[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 20, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H8141-H8146]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FUND INTEROPERABILITY REQUIREMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to appear here tonight on 
behalf of the Democratic leader to talk about a problem that we have 
faced for many, many decades in this country and little or nothing is 
being done about.
  And actually we have a very huge problem on our hands, and it is a 
problem that this Republican-led Congress and the administration has 
tried to minimize and brush aside for way too long, and that is 
interoperability.
  Our first responders, our police, our firefighters, our sheriffs, our 
National Guard members, emergency medical technicians, cannot talk to 
each other in time of emergency, or even out on routine patrol, they 
cannot talk to each other across agencies, across country or across 
city lines. And they cannot talk to each other, to the State, to the 
local and Federal Governments for which they serve. We have law 
enforcement and first responders out trying to do their job, but what 
they see and what happens before them, they cannot communicate with 
each other.
  The issue is called interoperability. Can I talk to the agencies next 
to me? Can I talk to that firefighter? Can I talk as a police officer 
to the emergency medical technician who is coming to help me?
  As a former city police officer, and as a Michigan State police 
trooper, I can tell you that this is something that the law enforcement 
community has known for decades. The issue gained national attention 
after the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 at the Murrah Building and again on 
September 11.

[[Page H8142]]

  Unfortunately after the wake-up calls this country has received, 
especially after September 11, this administration has simply rolled 
over and went back to sleep, until it was once again awakened by the 
arrival of Hurricane Katrina.
  Local first responders, government officials, military and National 
Guard leaders have all said that the inability of first responders to 
communicate made this national crisis, Hurricane Katrina, much worse 
than what it should have been.
  With Hurricane Katrina, we witnessed a complete communications 
meltdown that stretched from the gulf coast all of the way here to the 
Beltway. We witnessed the unimaginable horror that resulted from this 
meltdown. We saw babies crying. We saw older women weeping. We saw 
police officers running towards gunfire, unable to describe what is 
going on and unable to call for backup, because they had no 
communications.
  We saw buildings burning because there was no way to notify the fire 
department and the firefighters who were still in the area. The 
communications breakdown was so absolute that the director of FEMA said 
he did not know until Thursday, 3 days after the hurricane, that there 
were over 25,000 people stuck in the hell that was once known as the 
New Orleans Convention Center.
  We know that the inability to communicate contributed to the deaths 
of 121 firefighters on September 11. We do not yet now how many people 
died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, simply because public 
safety officials could not communicate with one another.
  But we do know that people died. We have all seen the pictures of 
bodies covered in sheets at the convention center. That should not have 
happened. Those people should not have to have died. We could see the 
frustration on the faces of the first responders, the medical 
professionals, the police, who did not have the necessary 
communications to get the job done and to save lives.
  Despite the difficult conditions and despite the lack of 
communication, those first responders should be commended for a job 
well done with the resources this Nation gave them to work with. But we 
owe it to our first responders. We owe them more than just thanks, more 
than just honors, and more than just promises.
  For once cannot we just stop the rhetoric, and I for one am sick and 
tired of the rhetoric and the empty promises that they will soon have 
interoperability, they will be able to communicate with each other, 
they will be able to save lives, as is their sworn duty to do.
  And that is why I am down here tonight and joined by some of my 
Democrat colleagues. That is why we have offered amendments, written 
letter after letter, and introduced legislation to increase funding for 
our first responders for interoperability.

                              {time}  2115

  I am not alone. Democrats have been calling for more resources and 
more funding for your first responders year after year. Unfortunately, 
our voices, these calls have fallen on deaf ears of the majority party 
and this administration.
  In the years since September 11, in 2 years Congress did allocate 
$260 million for interoperability. $260 million may sound like a lot, 
but the communications challenges facing this country, as we have 
ignored it for so long, are such a daunting task that it is estimated 
it will take $18 billion for this country to finally become 
interconnected with their communications for public safety and first 
responders. So you see, $260 million is really only a drop in the 
bucket for interoperability.
  What is more troubling is the last 2 years this administration has 
zeroed out any money in the budget for the only grant program 
specifically designed for public safety communications upgrade. In the 
last 2 years requests put in it get zeroed out by the administration. 
And the majority party is obligated to do what the administration has 
been telling them to do, and they failed to provide any money 
specifically for first responder communications.
  Shockingly, the administration continues to request no funding. Even 
in their most current budget, no funding, even though everyone knows 
and realizes that there is a lack of communications. Interoperability 
is a problem that must be solved to save lives and to properly respond 
to the disasters or terrorist attacks here in the country.
  The Department of Homeland Security has solicited proposals for a $10 
billion program to make 80,000 Federal law enforcement officers and 
agents interoperable. The Department of Justice and the Department of 
Homeland Security, they want to take most of the money and make sure 
the Federal Government can talk to each other. That is a good start. 
But there are about ten times as many State and local law enforcement 
officers, 800,000 in the United States. We should be making sure we are 
making the same commitment to our State and local governments, 
especially after what we saw this month, that State and local 
governments may be on their own for days following an attack or another 
hurricane like Hurricane Katrina.
  Why is it the Federal Government has a plan to make itself fully 
interoperable, but the first responders who are always the first on the 
scene, the first at the disaster, the first at the terrorist attack 
will have to wait until the Federal Government is fully interoperable? 
It is the local first responders who must be made interoperable first.
  The lack of commitment to our country's first responders became 
glaringly evident this past week. As The Washington Post reported on 
September 2, 2005: ``Police officers and National Guard members, along 
with law enforcement officers imported from around the State, rarely 
knew more than what they could see with their own eyes.''
  Dr. Lee Hamm, chairman of medicine at Tulane University said three 
days after the hurricane, ``The physicians and nurses are doing an 
incredible job, but there are patients laying on stretchers on the 
floor, the halls were dark, the stairwells are dark. There's no 
communication with the outside world.''
  Major General Harold Cross of the Mississippi National Guard said, 
``We have got runners running from commander to commander. In other 
words, we're going to the sound of gunfire, as we used to say during 
the Revolutionary War.''
  Rescuers and helicopters could not talk to the crews in the boats 
down below patrolling to try to save and rescue people. Three days 
after the hurricane, the emergency radio system in New Orleans had the 
capacity to support 800 users while there were three times as many 
trying to use that system. It was just simply overloaded.
  As Louisiana State Senator Robert Barham said regarding 
communication, ``We are no better off now than we were before September 
11.''
  The best way we can honor these public safety officials who bravely 
work through the devastation is to finally provide them with meaningful 
investment in public safety communications. No more excuses, Mr. 
Speaker.
  This Congress is made up of Members who are dedicated to our first 
responders and many Members with firsthand expertise in public safety 
communications. This problem has been studied for years. In fact, it 
has been over-studied. We on this side of the aisle have been saying 
for years, enough hand-wringing, enough finger-pointing. Let us get a 
plan and get that plan funded so that all first responders, whether 
they be local, State or Federal, can talk and communicate with each 
other at all times during disasters or terrorist attacks or just during 
routine regular patrol, coordinate their efforts. We know what the 
solutions are. So why, after all these years, have we done nothing?
  Why does this Congress and this administration continue to fail our 
first responders? Because governing is about priorities. And it was the 
priority of this Congress and this administration to cut taxes for the 
richest Americans over investing in radios to communicate with each 
other for our police officers. It was the priority of this Congress and 
this administration to cut taxes for the richest people in this country 
rather than investing in a stronger emergency 911 network.
  In the Committee on Energy and Commerce, a committee which I sit on, 
we are now going to be ordered to cut $10 billion in Medicaid instead 
of investing in our health care safety net.
  This Congress and this administration have the wrong priorities. Tax

[[Page H8143]]

cuts not only take precedence over first responder funding, but they 
also take precedence over allocating spectrum first responders need to 
better communicate. Our first responders need more spectrum because the 
radio channels they have now are clogged with too much traffic. The 
lack of spectrum is impeding their ability to talk to one another.
  Getting first responders the additional spectrum they need must be a 
priority; but instead of doing what needs to be done, the majority 
insists on waiting until the reconciliation bill so they can use the 
spectrum sales to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. 
First responders' communications should come before any more tax cuts.
  After September 11, I introduced a bipartisan piece of legislation 
along with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) and the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Engel) to create a dedicated funding source for 
public safety communications upgrades.
  This sessions I again introduced the Public Safety Interoperability 
Implementation Act, or H.R. 1323, to create a public safety 
communications trust fund. Under my legislation, after an initial 3-
year grant program, the funding for the trust fund would come from the 
future sales of the spectrum. Grants would be allocated to eligible 
entries to achieve interoperability, with multiyear grants available to 
ensure that agencies can develop a long-term plan without having to 
worry about funding from one year to the next or who is in charge of 
the budget.
  Congress has been using the sale of spectrum as a budget gimmick for 
years. This year we are again considering the legislation to sell a 
block of spectrum by 2008 estimated to be worth 10 to $20 billion. 
Where is this money going? The money is going to offset $126 billion in 
tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

  I think the proceeds should go to our police, our firefighters and 
not the millionaires. With all due respect to the people who are well 
off in this country, they are not clamoring for these tax cuts. It is 
just the philosophy of one party over the priority of needs of this 
great country.
  Senator John McCain even agrees with me. He has introduced a bill to 
give first responders the spectrum they need and to direct the proceeds 
of the spectrum auctions to a public communications grant program. The 
companies who are going to buy the spectrum are going to use it for 
advanced wireless communications. But what are we going to do if we do 
not act now? We will continue to fail our first responders if some of 
the auction proceeds do not go to ensuring that public safety, first 
responders, and local governments can invest in the very wireless 
communications that will result from the sale.
  It is an embarrassment that our 14-year-old students and kids in many 
cases have better wireless communications than our first responders. 
Again, I ask my colleagues in the majority, what is your priority going 
to be? Tax cuts for the richest of Americans or our firefighters? Tax 
cuts for the richest Americans or our police officers? Tax cuts for the 
richest Americans or emergency medical technicians?
  How many more people will have to die and how many more natural 
disasters and terrorist attacks will this country have to endure before 
the excuses stop and actions begin?
  What communication problems are we going to see with Hurricane Rita 
currently knocking on our door? We cannot continue to send our first 
responders out on the beat without the back-up, without the 
communication tools they need to do their jobs. We have the technology 
today to fully connect our first responders. Let us make the investment 
today to keep America safe.
  Mr. Speaker, as I said, this is an issue some of us have been working 
on for a long time. We have been to this floor offering amendments. We 
have gone to the Committee on Rules offering amendments. We have spoken 
on the floor. We have asked for reports. We want to see where the money 
is being spent, because it certainly is not being spent on the 
communications our first responders need.
  One of the champions, one of them who has been down here day-in and 
day-out working side by side on this issue is the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Lowey). We also have the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. 
Schwartz) who is a new Member who has taken up this issue, and she will 
speak after the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  I yield to the gentlewoman to kindly share a few thoughts with us.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for organizing 
this Special Order and emphasizing over and over again how important 
this issue is.
  Frankly, Mr. Speaker, it amazes me that 4 years after September 11 we 
are still talking about gaps in our Nation's strategy to prepare for 
the unthinkable, another terrorist attack. And one of these glaring 
gaps is the inability of first responders to effectively communicate in 
an emergency situation. We witnessed this 10 years ago in Oklahoma 
City. It resurfaced in Columbine in 1999. The problem proved to be 
deadly on September 11.
  Of the 58 firefighters who escaped the north tower on the World Trade 
Center and gave oral histories to the Fire Department of New York, only 
three, three heard radio warnings that the north tower was in danger of 
collapse. People all over the city looked at it happening, but our 
firefighters who bravely responded did not get any kind of radio 
warning. We will never know how many of the firefighters who died that 
day while heroically rescuing thousands of workers would have been 
spared if they had effective interoperable communications equipment to 
receive the evacuation orders.
  In the wake of Katrina, reports from the gulf indicate that 
communications failures plagued our first responders once again. The 
lack of communication with State and local officials in New Orleans 
compounded FEMA's poor response.
  The New York Times reported that rescuers in helicopters could not 
talk to crews patrolling in boats, and National Guard commanders in 
Mississippi had to use runners to relay orders. In 2005? We are going 
back to the days of Paul Revere. They had to use runners. They could 
not communicate. Crews on the ground could not talk to one another to 
coordinate searches, slowing down the rescue effort.
  For years, as my good colleague just said, several of us have 
demanded that the administration take the necessary steps to facilitate 
adequate communication between first responders in the event of an 
emergency. These demands have gone largely unanswered. I have once 
again introduced legislation to require the Department of Homeland 
Security to create a comprehensive interoperability strategy and to 
authorize funding for first responders and government agencies to plan 
and purchase equipment.
  Despite consensus, I do not know anyone that disagrees that 
interoperability is a problem and that first responders do not have 
necessary resources. The bill has not even moved out of committee.

                              {time}  2130

  The record of this majority and this administration is troubling in 
other ways, too. First responders also lack adequate radio spectrum for 
their radios to work. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), my good 
colleague, referenced that legislation. Legislation has been repeatedly 
introduced to solve this, but the majority will not let it advance.
  The Intelligence Reform Act that we passed last year stated the DHS, 
the Department of Homeland Security, must come up with a timeline for 
achieving interoperability by April of this year. Five months later, I 
have not seen the report. Has the gentleman seen the report? There is 
no report.
  Finally, in his fiscal year 2006 budget request, the President did 
propose to fund the Office of Interoperability and Compatibility within 
the Department of Homeland Security at $20.5 million, a 35 percent 
decrease from fiscal year 2005 levels, and far below the billions 
needed to meet this challenge. The President did not get briefed 
adequately when Katrina hit. When he was preparing the budget, he 
clearly was not briefed adequately.
  Eight years ago, let me repeat that again, 8 years ago, the final 
report of the Federal Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee 
concluded that, ``Unless immediate measures are taken to promote 
interoperability, public safety

[[Page H8144]]

agencies will not be able to adequately discharge their obligation to 
protect life and property in a safe, efficient and cost-effective 
manner.''
  Last week, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project found that minimal 
progress has been made to provide adequate radio spectrum for first 
responders, and Commissioner Kean has called the failed communications 
that slowed Katrina rescue efforts a ``national scandal.''
  Now, forgive me if I sound impatient or even angry, but with nearly 
every major study and report on homeland security concluding that lack 
of interoperability remains one of the most serious issues facing first 
responders in this country, I simply cannot understand why this 
administration has done little more than pay lip service to this issue. 
Well, it is time to do more than talk the talk.
  We must do something now to ensure that in the event of an emergency, 
be it a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, our local police, 
firefighters, EMS workers, 911 dispatch operators, State police, 
National Guard, Coast Guard, FEMA, FBI and all other public safety 
agencies have the ability to communicate with one another. Hurricane 
Katrina is not a wake-up call that something needs to be done, it is a 
fire alarm. And I urge my colleagues to immediately adopt legislation 
to address this critical problem.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for 
organizing this Special Order. I do hope that the administration and 
some people in the leadership are listening. I am tired, and I know the 
gentleman is, I am impatient and I am angry.
  We have hearings in the Committee on Homeland Security. Members of 
the administration testify; they agree with us. We ask them, when are 
you going to send out requests for proposals; when are you going to 
seriously address this problem? We are going to do it; we are going to 
do it.
  Katrina came. Hundreds of people lost their lives, and we still do 
not have a definite plan in place to make sure that people can talk to 
each other and communicate with each other to save lives.
  So I thank the gentleman again.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her words and 
her passion, for the statement. She has been on this issue from day 
one. She has been a great advocate for New York and the devastation you 
saw on September 11. And the administration continued to say, the 
gentlewoman is right, threw a little bit of money the first year, 
second year; but 3 years later, the last 3 years, the budget proposal 
by the President and approved by the majority party, the Republican 
Party in this Congress has zeroed out the only program specifically set 
up to develop interoperability.
  Through the objection of the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) 
and the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz) and myself, by the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), a number of us have come down 
here repeatedly, saying we have got to fund this program. They say, we 
will get to it, we will get to it, we will get to it. Even before 
Hurricane Katrina hit, some of us said, have you got your 
interconnectibility ready? We know that technology exists. The military 
has it. Why can we not use it? Once again, it is, we will get to you. 
We are getting tired of that excuse. So I appreciate the gentlewoman's 
help and leadership on this issue.
  Next, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. 
Schwartz), who is a new member of our caucus and has done a wonderful 
job. She has really been concerned about what happened in the terrorist 
attack of September 11; and of course, Pennsylvania was part of the 
September 11 tragedy. We all know too well the lack of communications, 
how it hindered our operations, even our communication, to know what is 
going on, whether it was in the air or on the ground in Pennsylvania.
  So, with that, I yield to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. 
Schwartz), my friend.
  Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the 
opportunity to speak with my colleague. Mr. Speaker, I thank the 
gentleman from Michigan for organizing this evening's conversation on 
first responder communications.
  This past weekend, I joined with other Members of this body on a 
fact-finding mission to the gulf shore communities which have been 
ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. I was struck by several things, two 
particularly relevant to this evening.
  First, I felt, as so many other witnesses have felt, that the images 
on television, on the Internet, in the printed press, do not do justice 
to the enormity of the devastation.
  Second, I was moved by the sense of shared duty among the first 
responders who have arrived on the scene from all across this Nation.
  These police officers, firefighters, medics and National Guardsmen 
and -women came to the distressed gulf coast region, and many of them 
came voluntarily because they saw their fellow Americans in need of 
help. They came because they felt duty bound to their brothers and 
their sisters, their fellow Americans, most of whom they had never met.
  Mr. Speaker, we in this body are also duty bound. It is our duty to 
ensure that our first responders have the tools that they need to 
protect and serve any community in this Nation, under any 
circumstances.
  We seemed to understand this responsibility after the tragedy of 
September 11. Our respect and admiration for the role of first 
responders in New York and here in Washington and in Pennsylvania was 
to be matched by a Federal commitment to address some of the 
difficulties that they faced in the minutes and hours after the plane 
struck. However, what we found in the aftermath of Katrina was that our 
first responders still lack the tools that they need to be most 
effective.
  Four years ago, almost to the day, evacuation orders were not heard 
in the towers of the World Trade Center because the police, the 
firefighters and other emergency personnel simply could not speak to 
each other. And just weeks ago, in the days following Hurricane 
Katrina, similar problems hampered initial search-and-rescue, security, 
and relief efforts.

  Those of us who are participating in this evening's discussion, along 
with many of our colleagues who could not be with us this evening and 
Americans across the country, were alarmed by the lack of leadership 
coming from the Federal Government, particularly the administration, in 
preparation for and in response to Katrina.
  The American public was rightfully disappointed, if not horrified, by 
the Nation's state of preparedness, which appeared to be so woefully 
inadequate, despite our past experiences and promises from this 
administration to do better.
  Over the past 4 years, members of this body, like my colleague from 
Michigan, like my esteemed colleague from New York, have worked 
tirelessly to prod the Department of Homeland Security to provide our 
Nation's cities with standards for interoperable communications. As a 
State senator in Pennsylvania, I authored and passed a resolution 
calling on Congress to act; yet this guidance has not yet come.
  So as we await leadership from the Department of Homeland Security, 
communities across the Nation are working to equip themselves with the 
technology necessary to enable various local and regional first 
responders to seamlessly communicate in the event of an emergency or 
mass incident, and they are doing so because they cannot afford to 
wait.
  In my region, the Philadelphia Police Department, along with 
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority officials, are working to 
address the fact that their radio systems are not compatible, making it 
virtually impossible for them to communicate should a coordinated 
response be necessary in any of our subway tunnels, as might have 
happened, and did happen in London.
  I have been working closely with city and transit officials to find 
interim remedies to this problem, but the Federal Government should be 
enabling them to implement a long-term solution. This is what is 
required nationally.
  The President must propose, and Congress must act, to provide a 
dedicated radio spectrum for first responders.
  The Department of Homeland Security must establish Federal standards 
for interoperability.

[[Page H8145]]

  The President should request, and the Congress should provide, the 
funding necessary to implement these goals.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) 
tonight to say that the time for these actions is now. Our communities 
and our citizens across the Nation cannot wait.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for coming out and 
joining us tonight on this Special Order. I was really interested in 
some of those recommendations she made here earlier tonight. Those are 
many of the recommendations we have heard for years and failed to act 
upon. Even the planning money that was to be for this national 
operability, so they will be coordinated together, has been zeroed out 
in the budget.
  Then we have Hurricane Katrina, and it just emphasizes the 
devastation that occurred and the lack of knowledge and response. 
People are saying, well, why did we not know? We did not know because 
there are no communications. We cannot continue to say the excuse we 
did not know, because we had the opportunity to do this. This has been 
going on since I worked the road some 20 years ago, and trying to 
communicate with each other. Unfortunately, we had these tragedies, but 
maybe we can use this opportunity in a positive light to learn 
something from this and maybe get some interoperability. I certainly 
appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership and compassion for those who 
have suffered so much in Hurricane Katrina.
  Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, ABC News, Ted Koppel, the headline, 
``Primetime Moment of Crisis: System Failure.'' I am not talking 
necessarily about the lack of communication and who should have done 
this or not. I just want to talk for a moment about what they saw in 
this Primetime program last Thursday on communications, just 
communications.
  We start with Greg Meffert. I got the transcript of the show because 
it was so revealing of so many of the problems they had just through 
lack of communication.
  Mr. Meffert says, ``The only communication we had was a laptop that 
we brought, and it had a wireless broadband card that worked all the 
way up into the Hyatt.'' The Hyatt was where the mayor of New Orleans 
had his command center. ``So the mayor and the chief and all of us were 
getting our information via this little laptop. Finally, the Internet 
feed goes out.''
  Ted Koppel says: ``It was one in a series of communications 
breakdowns that would contribute to untold suffering and a still 
untallied number of deaths. At 8:14 central time, the National Weather 
Service issued a bulletin reading, `flash flood warning, a levee breach 
occurred along the industrial canal at Tennessee Street.' The problem 
was that by the time the bulletin went out, the hurricane had been 
battering the city for hours. Electricity and phones were out. So most 
people neither saw nor heard the warning. Officials in Washington 
seemed totally oblivious to the bulletin.''
  Going on, on Ted Koppel, Live Primetime last Thursday, Michael 
Chertoff said, ``We are extremely pleased with the response that every 
element of the Federal Government, all of our Federal partners have 
made to this terrible tragedy.''
  Ted Koppel: ``If Secretary Chertoff was pleased, it could only have 
been because he had no notion of what was actually happening on the 
ground in New Orleans. Between 20 and 30,000 people were stuck inside 
the Superdome. There was no more food and water. The toilets overflowed 
long ago. While those inside were supposed to be bused to the Houston 
Astrodome, the streets were flooded and there weren't enough buses 
available anyway.''

                              {time}  2145

  Let me go on. Here is what the President said: ``I don't think 
anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a 
serious storm, but these levees got breached. And as a result, much of 
New Orleans is flooded, and now we're having to deal with it and 
will.''
  Ted Koppel: ``The President is correct. Nobody did anticipate the 
breach of the levees, but they did predict that the levees would be 
flooded. At Toru Hospital, 10 patients have died overnight. There was 
only one working telephone in the entire hospital and a small staff 
which was low on supplies. They were forced to make some very tough 
choices. Correspondent Bob Woodruff was there.''
  Female doctor: ``What we're doing today is, the physicians are going 
around and evaluating every patient. If they can say their name, we're 
giving them an IV fluid to make their tank better, to kind of give them 
a boost.''
  Bob Woodruff: ``What if they can't say their name?''
  Doctor: ``We're not giving them IV fluids. We consider them not 
viable.''
  Going on, underneath this report last Thursday, Lieutenant General 
Russell Honore, U.S. Army.
  The reporter asked: ``Will these people be out of New Orleans by 
sundown?''
  Lieutenant General Honore says: ``No, how do you move 20,000 people 
by sundown? No, hell no.''
  Ted Koppel: ``Having heard reports of guns inside, SWAT teams and the 
military arrived with weapons locked and loaded. From the perspective 
of those stranded inside, the rescuers looked more like men prepared to 
put down a prison riot.''
  President George W. Bush: ``I'm pleased to report that the convention 
center is secured. One of the objectives we had today was to move in 
and secure the convention center.''
  Ted Koppel: ``It would be one more day before the buses finally 
came.''
  President George W. Bush: ``I'm going to fly out of here in a minute, 
but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen. I 
understand that the devastation requires more than just one day's 
attention.''
  I would like to hold the President to his words because I came here 
tonight to talk about public safety communications and the failure of 
this Congress and the Bush administration to adequately respond to the 
communication needs of our first responders. Sadly, we in law 
enforcement and in Congress who work on these issues were not surprised 
by the lack of communication after Katrina. Much of that transcript 
which I read we were not surprised by.
  We have seen many examples of crises where first responders could not 
communicate, going back to 1982, with the plane that left Washington 
National and crashed into the Potomac, or take the Oklahoma bombing at 
the Murrah Building in 1995, or the California forest fires in 2003, 
and September 11. We just experienced Hurricane Katrina, and now we 
have Hurricane Rita knocking at our door.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why I have been working for years to make the 
needed investments so that firefighters and police can talk to each 
other, so that police can talk to EMTs, so that officials can talk to 
ambulances, so that the medical personnel that people need to get 
better or to be rescued can talk and communicate and save lives. We 
thought we finally made some progress when President Bush said, and 
this is what he said in January of 2002 in talking about 9/11, the 
President said and I quote: ``It is important that we understand in the 
first minutes and hours after an attack that that is the most hopeful 
time to save lives, and that is why we're focusing on the heroic 
efforts of those first responders. That's why we want to spend money to 
make sure equipment is there, strategies are there, communications are 
there, to make sure that they have whatever it takes to respond.''
  I agree with the President 100 percent; but, unfortunately, I say 
they are empty words. What did the President say and what did he close 
with on the Ted Koppel show last Thursday? He said: ``I'm going to fly 
out of here in a minute, but I want you to know that I'm not going to 
forget what I've seen. I understand that the devastation requires more 
than one day's attention.'' With all due respect, Mr. President, we are 
pushing 3 years, over 3 years since you gave us almost similar words 
after 9/11. There has been scant follow-through, very little planning, 
very little standards-making, and minuscule funding for 
interoperability.
  Evidently, former FEMA Director Brown was surprised by the meltdown. 
Even he told CBS News that the agency failed to anticipate ``the total 
lack of communication, the inability to hear and have good intelligence 
on the ground about what was occurring there.''
  Perhaps FEMA Director Brown should have read the report published

[[Page H8146]]

by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which I have cited many times on this 
floor before. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors report 
released in June of last year, more than 80 percent of our cities are 
not interoperable with Federal agencies. New Orleans is and was one of 
those cities. This means that in the event of a terrorist attack or 
another natural disaster, far more than three-fourths of the United 
States cities would be woefully unprepared to coordinate responses and 
communicate effectively to be safe, to be secure, and to do their job.
  Here are some more troubling numbers from that U.S. Conference of 
Mayors report: 97 percent of cities are unprepared to communicate 
during a chemical plant disaster; 94 percent of the cities are 
unprepared to communicate during a rail disaster, much like we saw in 
Chicago this last week; 92 percent of the cities are unprepared to 
communicate during a seaport disaster.
  Clearly, our local public safety agencies are no closer to being 
interoperable than they were 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 20 years ago, or 
in 1982 when the plane went down in the Potomac, or even 20 years ago 
when I worked the road as a Michigan State Trooper. It all points back 
to the fact that public safety communications have not been a priority 
for this Congress or this administration.
  The estimates to make local, State, and Federal first responders 
interoperable are as high as $18 billion, yet only $260 million has 
been provided specifically for these upgrades; and the President 
continues to zero out funding for this program in his budget requests.
  Mr. Speaker, my legislation would take communications funding away 
from the whims of the congressional appropriation process and away from 
the President. H.R. 1323 would set up a public safety communications 
trust fund, and revenue from that fund would come from the sales of the 
spectrum. My bill would dedicate 50 percent of the net revenue from 
future spectrum sales into a public safety trust fund. By dedicating 
these funds from the sale of the spectrum, we would ensure that funding 
would be set aside no matter what happens in the annual appropriations 
process.
  Local agencies cannot afford to upgrade their communications 
equipment without Federal assistance. I believe that Federal assistance 
is more than justified when the Federal Government repeatedly calls 
upon local first responders to be even more vigilant and to be even 
more prepared for possible acts of terrorism and, now, from natural 
disasters.
  In fact, the 9/11 Commission report outlines a similar 
recommendation. The report states: ``The inability to communicate was a 
critical element of the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Somerset 
County, Pennsylvania, crash sites where multiple agencies and multiple 
jurisdictions responded. The occurrence of this problem at three very 
different sites is strong evidence that compatible and adequate 
communications among public safety organizations at the local, State 
and Federal levels remain an important problem. Federal funding of such 
interagency communication units should be given high priority.''

  Last week, the former Republican Governor of New Jersey and co-chair 
of the 9/11 Commission said their recommendations have not been heeded. 
Governor Thomas Kean said, ``It's the same thing all over again. It's a 
lack of communication, first responders not being able to talk to each 
other. It's no command and control, nobody in charge; it's delayed 
responses. It's basically many of the things that, frankly, if some of 
our recommendations had been passed by the U.S. Congress, that could 
have been avoided.''
  Some may argue that local agencies can apply for grants under the 
Department of Homeland Security State formula block grants. They argue 
that money can be used for interoperable communication systems. Well, 
Mr. Speaker, I have been out on this floor and I have offered 
amendments on the House floor to find out how much money has gone to 
interoperability. I have received incomplete and delayed responses from 
the Department of Homeland Security. They have no idea how much money. 
They can tell you how much money has been spent, but they cannot tell 
you how much money from these grant programs has been spent on 
interoperability in 2002 or 2003.
  They just recently figured out how much has been spent for 2004, but 
they are not sure if it went to interoperability or not. They sort of 
think some of it did. That does not say much about the oversight or the 
planning from the Department of Homeland Security about where the 
billions of dollars of State formula grant money has gone.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, this administration must develop a plan and 
standards to give State and local officials some guidance. There has to 
be minimum standards setting. We have been saying this for years. It 
does not cost that much to set them, but it has not been done. The 
folks at SAFECOM, which is one of the departments within the Department 
of Homeland Security that is in charge of developing these standards, 
SAFECOM, charged with developing these standards, told Congress last 
year that ``at the rate we're going, it will be another 20 years before 
our public safety agencies are fully interoperable.'' Another 20 years.
  I do not know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I am sure the American 
people would agree with me that we do not have another 20 years. 
Another terrorist attack on the U.S. is not a question of if, but when. 
Another hurricane is approaching the gulf as I speak here tonight. 
Public safety is not an issue where the administration and Congress 
should continue to drag their feet. Yet here we are, 4 years after 9/
11, still at square one. It is a disgrace, and it must be changed.
  I hope that tonight we have helped to enlighten the American people 
and that interoperability becomes a reality and not a fiction or a 
dream that many of us in law enforcement have had for more than 20 
years. Maybe the words of the President after 9/11 and after Hurricane 
Katrina, when he says he is going to jump on his plane and do something 
about it, we will actually get to work and do something now. We cannot 
take any more natural disasters like the one we saw in the last few 
weeks on TV because we are unprepared, because we cannot communicate, 
because we do not have intelligence on the ground, because those who 
are sent in to do the job cannot talk to each other.
  How much longer does this have to go on? I hope and pray not much 
longer.

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