Remarks by Secretary Tom Ridge to the NEMA Conference

Release Date: 02/24/03 00:00:00

U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Office of the Press Secretary
February 24, 2003
For Immediate Release

Grand Hyatt Hotel
Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY RIDGE: I could say thanks to each and every one to you, because you have already given the Department a tremendous amount of support since we started in the office of the White House, when I served the President as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. So I want to thank you for the invitation to return to address your group.

I want to say hello to my Pennsylvania Emergency Management Director Dave Sanko.  I saw my buddies Charlie, who used to serve in that capacity.  Is Charlie here?  Charlie. Good.  

So it's a great pleasure to be back and I thank you for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you this afternoon.  First of all, I want to acknowledge a couple of colleagues of mine in this enterprise.  The first is Mike Brown.  Mike succeeds a great personal friend of mine and yours, a big guy with a big heart that did a big job as FEMA director, Joe Allbaugh.  And Mike has been leading the transition planning and the effort, as we bring the Federal Emergency Management Agency into the new Department.  He brings the same energy, tremendous commitment.  We're well ahead on that transitioning process.  And he reminds me every day, although I don't need a reminder, it is an all-hazards emergency management agency.  Applause.  Did I do okay? (Applause.)

And I've had the opportunity to interact with literally dozens of men and women in the administration over the past year to 15 months.  But Jerry Hauer at HHS has been one that I have worked with on many, many issues.  And his professionalism and his responsiveness and his dedication to getting the job done is -- ranks among the best in this town.  So, Jerry, it's a pleasure to be in the same program with you as well.  

One of the imperatives of homeland security is the need for partners to communicate constantly.  I consider you an integral part of this effort to build a national capacity to prevent terrorist attack, reduce vulnerabilities, to respond to one.  So, as a partner, you must be informed of your priorities and your concerns, and I must keep you informed of our vision and our way ahead, as well.  Our shared effort to secure our country depends upon it.

It is a challenging time for the new Department of Homeland Security.  It's a time of growth, it's a time of progress.  On March 1st, just over three months since it was signed into law, the Department of Homeland Security will finally become one united force for securing the homeland.  March 1st is the date when most of those 22 member agencies come on board.  

It's been noted before that it's the largest and most significant transformation of American government since the Truman administration, and it will truly be an historic day for this country.  But I would share with you that I think March 1st is less of a beginning than a continuation.  I think it's important to remind ourselves of that and, from my perspective, it's important to remind the American public about.  It's a continuation of the hard work of over 175,000 Americans who go to work every single day in these 22 different agencies, who have been working on their piece of the homeland security puzzle for a long, long time.  The continuation of that professional work by these men and women, who wake up every single day and go to work to keep our nation secure.  

And like us, like everybody in Homeland Security, I know you have not been standing still and you have not been waiting for the calendar to change, either.  You work with us every day, you work with your state and local organizations and, frankly, I don't think there's been enough attention paid to the progress that has been made and the leadership that has been provided at the state and the local level as we take a look back and flash back to September 12, 2001, and see where we are as a country today.  Some of it's been driven by the federal government, but there's an enormous amount of leadership out there, and even greater action that has been done at the state and local level without any incentive from the federal government.  Your organization has been at the heart of driving much of that change and those protective enhancements that have occurred since 9/11.

Every day, this country does more to achieve the goals of homeland security, prevent terrorism, reduce our vulnerability to attack, and prepare to save lives and recover from future attack.  Consider recent progress.  The Transportation Security Administration met extraordinary congressional deadlines on passenger and baggage screening, and nearly 50,000 highly trained screeners are now posted at commercial airports.  We've begun to restructure our border enforcement and immigration services, working daily and diligently with her friends in Canada and Mexico on new 21st century smart border agreements.  We've created new plans to protect our critical physical and cyber infrastructure, dams and power plants, computer networks and communications systems.  We've accelerated deployment of the nation's first early warning network of sensors to detect a bio attack, began smallpox vaccinations for those on the potential front lines of terror.  We've laid groundwork for a terrorist threat integration center.  The Customs Department has begun to deploy men and women offshore to check those commercial ships and that cargo, particularly those containers in foreign ports rather than waiting to inspect them when they arrive in this country.  The list goes on and on of the initiatives that have been taken at the local and state and federal level.  

As the President has noted, law enforcement and intelligence are working together as never before to assemble and analyze threat information.  And I might add, that's between every level of government, federal, state and local, and I suspect it is going to get nothing but better and better in the months and years ahead.

The Department of Homeland Security has gone from an idea on paper to a reality, in large part because a few organizations in this town supported it, and we thank you for your support.  You said it would help you in your day-to-day efforts, and I thank you for making a difference.  

As you may know, the Department has an entire directorate focused on emergency preparedness and response that is led by the very able and very capable men and women of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  It will be the nation's incident manager, all-hazard incident manager.  (Laughter and applause.)  I don't want the tattoo, I don't need -- (laughter).

The nation's incident manager, providing funding and command and control support in crisis.  This unit will consolidate five or more separate federal response plans into one genuinely all-hazard approach, and we look forward to working with this organization as we integrate those five plans.  This new unit in this new department will give you one direct line of authority from the President through the Secretary of Homeland Security on down to the local level.  The Department will provide one face, one voice, and one point of contact in an emergency.  This is what emergency managers have asked for, and this is what we are doing.

It was very revealing to me, and I suspect some of you were probably well aware of it, but when the explosion occurred in Staten Island a couple of days ago and our incident management team in our coordination center was notified, within a very short period of time in our headquarters, we knew what was going on that the local level, the state level.  We engaged immediately in conversations with the Coast Guard, the EPA, Health and Human Services.  When you bring all these forces to bear, you get not only a good, clear picture to the extent that you can of what is happening and what occurred, but also I think you have a much greater understanding of the kind of response that is being generated, and what may be needed in terms of the follow-on effort.  And that is precisely what we intend to do in this new directorate.

In addition, we will standardize the training of first responders to counter the new and deadly terrorist threats we face. These measures will help us plan efficiently for a crisis and respond more effectively in the event that one crisis -- more than one crisis occurs.  In this new age, the connection between emergency management and public health has never been more important.  We know what the terrorists can do and so we must train and equip ourselves to meet every threat, including a bio terrorist threat.  Therefore, the President has directed billions of dollars to public health systems across this country to prepare for one, improve facilities, enhance communications, treatment of patients, new disease surveillance capabilities are all part of this enhance national effort.  Now this, the Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, will assist by directing several important assets to this kind of -- in the event that this kind of incident would occur.  Among them, the strategic national stockpile and the national disaster medical system, formerly at HHS, becomes part of the Department of Homeland Security.  Our great friends at HHS are going to manage the stockpile, make sure it has the requisite vaccines and -- vaccines and diagnostics and the like, and they will keep it updated, but it will be available to us and incumbent on us to get it distributed in response to a crisis if one occurs.  

The Nuclear Incident Response Team, formerly of the Department of Energy, moves into this new Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, along with the domestic emergency support teams from the Department of Justice and the National Domestic Preparedness Office, formerly of the FBI.

Now, our goal will be, and working with Michael I'm sure it will be done, our goal is to merge these programs and agencies, to integrate their capabilities, so that the men and women who so ably perform their task can perform their jobs even better.  And one of the challenges of the new department, 22 different agencies, 175,000 strong, is to take these professional people who bring certain skills, but add value and enhance our preparedness and enhance our abilities and enhance our capacities by integrating them more effectively than they have been done before.  They've been stovepiped before across the board.  We think there are enormous capacities, stronger capacities we can build because Congress has given us the flexibility to merge and to integrate some of these units.  The one they said you cannot merge and you cannot integrate, however, was the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and we're glad of that.

We know we will face some challenges along the way, clearly.  The homeland security structure that had built up over time was -- over time was stovepiped, and we think there is a better way to integrate people, technology and funding.  And sometimes the stovepiping makes coordination pretty difficult.  You deal with it on a day-to-day basis.  I asked your leadership a few minutes ago if you have the same challenge at the local level as we do it the national level, trying to bring these different groups together to set priorities.  I was told that you don't have any problem whatsoever in that regard.  (Laughter.) We're the only ones that apparently have the challenge.  

But we face in many ways many of the same challenges, trying to break down traditional ways of looking at things in the post-9/11 environment, and getting people on board to help set emergency management priorities.  I'm absolutely confident that we'll get it done and are doing it; it's just going to take some time, I think, to change some thinking.

Remember, emergency preparedness and response was divided between several agencies including FEMA, HHS, Justice, Treasury, and the Energy Department.  Border protection was divided between Transportation, Justice, Agriculture Department, among others.  Protection of our critical infrastructure, 85 percent of which is in private sector hands, was Commerce and the FBI, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, among others.  

The President recognized that we need to reunite these disparate elements behind one primary mission and under one chain of command.  And, starting on March 1st, that's exactly what we plan on doing.

There are going to be some other challenges.  Whether federal, state and local -- whenever federal, state and local managers work together, there may be differences in procedures or points of view -- I didn't know that.  (Laughter.) But it says it right here, so it must be true.  (Laughter.)  Of course there are.  Everybody brings a different perspective.  

Everybody brings a different perspective, depending on where you're working, the community you're working, the issues you've been dealing with.  And our job is to try to work with you and others to resolve those differences as quickly as possible, to set those priorities and then act upon them.  And I think the new federal structure will help us do that.  

We will have a much more robust, much larger office of state and local coordination, and I don't mean a huge bureaucracy.  We're not into building a huge bureaucracy in the nation's capital.  If we're going to build assets and build structure, it's not going to be in Washington; it's going to be around the rest of the country, I assure you of that.  But we will have an office of state and local coordination separate and distinct from the four directorates.  There is some overlap.  And this, these group of men and women in our shop will be working with you and others as we build the capacity around this country, set priorities, and hopefully work together on matters -- funding matters before the Hill, so we can speak with one voice.  

In addition, our Homeland Security Command Center will track the status of homeland security across the nation at all times.  We want to maintain constant communication with our states and territories and other stakeholders, and we look forward to getting your input as we build and enhance this capacity.  Our all-hazards approach to a crisis is designed to multiply this force -- our force of strength.  

What else can we do?  What else do we need?  We need an educated and where public.  As we announced the other day in the Ready Campaign, and I won't belabor the issue, but terrorism forces us to make a choice.  We can be afraid, or we can be ready.  Americans aren't afraid of anybody or anything, so it's pretty clear we're just going to be ready.  

And I just need to thank all those organizations that helped us launch that campaign, beginning with the Red Cross and the Sloan Foundation that helped fund it, and the Yellow Pages and the Postal Service, and I've probably already forgotten a couple and I'll get the letter saying you forgot to mention our name.  But the fact of the matter is we're a great partnership, great collaboration.  Salvation Army was included.  

Because people asked us, what do we need to do in order to get ready?  And we said, basically, have a communication plan, have emergency supply kit, stay informed.  And then go about the business of being America, and let the professionals -- and you're among those professionals -- who go to work on a day-to-day basis worrying about terrorist threats and how we can prepare for it and how we can respond -- left the professionals.  You as an individual citizen, you as a family member, you as a spouse, these are the things we would like you to do.

I know there was a lot of public discussion, a lot of political cartoons -- I've seen a couple -- of people using some duct tape.  (Laughter.)  And I believe humor communicates, is a good way to communicate a message.  And we certainly never told anyone to use it.  But the notion that people can be empowered with information and people want to act, and all we're saying is, be smart, have a communication plan, keep informed, put these supplies away and then go about your business and let the Department of Homeland Security, let the emergency management professionals in this country, let the Coast Guard, let the CIA, let the FBI, the military, Border Patrol and everybody, let them worry about the day-to-day elements of homeland security.  

And I think this year-long public information campaign to mobilize citizens will help us be a much better prepared country in the future.  We know that by individuals, by protecting themselves, help protect their community as well.  By helping people avoid panic and confusion in a crisis, we help our first responders do their jobs better, saving lives in the process.  That's why our message will be delivered by emergency managers and firefighters and EMT and other people Americans know and other people Americans trust.

We have a fairly ambitious agenda at the Department of Homeland Security, and we have budgeted the resources we believe to accomplish it.  The President's budget reflects his continuing commitment to our priorities into the mission.  The agencies that make up the Department would receive $36.2 billion for fiscal year 2004, a 7.4 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. It's the largest of any Cabinet department.  For the past two years, nearly 60,000 new people have been added to protect the homeland.  

The President's original proposal, going into the 2003 budget, was intended to let state and local governments decide what their needs were, statewide strategic planning, purchasing of equipment, training and exercises, mutual aid pacts, and then apply for the funding to meet those priorities.  Unfortunately, Congress didn't provide the flexibility that the President -- frankly, I had hoped that we would receive.  I must tell you, as a former governor, working with my local colleagues in public service, be they elected officials or the emergency management professionals and first responders, I'm not always -- I've never been convinced, particularly in a situation like this, that the folks in Washington can set the priorities as well as the folks back home.  It's just a certain point of view that I have, and we regret that we didn't quite get the flexibility that we wanted.  We got some, for a little over $1 billion, and that's fine.  We wish we could've had it for others as well.  

Nevertheless, Congress has made its decision, the money is coming in and much of it is flowing into the new Department.  Our job is to get it out the door as quickly and effectively as possible, and I assure you we are working on doing just that.  I just hope that we can work together, send a unified voice to Congress in the 2004 budget that, while we appreciate that earmarking historically is a congressional prerogative, more flexibility with regard to state and local planning and priorities is something that we think we need to build a national capacity to prepare for and respond to a terrorist event.

The issues we spoke about a year ago, mutual aid, information sharing, emergency credentialing, interoperability, security clearances, secure video teleconferencing our just as important today.  You should know that I continue to promote, and we are going to finally see some action with regard to providing secure phones, faxes and videoconferencing in your emergency operations centers around the country.  We've got the money for the equipment and we've got the money to do some background checks and getting security clearances.  That's something -- that's an initiative we will be working with you on this year.  We've also put in place means by which we are going to give your governors secure telephone links.  

So we've begun developing this network in sharing -- and the capacity to share sensitive information.  We will look to you to help us see that he gets done as quickly as possible.  Obviously, you know, we do have to have some security clearances for some of these folks to receive threat and intelligence information, but we're going to try to promote and push that out as quickly as possible.

Last week when we announced the Ready Campaign, ready.gov, we tried to remind Americans and actually remind those who would challenge us that Americans do not submit to fear, that we will be prepared.  We also tried to remind your fellow citizens around the country that the hard work, the professional work that goes on on a day-to-day basis includes organizations such as yours.  We developed a pretty good partnership when I had the opportunity to serve the President as an Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, and I look forward to building on the partnership now as Secretary of the new Department for Homeland Security, and am grateful that you give me the opportunity to share with you these thoughts at this meeting, and would be happy to respond to some questions before I leave.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

Q: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask the first question.  Our profession, our members and our association have had a long history and legacy of providing multidisciplined coordination and collaboration across the all phases if not beyond of emergency management, as well as coordination among multilevels of government.  We stand by committed to support you in your strategy and your division in your department.  What would you like NEMA to do for you?

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Well, I don't get that offer too often.  (Laughter.)  But now that you've asked -- (laughter) -- well, I've got a couple ideas in mind, and I must tell you I was in Cincinnati announcing this campaign.  But afterwards, we spent about an hour with some of the local officials, elected and others, and the county's emergency management director, and we started just talking about the real world practical problems of sitting down with these many, many interests involving security of the community, homeland security, and saying, one, how do we get -- how do we work together to get folks to accept the notion that they will be funding for these programs, multiyear funding, that we can't have it all in one year?  And then how do we set priorities?  

And I think between now and the 2004 budget, because we know there will be billions more in the 2004 budget, it would be good to work with you, maybe put up a little working group together to help set those priorities.  Another facet, another characteristic of this department that I would like to be able to accomplish in the first year is a one-stop shop, so you don't have to go to FEMA for a couple of grants or to ODP, because FEMA is in the new Department, the Office of Domestic Preparedness is in the new Department.  Maybe we could sit down together with a couple of other groups to determine the best way to secure the information as quickly as possible so in one venue, one place in the new department, we can get all our applications in, set priorities and get the dollars out the door.  

We will never have as much money as everybody thinks they need, but once we get an appropriation, we need to get it out there as quickly as possible.  And it's not just about spending the money, it's about spending it on the right things.  And so I think, right off the top of my head, working on the one-stop shop concept, maybe taking a look at the applications to see if we can refine the process, one of these days I hope it's paperless, you know, that would be nice.  And also to sit down and talk about priority setting nationally, because at the end of the day, we've said before and we believe it, the homeland is secure when the hometown is secure.  So we start not from the top down but from the bottom up, setting priorities.  So those would be two very helpful contributions to our process over the next several months.

Q: We very much appreciate the rapidity, for example, which you talked about on secured telecommunication.  We actually had our secure video communication equipment several days before we got the documentation.  But I think --

SECRETARY RIDGE:  I didn't know we were that good.  (Laughter.)

Q: I think the comments you just made were good segue into the problems that we're having with that, that deal with prioritization and characterization.  The documents when they arrived require us to essentially construct a facility to house that, that is going to cost us a couple hundred thousand dollars.  It not only required it, it was very strongly requiring it.  And there is a provision for 50 percent federal match.  The $100,000 that is implicitly the local match constitutes one-third of the total amount of money I get from the state, and all that right now is used for matching funds on salary and benefits for other funds we've got.  We simply don't have the capability to do that.  And it's an illustration of similar situations with the emergency operations center.

Now, secure telecommunications are very important to us for working with our partners --

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Sure are.

Q: -- but it's not something my state legislators are going to understand, trying to come up with $100,000, when they are trying to avoid laying off 10,000 or 20,000 state employees.  And I think there needs to be flexibility, particularly in those aspects of this program that are clearly primarily a federal requirement rather than a local requirement, to get rid of the match requirements, because you will find that a lot of states -- and we've been talking about that the last two days -- simply aren't going to be able to come up with it.  We don't have the resources.

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Okay.  Well, let me say this.  First of all, and I'm going to say this respectfully to you, this is something that I think we absolutely need in terms of a national infrastructure, the ability to communicate with governors and the Emergency Operations Center on a secure basis from time to time.  I hope I never have to call, never have to call you.  But in the event we do and it's secure, then I will be comfortable in our means of getting that out to you.  

But that is also something that the states and folks have sought us and lobbied hard for us to deliver for you.  And we understand that you are under very, very difficult budget situations, and so are we, in this country.  I will certainly go back and take a look at that grant.  But I do think on some of these, there is a shared public safety responsibility to incur some of these costs, and I do know, as a governor whose first two years were during very difficult budget times, I know the strain that you are under now, and we will just go back and take a look at that match requirement.  But we have to -- I understand that the prevailing economic conditions make it very difficult.  But I would say to the state legislators candidly, you've got to set priorities too, and everybody, everybody -- not just this organization and your dealing with the locals, but state legislators and governors and presidents and Congress have to set priorities.  

And I would like to think that if an emergency management operation needed $50,000 or $100,000, that the state legislature could figure out a way to find it.  But I understand what you've said and, hopefully, you could deliver my message to your legislature and blame it on me.  (Laughter.)

But I know where you're coming from, and we need to be mindful of also sending down mandates that we don't pay for.  We understand that.  But this was almost a shared request and a shared opportunity.  But we will look at those requirements and see if we can provide you some help.

Q: Mr. Secretary, many of us are familiar with the FEMA structure regionally in support of the states.  What is your vision of a DHS regional support?

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Well, we've made no final decisions yet, but the notion of getting -- of reconstituting much of this new department outside of Washington is at the heart of what we're doing.  

We've got regional structures everywhere from two for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to, I think, up to 33 for Customs, so we've got variations in number and size.  So as we take a look at putting these 22 departments and agencies together, we look at the regions and we want to come up with a model that gets these resources and people out around the country.  So we are looking at a regional model.  We haven't made any final decision on it.  But obviously we've got to rationalize anything from 22 to 33.  But you will hear a little bit more about this in the months ahead.

Q: (Off mic.)

SECRETARY RIDGE:  One of the additional responsibilities in the new Department is the whole question of immigration policy.  I guess I need to better understand specifically the concerns that you have, whether it is a matter of personnel being assigned there, whether it is -- we know that the Coast Guard and the DEA and other agencies are aware that sometimes the islands are used to for transit points for contraband, drugs, people and the like.  So if we had a little more information about your concern, I'd be happy to try to address it with you.  But the chain of islands that we often associate publicly as wonderful places to vacation, wonderful places to take your family, wonderful places to go and visit, we also know that they do offer some challenges with regard to drugs contraband and illegals.  So we are quite aware of that and much of that comes into the new Department as of March 1.

Q: (Off mic.)

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Well, one of the challenges we have in the country is we've got 95,000 miles of open water, navigable water security, for which the Coast Guard is responsible.  I really believe that there are some opportunities to use some technology that DOD has employed in the past on the battlefield, the eyes to take a look at the vast stretches of ocean, vast stretches of unpopulated border area and the like, that may be -- that need to be part of future border protection.  

So I assure you that this Department views those wonderful islands as not only a place to visit, but some unique challenges, particularly as a stepping off point and transition point into the country.

I assure you that your governors in the Territories are very much that the heart of the funding formula, the secure communications link and the like, as well.

Q: Mr. Secretary, I've got to questions to request, and they won't cost you any money.  (Laughter.)

The first one is, with Joe Allbaugh's leadership and now with you and Mike Brown, we again request your assistance in asking President Bush to declare a national week of hurricane preparedness. He is the first President of the United States to recognize hurricanes as a significant natural hazard. And we again will request your assistance this year in asking President Bush to proclaim a week of national hurricane preparedness during the month of May in conjunction with the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center.

The second request, Mr. Secretary, is in dealing with a lot of different issues of which your agency is now taking a major role in communications, warning and spectrum.  One of the issues that keeps coming up in looking at the national warning ability to basically warn the public of hazards, direct them to take action, has been the lack of leadership when we're dealing with the FCC, when we're dealing with the private sector.  Your agency, your role, we're merely requesting that we see you as that leader, to help us when we're dealing with all of those issues now coming to your agency of how we warn our nation, how we make sure we are interoperable in our radio systems, and how we make sure that we have the spectrum for the public safety agencies to accomplish that task.  And realizing that some of that his congressional and is regulated through the FCC, we really look to you, sir, as that leader to help us achieve those goals through your agencies and through the transferred agencies to accomplish that.  So those are our requests, Mr. Secretary.

SECRETARY RIDGE:  Thank you very much.  And we will -- Mike and I, we will take on both challenges.  All right.  I appreciate that.

It's an interesting opportunity we have, although it's very difficult in a national government that is federal in nature, because as a former governor, I appreciated receiving certain things from the federal government, certain things I didn't appreciate.  And so it is that balance that we walk.  But I am aware of presently several initiatives that are being undertaken by different groups of states with regard to different aspects of homeland security.  One of them is communication, involving several states, another group of states worrying about -- one is information sharing really with regard to law enforcement, threat and intelligence information.  Another group of states are working on the bio terrorism threats and integrating disease surveillance networks and the like.  So I think one of the opportunities we have and one of the things we need to stay informed of, your organization to work with us and us to work with you, is where we learn that the states, as the state-to-state level, are working some of these initiatives, we need to make sure -- and I suspect that you will be involved.  But when you learn of something, if you are participating in a regional effort to get things done, we need to -- hopefully, we will be aware of it, but we need to be pulled into that equation to have our representative there as well.  

The interoperability, and it's not just of communications, it's of equipment that goes out to our first responders, there is a long laundry list of interoperability concerns that we all have.  And again that could very well be as we set the priorities for the following months, as we sit down with your organization and a few others, what are the interoperability priorities.  I think number one is communication.  But from there on in, there is a fairly lengthy list and we could work with you to try to set some of those priorities.  All right.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SECRETARY RIDGE:  It's been a pleasure. Thanks very much. (Applause.)

1:45 P.M. EST

END

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