such issues as the transition to non-FEMA
housing?
Mr. Paulison. Well, losing Gil Jamison is, obviously, a
loss for all of us. He did an outstanding job there. You are
talking about----
Mr. Price. I am sorry. I agree with you that the loss of
Gil Jamison is to be regretted. He did great work. But I am
talking about Donald Powell, the Gulf Coast coordinator.
Mr. Paulison. I am sorry. Yes. Chairman Powell was an asset
for us while he was down there. He is leaving, and I am
assuming they will replace him with someone. We have gotten
some very clear direction. We have a great relationship with
the governor and with the governor's staff. I do not see his
leaving as having an impact on us moving forward with what we
are going to do. His staff is still there. We work with them
very closely, and I do not see that having a major impact.
Mr. Price. Well, the office is basically being phased out.
The office was specifically charged with the kind of
interagency/interdepartmental coordination that we are talking
about here. That coordination still appears to be falling far
short, so it does appear to me, just on the face of it, that
the obligations falling on you are going to be even greater.
Mr. Paulison. The dynamics have changed in Louisiana. I had
a great relationship with Governor Blanco, but there is a new
staff there, a new philosophy of working together, a new
philosophy of cooperation, particularly with the parish
presidents, and we have better cooperation now, better working
together, and more meetings than we have ever had before.
I can predict that, in this next year, you are going to see
a lot more things fall in place faster than you have seen in
the past, particularly with the project worksheets,
particularly with some of the appeals processes, and how we can
make those move much quicker.
Mr. Price. Well, I want, in the second round, to continue
on this, particularly looking at the post-disaster mitigation
and the way that program is interacting with Road Home and
other efforts, but let me turn now to Mr. Rogers.
ROLE OF FEMA AND STATE AND LOCAL ROLES
Mr. Rogers. I think there is a big misunderstanding amongst
the public at large about the role of FEMA and the role of
state, city, and local governments, that Katrina exacerbated.
Tell us what is the role of--first, when a disaster occurs,
first what is the role of the city or the county or parish and
the state versus the federal FEMA relationship. How does that
work?
Mr. Paulison. All response is local and my fellow people
sitting here will tell you that our job, the state's job, and
the Federal Government's job is to make sure that they have the
things they need to do their job. The system that we used in
the past, for the last 30 years, of waiting for a local
community to become overwhelmed before the state steps in and
waiting for the state to become overwhelmed before the Federal
Government steps in does not work. We saw it at its worst
during Katrina. What we have to do and what we are doing now
and what FEMA's new philosophy is, the new culture is, is we
are going in as partners. And if you talk to the state, the
governors, the state emergency managers that have had disasters
these past 18 months or two years, they will tell you that FEMA
is there by their side, oftentimes even before the storm hits.
And if it is a tornado or--if it is not noticed, then shortly
thereafter, before they get a declaration.
We have better visibility of what the needs are going to
be. We have better communication than we have ever had. Our----
Mr. Rogers. You misunderstood my question. I want a simple
explanation of what it is that cities, counties, state, and
then federal, what is each of their responsibility when a
disaster occurs? Katrina was different. It overwhelmed
everybody at the outset. But for the normal disaster----
Mr. Paulison. The normal disaster, it is the local
responsibility to handle that disaster. If they become
overwhelmed, the state is there to supply resources and
personnel to help them and then the next step is for the
Federal Government to provide what they need that they do not
have, whether it is money, whether it is communication's
equipment, whether it is any type--food, water, those type of
things. But, it all boils down to the local community managing
that disaster.
Mr. Rogers. Then we have the Katrina type of disaster, the
one that overwhelms the local and state at the outset. How does
your role differ in that kind of a disaster?
Mr. Paulison. The role, itself, does not differ. Our level
of participation does differ. We still do not go in and take
over. We do not take over a local community and we do not take
over for the state. We work with them to--again, the needs are
going to be much, much greater than they were if it is just a
local disaster. But, if it is a big event, it is going to be
bringing in the military. It is going to be bringing in some of
our big contracts that we have, that we will talk about later I
am sure, ambulance contracts, bus contracts, airframe contracts
to transport people that they do not have the resources to do.
But, the roles stay the same and that is why it was so
important, as Matt Jadacki pointed out, that the response
framework get out, so that people understand how that fits
together and how we work together. And my two colleagues can
correct me, if they do not agree with me, but still it is the
responsibility of that local government to manage those
resources and for the state and us to make sure they have what
they need to do it.
Mr. Rogers. Well, that is where all the manpower is. The
local police, the local fire departments, the local first
responders of all sorts, the state police, the national guard
that the governors control, all of that massive amount of
manpower is local. You do not control those people.
Mr. Paulison. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Rogers. In fact, you have relatively few people, if you
want to count it in that regard, do you?
Mr. Paulison. We have the ability to bring people in to
assist them through mission assignments, the EMAC system, as
you heard them talk about, where they get assistance from other
states. All of that rolls in, but it primarily goes to support
that local government.
LOGISTICS
Mr. Rogers. Well, perhaps the biggest thing that you can
add to the help that a community needs is logistics, supplying
of material, food stuff, and recovery material. In fact, one of
the areas that FEMA was most criticized out of Katrina was
logistics management or the lack of it. As reported by the GAO,
FEMA could not maintain visibility over relief supplies from
order through delivery. They were unable to accurately
identify, dispatch, track, and record available critical
resources.
But, you have made a lot of headway, I think, in that
regard. Tell us what is going with I think probably your main
mission and that is logistics help for a local community.
Mr. Paulison. I think, first of all, the GAO report was
right on target and what you just said is accurate, also. We
have made significant changes in what we are doing with
logistics. We are bringing logistics into the twenty-first
century. We have a loaned executive from UPS working with us.
We work with people at Wal-Mart and others on how they do
logistics. So, it is a combination of having our own supplies,
having contracts in place, and having what we call 3PL, third-
party logistics, and also bringing in experts. Eric Smith, we
stole from the Defense Logistics Agency to run our logistics
division. I took logistics and raised it from a branch to a
division where it reports directly to me, to make it more
important and more visible in the organization, because, Mr.
Rogers, what you are saying is right on target. That is a big
key on how FEMA is going to be perceived to perform by the
locals and by the states and how it actually performs. Are we
going to have a modern logistics system that operates in a
business-like manner? That is what we are doing.
Mr. Rogers. Well, you have partnered with the Defense
Logistics Agency. What is that?
Mr. Paulison. We do partner with them to----
Mr. Rogers. What is that?
Mr. Paulison. Defense Logistics Agency is the agency that
does all logistics for the military and they are the experts in
the world on moving stuff from here to there.
Mr. Rogers. So, you have formed a partnership with DLA?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Defense Department. You created a logistics
directorate. What is that?
Mr. Paulison. The logistics was inside of operations,
buried down in the organization. I created an entire division
that reports directly to me, to raise the visibility of that in
the organization and raise the importance of it in the
organization. I turned around and hired one of the top experts
in the country to come in to run it and he, in turn, is
bringing in experts from around the country to run it, not only
here, but also out in the regions, to make sure that we have a
professional organization that is filled with people, who have
years of experience of dealing with logistics in a modern
society.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION PARTNERSHIP
Mr. Rogers. In your work, you apparently have partnered
with the Department of Transportation to improve emergency
transportation services and evacuations. Tell us about that.
Mr. Paulison. There are several mission assignment
capabilities we have and prescripted missions assignments with
the Department of Transportation, with the military, to provide
airframe service, ground transportation, and we have all of
those contracts in place ahead of time, instead of waiting for
a disaster to happen and then trying to put them in place,
where we end up with contracts like we had with Katrina, where
it was not well thought out. We did not have time to sit down
and negotiate with them. You just paid whatever they asked, and
we saw what came out of that. So, FEMA has those prescripted
mission assignments with, I think, 27 different federal
agencies. FEMA had, I think, four or five prescripted mission
assignments. We now have over 100 with all these different
private and public and federal agencies to provide those types
of services that you are talking about.
Mr. Rogers. Well, now, you have had several disasters since
Katrina, of course. Have you utilized these new procedures and
partnerships that you formed, have you utilized those in any of
these disasters since then?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir, almost every one of them. The one
we probably used it for the most was when hurricane Dean, a
category five storm, was predicted to come into Texas. There is
a group of people along the Texas border called colonists, and
pretty much they are squatters--Mr. Carter knows what they
are--it is 400,000 of them along the border and there was a
potential to have to evacuate 150,000. We used those
prescripted mission assignments prior to a presidential
declaration to amass hundreds of buses, hundreds of ambulances,
six urban search and rescue teams, supplies. We set up the
military with airframe to help transport these people and
people with medical needs, like nursing homes. All those were
in place prior to the storm hitting. Now, lucky for us, the
storm turned and went into Mexico. But, those things were in
place and all of those prescripted mission assignments that you
just mentioned allowed us to do that. We did not have the
capability of doing that prior to Katrina.
Mr. Rogers. Now, you maintain that states and localities
are responsible for being relatively self-sufficient for the
first 72 hours after an onset of a disaster. Is that accurate?
Is that correct?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir, that is correct.
LOGISTICS SUPPLIES
Mr. Rogers. Now, do you stockpile supplies or do you make
arrangements for them to be supplied by contract?
Mr. Paulison. We do both. We have logistic supplies around
the country strategically located. We, also, have contracts in
place with people like the Defense Logistics Agency, which has
three million MREs they hold for us and other companies across,
private and public, to provide the supplies. So, we do both. We
can either use our supplies, if they are close, or we can use
somebody else's.
Mr. Rogers. So, you have emergency supplies stockpiled
today?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. In places where you anticipate disasters?
Mr. Paulison. That is correct.
Mr. Rogers. Like where?
Mr. Paulison. We have them in Texas. We have them in New
York. We have them in California. I think there are probably 15
supply depots around here. How many?
Male Voice. Sir, we have eight total.
Mr. Paulison. Eight total, I am sorry, eight total around
the country.
Mr. Rogers. And those are stockpiled right now?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. They are ready to be delivered immediately?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Now what should local communities do for this
72 hours that you are saying to them, you are on your own until
we can get there? What should they be stockpiling or doing in
preparation?
Mr. Paulison. They should have enough items in place--there
are two things and I am sorry that I answer longer--sometimes I
give you a longer answer than you want. One is make sure that
the public takes personal responsibility for having--be able to
take care of themselves and their family for three days and
they should have supplies, also, in place, in case we cannot
get there if something happens. But what we have done in these
last two years is changed the philosophy of how FEMA is going
to respond. We are moving in quickly and it has been very
subtle and it has been 72 hours. In several instances, we have
moved supplies and equipment and people into the state prior to
presidential declaration. We started moving them early. So when
the governor asks for those supplies, most of the time in the
last 18 months, particularly, they have been there waiting for
them. We did that in Kansas City, with Greensburg, Kansas. We
did it in the California wildfires. We did it in Texas. We just
did it recently with the tornados we had in the Gulf Coast.
But, it is the locals and the states that both need to take
care--have supplies in place to take care of themselves for a
few days, in case we cannot move quickly.
Mr. Rogers. So, they need to stockpile meals ready to eat,
water, basic medical supplies for themselves?
Mr. Paulison. That would be my recommendation, yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. But, now, I understand that your regulations
prohibit states and municipalities from allocating federal
Homeland Security grant monies to procure those stockpile
provisions. Is that correct?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. How come?
Mr. Paulison. That is just the way the regulation is
written.
Mr. Rogers. Yes, I understand that. But why are they
written that way?
Mr. Paulison. I do not have an answer for you right now,
sir.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we are looking for an answer.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir. I will get you one.
Mr. Rogers. You are the man.
Mr. Paulison. I know.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we need to know why we are balancing that
72-hour critical period of time against when you can get there
and why they cannot use the grant monies they receive to buy
supplies to stockpile for that emergency.
Mr. Paulison. My grant manager just told me that the way
the grants are written is those grants are for protection and
prevention, not for response and recovery.
Mr. Rogers. Well, that is something we need to look at.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mrs. Lowey.
FEMA PROGRESS
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again
for your presentation. And before I get to my questions, I want
to give my answer from Westchester community to the topic of
the hearing. Last April, my district was devastated by
widespread flooding following a nor'easter, and Director
Paulison toured the affected area with Senator Clinton and
myself and a disaster declaration was issued. So, while this is
an example of successful response, I do agree that there are
problems that do remain. However, my view is the view of the
first responders in my district, is that while there is much
that remains to be accomplished, FEMA certainly is in better
shape today than it was on Director Paulison's first day of the
job and I, personally, want to thank you.
INTERIM FINAL RULE MODIFYING ADMINISTRATIVE ALLOWANCE
I do want to bring an important issue to our attention. In
November, FEMA published an interim final rule, which modified
the distribution of the administrative allowance. John Gibb,
the director of New York State Emergency Management Office
estimates that this would cost New York six million dollars in
state management administrative costs per disaster declaration.
Last year, there were four presidentially declared disasters in
New York, meaning that the change could cost the state 24
million dollars each year, and this is happening at the same
time that FEMA is proposing to cut the emergency management
performance grant by 100 million dollars. I think we all agree
that we want as many dollars as possible to go to the recovery
programs. But, it is crucial that states have the ability to
properly manage the funds and further limitation would
eliminate management staff, leave the state, local governments,
and non-for-profits without the necessary support to manage the
disaster declaration requirements and responsibilities. So, I
am recommending that our subcommittee examine this issue and
consider taking action.
Director Paulison, could you tell me why FEMA published the
interim final rule, given that this idea was proposed in 2002
and then withdrawn after it was widely criticized at the time?
And, Mr. Miller or Mr. Gispert, will the rule have a harmful
effect on the ability of state and local governments to respond
to disasters? Mr. Paulison.
Mr. Paulison. I will give you the short answer. We feel
like the rule is going to cover the management costs that are
needed. We feel like the dollars would be the same. However,
the rule is out for review and we are open to comments from
state and local governments on how this would have an impact on
them. Craig Fugate, the state emergency manager for Florida,
headed up that committee and we heard him say very clearly that
state emergency management, you have to tell us and show us if
this is going to cost you money, so we can submit comments. So,
we are--it is out for comment. We are waiting for those
comments to come in. I think they had 90 days. I am not sure
where we are in that process right now. But, we are open to
that.
Mrs. Lowey. I appreciate that you are open and after Mr.
Miller and Mr. Gispert comment, I am just curious after all the
criticism why you did it again. Is there additional information
that proves otherwise?
Mr. Paulison. Again, we feel like the interim rule we put
out is fair. It gives certain percentages for management costs.
It is right around three-and-a-half percent. There are a couple
of different variables in there. And for the public assistance,
it is over four percent. We feel like that is enough of a
percentage to cover the cost of managing the disasters. Again,
it is open for comment.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, ma'am. When we discussed this as
NEMA, I think a couple of things have come to bear. We felt
that the rulemaking process was stale. There was an action a
number of years ago when the rule first came out to interact
with NEMA and members of NEMA and I sat on one of those
committees to study what management cost should be, to try to
collect the data about how disasters were managed and submit
that and share that information with FEMA and establish an
adequate rate. Many of us feel that the current rate is not
adequate to manage disasters. It will impair our ability to do
so. We felt that even that data that we gathered a number of
years ago has become stale in the new environment of FEMA. It
is something that we want to re-engage and we encourage the
rescinding of the current rule and, frankly, going through a
new rulemaking process that allows us to gather the data and
information to support a firm decision on what true management
cost should be.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you. Mr. Gispert.
Mr. Gispert. We stand in support with our friends at the
state. It does cost money to manage these things. It is hard to
put an exact costing on it. We are often putting local monies
up against in salaries and time spent. We want a fair return
for the fact that it took us time, effort, and manpower to
manage the disasters and the disaster funds. And we, also,
support that wipe the rule out, redo it, and let us see what it
actually costs and then put it into effect and get the actual
transactions going.
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE GRANTS
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Miller and Mr. Gispert both mentioned
problems with the fiscal year 2008 EMPG grant guidance and the
statements, particularly the requirement that 25 percent of an
award must be used for planning purposes. I understand the
importance of having thorough plans, but in many areas, these
plans already exist. And I recently sent a survey to first
responder chiefs in my district, nearly all responded that they
felt confident that the department, municipality, county, and
state had good plans in place, but the vast majority said that
they needed additional resources to exercise those plans. So, I
support the ability of the department to focus on certain
priorities, but local emergency managers are the only ones who
know their needs. So, Director Paulison, why is the planning
requirement in the fiscal year 2008 EMPG guidance?
Mr. Paulison. When we did our GAP analysis of the hurricane
prone states last year, it became apparent that--and we are now
in the process of putting this across the rest of the states--
it became apparent that there is a significant lack of planning
across this country. So, we put that guidance in there, because
people kept saying they did not have the money for planning.
So, now we have made it available to them.
However, this is a state-wide requirement. If there is a
particular community that has a good set of plans in place,
they do not have to spend that 25 percent, as long as it is
spent 25 percent state-wide. And we are giving the regional
director, who approves this planning process, a lot of leeway
in determining what is actually planning. So, we are trying to
keep it as flexible as possible, but at the same time making it
very clear that one of our priorities is making sure the state
and local communities have rock solid plans in place.
The GAP analysis we are using came out of New York for Joe
Bruno, working with him to put this GAP analysis system in
place. And it raised a lot of issues, as we went from state to
state, to talk about do you have evacuation plans in place, do
you have shelter plans in place, what are you going to do with
pets, where are you going to house people if you lose a lot of
housing, what about the food supplies, what are you going to do
with people in nursing homes? So, there is a lot of things out
there that people do not necessarily think about unless they
literally sit down and do a very thorough planning process with
the guidelines that we are giving them. So, that is why we did
that.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Miller. Mr. Gispert.
Mr. Price. Just very quickly. The time for----
Mrs. Lowey. Oh, okay.
Mr. Price [continuing]. The gentlewoman has expired. But,
please respond quickly.
Mr. Gispert. Congresswoman Lowey, we do planning at the
local level all the time. What the chief was talking about,
primarily, we are focusing in on catastrophic planning. When
they were talking about evacuation, they were talking about
evacuating the entire citizens of an entire county. We kept
coming back to them and saying we do not contemplate ever
having to do that. In other words, my county is 1.2 million
people. Unless I know that there is going to be a comet that is
going to hit Tampa Bay, I am not ever going to evacuate totally
1.2 million people.
The reason that we balked at the 25 percent was the EMPG
works because the original guidance from the framework was very
broad. It gave you some very broad categories. Use this money
and this will increase the capacity. We like to keep that
guidance as broad as possible. But by the way, every year we
get EMPG, we do not get it for free. Our state partners come
down and say here is a scope of work. You will do this item,
this item, this item, that item for the grant monies and there
is always planning issues in there. Special needs may be one.
Pet evacuation may be the other. So, we are doing the planning.
We just do not want it wired into a certain percentage, because
it takes away the flexibility.
Mr. Miller. We concur with Larry. The issue is frankly not
always the 25 percent. As Larry said, many of us are engaged in
planning on a daily basis. We see it as a process. It is
something that we continue to invest in. It is something we
emphasize to local governments and work with our state partners
on. The question is one about the flexibility of the use of
limited funds. And what we feel is that begins to stovepipe
those funds and disallow states and local governments the
flexibility they need to target those resources on what their
highest priorities are.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Carter.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I think they just
called a vote, so I will move as fast as I can.
Mr. Price. I believe with reasonable restraint, we can get
you and the vote both in.
FEMA STAFFING TURNOVER
Mr. Carter. Well, I heard something that bothered me and I
would like to know from Mr. Jadacki, when you mentioned
staffing, you said in a turnover rife environment. I would like
to know what that turnover rife environment is and why it is a
turnover rife environment. The CFO is leaving. I am reading an
article about multiple people leaving, Tina Burnett, the Office
of Management and Acquisition, Tony Cira, Deidre Lee. And as we
have heard testimony from this department, it just seems like
the door opens, one walks in, and then before you know it they
are slamming the door and walking out. What is the turnover
rife environment and why is it--or, in your opinion, how is it
created?
Mr. Jadacki. Well, I think it is a couple of things. One is
that the number of senior folks in FEMA are starting to age
now, so there is a natural attrition because of retirement and
better opportunities on the outside. But what is troubling is
the fact that we have seen a number of people either announcing
or leaving in the last couple of months in senior level
positions. And I continue to harp on the fact that you have all
of these great plans, you have these programmatic reviews and
all that stuff, but the behind-the-scenes people are people
that have to do the work. They have to get the acquisitions in
place. They have to do the accounting, the financial
management, those types of things, human resources. Those are
the types of people that hold--they are the glue that holds the
whole organization together.
So, when I see a lot of those folks leaving, in some cases,
over a short period of time, it does become problematic. So,
there are a number of reasons like that. It is a very difficult
environment. I have worked for a number of years at FEMA, both
on the Inspector General side and for a stint at the Chief
Financial Officer side. It is a very difficult environment.
Overall, I find the people that work there are very dedicated
and loyal and they know the work real well. But, on the other
hand, it is a very troubling environment sometimes, especially
when there are major disasters and a lot of uncertainties,
reorganizations, and those types of things that have been going
on over the past couple of years since Katrina.
Mr. Paulison. Mr. Carter, we have no senior career people
positions that are open. They are all filled. And, in fact, we
just had a Region VIII director leave, which is a political,
and even with only nine months left, I was able to fill that
with a rock solid person, or it is in the process of being
filled. We have not announced it yet. So, we do have people
that are retiring. I cannot stop them from doing that and I
cannot stop people from taking much more lucrative jobs
sometimes, like Tony Cira, who was highly sought after in the
private sector, moving to California. I think he went to work
for Lockheed. But, I cannot stop that from happening. But what
I can tell you is all of our senior career positions are filled
and as soon as people left, I filled them right away. We have
more people in FEMA than we have ever had in the history of the
organization. We reached like--as Mr. Price said, we reached
almost 97 percent of our fill rate and now that we have new
positions, I feel like I have proven I can fill those
positions. And this committee had enough faith in me to give
them to me and we will get them filled.
Mr. Carter. And I agree with you, you have filled the
positions. But, you will agree with me that as we have sat in
these hearings, we have heard just about a whole lot of people
that are leaving FEMA all the time. And I was wondering if
there is something that we are doing or somebody else is doing
that is creating such a stressful environment that someone like
Deidre would come in, in 2006, and be gone in 2008, come in
highly touted. And I do not know the lady from the backside of
the moon. But, I am just saying that is what they reported in
this article, that she was hard to replace, but yet she came in
2006, left in 2008. We used to draft people in the army for
longer than that. So, it kind of makes you concerned about
whether the operations--there is something we are creating in
that environment. And if there is, we need to fix it. That was
my only issue.
Mr. Paulison. And I do not think so. I know Mr. Price is
ready to go, but I see--the morale inside my staff is very
high. We work hard, put in long hours, and Deidre Lee was
putting in a lot of long hours and she was eligible for
retirement and she took that.
Mr. Carter. Well, you have a tough job. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
FORMALDEHYDE
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Mr. Paulison, I would like to go back to
the formaldehyde trailer crisis. On February 14, two-and-a-half
years after the first trailer occupants began reporting
breathing difficulties, headaches, nosebleeds, and almost two
years after the Sierra Club began warning about formaldehyde
levels in trailers, you issued this statement, ``I think we
have moved very quickly based on what we knew. We did the best
we could do with the information we had.'' Given the
seriousness of the problem, why did it take two-and-a-half
years from the first report to address this public health
problem? In other words, what were the obstacles that you faced
that made a two-and-a-half year delay ``the best that you could
do''?
Mr. Paulison. I do not think we made it two-and-a-half
years to do anything. But, there were several obstacles in
place and, I mean, I am glad you asked that question. One, we
were getting trickling reports in. Again, if you look at things
in the rearview mirror, there is a pattern there, there is no
question about it. But, at the time, just getting trickling
reports in of people complaining about certain things, we did
not recognize we had a major problem. If you look back now,
obviously, it is very clear.
But just getting someone to tell me what is a safe level,
is it zero or is it one part per million, you know, we still do
not have a standard for that. I am testing trailers or mobile
homes now, new ones that we are going to put in place, and all
I can do is tell the state what the levels are. There is no
standard out there that I can tell that state that this is
guaranteed a safe mobile for you to move in. Now, they did test
very low, much lower than we actually thought they were going
to test. So, I am comfortable that they are.
But, scientifically, I cannot do that. We brought in CDC.
We brought in HUD. We brought in everyone we could think of to
help us with this issue. We immediately started moving people
out. We have been very aggressive with that, regardless of what
the tests were. Even before we had CDC testing, my goal was to
get people out of those group sites. Nobody in their wildest
imagination thought that people were going to be in these
travel trailers as long as they have been there. Those are not
good places to stay for a long period of time. We know that.
The people living there know that. I have been in them with
them. So, we have been moving very aggressively to get those
people out of there. So, regardless of whether we have
formaldehyde or not, we have been moving to do that. So, we
have not stopped trying to get people into some better housing
than what we have been providing to them.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Let me ask, is this, in part, a problem
that you are facing because FEMA--does not have a public health
focus, that it is more constrained now since it has been placed
under Homeland Security? Because, I understand what you are
saying, but at least based on the reports that I have seen,
that it took a federal judge to order FEMA to have CDC to do
this testing. It was not something that you responded to on
your own. I am not trying to put you on the spot on this, I am
simply trying to understand if having FEMA under Homeland
Security `which has a different focus' has taken the focus away
from responding to the health issues that are raised many times
by disasters and is that something that we, as a committee,
have to look at?
Mr. Paulison. And I do not think so. I know we get a lot of
questions about being inside of Homeland Security. But the fact
that Homeland Security does have a health office now, with Dr.
Runge, has helped me tremendously and one with his contacts in
the CDC and knowing the people there, that has really been an
assist for me, to be able to understand the whole formaldehyde
issue, what is it, what are the causes. I mean----
Ms. Roybal-Allard. But why did it take a federal judge,
then, to order FEMA----
Mr. Paulison. We were not waiting for a federal judge to do
testing. We were waiting--what we were doing was setting up
what are we going to test to. I mean, what does a test mean
once we get it and that is why we brought in CDC to do that. We
did not need a federal judge to tell us to do that. He may have
preempted us, but----
Ms. Roybal-Allard. My understanding of the testing that you
did make initially was on unoccupied trailers, trailers that
had been aired for some time. The testing was not done on
trailers that had an environment where people were living.
That, in itself, is questionable and the logical thing would
have been to immediately ask CDC, which has that
responsibility, to do the testing. So, it is concerning that
CDC did not come into play until a federal judge actually
ordered you to have them do the test.
Mr. Paulison. And, again, I am not aware of any federal
order for us to do the testing that we did. I do not think we
are under any order to do testing.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. That was in the report and I would be
happy to get any information that you have.
Mr. Paulison. And even CDC testified at a meeting a week
before last that they should have moved much more quickly. They
did not understand the issue either and they had a lot of other
things on their plate. Again, in hindsight, this is--yes,
maybe--no maybe, we could have, should have moved much faster
than what we did.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Like I said, I am not trying to put you
on the spot. I am just trying to identify----
Mr. Paulison. I know you are not.
Ms. Roybal-Allard [continuing]. Where the breakdown was,
whether FEMA, CDC, so that we can fix it, so that we do not put
people in danger. That is all I am trying to find out, where
was the breakdown and what needs to be fixed, so this does not
happen again.
Mr. Paulison. I think the--and, again, I am not sure--I
think we just did not recognize early on that we had a wide
scale problem. You know, we had onesies and twosies and things
like that and when people complained, we moved them out. We are
not recognizing we had such a huge issue as we did. And even
when CDC tested the first 500 hundred trailers last month, most
of them came in fairly low. It was only a handful that came in
high. But, regardless of that, we are not making any
distinctions. We are moving everybody out as quickly as
possible. And I am not being defensive. I know you are not
putting me on the spot. There are issues that we--I think this
whole process with the formaldehyde is going to create
something we have not had in this country before and that is a
standard air quality standard in our homes, that we have to
go--because we simply have not had that before.
Mr. Price. I am going to have to call a recess because of
the votes on the floor. We will return as quickly as we can.
[Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.]
Mr. Price. Subcommittee will resume. We apologize for the
disruption, but Mr. Rogers and I will have a final round of
questions. Mr. Paulison and all of you, thank you for your
indulgence.
POST-DISASTER MITIGATION
Mr. Paulison, I want to turn to you again and, as promised,
raise the issue of post-disaster mitigation. This is a program
of FEMA that I have had a good deal of personal experience with
in my home state and it is one that I believe is very sound and
one that needs to be applied and not be folded into other
programs, but that it be implemented in a way that it was
intended. That is not to say it has worked very well on the
Gulf Coast, although I hope there is some progress to report
today. In the fiscal 2008 House report, we noted that FEMA had
only obligated 42 million of the 1.9 billion dollars available
to the states of Louisiana and Mississippi for post-disaster
mitigation. I wonder what kind of progress you have made since
then.
We did require another report on this and the report was
due 30 days after the enactment of the omnibus bill. And so
there, too, we are wondering when that information will be
available. It should not be a very complicated report. We did
ask for a couple of things, though. We asked for an update on
the obligation of these funds. But, we, also, asked for your
candid assessment of why this had been an apparently difficult
program to implement in the post-Katrina environment. Plus, it
has been underutilized. I do not think we can dispute that.
And, yet, this is critical assistance. This is very sound, I
think, to give communities after a disaster a strong incentive
to build back in a more sensible way.
It, also, is a program that covers neighborhoods. It covers
whole areas. So, it gives assurance to individuals that they
are not just on their own out there. But, if they are thinking
of buying or renovating or repairing a home, it gives them some
assurance that the surrounding neighborhood will be restored.
So, we did ask you for this report. I wonder what you have
to offer us today. But, we do look for a more formal report and
would like to know when that will be coming. I want to ask you,
though, how much has been obligated to date. I want to know
what you have to say about the integration of the Hazard
Mitigation program, the post-disaster mitigation program, with
the Road Home program in Louisiana. Some suggested at certain
points that we just throw all the money in one pot. We resisted
that, as you know, because we thought that the kind of
standards to which dwellings would be built, the kind of
planning that post-disaster mitigation encourages, that that
was something that should not be sacrificed. But, clearly,
there has been some confusion and efforts should be
complementary have not always been that way. So, I would like
your evaluation of that. And then I do understand you have
changed policies to some degree, to allow payment for
mitigation activities already begun by homeowners. So, I would
like to have you comment on that, as well, and where that
partly accounts for whatever progress you have made in
obligating these funds.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you. I was not aware we were behind in
that report. So, I will follow-up on that as soon as I get back
to the office today, make sure you get that. It should not be a
difficult report to give you those numbers and I will make sure
you get those.
Mr. Price. We are, however, looking for the kind of
assessment that I mentioned, as well as the numbers.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Price. But, I still think it should be fairly
straightforward.
Mr. Paulison. It should be, that is correct, yes, sir.
Tying the post-disaster hazard mitigation funds to the Road
Home program created some obstacles for us, as far as getting
those monies out the door. We were very firm in supporting what
you just said, what those dollars are to be used for. And with
the initial proposal with the Road Home program, we did not
have assurances that that was going to happen. The new
governor, my understanding, after having a conversation with
him, says that they are going to separate those back out. We
expect those dollars to start flowing much more rapidly now
than we have seen in the past. And I do not have those numbers
in front of me. We will get those to you very quickly.
So, we feel like this is going to move much smoother. It is
going to be much more quickly. There was a different philosophy
between the two governors on the things that they wanted to put
in place, as far as accountability. The new governor still
holds people accountable, but they are not holding things up,
as much as it was in the past. So, we think we are going to
move much faster, much smoother. We are excited about the new
philosophy. We think this is going to work. Again, get those
dollars out the door. And I will get those numbers to you. I
just do not have them in front of me, sir.
[The information follows:]
Specific funding numbers relating to post-disaster hazard
mitigation funds and the Road Home program, including how the funds are
``flowing'' i.e. disbursed:
The total amount of HMGP funds available to the State of Louisiana
as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Rita is $1.47 billion. As of April
1, 2008 FEMA had obligated approximately $104 million in federal funds
(DR1603--$68,547,308, DR1607--$35,273,366). The current deadline for
the State to submit applications for all HMGP funds is September 1,
2008.
In October of 2007, FEMA approved the State's initial application
to use HMGP funds to elevate residential structures as a complement to
the State's Road Home program. Since that time FEMA and the State have
been working closely together to develop a streamlined and efficient
process to implement this project. Although the State is re-evaluating
the budget for this project, currently $1.1 billion in HMGP funds is
set aside for this purpose. FEMA anticipates significant progress in
the coming weeks.
Mr. Price. All right. We do want to track this carefully--
--
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Price [continuing]. Because it is a program we believe
in and one that we think has a great deal to offer still to the
Gulf Coast area and one that has been seriously, seriously
underutilized.
PRE-POSITIONING EQUIPMENT
Mr. Paulison. We are on the same page with you. These are
important dollars that can have a significant impact on the
future of that whole community.
Mr. Price. Now, let me move ahead to the question of how
FEMA leans forward before disasters. There has been much
discussion, some fanfare from FEMA about the pre-positioning of
equipment or the leaning forward of FEMA prior to disasters.
This policy, of course, was in part a reaction to Katrina, what
we saw there. The agency has tried to make the necessary
corrections. I guess my question is have you over corrected or
is there some danger of over correcting the problem?
There are unsubstantiated reports that as much as 200
million dollar was spent on Hurricane Dean, a hurricane that
never landed on U.S. soil. Staff has asked how much Hurricane
Dean cost and has been unable to find out from your agency. So,
I wonder if you would give us a definite figure today,
hopefully. If not today, then for the record, on how much FEMA
spent on leaning forward for Dean. And I want to know whether
FEMA employs a cost benefit process to determine how much
investment in leaning forward is reasonable. Can you describe
that process and can you give us an assessment of whether we
have reached the kind of balance that we need to reach, in
terms of a reasonable pre-positioning, reasonable policy of
leaning forward, as opposed to redundant efforts or efforts
that just are not cost-effective?
Mr. Paulison. Thank you. Those are some of the same issues
that we are looking at. I think we have reached a balance. We
did spend a lot of money on Hurricane Dean. But considering the
threat to loss of life, we made Katrina pale, compared to what
the threat really was. Had a hurricane five storm, that Dean
was at that time, moved into that area, right along the Rio
Grande in the Brownsville area, it would have been significant.
So we did spend a lot of money. It was not $200 million. I
think we are in the range of around $50 million. But I will get
you the exact numbers, and there is no reason you should not
have those.
We did spend a lot of money on pre-positioning buses with
drivers. We spent money putting ambulances down there. We spent
money having airplanes to move people who are invalid out of
nursing homes. We pre-positioned urban search and rescue teams.
At that particular point, the hurricane center was fairly
confident that this was going to go into that Southeast Texas
area. So we did take a lot of precautions. I was not going to
let another Katrina happen on my watch.
However, the leaning forward that we have been doing since
then has been a little more modest. In moving people into the
state emergency management centers, we have very good
visibility on what their needs are; holding the video
conferences with sometimes 50 to 60 people on there, giving us
an update on exactly what is happening on the ground, what the
needs are; moving those supplies in early; moving things in
early.
I believe it was in Missouri. I believe we moved generators
in before the Governor asked for them, because we knew they
were going to be needed. There were not many people without
power.
We moved communications equipment in. We moved that in
early. When the Governor did ask for declaration, those things
were already there.
I am going to continue to do that. It does cost money to do
that. But I firmly believe that going in as a partnership, with
the local and the state community is much more effective, it
protects more property. It protects more lives than if we wait
for that sequential failure that I talked about earlier.
So it is a new culture for us. It is the new paradigm
shift, if you will, on how I think this agency should respond
to state and local governments. We are going to spend more
money than we did in the past. But we are not going to have
another Katrina, either.
Mr. Price. Mr. Jadacki, have you looked at this issue at
all?
Mr. Jadacki. We are in the process of reviewing some of the
activity in the Disaster Relief Fund right now, and we are
collecting the information.
You know, over the years, FEMA has had the ability, and
they have done it using what they call their surge account.
When disasters are imminent or ready to strike, and you know
there is going to be some sort of a declaration, either
emergency or Presidential declaration, then those costs are
usually covered by that.
The concern I have though, from being involved in FEMA for
a number of years in oversight, is that different states
varied; and Mr. Paulison talked about that before, using the
GAAP analysis for Hurricanes and those types of things.
You know, to blanketly provide all those resources to every
single state as if they are all even, may be a different story.
Some states maybe have a robust emergency management system,
where they have contracts in place and those types of things
ready to go, and you hate to see the Government come in and
sort of take over those contractual agreements and upset some
of the vendors that they have had on standby.
So the concern I have is that if we are treating every
single state the same way, that would be an issue. But to get
back to your question as far as what these pre-deployments or
these leaning forward things are costing, we are in the process
of looking at that right now.
Mr. Paulison. I just got a note from my financial manager.
It said we spent $40 million on Hurricane Dean.
Mr. Price. $40 million--that is considerably a variance
from estimates others have made.
Mr. Paulison. Yes.
Mr. Price. So maybe for the record you could help us
reconcile.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir, I will say for the record, we spent
$40 million.
Mr. Price. All right; Mr. Rogers.
FEMA VISION
Mr. Rogers. The 2009 budget request, Chief, includes an
increase of $64.5 million for what is called the FEMA Vision
Initiative. Including the 2009 request, a total of $187.4
million is devoted to the FEMA Vision Initiative over the last
couple or three years.
It is unclear to me just what that means, and what the
specific goals of what you are asking the money for. It is
unclear to me where the FEMA Vision Initiative meets clearly
defined steady-state capability, consistent with the
requirements of the post-Katrina Act. Can you help us out with
that?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir, I can; and I can give you a list of
everything we are spending for our FEMA Vision.
There has been a consistent theme with the Government
Accountability Office and the IG's Office on things that are
broken at FEMA. The reports that come out really just codify
what I see, as far as what I can get out of FEMA's systems and
what I cannot get out of FEMA's systems.
Our financial accountability system, our procedures, the IT
system, are terribly broken. They have got to be re-built. Our
facilities, we are way behind in upgrading our facilities and
also providing space for the new people we are hiring.
Our disaster operations, the National Response
Communications Center, is being set up to operate 24/7, so I
can have better visibility of what is happening around this
country.
The regional offices are being set up 24/7. Our incident
management teams that were put into place are ones that will
give us a defined workforce that responds to disasters, instead
of pulling people out of offices and shutting down FEMA while
we respond to disasters.
Our logistics that we have talked about--bringing in
professionals, having the right amount of people in there,
having operational planners to work in there; our disaster
assistance program, where we can provide a better way of
providing and individual assistance; our Chief Financial
Officer, giving them the tools so that when we have a GAO audit
again next year, we will not have these deficiencies that you
saw, and the deficiencies that the GAO pointed out are right on
target. They are absolutely correct. But we need to fix those,
and I cannot fix those without the dollars. A couple of the
General Counsel management positions, bringing in better people
into management, so we have oversight of what we are doing.
Those are the items for the FEMA vision, and I will give you a
list of those in the questions for the record, if you would
like.
We are very clear on where we are going. We have a good
plan in place. This 2009 budget, I feel, will really put this
organization on the right track, as we transition into the next
administration and give it the leg up that it needs, so it will
continue on.
What I do not want to do is to have the things that we have
put in place to fall by the wayside; and I feel like this 2009
budget that we have put in front of you will help us do that.
IMAT
Mr. Rogers. Now last year, you told us that you were
building a 24/7 incident management capability. Tell us how far
you have come with that.
Mr. Paulison. This year, we have one national incident
management team and one regional incident management. By the
end of this year, we will have four regional teams and two
national teams that respond. Those will be operating 24/7.
Again, our communications center, which is the hub of FEMA,
is already operating 24/7; and we are setting up regional
office centers to operate 24/7 also.
Mr. Rogers. What are those teams?
Mr. Paulison. The incident management teams are teams that
will respond out to disasters. They will be trained to do that.
They will be trained in incident command. They will be trained
in all of our FEMA programs to work with the state and local
communities to help them set up a system of how we are going to
work with them to manage that disaster.
They will move quickly. It will have to move within four
hours, and be on the ground within 12 hours, anywhere in the
Continental United States.
Mr. Rogers. How large are those teams?
Mr. Paulison. Again, help me out, guys. I think the
regional teams are 15 and the national team is 23.
NATIONAL INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (NIMS)
Mr. Rogers. Now you already used the National Incident
Management System [NIMS], which was developed so responders
from different jurisdictions and disciplines can work together
in responding to natural disasters and emergencies, including
acts of terrorism. How has NIMS benefitted FEMA?
Mr. Paulison. It is remarkable; not just for FEMA, but for
the entire Federal Government. The local communities and the
states have used the National Incident Management System, the
ICS system, for a long period of time. The fire service has
probably used it for 25 years.
When I came into FEMA as a fire administrator, one of my
goals was to get the Federal Government to adopt that. We put a
plan together to put that in place.
We made a presentation to the President's Cabinet, and the
President signed off on this. This would be the system we
operate under. It allows all of us here to work together under
the same system. We understand it. We understand what the roles
are, and we understand who is going to do what. That, tied in
with the national framework, we do have the best emergency
management system in place now that this country has ever had.
Mr. Rogers. Well, thank you, Chief; and thanks to all of
you for your work and your sacrifice for this country.
Mr. Paulison. These guys have a lot to play in that. They
were really instrumental in us pushing that through for all of
us to use.
Mr. Rogers. Good; thank you.
PRESIDENTIAL DECLARATION
Mr. Farr [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Rogers.
I want to follow up on some of these questions. First of
all, I heard you say that FEMA now does not have to wait for a
disaster declaration. You can respond without that.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir, we do have the authority to deploy
people. We cannot employ some of these things until we get a
declaration.
Mr. Farr. Is that declaration level, do you have problems
with that? Because I recall, it took several days in order to
get all the information, and sometimes a week, to trigger a
declaration.
Mr. Paulison. Quite frankly, there was an issue with the
timeliness of getting the declaration. We have cut that time
down significantly.
In the case of Greensburg, Kansas, it was less than 24
hours. In some of the other storms we have had, it was a matter
of just three hours to get the President to sign the
declaration. So for those that are no-brainers, those big
events that have a major impact, we can move right away.
Mr. Farr. That is just sort of budgetary authority, right?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Farr. You can still respond with what resources and
manpower you have?
Mr. Paulison. And what we have been doing in the past also
is moving things in, and the state can use those if there is an
agreement that they reimburse us, replace that, if they do not
get a declaration.
We did that, I believe it was in New York, where they
wanted MREs and water. We had tractor trailer loads sitting
outside their offices. The lawyers were saying, well, they
cannot use it because there is no declaration.
So what we did was, here, you just take it and you use it,
and if you do not get a declaration, just replace it. That
system has worked out pretty darn well.
Mr. Farr. Well, Mr. Rogers's question is about this team
that you have. As I understand the incident command system,
whoever is there first manages the incident, as long as they
have qualifications to manage it for whatever, as in fire
levels, that it goes up.
You have local folks that have been trained now to have the
qualifications to handle major incidents. If your team comes in
there, they are not replacing that incident command system.
Mr. Paulison. No, sir, not at all--they are not replacing
them at all. They are to augment them; to coordinate our
Federal response and how we are going to set up.
We have several teams now that respond. We have our first
teams that give us the on-ground visibility. We have emergency
response teams that move in to help work with the state. They
are the ones that would set up the joint field offices. These
incident management teams will eventually replace both of
those.
Mr. Farr. Do you see FEMA moving to a point where you
almost work yourself out of a job, because the first responders
can handle it?
Mr. Paulison. I would hope so. I do not see that happening
any time soon though, sir. I think there is always going to be
a need for Federal assistance in major operations.
Mr. Farr. So the point of that Federal assistance is that,
you know, for our military, we have 400 operating bases; and we
have the personnel and the equipment there. We do not have to
fly all that stuff from Washington.
It seems to me that what has happened with Homeland
Security is, essentially it has this knowing, and everybody
comes in here and says the locals are going to be the first to
respond to anything: terrorist incident, disaster, accidents,
anything. The idea of setting up this Homeland Security was to
allow the entire country to be able to be capable first
responders. So a lot of money was set up and this whole agency
was set up.
But it seems to me there is an awful lot of sort of
bureaucracy building in Washington, in all aspects of Homeland
Security; and we have had all kinds of problems with the law
enforcement being able to get intelligence information, because
there is bureaucracy with that.
I mean, Ms. Roybal-Allard and I were talking that we are
very proud to be in a state that because of natural disasters
has learned a lot--California. The Incident Command System came
out of a California fire.
I think that a great example of where you had that
capability at the local level is the difference between the
fires in Los Angeles and the response to Katrina. I think the
fire response was essentially mostly all locally handled and
locally managed. Wherever the resources came in, they were
additional, too.
But the bulk of that whole system was locally done. I do
not think you would have a more professional group of people
who could respond to those things than the people that are in
California now.
What I see FEMA's role is that all these local and state
governments are required to have disaster plans. Those plans
are supposed to be reviewed. In our zoning process in
California, every community has to create an element to their
general plan. It is a disaster plan. They have to know what all
kinds of disasters might happen; whether they have earthquake
faults or flood zones or wildland fires or toxics or whatever
it may be.
Out of that, those plans are reviewed by the State Office
of Emergency Services. They are kind of looking at these
counties and say, oh, you know all the problems. But then the
question is, do you have the resources to respond to them?
It seems to me, that is FEMA's role. Where I am really
critical of FEMA in Louisiana is, it was essentially your
responsibility, FEMA's responsibility, to know that those plans
were not going to work. Because the brains of being able to
tell whether they had the capability of responding to them were
here, and that is the role.
I am really concerned that in doing that, we do not follow
up then with the implementation, which is what I think Mr.
Gispert was talking about; that we have got these plans, but we
do not have the resources--training resources, equipment
resources, inter-operability capabilities. That is the missing
gap that is still trying to be met.
I would hope that you would be much more involved in
responding to those needs at the local level, because as you
said, your opening statement is that all response is local. So
is all politics in this Congress, and I think the frustration
we have is why are our locals not better equipped to handle the
problem?
Mr. Gispert. Mr. Farr, may I jump in please? They are
ready, and I want to challenge you to come down and visit us in
Tampa, and look at our Emergency Management Response System
down there.
Our whole purpose in life is that FEMA never has to come to
Tampa. We are going to get on it right away. We are going to
jump on it, we are going to handle it, and we are going to do
the best we can.
My whole task in life is to bring every resource within 50
miles to bear against the problem. If I do that in a timely and
efficient manner, almost every major event becomes minor. There
will be an occasion that an event will be so grand and so
large, that I cannot handle it with local resources. That is
when the State of Florida comes in, and brings the resources of
the other 66 counties.
Now if we get beyond that, we are talking about a big deal,
and that is when Chief Paulison and his people come in. But
once again, 99.9 percent of those little problems should be
handled at the local level, and you should never hear them. The
EMPG money that you are spending, and the SHSGAP and the UASI
and all those other Federal acronyms for grant monies, that is
what that capacity is being bought at. We have equipment, we
are training on it, we are talking the language, which is
called NIMS, and we are just doing everything we can.
Florida has put together a logistics center. We are
stockpiling capabilities for Florida. So we are trying the best
we can. You know, the problem that we have is, not every
community in the United States has taken it as serious.
Many communities never see any natural disasters. I might
want to go live there one day. But many of them do not. So we,
in Florida, take it very, very serious, because every summer,
we are challenged by Mother Nature.
Mr. Farr. Well, they are all suffering from global warming.
You cannot escape that. One of the tests, and I am trying to
find it here, indicated that we do not adequately fund the pre-
litigation.
Mr. Gispert. That is the smart money, yes.
Mr. Farr. Do you feel you get enough money out of that?
Mr. Gispert. No, sir; that is a program that has been
laying fallow. It is very, very bureaucratic. It takes a long
time to get, and a lot of people have been discouraged and no
longer apply for it, because of the length of time.
But it is built strong now. So when Mother Nature blows, it
will not blow your roof off. There are ways to build. That is
what pre-disaster mitigation is all about.
Mr. Farr. Does FEMA overlook the planning requirements of
these disaster-prone areas, to see whether their building codes
are meeting disaster standards?
Mr. Paulison. We do not set building codes. That is a local
and state responsibility.
Mr. Farr. I know that.
Mr. Paulison. But we do look at their disaster plans. The
GAP analysis that we did last year on the hurricane-prone
states is now being used across the country. Like Mr. Jadacki
said, one size does not fit all. So by doing this GAP analysis,
we will know what the strengths and the needs are in each
particular state. So we do not have to respond to everything in
the same manner.
I do not have to work with the State of Florida on
evacuation planning, because they have got it down pat. They
know how to do that. I do have to work with other states like
Louisiana on evacuation planning, because they did not have it
down pat. So we can tailor our response needs to what the needs
of the state are.
Mr. Farr. The last request here before I adjourn is that we
put language in your bill last year that reads, ``On any given
night, there are 200,000 homeless veterans in the United
States. The Committee is aware that there are unused surplus
trailers. The committee directs FEMA to work with the
Department of Veterans Affairs and other relevant Federal
agencies on a feasibility study to determine how these unused
surplus FEMA trailers can be used to house homeless veterans.
FEMA shall report its findings to Congress within six months
after the enactment of this act.'' Do we have that report?
Mr. Paulison. No, sir, I do not think we have that report
ready.
Mr. Farr. Do you know when we will have it?
Mr. Paulison. I will find out and get back to you. I will
find out where it is.
[The information follows:]
The status on a report relating to FEMA's efforts to work with the
VA and other Federal agencies on the use of surplus FEMA trailers for
homeless veterans:
On July 31, 2007, the disposal of FEMA's excess mobile homes,
travel trailers, and park model housing units was temporarily suspended
to test for formaldehyde before releasing any units. Under normal
circumstances, FEMA disposes of its excess and surplus property via the
General Services Administration's (GSA) Office of Personal Property
Management pursuant to 40 USC Sec. 525(b)(2) and 41 CFR parts 102-35
thru 102-38. Prior to the suspension, FEMA reported available excess
and surplus property from our inventory for disposition through various
GSA disposition programs, including GSA's Utilization and Donation
Program (U&D), GSA Exchange Sales, and GSA Surplus Sales. Under the U&D
program, GSA notifies all Federal agencies (``utilization'') and State
agencies (``donations'') of the availability of units from FEMA.
Agencies that house homeless people, including veterans, generally fall
under the ``donations'' category, i.e., donations to State Agencies for
Surplus Property (SASPs). The SASPs in turn would donate to state and
local housing agencies when appropriate. Each receiving agency
determines the utility of the units received, in accordance with
Federal and state property management regulations. In addition,
auctions/sales are advertised on GSA's online auctions Web site.
FEMA is also authorized to use ``direct transfer'' authority to
transfer units to other Federal agencies if the requesting agency
submits a letter of interest.
When the suspension is lifted, the agency can resume the disposal
of excess units, but only after a unit has been tested for levels of
formaldehyde. The FEMA Assistant Administrator, Logistics Management
Directorate has made contact with the VA's Senior Policy representative
to the U.S. Interagency Council and will work through GSA to help
determine the process for meeting the VA's potential requirements.
Mr. Farr. All right.
Mr. Paulison. I know we have contacted Veterans Affairs,
and talked to them about housing issues.
Mr. Farr. And for the committee, could you respond to those
requests that Mr. Gispert put in his testimony of the unmet
needs.
Mr. Paulison. Do you mean, in writing or now?
Mr. Farr. No, in writing.
Mr. Paulison. Okay, I will be glad to do that; yes, sir.
Mr. Farr. Thank you very much.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you.
Mr. Farr. With that, the committee is adjourned.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, March 11, 2008.
HOMELAND SECURITY GRANTS: SUPPORTING A NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS AND
RESPONSE SYSTEM
WITNESSES
R. DAVID PAULISON, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
RAYMOND C. SCHEPPACH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE NATIONAL GOVERNORS
ASSOCIATION
WILLIAM O. JENKINS, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
ISSUES, THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Opening Statement of Chairman Price
Mr. Price. The Subcommittee will come to order. We are
happy to hear this afternoon from Mr. Paulison and his
colleagues about Homeland Security Grants.
We will have testifying today David Paulison, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency administrator; Mr. Raymond
Scheppach, the executive director of the National Governors
Association; and Mr. William Jenkins, the director of Homeland
Security and Justice Issues at the Government Accountability
Office.
Gentlemen, we welcome all of you. I look forward to
discussing the Fiscal Year 2009 Homeland Security Grants
Budget--that will be our focus today, the grants programs--and
the implications of that budget for state and local governments
to prepare for and respond to disasters.
Administrator Paulison, I want to start out by thanking you
and the FEMA personnel who work under you for your service to
the country. You and they have responsibilities that are among
the most important and most difficult in the federal
government. A great deal depends on FEMA's ability to help the
nation both prepare for and respond to disasters of every kind.
The failures associated with Hurricane Katrina made the
importance of your mission as clear as it could be, and we know
those failures went beyond FEMA and would likely have
overwhelmed FEMA even on its best day. That event did define a
low point in the agency that we must never allow to be
repeated.
While FEMA still faces many challenges, the agency has made
encouraging progress in a number of areas. This Subcommittee
intends to be supportive of FEMA's attempts to build on that
progress.
Unfortunately, the administration's proposed Fiscal Year
2009 budget would again offer no progress when it comes to the
request for state and local grant funding. In fact, the budget
before us would reduce grants and training programs by $2.2
billion, or 46 percent, from the Fiscal Year 2008 enacted
levels.
I believe this budget sends the wrong signals to our state
and local governments about the federal government's level of
commitment to the partnership with them, and I just have to
wonder how accurately these request levels reflect your own
unmediated assessment of state and local needs.
The budget request before us today is largely a repeat of
the Fiscal Year 2008 request that Congress flatly rejected and,
I must say, in the bipartisan history of this Committee, of
which we are now in Year 6. There has been a pattern each year
of not just criticizing but rejecting the grants budget offered
by the administration.
There is not much new about what we are seeing this year.
The same programs have been repeatedly targeted for significant
cuts or even elimination. Two hundred million dollars is
requested for Emergency Management Performance Grants. That is
a cut of $100 million.
When I talk to emergency management professionals, they
continually cite this as perhaps the most important grant
program because it is focused on coordinating an all-hazards
approach to preparedness and response at the state and local
level.
SAFER Grants are completely zeroed out of the president's
budget while FIRE Grants are slashed by 60 percent, from $750
million to $300 million. According to the second needs
assessment done by the U.S. Fire Administration, roughly 17,300
fire stations--that is 36 percent of the total number--are
estimated to be at least 40 years old, and roughly 26,000 fire
stations have no backup power. The needs in this area are well
known to you.
The Metropolitan Medical Response System program is also
zeroed out of the president's budget. Now, this program allows
local governments to purchase equipment and supplies, such as
local stockpiles of medical countermeasures, and it requires
the development of plans showing how different government
entities will coordinate responses to events.
Now, I am not simply saying here ``more is better.'' More
grant funding for its own sake is not the answer to the
challenges that we face. But the truth is that the state and
local governments do continue to have significant unmet
preparedness and response needs, and these grants are critical
to helping them play the strong role the nation needs them to
play. They are, after all, on our front lines of Homeland
Security.
The grant-funding equation depends on several variables,
including our ability to measure and reduce risk and on how the
requirements we place on our state and local partners are
defined.
So one thing I would like to explore today is whether the
federal government has given a clear message to the states and
local governments about their role in the nation's Homeland
Security mission.
The federal government must clearly articulate the minimum
capabilities and requirements expected of them and the first
responders, and the grant funding we provide must be related to
help them meet these capabilities and requirements.
During last year's hearing, Mr. Paulison, FEMA was
preparing to officially become responsible for the Department's
preparedness mission. This Subcommittee worked with FEMA to
help facilitate that transition by approving last year's
reprogramming to hire federal preparedness coordinators and
grants management officials to work in the regions.
We also used the Fiscal Year 2008 bill to direct the
National Academy of Sciences to review the integration of
preparedness and response programs, a study that is intended to
give FEMA and the Subcommittee constructive feedback about how
things are going and how they need to go.
We look forward to hearing from you this afternoon about
agency's progress in integrating this preparedness mission.
In a moment, we will start with Administrator Paulison,
followed by Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Scheppach. Because we have
limited time, I am going to asked each of you to try to keep
your oral statements to five minutes. Your full testimony will
be printed in the record, but that will give us time for
exploring a number of issues in an exchange.
First, let me yield to Mr. Rogers for any statement he
wishes to make.
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Rogers
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and welcome
to Chief Paulison and your assistants.
As we continue to debate how much is the right amount to
spend on Homeland Security, a debate, by the way, that started
well before we created DHS, even ongoing today, the appropriate
funding level for First Responder Grant programs finds itself
at the center of that argument. Just by looking at the Fiscal
Year 2009 budget request and its proposal to basically cut
grant funding in half, it is certainly fair to say that there
is a considerable difference of opinion on the subject.
But before we can talk about overall funding levels for
First Responder Grants, I believe we need to discuss two
overarching issues.
First, how much more prepared is the nation, given the
$23.7 billion we have appropriated for First Responder Grants
since 2002? Considering the size of this investment, we ought
to know how much we have improved the capability of the
nation's first responders or not and how much vulnerability we
have reduced, but, unfortunately, we do not know.
Secondly, the unexpended balance of First Responder Grants
is growing. It now stands at over $7 billion. I realize this is
somewhat of a tired argument and that the bulk of funds we have
appropriated are, indeed, obligated, but nothing changes the
fact that the money is not getting spent and is languishing in
the coffers.
So no matter how much we appropriate on top of these
stagnant funds, we have billions of dollars worth of unrealized
capability stuck in government accounts, dollars that are not
supporting our public safety agencies across the nation.
I recognize that the only way we are going to achieve a
higher state of preparedness is by fully supporting the state
and local officials who serve on the front lines of every
response across the country. Whether it is firefighters, police
officers, or paramedics, all first responders play an
unquestionably vital role in our Homeland Security.
I fully support funding a portion of their work that, in
fact, supports federal Homeland Security efforts. But in every
major investment across the Department, and I certainly view
billions of dollars in first responder capabilities as an
investment, we require plans, strategic plans, expenditure
plans, implementation plans. You name it, and this bill
requires it because major funding requires major planning.
Why should grant programs be any different? I firmly
believe in the old adage: ``Plan your work, work your plan.''
So, Chief Paulison, what I want to know today is pretty
simple. I want to know your plan. As I see it, it is time for
us to figure out a plan for determining the return on our grant
investments. As I have said before, it is time to plan your
work and work your plan.
We certainly have target capability lists, but with the
$23.7 billion we have appropriated, how close are we to meeting
those targets? We have a national response framework, but how
does this $23.7 billion, to date, as well as the 2009 budget
request of $2.2 billion in grants, how does that support the
structure of this framework? Difficult questions, I know, the
questions FEMA must answer as the steward of these grant
programs.
The way I see it, First Responder Grant programs are but
one very important element of the nation's overall
preparedness, and that is something that should certainly
improve with each yearly installment of appropriations.
The American people expect us to be getting more prepared,
more ready, to handle all hazards and all threats. Today, I
hope we can discuss this issue and understand your plan for
measuring the contribution of First Responder Grant funding to
our nation's overall Homeland Security. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Paulison, we will begin with you.
Statement of R. David Paulison, Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Chairman Price and Ranking Member
Rogers. It is an honor to be here, and I appreciate the
opportunity to speak in front of you.
When I was asked to lead FEMA, my mission was clear:
rebuild and strengthen FEMA's ability to plan, prepare, and
respond to disasters in light of the natural and man-made
disasters that struck our country. The new leadership at FEMA
brought in experts to conduct assessments and incorporated
these lessons learned into a new vision for the agency. The
President, Secretary Chertoff, and, quite frankly, you in
Congress have supported this effort and provided resources and
other tools to help us make these improvements.
In my first appearance before this Committee, together we
began repairing the damage to what was, quite frankly, a
challenged agency. Last year, we implemented a New FEMA with
its Vision Initiative, and you provided the tools we needed to
get back on our feet, use the lessons learned to set a new
course. We began that journey together.
Today, I am here to tell you that with the President's and
the Secretary's backing and your continued support, we are
laying the groundwork for a better tomorrow. Our goal is to
leave FEMA stronger than we found it. It is for this reason
that my testimony today is entitled ``The Way Forward.''
This is not the FEMA of two years ago, as our response to
recent disasters has demonstrated. We have made major changes
over the past year as we integrated the National Preparedness
and Grants Programs Directorates into the FEMA fold and added
their capabilities and strength to our existing preparedness
and assistance programs. With this new structure, we will get
better return on investments and be able to leverage our
resources that you provide so they will have a bigger impact.
Since 2003, as Mr. Rogers said, the Department of Homeland
Security has invested over $23.7 billion in critical funding
for our nation's first responder community. These grant
programs have increased our nation's capability to prevent and,
if necessary, to respond to acts of terrorism. This could not
have been achieved without strong ties to our state and local
partners.
This year's budget, as in Fiscal Year 2008, requests $2.2
billion to support FEMA's state and local programs and
assistance to firefighters grants. These important grant
programs help prepare the state and local governments to
prevent or respond to instances of terrorism and other
catastrophic events.
The budget supports the existing Homeland Security Grant
program, Port and Rail Security Grants, Emergency Management
Performance Grants, and also proposes a new discretionary grant
program targeted towards high-priority security initiatives,
including the REAL ID implementation.
The budget also mirrors the Fiscal Year 2008 request for
$200 million for State Homeland Security Grants and increases
funding for the Urban Security Area Initiative to $825 million.
The $300 million funding request for the fire grants is
identical to the President's Fiscal Year 2008 budget request,
and, by the way, brings that total to over $5 billion that we
have given to the firefighters over the last few years.
With these grants now administered by FEMA, we have
transitioned the former Office of Grants and Training into FEMA
and augmented grants staff with additional grants experts from
FEMA's legacy programs. The new Grants Program Directorate is
working with a greater emergency-management framework to make
sure that we are getting the best value for investment. We are
truly leveraging funds to improve their effectiveness.
The establishment of FEMA's Grants Program Directorate will
provide a one-stop shop for grants. The new office will help us
to enhance fiduciary management as we standardize grants
management policies, procedures, our processes of reporting,
and accountability across all FEMA grant programs.
We are releasing grant guidance earlier to allow applicants
more time to plan and apply for funding so we can award those
funds sooner. We are continuing to emphasize customer service
and interaction throughout the process, including providing a
new mid-term review.
Funds are being directed to enhance specific outcomes in
areas such as strengthening preparedness planning and
improvised explosive devices deterrence, prevention, and
protection capabilities.
Based on the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act,
the Department's regional offices will have an enhanced role in
administering grant programs. This year alone we have
transitioned the grants management function of three key
programs to the regions. We have also set up our Grants
Management Branch in all 10 of our FEMA regional offices.
As we move into 2009, grants management functions across
more of our programs will transition to the 10 FEMA regions,
where they belong.
When Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management
Reform Act, together we set a vision of what FEMA could become,
but as the author and innovator, Joel Baker, said, ``Vision
without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just
passes time. Vision with action can change the world.''
The budget we have proposed shows that President Bush,
Secretary Chertoff, and I are committed to vision with action,
and I know you are committed, too. You have proven that.
I look forward to working with you as we make the vision of
a new FEMA a reality. Thank you.
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Statement of Raymond C. Scheppach, Executive Director, The National
Governors Association
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Scheppach, let us hear from you
next.
Mr. Scheppach. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity
to appear before you today on behalf of the nation's governors.
I have submitted my written testimony, and I will take three or
four minutes to summarize it very quickly.
I would like to, this afternoon, touch on four issues: The
need for federal resources, the REAL ID, the so-called
``pipeline question,'' and state and local Homeland Security
priorities.
With respect to the need for federal resources, in order
for states to officially spend Homeland Security funds, it
needs to be stable, predictable, and certain. Each state should
receive a base allotment to ensure that all jurisdictions
maintain a base capacity. Federal funding for state and local
governments must increase as federal requirements increase
through various initiatives, such as the National Preparedness
Goals, the National Incident Management System, and the
National Response Plan.
Above a base allocation, Federal Homeland Security funding
should be distributed based on comprehensive statements or
analysis of risk which should be developed in close
coordination with states. Risk assessments must be fully
disclosed to governors and their designated representatives and
should be updated regularly. States should have maximum
flexibility in how these homeland funds are spent, as long as
funds are used to mitigate risks and enhance the level of
preparedness.
One of the primary sources of funds to offset federal
mandates is through the State Homeland Security Grant program.
Unfortunately, funding for this program has decreased from its
original level of $1.1 billion in 2005 to $550 million in
Fiscal Year 2006, down to $515 million in 2007, and the
president has asked for only $250 million for the program in
2008 before Congress increased the funding. The
administration's Fiscal Year 2009 budget again calls for a mere
$200 million.
To meet the ever-increasing demands placed on states,
governors called for the Congress to restore funding to the
initial 2005 level of $1.1 billion.
With respect to REAL ID, we want to thank the Subcommittee
and you, in particular, Mr. Chairman, for the amount that you
have appropriated, the $90 million for REAL ID. The
administration did not request any funds for REAL ID in Fiscal
Year 2008, and its Fiscal Year 2009 budget does propose a $110
million competitive grant program for states, in part, to
assist with REAL ID, and $50 million for DHS to develop
verification capabilities.
I want to publicly acknowledge the fact that the Department
of Homeland Security did listen to the comments on the draft
regulations from the state motor vehicle people and the state
legislators, and NGA. They made major changes in the
regulations and lowered the cost from $11 billion, our original
estimate, to $4 billion, by their estimate, and we are in the
process of now trying to verify that.
It is also true that this moved the REAL ID implementation
from the category of impossible to perhaps the possible over
the next several years. However, governors feel strongly that
the Congress should provide an additional billion to cover the
up-front cost of the REAL ID this year and additional funds to
cover the out-year costs.
With respect to the pipeline question, unfortunately, there
is a lot of misinformation on the budget issues that surround
state grants. On the one hand, many local officials are
critical of states for not accelerating the rate of funds to be
spent. On the other hand, others argue that there are
sufficient unspent funds in the so-called ``pipeline.''
It is interesting that this term ``pipeline'' is used to
indicate that states do not need additional funding. For
example, the secretary of DHS testified, on February 14th, that
there is essentially $13 billion in the pipeline for state and
local Homeland Security needs. I would argue that neither local
officials' nor the secretary's interpretation is correct. With
respect to the federal budget, it is really budget authority
outlays and obligations which are the appropriate concepts, not
pipeline.
The pipeline actually combines obligated and unobligated
funds, as well as some unappropriated funds against nine
different programs. The state grants are essentially a very
unique program. They include capital, and they include
operating components in an 80-percent pass-through to local
governments.
When you look across other particular programs,
particularly in the capital area, you will find that they often
pay out four, five, six, and some even for seven years. Most of
the funds appropriated have been obligated, although not yet
outlined. It seems that the key here is to keep your eye on the
efficiency of increasing Homeland Security, not on how fast the
money can be spent--it is not a jobs program--nor on how much
is in the so-called ``pipeline.''
With respect to state and local Homeland Security needs,
the NGA actually organizes the governors' Homeland Security
people, and we bring them into Washington to meet a couple of
times a year, and we are, in fact, in close connection with
them on their priorities.
Last year, we surveyed them, and essentially what they felt
was that they emphasized the need for all hazards approach and
planning and using federal grants. The whole question of public
safety interoperability communications topped the list of other
priorities. The other areas that were mentioned essentially
were coordinating state and local efforts protecting critical
infrastructure, developing state fusion centers, and
strengthening citizen preparedness.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you as you
develop your final budget.
Mr. Price. Thank you very much. Mr. Jenkins.
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Statement of William O. Jenkins, Director, Homeland Security and Social
Justice Issues, Government Accountability Office
Mr. Jenkins. Chairman Price, Ranking Member Rogers,
Representative Serrano, I appreciate the opportunity to be here
today to discuss the Department of Homeland Security's grant
programs.
This afternoon, I would like to briefly touch on DHS's risk
methodology for grant allocation, grant expenditure reporting,
and performance measures for emergency preparedness and
response.
Both by statute and presidential directive, DHS is charged
with developing and implementing methodologies for assessing
and managing risk across a broad spectrum of programs and
assets. DHS's grant-risk methodology is continually evolving
and has focused on risks from international terrorism and
includes both a risk assessment and an effectiveness
assessment.
Because we cannot protect against all risks, trade-offs are
necessary. Risk management is a structured means of assessing
risks, evaluating and choosing investments to reduce risk, and
assessing the results of those investments, all under
conditions of uncertainty and change.
Risk is not a static concept but evolves with changes in
threats and implementation of actions that reduce
vulnerabilities and consequences. Risk assessments, of
necessity, are based on data of varying certainty and
reliability. Thus, professional judgment is an inherent part of
risk management. However, the basis for those judgments should
be clear and carefully analyzed.
With regard to grant reporting, there has been considerable
discussion on the Hill and DHS and in the press about
management of DHS grants at all levels, including the ability
to use the funds quickly and to demonstrate the results
achieved with grant funds.
From Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007, DHS distributed more
than $19 billion in grants, of which about $7 billion was
unexpended as of January 2008. Not surprisingly, the highest
balances are for the two most recent fiscal years.
In 2005, we reported that the ability of states and
localities to spend grant funds quickly was slowed by the need
to fulfill state and local legal and procurement requirements.
Because of inconsistencies in DHS's reporting of grant
expenditures over time, we are unable to analyze expenditure
trends by grant and fiscal year to determine how funds are
being spent and if they are being spent more quickly for some
purposes than others. Nor is it possible to compare DHS grants
with preparedness grants from other federal agencies.
As directed by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8,
since 2005, DHS has produced an annual report on preparedness
funding that includes non-DHS grants. But because the reporting
agencies use different definitions of ``obligation,''
``expenditure status,'' and ``use of funds,'' the report is of
very limited use for comparative analysis.
Although management of the grant dollars is important,
success is not measured by dollars spent, how quickly they are
spent, or even what is purchased. Ultimately, the goal of the
grants is to enable state and local governments to prepare for
and respond to disasters of any size, type, or cause with well-
planned, well-coordinated and effective actions that save
lives, reduce property loss, and set the stage for a quick
recovery.
DHS has not developed performance measures that enable it
or state and local governments to assess whether they have
achieved this goal. According to FEMA officials, this is a
high-priority issue for DHS, and we realize that developing
useful performance measures is not easy but is essential to
have recognized benchmarks for measuring effective preparedness
and response.
Last March, we testified before this Subcommittee that a
comprehensive and in-depth oversight agenda requires, one,
assessing state and local capabilities against established
performance goals; and, two, determining how federal grants
have been used to build the capabilities to meet those goals.
In other words, we need to have a means of consistently,
reliably, and validly measuring our ability to achieve and
sustain success in emergency management.
The Post-Katrina Reform Act requires an annual preparedness
report from all states. After an extension of the original
deadline, the first reports are due at the end of this month.
Also under the act, the FEMA administrator, in conjunction with
the National Advisory Council and the National Council on
Disability, must establish a comprehensive assessment system
for overall preparedness, including operational readiness. This
was to include clear and qualifiable performance metrics,
measures, and outcomes. To date, this has not been completed.
The task of developing and sustaining first responder
capabilities to meet specific performance goals is a complex
and daunting one. As the principal federal agency now
responsible for preparedness and response, FEMA has a unique
opportunity and responsibility to evaluate how it can
effectively target and integrate the grants into its overall
strategy to develop an effective, all-hazards preparedness and
response system, and this can best be done, in our view, by
viewing the grants collectively rather than individually in a
stovepipe fashion.
We look forward to working with Congress, FEMA, and others
to build an effective national emergency preparedness and
response system that we all want and the nation deserves.
That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman, and I would be
pleased to respond to any questions you or other Members of the
Committee may have.
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REAL ID GRANT FUNDING
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. Thanks to all of you. We
will proceed with questions, and I will begin with Mr. Paulison
and a question about the REAL ID grant funding.
Mr. Scheppach made the case in his testimony for more REAL
ID grant funding for the states. What he did not say, but what
I know to be true from talking to leaders in my state and in
other states is that there is not perfect agreement among the
states on the merits of this program and on the parameters of
the program as they have been enacted.
I have shared this. I voted myself against the version of
the REAL ID Act that we had before us in early 2005 because I
had significant concerns about its costs and about how it was
going to be implemented and the protection of privacy and other
matters.
So these are still live concerns among us and in the
states. But what I think there is no disagreement whatsoever
about among the states, and this is reflected, I believe, Mr.
Scheppach, in action taken two weeks ago. What there is no
disagreement at all about is that if this is going to be a
requirement the states have to meet, that they should have
federal financial support for their efforts, some serious cost
sharing.
Now, to date, $90 million has been appropriated
specifically to help states comply with the unfunded mandates
of the REAL ID Act, and that was provided, I must say, only as
a result of leadership by this Committee.
I know that does not even approach meeting the needs of the
states, but I remind you that it is 100-percent more than was
ever requested by this administration for REAL ID.
Now, Secretary Chertoff has said that ``there will be
another $150 million in grants that will be potentially
available to states for REAL ID in Fiscal Year 2009.'' Now,
where does that come from?
Well, for one thing, he is assuming that states will use a
good portion of their State Homeland Security Grants for REAL
ID, and I remind you that the administration has proposed that
these grants be reduced by 79 percent. Are we asking states to
divert funding away from other priorities to pay for REAL ID,
particularly when their state grants are going to be decimated
to begin with?
Then there is this matter of an amalgamated program. The
2009 budget proposes to fund a joint REAL ID, Buffer Zone,
Other grant program at $110 million. REAL ID, Buffer Zone,
Other, $110 million. I guess that is where the Secretary
assumes the balance of this funding will come from. I am not
sure what assumption he is making about the allocation within
this new program among REAL ID and Buffer Zone and Other, but I
have some questions about it, Chief Paulison.
First of all, is this amalgamated grant program authorized?
Secondly, can you explain why you are proposing to group
buffer zone protection with REAL ID grants? I just cannot
imagine what the rationale is, and then what is this ``other''
all about? What are you thinking is going to be in the picture
here, and what kind of funding allocation do you envision? Why
is there no dedicated source of funding for REAL ID at a level
that would accurately reflect the implementation costs to the
states?
NATIONAL SECURITY AND TERRORISM PREVENTION GRANTS
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are very good
questions.
The National Security and Terrorism Prevention program is a
category that the Secretary has created to put funding to
States for those emerging priorities as the Secretary
determines them. REAL ID falls in these priorities. They do not
have to be grants that necessarily go together. The buffer zone
is in there and also the REAL ID Grants for the states to use
as they apply for those grants.
Also, 20 percent of the State Homeland Security Grants
program can be used for REAL ID, which would take that number
to the $150 million that the Secretary committed to fund for
that program.
On top of that, there is $50 million that is put in the
2009 CIS budget to assist with the formation of the hub. What
the Secretary is asking the states to do is to put the program
together on how they are going to share information with each
other. The Secretary has committed that there will not be a
national ID.
There will not be a place where we gather all of that
information. It will be kept with each state, just like it is
now, with the regular driver's license, and, to do that, they
want the states to own the hub, but the Secretary did put $50
million into CIS because of their relationship with the DMVs
around the country to put in that particular department. So
that is why that is there.
As far as this grouping of grants, this last year, on
February 1st, we announced the grants. We put them out in time
within the 25 days that you have mandated we do that. That is
the first time that we have been able to accomplish that, and
we did that, put it together, did a good job. We made some
mistakes in some of those grants; some we fixed within a few
hours.
What we are trying to do is to put that down into three
major categories.
One, it will make it a lot easier for us to get that out
within the 25 days but also make it a lot easier for the
states. The states will not have to review and depend on 16
different grant guidances to provide their grants. There will
only be three or four of those in these three major categories
right here. We think this is going to simplify the grant
process for us getting those out the doors quickly but also
make it much simpler for the states. When they start applying
for these grants, there will be a lot of consistency as they
pick and choose in those categories of what they want to apply
for.
I hope I answered your question. If I missed anything, I
will go back and get it.
Mr. Price. We did raise the issue of this proposed hub at
CIS with Dr. Gonzales this morning, rather inconclusively, I
would say. That is not a very well-fleshed-out proposal. But
even if you add that to the mix, we are talking about a very
small fraction of the estimated state needs to begin to
implement this program. You are not suggesting that this
amalgamated program is actually authorized in law.
Mr. Paulison. I am missing what you are asking. As far as
what we have done? All we have done is move those into
different categories. We have not really changed any of the
grants. They are all the same. They are still there, just like
they were. We just grouped them in groups to help us to, one,
make it a lot simpler to put these out, make them more
accurate, and get them out faster, but also make it easier for
the states.
These same grants that are in 2008 are in 2009, just in
different groupings.
Mr. Price. You do not have an estimate of how much of that
total would likely go for the REAL ID function.
Mr. Paulison. Right now, for the REAL ID, what is available
is $150 million that is in this particular budget, and then the
$50 million that is in CIS for 2009.
Mr. Price. All right. But the 150 does assume that the
states are going to use up to 20 percent of their State
Homeland Security Grants for REAL ID.
Mr. Paulison. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Price. That assumes that of this $110 million for this
new, what you call the Emerging Priorities program; how much of
that goes for REAL ID?
Mr. Paulison. The entire $110 million could go for that.
The states could apply for those dollars off of REAL ID, or if
they had buffer zone issues, they could apply for that also.
Mr. Price. Whose decision is it?
Mr. Paulison. That would be up to the state to apply for
that.
Mr. Price. Up to the state to apply, but let us say, as
usually happens, the states apply for both and more. What is
the decision rule in terms of how that 110 would be allocated?
Mr. Paulison. That particular category is a competitive
process, and the Secretary will make those choices based on who
has the best proposal and what has the biggest impact.
Mr. Price. It would essentially be at the Secretary's
discretion.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Price. Mr. Scheppach, you have already expressed your
view on this from the states' perspective. Is there anything
you would like to add?
Mr. Scheppach. My understanding is, of the $80 million that
was appropriated over the last couple of years, about $10
million of that has been spent on pilot projects and other
things, which gives you about $70 million residual. Our sense
is that the Secretary really wants to use that $70 million to
do this portal that is necessary for states to talk to states
and exchange information but also to interact with the five
federal databases.
I think where the governors are is, although that is a high
priority, there is no money here that is really allocated
across two states to offset some of the cost of implementation.
All of it so far is for special needs, which are competitive
bids, which a lot of it is on what I would consider federal
responsibility. To me, to allow states to talk to one another
and exchange information is an interstate component which
should be funded by the federal government, not out of an
unnecessary pot that would go to states.
So I think you are right that the governors met a couple of
weeks ago and were very upset, essentially, that this is going
to cost states $4 billion or so to implement, and there is no
money yet that is being allocated across states to, in fact,
help offset that. Most of the money that has been appropriated
so far is for this portal or other special needs.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Rogers.
MINIMUM ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A few years ago, we
were trying to come up with what we called at that time the
``minimum essential requirements.'' That is to say, we wanted
every fire department, every police department, every first
responder unit, and there are thousands of these across the
country, of course--every one of them needed at least a minimum
of training and equipment to prepare them to respond to the
minimum problems that had a federal connection to them.
That concept has been massaged over the years. I do not
know where that stands now. Maybe you could help me with that.
Then, in addition to those communities that require a
minimum of training and equipment to respond to a federal piece
of some problem that they might have locally, there were
communities, obviously, that needed a bit more than that. Those
whose jurisdiction included a nuclear power plant needed more
preparation. One with a dam there maybe needed some more
different types of training and equipment, until we get to the
very large cities, like New York, L.A., and so on, which,
obviously, need a lot more of perhaps different types of
training and equipment.
I have never seen the results of that thinking. The bottom
line is I do not know that there is a plan out there that
allocates these grants based on some logical scheme. Prove me
wrong, Chief.
Mr. Paulison. I am assuming you are talking about the
Assistance to Firefighters Grant program.
Mr. Rogers. And many of the other programs.
Mr. Paulison. And some of the other programs, too. I think
there is a logical plan in place, and what we have already
started doing is we inherited these grants 12 months ago last
year, and this was really our first grant cycle. We recognized
very clearly that there was no mechanism to measure this $23.7
billion that we have given out, is it having an impact, and
where is it having an impact?
So we have put a program in place to start to do that, and
Ross Ashley, who is sitting behind me, is going to be briefing
your staff over the next couple of weeks to put this thing in
place and have some tangible results by August or September of
this year, so that is one piece of it.
The other piece is tying all of these grants together, and
that is what we have been looking at, and one of the reasons we
tried to group these together was to do just what you are
talking about.
The Assistance to Firefighters Grants, if the 2009 budget
is passed, as the President submitted it, will be a little bit
over $5 billion that we put into fire service. Now, the range
has been all over the place, from buying fire trucks to buying
turnout gear, self-contained breathing apparatus, building
training facilities, a lot of different things like that. It is
having an impact on the fire service. When I go around and talk
to people and talk to fire departments, I see pretty much every
department that I have been in, they have gotten something out
of these grants.
I think what we really have to do now is step back, and we
are going to need your assistance in it because a lot of the
guidelines we follow come out of Congress. We decided we had
better focus the grants on some of the other issues, like
preparing for terrorism, and maybe focus on some issue, Mr.
Rogers, you talked about, where those departments have
particular problems, particularly nuclear power plants or have
large chemical plants or any other major critical
infrastructures to get training on.
Our training program that we have is bigger than just the
grants. There are exercises we have inside of Homeland
Security. The grants are just one piece of that.
So there is a plan in place, and what we are doing is
putting all of these together to make sure they mesh, and we
are not having stovepipes of things to do as separate things.
That is really starting to work.
The 9/11 Bill helped us really focus on the risk assessment
on grants. It is much clearer now than it was a year ago, two
years ago. It will be much more visible to the governors as we
continue to improve this process. We want it as transparent as
possible.
So, yes, there is a plan in place of how we are going to do
this. The National Response Framework is going to help us do
that also, and all of that fits together--Mr. Price, you
mentioned in your opening statement--how does it all fit in
with the national framework? And it does. Every piece is
falling in line to make sure we have a very comprehensive
emergency management system in this country that, quite
frankly, we did not have.
Mr. Rogers. Well, if it exists, I have not seen it. We have
been asking for it now for--what is it?--six years, seven
years. Six years. We always get an answer just like you gave,
which I did not fathom. But we have not been able to fathom any
of your predecessors on that as well.
You know, with the numbers we are talking about, the dollar
figures plus the numbers of units out there, you have got to
have some sensible, logical plan, if it is going to be fair at
all, or forfeit your authority over it and let the Congress
decide where those funds go. I do not think that is a smart
idea.
Mr. Paulison. Understood. I understand, and we will do
that. I think the assessment that we are going to be doing to
find out what impact we have is going to help us get more in
line with what you want; the fact that out of the EMPG dollars,
the states have set aside 25 percent of that for planning. The
gap analysis planning we are doing, we have done with all of
the coastal states, and now we are going to move into the rest
of the country. It is going to help us put together, I think,
really what you want and to work on that over this next year.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we will see.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. You know, there are 53,000 state and local
public safety agencies and federal agencies, 53,000 of them;
32,000 fire and ambulance units, and there are 1,185 cities
with over 30,000 population. We are talking about a huge
universe here of needy fire departments, police departments,
all whose budgets are not adequate from the city council, and
they are looking for free dollars somewhere, and guess who they
like to look at, ``Uncle Sucker,'' because we can write a
check, regardless of the balance in the bank, which they cannot
do. We are a real juicy target up here.
So we have got to have some sensible plan by which fairness
can be meted out to these 53,000 jurisdictions.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. We catch the heat. We try to pass it on, but it
bounces off.
Mr. Paulison. I do not know. I think I get quite a bit of
heat.
GRANT GUIDANCE
Mr. Rogers. Well, I guess you do. But, nevertheless, on
this subject, it is something that has been bugging me now for
six years, that we cannot get a sensible plan in place.
However, I want to compliment you on one thing especially,
and that is improving your process for issuing grant guidance
to state and local governments. In fact, the 2008 bill that we
enacted on December 26th, by the end of January, the Grant
Programs Directorate was briefing the Subcommittee staff and
disseminating grant guidance and applications, which is a great
improvement over previous years, where FEMA simply dragged its
feet, did not effectively nor promptly communicate with state
and local governments about the availability of funds.
Mr. Scheppach may want to comment on this or not. But we
cannot allow those funds to just languish there due to slow
communications or nonmanagement of the system. Tell me how you
developed your grant guidance and if the state and local
emergency management professionals provided suitable input into
those guidances.
Mr. Paulison. One, it is very important what you just
mentioned. We do get a lot of guidance from state and local
governments in making sure that the grants are going where they
need to go. I meet quarterly with the National Emergency
Managers Association. I meet quarterly with the International
Emergency Managers, which are the local communities, and others
to make sure that we are getting input.
I have a law enforcement advisor brought on board to make
sure that those law enforcement grants that we are putting out
are doing what they need to do, and we use that information we
get from the governors and others to tweak that guidance every
year.
Just for the record, this is the first year that FEMA has
really had the grant guidance from Day One to move out, and I
think that is why it is out on time. But, yes, we are doing
that, and we are working very hard. Like I said, this is the
first year, I think, that grant guidance met your 25-day
threshold from Day One to get those grant guidances out the
door, and we did that.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Serrano.
PROTECTION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just preface
my comments by saying that some of the things that Mr. Rogers
has stated are the same frustrations I have had for the time I
have been on this Committee, which is since the beginning, and
that is that this whole Homeland Security setup, and there is
no other way to discuss it, has gotten so much money allocated
to it, and I do not know what is the bigger issue: Trying to
have Members of Congress understand this whole setup or finding
out why, on so many occasions, we seem to get answers that
indicate that somehow tomorrow we are going to get the answer
we are looking for, and these budgets keep growing and growing
and growing.
Let me mention one of my favorite issues, the whole issue
of civil liberties. Fusion centers, shortly after 9/11, began
to pop up in every state to improve information sharing between
state and federal authorities. Now it seems that many of these
centers are focusing not only on counterterrorism but on all
crimes instead of just the one that we thought they were
supposed to go after.
I am afraid that this expansion leads to the accumulation
of a lot of data which we misused and abused, and some folks
are beginning to complain about that. Do we have a formal and
systematic means of auditing whether each center is
appropriately protecting civil liberties or using federally
funded intelligence analysts in a manner that is consistent
with national goals and objectives for the fusion centers?
Let me just finish up by saying that the whole issue of
Homeland Security and its predecessor, the Patriot Act, still
leaves many of us very nervous about what our country and our
civil liberties are going to look like 20 years from now. So
any chance we have to curtail abuse, I think, is important.
What can you tell me about this now new role that the fusion
centers are taking?
Mr. Paulison. Congressman, I can tell you very clearly that
the Secretary is very protective of civil liberties. He is very
concerned about this, and he is making sure that we do not
abuse that. We want to protect this country. We have to protect
this country, and we know we have bad people that want to do
bad things.
So we are going to gather information, but, at the same
time, we are going to protect the civil liberties of the
citizens of this country.
Mr. Serrano. How you do that, when you are gathering
information that is not related to the initial mission? What
would be the purpose of that?
Let me say that we always hear this phrase, which is
correct, ``there are bad people who want to hurt this
country.'' I hope, at the end of the day, 20 years from now, it
does not turn out that it was some of us who hurt the
Constitution, and, in the process, let the terrorists win.
There is more than one way of winning. One is attacking us and
hurting us and winning that way; the other one is scaring us
into a point where we throw away the Constitution.
Certainly, they have hurt us badly in the fact that we have
to spend so much money now on protecting ourselves, but at what
point do we say that we do not want to give them that victory
of throwing away our rights? And why would they be gathering
all of this information that has nothing to do with these
particular crimes?
Mr. Paulison. The fusion centers are following the privacy
guidelines that are set forth on 28 CFR for criminal
intelligence and the FOIA for criminal records, and they are
following those guidelines.
The fine line you talk about is a concern of everyone, and
I know for sure that the Secretary is very aware of that and
very cognizant of that. He is not going to cross that line.
Mr. Serrano. I always get that answer, with all due
respect, and answers are very short, and they do not go into
any elaboration because that is considered top-secret stuff,
but I know we are hurting ourselves here.
HOMELAND SECURITY GRANTS FUNDING LEVELS
Just one quick question. We have cuts to the grants that go
to the states. New York City, which remains the number one
target of terrorists, depends heavily on Homeland Security
Grants, yet this budget wants to cut these grants by $2
billion. Is this a statement that the way these dollars are
being used has not been proper?
Mr. Paulison. No, not at all. We think the budget has been
spent wisely. The President's budget is the same as what it was
last year. During the 2008 grants, New York City received more
money than anybody else, obviously, and more money than it got
in 2007.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CATEGORIES OF GRANTS AND NUMBER OF GRANT PROGRAMS
Mr. Price. All right. Thank you. Mr. Farr, we hope to get
your questions in before the vote.
Mr. Farr. I will be quick. First of all, if you do not know
the answer, get it for me. How many grants are given in the
whole Department of Homeland Security for all of the
subagencies?
The other thing that I would like you to do is the
governors submitted their testimony and, Mr. Scheppach, with
three key principles. I wonder if you would respond in writing
because those are essentially the general policy issues that we
would be asking questions on, of how you are going to implement
those four principles--excuse me--six principles, as stated
here.
In this grant funding, what we heard last year was that
America ought to approach its management of terrorist and
natural disasters from a risk-management standpoint and use
FEMA as the basis because we had the responder network
traditional with FEMA. It does not seem like we use these
languages, and it is even used in your testimony, and the
governors used it, but there is no sense of prioritizing what
those risks are. When it gets down to you saying, well, we have
three or four grant categories, in your own testimony, I got
lost after about 12.
You have got subcategories of Homeland Security Grants.
There are four different grant programs of that. You have Ports
and Rail Security Grants, and I do not know how many there are
within that. You have the Emergency Management Performance
Grants. You have Response and Recovery programs. You have got
core grants for different kinds.
The list goes on and on, and I think that is the
frustration of this Committee, is that everybody is upset
because they are not getting funding, but you have got so damn
many grant programs, and maybe they are going to the wrong
door.
Where is that kind of one stop based on risk management of
how we are going to try to implement the training in an ongoing
infrastructure development? I would really love to have you
respond to that. I do not think we have time because we have to
go for a vote, but maybe we could put some of that in writing.
Mr. Paulison. We can do that. We put these into three
categories to try to simplify it to make it easier.
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Mr. Farr. But then you do not because simplifying is
essentially one stop. What you are saying to somebody is,
``Well, you have got to fit into these three our four
categories, and then within each of them there is a dozen or
so.'' So you have not really eliminated any grant programs; you
have just wrapped them in different packages.
Mr. Paulison. We have not eliminated any grant program.
That is correct. But we did try to put them into categories
that would give the states much more flexibility, and we did
put a very comprehensive risk program in place, and I think the
GAO did comment on that, that it is much clearer, much more
visible than it has been, and we are going to continue to make
it much more transparent so that the states know exactly what
the risk we are looking for is so they can apply for----
Mr. Farr. Just within your department, how many grant
programs are there, total?
Mr. Paulison. I would have to give you that in writing, go
back and count them.
Mr. Farr. You do not even know, there are so many, and
then, within Homeland Security----
Mr. Paulison. There are three basic chapters of grants,
and----
Mr. Farr. No, not chapters, just total grant programs
because each one of them gets administered differently.
Mr. Paulison. But the three chapters stop them from being
administered differently. It puts them into categories where it
makes it easier for the states to apply. Last year, we did 16
grants, and there were 16 different grant guidances.
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Mr. Farr. So how many jobs did you eliminate when you put
them all in these neat little packages?
Mr. Paulison. With the same amount of money and the same
amount of work, it does not really eliminate jobs.
Mr. Farr. There is less money to go to the states because
there is still the bureaucracy here in Washington. That is what
I am getting at. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you. We will adjourn briefly. We have
Members coming back momentarily from the vote, so we will try
to minimize the break. Thank you.
HIGH-THREAT HIGH-RISK AREAS
Mrs. Lowey [presiding]. Okay. Good afternoon, gentlemen.
Before I begin my questions, I would like to say that I think
Director Paulison has implemented several positive reforms at
FEMA. We all know a great deal remains to be done, but your
experience and your leadership have really helped this agency,
which had so many problems before you took over. So I am very
grateful.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. However, the White House does not provide
adequate support, which is really disappointing. November's
lead pass-back budget document from OMB highlights the efforts
of some in the administration to dismantle local grant
programs, and while DHS, and, presumably, you, had requested to
either level fund or increase funding in many areas, OMB sought
to eliminate nearly every existing grant program and, despite
the rhetoric, providing support for first responders has never
been a priority of the White House.
I know that you and I truly agree that supporting the first
responders is absolutely critical. So, hopefully, we will be
able to do better in this Committee.
At the Subcommittee's first hearing on management issues,
Ranking Member Rogers expressed dismay over the inability of
DHS to track First Responder Grants to determine our
capabilities and match those against our preparedness and
response objectives, and I strongly agree.
As Mr. Rogers stated, many First Responder Grants are used
for purposes that do not directly contribute to national
security. However, I do not think this is the fault of
Congress. This is a failure of the administration, which has
consistently failed to allocate grants in a manner that
improves our national security.
First, every bill that this Subcommittee has passed has
said that funding for the Urban Areas Security Initiative is
for high-threat, high-population-density urban regions, yet the
Department repeatedly awards funds to places like Toledo and
Omaha, cities that, lucky for them, are neither high threat nor
high risk.
Second, the Department needlessly dilutes funds for likely
targets by increasing the number of UIC areas. When the program
began, there were seven cities receiving funds. In Fiscal Year
2008, that number will likely balloon to 60. There is nothing
in current law that specifies a floor for the number of areas
that can receive funds, but the Department has taken it upon
itself to fund boondoggles in areas that terrorists could not
find on a map instead of providing adequate support to vital
programs in New York.
Third, for the second consecutive year, the Department has
placed a cap on funds for the most at-risk areas. You safeguard
45 percent of the funds for areas not in the top risk tier, and
that means that New York and Washington, D.C., compete against
one another while nearly half is held back for areas that face
less risk.
The Department's failures have very real consequences. In
New York, Mayor Bloomberg spends $200 million a year on 1,000
counterterrorism and intelligence officers. Your Fiscal Year
2008 grant guidance runs contrary to previous years and H.R. 1
by stating cities cannot use funds for intelligence personnel
other than for newly hired analysts, and this does not make any
sense to me. Police Commissioner Kelly is not going to rely on
green officers to do this critical task, which includes
undercover work, intelligence gathering.
This program clearly benefits national security, but the
Department's grant guidance hampers it.
So, Director Paulison, to all the compliments I gave you,
why does DHS consistently ignore congressional mandate and
award UIC funds to areas that are not high-threat, high-
population-dense cities, and why are you increasing, instead of
decreasing, the number of UIC areas, and why do you prevent the
most likely targets of a terrorist attack from competing for
all of the funds in the one program dedicated to high-risk
areas?
By the way, my colleagues who represent these other
wonderful places should get funding for those wonderful places,
but just not out of a fund that is clearly for high-risk areas.
I would love you to respond.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a couple of
things. A couple of the grant programs that you talked about
earlier--the EMPG and the Firefighter Grants--are not really
authorized as terrorist grants, so I need to take those out of
that particular category.
The minimum standards for the states are really set by
Congress. In UIC, the number of 60 is consistent with 2007,
based on the fact that the metropolitan statistical areas
changed, and that allowed us to add more cities to the thing.
Mrs. Lowey. They are all high risk, those 60 cities?
Mr. Paulison. They are all part of the UASI cities and part
of that MSA grouping.
Mrs. Lowey. But you would classify them as high risk, in
the same category as New York and Washington, D.C.
Mr. Paulison. They are not all in the same categories.
There are different tiers. Obviously, to cities like New York,
that group did not change. The second tier changed. We added
more into the second tier, but the top tier did not, and I
know, last year, New York City not only received more money
than anybody else but received more money than it did in 2007.
Mrs. Lowey. That is a good thing.
Mr. Paulison. That is a good thing because it is a high-
risk city. We also have to remember that the Oklahoma City
bombing was a terrorist attack, and that was not necessarily a
city like New York. So we have to do the best we can to spread
the money out as fairly as we can to provide those other large
cities, although they are not the New Yorks, not the L.A.'s,
not the Houstons, not the Washington, D.C.s, but they still
need some level of assistance also, based on the threat that we
have.
The terrorists would obviously love to go to New York City.
We saw that, and I lost 341 of my friends there. And they would
love to go into L.A. or Houston or Washington, D.C., but those
other cities are vulnerable also.
So what the Secretary is trying to do with our risk-based
approach is to, yes, hit those big cities but also provide
dollars to the other ones. There is only so much to go around,
and I know that, and this Secretary is really trying to be as
fair as he can, covering the cities that we think we need to
cover and give those that are most at risk some dollars to
protect themselves.
Mrs. Lowey. I just want to make my position clear. I
understand that some of those cities which I have referenced
should get money, and they certainly should. They need a strong
fire department, a strong police department, EMS, et cetera,
and the first responders have to be prepared, but it should not
come from a high-risk program. What is the name of this
program?
Mr. Paulison. Urban Areas Security Initiative.
Mrs. Lowey. Is it not defined as a high-risk area?
Mr. Paulison. Yes.
Mrs. Lowey. Okay. That is all I am saying. The others
should get money, but they should not get it from a program
that is specifically defined as high risk.
Mr. Paulison. Understood.
Mrs. Lowey. I am glad you understand. So what can we do
about it now before I turn the chair back over to my good
friend.
Mr. Paulison. Thank goodness you came back.
Mrs. Lowey. Go right ahead, Mr. Price.
Mr. Price [presiding]. You probably need somebody from a
nonurban area here, too, to bring a little balance to this
hearing. All right.
Has your time expired, or do you want to continue?
Mrs. Lowey. I think so.
Mr. Paulison. Thank you. The Secretary is committed to work
with Congress, and he understands some of these issues that you
have.
Mrs. Lowey. There is no problem with them getting the
money, but----
Mr. Paulison. Understood.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Ms. Lowey. Mr. Carter.
FEMA GRANTS MANAGEMENT
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am trying to get a
handle on grant management and spending.
DHS, at the department level, in 2009, is requesting $3.4
million plus 10 FTEs, half of the new grant programs are
managing over CDs covering all of the grants in DHS, but in
FEMA there are many reforms and initiatives that are underway,
but no specific funding has been requested for Fiscal Year
2009. It is unclear whether FEMA is actually staffed [off mike]
to effectively manage [off mike].
It is important, and we are concerned about whether or not
there is going to be staffing to have the oversight and
management of these grants. This is something that is a high
priority, I think, with the American people as it is with this
Committee. So I would like to know if those systems are in
place, and, if not, why we are not asking for the resources to
put them in place?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir. They are in place. The money that
we use--we take a percentage of the grants. We are allowed to
take up to three percent--we do not usually do that--to staff
FEMA. The staffing at DHS headquarters that 10 people are
asking for; we had to set up an oversight group over all of the
grants in DHS. All of them are not only FEMA; there are some
others out there.
Actually, it is going to help me, having somebody looking
over my shoulder to make sure that we are doing what we are
supposed to do, so I really do not have a problem with a small
oversight group like that to watch us with the grants, work
with us, and make sure that we are managing the way we should
be managing them.
Mr. Carter. So if I understand you correctly, then a piece
of each grant is set aside for people that are going to be
overseeing or managing these programs.
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Mr. Carter. Now, what I want to know, is that going to be
sufficient, or are we going to be reading about this in the
newspaper this time next year?
Mr. Paulison. No, sir. I surely hope not. I try to stay out
of newspapers as much as possible. I have not been very good at
it, have I?
Yes, it has been sufficient, and if it gets to a point
where something is not sufficient, I will come to this
Committee and let you know that.
Mr. Carter. That was the number-one reason for my concern--
--
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter [continuing]. Is making sure this Committee,
under this Chairman, has set out a goal of oversight across the
board. I support the activities of oversight of this Committee,
and I think we are willing to fund it, make sure it is there.
You are telling me it is sufficient. That is the answer I want
to hear, and that is the answer I am going to hold you to.
Mr. Paulison. Sir, this Committee has been very supportive
of us, and it has been much appreciated, and I do feel like we
have done a partnership.
GRANT OBLIGATIONS
Mr. Price. Thank you. Mr. Paulison, I want to try to shed a
little further light, if we can, on this grant pipeline
question about what has been obligated, what has been expended,
and what kind of funding is required, in addition to what may
be in the pipeline.
I would like to ask Mr. Scheppach, who has, I know,
thoughts on this and expressed some of them in his statement,
and also, Mr. Jenkins, if you have thoughts, I hope you will
chime in.
I am seeking clarity here, but it is clarity with a
purpose. I think, when we have the Secretary seeming to
minimize the need for any new grant funding and to justify that
in terms of what is ``in the pipeline,'' then we need to look
pretty carefully at what he is talking about. It is central to
the justification of the budget numbers before us.
Here is what the Secretary said when he was asked about the
decrease in grants funding proposed for 2009. He said, I quote,
``Over a six-year period, from Fiscal Year 2002 through Fiscal
Year 2007, grant recipients have drawn down $12.7 billion of
the $19.8 billion made available since the Department's
inception. On February 1, 2008, the Department announced an
additional $3 billion in grants to be provided this year,
including congressional approval of the Fiscal Year 2009
request, and a total of $13 billion would be in the pipeline
for state and local Homeland Security needs.''
Now, maybe some of this will need to be clarified for the
record, but I want to see what we can do here in the time
available to us today.
The Department is pointing to these funds as if there is a
pool of untapped funds just ready and waiting to be used, and
the implication is that state and local governments have not
figured out a way to use the money, or, in any case, they
certainly do not need more money.
That argument seems to me to be steeped in flaws, and I
think it implies unfairly a blame that is, by and large, not
deserved by state and local governments.
For example, let us look at the Public Safety Interoperable
Communications Grant program. The Department points to that $1
billion program as funding obligated but yet to be spent. But
it is the Department, as I understand it, that has not allowed
the states to spend that money. According to FEMA's own budget
documents, the release of these funds will not begin until this
month. I am not sure why, but I do know that that is no fault
of the recipient agencies. I do not believe it is. If it is, I
would like to know about it.
Also, we have heard that, in the Transit Grant program
funds, that they have been obligated, but projects will not be
approved by DHS until a year later.
So, at least in those two instances, it looks like the
projects are being stalled by the Department, not by the states
and localities.
So, I am just looking for some explanation of what is going
on here. What is the point of obligating funding that truly is
not yet available for states and localities to use, and then
what validity to these in-the-pipeline numbers have when we are
looking at 2009 appropriations needs?
Mr. Paulison. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I do not
think that is what the Secretary stated at all. I do not think
he meant that they were sitting on the money and not spending
it. I think they are actively moving the dollars as quickly as
they can. Some of the dollars take longer to spend than others.
I think what he was saying is, as Mr. Rogers said, there are
unrealized capabilities out there.
So I think it is a combination of dollars that are there to
be available, dollars that we are trying to move out the door.
There was $50 million in Interoperable Communication Grants
that we received in 2007 that we are just now putting the grant
guidance out for that of the $1 billion that you talked about.
So there is a lot of money out there.
What the Secretary, and I do not want to second-guess what
he was saying or try to interpret what I believe he said
because I was standing alongside of him when he said it, was
that there is a lot of money out there in the pipeline, and it
did not make a lot of sense to dump more money out there that
could not be spent this year if we can now put it back in the
2010 budget. If we are not going to spend it all this year, why
put it out there if it is not going to be spent?
So that was the thought process that I got through that. So
I do not think he was blaming the states at all. I do not think
he was saying that the states were sitting on the dollars. I
think that what he was saying was that some of these dollars
are more difficult to spend. Some projects take longer to
complete. I will ask Mr. Scheppach if he agrees or disagrees
with me, but that was my interpretation of the Secretary's
comments.
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Mr. Price. Well, if the states and localities are not
sitting on the funds, who is sitting on the funds? Are we just
talking about a kind of inherent difficulty here, or is there a
process that can be made more efficient and more responsive?
If you want to reference these two programs where the
problems seem especially acute, I would be happy to have you do
so: the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant
program, where the states have not been allowed to spend the
money until this month, and this Transit Grant program, where
there is a kind of formal obligation that has taken place, but
the projects have not been approved.
Does this look like, if not stalling, then delays that need
to be improved upon to you? What would you say about that? It
certainly does confuse the funding picture. I will grant that,
but there is something, I think, strange about using these
delays. Assuming the Department is working on expediting the
release and the productive expenditure of these funds, there is
something strange about using these delays as a justification
for an extraordinarily low budget request for 2009.
Mr. Paulison. Once again, the request that was made is
consistent with what the President has asked for for the last
couple of years. So the President has been consistent with
that.
Secondly, I do not think there are any purposeful delays. I
do not think there are any bureaucratic delays. I think that
some projects just take longer than others to move out the
door. The $1 billion that we talked about with the
Interoperable Communications Grant is working extremely well
with the Department of Commerce. We have a great partnership
there. That is a competitive grant that is going to go out. It
takes a while to process those grants and get those
applications out, and get the states to move back in and make
sure that we evaluate those properly.
Again, there was no indication from the Secretary that he
was casting any aspersions on the states at all. I think that
just some projects take longer. He was saying there is a lot of
money out there ready to be spent that has not been spent yet,
and it takes a while to go through that process.
Mr. Price. If I am hearing you correctly, you seem to be
arguing it both ways, by which I mean, you are saying, on the
one hand, that these appropriations requests for 2009 are very
much in line with what the administration requested for a
number of past years, and there clearly is some truth in that.
On the other hand, the secretary seems to be saying that there
is some extraordinary backing up of funds in the pipeline here
which justifies the lower request.
Now, which is it? Is it a matter of simply not believing
these kinds of expenditures are warranted, that they are not,
as Mr. Rogers perhaps was suggesting, there is simply not an
appropriate federal role, or is it a matter of a pipeline
problem that, once it is resolved, will lead to more robust
requests?
Mr. Paulison. I do not think there was any inconsistency
with what I was saying. The President recommended the same
amount of monies as he did last year and the year before that
because there is plenty of money there. There was no reason to
come out with the amount of money that was appropriated last
year. We keep talking about a cut that, for the Firefighters
Grants, for instance, $300 million was recommended. That is
less than was appropriated last year, but the same amount was
recommended.
So what I am saying is that the recommendation was
consistent because that seems to be the amount of money that
will flow through the system at any one time.
Mr. Price. Mr. Scheppach, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Scheppach. My sense is that the $13 billion is not a
realistic number. Again, it combines obligated with unobligated
and, as I remember, it even included the 2009 number, which is
not appropriated yet, so it is a very, very large number.
A couple of years ago, we actually looked, in a fair amount
of detail, at the State Grant program and what was the problem
with respect to expenditures flowing, and when you get into
some of the details, you realize that it often takes the agency
60 days to, in fact, release the money until its appropriation.
There is a requirement that 80 percent of that go to local
governments.
States are reluctant, I think, and rightfully so, to have
local government obligate until a state plan is, in fact, in
place so that it is a fully integrated plan, and then each
level of government has to essentially follow their own
competitive-bid rules, so that, in fact, takes time.
So a lot of this is capital types of things, and you are
not going to outlay those perhaps for a couple of years until
the goods are, in fact, available.
So there are a number of issues and steps along the way,
and I think that what we want, again, is the most efficient
operation. We do not really want to push money out there.
So I do not think we should look at the so-called
``pipeline'' type of thing. You would have to focus on any
unobligated balances, but those are not particularly large at
this point in time.
Mr. Price. Mr. Jenkins, is this something the GAO has
looked at or would want to look at more carefully?
Mr. Jenkins. Yes. I may be able to shed a little bit of
light on the interoperable communications issue.
Every state was required to have submitted a state-wide
interoperability plan by December of 2007. Those plans are
currently being reviewed in DHS. Their goal is to have those
plans reviewed by the end of this month, and the monies that
the states are using for interoperable communications are to be
spent in compliance with those plans.
In addition to that, the new Office of Emergency
Communications is supposed to have, by July, a National
Emergency Communications Plan for the nation.
So our view would be to look at why the money has not been
spent. In some cases, in our view, for example, not having
spent the interoperable communications money, at this point, is
actually a good deal, not a bad deal. In other words, they
should be spent after you have done the appropriate planning.
You know what the requirements are, how they are going to
fit, and so forth, so that is not necessarily a bad thing. It
does not indicate that either the states or DHS has not been
spending the monies appropriately. They should be spent
according to clear plans about how you are going to do it and
how you are going to fit the puzzle together.
I think the problem that the states also then worry about
is the fact that these grants have a finite life and that they
are concerned that if they do not get them in a certain amount
of time, it gives them a very short period of time in which to
spend them.
It is also, as my colleague from the Governors Association
said, the type of expenditure rules how fast they are being
spent out. It is usually a little bit easier to spend it for
training or those kinds of things than it is if you are buying
capital equipment. There are very few manufacturers of these
large, mobile, interoperable communications trucks, mobile
communications centers, so that a lot of that kind of stuff is
in the pipeline, whereas, as indicated, it has been obligated,
but it has not been expended yet because it just takes time for
delivery. There is a backup for those kinds of things.
That is why, when I said earlier in my statement, what we
think is important is to look at what is being spent for what
purpose and where it is, and then you have some sense of
whether or not this a problem, or it is not a problem.
Mr. Price. Has that been looked at systemically by your
office or any other?
Mr. Jenkins. No. We have not looked at that systematically,
and, as I said in the statement, the oral statement, it is
difficult to look at it because if you are trying to look at it
over time, the reports are not consistent over time in terms of
how they categorize the data. In some cases, three or four
grants are collapsed and reported in one year, and, in another
year they are separated out.
So if you want to take, say, 2003 or 2004 money and say how
much of it was obligated in 2004 for what purposes, and how
much of it was obligated in 2005, it is difficult to do that,
the way the monies are reported.
Mr. Price. I am sure you are correct in suggesting, as Mr.
Paulison did as well, that sometimes there are very good
reasons for a deliberative process that proceeds at a slow pace
relative to other programs.
On the other hand, there are some pressures that we are
feeling on this Committee, and I am sure the agency is feeling,
for money that is needed and that is going to be legitimately
applied to Homeland Security purposes, preparedness purposes,
for that money to be available and expended in a timely way.
Another aspect of this is raised when the Secretary of the
Department uses the pipeline as a rationale for what seemed to
us to be inadequate budget requests, if it is being used as a
rationale or a rationalization for that.
So that is why it is important, I think, to make some
distinctions here and understand what may or may not have a
sound justification in terms of the way this process is going
and what is inordinately and what is not.
So it may be that we want to call on your services to help
us sort that out, as we often do. We certainly need to look at
this. I am convinced of that.
Mr. Carter, do you have some more questions?
Mr. Carter. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to continue
[off mike]--thank you for turning it on.
You know, we have to deal with the local communities, and
we have to work with the local communities. In fact, my county,
which is one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation,
Williamson County in Texas, decided that they would make an
application for a county-wide interoperability to tie in with
what was done county-wide in Basrup county-wide and Travis
county-wide and Burnett county-wide and Hays County, which are
all counties that all surround us, to put our greater
metropolitan area under interoperability, and they did not get
the grant.
Of course, the first thing they said to us was, Well, there
is $7 billion sitting there that nobody is using, and we do not
understand why we were told to do it this way. We did it this
way, and we did not get the grant, and the Austin firefighters
are screaming bloody murder at us because we are not
interoperable with them.
Now, I have to answer that question, and that is, I think,
why the Chairman is raising this issue. We have got a lot of
issues, in addition to it is good management policy as to how
you use your money as you make requests for further money. But
the public knows there is $7 billion sitting out there, and
they see all that money sitting out there, and they see that
people are hoarding it, or they are playing games, or whatever.
That is why I think something has to make this clarified.
As the Chairman is raising the issue here today, I would like
to join him in raising that issue. I want to point out a local
issue and how that can affect life back home, so I throw it out
to you for discussion.
OBLIGATED VERSUS EXPENDED FUNDS
Mr. Jenkins. Well, I think that you are right. There is the
issue between the difference between whether the money has been
obligated and whether or not it has been expended. In other
words, you have received the goods and services, and you have
to pay for them.
So I do not have the data on how much has been obligated,
but I suspect a fair chunk, or a very substantial chunk, of the
money is actually obligated. In other words, for example, in
your case, had you gotten the grant, it would have been very
likely that you would have that money obligated to buy those
radios or do whatever you need, but it may take a while to get
the equipment, and, therefore, it is unexpended during that
period of time because you are not going to pay the contractor
until you get----
Mr. Carter. I do not want to make this personal to me. I
would also point out that we have got a Member of this
Committee that wants to get money to the border sheriffs. Every
time he hears about a nickel of any money anywhere, he is over
bending the arms and breaking the backs of our Chairman,
saying, I happen to know that there is $7 billion out there
that you can give to the border sheriffs. I think the Chairman
is well aware of whom I speak.
So if that is obligated money, then it needs to be clear,
for someone seeking to look for it, that that is obligated
money, and if it is not clear, then there is something wrong
with the system, and I think that is probably the way I would
view this discussion here. If it is obligated, then it ought to
say there is $7 billion out there, but $6 billion of it is
obligated. Then we have a clear picture of what it is, and if
we have questions, then we ask, how long is this obligation,
and where is the obligation going? That is kind of what I would
like as my follow-up to what the Chairman is saying.
Mr. Jenkins. I think it would be two things that I would
say.
One, I think it is important to know whether or not it is
obligated or not. I think the other thing is to know what it
has been obligated for because some of it is going to spend out
more quickly than others, so I think, as well, to understand
what it has been obligated for, not just the fact that it has
been obligated, and where that obligation is. The way the
reports that we look at or have is that it is considered
obligated when it is at the federal level when it is sent down
to the states. That does not mean it has actually been used.
So you really need, then, information on what the state has
obligated versus what the localities have obligated, and that
is the data that we do not have.
Mr. Carter. I think we need to get accumulated somewhere so
that we can get a clear picture of what is there so we can at
least have a decent argument when we are talking to people
about this stuff.
Plus when you are talking about this communications
interoperability, as I recall, right after the buildings fell,
the first thing we started talking about in this Committee was
communications interoperability, and that filtered down very
quickly to the local level at every level, and everybody knew,
and most people knew, that they did not have interoperability
in their communications. So I think everybody jumped on that
bandwagon that I know of; at least in my part of the country,
they did.
So that clearly is something that everybody is interested
in, and if they look at those funds as that is what they were
there for, then they are going to want to know why they cannot
get their hands on it because it is a crisis for us in our part
of the country.
Mr. Jenkins. I do understand that. I think one of the
things I would say is--I will not mention the state, but the
reason we are big on the planning for the use of the money is
there is one particular state that we looked at that spent $14
million on interoperable communications, and they did not work,
and they had to go back to ground zero because it was not
thought out as to how they were going to use it.
In your case, for the example you gave, you are just trying
to get yourself into compliance so that you can talk to
everybody that is around you that is already in the system, and
you are just the odd man out at the moment.
Mr. Carter. I am not trying to make this personal. Part of
my story is not that I expect you to go run back and write me a
check. The point of this story is that people back home know
about $7 billion in funds, and that makes it an issue. I want
to make it very clear, I am not looking at it the other way
around.
Mr. Jenkins. And they just do not know what the $7 billion
actually represents.
Mr. Carter. Exactly.
Mr. Jenkins. Got you.
STATE HOMELAND SECURITY PLANNING
Mr. Scheppach. I might make one comment. Having the money,
when it goes to states, to enforce the planning is a very
powerful tool because, a lot of times, if there is not money
behind it, it is hard to bring all locals to the table and
agree on a particular plan, whether it is interoperability or
something else.
So I think what states do is that they are unwilling to
allow local government to obligate until they have developed a
fully integrated plan. I think that is a very important part of
it because, even in your case, if several counties got
together, and later you find out it is inconsistent with where
the state is going, and you cannot link to everybody else, it
is money poorly used.
Mr. Carter. I do not think that is the case, since I am
talking about the state capital.
ASSISTANCE TO FIREFIGHTER GRANT GUIDANCE
Mr. Price. All right. Thank you. I have just a couple of
quick questions to wrap up here, one following up on the fire
grant discussion; the other having to do with the Emergency
Food and Shelter program.
Administrator Paulison, during last year's hearings, you
probably remember we discussed fire grants at some length, and
part of that discussion revolved around concerns that FEMA had
not peer reviewed close to half of the grants that met
eligibility requirements.
So, for Fiscal Year 2008, the Committee required FEMA to
peer review all applications that meet criteria established by
FEMA and the Fire Service and required those criteria to be
clearly articulated in the grant application package.
Applicants whose grant applications are not reviewed must
receive an official notification detailing why the application
did not meet that threshold criterion for review.
Now, I note that the grant guidance was recently issued and
that the criteria for peer review is included. You can maybe
characterize that briefly. We might want to put into the
record, at this point, the information that was sent out to the
applicants.
How restrictive are these criteria, would you say, relative
to the number of applications you have been getting in recent
years, and what kind of results do you anticipate? Let us hope
you will get applications that are more clearly articulated in
terms of the eligibility criteria.
What would you say about the way this process is going to
be implemented going forward?
Mr. Paulison. The fire grant application process is one of
the most mature and sophisticated that we have. In fact, what
we are doing is transitioning a lot of our grant processes that
we inherited to the same type of system we use with the fire
grants.
We expect a lot of good applications. We do workshops out
there. We hold seminars. We put information online. I try to
walk them through exactly what the criteria is every year, if
it changes the least little bit, to make sure they know what
the priorities are.
Now, some people will apply for things that they know are
not a priority because that is what they need. They may need a
fire boat, and that is not necessarily a priority over somebody
getting a self-contained breathing apparatus, which is the most
important. So they may not make the cut because, although it is
something that they really need, it is not one of the
priorities that we set down, and they will do that consistently
from year to year.
But we have been getting better and better applications.
All of the eligible applicants will be peer reviewed, as you
requested last year. I just signed the Federal Register notice
yesterday, so that should be available either tomorrow or
Thursday, for sure, for them to look at to see exactly what the
guidelines are.
So that is going out. We are getting that out early. The
application has already gone out. The grant guidance has
already gone out so they know what is out there, and we will
start our workshop fairly soon. We do that in every state. We
do a couple in every state. We have got grants people out in
every region now that we did not have before to make sure that
we reach as many people as possible to actually literally walk
them through the process and show them how to fill out those
grant applications, tell them what the priorities are so their
grants can be eligible.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
ASSISTANCE TO FIREFIGHTER GRANTS CRITERIA AND NATIONAL PRIORITIES
Mr. Price. We probably do not have perfect agreement on
this Committee as to what the appropriate federal role is here,
but I think the question Mr. Rogers asked earlier is a fair
question as to what kind of overall national priorities are
reflected in these criteria, the kind of selectivity you are
going to exercise with respect to these grants.
This question also comes up, for me, in the context of your
budget request, which is a substantial cut. I do not know if
the suggestion is that whatever these priorities are, they have
largely been addressed by previous years' appropriations. Given
the level of need out there, I doubt that that case could be
made, but are you, in this exercise, trying to delineate, maybe
for the first time, a federal role as opposed to what kind of
support the fire departments might seek from other sources?
Mr. Paulison. All response is local, and the responsibility
of local fire service falls on that local government. However,
since 2001, the Federal government has been helping, unlike
most other grants, strictly with helping a local community
build their fire department, provide the equipment that it
needs to provide day-to-day response, aside from terrorism or
anything else. That has been a good thing.
Again, if this budget is passed with the President's
recommendation, it will be $5 billion that is going to local
fire departments. It does not go through the state. It does not
go through the city. It goes right to the fire department, and
that has been hitting volunteer fire departments, it has been
hitting paid fire departments, union fire departments, pretty
much across the board.
We have put more money into the fire service in this last
eight years than we have ever in the history of the government,
right to the local community. So it has had a big impact.
We see people with turnout gear, self-contained breathing
apparatus, training programs, fire trucks, safety equipment
that they have never had before, nor where they had the ability
to ever get. So it has been an extremely successful program.
The President's submission request this year of $300
million is consistent with what he has asked for in the last
several years. We feel that that is a sufficient amount of
money to put into the system, considering we have put $5
billion, or $4.7 billion, out there already. Congress, every
year, has raised those dollars, as it has the authority to do,
and the President has submitted what he thinks are his
priorities, which he has the right to do.
So that is how the budget works, and I am sort of telling
you something I should not be telling you; you already know
that. I spoke to the firefighters yesterday, and we talked
about some of these issues and walked out of it with a standing
ovation. They know that we are supporting the fire service in
ways that it has never been supported before, and not just with
the fire grants. All of the First Responder Grants that are
going out there, the training we are putting out there, the
exercises.
The TOP OFF Exercise involved the Portland Fire Department,
and they were heavily involved in that, and they got a lot of
money that we dumped into that department, helping us with that
exercise.
So all of these things blend together. It is not one
particular thing. It is not just the fire grants; it is helping
the local first responders. It is all of them tied together.
Mr. Price. It clearly is all of them tied together, and I
am happy to hear you were well received by the firefighters,
and you personally deserve that for the conscientious way you
have administered this program. We will look with interest on
these further guidelines.
I will not ask you to comment on this, but my own view,
unsurprisingly, is that the budget requests do not really back
up what you are saying. The kinds of successes we have enjoyed
have been largely because Congress has come in and increased
each year these budget numbers so that we have been able to
serve more communities.
As you well know, we are looking at a zeroing out of the
SAFER program. We are looking at a cut for the fire
administration. We are looking at some problematic budget
numbers, which, as you acknowledge, we will just have to deal
with.
EMERGENCY FOOD AND SHELTER PROGRAM
All right. Quickly, on Emergency Food and Shelter; this is
one of the smallest programs in your portfolio. It probably has
the largest relative impact on its recipients. The budget
requests $100 million for this program. That is a reduction of
$53 million, or a 35 percent cut from the current fiscal year.
This program allocates funding to counties and cities based
on the number of unemployed and the poverty rate. Program funds
are used for food, shelter, rent, mortgage, utility assistance
programs for people with nondisaster-related emergencies.
Administrator Paulison, in announcing the Fiscal Year 2008
awards, you noted that, and I am quoting, ``the program has an
extraordinary history of providing food and shelter for
families over the past 25 years, but there is now an
unprecedented demand on our shelters for the newest population
in need: the working poor. I am grateful a program like this
exists for families struggling to make ends meet, even after
the paycheck runs out.''
I think those are eloquent words, and I would agree with
that description of this program. Again, though, I am asking
you about the connection, the connection with the funding
request that FEMA is making for the program.
What precisely is the justification for reducing this
program?
Mr. Paulison. We feel that the $100 million that we asked
for this year will be sufficient to meet our needs for the
upcoming year. It has been a successful program, and working
with the other agencies, like United Way and Red Cross and
other volunteer agencies, FEMA is getting more and more
involved than it has in the past and getting them more involved
in some of the things that we do. We feel that the $100 million
is sufficient for this year.
Mr. Price. What kind of mortgage assistance are we talking
about in this program, just apropos, the current challenge we
face?
Mr. Paulison. Under this program--I have figures from 2000
to 2006--we provided 248,000 families with either assistance
with rent or mortgage payments or utility payments. That is
outside of the disaster relief. We are not talking about any
hurricanes or tornadoes. This is strictly for, primarily
through the United Way, reaching out to families who are in
need. I served on the United Way board in Alameda County, and
it does reach out. That is what this money primarily goes
through, agencies like that to assist families that are in
need.
Mr. Price. And, no doubt, you are experiencing a much
greater demand in that area now for rental and mortgage
support.
Mr. Paulison. I cannot say that. I do not have those
numbers in front of me right now.
Mr. Price. It would be a miracle if you were not, given the
situation in the country.
Mr. Paulison. We have had a lot of disasters, too, so we
are providing a lot of that stuff through the Disaster Relief
Fund, particularly in Louisiana, Mississippi, and some of the
other states who have had disasters. So maybe, again, some of
those people who would normally be receiving assistance through
the United Way could be getting assistance through the Disaster
Relief Fund. That is anecdotal.
Mr. Price. All right. Well, I do not believe what you have
said adds up to a justification for this reduction; we will, of
course, look at this carefully. As you started to say?
Mr. Paulison. So what I will do is I will get with United
Way and find out what they are showing, as far as their needs,
and they are the primary agency that we funnel money through in
this program, along with several others.
Mr. Price. That would be helpful to furnish that for the
record, the kind of needs out of the equation here, which, of
course, is relevant to the amount of funding required.
[The information follows:]
Further information on mortgage assistance in conjunction with
United Way:
FEMA awards Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) funds to a
national board that governs the program and selects jurisdictions for
funding based on an established formula. The National Board is chaired
by a representative from FEMA and composed of representatives from
American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, The Salvation Army, United Jewish
Communities, and United Way of America. Local Boards are convened in
those qualifying jurisdictions to determine the highest need and best
use of funds and to select Local Recipient Organizations (LROs) that
will provide emergency food and shelter services. Each year, needs are
to be assessed in an effort to adapt to particular community needs. The
Secretariat and fiscal agent, selected each year by the National Board,
is currently the United Way of America.
For the past three fiscal years Local Boards nationally have funded
rent/mortgage assistance as noted in the chart below. The units of
service for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 were reported on LRO Final
Reports. Fiscal year 2007 units of service are estimates as 2007 Final
Reports are currently being reviewed. Additionally, bills paid
partially with EFSP funds are reported by LROs as bills paid, as some
Local Boards and LROs set caps on the amount of assistance in rent/
mortgage in order to help more individuals/families.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No. of
Fiscal year Dollars for R/M bills paid
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 07................................... $40,424,542.90 84,767
FY 06................................... $39,774,881.17 109,773
FY 05................................... $40,057,914.57 154,188
------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the funding has remained constant for the past three years,
fewer units of service are being provided. Possible reasons for the
reduction in units of service might be LROs removing caps or clients
coming in for assistance on larger mortgages.
In terms of new needs being identified, Local Boards and LROs have
noted an increase in the number of new clients utilizing feeding
programs, food pantries, and food banks to satisfy basic food needs
while they are attempting to hold onto their homes.
Mr. Carter, do you have further questions?
STATE AND LOCAL TRAINING PROGRAMS
Mr. Carter. One more question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This issue of the state and local training programs; over
the last five years, the requests have reduced state and local
programs by more than 50 percent from the previous years'
funding--enacted funding--every year for the last five years,
and this is, again, proposed this year.
I come from the world of 254 counties. That is the size of
my state. Some of those counties have got a whole lot of money,
and some of those counties do not have any money at all.
These training programs are important. Is it your position,
as I see this continuing 50-percent reduction every year, that
the states and the counties are picking up the slack on these
training programs and that they are able to get this training
down to the level that we need it, or is there some other
reason why they are continuously reduced?
Mr. Paulison. We have a lot of different training programs
through the National Fire Academy, through the Center for
Domestic Preparedness that we have in Aniston, Alabama; the
Emergency Management Institute in Maryland. We have a lot of
exercise money that goes out the door. So all of those
together, we feel like we are doing more training and more
exercise than we have ever done. So it may be reduced in one
area, but we are making up for it as a whole.
If you would like, what I will do for the record is submit
the entire package of where we are doing training and where we
are doing exercises and how much we are actually doing at the
local----
Mr. Carter. So is your answer basically that this training
duplicated some other training program that you have, and so
you are trying to get away from the duplication on training?
Mr. Paulison. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Mr. Carter. Okay.
Mr. Paulison. We will submit that for the record and give
you all of the documentation on that.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Carter. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Price. Thank you, and, with that, we will conclude our
hearing. We appreciate all of you being here and the
substantial contribution each of you has made. We thank you for
your service, and we look forward to collaborating with you as
we put the numbers together for next year. The Subcommittee is
adjourned.
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W I T N E S S E S
----------
Page
Gispert, L. J.................................................... 53
Jadacki, Matt.................................................... 53
Jenkins, W. O.................................................... 525
Miller, David.................................................... 53
Paulison, David.................................................53, 525
Runge, Jow....................................................... 1
Scheppach, R. C.................................................. 525
I N D E X
----------
OFFICE OF HEALTH AFFAIRS--DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Opening Statement of Chairman Price.............................. 1
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Rogers....................... 2
Statement of Mr. Jeffrey W. Runge, Assistant Secretary for Health
Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security....................................................... 3
Bio Watch Generation 2.5......................................... 6
Bio Watch Generation 3........................................... 9
Long Term Outlook on BioWatch.................................... 10
NAS Study on BioWatch............................................ 11
Role of NAS Versus HHS........................................... 12
BioShield Progress............................................... 13
Federal Partners Program......................................... 15
BioWatch Coordination with DOD................................... 15
Biosurveillance.................................................. 15
Food, Agriculture and Veterinary Coordination.................... 16
Sharing Law Enforcement Sensitive Information.................... 17
Participation of Public Health Officials......................... 18
Project BioShield................................................ 19
HHS Secretary's Operations Center................................ 21
HHS Hospital Preparedness Program................................ 21
Hospital Surge Capacity.......................................... 22
Pandemic Influenza Continuity of Government...................... 23
FEMA Role in a Pandemic.......................................... 25
Vaccine Distribution............................................. 25
Vaccine Stockpiles............................................... 26
Indifference to the Territories.................................. 27
OHA Support to the Secretary, FEMA, FDA and USDA................. 28
Coordination with Territories.................................... 29
Incident Management Planning Teams Coordination.................. 30
Exposure Preparedness and Response............................... 32
Questions for the Record Submitted by Chairman Price............. 33
Emergency Personnel and Disaster Response.................... 33
Bio Watch.................................................... 33
Measuring Medical Readiness.................................. 35
Pandemic Influenza........................................... 35
National Biodefense Architecture............................. 36
Management................................................... 36
Contracts.................................................... 39
Project Bioshield............................................ 40
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Lucille
Roybal-Allard.................................................. 41
Coordination with HHS: Pandemic Flu Preparedness............. 41
Coordination with HHS: General............................... 42
Biosurveillance and Monitoring............................... 43
Medical Surge Capacity....................................... 49
Questions for the Record Submitted by Ranking Member Rogers...... 51
BioShield-Countermeasures.................................... 51
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Robert
Aderholt....................................................... 52
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: IS THE AGENCY ON THE RIGHT TRACK?
Opening Statement of Chairman Price.............................. 53
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Rogers....................... 55
Statement of Mr. R. David Paulison, Administrator, Federal
Emergency Management Agency.................................... 56
Statement of Mr. Larry J. Gispert, President, International
Association of Emergency Managers.............................. 93
Statement of Mr. David Miller, Legislative Chaired, National
Emergency Management Association............................... 104
Statement of Mr. Matt Jadacki, Deputy Inspector General, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 115
Disaster Housing................................................. 130
Authority to Provide for the Repair and Improvement of
Multifamily Rental Properties.................................. 132
Gulf Coast Coordination.......................................... 132
Role of FEMA and State and Local Roles........................... 134
Logistics........................................................ 135
Department of Transportation Partnership......................... 136
Logistics Supplies............................................... 137
FEMA Progress.................................................... 138
Interim Final Rule Modifying Administrative Allowance............ 139
Emergency Management Performance Grants.......................... 140
FEMA Staffing Turnover........................................... 141
Formaldehyde..................................................... 143
Department of Homeland Security and Public Health................ 144
Post-Disaster Mitigation......................................... 145
Pre-Positioning Equipment........................................ 147
FEMA Vision...................................................... 149
IMAT............................................................. 150
National Incident Management System (NIMS)....................... 150
Presidential Declaration......................................... 151
Questions for the Record Submitted by Chairman Price............. 156
Disaster Relief Fund......................................... 156
Environmental Issues......................................... 159
National Flood Insurance Program............................. 160
Mitigation................................................... 165
Disaster Housing............................................. 169
Measuring Preparedness....................................... 170
Financial Management System.................................. 173
FY 2007 FEMA Material Weakness............................... 173
Northcom..................................................... 175
Civil Reserve................................................ 177
U.S. Fire Administration..................................... 177
Management................................................... 177
Contracts.................................................... 208
State and Local Liaisons..................................... 477
Gulf Coast................................................... 478
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Nita Lowey... 479
Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act................. 479
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Lucille
Roybal-Allard.................................................. 480
Travel Trailers: Formaldehyde Exposure....................... 480
FEMA Field Office in Pasadena, California.................... 481
Question for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Sam Farr...... 482
EMPG......................................................... 482
Emergency Management Institute............................... 482
Higher Education Project..................................... 483
FEMA Authority from Post Katrina Act......................... 484
Integrated Planning System................................... 486
Transfer of Staff as Required by Post Katrina Act............ 486
Questions for the Record Submitted by Ranking Member Rogers...... 487
Mission & Role............................................... 487
FEMA Vision.................................................. 488
Logistics-stockpiling supplies............................... 493
Logistics Centers............................................ 494
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Robert
Aderholt....................................................... 495
Emergency Warning Systems.................................... 495
NOAA Weather Radios.......................................... 495
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Kay Granger.. 497
``Regular Hours'' Reimbursement.............................. 497
Stafford Act................................................. 498
Information Sharing During Disasters......................... 499
Additional Answers to Questions for the Record Provided by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency............................ 501
Travel....................................................... 501
HOMELAND SECURITY GRANTS: SUPPORTING A NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS AND
RESPONSE SYSTEM
Opening Statement of Chairman Price.............................. 525
Opening Statement of Ranking Member Rogers....................... 527
Statement of Mr. R. David Paulison, Administrator, Federal
Emergency Management Agency.................................... 528
Statement of Mr. Raymond C. Scheppach, Executive Director,
National Governors Association................................. 565
Statement of Mr. William O. Jenkins, Director, Homeland Security
and Justice Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office...... 575
REAL ID Grant Funding............................................ 605
National Security and Terrorism Prevention Grants................ 606
Minimum Essential Requirements................................... 608
Grant Guidance................................................... 610
Protection of Civil Liberties.................................... 610
Homeland Security Grants Funding Levels.......................... 612
Categories of Grants and Number of Grant Programs................ 612
High-Threat High-Risk Areas...................................... 620
FEMA Grants Management........................................... 622
Grant Obligations................................................ 623
Obligated Versus Expended Funds.................................. 731
State Homeland Security Planning................................. 732
Assistance to Firefighter Grant Guidance......................... 733
Assistance to Firefighter Grants Criteria and National Priorities 806
Emergency Food and Shelter Program............................... 807
State and Local Training Programs................................ 809
Questions for the Record Submitted by Chairman Price............. 1252
Grants....................................................... 1252
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Nita Lowey... 1370
UASI......................................................... 1370
Questions for the Record Submitted by the Honorable Lucille
Roybal-Allard.................................................. 1371
Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program: Risk-Based Funding. 1371
Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program: Capital Expensiture
Cap........................................................ 1371
Transit Grants............................................... 1372
Questions for the Record Submitted by Ranking Member Rodgers..... 1373
Grants Management and Measurement............................ 1373
Additional Responses to Questions for the Record Provided by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency............................ 1374
State and Local Grants....................................... 1374