[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2014
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas, Chairman
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
TOM LATHAM, Iowa WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Ben Nicholson, Kris Mallard, Valerie Baldwin,
Cornell Teague, and Hilary May,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 3
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Department of Homeland Security.................................. 1
U.S. Coast Guard................................................. 521
U.S. Customs and Border Protection............................... 663
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________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
82-380 WASHINGTON : 2013
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida \1\ NITA M. LOWEY, New York
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
TOM LATHAM, Iowa ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
KAY GRANGER, Texas ED PASTOR, Arizona
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida SAM FARR, California
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
KEN CALVERT, California BARBARA LEE, California
JO BONNER, Alabama ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania TIM RYAN, Ohio
TOM GRAVES, Georgia DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEVIN YODER, Kansas HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
----------
/1/ Chairman Emeritus
William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2014
___________
Thursday, April 11, 2013.
BUDGET HEARING--UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
WITNESS
HON. JANET NAPOLITANO, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Opening Statement: Mr. Carter
Mr. Carter. Today we welcome back Secretary Napolitano.
That is a little loud, isn't it?
Secretary, welcome. We are glad that you are here. We look
forward to your testimony on the President's budget for this
department and so that we can have homeland security for the
fiscal year 2014.
Madam Secretary, once again, DHS finds itself at a
crossroads. As our budgetary constraints tighten and true
threats to the homeland persist, DHS must find a way to
accomplish its vital mission with increasingly scarce
resources.
Specifically DHS must find a way to adequately support its
costly workforce and necessary operations including enforcement
and also follow through on essential upgrades on border
security technology, Coast Guard acquisitions, and necessary
research.
Budgeting for competing priorities with limited resources
is not a new challenge. In fact, it has been the hallmark of
the Appropriations Committee work since 1865. And that is why
this subcommittee has adhered to three core principles since
its establishment more than ten years ago.
Unwavering support for our front-line personnel and
essential operations is the first, secondly, clear alignment of
funding to results and, finally, true fiscal discipline meaning
we provide every dollar needed to Homeland Security but not a
penny more.
And that brings us to the department's budget request for
fiscal year 2014, to recent events.
First, your fiscal year 2014 budget prioritized and so it
defies logic, more money for headquarters' consolidation and
research, but deep shameful proposals to cut operations
including a proposed reduction of 826 Coast Guard military
personnel, a proposed cut of nearly 40 percent to Coast Guard
acquisitions, a proposed reduction of 2,200 ICE detention beds,
and a proposed reduction of more than 1,000 full-time positions
in ICE resulting in substantial decreases to investigation and
to everything from threats to national security to child
exportation to cyber crime to drug smuggling.
Secondly, what I have seen in the last few months, what I
believe is apparent with this budget request is a complete lack
of candor and that is something that as chairman I cannot and
will not tolerate. I am not talking about information on
internal policy deliberations or pre-decisional discussions
with the Administration. I am talking about facts, facts about
what things cost, the facts about actual performance.
Madam Secretary, statutory mandates and reporting
requirements within our bill are not flexible. They are the
law. What I am getting at is the department's repeated failure
to submit numerous required plans and reports on time. This
includes nearly all the 12 reports and plans that were
statutorily mandated to be submitted with the budget yesterday
morning.
Now, we did receive some late yesterday evening, I
understand about three reports required, but quite honestly
with the thousands and thousands and thousands of people that
you have got over there in your department and the law
requiring a priority date for the submission of these reports,
I see no good excuse why you cannot find enough people that
know how to do their job over there if they cannot get these
reports put together.
Furthermore, what I am getting at is the department's
failure to answer basic factual questions about program cost
and performance. We have asked repeatedly about mandatory E-
Verify costs. We have asked repeatedly about resource
implications of the new USCS programs. We have asked for
updated information about the department's sequester impacts
given that the fiscal year 2013 appropriation bill was enacted
more than two weeks ago.
And three weeks after the unwarranted release of thousands
of ICE detainees, I had to hold a hearing to get an entirely
confusing and incomplete accounting of the incident including
that ICE released ten level one criminal aliens and 159 level
two criminal aliens.
Madam Secretary, let's be blunt. If DHS cannot explain how
it is proposing to spend the taxpayers' limited dollars on its
programs and on its projects, how are we going to make a
decision as to how these funds relate to the mission
requirements?
We need congressional oversight. We have given
congressional oversight authority. This is part of
congressional oversight and it should not be ignored.
We have little choice other than to hold the department's
leadership accountable and to cut requested and unjustified
funding.
So when DHS has a statutory mission to fulfill, we expect a
legitimate and adequate budget to support it. When the law
mandates a spend plan, we expect compliance. When we ask a
question for factual information, we expect straightforward and
prompt answers instead of getting little more than excuses,
delays, and outright irresponsiveness. And all that has got to
stop and it has got to stop today.
Yesterday we were talking. I talked to you on the phone
briefly about the plans that we were not receiving and you made
the comment you would try to get it to us by May 1st. I thought
about that after our conversation and that is not acceptable.
Just because the President thinks he gets to be two months
late on his budget does not mean that the people who work in
his departments get to also ignore deadlines. We have deadlines
that we have on this committee and I think those deadlines
should be met. And I think May 1st is too long to wait for
those reports.
So I would appreciate it if you would get whoever you hire
or have hired to get the various reports done that we require
and if they cannot remember what they are, we will be glad to
share that information with them.
I would like for them to have that for us by no later than
the end of next week, Friday of next week. And, you know, I
would also like to know who was assigned that job because if
they cannot do the job, then there is a management problem
somewhere.
And we will talk. I will give you an opportunity to reply
to this, but I do not want to play the game. Others are having
to, but I do not want to play the game of we will give it to
you when we want to. And then honestly we have a statutory
mandate on a budget, but we did not get the budget when it was
statutorily mandated. We got it two months later. I am not
going to play that game. That is pretty simple.
At a time when our budget is hemorrhaging with red ink, the
department has to get the budgeting right. That means meeting
oversight responsibilities and clearly aligning requested
funding to intended results for our Nation's security. And that
is the commitment I am going to ask of you today. The American
people deserve no less.
Madam Secretary, I think it is clear that we have a lot to
cover here today. Before I recognize you for your testimony,
let me turn to our distinguished ranking member and former
chairman of this committee for his remarks that he may wish to
make.
Mr. Price.
[The statement of Mr. Carter follows:]
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Opening Statement: Mr. Price
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Madam Secretary. It is a pleasure to have you
kick off our budget season a little later than usual, but we
are glad to have you here.
The fiscal year 2014 net discretionary budget request for
the Department of Homeland Security is $39.04 billion, not
including an additional $5.6 billion in disaster relief funding
that does not count toward the discretionary cap. The total is
some $550 million below the equivalent number for the current
year.
This year also marks the tenth anniversary of the creation
of DHS and the continuing efforts to make 22 components operate
under a common vision and leadership. Complicating these
efforts is the reality that, like all federal agencies, you
have been asked to do more with less. And this has required
some tough decisions.
I am pleased that a full year Homeland Security
Appropriations Act was included in the final Continuing
Resolution for the current year providing an allocation of
funds that is more aligned with your current needs.
It provided significant and necessary funding increases,
for example, for preparedness and anti-terrorism grants, for
customs and border protection salaries, and for advanced
research.
However, you are still under the thumb of sequestration.
Sequestration, the very definition of irrational and
irresponsible budgeting, which ironically leaves the two main
drivers of the federal deficit, tax expenditures and mandatory
spending, largely untouched.
Today I look forward to exploring how the Department is
assessing risk and prioritizing funding in this era of
shrinking budgets. It is also time to reflect about where the
department has been and where you are heading.
This includes the Department's efforts to enforce our
Nation's immigration laws which we all know are in need of
comprehensive reform. As bipartisan efforts to craft
legislation continue, no doubt security at the border will
remain center stage.
Despite what some opponents of comprehensive immigration
reform say, significant progress has been made along the
southern border. This subcommittee, under both democratic and
republican leadership, has been at the forefront of these
changes. We must resist misleading claims about border security
by those who simply wish to block reform.
Two decades ago, fewer than 4,000 border patrol agents
monitored the entire southwest border. By the end of fiscal
2012, there were more than 18,400 such agents. Fencing totaling
some 651 miles has also been constructed in targeted areas of
the border. Now sensors have been planted, cameras erected, and
unmanned aerial vehicles monitor the border from above.
Couple these efforts with targeted outbound inspections of
vehicles for illegal drugs, weapons, cash, and other contraband
heading south into Mexico resulting in some impressive seizures
in California, Texas, and Arizona over the past three years and
you can see just how successful our border security efforts
have been. You should be proud of how far we have come under
your leadership and that of your predecessor to secure our
border.
Recalling our efforts to apply cost-effectiveness criteria
to that border fence, I know just how elusive the definition of
secure can be. I also know that we cannot simply throw an
unlimited supply of money at the southwest border and assume it
will solve all the problems.
We must continue to look analytically for the right mix of
personnel, infrastructure, and technology to find the best path
forward and today we hope you can shed some light on your
thinking in this regard.
In addition, the Administration has taken positive steps to
improve its immigration enforcement policies. Here, too, some
have been eager to criticize, but I believe it is both prudent
and wise for the Administration to focus on the removal of
criminal aliens first and foremost while providing
prosecutorial discretion on less pressing cases and deferred
action in the case of the so-called dreamers. With limited
resources, we simply must prioritize our efforts.
Much has been made of the release of ICE detainees in
February, although following Director Morton's testimony before
this subcommittee, I hope we have reached the point where
suspicions of a political motive have subsided.
In that regard, I hope you can touch on the funding
realities ICE must deal with when facing a statutory mandate
that ties its hands on the number of individuals it detains.
Director Morton has testified that this statutory minimum
bed requirement will reduce such priorities as the
investigation into human and drug smuggling as well as child
pornography.
We need to get to the point where ICE decision making about
the use of detention is based only on consistent, reviewable,
risk-based criteria, and that ICE has full discretion and
available funding to use less costly supervision methods and
alternatives to detention when risk is low.
I also support your effort to better focus the Secure
Communities Program to make sure it is fulfilling its intended
mission and not being applied indiscriminately.
Now that the Secure Communities Program has been
implemented nationwide, I look forward to examining how
effective this program has been in fulfilling its intended
mission.
This subcommittee also feels some ownership of that effort
to focus on the criminal alien population.
I must also commend you on the job FEMA continues to do.
Over the past few years, FEMA has faced significant challenges,
including an unprecedented 99 presidentially declared disasters
in 2011.
In comparison, 2012 had about half that number with 47
presidentially declared disasters, but that number included
Hurricane Sandy, a storm of historic magnitude. Currently every
state in the Nation has pending disaster recovery projects with
FEMA.
In each of these instances, FEMA has done a remarkable job
of working with affected areas to make sure that individuals,
families, and localities have the resources to remove damaged
structures and debris and to begin the rebuilding process.
This recent experience confirms that much of the lost
capacity we witnessed following Hurricane Katrina has been
restored, yet another success of which this subcommittee claims
some ownership.
Now, I must say there are some questions, some
disappointments in this budget that we are going to want to
explore. There is a net reduction in FEMA grants here. There is
the same flawed proposal, I believe, for a national
preparedness grant program. It was rejected by all sides in the
Continuing Resolution.
The budget also proposes a significant reduction to coast
guard personnel and acquisitions that raises serious questions
about future Coast Guard capabilities and recapitalizations
efforts.
Now, on the face of it at least, this significant reduction
in funding for the Coast Guard appears to have been made in
order to provide a full $714 million to complete construction
of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. We know that
facility must be constructed, but we have got to consider the
implications for the rest of DHS, particularly if there is a
viable option to phase in NBAF construction and avoid a
tradeoff with the Coast Guard or with other science and
technology efforts in the coming fiscal year.
So we have a number of questions that will need to be
addressed by you and your colleagues as this subcommittee works
to produce a bill in the coming weeks.
Madam Secretary, I look forward to your testimony and
working with you again this year.
[The statement of Mr. Price follows:]
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Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Price.
I would now like to recognize the chairman of the full
committee and the founding chairman of this subcommittee,
Harold Rogers, for any comments that he would like to make.
Mr. Chairman.
Opening Statement: Mr. Rogers
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations on
your work on this as the new chairman of this subcommittee.
Madam Secretary, it is good to be with you again and good
to see you. Tough job. Pardon me.
In the past three years now, we have struggled on the
committee and on this subcommittee to try to bring regular
order to the process where we take up individual bills and
debate them and amend them and take them to conference with the
Senate and we hash out the differences like the old fashion way
which is regular order.
And I am very pleased that a couple of weeks ago now, we
were able to work that process with our colleagues in the
Senate and produce, I think, a fair hybrid Continuing
Resolution which included Homeland Security.
And I wanted to congratulate Senator Mikulski and her
counterparts in the Senate along with my counterpart here, Nita
Lowey, for working together to bring out a good bill. I know it
is not exactly all that you wanted, but it is the best we could
do. So the effort for regular order continues.
Now, your budget submissions do not make our job any
easier. Like Yogi Bear talked about deja vu all over again,
here we go again. The department has produced a proposal to, I
think, decimate the coast guard and ICE that supports the men
and women who bravely defend our homeland on the front lines in
favor of headquarters' pet projects and controversial research
programs.
Once again, the budget request uses phoney, unauthorized
offsets to pay for critical aviation security measures. Once
again, the department has failed to submit a number of plans
and reports which are required by law, which are essential to
help us do our work and do our work well to try to justify
every penny that we spend of the taxpayers' money under the
constitution appropriated to agencies of the Federal
Government.
And, once again, this budget submission would add layers of
bureaucracy to the already tangled web of agencies under your
purview at headquarters. Many of these proposals are recycled
directly from last year's budget. Nearly all of these
misaligned priorities were patently rejected by the Congress in
the fiscal 2013 bills that passed both chambers and the CR.
These trends are becoming a sadly predictable asset and
tenet of this Administration's budgeting strategy. Particularly
where our Nation's security is involved, we need a legitimate
budget that ties funding to results and mission requirements.
Unfortunately, what I see here is a largely political
document which mirrors the fear mongering tactics employed by
DHS and others leading up to implementation of sequestration,
especially ICE's release, opening the jail doors for several
hundred detainees prior to the budget cuts.
Needless to say, this gives me great concern. I certainly
hope your testimony allays those concerns as we go on today. I
hope and trust that it will. But we have rehashed these things
ever since you have been the secretary and we have gone over
them time and again. And we reject your pleas and you keep
coming back and we keep rejecting them.
We should be spending this time talking about positive
things rather than going over old rehashed, rejected proposals.
So I welcome your testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Rogers follows:]
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Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are honored to have
you here.
We are now also honored to have the ranking member of the
whole committee, Ms. Lowey. I recognize her for her comments.
Thank you, Ms. Lowey, for being here.
Opening Statement: Ms. Lowey
Ms. Lowey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to also acknowledge that I join with Chairman
Rogers in hoping that we could have regular order and go
through the process and work together to accomplish our goals.
I want to welcome you, Secretary Napolitano. It has been my
pleasure working with you over the past four years to secure
our borders, prevent acts of terrorism, improve cyber security,
and provide our first responders with the equipment and
resources they need to protect our communities.
I would also like to thank you and Administrator Fugate for
your handling of Super Storm Sandy. As our Nation confronted
one of the most severe and damaging storms in our history, you
managed the federal response to the storm with precision.
I also truly appreciate your regular updates for Members so
that we could get timely information to our local partners on
the ground in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
However, you come before us today with a budget that again
would consolidate state and local grants into a large pot with
little direction without authorization from Congress and
expressly against the wishes of this subcommittee.
I am concerned that efforts to consolidate these grants in
such a way could result in diluting crucial terrorism funds
from the areas most at risk of attacks and leaving transit and
port security in the Nation's most densely populated areas
without the resources necessary to prevent and respond to acts
of terror.
Again, I would like to thank Chairman Carter and Ranking
Member Price for holding this hearing today and you, Secretary
Napolitano, for joining us. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Lowey follows:]
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Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Lowey, and, once again, welcome.
Madam Secretary, your entire written statement, we have
that. It will be entered into the record. You are now
recognized for five minutes to summarize your testimony.
Opening Statement: Secretary Napolitano
Secretary Napolitano. Well, thank you. Thank you, Chairman
Carter, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Lowey, Ranking Member
Price, Members of the committee, subcommittee. Thank you for
the opportunity to discuss the President's fiscal year 2014
budget for the Department of Homeland Security [DHS].
There have been several points raised by you and others in
their opening statements and I look forward to addressing
issues like reports and the FEMA [Federal Emergency Management
Agency] consolidation with you during the Q&A part of the
program.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of
DHS, the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since
the formation of the Department of Defense.
After 10 years of effort, DHS has transformed 22 legacy
agencies into a single integrated department, building a
strengthened homeland security enterprise and a more secure
America better equipped to confront the range of threats that
we face.
Our workforce of nearly 240,000 law enforcement agents,
officers, and men and women on the front lines puts their lives
at risk every day securing our land, air, and maritime borders,
enforcing our immigration laws, and responding to natural
disasters. They work in every state and more than 75 countries
strengthening homeland security through cooperation,
information sharing, training, and technical assistance with
many of our partners.
The President's fiscal year 2014 budget for DHS allows us
to build on our progress over the past 10 years by preserving
core front-line operational priorities. At the same time, given
the current fiscal environment, this is the third straight year
that our budget request reflects a reduction from the previous
year.
Specifically, the budget request is 2.2 percent or more
than $800 million below the fiscal year 2013 enacted budget.
While our mission has not changed and we continue to face
evolving threats, we have become more strategic in how we use
limited resources focusing on a risk-based approach.
This is coupled with an unprecedented commitment to fiscal
discipline, which has led to over $4 billion in cost avoidances
and reductions over the past 4 years through our Efficiency
Review.
Before I discuss the department's budget, however, I would
like to take a moment to talk about the mandatory reductions
imposed by sequestration, which are significant, more than $3
billion in cuts across DHS over 6 months.
The recent full year appropriations bill enabled DHS to
mitigate to some degree the projected sequestered impacts under
the CR [Continuing Resolution] on our operations and workforce,
but there is no doubt that these cuts will affect operations
both in the short and the long terms.
Sustained cuts at these sequester levels will result in
reduced operational capacity, breached staffing floors, and
economic impacts to the private sector through reduced and
canceled contracts.
Nonetheless, we continue to do everything we can to
minimize impacts on our core mission and employees consistent
with the operational priorities in our 2014 budget, which I
will briefly highlight for you.
First, to prevent terrorism and enhance security, the
fiscal year 2014 budget continues to support risk-based
security initiatives including TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, and
other trusted traveler programs. As a result, we expect one in
four travelers to receive some form of expedited screening
domestically by the end of the year.
The budget supports Administration efforts to secure
maritime cargo and the global supply chain by strengthening
efforts to interdict threats at the earliest possible point.
We continue our strong support for state and local partners
through training, fusion centers, and information sharing on a
wide range of critical homeland security issues.
We also fund cutting-edge research and development to
address evolving biological, radiological, and nuclear threats,
including construction of the NBAF [National Bio- and Agro-
Defense Facility], a state-of-the-art bio-containment facility
central to the protection of the Nation's food supply and our
national and economic security.
Next, to secure and manage our borders, the budget
continues the Administration's robust border security efforts
while facilitating legitimate travel and trade. It sustains
historic deployments of personnel between our ports of entry
along our borders as well as continued utilization of proven
effective surveillance technology along the highest traffic
areas of the southwest border.
To expedite travel and trade while reducing wait times at
the ports of entry including both land and air ports, the
budget requests an additional 3,500 port officers, 1,600 paid
for by appropriations and the remainder by an increase to the
immigration user fees that have not been adjusted since 2001.
To secure our maritime borders, the budget invests in
recapitalization of Coast Guard assets including the seventh
National Security Cutter and Fast Response Cutters.
The budget also continues the department's focus on smart
and effective enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws. The
budget supports the Administration's unprecedented efforts to
more effectively focus the enforcement system on public safety
threats, border security, and the integrity of the immigration
system through initiatives such as the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals and greater use of prosecutorial discretion.
At the same time, the budget makes significant reductions
to inefficient programs like the 287(g) Task Force agreements
while supporting more cost-effective initiatives like the
nationwide implementation of Secure Communities.
The budget invests in monitoring and compliance, promoting
adherence to work-site related laws, Form I-9 inspections, the
enhancements to the E-Verify program, while continuing to
support Alternatives to Detention, detention reform, and
immigrant integration efforts.
Comprehensive immigration reform will help us continue to
build on these efforts and strengthen border security by
enabling DHS to further focus existing resources on criminals,
human smugglers and traffickers, and national security threats.
Next, to safeguard and secure cyberspace, this budget makes
significant investments to strengthen cybersecurity including
funds to first secure our Nation's information and financial
systems and to defend against cyber threats to private-sector
and federal systems, the Nation's critical infrastructure, and
our economy.
Second, the budget includes funds to support the
President's executive order on improving critical
infrastructure and cybersecurity, and the presidential policy
directive on critical infrastructure security and resilience.
And, finally, the budget includes funds to expedite the
deployment of EINSTEIN 3 to prevent and detect intrusions on
government computer systems.
Finally, to ensure continued resilience to disasters, the
President's budget focuses on a whole community approach
through emergency management. It includes resources for the
DRF, the disaster relief fund, to support presidentially
declared disasters or emergencies.
And the Administration is again proposing the consolidation
of 18 grant programs into one National Preparedness Grants
Program to create a robust national response capacity while
reducing administrative overhead.
This competitive risk-based program will use a
comprehensive process to assess gaps, identify and prioritize
deployable capabilities, put funding to work quickly, and
require grantees to regularly report on their progress.
In conclusion, the fiscal year 2014 budget proposal
reflects this Administration's strong commitment to protecting
the homeland and the American people through the effective and
efficient use of DHS resources.
Chairman Carter, Representative Price, Members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today
and I am pleased to be able to answer your questions.
[The information follows:]
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CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: OPERATIONAL COSTS
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Secretary. We are pleased to
have you here today.
As you know, fiscal year 2013 request short-changed CBP
operations including failing to cover pay and benefits of the
workforce. Addressing that shortfall put the subcommittee in a
real tough spot. That was all last year. In order to fully fund
personnel and operations, we had to make trade-offs in
acquisitions, IT, and other initiatives.
The bottom line is DHS's budget needs to accurately and
legitimately propose funding to cover known costs. I want your
personal assurances that fiscal year 2014 budget request
include funds necessary to cover known operational costs for
CBP including fully funding the essential needs of its front-
line personnel, border patrol agents, CBP officers, air and
marine interdiction agents.
Do I have your assurance on that issue?
Secretary Napolitano. Mr. Chairman, I would love to give
you that assurance, but we are dealing here with an era where,
for example, if sequester were to continue past the beginning
of the fiscal year, we are going to continue to have impacts on
CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] given the way
sequester was drafted.
So while I would like to give you that assurance and we
will do everything we can in that regard, I cannot give you a
100 percent guarantee.
Mr. Carter. Well, I understand that. And I think that is an
honest appraisal because I have looked at your budget and I do
not see how you could guarantee it to be honest with you, but I
wanted to see what you had to say about it.
And, you know, I noted something that I think it is
important for us to remember and I do not think I have to
remind you, but I am going to. Almost the first series of
statements that you made you called yourself a law enforcement
agency, right?
You are about enforcing the law. That is our first and
foremost priority in this job is to enforce the law that exists
today. If it is a bad law, we are going to work at fixing it.
But until it is fixed, you get the law you got and you got to
enforce it.
And in many ways, you have my sympathy on that issue. I
have been there on other laws that are pretty rotten myself and
I understand how that works, but that is not our job to
question. It is our job to do.
And so in looking at this, the money just starting with CBP
and it gets a lot worse in other places, especially with the
Coast Guard, I have real concerns about the starting point on
what we are doing here today.
Quite honestly, I hate to come back to those reports, but
that is why we want to know the thinking of the people who help
put this thing together. It is critical for my team of people,
our team of people, and Mr. Price's team and my team to know
what you were thinking and what these people who you have given
this responsibility to were thinking in proposing the numbers
in this proposal you have given us today.
So from that standpoint, I am not going to beat that horse
anymore or I am going to try not to. Okay. If you want to say
something, go ahead.
REPORTS, REQUIRED
Secretary Napolitano. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We want to be as transparent as possible with the committee
and work you through our thought process. I would note that we
have just for this subcommittee alone 227 reports that are
required. That does not even include the authorizing reports.
Report writing has become almost a whole section of the
department. But we will move to get the reports. There are 16-
some odd that were specified to be due May 1. We will move
heaven and earth to get them to you earlier. But I just ask the
chairman to recognize that reports unfortunately were not
sequestered.
Mr. Carter. No. That is life, isn't it? I believe that your
list counts monthly, quarterly, and quarterly reports
separately. It seems a little bit of an exaggeration. We have
been through all this before.
If you are saying that monthly budget execution reports and
quarterly acquisition reports are too onerous, we probably have
a bigger problem than I thought. These are the very same
reports I would think that you would demand to manage your
department.
Secretary Napolitano. Many of the reports that I think the
committee has specified it wants really rely on being able to
know what your fiscal year 2013 numbers are. Now, the fiscal
year 2013 numbers were not available until a couple of weeks
ago. That also has some effect.
I appreciate the fact this committee is having a prompt
hearing after the release of the budget and I hope we can
follow up with Chairman Mikulski and Chairman Rogers and get
back to some kind of regular order in the budget and
appropriations process. It would make all of our jobs much
easier.
CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION OFFICERS
Mr. Carter. I have been preaching regular order to many
people for a long time. It is the backbone of being in
Congress. So I am for that.
But to finish up on CBP, the budget proposes to bring on
1,600 additional CBP officers in 2014 using appropriated funds.
The tail for that increase comes years later.
After all the issues DHS has had to maintain staffing
increases over the years, can you assure the subcommittee that
DHS will support this increase in the out years?
Secretary Napolitano. The answer is our out-year budget
does. And as I mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in my statement, the
President's proposal is for roughly 3,400 more port officers,
1,600 of which are appropriated, the remainder paid for through
fees.
DETENTION BEDS: NUMBER REQUESTED
Mr. Carter. Moving on to something else which is something
that I have already gotten in the middle of in the last three
weeks is 34,000 detention beds. I found the logic that has been
argued to this committee very peculiar over this issue.
Last year, you sat before this subcommittee and you
testified that you did not need the capacity of 34,000 ICE
detention beds mandated in the law. Yet, earlier this year, ICE
released detainees because they were operating at an extremely
high level reaching as many as 37,000 detainees in custody and
with an average daily population for the first quarter of
34,640 detainees.
With that, under that consideration, you still think you do
not need 34,000?
Also, let me ask you this. You still think that number and
the fact that the big storm that was created by the release of
these detainees across the country from coast to coast,
newspapers were screaming about it, TVs were blaring about it
and talk show hosts were going crazy, under that circumstance,
how do you argue that you do not need 34,000 beds?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, if I might, the President's
request is for 31,800 beds. The reason for that is we are
proposing to make greater uses of alternatives to detention,
which are cheaper. The bed cost that we estimate will be about
$119 per day.
Mr. Carter. Well, let me ask a question----
Secretary Napolitano. If I might, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Carter [continuing]. On that just a second. You and I
talked about this earlier. You told me you would tell me how
many of those people were put on that alternative to detention,
but I have never gotten that information.
Secretary Napolitano. We will supply it. But if I might, I
think Representative Price made a very valuable point to this
committee, which is we ought to be managing the actual
detention population to risk, not to an arbitrary number.
Of those released, there were very few, a handful of so-
called level one offenders. But when you dig down into those
cases, you will find, for example, a 68-year-old who had 10
plus years after he committed an offense and was living with
his family in New Mexico. So some of those cases, on a case-by-
case basis, are clearly understandable.
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
The department, ICE was facing a perfect storm when these
releases occurred. We did not know we were going to have a
budget. They were estimating we were going to continue under
the CR and the CR as sequestered. And so with that and given
the way that sequester worked account by account by account,
reductions in ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] were
required.
But as we look at it, stepping back and looking at it,
really the policy decision for the committee is whether we
stick to an artificial number of beds or do we simply require
that certain levels of detainees be in beds and that we have
those beds available.
[The information follows:]
Response: As of March 25, 2013, the number of aliens released for
budgetary reasons from February 9, 2013, through March 1, 2013, was
2,226.\1\ ICE continues to seek removal on these cases as appropriate.
Released individuals were placed on various types of supervision as
illustrated in the following table.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ICE initially reported the release of 2,228 aliens. Upon a
review, two cases were found to be duplicates.
DETAINEES RELEASED FROM FEBRUARY 9, 2013, THROUGH MARCH 1, 2013
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number
Category Released
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternatives to Detention.................................. 102
Bonded out................................................. 171
Order of recognizance...................................... 1,640
Order of supervision--final order.......................... 137
Paroled.................................................... 172
Other (terminated, turned over to another law enforcement 4
agency, or relief granted by immigration judge)...........
------------
Total.................................................. 2,226
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terminated refers to alien immigration cases that completed
proceedings before the Department of Justice's Executive Office of
Immigration Review (EOIR) and the alien was released from custody.
Mr. Carter. I have heard this argument. You and I have had
this argument before. I have also talked to the folks at ICE
and they follow the President's instructions.
But here is the problem I have got with this. Right now, in
fact, ICE has 36,000 detainees in custody at this time and 96
percent of them meet the priorities set by this Administration
for detention according to the priorities that you set.
So, I mean, it is curious that almost the rules start to
change in the middle of--and, by the way, I love this argument
about we released these people in anticipation, but it was very
convenient that that was right during the Administration's the
sky is going to be falling campaign and I still question that
action because it certainly fell right within the pattern of
the world is coming to an end if you have a sequestration vote.
Secretary Napolitano. The 31,800 that we request, we
believe, will house all mandatory detainees as all level ones
and twos. And as I said, level threes are misdemeanants and
only certain misdemeanants. And those, we think, are not-- they
are not released to the general population. They are put in a
different type of supervision. It can be an ankle bracelet. It
can be intensive supervision, what have you.
Mr. Carter. I am glad with alternatives to incarceration.
However, let me point out that you released ten level ones in
this release that you did and quickly after it became a
national issue rounded them all up again which at least
somebody was thinking.
But I wonder if it had not been a storm on the horizon from
the public whether those ten level one violators would still be
on the street.
Secretary Napolitano. There is no doubt----
Mr. Carter. My time is running out.
Secretary Napolitano. Oh, okay.
Mr. Carter. I just want to point out that, you know, I am
going to be very cautious about this 31,800 request.
Okay. Mr. Price, at this time, I yield to Mr. Price.
BUDGET CUT IMPACTS: OVERALL
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Madam Secretary, let me return to the question of
sequestration which you touched on in your testimony. I would
like to have you elaborate.
Sequestration has been in place for 42 days. However, your
department did not receive your final 2013 appropriation until
late March. At that time, the Department planned to reevaluate
sequestration impacts to see what adjustments needed to be made
in its March 1 sequestration plan.
Based on OMB's March 1 report, DHS is taking a $2.8 billion
reduction, and that includes funding contained in the Sandy
supplemental. It exempts, as it should, of course, Coast Guard
military pay.
Two point eight billion dollars, that is a significant
amount. There is no doubt it will have a lasting impact on the
department's critical missions and we have a huge stake in
getting this federal budget on a different footing by the start
of fiscal 2014.
Sequestration does not address the main drivers of the
deficit at all and, yet, we are saddled with this and we have
to deal with it and you have to deal with it. It is a reality
that we have got to deal with.
So let me ask you a series of related questions. How did
the enactment of the 2013 bill--and I commend the subcommittee
chairman and full committee chairman for including the DHS bill
produced under the regular order, including that in the CR--
affect sequestration as experienced by DHS?
For example, originally TSA thought it would need to
furlough employees, but backed off from that assessment in late
February. Given that the sum of the funding levels for that
agency for 2013 are still below 2012, are furloughs back on the
table for that agency?
What about CBP? There have been some mixed reports about
whether we might or might not be able to avoid CBP furloughs.
What about that statutory requirement to maintain 34,000
detention beds? With that sitting there, what kind of shifting
of sequestration impacts might that require of you?
And let me just say in general that I applaud your efforts,
the efforts of other cabinet secretaries and agency heads.
Applaud the efforts to mitigate this impact, but I know those
cuts have to come from somewhere and your discretion is
limited.
Some apologists for sequestration have taken to saying
these days that, oh, well, this does not have to be so bad. And
whenever a cut is made, they accuse you or the President of a
political motivation.
Well, as a matter of fact, sequestration is designed to be
unacceptable. It is designed to be a meat ax. It was supposed
to force us to a more rational budget plan. Unfortunately, that
has not happened.
But these cuts have to come from somewhere. And, sure, you
are going to be asked to put out fires to avoid furloughs
there, to avoid this or that which has a highly visible impact,
but then you are going to have to shift to other areas.
And I want to know, as you get all this criticism and have
to avoid this cut or that, what are those less visible areas?
What are those less visible areas that are nonetheless critical
that we ought to be worried about because these cuts are going
to come from somewhere and we need to know where?
And simply playing it politically and pretending that these
fires can all be put out with no consequence, I think, is
highly misleading.
So what can you tell us about your current strategy?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, Representative Price, we are a
personnel heavy department. That drives our budget. We are
trying to work through the fiscal year 2013 numbers we were
finally given. The negotiators were able to put back in some
more money for CBP, some more money for grants. We are working
now with the Office of Personnel Management, the government-
wide office, to see how that plays out.
But on March 1, pre budget, if I might, we were looking at
significant furloughs and reductions in overtime. So now we are
working to mitigate those and we do not have a final answer yet
for our employees. That is a stress factor that needs to be
taken into account.
But I think in order to mitigate, we will be asking the
Congress for some reprogramming because as you observed, we
were given very little discretion on how to--which accounts
money went into. So as we unpack that, we believe that money
needs to be moved around.
So we will under the fiscal year 2013 as enacted be coming
back to the Congress for some reprogramming. And once that
occurs, I think we will be able to get some final answers.
Mr. Price. What are those less visible accounts that are
nonetheless critical that we ought to be worried about? I mean,
it seems in a number of departments, for example, it is all too
easy to put out this fire and that and then shift the cuts,
let's say, into research.
Secretary Napolitano. Well----
Mr. Price. That is taking place a lot of places. Is it
going to happen with DHS?
Secretary Napolitano. Things like that, some of the
acquisitions get postponed or slowed down. There may not be a
reduction in force. But as people retire, we may leave
vacancies and not hire new agents or officers.
So that is not readily apparent, but the plain fact of the
matter is, for example, take CBP, take port officers, that part
of CBP. We had a significant shortage of port officers to begin
with.
What we are already seeing in the major international
airports, the ones that have international flights, are wait
times significantly higher than last year's wait times for
March and April. So we anticipate that that will continue,
particularly if CBP does not get the budget the President has
requested.
Mr. Price. That still does not add up to $2.8 billion, I am
afraid, and so we will look forward to continuing to exchange
information about this, about what these impacts will be.
Secretary Napolitano. We will be happy to give you an
inventory, but it ranges across the department. And as I said,
some are personnel savings, some are equipment savings, some
are program identifications and reductions.
[The information follows:]
Response: The Department provided a report separately on its post-
sequestration operating plans to the Appropriations Committees on April
26, 2013.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Chairman Rogers, I now recognize you for
questions.
BUDGET CUT IMPACTS: COAST GUARD, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to ask you about two pieces. One is cuts to Coast
Guard and, two, I wanted to ask you about the CBPs particularly
at the Miami Airport which I happened to become acquainted
with.
First, you propose to cut critical Coast Guard front-line
personnel by over 826 military billets, cut the Coast Guard
recapitalization programs by almost 40 percent, and
decommission various cutters and aircraft while at the same
time increasing headquarters' funding and increasing the
science and technology division by 83 percent.
In addition, you propose to slash current and future
capabilities for drug interdiction for the Coast Guard and
customs and border protection. CBP Air and Marine procurement
is reduced by $87 million. No Coast Guard aviation assets are
proposed despite the decommissioning of eight HU-25s and two
C13Hs.
We have rejected that type of budget slashing of front-line
operations in the past and I do not see any reason why we won't
do it again.
But I really wonder what was in your mind because just, for
example, on drug interdiction, the country is overrun with drug
problems. The deaths from addiction to prescription medicine
exceeds the number of people killed in car wrecks, mainly
OxyContin.
And then the manufacturer changed the formulation of
OxyContin to where it was not crushable and, therefore, you
could not crush it and shoot it up and get the 12-hour release
into a single jolt. But that patent now expires, has expired,
and Canada has six generic manufacturers of the old, original,
crushable OxyContin which has hooked and killed thousands of
kids in our country.
And I am wondering whether you have interdicted any of that
new generic drug coming out of Canada and what will happen with
the reduction in the Coast Guard assets that you are proposing
that would be used to stop this kind of problem coming from
Canada.
Secretary Napolitano. If I might, and I share your concern
about OxyContin, we have not in our drug interdictions been
picking up any measurable degree of OxyContin or other
prescription drugs, the generic, for example.
But if I might, and I will just tick them off, you asked
why are we increasing headquarters. Well, we are located in 50
plus different facilities around the National Capital Region.
The Coast Guard is moving to the new facility at St. Elizabeths
and will have moved by Thanksgiving.
The proposal is to keep moving forward on that project and
that was put in the headquarters' budget. Every other item in
the headquarters' budget, as you will see, has gone down as it
went down last year, travel, training, conferences. You name
it, it has been reduced.
So what we are talking about is finally getting this
department a consolidated headquarters, which will assist us in
the long term in performing our mission.
The increases to the Science and Technology [Directorate
(S&T)] are due primarily to the NBAF, and every group that has
looked at the issue of biological threat has concluded that the
current level four lab we have at Plum Island is inadequate and
it will not be adequate in the long term.
There was a peer-reviewed competition for the lab. Kansas
is now putting in over $320 million to partner with us. So at
some point, you know, we had to bite the bullet, so to speak,
and that went in the S&T budget. But that is the increase
there.
With respect to the Coast Guard, the Commandant's number
one priority is the completion of the NSC [National Security
Cutter] fleet. The budget includes the cost of NSC 7 and that
is his number one priority. And, by the way, those ships
require fewer personnel than some of the older ships that we
are planning to decommission.
We have a slightly different production path for FRCs [Fast
Response Cutters] than the Congress has seen or has approved,
but it ends up with the same number of FRCs. So that is just a
budget, you know, in which year do you take the construction
for the Fast Response Cutters.
With respect to the billets, Chairman Rogers, the billets
are mostly billets that are either onshore, administrative, or
unfilled billets at this time anyway.
Finally, we are working very hard with state and local
officials and are able to leverage them in a much better way
than perhaps 8 years ago, 7 years ago. So the kind of task
forces and Intel-sharing agreements and things we have ongoing
now are much more robust and we can depend more on our state
and local partners.
ARIZONA BORDER SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY PLAN
Mr. Rogers. Well, I understand, but I am really puzzled on
how you would want to come to us and request that we cut 40
percent of Coast Guard acquisitions and an $87 million cut to
CBP Air and Marine when we have got this terrible drug problem
not only on the Canadian border but, of course, the Mexican
border, with the drug wars on the southwest border.
And speaking of which, in January of 2011, you froze the
activities of what was then called the SBInet----
Secretary Napolitano. Right.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. And replaced it with what was
called the Arizona border technology plan to buy off-the-shelf
technology that could be deployed immediately----
Secretary Napolitano. Uh-huh.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. To meet Border Patrol's clear
mission needs and, yet, here we are 27 months later. Very
little of that technology has actually been deployed. Only the
procurement for thermal imaging devices went out on time. The
major awards have not been made including continued delays for
remote video surveillance systems and integrated fixed towers.
Am I correct that it has been four years almost--27
months--I am sorry--since we have had any significant activity?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, if I might, Mr. Chairman--Mr.
Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I do not know how that works--but in
any event--I will just call you both chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Yeah.
Secretary Napolitano. In any event, I said stop on SBInet
so that we could avoid throwing good money after bad, I said go
back to the drawing board and in each sector develop a
technology plan that works for the officers in that sector and
meets geographical, topographical, whatever challenges.
That was done. Those were reviewed. They are all in place.
The plans have been submitted to Congress. The Arizona
procurement is well underway and that technology--I was just
down on that border at the end of last week--is being purchased
and deployed as we speak.
We are also, by the way, Mr. Chairman, moving more assets
down to south Texas, which is the one area of the border right
now that we are seeing some increase in traffic and we want to
turn it back.
Mr. Rogers. Well, the idea was with the Arizona border
technology plan was that you could buy off-the-shelf technology
quickly and put it in place quickly and, therefore, solve the
mission more expeditiously and, yet, it has been two and a half
years.
Why couldn't you buy that off-the-shelf stuff and put it in
place in a week?
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah. That is because when we said
off the shelf, that is kind of a misleading phrase, quite
frankly. These things do not translate immediately from, say,
the war theater in Afghanistan to what we have down on the
border. And some of these things need to be ordered and then
built even though they are mobile.
But that process is well underway and I anticipate, if
anything, it is going to be speeding up very rapidly.
REIMBURSABLE AGREEMENTS: AIRPORT PILOT PROGRAMS
Mr. Rogers. Well, I should hope so.
And quickly, Mr. Chairman, and finally, the Customs and
Border Protection offices, particularly at our international
airports, I am familiar with the Miami Airport which I think is
the biggest in volume of international----
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, I think that is true.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Material transport----
Secretary Napolitano. Uh-huh.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. And, yet, the waiting time there
is up to four hours.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. And those companies are now beginning to move
offshore that otherwise would--because they cannot stand that
big time delay. I am told that the mayor has money to pay for
more CBP agents. It will cost you nothing. They will give the
money and hire them in order to get this thing expedited
because the city sees a looming economic problem.
And I think we authorized five locations in the fiscal 2013
bill----
Secretary Napolitano. That is correct.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. To allow private companies to
pay----
Secretary Napolitano. Uh-huh.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. For CBP personnel. Have you picked
those five airports yet?
Secretary Napolitano. We are in the process. I was just
down in Miami myself and I spent the better part of a day with
the airport authorities, local authorities. But if I might, we
are in the process of selecting the five pilots for a
reimbursement type partnership.
In the President's 2014 budget proposal, it would open it
up beyond five so that we would always have the ability to seek
that kind of reimbursement. It also provides, as I mentioned
before, for the 3,400 new CBP officers, many of whom I think
would end up deployed at places like Miami, LAX, JFK where we
have a lot of international arrivals.
And, finally, with respect to ports, the land ports
themselves, it would enable us to go into partnerships with
local authorities for things like land exchanges--they build
the building, in-kind contributions and so forth.
So the whole idea is to increase our capacity in terms of
our own personnel, but also increase our ability to seek
reimbursement or partnerships with others.
REIMBURSABLE AGREEMENTS: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Mr. Rogers. Well, whatever. But reducing personnel, CBP
personnel at an airport like Miami and there are several, of
course, like Miami, international----
Secretary Napolitano. Uh-huh.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Hubs is going to cause some really
economic difficulties for the country because the waiting times
are just unacceptable and, yet, we read at the same time you
are finalizing an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to
accept reimbursement to establish pre-clearance operations in
Abu Dhabi.
The airlines are up in arms because that operation would
only benefit Etihad Airlines, a state-owned foreign carrier
which has three flights to the U.S. each week and, yet, we
cannot get help for American airlines, American----
Secretary Napolitano. If I might----
Mr. Rogers. Yeah.
Secretary Napolitano. This really goes into a more
holistic, if I can use that word, strategic plan. We believe it
is better for the security of the country if we can push our
borders out.
And one of the areas where it would be helpful to push our
borders out, where we could check more passengers prior to even
getting on a plane is in the Mideast. So Abu Dhabi has
volunteered and they are a pilot in some respects. I think
Dubai, assuming Abu Dhabi works, might be in the queue, but we
are negotiating these pre-clearance agreements, which basically
take our personnel and we do the security clearance and so
forth before they even head to the United States.
Why the Middle East? Because for obvious reasons, for
tactical and strategic concerns, much better for us to do our
work overseas than here.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I would rather you take the personnel in
Abu Dhabi and put them in Miami.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, indeed. But I will tell you
compared to what Miami needs, it is a drop in a bucket. And
what we really need is for the CBP budget as requested, with
all of the elements in it that I described, to be supported by
the Congress because I agree with you. We have a personnel
shortage there.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT REPORT
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Madam Secretary, thank you for being here with us.
Let me just follow up. I am going to ask you performance,
the GPRA report that is called for you to turn in. But let me
ask you. Let me just follow up what the chairman was referring
to. I think it is the Section 560 of the H.R. 933 which is
the----
Secretary Napolitano. The pilots.
Mr. Cuellar [continuing]. The pilot programs, the public/
private partnership. It does call for five. And any way we can
work with you to extend that to cover more, we would appreciate
it. We are extremely interested. It is not only the airports
and not only the seaports, but the land ports is certainly one.
As you know talking to some of the folks, we are in the
process of turning it into a partnership. I would not just say
one port, but would cover the Laredo district, the Laredo,
McAllen, Brownsville area as one consortium to do that. There
are cities that are ready to put money there. Literally they
are working on putting some deposits, ready to show that it is
good faith.
But my understanding is what they are waiting for, Madam
Secretary, I know this just passed, but guidance from DHS to be
provided a CBP for the implementation of this new authority.
So we are ready to work with you because it is not only
airports or the seaports, but certainly covering the largest
land port down in the south, the City of Laredo plus the other
areas. We would ask you to provide that guidance as soon as
possible, number one.
That only covers services under the Section 560, but in
working with the GSA on transfers of land, I think we finally
got the magic language that GSA has been saying that they need
to actually provide the transfer. And I think you and I have
talked about this, transfer of properties instead of just
services.
So we are hoping that working with the chairman and the
rest of the committee we can actually put the language in there
that I think GSA needs, a different committee, but
appropriations, so they can actually do the transfer.
So I think, Mr. Chairman, we finally got that language
there. So the 560 is on services for a pilot program and then
the other is for transfer of lands or whatever might be on
those. So we certainly want to work with you on that aspect.
The other thing has to do with the modernization, GPRA's
Modernization Act of 2010, which we passed in a bipartisan way,
which calls for statutory requirements. And I get all those
numbers on reports that you all have to turn in. But I think
this is probably one of the most important, if not the most
important report because you have to provide your mission.
That is the map or the guidelines for you to go ahead and
talk about what your mission is, what your objectives are, what
performance measures you are, what efficiencies you are looking
at.
And I know we were supposed to have gotten one from you
yesterday, but according to your folks, it is almost submitted.
It is almost to be submitted. We look forward to working with
you on that because this will provide an opportunity for your
department and Members of Congress to work together on some
areas that we can work together.
So what is the status of that GPRA report?
Secretary Napolitano. My understanding is that it is moving
swiftly through. If it has not been submitted already, it is
virtually there.
I know that it looks at three major areas of our mission
responsibilities, aviation, resilience, I want to say
immigration, and immigration.
So I think we will be in compliance with you and get that
information to you.
EFFICIENCIES AND STREAMLINING
Mr. Cuellar. Yeah. Well, we are appreciative. And I think
this will be a way we can work together.
The other question, because I think there will be two
rounds of questions, but I do want to just add one more thing
before I yield my time, I do have to commend you. There is
about three or four pages on efficiencies and streamlining
operations on your testimony.
And I look forward because I have some ideas on those
efficiencies and streamlining, but I would ask you if you can
have your staff sit down and give us some details as to what
proposals you have to streamline.
I believe for fiscal year 2014, you are talking about $1.3
billion in savings from administrative and mission supports
which covers travel, technology, personnel moves, overtime,
purchasing professional services, vehicle management.
Could you ask your staff to give the committee ourselves a
detail as to how you intend to save $1.3 billion in savings and
efficiencies?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, sir.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. I yield
back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Cuellar.
We go in the order that people were here at the time of the
gavel. So Mr. Latham is next.
BUDGET CUT IMPACTS: TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Latham. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Madam Secretary.
On March 4th, you warned airline passengers that they
should get to the airports extra early because spending cuts
had already led to long lines in some security check points and
the coming furloughs would only make the situation worse, and
that is end of quote.
Today we know that the flights have not been grounded, long
lines have not materialized, and government workers have not
been sent home en masse. And further TSA announces it does not
expect to furlough any additional screeners in fiscal year
2013.
Can you tell us what changed since your warnings when you
said the sky was falling, and are you making future changes to
the situation?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, the major thing that changed is
we got a budget and we got some additional appropriations in
the budget after March 4th. And they were specifically for CBP.
Mr. Latham. You said it was already happening at that time.
Secretary Napolitano. It was because we were well into the
fiscal year. We did not know that we were going to get a budget
and sequestration was already in effect.
If I might, sequestration is still there and it is still,
as Representative Price noted, having impacts. And as
Representative Rogers just described, the wait times at Miami,
we are seeing that at international arrival airports across the
board. And let's not mix up CBP and TSA.
Mr. Latham. Right.
Secretary Napolitano. With respect to furloughs, we are
working to minimize any furloughs of personnel as well as
reductions in overtime pay, but that is easier said than done
given the way sequestration works.
Mr. Latham. Right.
Secretary Napolitano. So we are still working on that final
plan.
Mr. Latham. Talking about sequestration, when the President
proposed sequestration and insisted on it, were you contacted
as to the ramifications for the department before he insisted
on including that?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, I do not want to get into who
started sequestration, so I won't respond on that. But the
answer is no one talked to me about sequestration.
Mr. Latham. Okay. You said the TSA had gotten additional
funding.
Secretary Napolitano. No. I said CBP did. CBP got
additional funding.
Mr. Latham. Okay.
Secretary Napolitano. We got some more money for grants.
With respect to TSA----
Mr. Latham. Right.
Secretary Napolitano [continuing]. In going through, we
discovered some balances in some accounts that we were going to
be able to move to the TSO [transportation security officer]
line in the budget.
BORDER SECURITY: ALIEN SMUGGLING
Mr. Latham. As you know, alien smuggling has been a problem
on the southwest border. Can you tell us what kind of
enhancements you have made in the last year or so in dealing
with the problem and what still remains to be done?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, there are a number of
enhancements, technology being one, aerial being a second, and
third, we have been in certain areas, highly trafficked areas
of the border, actually putting bases physically on the border
as opposed to having agents travel out from their central--or
from their headquarters.
So what we are seeing is that the traffic basically is
still going down. We are still at 1970s levels. As I mentioned
earlier, we are having a spike right now in the southern part
of Texas, excuse me, in the Rio Grande Valley there. We now
have, really, the ability to move resources and technology, an
ability we really didn't have 6 or 7 years ago, to go ahead and
get ahead of that traffic in Florida.
I would mention that most of that increase is not Mexican
nationals. They are from Central America. They are economic
migrants, and that really ties into the need for immigration
reform because, as you know, the process for immigrating
legally into the country is very backlogged and very
cumbersome.
Mr. Latham. That is one of the stumbling blocks so that is
the idea of securing the border first before you get any
immigration reform.
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, I think, and I testified to
this, if I might, having spent 20 years on this issue.
I think it appropriate not to think of it in terms of a
line, but it is really, it is really a system, a system that
requires and gives us the ability to do more against employers
who hire illegal labor--that is a major driver on the border--a
system that opens up the visa process appropriately to more
incoming, and then continued efforts along the border, both at
the ports of entry and in between the ports.
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, Mr. Latham.
Before we go to Mr. Owens, I have a request to recognize
Chairman Rogers for a moment.
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY REIMBURSEMENTS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Chairman. I will be very brief.
Madam Secretary, we had a terribly devastating tornado in
2012 in my district in East Kentucky. West Liberty was
practically erased. It was a terrible disaster.
FEMA was prompt, got there quickly, early on, great help.
The County Executive now is having big difficulties with FEMA
over reimbursements for certain projects. If I gave you this
letter that the administrator of the county had written FEMA,
would you be able to look into this for me?
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. It is a tragic case. Thank you.
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, absolutely. I know the tornado
you are speaking about.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
PAY SYSTEMS, DIFFERING
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Secretary. Thank
you for being here.
I am going to focus on the border that usually isn't
focused on from a perspective. I am hearing a lot from border
patrol agents along the northern border in my district about
what they perceive to be a disproportionate reduction in
overtime to the border patrol as well as, if you will, a
greater number of furloughs. A lot of concern about that at
every level, both from a personal but also from a security
perspective.
And in testimony that we have heard before, ICE seems to
have approached it differently. Other agencies within DHS
appear to be approaching it differently. Assuming we are
working off the same piece of legislation, I am curious as to
why that is happening.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, we may be working off the same
piece of legislation but we are not working off the same pay
systems. Remember, these are legacy agencies that came into the
department, so they don't have one unified pay system.
With respect to Border Patrol, they get what is called AUO
[administratively uncontrollable overtime] as their premium
pay. They are not under the LEAP [law enforcement availability
pay] system and their pay basically is just calculated very
differently than other elements of the department and as
sequestration comes into effect, it is account by account by
account, so even if I wanted to, I can't take from Peter over
here to pay Paul.
Now, with the additional money that was added in late March
for CBP of which 96 or 97 million was specific for Border
Patrol, we are now working that through to see how it can be
used to reduce any reductions in premium pay and furlough days.
We are doing the same account by account by account, so we
are doing the same with port officers who are paid differently.
They came out of Customs not out of INS [Immigration and
Naturalization Service]. So that is the reason why there is a
difference.
And we can provide your staff with, if they would like, a
detailed briefing of how that works.
Mr. Owens. In the short term, about how long will your
analysis take and when will that be communicated to the people
on the ground?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, we sent an email, Tom
Winkowski, the acting commissioner, sent an email to staff
yesterday saying steady as she goes for right now. As I
mentioned, we are working with the Office of Personnel
Management, and we are going to have to seek some
reprogrammings and OMB has to be involved in that.
I would like it to have been done 2 weeks ago because I
know the stress level that it causes. We are moving as rapidly
as we can to get this settled.
Mr. Owens. We will take you up on your invitation for a
briefing.
Secretary Napolitano. Okay.
BEYOND THE BORDER
Mr. Owens. Secondarily, can you have your staff, and I
would not expect you to have this information in front of you,
but in terms of implementation of Beyond the Border, the sense
that we have, those of use who are interested in it, those of
us who communicate with our Canadian colleagues, is that Canada
is moving more deliberately towards implementation, is funding
it more directly. That may be simply because our budget is much
larger and it is more difficult to see exactly what DHS is
doing relative to implementation.
If someone could give us a breakdown of implementation,
that would be very helpful.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, and I just had a meeting, a bi-
lat with my counterparty in Canada, Minister Toews. He did not
raise that concern by the way, and we actually have a Beyond
the Border team, that is the U.S. and Canadian, and they have a
joint time frame and timeline. There are some things we want to
move ahead on that Canada can't move ahead on without passing
legislation through their parliament, and so we are waiting for
the Prime Minister to offer that legislation.
So there is give and go on both sides, but I will say
overall that Beyond the Border is on time and we have really
moved mountains there in the last 2 years.
[The information follows:]
Response: The December 2012 Beyond the Border the Border
Implementation Report was provided separately to the Committee.
Mr. Owens. And clearly if it is very important, it also
will save us, I think, some dollars in the long run.
Secretary Napolitano. It will generate jobs on this side of
the border I am confident.
REIMBURSABLE AGREEMENTS: CANADA
Mr. Owens. One of the other things I wanted to talk to you
about relates to the reimbursable agreements. I represent an
area that has many small ports, creates a number of issues.
Clearly, I think we need to be moving towards a greater use of
technology in those ports where we can have them manned by
Canadians, in some instances U.S. and other instances.
But also, we run into situations where there are a lot of
small airports that are just on our side of the border where we
do have Canadians coming in and we need access to CBP folks in
order to clear them, and we are having some difficulty in that
process.
The airports are willing to pay for that service. In many
cases the available staff is a half hour to forty-five minutes
away.
We would like to see some more flexibility in that arena,
so that in fact we can continue to enhance the utilization of
these small airports by our Canadian neighbors.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, Representative. And that is why
the President's fiscal year 2014 budget requests universal
authority to enter into those agreements. It is not limited to
five pilot projects.
But these small airports between the FAA and CBP, you are
undoubtedly going to see a reduction in capability with
sequester, you know, being in effect for the rest of the year.
Hopefully it ends soon or at least by the end of the year.
But we, like you, recognize the potential of partnerships
with some of these smaller communities because these small
airports are a part of their economic plan, so we will work
with you on that, but I will direct you to that portion of the
President's budget.
Mr. Owens. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Madam Secretary.
PERSONNEL COSTS: CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION
Madam Secretary, as some of my colleagues have mentioned,
we have seen conflicting reports about CBP's plans to furlough
and cut overtime pay for border patrol agents and there is
obvious concern about the ability to fund the number of CBP
personnel that this budget calls for at our ports of entry.
With CBP's apparent troubles making decisions about current
personnel, as you consider making private reimbursements of CBP
personnel, what role do you see the Screening Partnership
Program playing at TSA as a way to manage costs?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, you have got apples and oranges
in there. It is CBP by the way. With respect to CBP as I
mentioned, we are in the process now of unpacking what Congress
ultimately passed for CBP and we appreciate the additional
appropriation there.
And running the traps through OPM, OMB [Office of
Management and Budget], and we will have to come back, I
suspect, as soon as possible with some reprogramming requests.
That is why there is no firm answer yet for Customs and Border
Protection.
With respect to the privatization, the SPP [Screening
Partnership Program] for TSA, we have received, I think, 27
total applications and approved, I want to say, 22 or 24; two
are pending. So that is moving along.
We have not had a great demand for that by airports by the
way. It is not as if there is a queue to privatize in that
arena. But for those that have applied, we have been moving
those very quickly.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Aderholt.
STAFFING MODEL: TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, good to have you here today and for the
subcommittee and it is encouraging to see a resolve that has
moved ahead with a Level 4 lab facility known as IMBAC. This is
a capability, as you know and we have discussed many times in
the past and it is important for it appear in the President's
budget, so that is encouraging, I think, to all of us to see it
move forward on that.
I want to follow up a little bit with a question that Mr.
Fleischmann has asked about the private screening. I know that
Chairman Carter's staff has been engaged in the Office of the
CFO at TSA in order to determine whether a review of
applications from a private screening company really is truly
comparing apples to apples. And I am referring to comparing the
cost of TSA screeners versus private company screeners when it
comes to matters as how many supervisors per screeners are
required, how many TSA employees are counted or not counted in
the TSA model and when TSA employees perhaps have more than one
they do with an airport.
Can you give the subcommittee an indication of the progress
in getting those metrics back to the committee?
Secretary Napolitano. I will follow up with TSA after this
hearing. You want the metrics on what TSA's staffing model is?
Mr. Aderholt. Right, and how those compare so that when you
do a comparison, you are comparing apples to apples as compares
to, you know, to truly get a cost of what the real cost in
comparing the private screeners as opposed to TSA.
Secretary Napolitano. And that is so that we can do the
comparison over time because as I mentioned to Representative
Fleischmann, if we have denied any agreements, it may only be
one, but we have been granting them, so that comparison has not
been used as a reason for any kind of miles.
But I think over time that is a very useful set of metrics
to have, so let me see where we are on that.
[The information follows:]
Response: When comparing the costs of private screening to Federal
screening, TSA uses actual costs from contracts which are currently in
place under the Screening Partnership Program (SPP) and looks at
comparable Federal screening costs at non-SPP airports to obtain an
``apples to apples'' comparison. When assessing the cost of Federal
screening, estimates are based on actual expenditures specific to the
airport which directly align with the contracted screening proposal to
enable comparison to the actual costs of private screening. The current
methodology for estimating the cost of Federal screening incorporates
GAO recommendations and has been reviewed by DHS cost estimation
experts. The estimated cost of Federal screening accounts for all cost
elements and includes:
Compensation (pay and benefits, premium pay,
bonuses, etc.)
Ancillary costs such as uniforms, facilities, and
training
Overhead costs and Worker's compensation
Increased TSA management staff if the airport
already participates in SPP
Adjustments for liability insurance
Adjustments for taxes recouped
Adjustments for future retirement liabilities
Transition costs (Federal to private and private to
Federal)
The cost of deploying TSA national deployment force
as necessary
Lastly, there are some Federal positions that are present at
airports regardless if the airport uses private or Federal screeners
and are not redundant. These positions provide overall supervision and
responsibility for security. The allocation of these positions is
determined by established business rules. These types of staff
allocations are lower at SPP airports than Federal since they are not
responsible for personnel management of security officers. Because
these Federal positions are present in both cases, they are not
included in the cost analysis comparison.
FEDERAL FLIGHT DECK OFFICER PROGRAM
Mr. Aderholt. Okay. If you could follow up with that and
get us the information on that.
Administrator Pistole testified before Congress regarding
changes to the TSA prohibited items list and the need for TSA
to continually mature its risk-based security processes in
order to defend against critical threats such as those posed by
non-metallic explosive devices.
During that testimony with Administrator Pistole, he
commented on the value of the Federal Flight Deck Officer
Program [FFDO] in positioning TSA to implement other critical
needed risk-based measures.
In view of the President's proposal for the FFDO program,
it seems reasonable to conclude that you either agree with the
Administrator's assessment of the value of this program in
implementing significant risk-based security strategies or not
the need for this. So I just wanted to see what your position
on this was in moving forward.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, I think what we have done in
President's budget with respect to FFDOs, which is not a risk-
based program per se, it is just where you have a pilot you
have a pilot who may be on a flight.
But nonetheless, we are working through the carriers
themselves and offering training for those who seek to be
FFDOs, and I think that is the appropriate way to go.
Mr. Aderholt. So you would agree with the Administrator
that this is an important thing to move forward on?
Secretary Napolitano. I would. I wouldn't say it is the
most important thing if I had to rank, but it is certainly
there. And as I said before in preparing the budget we decided
that the way to go was to offer the training through the
carriers themselves.
Mr. Aderholt. Yeah, well, you know, the concern about it
was, as far as the budget zeros out this program, and that is,
you know, the thing that, you know, TSA Administrator Pistole
says that it is, you know, there is a real value on this and
there is zero in the budget for it, so I think that is the
concern, so I just wanted to know where you came down as far as
between the, you know, thinking this is something that we need
to put value on or whether it is not something that needs to
be, you know, has little value.
Secretary Napolitano. As I said, I think to the extent we
offer training, there is a value, but if I had to rank the
programs in TSA according to whether they are risk based or
not, this would not be of much value.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Culberson.
REIMBURSABLE AGREEMENTS: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, I have two areas I wanted to ask about and
then I know we are going to have a second round. Airline pilots
associations have brought to my attention that in its budget
proposals CBP is attempting to establish a preclearance
facility at the Abu Dhabi International Airport in United Arab
Emirates, yet I am aware that the agency has not been fully
funding facilities here in the United States and I understand
also from the pilots association that no U.S. airline even
serves Abu Dhabi.
Could you please talk to us about why you would expand a
preclearance facility in a foreign airport benefitting foreign
airlines when you are short of money and no U.S. airline even
serves that airport and you are not fully staffing, for
example, the facility at the Houston Intercontinental Airport
and other airports in the United States. What is the logic?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, this is--yes. The strategic
goal we have in mind is to push borders out because our ability
to minimize risk is maximized the further out we can go. It
just gives us one more layer.
This is in the initial stages of negotiation. It would be a
reimbursable agreement. In other words, the U.S. taxpayer would
not be paying for it. But it would allow us for the first time
in the Middle East where we have a keen interest in making sure
the traveling public is safe, to try this out.
There are several other countries that are interested in
doing the same thing, but again from a security strategy
perspective, moving the borders out as well as maintaining what
we have here makes all the sense in the world.
Mr. Culberson. And you said you have zero cost to U.S.
taxpayers?
Secretary Napolitano. It would be a reimbursable agreement.
Mr. Culberson. At zero cost?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes. That is reimbursable.
CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: AIRPORT STAFFING LEVELS
Mr. Culberson. Yeah, but that is the goal, is to make it
zero cost.
We have an urgent need for additional agents at facilities,
for example, at the Eastern Airport. I know others around the
country, and I understand what you are saying about
reimbursable and pushing the borders out. What can you tell us
about increasing the staffing levels like, for examples,
facilities at Houston and other airports so that there is not
delay that causes people to miss flights when the flight's
coming in from its international origin, lands in Houston,
transfers to another flight going overseas? You guys have
downsized the staffing levels and it is causing a lot of folks
to miss flights.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, we haven't downsized staffing
levels. The fact is, the traveling public has increased and we
haven't increased staffing levels.
What the President is requesting in the budget is the
ability to add 3,400 more CBP officers for the airports and the
land ports, 1,600 to be paid for by Appropriation, the
remainder by an increase in the Immigration User Fee and the
COBRA fee, a $2 increase, which would cover the costs of that.
We believe we have the capacity to bring on board, train
and deploy that significant number within fiscal year 2014.
That will go a long way based on our calculations and
assessment to mitigating lines.
We also have Global Entry and PreCheck to expedite
travelers, and we have piloted--I actually think one of the
Houston airports is part of the pilot--Express Check, as well
as One Stop Check to facilitate the movement of passengers.
DETAINEES: LAWS
Mr. Culberson. Right. Moving on to another subject I want
to ask you about--if Congress enacts a law that uses the word
``shall'', what does ``shall'' mean?
Secretary Napolitano. Shall means shall.
Mr. Culberson. Is there any discretion, if the law says
``shall'', what options does that give a federal agency? I mean
``shall'' means shall. You have to do it.
Secretary Napolitano. Well----
Mr. Culberson. It means shall. That is mandatory, right?
Secretary Napolitano. It is intended to be mandatory.
However, when it says ``shall'' and subsequently doesn't
appropriate the money to meet the ``shall'', you have a
difficult choice to make. Do you violate the appropriations
that you were given and do you violate those laws or do you
violate the underlying law?
So every time we have a ceiling, floor, or a bed level or
what have you, in my view that means shall, subject to
appropriations.
Mr. Culberson. Well, and if you have two laws, one that
says you shall build a new office building or shall expand
headquarters and another law that says you shall protect public
safety when you are short of money, which one of those would
you do first?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, obviously public safety is
always our number one priority.
Mr. Culberson. Particularly if it has a ``shall''. It is
not optional.
Secretary Napolitano. It is just, we were founded in
response to 9/11, and public safety is our number one goal, but
if you look at, and I think you are getting to why is there
money in here for a headquarters for DHS.
Our ability to connect the dots and to work in an
integrated fashion is facilitated by having a headquarters
where people can actually meet and talk with each other. We are
at fifty-plus buildings in the National Capitol Region, so to
do our best work, ultimately we are going to need a
headquarters.
Mr. Culberson. If ``shall'' is not optional therefore, you
have to make choices and you don't have enough money to do
everything on your plate and your top priority is protecting
public safety, would the Department of Homeland Security be
doing its job if ICE agents released onto the street a criminal
who had been arrested by local enforcement authorities for
assault, sexual assault, drug dealing or other crimes? ICE has
a mandatory ``shall'' responsibility to hold those people
pending the termination of their final disposition, would the
Department of Homeland Security be doing its job if they
released criminals who had been arrested for assault of other
violent crimes in light of the statute that says they shall be
held for removal proceedings?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, two things. One, there were a
handful of level ones released. That was a mistake but,
nonetheless, it was a mistake made because when you look at the
underlying facts of each arrest and you look at the actual
detainee, they were determined not to be a danger to public
safety.
The President's budget for ICE provides for the detention
beds for all those who are mandatory detainees.
Mr. Culberson. If I may, excuse me for the interruption
because our time is limited and the Chairman has been very
generous, but you say the agents determine the criminals are
not a threat to public safety. I don't see that determination
language in the statute that mandates that ICE hold these
folks. The statute is Title VIII, Section 1225 of the United
States Code and I don't see language requiring a determination
that they are a threat to public safety.
The statute is very clear that an ICE agent determines,
quoting from the statute that, ``An alien seeking admission is
not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted. The
alien shall be detained for removal proceedings.''
There is nothing about a determination of public safety.
That is not optional. That is mandatory or in violation of the
law and have endangered the safety of the people of the United
States that you are sworn to protect by releasing these
dangerous criminals.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, I think we have to be very
careful in our language here, Representative. The individuals
that were released by ICE were not released into the general
population per se. They were put in an alternative to
detention.
We believe that alternatives to detention have become much
better than they were years ago and, by the way, are more cost
effective and efficient.
If a mistake was made on a particular release, we will deal
with that and with the agent or agents involved with that
mistake.
Mr. Culberson. So a release, that in this case you admit
that was a mistake and I am glad to hear you say that. So you
agree that that is a mandatory obligation on the part of ICE,
the statute's very clear, ``the alien shall be detained for
removal proceedings.'' That is not optional.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, again, with respect to how we
manage the beds, right, I think Representative Price has it
right. We ought to be detaining according to our priorities,
according to public safety threats, level of offense and the
like, so according to the individual, not an arbitrary bed
number.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.
Mr. Carter. And Ms. Roybal-Allard.
PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for
being late but I was in another hearing.
I would like to thank you and President Obama for extending
the Prison Rape Elimination Act [PREA] to apply to immigration
detention facilities. As you know, according to DHS records
obtained by the ACLU more than 180 cases of sexual abuse in
detention centers were reported between 2007 and mid-2011, and
your extension of PREA will make a huge difference in
protecting detained women from sexual assault.
However, I understand one of the challenges that you face
with implementing the PREA regulations is the fact that the
majority of ICE detainees are held in state, local and
privately run facilities.
Once the regulations are finalized, how long will it take
to fully implement these regulations at every facility and how
will you assure that contract facilities are complying with the
requirements of the PREA?
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, we have a whole implementation
plan for PREA. It is an important value. It is important to us
that those whom the law is detaining, the government is
detaining be done in a safe manner. So we have a whole
implementation plan.
With respect to the private contractors, many of them are
holding inmates for other entities rights, so they already are
beginning to deploy PREA because they have to but, nonetheless,
as a fairly large consumer in the private prison realm. That is
something we will attempt to implement now, but also as their
contracts come up for renewal.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. So there will be some oversight even if
it is based on whether or not they get a contract renewal, but
that is part of what will be looked at----
Secretary Napolitano. Yes.
ALIEN ABUSE AND DEATHS
Ms. Roybal-Allard [continuing]. In determining that?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Okay. Over the past three years at least
20 different individuals have died in incidents involving CBP
personnel. And I personally met with several other families and
their stories really are heartbreaking. For example, Anastasio
Hernandez Rojas, who is a father of five, died after being
beaten and tazed five times near San Diego, even though video
footage showed that he was not resisting arrest.
Similarly, in Arizona, a man named Jose Gutierrez who was
trying to reach his hospitalized U.S. citizen daughter, was
beaten into a coma by CBP officers and suffered serious brain
damage.
The President's immigration reform proposal recognized the
need to address this pattern of abuse by calling for increased
civil rights and civil liberties training for border
enforcement personnel. What steps are you taking in response to
the President's proposal to prevent future incidents of abuse
and unnecessary deaths at the border and is this one of the
priorities?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, and if I might, I think we need
to be careful not to extrapolate from individual cases to cases
as a whole. As you know, we process hundreds of thousands of
individuals every year.
With respect to use of force, an appropriate use of force,
we examine each and every case in which there is a death to
evaluate what happened and whether or not the agent or agents
involved should be subject to some sort of disciplinary
measure.
In extreme cases we involve the Department of Justice and
the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and that really can
elongate everything because those investigations take a long
time, but our interest is in making sure it is a safe and
secure border through which travel and trade can occur. We want
to facilitate that, but we want to make sure that we meet our
law enforcement responsibilities there.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Okay, but there will be training?
Secretary Napolitano. There is training now. There is
absolutely training now, yes.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Dent.
CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: AVIATION STAFFING
Mr. Dent. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Good to see you again,
Madam Secretary.
A couple of questions. Some of my airports were concerned
about some issues as it relates to CBP. One question
specifically--when can the aviation industry, airlines and
airports, expect to get information on the CBP staffing
allocation, we can learn that issue, and will CBP share that
information with the ports of entry about how many staff are
allocated to their POE.
Secretary Napolitano. Right now, Representative Dent, what
we are trying to do is take the additional money that was
ultimately appropriated to CBP and identify how it works, which
account it can go in and so forth.
We do have a staffing model that we are using and that
underlies our request for 3,400 more port officers and will be
happy to discuss that with your staff.
TRANSPORTATION WORKER IDENTIFICATION CREDENTIAL
Mr. Dent. Thank you. I appreciate that. I like to get more
updated. Some of my airports are inquiring so thank you for
that.
On the issue of CFATS, as required by, you know, the CFATS
for regulated facilities must implement measures designed to
identify people with terrorist ties. The agency's expectation
of recurrent vetting may exceed the scope of the regulation. If
so, this unnecessarily prohibits the use of every compliant and
credentialing program to meet the CFATS requirement, except
TWIC card.
Industry has maintained that the acceptance of other
federal credentials which vet against the terrorist screen
database meet the CFATS requirement. What is NPPD doing to
address that requirement?
Secretary Napolitano. The TWIC card requirement, if I
might?
Mr. Dent. Yeah.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, right now I'm unaware of any
effort to change it, but I do know that there are regulations
underway. If they haven't been issued already, they will soon
be issued on TWIC Readers, as well as on how people can renew
their TWIC IDs. We have developed kind of a less expensive TWIC
ID that only requires an individual to make one trip, so we are
trying to facilitate and streamline the entire process.
CHEMICAL FACILITY ANTI-TERRORISM STANDARDS
Mr. Dent. Thank you. And under CFATS, once a facility is
assigned final tier, it is to submit a site security plan, and
the 2011 internal memorandum that discussed various challenges
facing the CFATS program stated the process was overly
complicated, you know, based on recent testimony by GAO on
infrastructure protection. The Infrastructure Security and
Compliance Division, ISCD, has improved its security plan
review process, but GAO estimates it could take another seven
to nine years to review the plans at thousands of these
facilities that have already been assigned a final tier. I
think we would agree that is not acceptable.
How can the ISCD further accelerate the review process at
these facilities?
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, we are looking at that.
Obviously, we would like to be able to do the review more
quickly than that.
It is partially a personnel and resource issue quite
frankly, but the CFATS program as you know got off to a rocky
and slow start and we have had to take a number of measures to
improve it, put it on timelines with benchmarks.
They are making and have made terrific progress over the
last year. They are going to continue to make progress. I hope
we can bring down that review number.
DETENTION BEDS: POPULATION
Mr. Dent. And finally, and I don't know how much time I
have left, but I will be real quick on this. With respect to
ICE and detention beds and I think Judge Carter probably
already spoke about that issue, you know, I too, like Judge
Carter, was concerned about the timing of the statements, pre-
implementation of sequester with respect to the visa-certain
detainees. I understand that this happens from time to time for
various reasons. Is our capacity today 34,000 beds and do we
have as many as 37,000 detainees on Sundays, is that true? I am
trying to get the numbers. I know you were requesting, I think,
31,800 beds in the budget request, and there are 34,000
available detention beds is my understanding. But we have had
as many as, is it true, 37,000?
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, detention populations ebb and
flow, and that is one of the problems of managing with a bed
number as opposed to looking at the actual facts of a
particular case as to whether detention is appropriate or not.
The President's budget is designed to make sure that all
mandatory detainees have a bed and all the costs that go along
with being detained. But it is also designed to facilitate
alternatives to detention.
And just like last year we asked for the flexibility to
move money, you know, between those accounts in case we have a
spike that needed mandatory detention, we were able to cover
that.
BORDER SECURITY: TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Dent. And this is more comment than question. As we
engage in this whole discussion of comprehensive immigration
reform, let us face it, the public doesn't trust us when we say
the border's operationally secured. They don't trust us on the
issue of enforcement.
How do you think we should go about verifying or certifying
that the border is operationally secure to trigger whatever may
come out of any immigration reform bill? What would you advise
to this subcommittee?
Secretary Napolitano. You know, public perceptions are
difficult to change, but anyone who has been at that border
recognizes that it is very different now than it was then or
when illegal immigration was illegal--I mean, was at record
highs.
I think we need to continue to look at staffing and
technology at the border. I actually think the technology is
key. I also believe, however, that we can relieve pressure on
the border itself if we had more tools to deal with the two
drivers of illegal immigration, work and employers on this side
of the border. We need E-Verify or something of that sort, and
we need greater penalties for employers who break the law and
we need to reform the legal migration system.
That all is knit together. Then that would free up
resources to focus on the narco and others who are using that
border.
Mr. Dent. What is the holdup at USCIS on developing a
biometric ID for all visitors coming into this country? I go
into Disney World, into the Magic Kingdom, and they take a
biometric ID of me and they take my thumb print and they
process it in all of about 30 seconds and it is biometric and
they can do it, processing tens of thousands of folks a day.
Why can't we do this? It has been years we have been
talking about it and what would you recommend?
Secretary Napolitano. Why can't we do it? Because it is
very, very expensive and because we are checking more databases
than Disneyland is checking.
Mr. Dent. Well, the banks, too. I mean, all right. I was
going to say the banks and I can take money out and support----
Secretary Napolitano. They are not looking at all the
things that we should be and must look at for security reasons.
However, we have developed, using the dozens of databases
that we have, a very enhanced process for measuring exit that
is virtually the same as biometric, and I would be happy to get
you briefed on that.
Mr. Dent. That would be great. Thank you.
Thank you, Judge.
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, sorry to go overtime.
Mr. Carter. Madam Secretary, I have talked to my colleague,
Mr. Price. We are going to have a brief second round, and you
have brought up several--it is like you were reading my mind.
You mentioned de-verify.
The budget request includes a modest increase in that
system, but in the context of immigration reform which you and
I have talked about, much more is needed. As most if not all
proposals that we see, both the Senate and the House, include
mandatory employment verification system which is E-Verify.
For that reason, sixteen months ago, DHS was required to
formally submit a report on the cost of mandatory E-Verify, a
report, the basic cost data and assumptions that DHS has
already produced internally.
In the media a couple of months ago with you and I
personally, you pledged to me to provide me this report. You
agreed that months before, there was a discussion, and quite
honestly I could use it tonight okay but I don't have it, and
there are others that are working on immigration issues. And E-
Verify, the number is very critical to the analysis as anyone
starts to look at immigration reform.
I am not trying to be a horse's ass on this one. I am being
serious. We need this one, okay.
Secretary Napolitano. Let me follow up on that and see
where that is and get back to.
Mr. Carter. We really need this.
Secretary Napolitano. I got you.
Mr. Carter. Give me some idea because I have got scheduled
on my secret committee which is not so secret anymore----
Secretary Napolitano. The non-secret secret committee?
Mr. Carter. Yeah. So anyway, you know, the very----
Secretary Napolitano. Mr. Chairman, I understand. Let me go
track that down.
REPORT, COAST GUARD
Mr. Carter. Okay. Thank you very much.
And finally, I want to just mention the reports that I have
been trying to get back, if we could get that Coast Guard
report ASAP. The Commandant will be in next week.
Okay. Next week he will be in.
Secretary Napolitano. It will certainly be in as soon as
possible, yes, and no later than May 1.
Mr. Carter. Well, if it is any chance we can get it before
we have to talk to the Commandant, it certainly would be
helpful.
Secretary Napolitano. I understand.
Mr. Carter. All right. Mr. Price.
NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS GRANT PROGRAM
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will touch on two topics quickly and submit the other
questions for the record.
I do want to revisit the question of border security, but
first I want to just register a strong concern about the FEMA
state and local grant programs.
The fiscal 2014 budget request proposes a total of $2.1
billion for state and local and first responder grants.
That is a decrease of $367 million from fiscal 2013. And as
you know, we worked very, very hard in fiscal 2013 to get that
number up from a disastrously low number in 2012, so we have
worked on this a long time.
And then there is this question of reorganization.
Significant restructuring is proposed for the state and local
grant programs in the broad categories and that is despite the
prohibition of that kind of shift in the fiscal 2013 Act.
So I want to ask you a few questions about this and you
might want to elaborate for the record. The fiscal 2013 Act did
prohibit the department for implementing this broad national
preparedness grant program without an explicit authorization
and it provided specific funding levels for the urban area
grants, port and transit security and fire fighters and other
existing programs and this was a broad agreement with Chairman
Aderholt, then the chairman of this subcommittee, Chairwoman
Landrieu, Ranking Member Coats and myself.
We earnestly examined and discussed what we perceived as
flaws in that national preparedness grant program concept. Each
of these grant programs operates under different authorities,
has its own purposes as reflected in different formulas. So
they are challenged this year.
So just quickly, do you plan on seeking authorization
legislation this year for a proposed national----
Secretary Napolitano. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Price. All right. That is to that one.
I want you to tell me more about the rationale for this
proposal. How different is it or is it different from the
proposal Congress specifically rejected just a few weeks ago?
And are there changes that are responsive to some of the
criticisms?
Now, I know in the past, you have talked about the
desirability of more directly assessing risk and moving quickly
to procure deployable assets. I wonder what the implications
are for longer term security and hardening projects such as
those that we fund through the port and transit grants?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, if I might. Going back to the
amount that the President requests in the fiscal year 2014
budget, in terms of the actual grant dollars available, it is
virtually the same, but we have moved some of the
administrative expenses into other line items within the FEMA
budget, so we will be happy to walk that through with you.
With respect to grant consolidation, yes, we are coming
back. We have had over 70 conferences, meetings, et cetera,
with stakeholders since our last proposal and we have made some
changes in that proposal as a result. We offer it to the
committee and we are going to offer it to the authorizers for
your consideration because, just as you said, these are legacy
grant programs that came from different statutes, different
committees. They used different formulas, et cetera, et cetera.
What we want and what we believe is better for the country
is to put these all under one roof, which by the way diminishes
the administrative cost for the grantees, and so we can fairly
assess risk across the board and really look at national
capacity.
And what I mean by that, Chairman, almost Chairman--Ranking
Member Price, excuse me--is for example, we want to have the
ability to say, you know, every locality should have a grant
for its own hazmat team or maybe we can have a hazmat
capability for a small region.
Does every grantee need the same number of K-9 detection
teams, same logic?
So I think from an administrative perspective, a
simplification perspective, and an ability to get us to a
national capacity evaluation as opposed to grantee by grantee
by grantee, consolidation should be evaluated.
Mr. Price. All right. We, of course, have had the budget
only a day, so we will look in more detail at the changes you
are proposing and the rationale for them.
There was a welter of grants at one point. We use to have
many, many more $50 million range grants and I think it was
desirable to clean some of that up and to consolidate some of
that.
But when you talk about legacy programs, some of these
aren't such ancient legacies. The Port and Transit Grants
actually are fairly recent and they are there for a reason.
They are risk based, and they focus on specific
vulnerabilities, and I just think there are genuine questions
as to the degree to which these efforts should be folded
together, particularly when it is accompanied by reductions in
funding.
Secretary Napolitano. You know, every region is to prepare
its own Threat Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment. It is
designed to take those characteristics of the port and transit
security grants and be able to use it more broadly, so I am
hopeful. I am always an optimist. I am hopeful that I can begin
to persuade the committee that consolidation in this regard
makes a lot of sense.
But obviously you have more questions. We will be happy to
answer those.
Mr. Price. Right, and there are questions about an
authorization as opposed to doing this simply through
appropriations. All right.
Secretary Napolitano. And we do intend to submit
authorizing language.
BORDER SECURITY: IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mr. Price. All right. Let me quickly wrap up with a
revisiting of this border security issue which, of course, has
had you and me in the news accounts and as the bipartisan
groups in both chambers work on immigration reform. This
question of border security as a precondition for reform has
come up and I indicated in my opening statement, that sets off
some alarm bells because one could imagine that being a real
obstacle to progress and almost an undefinable objective for
the way some might interpret it.
I am going to ask you to submit for the record as opposed
to doing this orally, some of the estimates that you might give
us about your preparation for immigration reform more broadly,
especially the operations of Citizenship and Immigration
Services and the kind of preplanning, and anticipation of
expenses and organizational needs.
We need to know more about this, but here in just the open
session, I want to wrap up by returning to that question of
security as a piece of the puzzle.
In your response to Mr. Dent just a moment ago, I heard you
say, I believe, that border security really is both cause and
effect, or the causal areas work both ways. You can say we
don't undertake broad reform until a certain level of security
is present, but you are clearly depending on reform and all of
its aspect to enhance security, and so it is a matter of causal
forces working both ways.
You are very well positioned. I think you have a lot of
credibility on this issue when you factor in your past life as
a border state governor and, of course, your current
responsibilities. So I want to give you a chance as we close
here to reflect on this issue. What does a secure border look
like? It can't just be a matter of measuring inputs. We all
talk about inputs. I talked about inputs in my opening
statement, the number of personnel, the miles of fence, the
sensors and all the rest.
And we all know it is notoriously difficult to measure the
output side. But yet we do need to have some resolution on this
and I wonder what your current thoughts are.
Secretary Napolitano. You know, it is tempting just to draw
an arbitrary number out of the air and say that is the magic
number, that is the metric and until you reach that, we can't
do reform.
But I believe as you have said that we really need interior
reform to get the maximum out of all of the border security
that we already have and that we are continuing to build upon,
which to my mind is manpower and it is infrastructure. It is
aerial and it is technology--most important, technology at this
point.
The border now is so different than the border then, always
a work in progress, absolutely big, complicated borders. You
can, you know, you can always go down and find somebody who is
unhappy or thinks it is unsecure or whatever.
What I think we should be doing, however, is looking at a
whole universe of things, apprehensions, crime rates, seizures,
property values, things of that sort that help tell us whether
the border is a safe and secure border zone.
And when you look at all of those things, you will see that
they are all trending in the right direction overall and
border-wide. We want to continue that, and I think one of the
suspicions is that after the '86 Act, those enforcement issues
were not universally pursued.
We want to make sure we continue that, but I think some
kind of false border security number doesn't really get us
anything in terms of maximizing border safety.
Mr. Price. Well, the irony would be if this quest for the
holy grail of total security actually stood in the way of
enacting the comprehensive measures that would enhance
security.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, I think for those who are
seeking immigration reform, the suspicion quite frankly is that
some sort of false border security metric, if you can ever
decide on one holy grail, was actually a reason never to get to
reform on the underlying system.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Culberson.
DETAINEES: LAWS
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Napolitano, first, I want to thank you for your
admission that that was a mistake to release those individuals
that had committed a crime and endangered the public. The
American people appreciate that. The Congress appreciates it
and I thank you also. If we could, here today, I think it would
be very helpful to make sure that everyone listening and our
immigration officers out there listening know that they are
hearing it from you and from the Congress that when the law
says ``shall'', that is not optional, right?
Secretary Napolitano. I think we have already had that
discussion.
Mr. Culberson. I just want to make sure I understand
clearly that when you are talking about Title VIII, Section
1225, you agree that is not optional.
Secretary Napolitano. Well, you are absolutely right. The
statute uses ``shall'', but as I further explained sometimes
you have shall, but there is no way to do the shall because the
resources haven't been made available and I think that needs to
be taken into account.
Mr. Culberson. Right. But for the officer in the street,
who took an oath to enforce the law and protect the public,
this statute says ``shall'' and that is not optional correct?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, the safety of the community is
something that always needs to be taken into account.
Mr. Culberson. That is top priority.
Secretary Napolitano. That is a top priority, yes, sir.
Mr. Culberson. The top priority.
Secretary Napolitano. I would say the top priority, yes.
OPERATION STREAMLINE
Mr. Culberson. Okay. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate
that. I deeply appreciate that. That is important for the
public to hear.
I also want to be sure with my friend, Henry Cuellar here,
my good friend Judge Carter, our new chairman, congratulations,
Mr. Chairman, that we, to reiterate and to reenforce the
terrific, partnership that we have in Texas, with Mexico, the
long history we have, the friendships we have, Henry, the work
that we have done over the years, Judge Carter, we look forward
to working with you and continuing to strengthen a very
successful initiative in Congressman Cuellar's district that we
have supported in a bipartisan way, Operation Streamline. No
better way to ensure public safety than to enforce the law. It
is working beautifully.
And I wanted to ask you if you could, to talk about the
expansion of Operation Streamline and working with Congressman
Cuellar, Judge Carter and I and the Texas delegation in
ensuring that the law is enforced, obviously with common sense
and a human heart, but that the law is enforced.
If you would talk to us about working with us and making
sure that we expand that very successful program Operation
Streamline up and down the border, starting with Texas?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, I think Streamline may have
actually started in Arizona, if I might, however, it is a very
good program. It has been effective. There are other, we call
them consequence delivery programs because there should be a
consequence for breaking the law and immigrating illegally.
But there are others that are similar to Streamline that we
think are also very promising and don't take up as much
judicial time, but yeah, I would say that Operation Streamline
is very helpful.
Mr. Culberson. And I hope you look to Judge Ludlum and her
work in the Del Rio sector as a role model for that.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
VEHICLE DISMOUNT AND EXPLOITATION RADAR SYSTEMS
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Could you tell us, are you all planning to order more VADER
radar systems? I know that--right.
Secretary Napolitano. Yeah, I think it is a very promising
technology. It is one that comes to us out of Afghanistan, so
we are in the initial stages of testing on how it works.
Representative Cuellar, it doesn't really--it is very good
in some areas of the border. In other areas of the border, it
is not that helpful because you have a lot of, you know, South
Texas, for example, where you have a lot of those south seeders
and the other brush that impedes sight, but in areas that are
more open, it is a very promising technology.
COMMUNITY LEADERS, SCHEDULED MEETING WITH
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Well, we certainly want to work with you
on that particular area.
Number one, the other question I have has to do with the
President's budget because it talks about cutting the number of
detention beds from 34,000 to 31,800, and some of us have, of
course, we want to work with you on that.
But at the same time if you are looking at alternatives to
detention which is again what we want to keep the low risk
folks--and they supported this alternative by, I think it
started under President Bush. The problem is that I think there
is also a reduction in the alternative by 25 percent, so we got
to do one or the other, and you know, we will be happy to work
with you on this alternative to detention because I understand
it does serve a particular purpose on that.
The other thing I would ask also is, I guess this has to do
more with down to the border, and I am one of those, I was born
on the border. I have lived there and it is now the wild, wild
west that people paint it to be. It is certainly not like that.
My wife and my two kids are there, and my family, my mom, dad,
everybody lives there. It is not the wild, wild west that
people paint it, but we do need to do some work without a
doubt. I mean, I think the problem is people get to the stream,
one, they call it the wild, wild west, and then the other side,
you know, they call it a perfect heaven that nobody's coming
across.
And I think you and I are both that it is probably closer
to the middle, that more in the practical aspect of it.
But one thing I do ask because I know that I was with you
the last time you were at the border several months ago, I
think it was last year, and we asked if you could talk to some
of the other stakeholders or the business community and all
that and you couldn't do it. This last time you sent out a
press release and you said you were going to be in Arizona and
Texas and then you had an unannounced visit and I asked
Congressman Vela, Ruben Hinojosa, then you were going to be
there. I didn't know you were going to be there, which is
again, you don't have to notify us. I have seen both Republican
and Democratic Secretary of States do that to us which is fine.
But the problem that I do have is that then you, the day
before or the day after you were in Houston and you had a press
conference there and you had met with several business folks
and other folks, and that puts some of us in a very difficult
situation with being on the border because besides you going in
and talking to your men and women, which you need to do.
But there are other stakeholders, other people,
communities, so I would ask the next time you go to South
Texas, the border, I would ask you to make time to talk to the
other community leaders that quite frankly want to sit down and
spend some time and be supportive of the work that you do.
Secretary Napolitano. Indeed, and we do try to keep
Congress on notice when I am traveling. Representative Shiela
Jackson Lee actually was in Houston.
Mr. Cuellar. I saw her in the photograph.
Secretary Napolitano. Right, and it was primarily designed
to meet with business leaders and there were NGO [non-
governmental organization] representatives there to talk about
the, kind of, business side of immigration as it were, but I
meet with different groups, depending on where I am. It is hard
to get a schedule where you meet with everybody all in one
visit.
But by way of comparison, when I went to Douglas, I had a
roundtable with all the police chiefs and the next chief's
county sheriff and so forth to hear what they were seeing on
the ground. So it does vary each time I go.
That is primarily driven by schedule.
Mr. Cuellar. Correct. Yeah. No, I understand. I am just
asking if you could work on your schedule. The third visit you
make down there, if you can just spend some time with the other
folks.
Secretary Napolitano. We will work with your office on
that.
BORDER PATROL AGENTS
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, ma'am. Last thing, Mr. Chairman, on this
one. I think you have, and I want to try to have as many men
and women on the border, border patrol and I know it is been up
and the largest amount we have, but I know at headquarters the
last time I talked to you had about 250 border patrol stationed
here at headquarters. I don't know how many CBP officers,
probably over 200 from what I remember last time, and I
understand they serve a purpose working here at headquarters. I
understand that.
But I would ask you if you could just tell us if you can
try to send as many of them. I do understand they serve a
purpose, but I was wondering if you can send as many of them
down to the front line, you know, we would appreciate having
them. It is going to be in our headquarters, number one.
And number two, do they get overtime just like the front-
line people when they are over here? Is that automatic overtime
for border patrol?
Secretary Napolitano. No, it depends on whether they are
Border Patrol, port officers and what level they are in the
system.
And with respect to moving people to the actual border, I
would point you to another part of the President's budget where
we are asking again, this is the second year, the ability to
close nine interior border stations so we can move those agents
right to the border.
Congress rejected that last year, but that is the kind of
thing we need to be able to do.
Mr. Cuellar. Right. And if you can just--I do understand
that, but I do understand, the folks here at the headquarters,
I am talking about headquarters, so again I know they are here
for training and I understand they serve a purpose but the more
we can have away from headquarters down as the front line, a
lot of us down there at the border would appreciate that, but I
want to say thank you. You have bee more----
Secretary Napolitano. But look at the interior stations as
well.
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, I agree. It is going to be a balance
approach and I appreciate the good work that you are doing.
Thank you very much.
Secretary Napolitano. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Frelinghuysen.
DISASTER RELIEF FUND
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I always
associate high noon with Texas, Mr. Chairman and I know that
the Secretary has been here for quite a long time and I want to
express my appreciation to her and the good people on FEMA that
were on the ground, in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut
region in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. I think it is a
tribute to the good work that they did. A lot of people's
immediate needs were met, obviously.
The Disaster Relief Fund is pretty important to us. I know
there is $6.2 billion in there. I looked at the allocation for
Hurricane Sandy. I believe it is in the $1.2 billion region. I
don't think that is going to be enough. I hope that you might
take a look at that because we have about 40,000 families just
in my state, New Jersey, which are displaced, living with
relatives and hotels and there are some, pretty immediate
needs. I just want to put in a plug. We will welcome you back
any time to our neck of the woods.
We admire the work you do and especially the work that FEMA
has done for a variety of issues. Your department was created
out of September 11th, 2001 and we still suffer, you know, from
that mightily, and we appreciate what you do.
But if you could take a look at the Disaster Relief Fund
and understand that our needs continue to be great and the more
money we get out on the street to alleviate people's pain and
suffering would be extremely beneficial.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, and I enjoy--it was terrible
circumstances to be in New Jersey. The people were great to
work with and just very impressive and probably were handling
this disaster.
Two points I would make. One is, Sandy relief efforts are
not just in FEMA's budget but they are also in HUD.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. And the Army Corps as well.
Secretary Napolitano. Exactly, right.
And secondly, we currently have a large surplus as it were,
unused balance, better way to put it, in the DRF, so if the
FEMA expenses exceed what we proceed, we do have a cushion.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Good. Well, I appreciate that. Again,
thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry to be late. I had other
hearings.
Thank you, Madam Secretary.
AMMUNITION
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Madam Secretary, as we close the hearing, a couple of other
things I wanted to talk to you about just for the record. I
want to correct the record, first.
Our research shows that only 187 of the 2,228 detainees
released by ICE recently are 8 percent of the number, were
placed on formal alternatives to detention. We still have no
definitive answer from the Department of Bonds or on their own
recognizance, but neither of those are alternatives to
detention so I think that just needs to be made clear.
There is an issue out there that is almost the king of the
blogosphere. The number one question in all of the town halls
that I have been in in the last two weeks, it has been whenever
I have come back to Congress and the chairman of this
department, I have had numerous members from out of the country
come in with this is the same issue. I think you know what it
is. It is that the DHS is buying up all the ammunition in the
United States. Now, people can smile at that, but there are
people who are seriously concerned about that.
We have got to get accurate numbers to be able to report
this to people because I am telling you, every stop, and I did
at least ten public gatherings when I was home, it was first.
It was the biggest, most concern in my area. And a lot of those
have said the same thing. Can you get us information--and some
of this we have gotten--this has gotten some of us, but how
many rounds of ammunition has DHS purchase each fiscal year
since 2009?
Secretary Napolitano. It averages about 150 million.
Mr. Carter. At a buy component. In other words----
Secretary Napolitano. Oh, you want it split up.
Mr. Carter. By bullet, okay. So I mean, if it's----
Secretary Napolitano. Seventy million for CBP.
Mr. Carter. Nine millimeter, we won't know how many nine
millimeter.
How many rounds of ammunition has DHS utilized each fiscal
year by component. I mean, how much have you used?
The reason I question is because when we are looking at the
preliminary numbers that I got--I don't know whether you are an
expert, but I have been around guns all my life, and I didn't--
I went and shot to qualify with sheriff's deputies.
A thousand rounds is a pretty chunk of bullets for guys to
have a year and the numbers I saw were closer to 1,500 to
2,000. I may be. Talking the Sheriff, I mean, the Chief of
Police in Austin. We were discussing this. Maybe even, you have
a liberal shooting policy which I am in favor of, quite
honestly, to make sure that these are very accurate shooters.
I don't, but I like them. Can you also tell us about the
training regime by each department? If you got mugged and
called security or gun-toting folks, it would just be very
helpful because I want to write a letter to everybody that is
asking a question about this, and so are all my colleagues, so
you are talking about both sides of the aisle, every member of
Congress is getting these questions that we are going to try to
compose in an intelligent letter that will hopefully solve this
rumor which is very important to our people.
So that is just----
Secretary Napolitano. We will provide any assistance we
can. I think we have gotten a lot of correspondence, too. I
know we have done a lot of briefings. There is a two-page white
paper that we distributed. The way I explain it to people, Your
Honor, Judge, is it is an up-to contract. It is a 5-year
contract. It is called strategic sourcing because we get an 80-
percent reduction in the per-bullet cost by buying it this way.
And we train not just within DHS but other law enforcement
agents as well. And as I said, I think our average is about 150
million rounds per year. And I believe in some of our units you
have got to qualify several times per years.
So whatever information we can give you, we will plug it
in.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Carter. Okay. I appreciate it. And I will get Ms. Piato
to do some of that work for you.
Finally, you are not--you don't have 2,700 or 27,000 tanks
that you have?
Secretary Napolitano. Not that I know of.
Mr. Carter. Okay. Well, that's being recorded.
You do have some M-wraps.
Secretary Napolitano. We do.
Mr. Carter. And they were given to you by the Marine Corps
to try out, and they were proven not to be very effective.
Secretary Napolitano. They are not ideal for the
environment in which we deal, yeah.
Mr. Carter. These are some of the other questions that are
certainly in this blog----
Secretary Napolitano. I understand. I get some of the same
questions.
Mr. Carter. Yeah, I just wanted to know the record so if
anybody happens to be watching this, they can know we are
checking on this.
Thanks for being here. I want to say that, you know, in my
view, this is one that may be falling down on the job and
unfortunately, you got to make this budget work. You got to
crunch into it and you've got to take the information you are
going to provide me and I am grateful you are going to do that
so we can try to make intelligent decisions on your department.
I think you know, if you don't know. I am a law enforcement
guy and I am going to do everything in my power to see that you
have what you need to meet your mission, your primary mission
of defending this nation. And you are as important as any of
our military components, and I am going to do everything within
my power to do that.
However, we after having information to make intelligent
decisions and so I would ask that you do that and we are going
to have to work on some of these harsh cuts in some of the
areas we are dealing with.
And we will be all shaking it out and quite honestly we may
see some different numbers, too, so I don't know what's going
to happen. But we are going to work together and I appreciate
it if you would do that.
Secretary Napolitano. We'll work with you, Mr. Chairman. I
really appreciate the time, you know when your staff, and
Representative Price, you and your staff spend on DHS matters.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Subcommittee is
adjourned.
[Questions for the record follow:]
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013.
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
WITNESS
ADMIRAL ROBERT J. PAPP JR., COMMANDANT, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
Opening Statement: Mr. Carter
Mr. Carter. We will call this meeting to order. Before we
begin this subcommittee hearing, I think we ought to take a few
minutes to reflect upon what happened yesterday in Boston. You
know, in the shadow of senseless acts of terrorism we once
again saw how courageous our first responders are, as well as
the resiliency and the compassion of our fellow Americans.
These events are a sobering reminder that there is evil in this
world, and our homeland security demands that we be vigilant
about that evil. It is a shame that we have to witness this, it
is a shame that we have to lose American citizens injured and
killed. But today our sincere thoughts and prayers go out to
all those who were injured and killed by this senseless act of
terrorism at the Boston Marathon. And let's keep all those
folks in our hearts and in our prayers as we go forward.
Admiral, thank you very much for testifying before us
today. No doubt your dedication to service. We think you are
doing a great job. And our Active Duty military and civilians
that you command are also part of this great war against terror
that we are fighting today. We thank you for it.
To me, it is just kind of awful to have to sit here and be
reminded of what our job is by watching the explosion at the
Boston Marathon. As we go forward, we are quick to forget bad
things, and always remember the good things in our lives. But
it just harkens back to that day on 9/11 when we all realized
that there were people who wanted to kill Americans for the
sake of killing Americans. And that is where this Department
came from, and it is how it was organized, and that is what our
job is. And somehow we have got to remind ourselves every
single day that there is somebody out there that wants to do
harm to Americans.
Our charge here today is a challenging one. We are trying
to make some sense out of the Coast Guard's latest budget
request, a proposal that first cuts more than 850 Active Duty
full-time positions and decreases military end strength to
under 40,000 people. It decommissions two High Endurance
Cutters and numerous air assets. It delays the acquisition of
several vital assets and squanders $30 million in savings per
year by dragging out the acquisition of the Fast Responder
Cutters. So instead of the administration's claimed support for
frontline operations or for supporting the mission
requirements, this budget submission severely diminishes
current, near-term, and future capabilities.
Admiral, to put it mildly, this is a budget that is very
difficult for us to accept. We fully understand the challenges
you face in balancing a shrinking budget while also trying to
take care of Coast Guard families, sustaining operations with
aging assets, and recapitalizing for the future. This is no
small task in today's fiscal environment.
But the Congress, and this subcommittee in particular, has
never supported a plan that so bluntly guts operational
capabilities and so clearly increases our Nation's
vulnerability to maritime risk, including more illegal drugs. I
believe what is at stake is no less than the future of our
Coast Guard. You appear to have arrived at the tipping point
between the Coast Guard that you assert is needed and the
agency this administration is actually willing to support.
Admiral, we know you have a tough job. That is precisely
why we are relying upon you to explain how this budget meets
our Nation's needs for both fiscal discipline and robust
security.
Before I turn this over to the Admiral for his statement,
let me first recognize the distinguished ranking member, Mr.
Price, for any remarks that he might make.
[Statement follows:]
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Opening Statement: Mr. Price
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Papp, we are glad to have you before the
subcommittee today to discuss the Coast Guard's budget request
for fiscal year 2014. Yesterday's events in Boston are on our
minds and in our hearts this morning. They serve as a stark
reminder of the threats we face as a Nation. The first
responders of Boston, as well as the men and women of DHS,
responded quickly and heroically. These events do highlight the
vital work of DHS, as the chairman has said, and they add even
more import to the bipartisan work of this subcommittee.
The Coast Guard budget request is for $9.8 billion, a cut
of $762 million, or 7.2 percent from the current year
appropriation, and that is before sequestration. The fiscal
2014 request for the entire Department is difficult, but the
shortfall proposed for the Coast Guard is particularly glaring,
and I suspect that you see it the same way. Combined with a few
other significant shortfalls in other areas of the Department,
I fear this subcommittee will be hard pressed to find a
responsible way to patch all the holes that need to be filled.
And again, that is before sequestration.
Our ability to properly assess the request is made all the
more difficult because we have not yet received a 5-year
capital investment plan. And given the 41 percent cut to the
fiscal 2013 enacted level for acquisition, construction, and
improvements, the prospects for capital investment in the
outyears indeed appear bleak. You have said before that in
order to properly recapitalize the Coast Guard fleet you would
require at least $1.5 billion a year, yet here we are with a
budget request nearly $600 million below that stated need.
Of particular note is the request to procure only two Fast
Response Cutters in fiscal 2014, which would not only increase
the per-unit cost of these vessels, but would slow the overall
pace of Fast Response Cutter procurement to an unacceptable
level. The request also leaves out funding for long lead time
material for the next National Security Cutter, which would
drive up the costs of National Security Cutter construction
dramatically.
It seems to me that the budget request for new assets,
particularly if it is a precursor to similarly low requests in
the outyears, raises fundamental questions about the Coast
Guard's future capacity as older assets are decommissioned.
I would also note the continued reduction in the Coast
Guard workforce. Under the fiscal 2014 budget request, you
would be down to 49,349 positions by the end of the fiscal
year, a reduction of more than 1,600 positions since the end of
fiscal 2012, and almost all of those losses are to military
positions. These reductions are proposed at the same time the
Coast Guard continues to be heavily relied upon by its
Department of Defense partners. How many of these reductions
will come from achievable efficiencies and right sizing and how
much is the result of budget pressures that will reduce
operational capabilities? We very much need to know.
Admiral, we know the Coast Guard is committed to doing its
part to find savings in these lean budget times. We also know
you are committed to ensuring that the Coast Guard is able to
do more with less. But there is a point beyond which we should
not ask you to try to go in this regard, and we rely to a great
extent on your judgment in determining just where that point
lies.
Admiral, no one is more passionate about the Coast Guard
than you, and you have always been honest with this
subcommittee about the positive and negative aspects of
previous budgets. As you can see, we have a number of topics
that need to be explored in depth this morning, and we look
forward to your testimony and your insight, as always. Thank
you.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Price.
[Statement follows:]
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Mr. Carter. Admiral, we are ready for you to give us your
statement at this time. And of course we have a written copy of
it, of your whole statement. We will ask you to condense it
down to 5 minutes, if you would, please, sir.
Opening Statement: Commandant Papp
Admiral Papp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Price, Mr.
Cuellar. It is an honor for me to be here this morning to
testify on the 2014 budget. Before I get into that, though,
first I'd like to thank you for your remarks about Boston. We
share the same feelings. In fact, I would say that the
collective hearts of our Coast Guard family go out to the
people of Boston and all the families that were affected by
yesterday's tragedy. The Coast Guard is based in Boston as
well. We are part of the community, and we are able to respond
immediately with boats from Sector Boston, the Maritime Safety
and Security Team, an armed helicopter, vessel boarding teams,
and an overall enhancement to the maritime transportation
security posture.
Our ability to do that is a direct result of the support
that we have received from the administration and the Congress
over the last 12 years, since September 11, 2001. We have
significantly reinforced and rebuilt our port and close-to-
shore infrastructure, and we are grateful for that.
That support has also enabled our successes over this past
year. During Hurricane Sandy, we rescued 14 crew members from
the HMS Bounty in 30-foot seas and 60-knot winds 80 miles
offshore. In the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, our
Marine Transportation Recovery Unit surveyed the channels,
evaluated the waterfront facilities, restored Aids to
Navigation, and worked across government and industry to reopen
the port so commerce could flow.
To meet the growing demands in the Arctic, we completed
Operation Arctic Shield, a 9-month interagency effort,
including the deployment of a National Security Cutter [NSC],
two light ice-capable buoy tenders, and two helicopters 300
miles above the Arctic Circle. Given the lack of shore
infrastructure and the extreme conditions that we find up
there, the capabilities provided by that National Security
Cutter were critical, and we thank you for your past support
for the national security project, including the funding for
construction of number 6 and the long lead materials for NSC
number 7 in the current year budget.
In executing the DHS layered security strategy, the Coast
Guard detected and interdicted threats as far offshore as
possible. Targeting Central American coastal trafficking
routes, our cutters and aircraft teamed with interagency
aircraft to detect and interdict drug-smuggling vessels
carrying over 107 metric tons of cocaine, with a street value
estimated to be about $15 billion, and we disrupted
transnational criminal organizations.
Closer to shore, we responded to the growing threat of
small go-fast vessels that smugglers are using to avoid
increased security along the southwest U.S. border. Drug
smuggling, human trafficking, and other illicit maritime
activity continue to threaten our Nation. Those engaged in this
trade are growing smarter and bolder, and they are an
increasing danger to our homeland. In December, I presided over
the memorial service for Senior Chief Boatswain's Mate Terrell
Horne III of Coast Guard Cutter Halibut. He was killed by
smugglers when they rammed his response boat near San Diego.
Our commitment to the Nation and our duty to honor the memory
of Senior Chief Horne strengthens our resolve to defeat these
threats.
Unfortunately, much like the weather and the seas that we
face on a daily basis, the Coast Guard cannot control the
fiscal environment in which we operate. We will make best use
of the resources you provide to safely and effectively conduct
operations in the areas of greatest risk to the Nation, while
recapitalizing our cutters, boats, and aircraft to address both
the current and emerging threats, particularly in the offshore
environment. The 2014 President's budget works in that
direction.
This past year we made great strides in recapitalizing the
Coast Guard's aging fleet. In October, we will christen the
fourth National Security Cutter, Hamilton. To date, we have
taken delivery of five Fast Response Cutters and 14 HC-144
aircraft. We also contracted for the ninth HC-130J completed a
mid-life availability on our patrol boats, and are nearly
complete with the mid-life availability on our Medium Endurance
Cutters at the Coast Guard Yard.
Despite these successes, we have a long way to go to
recapitalize the Coast Guard with the ships, boats, and
aircraft that the Nation needs. The capital investment plan
should inform this discussion, and I look forward to delivering
it at the soonest opportunity. As the Department of Defense
rebalances forces to the Pacific, the maritime activity
increases in the Arctic, and offshore demand for Coast Guard
capabilities and authorities is increasing. Our 378-foot High
Endurance Cutters have ably served offshore for nearly 50
years, but as I have testified before, they are at the end of
their service lives.
I am very happy to report that I received strong support
from the Secretary and the President on my highest acquisition
priorities, including the funding for the seventh National
Security Cutter in the 2014 budget. This budget sustains the
most critical frontline operations, while funding our most
critical acquisition projects. In the current fiscal
environment, this required tough decisions, informed by my
highest priorities. These were very difficult decisions for me
and our service, but they were the best decisions to ensure we
provide the next generation of Coast Guardsmen the tools
required to protect our Nation.
As I look back over our successes of the past year, I have
never been more convinced about the value the Coast Guard
provides to the Nation, and I have never been prouder of my
Coast Guard men and women. Our missions ensure adherence to a
system of rules and sustain the mechanisms designed to provide
for the security, safety, and prosperity of all who use the
maritime domain. This is the daily work of a government that
provides us with both order and opportunity on the oceans. What
we provide is maritime governance.
While realistic and mindful of the current fiscal
environment, I remain optimistic about the future of the Coast
Guard. It is my duty to look beyond the annual budget cycle,
and prepare and adapt the service, keeping it moving forward to
address the greatest maritime safety and security risks of the
Nation now and into the future. The men and women of the Coast
Guard give their all and make sacrifices every day, putting the
Nation first. We owe them our very best efforts to provide the
support that they need. This subcommittee has long supported
the men and women of the Coast Guard, recognizing their
sacrifice. And on behalf of my Coast Guard shipmates, I thank
you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Admiral.
[Statement follows:]
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CAPITAL INVESTMENT PLAN
Mr. Carter. We appreciate your testimony. Let's start out
by getting an issue that you have already raised here out of
the way. Over the last several years, Congress has directed the
submission of a capital investment plan, the CIP, with the
submission of the budget. However, today we have got a budget,
2 months late, from the administration, and we see that we do
not have the capital investment plan. We have got to have that
plan. You are not the only one who is not meeting this
requirement. We are having to ask others to do this. But we
need that plan. When do you think--I would like a date--that
you can provide that plan?
Admiral Papp. Sir, I cannot give you an exact date, and I
am just as disappointed as everybody else that we do not have
that capital investment plan, because as I said in my
statement, it helps inform the discussion that we would have in
terms of where the Coast Guard is going over the next 5 to 10
years, and puts into context those requests in the fiscal year
2014 budget. I do know that we were working as late as last
night nailing down final wording, and I expect that it will be
to you very soon.
Mr. Carter. Well, is there any chance that with the folks
that you have got here with you somebody can make a few phone
calls while we proceed today and give me a date before we get
through? I would like to have that.
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir.
DRUG INTERDICTION
Mr. Carter. All right.
Admiral, I do not have to tell you that the Coast Guard's
efforts to interdict drugs being smuggled from source and
transit zones are vital to our security. However, your fiscal
year 2014 budget will actually diminish your current drug
interdiction capabilities by decreasing personnel and
decommissioning assets. Based upon your own metrics, this
budget will also support the lowest percentage of cocaine
removal in 5 years. Also, combined with these proposed
reductions, I understand the Navy is moving more and more
assets to the Pacific AOR.
Admiral, can you discuss how these cuts reduce our current
drug interdiction capabilities and how our Coast Guard will
mitigate the impact of these cuts? The 2004 mission needs
statement created specific requirements for patrol boats, major
cutters, fixed wings, operational hours. However, the budget
over the last few years does not support these requirements.
Admiral Papp. Well, Mr. Chairman, as you know, the current
fiscal environment requires making some very difficult
decisions that are based upon the priorities that I have
established and stayed consistent with over the 3 years that I
have been testifying before this subcommittee. The fiscal
climate has clearly changed, but our mission requirements
remain the same. In fact, they probably are increasing, given
the fact that we have emerging mission space up in the Arctic.
Challenging us also is the fact that the Department of
Defense has rebalanced toward the Pacific, the Navy is
constrained by its own capability of keeping ships deployed,
and we are losing the Navy frigates that used to serve us so
well in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific in the drug
interdiction mission. Exacerbating that is the fact that our
allies, the British, the French, and the Dutch, who have
traditionally been down there, are down there less, and are
retracting from the Caribbean side. We do have some assistance
from the Canadians right now, but that is limited, and also
they are bound by different rules than we are in terms of their
ability to arrest and interdict the smugglers.
So what you will see is less cocaine interdicted. There is
no way to get around that. The effects of sequestration right
now are hurting us in that regard because there are fewer
assets that are able to be deployed down there in the Eastern
Pacific and in the Caribbean.
Mr. Carter. Well, this budget here does not reflect
sequestration, as I understand it. We have the 2004 mission
statement. At some point, the budget is not matching the
mission statement. Somehow, we have got to get a clear picture
as to where we are going. I guess a good question to ask you
is--This does not reflect sequestration. Sequestration is a
fact. With sequestration, can you tell me how much you will
further erode the interdiction capabilities and the overall
capabilities of the Coast Guard?
Admiral Papp. Well, sir, this budget as presented for
fiscal year 2014, and we have reviewed this within my staff, we
believe that this budget, if approved at its current level,
should not be affected by sequestration because it falls
underneath the Budget Control Act limits, as our budget has all
along. So I believe that there will be no impact from
sequestration on this budget.
Having said that, this budget does constrain us in our
ability to conduct all our missions. And as I have said in the
past to this subcommittee, the Coast Guard has never had 100
percent of the assets to do 100 percent of our jobs all the
time. That is why we train our commanders in the field to make
decisions based upon priorities of missions. It starts with my
intent. When we went into sequestration on the fiscal year 2013
budget, I put out a commander's intent message, which gave
broad guidance to our operational commanders. And they take the
resources that they have and apply those to the highest needs,
the highest missions, and other missions will go wanting for
lack of resources.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
ACQUISITION, CONSTRUCTION, AND IMPROVEMENT
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, I want to get into this matter further of the
acquisition and construction aspect of the budget. You are
requesting $951 million for acquisition, construction, and
improvement, less a proposed rescission of $42 million, for a
total of $909 million. That is almost $636 million, or 41
percent, below the amount provided in fiscal 2013, and it is
$554 million below what we provided in fiscal 2012.
So the question obviously is, at this reduced funding level
will the Coast Guard--or how could the Coast Guard possibly be
able to keep acquisitions and procurements on track to replace
aging aircraft and vessels? I know you are personally committed
to procuring the two remaining National Security Cutters. But
the budget request in the last 2 years has not provided the
financial commitment needed to do that. Given the known
increase in costs associated with not funding long lead time
materials, for which the budget provides no funding, does that
mean we are faced with the termination of the National Security
Cutter program after number seven rather than the number eight
on record?
National Security Cutter seven represents 65 percent of
your total acquisition request. Is its construction coming at
the expense of procuring new aviation assets, slowing the
development of a heavy icebreaker, reducing the procurement
pace for the Fast Response Cutter, as well as the long lead
time materials for number eight? So let me just ask you to
respond to that, and then I will follow up.
Admiral Papp. Sir, there is no doubt that at the funding
level that is requested, that pushes all our procurements to
the right. It causes us to order less than economic numbers for
most of our procurement projects, and in some cases,
particularly the HC-144, it causes us to terminate those
acquisitions. So ultimately our mission need has not changed.
In fact, if we were to do another mission need analysis right
now, it would probably indicate increased need, primarily
because of the lack of Department of Defense resources in the
drug interdiction mission and the fact that we are expanding
our mission space up in the Arctic right now.
So the mission need is even greater, and I remain committed
to the program of record for all these assets. But I have to
make reasoned decisions on an annual basis, getting us toward
the ultimate goal, which I still believe remains sound in the
outyears.
The Fast Response Cutter is one of the challenges. And I
just simply could not fit any more than two within the limits
of the budget. And in response to your question, does the
National Security Cutter number seven displace other things, I
would have to say there is no guarantee that if the National
Security Cutter was not in the budget, we would get all that
money back to place on other projects. The Secretary and the
administration know that that is my highest priority because I
have taken a reasoned approach, looking back over the last 12
years where we have invested. We have invested heavily in our
close-to-shore infrastructure, in our ports. That is why we
were able to respond so well in Boston. We have additional
people, the Maritime Safety and Security Teams. We have bought
well over 800 boats over the last 12 years to recapitalize our
shore stations. We have increased our number of patrol boats
for the close shore environment.
Our greatest risk at this time is in the offshore
environment, where we need the National Security Cutter, and we
need to get that constructed as soon as possible. I said last
year, when the capital investment plan that was placed in front
of you last year showed zeroes for National Security Cutter
number seven and eight, seven is in the budget this year, and I
continue to be optimistic that eight will be in the budget next
year. We will find a way to work that through the budget.
And that is why I am disappointed that the capital
investment plan is not here, because that could inform the
discussion that we are having today. And we will get that to
you as soon as possible.
Aircraft is the other thing you brought up. Yes, we are
terminating the HC-144 project at 18 aircraft. That replaces
the 18 Falcons that we had in service. And I am satisfied that
we are providing adequate service through our aviation
community right now. And we have invested heavily in our HC-
130s over the last 12 years. This subcommittee has provided
funding for now up to 10 HC-130Js. And we have awarded number
nine, and are in the process of negotiating number 10. We have
recapitalized, renovated, and upgraded both of our classes of
helicopters. And as I look at our aviation community, I think
we are in good shape for at least the next 15 years.
We have more patrol boats today than we have ever had in my
career in the Coast Guard. Granted, the Island class is getting
old and is in need of replacement, but we are incrementally
working forward with the Fast Response Cutter. I would like to
build that faster, but we are building as many as we can within
the constraints of the budget.
So my focus needs to be on the offshore, where those 40-
and 50-year-old ships are falling apart. They are the most
expensive. And we need to get them built now so that we do not
have to pay more in the future.
Mr. Price. Thank you. I am certainly not inclined to
question your commitment to National Security Cutter number
seven and giving that priority. Are we mistaken, though, to see
the omission of the long lead time materials as a setback or at
least an omission that really is going to, if not throw number
eight into doubt, at least greatly increase the cost and delay
the timeframe?
Admiral Papp. There is no doubt that the omission of long
lead money for number eight will increase the costs. We had the
same discussion last year, and I was very grateful that the
subcommittee put in the long lead money for number seven. It
helped us out greatly. It kept the project going. It is
predictability for the shipyard and enables them to give us a
better price as we negotiate. And we have negotiated some very
good prices on number six, and I know we will on number seven.
So it is a disappointment to me that we are unable to put the
long lead for number eight in there, but it is just one of
those tough decisions I had to make based upon priorities on
other projects that we have ongoing.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
RIO GRANDE
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you and the ranking member
for having this meeting.
Admiral, it is a pleasure having you here. Let me start off
with a short little statement. Mr. Chairman, you might be
interested in this report since you are doing immigration, part
of the immigration reform.
Mr. Carter. Yeah, I am.
Mr. Cuellar. But back in, I guess it was in 2001, I had
added some language to one of the bills asking for the Coast
Guard to do a Rio Grande mission requirement analysis. And I
think you all came out with that report October 18, 2011. I
will be happy to share that with you.
What came out of this was rather interesting, because you
and I have a perspective what the border is. In some areas we
do agree. But on the analysis, and I am just going to summarize
on this, basically when their intelligence did the work on
narcotics, they said there is a high threat on the Mexican
side, but then on this side they called it a moderate threat of
violence on the U.S. side itself. Then we asked them about
migrants and the smuggling of migrants into the United States,
and they said it was a low threat in the region. And this is
all in the Rio Grande.
I had a different perspective. I did not really agree with
your intelligence, but still nevertheless to respect what you
all did. Bottom line, what I was trying do with this language
was, is there enough of an activity down there to call for more
of the Coast Guard? Because I wanted the Coast Guard to work
with air and marine and go down there. But basically, their
analysis was the way we are working right now, everything is
fine, we do not need to add any more assets. And I know it
might be a little difficult under the sequestration scenario
that we are in, but I always thought that it would be nice,
because they are basing in Corpus Christi, and I know they do
pulse, maybe once a quarter they will go up there, maybe go to
Lake Falcon and maybe Del Rio, the Amistad. But I was hoping
that there would be more of a presence from Coast Guard on the
Rio Grande, because that is international water. It is brown
water, not the blue water, and I know you all prefer blue water
over brown water. But still nevertheless, I was hoping that
there would be more of a presence.
And, Chairman, I would like to work with you to see if we
could try to get Coast Guard to have more of a presence. I
understand the situation, the financial situation you are in.
But especially right now, because if you look at the OTMs, Mr.
Chairman, in the southern part of the valley, which is close to
Corpus Christi, it has increased by a lot. You have got a lot
of other than Mexicans coming in. And I think that is why the
Secretary of Homeland has been twice down there to that
particular area.
So I say that, I guess more as a statement, but, Mr.
Chairman, I would like to work with you, and I would be happy
to provide this report to you and the ranking member and the
staff to look at this report, because it was a rather
interesting analysis, that they are basically saying the threat
is low, very moderate, and everything is pretty much fine. And
I want to give you an opportunity on that. But it was
counterintuitive to myself living down there on the border that
we do not need any more Coast Guard assets there. It was more
of a statement, but I guess to get a response from you and Mr.
Chairman on this. And I would be happy to share this.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar, I have always thought it would be
a good idea to have the Coast Guard on the Rio Grande, for a
long, long time.
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. Go ahead. Would you like to make a comment on
the assessment?
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir. You know, Customs and Border
Protection [CBP], as you know, has the primary responsibility
for the land crossings, the land borders. The fact that there
is a river there does not necessarily make it maritime. But
that is primarily where Customs and Border Protection works.
Mr. Cuellar. But on the northern part of the United States,
and I know if we had a definitional issue as to whether it was
international water, but in the northern part of the United
States, you do have a big presence in the northern part. So
that is why I was saying what is wrong with the southern part?
And I understand some of it is not navigable. But there is good
portions.
Admiral Papp. Right. But the CBP has invested significantly
over the last 10 years, and they also have an air and marine
branch. So while you could get into a discussion of who should
run boats and aircraft, the fact of the matter is the Coast
Guard has certain resources, and it is primarily for the blue
water side. And I would say the Great Lakes on the northern
border, if you have been up there, they are like blue water.
There is a lot of territory to cover up there, as opposed to
the river.
So CBP has had significant investment. They have an air and
marine division. We work with them from time to time. And we
have deployed, we have done pulse ops up to Falcon Lake during
periods of violence to show a presence up there and help our
partners, just like our partners in CBP help us on the offshore
from time to time. In fact, we have coordinated operations
going on, on the western side of the border between Mexico and
California because of the increased drug smuggling that is
going on out there.
So while we would like to have the Coast Guard everywhere
that we are needed, we are constrained by what we have. And we
have to depend on our partners within the Department, CBP,
because they have very significant resources down there.
Mr. Cuellar. But you have heard from a lot of Members of
Congress how--and media--how important the southern border is.
And even though you are present in other areas, the southern
border is where the emphasis is at right now. And I guess
securing the border for immigration reform is going to be very
important.
Let me, I think my time is up, but just real quickly, do
you still stand by the report that your people did that the
threat is low in that area?
Admiral Papp. Sir, you put a date on that. Did you say----
Mr. Cuellar. October 18, 2011.
Admiral Papp. 2011. What I would say is that it would
change probably a little bit from that report now because we
are seeing increased presence and pressure by CBP along the
land border. That is why we are seeing increased traffic,
particularly on the Pacific side of go-fast boats, Pangas
taking drugs and migrants out to sea and around the land border
because of the increased pressure there. So where the Coast
Guard rightly performs is on the ocean side. That is where our
authorities make the most sense and where we have most of our
resources based. So as the smugglers try to do end runs around
the land border, that is where we take over, in partnership
with CBP and State and local agencies as well.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir.
FAST RESPONSE CUTTERS
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Cuellar.
And I am not going to double team you on that, but I also
think, and have always thought, that the show of force that the
Coast Guard gives would be very, very helpful on the Rio
Grande, because quite honestly we see an awful lot of traffic,
especially down in the lower Rio Grande, which is just right
close to the coast. And just the fact of the presence of the
Coast Guard I think would be a deterrent to some of the people,
because it has the quasi-military presence that possibly CBP
does not have.
And, you know, these guys that do this, it is as much
psychological as it is real force sometimes across the border.
If they perceive, and we use the Del Rio section when we
started with heavy enforcement in the Del Rio section on the
criminal justice side, the minute they know there is a spot on
the border where there is additional assets and they feel like
they are perceived that they are going to have problems, they
move. They are not stupid. They move someplace else. And I
think that is one of the deterrents that you would offer.
But I also understand your resources. And I will say that I
was in California, and it is kind of interesting that now we
are more or less saying we have done a good job in building a
fence and putting resources in California, so they are off the
coast and running all the way up to mid, even arguably Northern
California, to dodge the Coast Guard's effort. So, you know,
these guys are like cockroaches, you know. You stop them
someplace, they go run someplace else. That is just the way
they work. And I am sure you know that.
Let me ask a couple of questions about the Fast Response
Cutter. Your fiscal year 2014 budget request includes just two
Fast Response Cutters, even though Congress denied this same
shortsighted proposal last year. We bailed out the flawed
request and fully funded all six cutters. I guess that is maybe
what somebody is anticipating that they want us to do this
year.
As I understand it, by only requesting two cutters you are
squandering up to $30 million in savings per year when compared
to the procurement of six per year. Can you explain why you
made this decision? And you have to some extent already. And do
you plan to increase the procurement in our outyears so that we
do not continue to squander savings and delay capability? The
current requirement for patrol boat hours is 174,000 per year,
but this budget supports less than half that requirement. Will
we ever close the capability gap from what is funded to what is
required for patrol boat hours? Also, what areas are most
impacted by these gaps?
Admiral Papp. Sir, I would like to be maximizing our
production of the Fast Response Cutter. I understand fully, and
I agree that it costs more when we do not order in economic
order quantities. Our contract calls for a minimum order of
four, a maximum order of six. The shipyard is geared up to do
six per year. They have to have some sort of consistency and
predictability in terms of their production rate. But once
again, this was one of those tough decisions that I face in the
current fiscal environment, putting in as many as I can, while
trying to keep other projects going, and being focused on my
highest priority.
Fast Response Cutter is one of my highest priorities.
National Security Cutter is my highest priority. So starting
with that, I was only able to fit two Fast Response Cutters in.
That gives us two options. We could renegotiate the contract to
change the minimum order to two. And as you recognize, that
ends up being a more expensive proposition. In analyzing the
fiscal year 2013 appropriation and the multi-year nature of the
funding for those six, I believe we can spread out evenly,
order four in fiscal year 2013 and take two of the--the funding
for two and move that into fiscal year 2014 and do four per
year. That is my second option at this point.
PRIORITIES: UNFUNDED
Mr. Carter. Well, as I have told you, I am a fan of the
Coast Guard. I think the Coast Guard shines every time we have
a national disaster. I think the American people think the
Coast Guard shines. I can tell you, on numerous occasions I
have had people tell me if we could get the rest of the
Department of Homeland Security operating like the Coast Guard
operates we would be in good shape. And I think this committee,
we honor the Coast Guard a lot.
But I believe right now what is at stake is no less than
the future of the Coast Guard. We are truly at a tipping point
between the Coast Guard that you assert is needed and the
agencies this administration is willing to support. What is the
impact on the future of the Coast Guard if your acquisition
funding remains at levels requested this year? Bluntly,
Admiral, will we ever have a Coast Guard we have today in 5 or
10 years? Will that exist? If I can find additional funds,
where do I start? And what are your unfunded priorities?
Admiral Papp. Well, sir, clearly, if there were additional
funds, the first thing I would add them to is the Fast Response
Cutter. We absolutely need that boat. I acknowledge the patrol
boat hour gap. But the hour gap is sort of a specious argument
in my estimation, because we assign so many hours per the
number of hulls that we have out there. Frankly, some of those
hulls, particularly on the Island class, are not able to do all
the hours that they are supposed to do. In fact, we have one
boat right now, the Chincoteague, which is laid up. The hull is
so deformed we cannot operate the ship. It would cost $3
million to get the ship back in condition so it could operate,
and that is just not money that is wisely spent. Yet we have
been unable to decommission any of the older patrol boats
simply because we are trying to keep our numbers, which then
feed sort of an artificial level of patrol boat hours that are
out there.
What we really need are the hulls. And ultimately we need
to get all 58 of those Fast Response Cutters built, not only
because they perform the patrol boat mission, but because they
are also a more capable ship. They interface with the Offshore
Patrol Cutter, which is our next big project, and the National
Security Cutter, which ultimately give us fewer large ships in
the offshore environment, but hopefully with a little bit more
capability from these patrol boats, we would be able to
eliminate that gap.
AIR RESOURCES
Mr. Carter. What about the air resources? I mean, it seems
to me you need an awful lot of air resources. And we keep
coming back to the big ship three. What about the fact that we
are severely behind with air resources?
And one question I want to ask you, Air Force announced
plans to retire a fleet of C-27J aircraft. Has the Coast Guard
looked into the possibility of getting some of those aircraft?
Admiral Papp. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. We are currently
negotiating. The language that came out in the Defense
Authorization Act divided them between the Department of
Interior and the Coast Guard. For the Department of Interior,
they are working on behalf of the Forest Service, which would
like to get new tankers for fighting forest fires. There are
about 21 aircraft that are available. Under the division that
they put in there, we would get 14, which is the minimum number
that we need because we need to outfit a couple of air
stations. And we need a certain number to be able to do that
and also keep aircraft in the production line.
That is one of the reasons why we have halted the HC-144 at
18 aircraft, because we are hopeful that we can negotiate the
C-27J and either get 14 or the entire 21, which would
significantly reduce the upfront money that we need within our
AC&I funds and would allow us to stay with the program that we
have for our fixed-wing aircraft.
On the higher end, the subcommittee has been great in
supporting us. We are up to 10 C-130Js now. This budget calls
for decommissioning a couple of our older H models, which are
obsolete and hard to maintain, but keeps us at our program of
record of 22 C-130s. And hopefully, we will be able to continue
to chip away with getting more C-130Js over the years.
So fixed-wing aircraft, I believe we have got a sound plan
for moving forward. And as I stated earlier, both of our
classes of helicopters, we have upgraded, we have
rehabilitated. With our facility down in Elizabeth City, the
Aircraft Logistics Center, we can basically take a helicopter
frame and turn it into a new helicopter. Our people are that
good. So I am confident that with the plan we have for aircraft
we are good for at least the next 15 years. Then we will start
facing issues of obsolescence there.
FUTURE
Mr. Carter. Do you have any of the skepticism that I just
expressed about the future of the Coast Guard?
Admiral Papp. Well, certainly, sir. I do not like being a
commandant that is having to serve my term with a reducing
budget. But I have to stay firm to the goals that we set out.
My obligation is not just to get through the annual budget
cycle, but to look out 20, 30, and 40 years in terms of what
the Coast Guard is going to need in terms of resources, tools,
aircraft, ships, and boats in order to serve the American
public and take on the missions that we are doing. The
curveballs that I get thrown are the vagaries of the fiscal
environment. And within that, on an annual basis I need to
adjust and regroup. But that should not change my focus on
ultimately where we need to be.
So the requirements are sound, our program of record is
sound, but the further we push it to the right, the more
expensive it is going to be and the longer it takes to get
these more effective tools out to our people. And we end up
spending more and more money on obsolete, antiquated equipment
that costs more and more every year to maintain.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
OFFSHORE PATROL CUTTER
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, I would like to return to one acquisition item,
and then also return to the question of sequestration and
exactly what kind of aggregate numbers we are marking this
budget to, marking the Coast Guard budget to. Could you just
briefly remind us about the place of this Offshore Patrol
Cutter, this kind of intermediate-sized vessel, the kind of
place that will occupy in your overall mission?
And also of course it catches our attention when the number
is reduced so markedly for that new vessel. The 2014 request
for continued development of the OPC is $25 million. That is
half the amount contemplated in the fiscal 2013 CIP. Is that
solely a matter of budget pressures, or is there some other
reason for this cut? And what do you think the impact on the
acquisition schedule is likely to be, assuming that is the
amount appropriated?
Admiral Papp. No, sir, the amount is just good stewardship.
We are looking at unused funds, carryover funds that we can
apply on this project. We remain firmly committed to the OPC,
the Offshore Patrol Cutter. After we get the National Security
Cutter built, it is our most important project going forward
because that provides 25 ships to replace close to 30 that are
currently in service, the 210-foot Medium Endurance Cutters,
which are now approaching 50 years of age, and then later the
270-foot Medium Endurance Cutters, which are approaching 3
decades of service. But by the time they are retired, they will
be about 50 years old as well.
They are our workhorses. And that ship is even more
important because with the number of National Security Cutters,
which is eight, compared to their predecessor ships, the High
Endurance Cutters, where we had 12, we need to make sure that
the Offshore Patrol Cutter is capable of better sea-keeping
abilities so that we can use it in Alaska and in the Pacific,
where we have not been able to use the current classes of
Medium Endurance Cutters.
So this is critical to our future. We received a robust
response from industry on our request for proposals. We are in
the process of working toward a down select of three proposals
by the end of this fiscal year, and we remain committed to
award the contract for the detailed construction and design for
the first ship in the fiscal year 2015 budget.
Mr. Price. And this reduced appropriations amount would let
you stay on that schedule?
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir. There is no decrease to the
schedule. And for the record, we will get a breakdown on those
funds. I am going from my memory right now. But when I asked
that same question, my recollection is that we have, because we
have carryover funds and because we have not used all the money
appropriated so far. It will supplement the money requested in
this budget to keep the project moving forward.
SEQUESTRATION
Mr. Price. All right. Thank you. Let me turn to the
sequestration that you are dealing with right now and what its
implications are if we continue to be saddled with this in the
new fiscal year. The March 1 sequestration cut the Coast
Guard's 2013 appropriation by something like $280 million, as I
understand it. Military pay was exempt, as it should be. But
your other operating expense categories, and your acquisition,
construction and improvement projects were not exempt from
sequestration.
Let me just ask you what the impact of that is going to be
on your operations for the remainder of the year. You addressed
that partially earlier, the drug interdiction schedule, the
fisheries enforcement, the effects on emergency response
operations, and the schedule for planning and production of new
vessels. So we are talking about a current year impact. But I
think we need to clarify that there is some question about the
2014 impact.
The budget that you are proposing and all of our discussion
this morning has been about how stringent that budget is. That
budget that you are proposing assumes that sequestration is
lifted and that we have a budget agreement that would address
the real driving forces of the deficit--tax expenditures,
entitlement spending--and that this repeated hit on the
discretionary budget, the appropriated budget would be lifted.
The administration budget, which you are operating from,
assumes a budget plan and the lifting of sequestration.
As you know, this committee, given the House budget plan,
the House budget plan is going to be marking to a different
aggregate number, although we do not know quite what the
allocation will be for this particular subcommittee.
So if you could address that. You are already dealing with
a stringent budget. You possibly are going to have something on
the order of what you have suffered in 2013 imposed on top of
this. What can you say about the flexibility you have, the
flexibility you need, the kind of way this might somehow be
mitigated? I just want to give you a chance to reflect on the
kind of difference this sequestration variable makes in your
projected operations.
Admiral Papp. Thank you, Mr. Price. Let me address fiscal
year 2013 first.
Yes, in fact we did suffer the impacts of sequestration.
And in order to adapt to that, as I mentioned earlier, I put
out my commander's intent to the entire service and gave them
the broad guidelines on how we would operate. And the first
priority was to make sure that we could do all our critical
missions--search and rescue, security operations, contingency
response. We wanted to maintain our core capability to do that
and not diminish our ability to respond to those types of
missions. The types of missions that will see reductions by
about 25 percent are drug interdiction, migrant interdiction,
and other things in the offshore environment.
In order to maintain our long-term ability to respond, we
also need to continue training. If you cut training, ultimately
you pay the price in the long run, and I am not willing to do
that. So we are trying to keep up our mission-essential
training.
Third thing is sustaining a workforce that is able to
respond as well. As both of you have noted, the Coast Guard is
fairly lean in terms of our people. We have worked very hard
over the last 12 years to get ourselves back up to the
strength, our personnel strength, which is identical to what we
were in 1990. We have the same number of people that we had in
1990 now. And it took us a long time to build that back up.
So part of my commander's intent as well was to minimize
disruptions to our workforce to the extent possible. I am aided
in that by the fact that military pay was exempt. But our
civilians are a part of that team as well. Frankly, these are
civilians that have not had a pay raise for 3 years. We have
diminished their bonuses. In fact, this year we will pay no
bonuses to civilians. We have cut out overtime. And I want to
make sure that we can at least keep them employed. And that was
one of the mainstays of our commander's intent out there: to
keep our workforce intact so if a contingency operation comes
up, whether it is a hurricane or a terrorist event, we will be
prepared to respond.
We will make it through fiscal year 2013. There are things
that we will fall short on, particularly I think in drug
interdiction. But that is the price we have to pay for the
tough times that we find ourselves within.
Now, for fiscal year 2014, I have not, sir, and I have made
many trips around this town, both within the administration and
over here, and I have not found anybody who knows for sure
precisely what happens under sequestration. We have general
terms we deal within. But no one has been able to tell me, yes,
in fact this is definite; this is what will happen.
Our analysis within Coast Guard headquarters has been,
because we are well below the levels of funding in the Coast
Guard that would be required by the Budget Control Act, if
these levels are approved, they are not subject to further
sequestration. I cannot confirm that. I do not know that. But
that was our analysis that has been done. And I do not dispute
your opinion or your knowledge of it, but I hope that we can
hammer that out and get a definite opinion on it.
Mr. Price. Well, it is totally unacceptable that you are
laboring under this kind of uncertainty. And it is not as
though anyone on this committee or in this institution can
totally clear that up at the moment. But the fact is that
sequestration comes on top of the Budget Control Act. It comes
on top of the Budget Control Act. And the President's budget
assumes that the Budget Control Act remains in place and that
sequestration is lifted, and presumably that we have some sort
of budget agreement going forward.
I think the House appropriations bills are going to be
marked to a lower figure, a lower aggregate figure that assumes
another round of sequestration, assumes the absence of a
broader budget agreement. I hope that is not true, but I
believe that is where we are headed, with the Senate and the
House, by the way, marking to different aggregate numbers, so
there again maximizing the uncertainty.
Admiral Papp. Well, sir, if that is where we are headed,
then all bets are off in terms of our ability to conduct the
missions at the level that we predicted. At a minimum, we would
have to continue probably this 25-percent reduction in
operations in order to preserve our long-term capability to
keep going. You start getting into maintenance issues. If you
cut back in terms of maintenance funds, you pay a long-term
price for that as well. And my biggest concern is we start
eating into our family programs, our training programs, and
other things that contribute to the long-term health and
proficiency of our workforce, which is probably a larger
concern to me than the equipment resources that we are trying
to get.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
VESSELS DEPLOYED TO INLAND WATERWAYS
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, good morning, sir. Thank you for your great
service to the Coast Guard and to our United States. I
appreciate that very much. I represent the Third District of
Tennessee, where the Coast Guard has a tremendous inland water
presence.
I would like to ask you about the role and condition of
Coast Guard vessels that are deployed to inland waterways of
the United States. It is my understanding that some of these
vessels currently in use are 44 years of age on average, and
many are in need of replacement.
How long can the current vessels maintaining our internal
waters remain in service? And as a follow-up question to that,
sir, what do you see as the mission of these vessels and what
funding is included in your budget request to upgrade their
function and support that mission?
Admiral Papp. Sir, their replacement is over the horizon. I
don't even see them within my horizon. What we have been doing
over the last decade or so is incrementally funding renovations
to those ships, replacing systems, whether it is electrical
systems, heating, air conditioning, main engine overhauls, to
keep them going. The good thing about the inland rivers is
those hulls are not subject to salt water like our offshore
cutters, so the hulls remain structurally sound. But it is the
interior systems that become antiquated and are in need of
replacement, and we have been incrementally working on that.
I would love to have the wherewithal within our AC&I
funding to be able to do mid-life extensions on them or
ultimately come up with a project to replace them, but we just
don't have the capacity for doing that within the funding
levels that we have.
Given our significant need in the offshore operations area,
our larger cutters that are now 50 years old, that is where my
highest priority lies. To the extent that we can, we will
continue to work on our inland fleet, but that is, as I
mentioned earlier before you came in, that is part of the
problem. As we push acquisitions further to the right, we end
up spending more money on aging equipment.
It is not unusual for the Coast Guard to be running ships
that are 60 years old or older. And so I suspect that we are
going to have to get a few more years out of those ships that
are on the inland rivers.
TRAINING
Mr. Fleischmann. Another question. This budget proposes
significant cuts to Coast Guard training activities, including
a cut of over 65 percent to tuition assistance programs. What
impacts will these cuts have on training, short and long-term
tuition assistance, A and C Schools and the Coast Guard
Academy?
Admiral Papp. Reductions across the board. Part of it is
just reality. Our boot camp at Cape May is now only going to
bring in 1,500 new recruits this year. Part of that is driven
by the budget, the other thing is by our high retention. We
have 94-percent retention in the service right now. In fact
last night I put out a message that our officer corps has gone
through some significant reductions in promotion opportunities,
and thus people are falling out along the way in order to keep
us within strength. We are now going to have to apply that
against our enlisted workforce, and we have something called
high-year tenure. I put out a message last night that we are
going to need to impose and start reducing that workforce, more
than anything else to keep the flow going through so that the
young people that are joining have the opportunity to advance
and learn and progress in the service.
It used to be the norm for people to go to boot camp and
wait for perhaps 1 year at the most before they go to an
initial training school for a rating. Now they are waiting 3
and 4 years because of the slowdown in advancement in the
service. So we are trying to speed that up a little bit.
At the Coast Guard Academy, we have gone from about well
over 200 cadets per year, down to 185 cadets this year. It is
tough but what we are doing is reducing some of the staff at
the Coast Guard Academy. We have reduced some of the staff at
Cape May, and we have also reduced numbers of recruiting
stations and recruiters out there as well simply because we
don't have a need for them right now. Hopefully that will
change in the future, and we will be able to reconstitute that
hopefully at some time, but right now it is just a slowdown of
personnel.
What concerns me even more is the reduction in money
available for training. We are focusing on our highest
priorities in terms of training, our mission execution type
training, but there is a whole range of other training that
goes on that contributes to the long-term health of our
workforce, and that will take some time to show up. We have got
a very senior workforce right now that has been staying in, but
as those people retire and leave, there are going to be less
experienced people who are coming up behind them, and we would
like to be able to keep them trained.
Tuition assistance, some of those others things, we would
love to be able to fund everything we can for our people. The
reality is we cannot do that. But there is also a
responsibility on the part of our people to train and educate
themselves, as well. People can study, they can buy books, they
can get courses themselves, and we encourage our people to do
self-study to make themselves more valuable to the service and
help their advancement as well. And we will try to provide as
many opportunities for that as we can.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Admiral.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back, sir.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES, MEASURING
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral, what is
your--I am certain in your budget you have a mission and a key
objective and then you measure those objectives. What are the
key objectives and how do you measure that to make sure that
you are getting the best bang for the dollar?
Admiral Papp. There are different objectives for each
program. Aids to navigation, which is one of those, I call that
preventive search and rescue because the better we do aids to
navigation, keep ships navigating safely, it is less work for
us to have to respond to. So we do measures like how many
groundings or collisions have there been within the last year
as sort of a testament to the effectiveness of our aids to
navigation program. We have goals for drug interdiction that
are put out by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and
our National Drug Control Strategy that we are shooting for. We
are falling woefully short. We should be getting closer to 35
percent of the cocaine interdicted in the transit zone, and we
are trending down more toward 15 percent right now with the
number of assets that we have out there.
Mr. Cuellar. So 85 percent of the cocaine is getting to the
United States in your lane?
Admiral Papp. That would be a good estimate, yes, sir.
We have a very elaborate process that takes estimates on
the cocaine that is produced in South America. We have good
estimates on how much is consumed within the United States, and
we have pretty good--well, we have clear numbers on what we
interdict in the transit zone and what is also picked up at the
border, and we also work with our foreign partners as well
because some of that goes to Europe and toward Asia.
Mr. Cuellar. For the southern strategy what other measures
do you have to make sure that we are getting results? And I am
talking about not measuring activity but actually measuring
results. What other activities, what other key measures do you
all have? And again I appreciate everything you do but I am a
big believer in efficiency and effectiveness and how do you
measure results.
So how else do you measure results? Not activity but
results.
Admiral Papp. Some of it is looking at trends, for
instance, migrant interdiction. We know the numbers that we
would get during a mass immigration. We know the numbers that
we see typically during a given year, how many times do we
intercept boats and the numbers of whether it is Dominicans,
Haitians, Cubans or others, and we watch the trends on that. We
associate that with climate events, hurricanes and storms in
the Caribbean. We look at how many we are picking up going
around the border.
The maritime issue particularly in terms of migrant
smuggling, and we are seeing a pickup on the Pacific side
between Mexico and California, is difficult; we don't have any
long-term trend lines because most the migration has been
across the land border now. So we are seeing an increase there,
and we are going to continue to need to measure that.
The challenge is how do you measure deterrence? For
instance, with Haitians we know that the fact that we have
Coast Guard cutters out there and they know that if they are
interdicted, they will be directly repatriated, is a deterrent
effect that prevents people from leaving. So how do you measure
deterrence? That is always a difficult part of the equation.
Mr. Cuellar. I understand. But how do you measure get-
aways? I guess it is the term that Border Patrol uses. In other
words, they measure how many people they catch but they don't
measure, I assume, maybe they do, is the get-aways, the ones
that actually do get inside. Do you have any measurements to
see how many people actually you do miss?
Admiral Papp. We have pretty good measurements on landings.
Now if they land and are undetected, you will probably find a
boat, or if it is a smuggler, then you won't have a boat
because they have just dropped off passengers, so we don't have
a good handle on that. And once they are shore side that is a
Customs and Border Protection job. We have the water side. So
it is primarily interdictions, and we know some have got
through if we find a boat on the shore or if Customs and Border
Protection picks up migrants because they have been reported on
shore.
Mr. Cuellar. My time is up. If I can just ask this real
quickly. Could you submit to us a comprehensive list of any
cost saving measures that you might have? I am sure there is
always, you do an evaluation besides, in an appropriations
process we appropriate and we also look for a cost saving
measure, so any cost saving measures, if your staff has done
that, could you provide that to us so we can again keep you as
efficient and effective as possible.
Thank you so much.
PATROL BOATS
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Cuellar. Since we have got Mr.
Fleischmann with us now, we will do a brief third round.
Admiral, you say your requirements are sound but you say
the patrol boat hours are specious. What is it, sound or
specious?
Admiral Papp. The patrol boat hours are required, are done
by looking across the entire mission set and then figuring out
how many patrol boat hours would you need to do 100 percent of
everything you are doing. As I said earlier, the Coast Guard
has never been in a position to be able to do 100 percent of
all the missions that we are assigned to. And I will tell you
that on any given day, we don't maybe necessarily have to be
doing 100 percent. We have to apply them against the highest-
priority issue on any given day.
Right now, we say if you have X number of patrol boats out
there, you have so many hours and that counts against whatever
goal that you are shooting for. And what I am saying is we have
41 110-foot patrol boats out there right now. Not all of them
are achieving those hours. So it might look good on paper that
we have got 41 boats and the potential for so many hours. But
the fact of the matter is in the instance of the Chincoteague,
we are getting 0 hours out of that boat right now, and we have
been unable to decommission any of the older boats. Last year,
we asked to decommission some of them because we have the new
FRCs coming on line, and they were put back in the budget so we
ended up having to sustain them.
We have got to start decommissioning those 110-foot patrol
boats at some time, and we have got 18 FRCs on order right now,
money for 24. Those boats individually increase hours up to
1,600 hours a piece, so they are very capable boats. We need to
get them out there as soon as possible so that we have reliable
boats that can produce all the hours that we are looking for.
Right now, it looks good on paper to have 41 of those 110-foot
boats, but not all of them are able to achieve the hours that
we expect of them.
PRIORITIES: AFTER NATIONAL SECURITY CUTTERS
Mr. Carter. That kind of leads into my next question.
We talked about the cutters that we are now going forward.
Now, after we get these national security cutters done, what is
your next priority? What do you see? Because, we have clearly
got a picture that you have got needs. You have got needs in
every category that we got.
Where do you see the priority should be placed if you are
having to choose, the next as we move forward, in funding the
Coast Guard? Is it going to be air? Is it going to be people?
Is it going to be midsize ships, the fast response cutters?
Where is it going to be?
Admiral Papp. Sir, air, as I said earlier, I am confident
we have come up with a plan that will keep us solid for the
next 15 years. Fifteen years from now, whoever the Commandant
is at that time is going to be coming up and probably talking
about mass obsolescence of the aircraft fleet. I will leave
that to somebody else to tackle. I think we have got ourselves
in good shape in aircraft right now.
Patrol boats, yes, sir, we have got to get the patrol
boats. I divide them into what do we use in the ports, what do
we use close to shore and what do we do in those offshore
waters, which we have got 4.7 million square miles of U.S.
exclusive economic zone. It is the largest exclusive economic
zone in the world that the Coast Guard has to patrol. And we
are woefully in need of those offshore cutters. So the national
security cutter has been my highest priority because that gives
us the high-end capability. The offshore patrol cutter, which
is moving along, and as I said we have a robust response, I am
not supposed to know how many people have responded to that,
but I am told it is somewhere between eight and a dozen
companies responded to that request for proposal. And I am
anxious to see what they are proposing, and we will be prepared
to down select to three good candidates and then by the end of
fiscal year 2015, we will down select to start production on
one.
So that is moving along. And I remain optimistic and
confident that we will be able to keep that project going.
The emerging mission spaces in the Arctic, and as I said
earlier, the national security cutter has helped us out greatly
there because it provides us mobile infrastructure that goes up
there in times when there is human activity. Humans are not
going to be up there, whether it is drilling operations, cargo
or tourists, they won't be up there while it is frozen in. So
the national security cutter is a sound investment to help us
with our needs now.
We also need to be able to have assured access to the
Arctic, and that calls for icebreakers. My plan when I came in
3 years ago, I told this subcommittee Healy we will keep
sustained, and we needed to get Polar Star reintroduced to the
fleet. I am proud to say that Polar Star is now back out in the
fleet and operating. Polar Star will be up in the Arctic this
summer giving her crew some experience in the ice, and then we
will be sending her to Antarctic next February to break into
McMurdo Sound for the National Science Foundation.
The remaining step, which I told the committee we would
need, is to start the construction of a new icebreaker. As you
know, we had $8 million to start that process in the 2013
budget. We are asking for another--I am sorry, it just slips my
mind right now--I think it is another $2 million to continue
that process. Once again, we haven't expended all the money
from this current year. It will be enough to keep this project
going. We are working with our partners within the government
and with the Canadians to come up with the design. And we have
had a commitment from the President to continue incremental
funding to get that new icebreaker constructed. And that should
be coming into service at about the time that Polar Star is at
the end of her service life. So I think we have a sound plan
for icebreakers as well.
So I keep on coming back to that offshore fleet. As I said,
we bought probably close to 800 boats for our stations. We have
repopulated people at our stations; we have created the
maritime safety and security teams [MSSTs]. We are sound in our
ports and the near-shore environment. But that is not where we
want to address our threats. We don't want to have to put MSST
into action in Boston Harbor. We would rather interdict threats
further offshore, as far off shore as possible, and that is
where you need substantial cutters, and that is why that
remains my highest priority.
Mr. Carter. Thank you. I believe Mr. Price.
ICEBREAKERS
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me follow up on
your segue into the Arctic environment.
The chairman and I paid a memorable visit with your people
in Juneau and Kodiak 3 years ago. I think that visit still
sticks in our mind for the enlightenment we received there
about the implications of the Arctic Ocean's being navigable
increasing parts of the year, and the activities, the various
activities going on there, increasing there and the kind of
pressures that was going to put on your operations. And so I do
have a couple of questions just by way of updating that.
The icebreaker plans. You are saying this 2 million for
continued pre-acquisition activities, of course that compares
to 120 million in fiscal 2014 in last year's CIP for the
icebreakers so we are talking about of course early stage
activity. I know the late enactment of your 2013 appropriations
slowed down the survey and design process for this icebreaker.
But it still is a significant drop in the funding requirement
for the pre-acquisition activity.
So what does this mean, just if you could just clarify what
this, what we are on, what we are on track now to do by way of
having a new heavy icebreaker operational? Are we talking still
about an 8-year time frame approximately?
Where does this leave us? And is this 2 million really
adequate in terms of what you are able and desirous of doing at
this juncture?
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir. It is for now. That is all
preliminary design work and coming up with the requirements for
the new icebreaker. We want to take all parties into
consideration. We have the National Science Foundation that
will need to use that vessel, we have the Department of Defense
that depends upon us to be able to have assured access into the
Arctic and Antarctic. So we want to make sure all our partners
are involved in this process, and we also want to make sure we
work with the Canadians and other Arctic nation partners as
well to make sure we are coming up with the absolute best
design for the money.
I have said that 10 years from the start, so 10 years from
the start of funding is when we should have an operational
icebreaker, and that was my plan based upon our desire to
reactivate Polar Star with a goal of getting 10 more years out
of that ship before we have to decommission it.
And in terms of the capital investment plan, to me that
just demonstrates the challenges of the capital investment
plan. As I said, there were no national security cutters in the
CIP last year and yet we have one. We have the amount of money
you mentioned for the icebreaker. One positive thing I would
say is we have had challenges in the past with getting
incremental funding, making the argument that we shouldn't have
to put all the money in one fiscal year for any one of our
assets. I think this is a trend toward perhaps incrementalizing
the costs over multiple years at a more reasonable pace for
expenditure.
And I also wanted to get back to the chairman. I have it
directly from Secretary Napolitano that the capital investment
plan will be delivered to the Congress on 1 May.
ARCTIC OPERATIONS
Mr. Price. Finally, let me ask you about your operations in
the Arctic during periods of open water, including last year's
Arctic Shield oil spill exercise, if I could just ask you to
reflect on that.
In light, obviously, of Shell's drilling rig incidence of
last year and the training and exercises that you have
undertaken, has all of this led you to modify or strengthen
your contingency plan for accidents, particularly with regard
to oil-filled vessels or massive oil spills in the Arctic?
We all know these operations demand specialized
capabilities, personnel that are specially trained and equipped
to operate in extreme climate. How confident are you that Coast
Guard personnel are prepared to take on these challenges?
What lessons have you learned since the Deepwater incident
and these more recent exercises? What can you tell us about the
capabilities you have there now and need to develop?
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir. Well, incident response plans are
something that always evolve. We learned a lot of lessons from
Deepwater Horizon. Although Shell's activities in the Arctic
have been portrayed, I think generally, in a negative light, I
kind of welcome that because it gave us some additional lessons
to evaluate and apply toward their incident response plans or
any other company that decides to go up there and begin
drilling.
And also I think the experiences of last summer were good
to remind people that it is a very challenging environment up
there. The Coast Guard has been involved up in the Bering Sea
and the Arctic since 1867. We understand the challenges of the
distances, the remoteness, the fact that you have to have
substantial ships that can sustain themselves up there. So it
is good that the oil companies are learning this and that they
will have to reevaluate their plans. And I think that is part
of the reason why Shell has decided to delay a year before
going back up there again. And I think ConocoPhillips has also
decided to delay for a little bit as well. They need to
reevaluate their plans. We will evaluate those plans along with
them. And this has all been a learning experience.
My biggest concern right now is the increase in traffic
through the Bering Strait, the 50-mile wide pass there that is
some of the most challenging weather on Earth, and the Russians
are opening up their North Sea route. We are seeing a fourfold
increase of ships going through the Bering Strait. The good
news is we are working with our Russian partners. One of the
beautiful things about the Coast Guard is we have committees,
we have forums where we work with other partners. We are
working now to come up with traffic rules for the Bering Strait
because a collision between vessels, particularly vessels
carrying oil, which are likely to go there, would be just as
disastrous if not more or a higher risk for potential as the
drilling operations that are going up there. So we are working
on all fronts sir.
BERING STRAIT
Mr. Price. You are saying a fourfold increase in Bering
Strait?
Admiral Papp. Yes, sir because of the opening up of the
North Sea route. And I believe that within the next decade,
certainly within the next two decades, the economic incentive
of going through the North Sea route above Russia will save the
companies millions of dollars and time in terms of transit.
And you already have some; for instance, I was in Singapore
last year for a visit. They are worried about maintaining their
competitive advantage for location because right now they are
on a major transit route. When ships start going around the
North Sea route, and the Singaporeans believe this is happening
as well, it may affect their business. So the Bering Strait is
going to see increased, continuous increased activity over the
next couple of decades.
Mr. Price. What is the international composition of that
increased traffic?
Admiral Papp. LNG [liquefied natural gas] will be making
the transit; oil will be making the transit. But as people
start recognizing this competitive advantage, you will see
container ships and others that will start transiting above
Russia because--and I wish I had the exact figures for you here
because I am just not able to retain all of them all the time--
But it significantly cuts down the numbers of days in transit,
which equates to fuel, paying your crews and everything else,
and time is money for that business. So they will take
advantage of it.
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
Mr. Price. And the passages above Canada, those also?
Admiral Papp. That is going to take longer, the Northwest
Passage, because it is more difficult. The passage above Russia
is relatively open, and with the way the ice flows, that clears
out fairly early in the season.
A lot of the ice stays in the Northwest Passage above
Canada and takes a longer time to melt, and it is a more
treacherous transit as you go through all those island
passages. There will probably be, I think most people are
predicting probably another two or three decades before the
Northwest Passage above Canada starts becoming viable.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Fleischmann.
SEA STATE 5 REQUIREMENT
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, there has been much discussion as to the
capability of the Offshore Patrol Cutter, specifically the
requirement to operate at Sea State 5. Admiral, why is this
requirement important? And if the current proposals come in too
high, will you decrease the sea state requirement in order to
meet the target price?
Admiral Papp. I would not like to do that because that
would probably delay the process. We may have to recompete the
request for proposals by changing that standard. The reason we
need the standard is because we will have only eight national
security cutters. And although they are tremendously capable
ships, they can't be in the same places that the 12 high
endurance cutters were that they are replacing.
We have been comfortable with 12 high endurance cutters
because that gave us enough to operate in the Bering Sea and in
the Gulf of Alaska and the broad ranges of the Pacific. Given
the fact that we will have fewer ships, in fact, we will only
have six national security cutters out on the West Coast
because we need to keep two on the East Coast, we need to make
sure that the offshore patrol cutters are capable of operating
in Alaska.
The 270-foot medium endurance cutters that we have were
originally intended to be able to operate everywhere. We have
tried to operate them in Alaska. You can't launch and recover
boats and you can't launch and recover aircraft. They just
cannot survive the sea state up there. And that is our world of
work. We have to be able to launch boats for our boarding teams
to go aboard fishing vessels. We need to be able to launch
helicopters for search and rescue. So this requirement for Sea
State 5 has been our highest priority on that ship. I am sorry.
It has not been the highest priority. The highest priority has
been affordability. And when people have asked me what are the
three most important things about the offshore patrol cutter, I
have constantly said affordability, affordability,
affordability. So that will be the driving factor in our down
select for these three candidates, and I am hopeful that all
three will not only be affordable but be able to survive in Sea
State 5. I am sorry, not survive but operate in Sea State 5.
H-65, H-60 HELICOPTERS
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir.
Admiral, are you concerned that there are no
recapitalization plans for either the H-65 or the H-60
helicopters and limited funding for sustainment of the current
inventory? Do you plan to address these issues in the out
years, sir?
Admiral Papp. We will constantly reevaluate. We have, I
wish I had the number for you, and we can provide it, but we
have invested heavily in our helicopter fleet, the 65s and the
60s, over the last decade. We have taken the H-65 from a alpha
model and worked it all the way up to delta model right now.
And as I said earlier, I think you were out of the room, sir,
our aviation logistics center has and can take a bare frame, in
fact we have taken discarded H-60 frames from the Navy and
built them into new helicopters. That is how good our
technicians are down there. So we have totally rehabilitated
all our H-65s and upgraded their avionics and their engines.
The H-60s we have upgraded now to a tango model. We have enough
funds to complete those conversions, and then we will probably
take a pause for a little bit to see what develops in terms of
the fiscal environment over the next few years.
Even if we did nothing further, we have maintenance funds
that allow us to sustain the upgrades that we have done, and my
estimate at present is those helicopters are good for the next
15 years.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Admiral.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, Admiral, and thank you for
your testimony here today. To wrap it up, you have given us a
May 1st deadline. That seems to be a favorite day of Ms.
Napolitano's. So far, every time I have asked her to fill in
the blanks on her tardiness she has given me a May 1st
deadline. We may be getting everything we have requested on May
1st. Three months late is not too good a track record for us to
be touting as people are attacking our country yesterday and
possibly today. It doesn't make us look very good.
But I hear you. You tell me what she says, it doesn't seem
to bother her. She is in charge of the agency to defend this
country and protect this country, and yet she can be 3 months
behind on letting us, helping us plan the spending. That is not
your fight, that is my fight.
I want to thank you for being here and doing what you do.
God bless the Coast Guard. You guys have a tough job, and we
are going to try our very best to see if we can keep the Coast
Guard functioning as best we can. We are going to scrounge for
every penny we can to assist the Coast Guard. Thank you.
Admiral Papp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Price.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Wednesday, April 17, 2013.
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
WITNESSES
MICHAEL FISHER, CHIEF, BORDER PATROL, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
RANDOLPH ALLES, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, AIR AND MARINE, CUSTOMS AND
BORDER PROTECTION
KEVIN McALEENAN, ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, CUSTOMS AND BORDER
PROTECTION
Opening Statement: Mr. Carter
Mr. Carter. Good morning. I will call this hearing to
order. This morning we welcome witnesses from the U.S. Customs
and Border Protection, or CBP, as we consider the President's
fiscal year 2014 budget request to secure our borders to
facilitate lawful travel and trade.
Now our Acting Deputy Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, Chief
Michael Fisher of the Office of Border Patrol, and Assistant
Commissioner Randolph Alles of the Office of Air and Marine,
gentlemen, we appreciate you being here. Thank you very much
for being here. We are looking forward to your testimony. We
also want to thank you for your service. You serve us in many,
many great ways, and thank you for representing the interests
of thousands of frontline officers and agents who risk their
lives every day in the service of our Nation.
The senseless and cowardly attack in Boston is a sharp
reminder that we must be ever vigilant in our efforts to secure
the homeland, a reminder that I know is with your folks every
day as they carry out their critical mission of border
security. The last 2 years have been marked by disingenuous
budget requests and painstaking analysis by this subcommittee.
It was clear that the CBP budget did not cover its personnel.
It appears, upon our initial analysis, as though the fiscal
year 2014 request actually supports CBP's baseline staffing
levels that includes 21,370 border patrol agents, 21,775 CBP
officers and 1,138 Air and Marine interdiction agents, along
with 2,383 agricultural specialists.
However, the fiscal year 2014 request also proposes to add
1,600 CBP officers through a down payment of $210 million in
appropriated funds and 1,877 CBP officers through an
unauthorized fee proposal. CBP's budget is now 72 percent
salaries and benefits for its more than 60,000 personnel.
Is now the right time to increase staffing when it is not
clear that we are giving these officers and agents the right
tools to do their important mission? That is something we need
to think about.
The request also assumes massive cuts to ICE and the Coast
Guard as well as the reductions to CBP Air and Marine
operations. Will investment dollars be better spent to ensure
CBP air assets are flying to support border security? We are
going to need to think about that.
In fiscal year 2012, Air and Marine supported border
patrol, drug interdiction and other missions with 81,000 flight
hours, which is less than prior years. Given fiscal year 2014
request, the Air and Marine will only achieve 62,000 flight
hours. Air and Marine needs the right mix of staffing and
assets and operational funds for fuel and routine maintenance
to do its job, and it is clear this budget request does not
support that need. Border patrol and drug interdiction missions
will be impacted.
However, CBP has not been particularly good at measuring
the impacts of budget tradeoffs on mission capabilities and
performance. While I congratulate Field Operations on finally
issuing the workload staffing model and developing detailed
metrics and measures for its operations, the Border Patrol has
not put forth similar measures. If immigration reform is to
happen, we need to know the level of border security we can
achieve with the right resource mix.
This subcommittee faces tough choices in developing the
fiscal year 2014 appropriations bill, and for that reason we
look forward to hearing from you on all your mission needs.
I would like now to recognize the distinguished ranking
member Mr. Price for his opening remarks.
[Statement follows:]
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Opening Statement: Mr. Price
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to join Chairman
Carter in welcoming our witnesses this morning, Border Patrol
Chief Michael Fisher, Assistant Commissioner for Field
Operations Kevin McAleenan, and Assistant Commissioner for the
Office of Air and Marine Randolph Alles. I also want to thank
recently retired Deputy Commissioner Aguilar for his tireless
work over the past 31 years to secure our border.
All of you, like many of your DHS colleagues, have a
difficult and sometimes thankless job. Yet you performed it
admirably. Thanks to the men and women of Customs and Border
Protection, the 1,954 miles of our shared border with Mexico
has become increasingly difficult to breach. Two decades ago,
fewer than 4,000 border patrol agents manned the entire
southwest border. Today, that number is about 18,500, and some
651 miles of fence have been built in targeted areas of the
border. Now sensors have been planted, cameras erected,
unmanned aerial vehicles monitor the border from above.
Couple these efforts with targeted outbound inspections of
vehicles for illegal drugs, weapons, cash and other contraband
heading south into Mexico, which has resulted in some
impressive seizures in California, Texas and Arizona over the
past 3 years, and you can see just how successful our border
security efforts have been.
Now, as I stated in our hearing with Secretary Napolitano,
as the former chairman of this subcommittee, I know how elusive
the definition of secure can be. I also know that we can't
simply throw an unlimited amount of money or technology or
anything else at the southwest border and assume that will
solve all the problems. We must continue to look analytically
for the right mix of personnel, infrastructure and technology
to find the best path forward.
At the same time CBP has made steady progress in securing
our borders, the agency has struggled to keep its financial
house in order. Over the past 2 years, CBP has been unable to
accurately budget for its salaries and expense requirements,
which account for almost 70 percent of its appropriations
needs. For example, going into fiscal 2013, CBP found itself
with a $324 million salary shortfall, created in part by a
budget request that incorrectly assumed CBP access to fee
revenue, in part due to assumptions about attrition rates that
were off the mark. While CBP should be commended for
identifying ways to address this shortfall, it is imperative
that the agency avoid such errors in developing future budget
requests.
Today I want to explore the progress CBP has made in
addressing its salary shortfalls as well as the impact of
sequestration on your agency. At a time when Congress is
considering comprehensive immigration reform with some calling
for a secure the border first approach, your agency has a
difficult task ahead.
It is not a matter of a new task being laid before you. CBP
has made steady progress in grappling with border security over
the last decade. But there has been a continuing debate about
what it means to secure the border, and we will need to develop
some consensus on that question in the context of comprehensive
immigration reform.
We may not be able to resolve that issue here today, I am
afraid, but I hope you will be able to give us your perspective
on how far we have come on border security, on the current
state of our capability and about the challenges that still
remain.
We need a clear picture of what the budget request for the
coming year means for CBP's ability to address the multiple
challenges it faces. CBP must have the resources and
flexibility to quickly identify threats and then stem the flow
of people and drugs coming into our country illegally as well
as to process the legal entry of people and goods
expeditiously. It is our job to make sure you have the
resources to do that successfully.
The CBP budget request is for $12.9 billion, an increase of
about $1 billion, or 8.6 percent. Perhaps most notably, the
budget proposes an increase of $210 million to hire an
additional 1,600 CBP officers and 245 mission and operational
support positions. It also proposes authorizing language to
increase immigration fees and customs user fees by $2 each to
support an additional 1,877 CBP officers. I hope you will be
working closely with the authorizers regarding the need for
these additional officers and the rationale for using
additional fee revenue to support them.
The budget also proposes a cut of $87.2 million to CBP Air
and Marine interdiction, including a cut of $43.9 million to
Air and Marine procurement and a cut of $43.1 million to
operations and maintenance. This raises serious questions about
how CBP would prioritize its interdiction efforts with such
limited resources and flight hours.
So, to all of you, I commend you for your efforts to make
CBP a more agile law enforcement agency and our border
communities more secure. We thank you for your service and we
look forward to your testimony.
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Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Price.
Commissioner McAleenan, I am going to now recognize you to
make an opening statement for the panel. Your written statement
will be placed in the record and we all have a copy of it.
Please limit your oral arguments to no more than five minutes
to sum up your ideas. Please proceed.
Opening Statement: Acting Deputy Commissioner McAleenan
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Chairman Carter, Ranking Member
Price and members of the subcommittee. Good morning. It is an
honor for us to be here today representing the men and women of
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and to discuss the
tremendous work they do each day to protect our Nation.
Mr. Chairman, let me offer CBP's congratulations on
becoming chairman of the subcommittee, and we look forward to
continuing to work with you and other distinguished members in
the years and months ahead.
Before I begin, I would also like to acknowledge the tragic
events in Boston on Monday and briefly reference the work CBP
is doing to support the interagency response. CBP is supporting
the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] led investigation to
the Joint Terrorism Task Force with data and research support
as well as scrutinizing outbound international travel for any
sign of a suspect fleeing the incident.
We have also provided air support to the air and sea
effort, and if it is determined that there is an international
nexus to the attack, we will bring every asset and capability
available to bear in identifying and pursuing those who have
perpetrated this atrocity. The victims and their families are
front of mind for all CBP personnel and we will do whatever we
can to support the investigation.
With more than 60,000 employees, CBP is the largest law
enforcement agency in the United States. We are responsible for
securing America's borders to protect our Nation against
terrorist threats and prevent the illegal entry of inadmissible
persons, contraband and agricultural pests and animal diseases
while promoting the safe and efficient flow of travel and
trade.
Today we will highlight the fiscal year 2014 budget request
and outline the ways in which CBP is optimizing its resources
to perform our mission more effectively and efficiently. In the
budget request, CBP is requesting funds to enhance frontline
operations as well as fund a limited number of improved
capabilities in the areas of border security, targeting and
trade facilitation and enforcement. I would like to highlight
five key aspects of the budget request.
First, our fiscal year 2014 budget request supports 21,370
border patrol agents and a record 25,252 CBP officers. This CBP
officer staffing level includes the agency's request for 1,600
CBP officers as well as 1,877 officers to be funded by proposed
increases to the COBRA [Consolidated Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1985] and immigration user fees. This
increase in officers will result in additional enforcement
actions, marked decreases in wait times and significant
benefits to the U.S. economy.
Second, every day, transnational criminal organizations
attempt to smuggle people and contraband in the maritime
environment. CBP's Office of Air and Marine P3 aircraft have
been instrumental in detecting and intercepting vessels with
contraband bound for the United States while still thousands of
miles away from our borders. CBP's fiscal year 2014 budget
request includes $74 million to sustain and enhance CBP's air
and maritime operations and patrol capabilities through the
procurement of new multi-role enforcement aircraft, the P3
service life extension program, coastal intercepter vessels and
sensor upgrades for tactical aircraft.
Third, CBP will deploy proven and effective surveillance
technology along the highest traffic areas of the southwest
border. CBP's fiscal year 2014 budget request will enable CBP
to augment and upgrade our existing capabilities with the
additional deployment of integrated fixed towers, up to 50 new
tower sites in six border patrol station areas of
responsibility, and upgraded remote video surveillance systems
in critical focus areas along our southwest border. This
technology will be incorporated with other border surveillance
tools tailored to the southwest and northern border as well as
maritime environments and will significantly increase our
situational awareness.
Fourth, CBP's fiscal year 2014 budget request also supports
our targeting framework and with additional system
capabilities, including improvements to the automated targeting
system and the national targeting centers. Further, the budget
request includes $13 million to fund the initial cost of
consolidating CBP's targeting centers to more effectively and
efficiently meet CBP and interagency mission needs.
And finally, we recognize how the increasing volume of
international travel benefits our economy. CBP strives to
process passengers as quickly as possible while maintaining the
highest standards of security. Our budget request includes $8
million to invest in technology to improve processing and ports
of entry through the acquisition of 60 kiosks to be employed at
eight high-volume ports with over 29 million pedestrian
crossings. This investment will allow CBP to better facilitate
legitimate travel and focus on higher risk.
CBP is continually enhancing facilitation and security
efforts to optimize our resources, operations and business
processes to increase security and efficiency. The fiscal year
2014 budget request enables CBP to pursue personnel and
technology enhancements to improve our effectiveness and
streamline our activities to safeguard our borders and promote
the safe and efficient flow of travel and trade.
Along with my distinguished colleagues, I appreciate the
opportunity to be here this morning, and we look forward to
answering your questions.
[The statements of Messrs. McAleenan, Fisher, and Alles
follow:]
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WORKLOAD STAFFING MODEL: STAFFING, OVERALL
Mr. Carter. Thank you very much. Well, I will start off.
Mr. McAleenan, you are aware that the fiscal year 2013
request shortchanged CBP operations, including failing to cover
pay and benefits for the workforce. I spoke with the Secretary
on the record last week about this topic. The DHS budget must
accurately and legitimately propose funding to cover known
costs, including personnel. Can you clarify for the record that
the fiscal year 2014 budget request includes funds, all the
funds necessary to cover personnel cost for 21,370 border
patrol agents, 21,775 CBP officers?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I can confirm that the
fiscal year 2014 request properly funds and supports those
personnel levels, and we appreciate the committee's oversight
and acknowledge the issues with the estimates of the pay
requirements in 2013.
Mr. Carter. Anything less than that is unacceptable, and
you know we are going to be sending out surveys and
investigation staff to ensure that that is the case because we
just can't have another shortfall, and I appreciate your taking
that challenge.
The budget proposes to bring 1,600 additional CBP officers
in fiscal year 2014 using appropriated funds and 1,877 CBP
officers through unauthorized user fee increase. I will give
you a chance to make your pitch for more officers, but given
the history of shortchanging how these benefits will look for
all border personnel, I am very concerned about the future year
commitments associated with this increase. Please outline what
the proposal for 1,600 officers entails in 2014 and the future
year cost of that investment for the following four fiscal
years.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously this
request in the 2014 budget recognizes significant investment
needs in CBP officers at our ports of entry. It is based on our
workload staffing model, which we have delivered to the
committee and look forward to reviewing with you and your staff
and which outlines the needs at our ports of entry. This has
been many years in the making, as you know. It is a rigorous
assessment of what we need to process increasing volume of
trade and travel and increasing enforcement efforts at our
ports of entry, and it has been reviewed externally. We think
it is a solid estimate of how to properly process trade and
travel at our ports of entry.
The economic impact of what we do at the ports in terms of
transaction costs for travelers and trade is very significant.
A study just released last week indicated that wait times have
a major economic impact and that even adding one additional
officer creates $2 million in gross domestic product economic
activity as well as avoiding $640,000 in opportunity costs. So
I think the recognition here at the department and
administration level is that this is a real economic impact and
that we need to invest in improving our services at ports of
entry while maintaining and enhancing our security level.
In terms of the breakdown of the fiscal year 2014 request,
Mr. Chairman, the $210 million would fund 1,530 CBP officers
and 70 canine officers, which are very effective, especially on
the southwest border in our counternarcotics mission. It would
also fund 107 operational support personnel, which free up
additional officers for frontline activity, and 138 mission-
support personnel, which are critical to supporting the
expanded workforce.
This is a commitment on the part of CBP and the
administration to fund these personnel because of their
importance to our efforts at ports of entry, and it will be
continued in the outyears based on these requirements
identified in the workload staffing model.
Mr. Carter. I note my information shows that we are trying
to fund 245 mission-support personnel. You mentioned 138. Do
you know what the discrepancy is there?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes. I was providing the specific breakdown.
Within that 245, 138 are pure mission support, think of the HR
[human resources] or budget functions, while 107 are mission
support but in a more operational context. They are out in the
ports of entry doing scheduling or----
Mr. Carter. Okay.
Mr. McAleenan [continuing]. Cashier work or other
operational support.
BORDER SECURITY: DEFINITION
Mr. Carter. Congress has invested billions of dollars in
CBP since September 11th, particularly in bolstering Border
Patrol staffing to a record 21,370 agents, deploying tactical
infrastructure and improving air assets and technology. Chief
Fisher, I believe the Border Patrol is starting to get the
tools together to do this job in the right way, but as I see
it, Border Patrol is still measuring its effectiveness only in
terms of apprehension and seizures. That is not good enough to
provide the American people with the confidence that the border
is secure.
What other measures are you looking at and what does a
secure border mean to you? And this is a very important answer
because, quite honestly, we just had released last night the
Senate's view of the future of immigration policy. The House is
working on immigration policy, and I can assure you that
everything is going to start with the definition of secure
border, and there is a lot of play in words out there, but the
American people are not going to fall for play on words
anymore. They are going to want reality of border security, and
even more so now we have an unknown assailant that has harmed
people in Boston and at least we can use our imagination and
wonder how they got there and did they come across our border.
So, you know, we don't know. We hopefully are going to find
out, but the American people are thinking about that, and they
are having candlelight vigils and they are praying in churches
because they are afraid. Our job is to get rid of that fear. So
you know, it is a hard definition. What would be your
definition of a secure border?
Chief Fisher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question.
First, I happen to agree with you. Just apprehensions of
individuals alone or seizures of narcotics certainly does not
give a complete story, nor does it define the security of the
border.
I would first start with when people ask me the question,
well, what does a secure border look like? I generally respond
in two ways. First and foremost is the likelihood to reduce
attacks to this country. It is based on risk. It is based on
information that we have in advance so that we can plan our
operations accordingly and put that capability against those
areas of high threat.
Second is our ability to provide safety and security to the
communities in which we serve as a law enforcement
organization, very similar to others. Within that broad
context, I will give you one specific example because I think
it is articulated in the proposed legislation when it talks
about effectiveness rates.
At the end of the day, when we were designing the new
strategy for the Border Patrol, we were looking at how we want
to implement that, and more importantly, how we measure it. One
overarching concern both within the organization and outside
the organization, stakeholders here in the Beltway, community
members I talked with out in the field--A very important piece
that is really critical to everybody's mind is, at the end, how
many people came across the border and, of that number, how
many people did you either arrest or were they turned back and
went to Mexico, right.
The third piece and the general outcome is going to be,
well, we didn't apprehend them subsequent to a detection, and
so we have looked at that and called that the effectiveness
ratio, and we have been working very hard over the last couple
of years to be able to increase our ability to do just that.
BORDER SECURITY: APPREHENSIONS
Mr. Carter. And I have watched the turn-backs at the
border. Just curiosity, do you count them? I mean, I have seen
border patrolmen stand on the shore of the Rio Grande and
people halfway across say go back, and there will be 8 or 10 of
them out there and they generally obey and turn around and go
back. Now they may go right down the river and try again, but
they go back. Do you count those folks?
Chief Fisher. If individuals made an entry into the United
States, so let's say for instance they are halfway across the
river, they see the Border Patrol agents and they start
peddling back toward Mexico, they have not made an entry so
that would not be counted. If an individual makes an entry and
our Border Patrol agents are able to ascertain, either because
they see them physically, utilizing technology or they happen
to be on the bank of the river, or in cases where we are
utilizing tracking operations and we see the footprints of
individuals coming into the country--We put out an instruction
last year and we are getting better at being able to do end-of-
the-shift reports.
We are also looking to aggregate all of that data, not just
by shift and station and sector but doing it at the national
level so we have a strategic assessment on the extent to which
we are achieving higher levels of effectiveness.
Mr. Carter. The middle of the river is the border, right?
Chief Fisher. In most cases, yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. Now, once they are on the shore--I mean, just
out of curiosity. I know that you have a policy that when you
catch people that are Mexicans, you take them back across,
right? I mean, if you caught the other than Mexicans, it can be
a political problem that you can't take them immediately back
across. So if you catch them on dry land, do you have to take
them into the office and process them and then take them back
across the bridge or can you just say, go back and they go
back?
Chief Fisher. No. If they are apprehended, we apprehend
them in the United States. We have an affirmative duty to make
that arrest. We do that in each and every case.
Mr. Carter. That is what I thought.
Chief Fisher. To the extent that we can, and then we go
ahead and process, predominantly to identify who these
individuals are. That goes to that first overarching piece to
reduce the likelihood.
BORDER SECURITY: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
Mr. Carter. What about situational awareness, how can you
measure that?
Chief Fisher. In two ways. One is the application of
technology, and thanks to your leadership and this committee,
we have seen an increase over the last few years in technology.
Things like integrated fixed towers, remote video surveillance
systems, and mobile surveillance systems help. The other areas
that we have transitioned just recently this year in our
implementation plan are those areas that traditionally we just
couldn't get to. They were very remote. We didn't have a
requirement for fence or technology, but we still had a
responsibility to have a broader sense of situational
awareness.
The way that we worked that is we are working with the
General and some of his high-altitude technology along with
other government assets in the intelligence community to be
able to look at these areas and do frequent flyovers and then
compare using coherent change detection on any change in these
particular areas that would notify us for an operational
deployment.
Mr. Carter. What level of persistent surveillance are you
seeking? What level of capability do you feel like you already
have?
Chief Fisher. Mr. Chairman, that is a little bit difficult.
I can tell you on the southern border, we probably have more in
terms of situational awareness that informs us based on
technology than we do in places on the northern border.
However, situational awareness isn't just relegated to the use
of technology. It is things like I am going out and working
with the community, people who live in the border communities,
businesses that operate within the communities. That is why
information as the first pillar in our strategy is so critical.
It also includes some new technology that we are testing right
now with Science and Technology. It is called Border Watch.
These are applications that people within the communities can
use either on their iPhones or on their computers and be able
to report and respond, and so this goes to our community
engagement approach within the strategy, to use this force
multiplier, things other than just technology to get a broader
sense of situational awareness.
Mr. Carter. Do you have a metric or measure for this
situational awareness, or do you need one?
Chief Fisher. Well, obviously the situational awareness,
you want to have 100 percent as a goal, right?
Mr. Carter. Right.
Chief Fisher. And as we look toward doing that, we start
filling in the gaps: those areas where we have deployments and
can detect based on entries and those areas that we are using
in situational awareness to get a better sense of if in fact
anything is happening.
And what it ends up doing for us is it shrinks the border
area reduction. It really goes to trying to prove the negative
so that if we have areas where we are doing frequent flights,
that based on the algorithms and the computers and the Intel
analysis tell us that over a course of say 30 days, the
probability is extremely low that anything is moving through
here, then we have a broader sense that we don't have to
continue to ask for more resources to continue to patrol
utilizing Border Patrol agents or putting more technology in
areas of very low risk.
BORDER SECURITY: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS TOOLS
Mr. Carter. Let's focus on technology that has been under
way in Arizona. Chief, I shouldn't have to tell you that we are
a little bit angry by the delays in getting what is supposed to
be commercial-off-the-shelf tools in the hands of your agents.
What is the status of those procurements? When will you have
metrics establishing or established to measure the return on
the investment?
Chief Fisher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly share
your angst in our inability to put those in the hands of the
Border Patrol agents forward in places like Arizona. I can give
you a quick update in terms of the two prominent pieces that we
have been waiting for for the last couple of years, that is,
the integrated fixed towers and the remote video surveillance
systems. We have camera poles. These are the cameras to replace
that new generation better enhanced capability. Starting this
summer, we should start seeing some of the new enhanced cameras
come on board, and certainly by the fall we are looking to have
integrated fixed towers in those areas where we have
prioritized the need for that requirement in a place like
Arizona.
But broadly, when we look at what we are continuing to add
to that suite, both in terms of our ability to detect,
apprehend at high proportion as well as add to our ability for
broader situational awareness, we also entered into a
memorandum of understanding with the Department of Defense a
couple of years ago. Through that effort we have identified so
far about 2,000 pieces of equipment. Now, this would be
equipment that would either have been deployed in theater or in
warehouses to be deployed that is no longer going to be
deployed based on the drawdown.
Those 2,000 right now are in a warehouse in Oklahoma City.
We are doing inventory and system checks on those. What we are
doing is going to augment. Now, these were systems or
requirements that we have identified through the military and
we do that right through NORTHCOM, specifically in El Paso,
with our direct point of contact with JTF [Joint Task Force]
NORTH. We do requirements on a quarterly basis to them and we
just roll this process right into that.
So in a very short order, we expect to have an enhanced
capability in forms of detection, ground sensors and mobile
systems, things that the taxpayers have already paid for that
we are going to utilize for our border security mission.
Mr. Carter. That would be the nature, you are not buying
heavy equipment, or you know, there is this big fear factor out
there on the Internet that somebody in this government is
accumulating tanks and armored vehicles. You are not talking
about stuff like that from the military. You are talking about
surveillance and sensors and the things we need to locate
people as they are coming across.
Chief Fisher. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Carter. I just want to clarify that because there are
those who are preaching that we are storing bullets and buying
armor, and I want to clarify that we are not.
Mr. Alles. Sir, if I could jump in here a second----
Mr. Carter. Yes, sir.
Mr. Alles [continuing]. With Chief Fisher. Additionally, as
he has kind of mentioned, we are also using our air assets that
are equipped with systems like the VADER [Vehicle Dismount and
Exploitation Radar] system and our change detection radar, as
he mentioned, to give us better situational awareness,
particularly in areas where we can't put fixed towers or it
doesn't make sense cost-wise because there is low activity. But
that is an additional way we are moving to get better
situational awareness along the borders.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate that
comment, and I thank you for your honest assessment. That is
what it takes for us to work together.
Chief Fisher. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. And I appreciate it very much.
Chief Fisher. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
SEQUESTRATION IMPACT: OVERALL
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all again
for your testimony. I want to explore the impact of
sequestration, present and future, and I hope you can shed some
light on what the impact on CBP, in particular, will be of
sequestration. I think you might be expected to have something
of a whiplash experience here because at the same time, at
precisely the same time that a secure border is being held out
as a precondition for comprehensive immigration reform you are
being sequestered in a way that surely will make that secure
border much harder to achieve, much harder goal to attain, and
so that is--I guess ``ironic'' is a kind word for those
contradictory demands that are being made of you.
I would like to know exactly what the impact will be as far
as you can tell us today and what especially the impact on your
frontline operations is likely to be. CBP's enacted
appropriation for fiscal 2013 has been reduced by nearly $600
million by sequestration, as I understand it, and I understand
that in response to that you have reduced travel and training
expenses, you have deferred facilities maintenance, you have
delayed the acquisition of supplies, you have reduced the scope
of some contracts, you have reduced so-called administratively
uncontrollable overtime for officers and agents and you
implemented an agency-wide hiring freeze.
Over and above these programmatic reductions CBP initially
anticipated it would need to implement an agency-wide furlough
of up to 14 nonconsecutive workdays for each employee. Now, I
want to get an update on this. I am aware that some of this
might have been altered. What can you tell us at this point
about the impact of sequestration? Any of the items I mentioned
that would no longer hold or other items we should know about,
and especially this furlough question.
Mr. McAleenan, we originally understood that 10 percent of
your employees will be on furlough each day. Do you believe now
that CBP will be able to maintain higher staffing levels during
the peak travel time or travel days; that is, Friday through
Monday at airports, Monday through Friday at ports of entry,
what kind of adjustments are you anticipating there? To the
extent that a lack of resources will still require furloughs,
do you plan to move personnel from small ports of entry to some
of the larger ports, for example, or vice versa, to ensure the
secure movement of people and goods critical to our economy?
And in general, what are you doing to lessen the impact of
furloughs on your frontline personnel and frontline operations?
Obviously what we are interested in here is the impact
especially on frontline operations but also the things that may
have changed with the enactment of the CR that hopefully in
some ways mitigated the impact but we are still looking, as I
understand it, at a $600 million bottom line, and there is
clearly a need to understand what that entails.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Congressman Price, and I would
ask my colleagues to join in to highlight certain aspects of
this response as they affect our operations. Certainly we have
been tracking closely and there have been some changes in the
impacts anticipated from sequestration from what we were facing
on March 1st to the results of the omnibus. We appreciate the
work of this committee as well as the Senate to mitigate some
of the impacts of sequestration on CBP.
Congressman Price, you outlined several non-pay categories
of cuts from travel and supplies and contracts. We have
sustained those cuts and are trying to balance the impact they
have on our operations effectively. What the omnibus bill did
is it gives an opportunity to reassess and ideally limit the
impact on our personnel and staffing, both in terms of the
furloughs, which you mentioned and the administratively
uncontrollable overtime [AUD]. We have postponed implementation
of any furloughs. We have also postponed the deauthorization of
AUO as we continue to assess and will be working with the
Congress on the structure of the omnibus. It is a little
different structure in terms of the PPA [program-project-
activity] categories for our budget and how we can most
effectively maintain our operational deployments at ports of
entry as well as between them.
In terms of the impact, on March 1st, at the ports of
entry, we immediately undertook overtime cuts, about 17 percent
of our overtime out in the field, and that had a direct and
immediate impact on wait times. In the air environment, our
international gateway airports have seen significant increases,
50 to 100 percent or more on some days. Basically we are able
to staff fewer booths. About 20 to 45 for some of our booths
are staffed on overtime at peak periods, and with that 17
percent cut, we just haven't been able to keep as many people
in the booth processing passengers.
We have also seen significant impact on the land border.
San Ysidro has had wait times on certain holidays up in the 4-
and 6-hour range, which we usually can limit below 3 hours. In
Representative Cuellar's district, we had a number of midsize
ports where we have had only four lanes open instead of six or
eight or 10, which doesn't sound that bad. But as the queuing
process ensues, it is an escalating impact that can really take
us from a 20- to 30-minute wait to well over an hour, up to 2
hours even at those midsize ports.
So, with the omnibus legislation, we are hoping to
ameliorate some of that overtime impact, some of that 17
percent and still working to minimize the impact on our
personnel. But we are working through our plan in response to
the budget, and we will be working with Congress on finalizing
that and implementing it in the coming weeks.
SEQUESTRATION IMPACT: BORDER PATROL AGENT STAFFING
Mr. Price. Thank you. Let me ask about an additional
element of that continuing resolution. That is, the statutory
requirement that is included there that CBP maintain 21,370
border patrol agents. As you know, that is included in the
final bill. As I understand what you are saying, due to
sequestration, Congress--and despite the mitigation attempts,
Congress did not in the end provide sufficient resources for
that staffing level without harming other salaries and expenses
priorities.
So, will you be able this year to meet that Border Patrol
staffing requirement without affecting other needs? And your
colleagues may want to join in here. What impact will meeting
the--Chief Fisher could address that maybe initially, but
General Alles might want to chime in about the impact that
meeting the statutory Border Patrol staffing requirement will
have on CBP officers or Air and Marine Interdiction agents.
Might those people need to be furloughed longer in order to
maintain the statutory floor for Border Patrol agents? If so,
what does that do to the wait time? Will you need to cut target
programs or other national security programs to meet the Border
Patrol staffing requirements?
Chief Fisher. Congressman Price, thank you very much for
that question. Like the chairman mentioned in his opening
statement about the percentage of CBP's payroll as it relates
to salary and expense, and he used I think it was around
between 70 and 72 percent for the Office of Border Patrol. The
percent of salaries and expense of our budget is 90 percent,
and so when you look at the legislative mandate for 21,370,
anytime that we as an organization are asked to make cuts,
whether it is 5 percent or 8 percent, it is very challenging
not to touch salary and expense. As a matter of fact, it is
mathematically impossible for us to do that.
So, the first thing that we did is we looked at nonpay, at
10 percent, right, things like fleet, things like contracts. We
put things in place, for instance, doubling border Patrol
Agents in vehicles, trying to offset the cost of maintaining
the fleet so we can slow that process down. I had--part of our
strategic implementation plan at the beginning of the year, and
actually this is going back to 2012, is to maintain 90-percent
fleet readiness. We wanted to make sure that we had those
vehicles ready for those Border Patrol agents to go and deploy.
We are projecting right now, without relief that that readiness
will drop anywhere from 90 percent to as low as 60 percent.
Now, what I am explaining here aren't things that are
necessarily definitively going to happen. These are things that
we are planning right now as the bill was passed and we are
looking to offset. What I have asked the team to do is put
together, look at the numbers, start building the
implementation plan, the budget execution plan and give me a
sense of what the operational impacts are going to be, what are
the risks against those impacts and how do we minimize, to the
extent that we can, each one of those. So for areas like fleet,
areas like contract services for transportation services, we
are going to look in areas where we can reduce those, and we
have continued to do that.
But when it gets to salaries and expense, and this is to
your point, sir, as it relates to the administratively
uncontrollable overtime, we still have a long way to go this
year to be able to reduce that. Quite frankly, if left
unattended and we continue to operate as we have been, where
Border Patrol agents would continue to operate and utilize 25
percent of their base pay in administratively uncontrollable
overtime, if we don't change that course direction, we don't
have enough funds in that salary and expense to be able to
cover that.
We have as a matter of fact started making reductions in
how we actually start scheduling and utilizing the workforce
that we have, even before sequestration levels were starting to
be talked about within CBP, doing things like taking a look at
how we schedule Border Patrol agents in areas where it made
operational sense to go from three shifts to four shifts to
alleviate some of the Border Patrol agents waiting to be
relieved in a particular location, in areas where we have the
staffing now to do that. It is prudent and it makes sense to do
that operationally without minimizing our ability to protect
this country.
SEQUESTRATION'S IMPACT: AIR AND MARINE OPERATIONS
Mr. Price. General, what does the tradeoff look like with
respect to Air and Marine?
Mr. Alles. Sir, I thank you, sir. On the actual,
specifically the statutory numbers, I can't address
specifically because that gets rolled up in a larger budget. I
will just address sequester-wise, since you asked about that
question. Our impact is going to be primarily in terms of
flying hours. So we were appropriated for this year $397
million, which was 106,000 hours. Under sequester that is going
to drop us down to $377 million. That is about 80,000 hours
roughly. So one of the impacts of the sequester on Air and
Marine is that reduction in flight hours. It has some effect in
terms of premium pay, since I have to clearly pay my agents if
they are working mid or swing shifts. That is having some
impacts in my southeast region and my northern region, less so
in the southwest because we prioritize toward that zone, and
then also in my Air and Marine Operations Center in terms of
tracking. So those are some of the impacts that we have seen
off of the sequester, sir.
SEQUESTRATION IMPACT: FLEXIBILITY, REDUCTION IN
Mr. Price. Well, the question remains, I think, to what
extent that statutory requirement, as to a personnel level,
reduces needed flexibility. You have both made very clear, you
have all made very clear some of the adjustments, the
unpalatable tradeoffs that are involved in this business. So
what extent, though, can you clarify, to what extent that
statutory requirement reduces the kind of flexibility or alters
the kind of adjustments you would otherwise make?
Mr. McAleenan. I will take a stab at that, Congressman
Price. You are absolutely right, the staffing floors, you know,
it is part of--I think you used the term whiplash or maybe
cognitive dissonance in budgeting here, where we absolutely
appreciate and want to maintain those personnel levels, but to
do so in the face of sequestration does require the difficult
tradeoffs as you have noted. It reduces our flexibility to
respond to cuts or to balance them throughout the year, and so
what we end up having to face is cutting immediate operational
capability to maintain the floors that are critical to our
future operational capability. So it is definitely a challenge
in 2013, but if you look at the 2014 budget and the direction
we want to go with our staffing, it is a tough balance to make
here.
Mr. Price. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Price.
Mr. Fleischmann.
MISSION-SUPPORT PERSONNEL, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
gentlemen. My first question: the committee has concerns about
the potential impacts of the proposed $125 million cut to
mission support and the $54 million cut to IT support. What
effects will these, ``efficiencies'' have on frontline
operations?
Mr. McAleenan. I think that is an important question and
one that we are monitoring very carefully at the agency-wide
level. We have had a staffing freeze in place throughout this
year for our mission-support personnel, have attrited over 700.
And as the Acting Deputy I am working with the mission-support
office to make sure they are able to maintain capability to
support the frontline, and that is something we are going to be
continuing to assess. We have not had significant impact to
date, but as the hiring freeze on mission support continues and
as we try to meet additional efficiencies, we are concerned
about that and will need to monitor it closely.
In terms of our information technology infrastructure, our
focus there is on becoming more efficient with the
infrastructure we have. We have been working to move off legacy
technologies. These are mainframe systems that cost a great
deal to maintain in terms of the licenses and the outdated
software up to more modern platforms that are most cost
effective.
NONINTRUSIVE INSPECTION, RADIOLOGICAL DETECTION EQUIPMENT
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. Mr. McAleenan, you were forced
to make difficult choices for this budget proposal. Hopefully
you are not being penny wise and pound foolish at the cost of
operational effectiveness in long-term expenses. This budget
request proposes to cut both the operating and procurement
budgets for the Non-intrusive Inspection, NII, and Radiological
Detection Equipment, RDE. First things first, since there is
limited to no procurement happening, what is the state of CBP's
RDE and NII in terms of availability and reliability, sir?
Mr. McAleenan. You are absolutely right, Congressman, in
terms of the difficult choices. The current condition of both
our nonintrusive inspection technology, our large-scale fleet,
as well as our radiation detection equipment is very good. We
appreciated the funding in ARRA [American Reinvestment and
Recovery Act of 2009], which enabled us to purchase additional
NII equipment. Both our NII and our radiation detection
equipment, especially the portal monitors, are showing signs of
exceeding their initial life expectancies, which is very
positive in the current budget climate.
That said, we are working with our Science and Technology
Directorate at DHS as well as the Office of Technology,
Innovation and Acquisition at CBP to identify strategies for
how we can maintain, sustain and recapitalize this critical
equipment going forward. It ensures that we are doing
radiological scans on almost all ocean and maritime cargo,
excuse me, all maritime and land border cargo coming into the
United States, all personal vehicles. We are able to do a high
number of secondary examinations on rail and truck and maritime
cargo with a large-scale NII, and it is a tremendously
effective resource for us that saves a lot of officer time. So
we need to work with Congress, and we will work with our
technology professionals to find a solution to sustain that
capability in the future.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Mr. Cuellar.
WORKLOAD STAFFING MODEL: PORTS-OF-ENTRY RESOURCES
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I want to
thank you and the ranking member for having this meeting and
welcome to all of you.
Let me, Commissioner McAleenan, let me ask you about your
workload staffing model. What does it say about the resources
that are needed at the ports of entry?
Mr. McAleenan. In short, Congressman, it says we do need
more CBP officers to appropriately enforce and secure as well
as facilitate trade and travel, which is growing tremendously.
As you know, in south Texas the truck cargo traffic is up 6
percent last year and continuing to grow. We have increasing
numbers of personal vehicles crossing. Again that traffic is
growing as well as pedestrians. In the international airports
we have seen 12-percent growth in 3 years and expecting 4 to 5
percent continuing. So to meet that volume and continue and
improve our security levels, we do need additional CBP officers
as recognized by the model and in the President's budget
request.
LAND BORDER PORT-OF-ENTRY TRAFFIC
Mr. Cuellar. How much, and I am very interested in land
ports. I think we have done a good job at airports and
seaports, but how much of the trade and people actually come
through land ports into the United States?
Mr. McAleenan. The land border ports, northern and southern
border, account for about 225 million out of 350 million
travelers.
Mr. Cuellar. Percentage-wise.
Mr. McAleenan. Percentage-wise----
Mr. Cuellar. Is it 80, 88 percent of the people and goods
come through land ports?
Mr. McAleenan. Not quite that high, Congressman, but it
is--we can do the math quickly.
Mr. Cellar. No, that is fine, but the majority will come
through the land ports.
Mr. McAleenan. Majority of travel and the majority of trade
by volume as well.
REIMBURSABLE AGREEMENTS: TIMETABLE
Mr. Cuellar. And I certainly feel that, you know, we've got
to make sure that Congress not only appropriates for the men
and women in green, which you know, we certainly support, but I
think the men and women in blue at the ports of entry are
extremely important for trade, the economics itself, and I say
that. Laredo, I think 38 percent of all the trade between the
U.S. and Mexico comes through one land port there in Laredo, so
I understand the importance of the work that you do.
Now, let's talk a little bit about Section 560. As you
know, there is the Laredo sector, instead of having Laredo,
Brownsville, McAllen, all those folks competing, we are trying
to put a consortium together to be considered as one pilot
program out of the five that you all are looking at. How is
that coming along? What is the timetable, timelines on the
Section 560, which is the one, the public/private partnership
for overtime, for extra services. If the City of Laredo or
McAllen or Brownsville or a private sector wants to put money
to pay for your overtime, I would ask you all to move on that
as soon as possible because there are people that are already
willing to put that money up there quickly.
Mr. McAleenan. Absolutely, Congressman. We appreciate the
committee's support on this important authority. We do think it
will increase our flexibility, enable us to partner with
communities and stakeholders nationally to provide better
services at the ports of entry. We are working hard to develop
criteria for assessing potential partnerships with the five
pilots. We want to make sure that we are selecting partnerships
that have the best mission and operational impact as well as
allowing us to test the pilot authority in different
environments, with land border, air and, if possible, a
maritime environment.
We are working on that criteria, as I mentioned, and hope
to have that done this month, and then have an exchange with
those communities or stakeholders that are interested so they
understand the cost of our operation, they understand with
transparency the types of benefits they could expect from the
partnership agreement.
Mr. Cuellar. Don't you do a little bit of that already on
airports?
Mr. McAleenan. We do have a user fee airport authority that
is well utilized nationally.
Mr. Cuellar. For overtime, right?
Mr. McAleenan. Actually, the user fee authority is for
full-time personnel. We don't actually have any agreements in
place to receive overtime at----
Mr. Cuellar. For full-time efforts.
Mr. McAleenan [continuing]. International airports. For
full-time, yes.
Mr. Cuellar. You have a hybrid already.
Mr. McAleenan. Yes, and it has been used effectively by
communities. This would be a little larger scale and different
type of authority, especially at existing major crossings.
UNMANNED AIRCRAFT
Mr. Cuellar. My last question. Commissioner Alles, I know
that Congressman McCaul and I have gone to your opening when
you brought in those Predators to Corpus Christi, and every
time we have gone there we haven't seen it land or take off
because of bad weather, and I know the former commissioner, we
spoke about this, and I am trying to remember the numbers that
your folks gave, 50 percent of the time your flights don't take
off because of bad weather, and this is something I had gotten
from the prior folks. Are you all ever going to look at
somewhere outside of Corpus Christi, at least an alternative
base besides Corpus Christi with all due respect? And I know
Corpus Christi is very important, but McCaul and I, we went
twice, and both times we went there we saw video, and it was
nice to see the video but we didn't see anything land or take
off.
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir. Thank you. We would love to find a
location with better weather. It is about a 60-percent impact.
I shouldn't say impact. About 60-percent of the time they are
launching, and about 30, 40 percent there are weather issues
for the platform. It is not a platform that operates in icing
conditions. That is one of the restrictions. We would love to
find a different location. There are a lot of restrictions from
the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], on where we can
operate the air vehicles from. They are still maturing the
process where we can operate the system, not only in the air
space, but takeoff and landing around populated areas continues
to be is a big issue for us.
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, I just say
this because being from Texas, you have got 1,200 miles to find
something there, but again, with all due respect to Corpus
Christi, but every time the chairman of Homeland and I went,
every time we went, it was just a video, and we appreciate
going to Corpus Christi.
Thank you very much. I yield back the balance of my time,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Thank you. I understand Lubbock has got great
flight opportunities, but we won't go there.
Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always
good to follow--I seem to--on this committee I always seem to
follow Texas.
Mr. Carter. Of course.
REIMBURSABLE AGREEMENTS: LEVEL OF INTEREST
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Your lead. Of course, we note you are
all in uniform, and thank you for the dangerous work you do. I
see you don't have black tape on your badges but you have had
in the past; is that right? Last year was a difficult year with
loss of life. We obviously, as a committee, note that.
I would like to also note for the record, and I am sure the
chairman and all members would agree, we are on the
Appropriations Committee. We are appropriators. We don't like
continuing resolutions. We don't like the notion of sequesters.
We are not looking for any sympathy from your ranks, but quite
honestly we have something called regular order where
Republicans and Democrats go through the process, we may
disagree, we are not disagreeable, there is a degree of comity,
and we do our work. I won't say it is the higher ups that are
causing the problem, but we are proud of the work we do,
obviously, with this chairman in particular, and a lot of the
things that we are concerned about make their way into these
bills, and when they don't get passed and, quite honestly, the
Administration is in control and that is not all bad, but in
fact some congressional direction is very helpful. So I just
want to put that in the record.
I would like to get, if I could, I guess this goes to the
Acting Deputy. Everybody has been struggling with the
pronunciation of your name, and since I have a long one myself,
I won't try to pronounce it. I would like to know about the
authority that our 2013 appropriations act granted you to pilot
five reimbursable fee agreements for the costs associated with
your services. Can you tell us where that stands? Has there
been a lot of interest, and who are those interests, and what
are the nature of the services they are seeking?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Congressman. We have received a
lot of interest in the potential reimbursable agreements under
Section 560 of the omnibus bill, and we have received them from
a wide variety of potential stakeholders. Congressman Cuellar
mentioned the City of Laredo. The City of El Paso has also
expressed interest. The airports have expressed interest.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Is it usually, is it the southwest
border or is it airports around the country?
Mr. McAleenan. We are getting interest from airports as
well around the country, and the air environment for our
established international gateways. The authority allows us to
receive overtime reimbursement to extend hours or to have
additional staff at peak periods, which we think could be
beneficial to certain airports.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. What sort of process are you using to
determine which ones to embrace?
Mr. McAleenan. As I noted, we are trying to establish
criteria that would allow us to pick pilots, given that we have
a limit of five. That will have immediate mission impact and
will be able to support operations in some key areas where we
would like to provide better services but also will give us a
chance to assess how this works in the different environments
such as land border and air environment as you noted.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. How do you respond to concerns from
industry that reimbursement for services amounts to them double
paying since they are already paying user fees?
Mr. McAleenan. Well, I would note that actually this idea
came in response to a request from industry and from
localities.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. But there are some who view this as a
double whammy.
Mr. McAleenan. Understood. And you know, it has to make
sense. It has to have a return on investment for the local
community or for the airport. For instance, this can't be
unilaterally assessed. It has to be a mutual agreement. So, I
would, for those that are concerned about double payment, I
would offer they don't have to enter into an agreement.
WORKLOAD STAFFING MODEL: PART-TIMERS
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Just looking locally in my backyard, I
have the Port of Newark, obviously Liberty Airport in Newark. I
know that some other Federal agencies use part-time people. Are
you locked into some sort of collective bargaining agreement
which doesn't allow you to use part-timers, because obviously
crowds come in and sometimes there are delays. What is your
system here?
Mr. Frelinghuysen. I don't equate you with some of the
other agencies, but I just wonder, do you utilize part-timers?
Mr. McAleenan. Good question. In terms of the bargaining
unit, we would certainly have to negotiate any change to the
structure of ours, but I think really it goes back.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. This is the issue, sort of innovation,
we have the sequester. We have the continuing resolution. We
commend you for the things you are doing, but is this an area
you are looking at?
Mr. McAleenan. We are looking at an effective use of
staffing, and part-timers for non-law-enforcement personnel is
absolutely something----
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Your whole workforce is about 65,000, so
I assume there are some people that could be moved around in a
more effective way.
REIMBURSEMENT AGREEMENTS: ABU DHABI
Mr. McAleenan. I think that is a fair statement. And part
time for those personnel is something we are considering. For
law enforcement personnel, it is not an option.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. And lastly, moving to Abu Dhabi, United
Arab Emirates. What is going on with that preclearance
facility? Am I correct in saying the ones we have here are in
this hemisphere, and there are no others around the world that
we actually staff, and this would be the first one in the
Middle East?
Mr. McAleenan. This would be the first one in the Middle
East. We do have preclearance in two locations in Ireland----
Mr. Frelinghuysen. We have been through, many of us,
through Shannon, which you do great job there. But there is
obviously some concern here about this, and I think we all are
in support of what our domestic airlines are doing, and
obviously, our airports have some concern that this would be
infringing on their bottom line. Do you have any reaction to
that?
Mr. McAleenan. I understand we have had a robust exchange
of views with both the Congress and the committees as well as
with our aviation stakeholders. This is a security program.
This is a region where there is a lot of transit travel from
areas that are of significant concern for terrorist training
and so forth. This gives us an opportunity to project our zone
of security closer to those areas. And from an operational
perspective, it makes a great deal of sense and would be cost-
effective.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Well, obviously, there is local concern
in my State, obviously. Industry representatives have reached
out. So this would be a transit center, clearance center in the
midst of this region. And you think actually it would benefit
our security by having it?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Having it there, how does that happen?
Mr. McAleenan. Well, Abu Dhabi----
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Might require you to actually have far
more in the way of technology; just without profiling, you
might have some difficulties consuming all the data that might
come in through all the people that are transiting.
Mr. McAleenan. Well, actually our targeting systems would
be capable of assessing those data for us. And the benefit it
would give us is having personnel on site able to do full
admissibility inspections, inspect the baggage and any air
cargo on those aircraft before they even depart for the United
States. Abu Dhabi is a location where we do have terrorist
screening database travel at a significant level at the top 10.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. But you agree there are no American
carriers, domestic carriers that go in there.
Mr. McAleenan. There are currently no American carriers.
Any agreement would require equal access to any carrier that
wanted to fly.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. If American carriers wanted to use that
facility, they would be able to?
Mr. McAleenan. Absolutely.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Even if the host country wasn't
particularly enthusiastic about it. But it is being negotiated
is it?
Mr. McAleenan. It is still being negotiated, yes, sir.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Owens.
BEYOND THE BORDER
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen. I have gone through the information
you have provided, and it is a little unclear to me whether or
not there are specific dollars allocated to the implementation
of the Beyond the Border agreement with Canada and the RCC,
also entered into with Canada. Can you indicate to me, and then
a very specific question I have is to the single portal, which
is part of the BTB, where you are in terms of implementation
and funding for that?
Mr. McAleenan. I can tell you, on the funding side, the
single window is part of our automation modernization within
our cargo funding and the IT budget. I can get back to you on
exactly where we are in implementation. It has been one area
that received a lot of effort and interest on both sides, and
part, as you noted, of a broad and important set of action
items under the Beyond the Border agreement.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Owens. And could you also indicate to me what the
amount of funding is that is dedicated and what the analysis is
for the level of funding necessary to implement that portal?
Mr. McAleenan. We will get back to you that information.
DRONES
Mr. Owens. That is great.
What is the level of usage of drones on the other three
borders that we have, that being the east and west coast and
along the Canadian border? Are we utilizing drones in that air
space?
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir, we are. Our primary zones of operation
are along the Rio Grande Valley and in the southwest, and in
the Tucson sectors, along the southwest border. We have done
some limited operations off the San Diego coast looking for
drug activity out there and our other primary site is in Grand
Forks, North Dakota. And we use those drones up there for two
functions. One is to look at border security along the northern
border. That is done mainly as Chief Fisher mentioned via
change detection using our SAR, Synthetic Aperture Radar.
And then secondly that is our training site for our new
pilots. So it is a fairly robust activity in the Grand Forks
area and along the northern border for that particular drone
site.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Owens. Now does that particular drone site cover the
entire Canadian border or only sectors of it?
Mr. Alles. It can cover everything from basically Minnesota
to Washington State. Our profiles that we fly are dependent on
where the Border Patrol are, since we are working in
cooperation with them, determines would be our higher-threat
zones, and that is where we employ the air vehicles for change
detection.
Ms. Owens. Do we have any zones in the eastern end of the
U.S. Canadian border?
Mr. Alles. No, sir, we do not typically employ them in that
area.
Mr. Owens. Would you have interest in doing that?
Mr. Alles. I would, but frankly, given where we are in our
flying hour program and other priorities, I think we need to
keep our functions where they are. There is much to be done
still along the southwest and the southern borders that I think
is very consequential.
Mr. Owens. I understand. Where I am really going with this
is, as I am sure you are aware, Fort Drum which happens to be
in my district is seeing a return of drones to the facility, to
the installation. It seems to me that they will continue to
need to have training activity, and this would seem to me to be
an excellent way to accomplish two tasks and save the
government money in the process and at the same time develop an
environment where we are doing training and getting
information.
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir, I understand. Fort Drum is one of our
emergency relocation sites. We use it for basically nationwide
deployment for our drones. That is how we utilize the facility
so far, sir.
Mr. Owens. And would you be amenable to the idea that I am
positing that we would, as they return, we would use them for
surveillance purposes on the eastern end of the United States
Canadian border?
Mr. Alles. Sir, I would have to look at the specifics, and
candidly, that one--if you are talking about military versions
of the drones, there will be many FAA issues. Some of those
drones are not qualified to fly in the air space.
Mr. Owens. I understand that there is that issue, but given
the proliferation of drones that we now have in the military, I
suspect there are opportunities that we might undertake.
Mr. Alles. Certainly something we can look at, sir.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE AWARDS PROGRAM
Mr. Owens. Thank you.
I notice that you are focused or the budget reduces
significantly the Foreign Language Awards Program, and I am
curious as to whether or not that--the reduction in that
program is a good idea, given, particularly along the southern
border, you have a great number of people who may not speak
English, along the U.S.-Canadian border, there are also people
who, at least in Quebec, speak French primarily, and whether or
not decreasing that is really a good idea for efficiency
purposes.
Mr. McAleenan. Congressman, we have a significant number of
personnel who are fluent in a number of foreign languages. On
the southwest border, we have a significantly bilingual
workforce that is capable of maintaining that language fluency.
On the northern border, there are obviously some French
speakers up in your area of the woods as well. At over $16
million per year, it is just not very sustainable for us. We do
want to modify it to make sure we can prioritize key languages
for security threats that we want to be able to maintain at
gateway airports, for instance, or some of our global
deployments. But to maintain a broad base for Spanish and other
languages that are pretty common in our workforce is not going
to be efficient going forward.
REIMBURSEMENT AGREEMENTS: OTHER LOCATIONS
Mr. Owens. Thanks.
One last question, reimbursement agreements have come up.
We just talked about the one in Abu Dhabi, but is there a
significant opportunity in your mind to use those reimbursement
agreements at other locations along any of our borders in terms
of putting ourselves in a position where we could save some
money and at the same time expand your activities?
Mr. McAleenan. I do believe so, especially on the expanded
services. What we would like to use these agreements to do is
to take our capabilities so we can extend ours, and we can
provide additional staffing at key hours and really provide
better services at land and airports of entry. We do think,
given the level of interest we have received so far, that it
could be very fruitful, and we hope to explore these pilots
with the committee this year and going forward.
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Culberson.
OPERATION STREAMLINE
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for your service to the country. Chief
Fisher, it is good to see you here, sir.
I enjoyed the time we spent together visiting in Tucson,
and I appreciate so very much the sacrifice that you and your
families have made to protect our country. My good friend Henry
Cuellar and I served together in the Texas House, have been
working together with this subcommittee's help--I am glad to
have Judge Carter as our chairman--on a very successful program
called Operation Streamline.
Chief, I know you are familiar with it; it is in place in
some sectors on the border. One of the goals of course is to
enforce existing law with a good heart and some common sense.
You want the officer to distinguish between women and children
and someone who is an economic migrant or someone who is a
threat to the public, carrying drugs, weapons, assaults an
officer, et cetera. You want the officer to exercise that good
judgment in the field, but the fundamental idea is to enforce
the law as it is written and to impose some penalty on folks
that cross so they are deterred from coming back.
And that has been in place in Henry's district in the
Laredo sector, and the Del Rio Sector, there has been dramatic
decline in the number of people that are re-apprehended, the
number of crossings have dropped.
Could you talk about the status of that program and where
it is most successful and where you think you need help from
this subcommittee and the Congress and, frankly, from the U.S.
Attorneys to make it more successful?
Chief Fisher. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
We heard you loud and clear a couple of years ago. You
brought it to our attention in terms of Streamline, do more
Streamline, and why aren't we doing more Streamline. Not to
mention, some of the statistics that you brought forward to the
committee in terms of the percentage of individuals that we
were prosecuting relative to the population of arrests.
I asked the team to start looking at that. How could we do
that, to your point, via common sense? What is the best
outcome? And as a matter of fact, before we identify the best
outcome, what is it that we are trying to achieve on the back
end?
So we did a couple of things. First, we took a look at
Streamline as an independent program. And prior to January
2011, the reason why I put that as a benchmark is because that
was the point in time where we developed and implemented first
and foremost the Consequence Delivery System. A little more on
that later. But when we looked at Streamline as a program, one
of the outcomes that we were looking for, any program, was,
among other things, the reduction in recidivism. Quite simply,
of those individuals that we apprehend, process, and have some
final disposition, we want those people not to come back,
right? So we thought that would be an important metric to start
checking over time. And we did that across the board in a lot
of other programs to include Streamline.
When we looked at Streamline, we looked at the years
preceding, 4 and 5 years preceding the Consequence Delivery
System. And what we found out was the rate of recidivism was
actually increasing each year. Even though we were putting more
people in the Streamline program, the rates of recidivism were
actually getting higher; they weren't getting lower.
I can tell you today Streamline as a program is a lot
stronger as part of the Consequence Delivery System than it was
independently prior to January 2011. I can also tell you that
where we were looking at single-digit percentages of
individuals whom we would apprehend who were subsequently
prosecuted, we are now about 22 percent of that population for
a couple of reasons.
One, the Consequence Delivery System helped us inform our
decisions on what the appropriate consequence should be
relative to our outcomes, not just what was convenient for the
Border Patrol agent at a particular station at a point in time.
The other thing is we got smarter in terms of our analytics
and the way that we started looking at these programs as a
composite, not just independently. And you are right, it is
really dependent obviously with the U.S. attorneys; within each
of those districts, they certainly have their requirements, and
we continue to work with them to try to make sure that we are
putting in Streamline and within the Consequence Delivery
System the best individuals whom we believe--based on continued
analytics, that it is going to reduce the likelihood that once
they have been apprehended by CBP, it is less likely we will
see them again in the future.
Mr. Culberson. Now that you have had a chance to see the
entire border, I know in the Tucson sector had you a terrible
problem with a huge volume of people coming across and near
microscopic levels of prosecution. It was just embarrassing. It
was terrible. The U.S. Attorney was not prosecuting virtually
anyone. The time I first came out to see you 4 or 5 years ago,
the prosecution rate was, as I recall, less than 2 percent. It
was unbelievable. And so 98 percent were never prosecuted. They
were just released. Does that sound about right, about 4 or 5
years ago? It has gotten a little better.
Chief Fisher. Actually, it has gotten a lot better. Just to
frame the context a little bit, during that time, Tucson was
still seeing the largest levels of activity, even given what
the U.S. Attorney and the Marshals Service and the U.S.
Government could do in terms of capacity to prosecute more
people, what we are finding is, even though we were trying to
put more and more people in Federal prosecution, just because
of the capacity of the numbers that we were dealing with.
Generally, when you look at the sentencing upon conviction for
illegal entry, for instance, the time served at that point in
time was about 3-\1/2\. So it really wasn't a consequence. Yes,
they got a prosecution. Yes, we did a formal removal. And at
the time before Consequence Delivery, we would just go ahead
and remove them through Nogales port of entry, only to return
within the subsequent weeks.
Mr. Culberson. I recall going to view the evidence room,
and they showed us--I think the U.S. Attorney had, correct me
if I am wrong, there was a verbal order from the U.S. attorney
if they were carrying less than a certain amount of dope, they
just were loose and you had all these loads. I think--how much
was it 400, 500 pounds?
Chief Fisher. I don't recall at the time.
Mr. Culberson. All of the loads were below that level.
Remember all the loads, it was like the smugglers got the memo.
And they knew exactly what the level was to be prosecuted
at and as you showed me the evidence room, every one of the
loads was below that level, as I recall, that they be
prosecuted, right.
Chief Fisher. It seems about right, sir.
Mr. Culberson. Yeah. And those guys worked pretty quickly.
I mean, they understood, they knew exactly what would happen to
them if they stayed below that load, they would be released.
They were out the load and out a few hours or a few days of
trouble. And your officers' lives were at risk out there in the
desert trying to apprehend these guys. And the prosecution rate
has gotten better out there in the Tucson sector, but in--
looking up and down the border, Chief, if you could and the
chairman is being very generous with the time, what sectors do
you need to focus on in making sure you have the backing of the
U.S. Attorney to increase the prosecution rate?
Chief Fisher. Arizona and south Texas.
Mr. Culberson. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
USE-OF-FORCE POLICIES
Ms. Roybal-Allard. First of all, let me begin by thanking
you for your service and the work that do you to protect our
borders. Having a son-in-law in law enforcement, I am very
aware of how stressful and dangerous your job can be at times.
Having said that, I want to bring--ask some questions with a
couple of issues that have gotten a lot of public attention.
One is that over the past 2 years, at least 20 individuals have
died in incidents involving CBP personnel. And a PBS
investigative report that was aired in July documented evidence
of physical abuse, sexual assault and depravation of food and
water by CBP officers and agents.
In addition, a last year report by the NGO, No More Deaths,
in a study released this month by the University of Arizona,
they all independently found that about 10 percent of people in
CBP custody suffer from some form of physical abuse. I was
pleased to learn that in addition to the DHS Office of
Inspector General investigation that I had requested last year,
that you are taking the initiative and are conducting your own
internal review of CBP's use of force policies.
The IG report is due in August, and when do you expect that
you will finalize your report? And in the meantime, have any
steps been taken to prevent these incidents of the abuse
involving CBP personnel? Has there been additional oversight?
More or less, what have you been doing, because I know you are
interested in addressing this issue.
Mr. McAleenan. Absolutely we take these concerns very
seriously. As you noted, Congresswoman, we have actually nearly
completed a use-of-force review of some of the incidents that
you mentioned and others to assess our policy, our training,
our equipment and tactics and how we can be more effective and
safer in our law enforcement operations. And we will be looking
forward to sharing the results of that study publicly and
making appropriate changes in our practices in terms of the
results of the study.
We have also reinforced the existing policies for how to
treat unaccompanied minors, women in our custody to ensure that
at-risk populations are protected while they are in CBP
custody. So we take these very seriously; we are pursuing this
force study and ensuring our policies and monitoring are
extensive.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Will that also include some of the
incidents that have occurred at the border regarding rocking
assaults, where no one disputes that your personnel has to take
appropriate action to protect themselves when these things have
happened, but there have been a series of unfortunate incidents
where CBP personnel has responded with lethal force and even
where innocent bystanders have been killed. And I am just
wondering if that will include that, or is that something
separate that you are looking into and providing additional
guidance to your officers?
And also, have you looked into or applied any of the
applicable best practices that other law enforcement agencies
are using in similar cases, such as Los Angeles and in Orange
County?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes and yes. The use-of-force review will
include rocking incidents; all three of our offices
participated with the Office of Training and Development and
Internal Affairs on assessing this. And yes, we did go
externally to seek best practices and an external review from
other law enforcement and experts.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. That is great. The other thing is along
the same lines the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times
have reported on the increasing use of video cameras by police
departments including small cameras that are placed on the
lapels of officers' uniforms. And the police departments that
are doing this have found that these cameras reduce the number
of complaints against officers and the number of incidents in
which officers use force against suspects, but it also helped
officers to defend themselves against baseless allegations of
abuse. I am just wondering what your policy is with regards to
the use of video cameras or stations and vehicles and on
officers? And have you considered expanding the use of these
cameras that would increase transparency, accountability and,
as I said earlier, protect officers against baseless
allegations?
Mr. McAleenan. That is something we are willing to look at.
If we can maybe coordinate with your staff to get the result of
studies from other departments. Obviously, we would have to
assess the cost, the operational impact and the--unit impact,
but we would be interested in learning more about that.
LAND BORDER, AIR PORTS OF ENTRY ENCOUNTERS
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Has my time run, out or can you keep
going?
Okay. I understand that CBP continues to place undocumented
families who are actually leaving the United States into
removal proceedings which are really an expense to the American
taxpayers. So given the fiscal challenges that have already
been described by your agency as a result of sequestration, it
seems to me that detaining and deporting people who have no
criminal history and who are in the process of leaving the
country anyway, that is not the most efficient use of your
limited resources. So rather than focusing on those who are
trying to enter illegally or those who have committed crimes, I
am wondering why CBP is continuing to detain these families and
to put them into costly proceedings, since the goal is for them
to go back to their country in the first place, which is what
they are doing.
Mr. McAleenan. I will just start and turn it over to Chief
Fisher. If you are talking in terms of out bound at land border
or airports of entry, we are not detaining them or putting them
in removal. We are documenting the encounter with individuals
who were out of status, so we know that they are here legally,
and in future encounters, we have that record and information.
But we then allowing them to voluntarily depart.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Okay. I will give you the information
that I have to get more clarification on that.
And just one more question, my office has received
complaints from Catholic officials about women and children
being deported late at night to unsafe areas along the Mexican
border. It is obvious that this is of deep concern because of
the prevalence of violent crime in many Mexican border
communities. Would you be willing to look at these reports and,
perhaps, you know, change the process so that these women and
children are not being deported late at night and in dangerous
situations?
Chief Fisher. Yes, Congresswoman, for those who CBP and
specifically the Border Patrol does return to Mexico, we
continue to work with the Mexican government each year and
specifically with the consuls within those locations. And we
basically work with them to identify those locations so it is
not just late at night. We try to--first, for most individuals,
specifically the women and the children, we actually do a
handoff with them. But any other ideas that you would have, we
can continue to have that dialogue with the officials in
Mexico; we would certainly work with your staff do that.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Okay, I will also provide you with the
information that I was given so we can work on that. Thank you
so much.
BORDER PATROL STATION CLOSURES
Mr. Carter. Chief Fisher, I am going to get off on
something kind of local. We see, once again, this
administration is again proposing to close nine inland Border
Patrol stations, six of which happen to be in Texas. This
proposal has twice been denied in fiscal year 2012, the
reprogramming, and in the fiscal year 2013 appropriations act.
The subcommittee suggested CBP close three locations outside of
Texas, but that recommendation has not been taken up.
The subcommittee directed CBP to provide a transitional
plan outlining all supposed cost savings and details to ensure
that the State and local law enforcement and these Texas
counties have the support they need from DHS to take illegal
aliens into custody. Why hasn't this plan been provided? It has
been my understanding that ICE told CBP it would cost several
million dollars--cost them several million dollars for CBP to
save a portion of $1.3 million annually by closing down the
Texas stations. That doesn't sound like it is cost savings.
And in addition, I am curious, do you have inland stations
in other States besides California, Idaho, Montana and Texas?
And I am also curious, I think I can make a pretty valid
argument that I-35 is the main artery of trade between Mexico,
the United States and Canada, that we probably have more than
our share of illegal people crossing the border. I don't know
if we can completely compete with Arizona, but I believe we
can. And why, all of a sudden, are we targeting Texas inland
stations if there are other stations across the country that
can be closed? So those are the kind of answers I would like to
have.
Chief Fisher. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
Let me start first, 3 years ago, when I came back to
Washington and had the privilege of serving the men and women
in the field as their chief, there were a few things I asked
the staff to do. One, as we were developing our new strategy,
and we recognized that we had to, with all the increased
resources, we wanted to make sure that we were both effective
and efficient. I asked them to take a look, a comprehensive
review across the board in terms of facilities. Was there
anywhere that we could maybe reduce, not completely capability,
but reduce the cost, given the transition within our strategy?
So there were a couple of frames or parameters that I set. I
said, well, let's take a look at--we didn't necessarily call
them inland stations, but we set some parameters. Let's start
with all Border Patrol stations within 100 miles away from the
border. Let's take a look at the staffing. There is a whole
host of metrics that went into it. Through an exhaustive
process, the staff came back and recommended nine locations.
With those nine locations, there were about 41 Border Patrol
agents assigned to those nine Border Patrol stations across the
board.
It looked at the cost benefit in terms of us being able to
save approximately $1.3 million annually if we were able to
scale back. So, in some cases, we were looking at asking them
to look at all options, whether we close the station outright
or we deactivate it, recognizing that if we need to open it
back up, we would be able to do so. And we could readjust the
staffing levels in whole or in part to make sure that we were
putting Border Patrol agents in areas closer to the border. So
that was kind of the background behind that.
Certainly, we are not picking on Texas or any other part of
the country. I wanted to make sure that we were looking
holistically at the implementation plan against our new
strategy.
Since that time and working with your staff, we recognized
that while in some locations, we want to make sure we did a
good enough job at assessing the impact to the operations, not
just our immediate border operations, but to the larger
requirement that we have in working with our state and locals.
The answer not all across the board and some locations was,
well, let's see if we can rethink that. What we looked at right
now and our plan that we are going to be briefing leadership
and moving forward, which I think meets both requirements: one,
it reduces the dollar amounts; it also maintains a degree of
capability that is required in some of those locations. So in
the areas in Riverside, California, and those two up in
Montana, we are going to move forward, given what the field
commanders have identified the requirements are with respect to
the priority mission, and be able to use those resources in a
better manner, so to speak.
The other locations, we are also looking at exploring the
Resident Agent Program. This is a concept that we did up in the
northern border, and basically what it is, is instead of having
brick and mortar being able--because some of these Border
Patrol stations have about four to five Border Patrol agents
assigned to it. So the thought is, well, you still need the
brick and mortar and paying all the overhead when most of these
Border Patrol agents are out on patrol. And so the Resident
Agent Program really takes a look at being able to give the
Border Patrol agent like a home-to-work vehicle, have them
stage and deploy to and from work from their home. They are
available on call to be able to enforce Title 8 authority, and
in many cases within these programs, the Border Patrol agents
are also assigned to task forces. They may be assigned to the
Joint Terrorism Task Force or may be assigned to the Border
Enforcement Security Task Force, the BEST for ICE [U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement].
And so what we have done is scaled and looked at each one
of the nine locations, and right now, the proposal moving
forward, not yet defined and certainly not decided upon, is to
close the one in California, the two up in the north and to
maintain capability to a certain degree within those corridors
where we have seen higher levels of activity.
Mr. Carter. So your standard is 100 miles from the border,
okay? Most States 100 miles from the border is all the way
across the State; 100 miles from El Paso is Midland.
Chief Fisher. Right.
Mr. Carter. One hundred miles from Del Rio is Ozona; 100
miles from Laredo is short of San Antonio by about 50 miles.
Basically, you just take the whole state of Texas and eliminate
100 miles from the border, because we have 1,200 miles of
border, and we have a whole lot of country. We have 254
counties in our State. We have got almost every county in our
State, and I can testify to this from personal knowledge has at
least one illegal in jail every day, every hour just about, and
sometimes hundreds, but several times at least one.
There is no Border Patrol access for the people in the
panhandle, people in far west Texas. What those people are
going to do, let's just assume for the sake of argument, they
stop somebody in the car on the highway, the guy has got no
driver's license. They seize the vehicle, which is standard
operating procedure. They impound it. They put the guy in jail
overnight. They look for somebody to move him off into the
system. There is nobody available because there is no Border
Patrol up there. ICE is not there, and they are claiming it
will be tremendous cost to them. So what does the sheriff do?
In 254 counties, turn them loose.
Chief Fisher. Right.
Mr. Carter. Without a vehicle, they don't get their vehicle
back, not going to give a vehicle back to an unlicensed driver
to drive off in their county. Now that is creating a bad
situation in 254 counties in the State of Texas. And I don't
see the cost savings. I am totally opposed to the closing of
those stations, and law enforcement across our State is opposed
to it, too.
Chief Fisher. If I may, Mr. Chairman, for point of
clarification, the 100-mile limit wasn't a definitive red line
if you will; it was a starting spot to preserve anything below
that line. There was other criteria that we used for
consideration by the way. The other thing and working with--ICE
is trying to figure out which one really definitively, within
those areas of responsibility for those stations, where does
ICE have the coverage? Where in fact do the State and locals
operate Secure Communities? Is Enforcement Removal Operations
available? And so we are looking for, as opposed to shutting
down the station and relocating, if is there a hybrid we can
come up with, one in which we are able to have the same cost
savings we are looking for in the outyears and yet be able to
provide a level of services commensurate to the expectations of
the State and locals. And that is kind of the revisiting that
we have done over this past year, sir.
Mr. Carter. Well, it is of great concern to sheriffs across
the State of Texas, and they are expressing their concern to
their Members of Congress, and we have a very large delegation
in this Congress.
Chief Fisher. Yes, sir.
AIR AND MARINE OPERATIONS, RECAPITALIZATION
Mr. Carter. And we are all hearing about it. So this is
something we need to rethink, I think.
General, let me talk about Air and Marine operations and
recapitalization for just a second. CBP's Air and Marine
operations provide critical surveillance, interdiction
capabilities from border security, including the ability to
push out our borders in source and transit zones. This
administration has consistently shortchanged--Air and Marine
this year, the request supports only 62,000 flight hours, the
lowest level yet. I understand the argument of sequestration
made by my colleague.
As I said in my opening statement, Air and Marine needs the
right resource to support all three legs of its stool, pilots
and crew capable and maintained assets and operational funding
for things such as fuel, maintenance and so forth. The budget
request reduces procurement, operations and maintenance by $87
million, but the details behind the cuts are obscured. Why only
62,000 flight hours? Where is Air and Marine short changed? Is
it fuel, maintenance or something else?
We need to know the costs associated with that shortfall
because we want to fund this resource. So we would like the
information about that.
Chief Fisher, how will this reduction impact Border Patrol
operations, both in terms of effectiveness and safety of the
agents? So, first, General if you would respond.
Mr. Alles. So, yes, sir. I think, clearly, the reduction in
flight hours is a reduction in our capability. We have made
technology improvements in the past 5 years; VADER is an
example that is helping us to mitigate some of that, but I
don't want to shortchange. There isn't effect there.
For the agency, it is a question of balancing between other
operations we have ongoing. And for me, inside Air and Marine,
as you mentioned, it is a question of balancing between
recapitalization and the flying hours that I have. So there are
tough choices that we are making for the budget. I don't want
to act like they don't have impacts or they won't have impacts
on Chief Fisher in terms of Border Patrol, but they are the
choices the agency is making based in its risk assessment, sir.
Mr. Carter. Is it there anything we can do to assist in the
recapitalization issue that you are talking about?
Mr. Alles. I think, sir, in the recapitalization, the main
areas we are trying to recapitalize are in terms of our medium
lift assets, our Black Hawk helicopters; the UH-60As we have
are actually the oldest Black Hawks flying in the United
States. So we have a service life extension program going with
the Army. It is a fairly low rate of induction, one or two
aircraft per year. Obviously, increasing that would be helpful.
Our P3 service life extension is on track to finish in fiscal
year 2016, so next year would be the last year of funding for
that. An then our Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft is the only
new procurement that we are making, and those are likewise at a
low rate, a couple of aircraft per year, which keeps the line
open. Those are our main efforts, sir.
Mr. Carter. In talking with the Coast Guard here yesterday
or the day before yesterday or whatever it was, we talked about
the fact that the Air Force is decommissioning certain planes,
and they are looking to maybe pick up some of those planes. Do
you keep your eyes open for those types of things
decommissioning from the services where we might could go off
and make a good acquisition that might give you a different
type of aircraft up close, give you the needs that you need?
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir, absolutely. About one-third of our
aircraft are either seizures or aircraft we get from the
military, so we are always on the lookout for those kinds of
opportunities, sir.
Mr. Carter. Well, I am a big proponent of the air wing of
our--you have given us a special need that we have had, and
over the 10 years, I have been looking at the border, that need
has been enhanced, and I am proud of that enhancement.
Chief, I would like your comments about that, too.
Chief Fisher. Mr. Chairman, I couldn't agree more in terms
of what it has done for our ability to increase levels of
security along our border. And quite frankly, as the General
mentioned, I will kind of foot stomp, if you will, any time you
reduce dollar amounts, there is going to be a reduction in
capability. Our job within the leadership is to make sure that
we maintain and preserve priority mission; try, to the extent
that we can, to lessen the impact to the individual agents and
officers on the ground; and be able to execute the budget that
we have, not necessarily the budget we would like to have.
But thanks to your leadership and this committee, we are
further ahead than I thought I would ever see in this uniform,
so thank you very much, sir, for that question.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Price.
BORDER SECURITY: MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me return to this question of border security and how
we achieve it and how we define it, first, and how do we
achieve it, especially now in the context of comprehensive
immigration reform? As you know, in recent months, momentum has
been building for enactment of comprehensive reform. Just
yesterday, the details of the bipartisan Senate proposal
emerged, and there is a heavy focus on border security and
resources. Expect the House efforts will be imminent. No
department is going to be more affected by immigration reform
than Homeland Security, and that is particularly going to apply
to your agency.
Much of the debate on comprehensive reform is focused on
border security, as you well know. We want to make sure that a
decade from now or two decades, we are not faced with the same
difficult choices about what to do with another large
population of undocumented immigrants. Of course, border
security is only one piece of the puzzle in this regard. The
lure of employment and a better life in America are the most
important drivers of illegal immigration, and there are many
elements that will go into overall reform and preventing the
kind of recurrence of the kinds of dilemmas we are facing now.
There is no silver bullet strategy for success on the border
and no likely amount of money we could realistically throw at
the border and expect 100 percent success.
You are the experts so I want to ask you to reflect on this
here this morning. What does a secure border look like? How
does CBP measure its progress in this area? What kind of
measurement do we need to achieve as we address this issue? How
important is the achievement reform itself, though, to border
security? In other words, we sometimes in our discussions
assume that the causality runs one way here; that somehow this
goal of a secure border has to be achieved before we can
undertake reform, without understanding that reform itself will
enhance the security. Obviously, that is one of the main
reasons for reform is to relieve some of these pressures and to
contribute to the security. So what would you say about that
causality running both ways, how important is reform to your
goal to secure the border, as opposed to being a certain level
of security being a precondition for reform, if you see what I
mean?
The Senate plan appears to call for a 90 percent
apprehension rate at high-risk border crossings as the
condition that needs to be met.
Chief, I would like to ask you in particular how workable
is a threshold like that? How can it be calculated? How
precisely can it be calculated? But if not that sort of
threshold condition, what might make sense? So let me just
invite you to dive in wherever you will and help us think
through this.
Chief Fisher. Thank you, Congressman Price.
If I miss any of these or get them out of order, please
interrupt me along the way. First and foremost, with respect to
what does a secure border look like? Again, I would frame it
very succinctly in two ways: One, it is really low risk, the
likelihood of reducing bad people and bad things from coming
into this country; and two, providing a level of safety and
security for those American people in and along those border
corridors and for the Nation for that matter.
How do you measure that? Again, we talked about the
effectiveness. I will talk a little bit more about that
specifically as I get to the 90 percent and what does that look
like. Other things, for instance, we look at average
apprehension per recidivist. What does that mean? It is
important to us in assessing levels of risk and specifically
individuals who come across this country, not every individual
whom we apprehend in terms of who they are, where they came
from, is equal. In 2012, we had approximately 364,000
apprehensions between the ports of entry. Those people
represented 142 different countries. And so when you look at
the particular threats where people are coming from, we want to
assess--it is important for us not just to understand who these
people are; what are those trends? We want to differentiate
those individuals, over a period of time, who only came in and
were apprehended twice versus those individuals who were
apprehended perhaps six or more times. It is really important
to disaggregate that because they are not all just bunched up
as just an apprehension number. So it is really important as we
advance our analytical thinking and assigning areas of high
risk. Those are the areas where we start making informed
decisions and make recommendations on what we think border
security is as it relates to those types of things,
vulnerability matched with threat. Look at the consequence
because it is an overall risk assessment picture. We would be
happy to talk with you and your staff more about some of the
thought process within this new strategy.
Whether you are looking first and foremost as a
prerequisite, so to speak, to secure the border, and then the
other provisions or vice versa, I will tell you this, over the
last few years, what I have seen, anything that this particular
committee or we as a government can do in terms of legislation
that reduces the flow to the border, in whatever shape, that
alleviates what we see and we are able to then respond to those
people who otherwise would not be eligible to come to the
United States legally. And so if you take what we call the flow
rate and no matter how you do that, it reduces those
individuals. And so when our Border Patrol agents are deployed
between the ports of entry, it reduces those individuals whom
they are going to be encountering, so we can identify higher-
risk areas and higher-risk people who will continue to come
across this border regardless of what the legislation is going
to do, quite frankly. These are individuals who are going to
continue to come into this country to do us harm. They are
going to be members of networks or cartels that are going to
continue to bring narcotics. Smuggling has been a long,
profitable business for many, many years. And to the extent
that we can look at disrupting and dismantling those networks,
hit those business models, I think that this committee and as a
government, if we can come up with legislation that helps us do
that, we would certainly support that.
Lastly, you had mentioned the 90 percent. Is that the right
number, or I am kind of certainly paraphrasing your question,
sir? I will tell you, as a Border Patrol agent, if you are
going to set a goal for effectiveness, the men and women of the
Border Patrol would be proud to have an A as the goal as
opposed to anything less than. And the people I talked to over
the years, I think if you are looking at how do you do that and
what should be the goal, much like we were talking in the
chairman's question in terms of situational awareness, when you
want to be aware of those threats coming into this country,
really anything less than 100 percent really does not hit the
mark.
How we measure that in terms of effectiveness, right--what
does 90 percent mean? In areas where it makes sense, because
what we don't want to do, and I would certainly caution those
who are just looking at a new number, whether it is an
apprehension or even an effectiveness rate, we don't want to
get fixated on a number necessarily, for a couple of reasons.
One, 90 percent gets us in areas where we see high levels of
cross-border illegal activity. It makes sense there because
those are the areas where criminal organizations right now are
continuing to exploit us, and we need to be able to move our
resources to those areas to reduce the likelihood of attack and
to increase the level of safety and security for the people.
Those are two overarching pieces in terms of what a secure
border looks like. So 90 percent tells us that we have to be
able to move those resources there.
But how do we measure that? It sounds very simplistic, but
it is very difficult, and we are not dissuaded or certainly
aren't going to reduce our efforts to get this right. Over the
last couple of years, we recognized the importance of trying to
track it to the best of our ability. It is quite simply, if you
think of the mathematical formula, when people come across the
border, three things are generally going to happen; two are
good. So they are going be apprehended, or they are going to be
turned back. So that now becomes your numerator. You divide
that by the total number of entries, and your entries really
are the sum total of your apprehensions, your turnbacks and
your got-aways. Well, when you put it up on a white board, as
my staff did when they were teaching me this over the last
couple of years, I said, it looks really easy, but how do you
operationalize that? How do you operationalize that in an area
of the border that is very desolate, where we may not have the
right requisite of detection capability? How do we do this?
And so there was a lot of discussion earlier. Because you
can't measure everything and you can't see everything, you
shouldn't do it. We took a different approach. We said, well,
let's see what we can do with what we have and then try to
expand it, identify where the gaps are where we can't and let's
start at least taking a small bite of this elephant one piece
at a time. And I am very proud of the work the staff has done
over the last few years. I will tell you, first and foremost--
and please, for the note takers in the audience, this is not a
perfect scientific method--but I will tell you, over the last 2
years, I have been very impressed with the amount of work the
staff has been able to do, given the end-of-the-shift reports
that Border Patrol agents are doing, how that reconciles up
into time and space, in terms of what data are you pulling and
how are you going to pull that? How do we look at that at the
strategic level?
Again, probably going way down the rabbit hole here, but it
is a really exciting time for us to be able to understand the
information and be able to put protocols in place to
standardize it across the board and take a look at what does it
mean. There has to be a recognition that it is not going to be
perfect all the time, but we are making it better and better
each day.
BORDER SECURITY: EFFECTIVE SURVEILLANCE
Mr. Price. Thank you.
The question you raise, regarding figuring out what that
denominator is, which of course is absolutely essential to
calculating a success rate, does raise the question of
surveillance, and what does effective surveillance mean? And I
just have the news reports of what the Senate has come up with
here. But when we talk about 100 percent surveillance, which
they put along the 90 percent apprehension rate, the
surveillance then, I guess, there is surveillance right? It is
not necessarily all equally intense or equally effective? What
could a 100 percent surveillance coverage mean, or what should
it mean?
Chief Fisher. I would go back to the chairman's point about
situational awareness. There was a prevalent thought years ago
that in order to have a secure border, we needed things called
persistent surveillance. In other words, we needed to have a
Border Patrol agent posted somewhere. We needed to have a
camera pole posted somewhere 24/7. We needed to be as locked
down as a corner market somewhere. And quite frankly, as we
started looking at how we would be able to do that, we took
this approach by saying, forget about, let's see if we had
unlimited resources, unlimited money, would it make sense to do
it operationally? And we started looking at some of these areas
of the borders because of what we knew about the areas of the
border.
So, in my mind, the vulnerability along our border and you
can pick any, whether it is south Texas, you can look at areas
of Laredo, you can look to the north, the vulnerability does
not exist in the absence of resources alone. So whether we have
a Border Patrol agent there or a camera there or not. The
vulnerability doesn't exist in the absence of those things. The
vulnerability exists when there is a specific and defined
threat. And so that is why information now becomes the key. So,
for me, there is a distinction between having situational
awareness, knowing what the emerging threats are and may be,
versus having to surveil, if the intent of the understanding of
that phrase is to be able to see everything 24/7, that is a
proposition that I think, although I haven't costed it out,
quite frankly, it would be very expensive and quite frankly, in
a lot of the areas along our border, not necessarily required,
mainly because of an area of--I won't pick it out for
operational considerations--but think of an area of the border
where there is not a lot of infrastructure in Mexico; it is
very desolate. And once you cross the border, it is going to
take you days to get to even a road. So if you think of the
smuggling organizations, and these networks within the cartels
as a business, which they are, if you are going to smuggle, you
generally don't want to get away from those bases of your
operation, extending your supply line. And quite frankly, you
generally don't want to be exposed for days and days because it
shrinks your profit margin. I am not suggesting they don't use
those areas, but when you look at what should we look at all
the time and what can we use based on the General's operational
tempo in terms of in collection from high altitude, we then
start understanding what makes sense in different parts of the
border.
By the way, I should also mention, it is not just today, we
decided and here is what the map looks like, because that is an
ongoing assessment that we will always need to do, both in
terms of our tactical deployments, which on a 24/7 basis, they
are getting through their collection process and their
understanding from sources and from everything else what that
daily deployment should be. We also take a look at our
responsibility at our strategic deployment and what that means.
That is an iterative process in which we are getting smarter.
And we also recognize we are not probably--the guys in green
aren't the ones who are going to figure this out. So, a few
years ago, we reached out to experts to help us understand and
frame that.
Mr. Price. And in that context, surveillance narrowly
conceived may not be the most important thing to be doing to
understand the threat we are facing and the measures that are
required.
Chief Fisher. In my judgment, based on some of those areas
that I worked over the years, that is correct.
Mr. Price. Mr. Chairman, I know we are limited on our time.
I would like to give the others a chance to chime in if they
wish.
Mr. Alles. I was going to piggyback on what Chief Fisher
has said here, which is it is a threat-based idea in terms of
where we want to deploy our surveillance and where we want to
collect. We need collection strategies, which we have
internally.
I think the other piece of this is levels of coordination
inside of intelligence and law enforcement here are critical.
So these are areas--just as you think back to 9/11 and some of
the failures there--there are areas for us that we need to
continue to work at to increase those levels of coordination. I
think those are also key.
Mr. McAleenan. Sorry, Congressman, our calculations of the
ports of entry are a little bit different in terms of measuring
our effectiveness. We have a little bit more control of the
environment; it is finite. In what we have been discussing in
the context of comprehensive immigration reform is how do we
ensure that we are the strongest on preventing any potential
security threats or inadmissibles from entering through ports
of entry. And that is actually the area where we made probably
the most mission progress in the last decade, really since 9/
11. And we also have to look at the ports of entry on
facilitative and general entry and travel at the same time. We
could, if we stopped every individual and every truck and every
car and thoroughly examined it, we could achieve a very high
level of security, but that would not be as supportive of the
overall economic security in the United States. We do maintain
a comprehensive set of metrics as in the volume to the
compliance rates, which are very, very high; over 99.5 percent
in our land borders and 98.6 percent in our air environment of
passengers and travelers are compliant. We then look at our
effectiveness and of course our efficiency; our targeting
systems are between 9 and 17 times more efficient than random
exams. And our facilitation efforts, we measure our wait times
to see how well we are achieving the service levels we would
like.
So all of those are critical to assessing border security,
but in the CR context, those security threats and inadmissables
are really at the highest level of effectiveness.
I agree causality does not run only in one direction in
this environment. The types of legislation to be considered
could definitely help us by reducing the overall flow and
enabling us to focus on risk.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
Mr. Cuellar. I would like to follow up on what the ranking
member was talking about performance. It reminds me of 1991,
when I was in the Texas appropriations committee, and we were
adding the performance measures for the different agencies. And
at that time, I remember the people with robes, the
academicians and the judges were the ones who were screaming
the loudest; they were saying, you can't measure justice or
measure education. But when you really sit down, you can come
up with measures, whether it is this decision rates for the
cases of the judges or it is graduation rates or retention
rates for education. There are different ways of measuring the
work that you do.
I was listening very carefully to some of the answers that
I guess you only--the only measurement that I got from you was
apprehension, and you mentioned, well, it is a little bit more
complicated; we will go to your office and sit down. And guess
it reminds me of a conversation you and I, which I haven't
forgotten, 2 years ago or maybe a little bit longer, when you
first came in and you were telling me maybe I couldn't
understand it, it was a little bit more complicated. I said, I
am a Ph.D. and an attorney; give me a shot in helping us
understand what you all are doing.
Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, I would, you know,
hopefully one of these days I would like to sit down because
what I would like to do is basically what we did in Texas, is
if we are interested in performance or measurements, we should
work with the agencies. Actually the new GPRA law that we
passed a couple of years ago calls for that consultation where
we can sit down with them, OBM--OMB, should I say--and actually
put the performance measures that we want to look at.
Instead of a line item, which is what we have in the
appropriations, you look at the mission, and all this is
already, they already have this stuff there already in the
performance.gov, and I know we asked the Secretary earlier, but
it is already there already, but you put the mission, the
objectives, the strategies that you want to look at, that we
ought to work at, and you actually put the performance there,
what do you want to measure.
And I know there will be a definitional debate. Actually,
it is healthy. Do you want to mention apprehensions or do you
want to mention threat, or whatever the case is, we can do
this. We really can. I saw that back in 1991 saying, oh, you
can't measure this, it is a little complicated, you can't do
that, but Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, I am hoping that
soon, and I will be happy to sit down with you all, but if you
really want to get to the crux of this, why don't we sit down
and actually put their mission under Homeland, and this is only
one agency, the other ones might be a little bit more
complicated to work on, but mission, objectives and put the
performance that you want to measure, and we will have a
debate. There was always, you know, this measurement just--this
performance measures just activity. We want to measure
activity. We want to see the actual results. And I think it
will be healthy for all of us to sit down and actually put some
performance measures, and then when you look at budgets, you
can look at those performance measures and say what were the
variances, why was it that you were not able to meet this,
should it be at 90 percent, as the ranking member said the
Senate is looking at? Should it be at 80 percent or should we
be measuring this or should we be measuring this? And I think
we ought to do that because otherwise we get caught up and, you
know, they know the measures, we are the appropriators, we
appropriate the money but we don't measure them and they have
got those measures already, I know you do, but we don't see
them.
They will tell you go to a website or we will go to the
office and sit down with you. I would like, with all due
respect, I am just a freshman in this new committee, a rookie
on this one, but I would like to eventually look at mission,
objectives, the performance you want to look at, the results
you want to look at, have a healthy debate, work with them,
work with the OMB, and I am telling you the budget, instead of
being a line item, will be a lot better and we can ask a lot
more interesting questions because you actually will be looking
at the performance.
And we can have a debate amongst us, you know what, we
shouldn't be measuring apprehensions only, we ought to look at
threats and all that. I would like the committee to consider
doing that, and I think it will be healthy because let me give
you an example why I say this.
Back, Chief Fisher, you remember a conversation we had a
couple of years ago, there was a thousand new Border Patrol
agents that we added. Half of them went to Arizona and you
called it a mobile strike force so we could move them over.
Well, in south Texas right now, as you know, the OTMs and you
mentioned the OTMs about they are considered a little bit
different, there is an increase of OTMs. I hear that they are
moving more resources there, but you are taking them from other
areas in the Laredo region and other areas, according to Border
Patrol, and it might be different. It may be a union saying
something different, but nevertheless, you know, what happened
to that mobile strike force that you said you could move people
immediately from Arizona over to south Texas?
If we had performance measures, we could say, hey, you
know, you need to move some of those resources up here. So I
guess I don't have a question, but I really would ask the
chairman and the ranking member to consider--it is very
different because for years and hundreds of years we have been
working at line items here in the Congress, but just imagine
instead of having a line item, objectives, missions,
performance measures, it will be very different. We would have
a very, very different type of discussion.
So, it is just my observation, and I look forward to
working with the chairman and the ranking member and the other
members of the committee.
Mr. Carter. Thank you for your observations, Mr. Cuellar.
Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. No further questions. You were very
generous. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Well, first of all, I want thank you all for
being here, but before I give you my closing statement, I have
got to point out this young lady to my right here is leaving us
to go to the dark side. She is going over to be the minority
clerk in the Senate for the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Homeland Security, which is a big deal if it wasn't the Senate,
but it is the Senate. But one must experience slow sometime in
their life.
We are really proud of Kathy. Kathy is a great resource.
You all know that. You have dealt with her. She is one of the
top staffers in this whole town. She will take care of the
Upper Chamber. She might actually wake them up and get them
going, and that would be great. The world's greatest
deliberative body could maybe move a little faster, and that is
your goal. I challenge you.
Ms. Kraninger. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Carter. Seriously, the Senate is going to gain a great
young lady. We are going to lose a great young lady. We are
going to have her come over here and visit us every once in a
while because she is a true asset to this subcommittee and to
the committee. So Kathy, we are going to miss you.
Ms. Kraninger. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Now, gentlemen, I appreciate you being here
today. We have challenges.
You know, we talk about this--I happen to have a copy of
the Senate bill right here that they are proposing. Well, I am
not sure that is the bill, but it is something. But the truth
is, there is a lot of--there has been--and I think the secret
committee is no longer secret, and I think most everybody, at
least around here, knows that I have been working on the secret
committee on the House side for almost 4 years trying to come
up with solutions for immigration, and we are seeing, the one
thing we know is by doing polling and talking to and discussing
what people want, they want us to have an effective immigration
system that begins with a secure border. It has been that poll,
it is a 90 percent poll issue. So it puts you in the hot seat,
and that is why my colleague is discussing the 90 percent. It
is a hot, hot seat at 90 percent. I think everybody would agree
with that. But that seems to be the direction that any
legislation is going to take. It is going to start in your
camp, unfortunately.
I say we have come a long, long way from where we started
this back in 2002 and 2004. We have come a long, long way.
Whether we are there or not is going to be--actually some of
the things Cuellar was talking about is true. It is going to be
a system that is going to be made, but the American public,
they want to be very careful that we do not repeat 1986, that
we will have promises of successes on the border that never
occur and that another flood of illegal immigrants comes across
after whatever form or fashion we handled the 11 to 20 million
that may be in this country now.
This is a big challenge. The Senate has done their best.
The House is going to try to do their best, and this is not
what they have written me to say, but I want you to know that
you are on the hot seat, and quite honestly, if you have got
ideas to share, share them and share them quickly.
Off record. We are through talking right now. But if you
have got issues, ways for us to have success to be pointed out,
we need to know what they are, and you are the guys, you are
the experts, you are in the trenches every day. Realistic. So
the American people know they are safe. Worse thing that could
have happened as we started this immigration debate is Boston,
literally. We didn't need that. I mean, as tragic as it is, but
from the standpoint of how much more pressure it puts upon
those who are looking at immigration policy when we don't know
yet whether this is a domestic or a foreign terrorist, but what
does everybody presume it is, right? We know what they presume
it is, another attack like 9/11.
So, with all that, we are now once again on the front page,
all of us in this business, and we have to make immigration
enforcement. Again, if it had only been a national security
issue, but it is again, we are elevated to the front page of
every newspaper and every TV program in the news business in
the country, and that puts a lot of responsibility on us and it
puts a lot of responsibility on you.
I have personal concerns about some of the things we do in
our world that I don't believe in prosecutorial discretion as
is being used by the Department right now. I believe that is an
individual case, not an enforcement of categories of law
situation, but that argument is for another time, but the
pressure is putting on right now. My staff has learned that
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, is facing
massive increases in asylum claims, particularly in credible
fear cases. In addition, due to deferred action cases, USCIS is
building a backlog in processing its legitimate applications.
The individuals who have been waiting patiently in line to do
the right thing are now having to wait longer. So sometimes
trying to do something causes consequences for other people,
and that line is part of the discussion, those people waiting
in line is part of the discussion of what is going to happen on
immigration policy in the future, a very serious part of that
discussion.
There are great challenges ahead of us. I have confidence
that we will work in a bipartisan manner to come up with
solutions to immigration policy. I think we will do what you
ask us to do, which is reduce the flow. If we could reduce the
flow, you can increase the enforcement. That is logical. There
are ways we can reduce the flow having to do with employment
and other issues. I think everybody has that goal in mind, and
I am hopeful and prayerful that in the next year we are going
to see a really effective immigration policy be created in a
bipartisan manner, and I will say thus far the only comment I
can make about the group I am working with is it has been a
rewarding experience as far as bipartisan work between the two
parties.
I hope it remains that way. So thank you for what you do.
You couldn't have had a worse job, and all of a sudden the
spotlight is back on you. So realize it is there. We appreciate
what you do, and we will do everything within our power to
maintain the security of this country through the
appropriations process and try to get you those things that you
may have shortfalls on. Somehow we will try to figure out how
to come up with that. So we got a lot of work to do. Thank you
for what you do. God bless you.
[Questions for the record follow:]
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W I T N E S S E S
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Page
Abramson, Cathy.................................................. 512
Alles, Randolph.................................................. 663
Fisher, Michael.................................................. 663
Hilton, Cynthia.................................................. 517
Kelly, C.M....................................................... 818
McAleenan, Kevin................................................. 663
Napolitano, Hon. Janet........................................... 1
Papp, Admiral R.J., Jr........................................... 521
Walker, Jeffrey.................................................. 507
I N D E X
----------
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS)
Page
Alien Abuse and Deaths........................................... 76
Ammunition....................................................... 87
Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan...................... 52
Beyond the Border................................................ 69
Border Patrol Agents............................................. 86
Border Security:
Alien Smuggling.............................................. 63
Immigration Reform........................................... 82
Technology................................................... 78
Budget Cut Impacts:
Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection (CBP)............. 51
Overall...................................................... 49
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)................. 62
CBP:
Airport Staffing Levels...................................... 78
Aviation Staffing............................................ 76
Officers..................................................... 46
Operational Costs............................................ 45
Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards....................... 77
Community Leaders, Scheduled Meetings with....................... 85
Detainees, laws.................................................. 73
Detention Beds:
Number Requested............................................. 46
Population................................................... 78
Disaster Relief Fund............................................. 87
Efficiencies and Streamlining.................................... 56
Federal Emergency Management Agency Reimbursements............... 63
Federal Flight Deck Officer Program.............................. 71
Government Performance and Results Act Report.................... 55
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.............................. 47
National Preparedness Grant Program.............................. 80
Opening Statement: Secretary Napolitano.......................... 18
Operation Streamline............................................. 84
Pay Systems, Differing........................................... 68
Personnel Costs: CBP, TSA........................................ 70
Prison Rape Elimination Act...................................... 75
Reimbursable Agreements:
Airport Pilot Programs....................................... 53
Canada....................................................... 69
United Arab Emirates......................................... 54
Report, Coast Guard.............................................. 80
Reports, Required................................................ 46
Staffing Model: TSA.............................................. 70
Transportation Worker Identification Credential.................. 77
Vehicle Dismount and Exploitation Radar Systems.................. 84
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD (USCG)
Acquisition, Construction, and Improvement....................... 542
Air Resources.................................................... 548
Arctic Operations................................................ 559
Bering Strait.................................................... 560
Capital Investment Plan.......................................... 541
Drug Interdiction................................................ 541
Fast Response Cutters............................................ 546
Future........................................................... 549
H-65, H-60 Helicopters........................................... 561
Icebreakers...................................................... 558
Northwest Passage................................................ 560
Offshore Patrol Cutter........................................... 550
Opening Statement: Commandant Papp............................... 529
Patrol Boats..................................................... 556
Priorities:
After National Security Cutters.............................. 557
Unfunded..................................................... 548
Program Objectives, Measuring.................................... 554
Rio Grande....................................................... 544
Sea State 5 Requirement.......................................... 561
Sequestration.................................................... 550
Training......................................................... 553
Vessels Deployed to Inland Waterways............................. 553
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (CBP)
Air and Marine Operations, Recapitalization...................... 718
Beyond the Border................................................ 706
Border Patrol Station Closures................................... 715
Border Security:
Apprehensions................................................ 693
Definition................................................... 692
Effectiveness, Measuring..................................... 719
Situational Awareness........................................ 694
Situational Awareness Tools.................................. 695
Effective Surveillance....................................... 722
Drones........................................................... 707
Foreign Language Awards Program.................................. 709
Land Border, Air Ports-of-Entry Encounters....................... 714
Land Border Port-of-Entry Traffic................................ 701
Mission-Support Personnel, Information Technology................ 700
Nonintrusive Inspection, Radiological Detection Equipment........ 700
Opening Statement: Acting Deputy Commissioner McAleenan.......... 673
Operation Streamline............................................. 710
Reimbursable Agreements:
Abu Dhabi.................................................... 705
Interest, Level of Other Locations........................... 704
Other Locations.............................................. 710
Timetable.................................................... 702
Sequestration Impact:
Air and Marine Operations.................................... 699
Border Patrol Agent Staffing................................. 698
Flexibility, Reduction in.................................... 700
Overall...................................................... 696
Unmanned Aircraft................................................ 703
Use-of-Force Policies............................................ 713
Workload Staffing Model:
Part-timers.................................................. 705
Ports-of-Entry Resources..................................... 701
Staffing, Overall............................................ 691