From The Press Room

• First Responder Communications Grants Awards Nearly $1 Billion

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Transcript Of Press Conference With Secretary Michael Chertoff And Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez To Announce Nearly $1 Billion In First Responder Communications Grants

Release Date: July 18, 2007

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

Mr. Kneuer: Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Department of Commerce. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 gave NTIA the huge responsibility of administering a $1 billion grant program to enhance nationwide interoperable communications. This morning we are announcing the grant amounts and releasing the guidance that states and territories will need to follow to be awarded these monies.

I am honored to be joined here this morning by Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez, Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff as well as these brave representatives of our public safety community.

We are all grateful for the sacrifice and hard work of the nation's more than 2.5 million first responders that protect lives and properties every day. Whether it is an event like September 11, a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster, the nation's firefighters, police and other first responders need to be able to communicate effectively with one another regardless of the nature of the disaster or where it occurs. Interoperable communications among first responders is critical and achieving it is a major nationwide challenge.

Under this grant program, $968 million will be made available in grants to the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas and U.S. Virgin Islands.

The governor of each state and territory has designated a state administrative agency which can apply for and administer the funds under the grant program.

The SAA is responsible for obligating these funds to eligible pass-through recipients which are statutorily defined as a public safety agency that is a state, local or tribal government entity or non-government organization whose sole or principal purpose is to protect the safety of life, health or property. Under the grant guidance released today, the SAAs will be required to pass through 80 percent of these funds to these local entities.

Through our grant guidance, we are also encouraging states and localities to consider advanced technologies and other cost-effective solutions to the extent they can meet the needs of first responders. We are also requiring the states to show they have plans to meet both natural and manmade disasters.

In meeting the needs of all areas of the country to achieve meaningful improvements in interoperability, the Department of Commerce in consultation with DHS has determined that the program should to the extent possible establish a baseline level of interoperability in each state across the country.

To that end we have allocated the $1 billion in two stages. First, we distribute over $150 million or more than 15 percent of the total funding available equally to each of the states and to the District of Columbia to ensure that these states are able to make meaningful improvements in their communications capabilities.

Second, we distribute the remainder of the funds – more than 80 percent – to all states and territories based on a variation of the risk formula currently employed by DHS in awarding funds under its State Homeland Security Grant Program. This variation of the program places a stronger emphasis on the vulnerability and consequences factors such as human life, property and natural infrastructure which will be impacted by all hazards both natural and manmade.

Each public safety agency receiving these funds is required to meet and document the 20 percent statutory matching requirement. We will make up to 5 percent of these funds available for planning and to ensure that the grant guidance criteria are incorporated into the statewide plans to be submitted later this year. Funds designated for this purpose will be made available upon award.

We will take some questions at the end of the program but now it is my pleasure to introduce the Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez.

Secretary Gutierrez: Thank you, John. And thank you on behalf of the President to all of you for being here. I especially want to welcome my colleague, Secretary Chertoff and our special guest today, the heroes who are the first responders in times of disaster.

I also want to acknowledge the efforts of Chairman Inouye and Vice Chairman Stevens in the Senate and Chairman Dingle and Ranking Member Barton in the House for their efforts in Congress to secure the vital funds we are announcing today.

Throughout our nation there are more than 2.5 million public safety personnel. We saw their courage and sacrifice on 9-11. We see it in the news when there are fires or accidents or natural disasters.

One of the lessons learned from the tragic events like 9-11 or other natural disasters is the urgent need for firefighters, police, and other first responders to be able to communicate effectively with one another.

Today we are announcing a nearly $1 billion public safety interoperable communications grant program authorized by Congress. These are targeted federal grants specifically designated by Congress to fund interoperability.

The purpose is to help state and local public safety agencies fill interoperability gaps and enhance their ability to communicate when responding to hazards.

We are also announcing the funding allocations for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the four US territories. Information on allocations and grant kits are now available online at Commerce.gov and DHS.gov. We will receive and review the applications and announce the funding in September of this year.

The Department of Commerce and the Department of Homeland Security are working together on this program. I would like to thank our National Telecommunications and Information Administration and DHS's Federal Emergency Management Agency. The ability to communicate with other public safety agencies is a critical tool to first responders who are on the front line of manmade or natural disasters.

These grants will help communities and regions close the communication gaps for these courageous public servants.

Thank you and I will turn it over now to my colleague, Secretary Chertoff.

Secretary Chertoff: Thank you, Secretary Gutierrez. And thank you everybody here who is on stage with us. I am delighted to be able to here to join with the Department of Commerce in announcing this very important set of grants that is going to be very important in pushing forward on interoperability for our first responders.

We have known since September 11th and if not earlier that interoperability, the ability to talk among different emergency responders and police agencies is critical to effective management of an incident, whether it's a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

What this money is designed to do is give resources to states and cities to allow them to acquire the equipment and do some of the training necessary to make sure they have achieved the kind of interoperability that first responders are entitled to expect.

We have begun this process in a disciplined way. The President instructed a little over a year ago that we do a survey with respect to how interoperability was doing in our states and our major urban areas. We completed that survey. We identified where there were shortfalls in equipment or shortfalls in terms of governance or agreements about the rules of the road. And then we began working with states and cities to see how those gaps could be filled.

Having identified the gaps and having set forth a path to filling those gaps, the money that is being allocated here is the final piece of the puzzle that needs to be in place to make sure that we do have interoperability across the country.

Some of the states and cities are in better positions than others. I am delighted to say even in the time since we issued this score card we have seen a lot of improvement. For example, the City of Chicago in Cook County which had high marks for their interoperability within each of the jurisdictions but had not yet built the capability to be interoperable between themselves have now take some very dramatic steps forward to fill that gap.

And so with this money we are going to work with communities to make sure that they are all able to fulfill those basic elements of interoperability.

Let me conclude by saying this. You know part of the capability that is necessary is not just a matter of equipment. I mean clearly you have got to have the right equipment. But it is also a matter of training and it's a matter of having a common agreement on governance.

People have to know what are the frequencies they're going to use or what is the gateway they're going to use to bridge the frequencies. They have to know what language they're going to use. Are they going to use the 10-code language familiar to the police or are they going to use plain English or are they going to use another set of terminology that is used by emergency responders. They have to determine who are the command elements that actually talk to one another.

Some of this is a matter that can be addressed by money, but some of it requires frankly getting people to sit down and come to a common vision of the way they're going to organize themselves so they can be interoperable.

I want to encourage communities not just to look to the money, but to make sure they're undertaking the hard work of putting together disciplined plans which are the keys to getting interoperability to become a reality.

Let me say, by the way, that this capital region here in the Washington area happens to be a leader in doing precisely that, in building a common framework across all jurisdictions to make sure people have a single template they can use to plug into. And that is a very good model and we are going to have emulated in other parts of the country.

So again with thanks for Secretary Gutierrez hosting me here and to the first responders, I think the Secretary and I will take some questions.

Yes.

Question: Could you say how long you expect it will take to reach baseline across the country?

Secretary Chertoff: If you look at the scorecard, I think we measured people in terms of, you know, how close they were to getting baseline operability. And I think the best way for me to answer the question is to refer you to the scorecard. It is going to be different from place to place. Some places have achieved it, like the National Capital Region. Some are very close to achieving it. Some have a little bit further to go. And we really broke it down state by state and city by city.

I do think though that by the end of this President's term, the end of '08, there is no reason that every major city in every state should not be at baseline or better interoperability.

Question: Paul Kirby with Telecommunications Report. The states only have 30 days to submit their applications and then the awards must be made by September 30th. Is that going to be enough time do you think for states to actually submit applications that they sent and then, if you will, Commerce and DHS have enough time to review them?

Secretary Gutierrez: Yes, I'd just like to say, they have been working on this for sometime now. So it is not as though they are just starting today to develop their plans. So they do have plans ongoing. We do believe that there is sufficient time to get the plans in place and the important thing is to get the right plans and to get them on time. But they have been working. This is ongoing, ongoing work.

Question: Secretary Chertoff, there's a tier 1 funding. Is that –

Secretary Chertoff: No. This is separate from what we're doing later. This has only to do with the allocation of this interoperable communications funding. This is on top of what we are going to be announcing later today which is one of the reasons why some of the leaked information about grants was inaccurate because it was only partial. We will give the full picture later today.

Question: This money seems to be geared towards the technological solutions. Can the money also be spent on, on achieving that common language that you mentioned?

Secretary Chertoff: I think there is – some of the money can be used for training. I think it is capped at 20 percent. The issue of achieving common language is not a question of money. It is a question of people sitting down and making decisions about what language they are going to use. In other words, is it going to be 10-code or plain English. Who is going to talk to who or whom? What is the command structure so that everybody knows who to plug into. If there is going to be a gateway, a piece of equipment used to bridge frequencies, how do you get into that gateway and who actually mans the gateway.

It is not a money issue. It requires the hard work of sitting down and everybody submerging their own individual egos and agreeing on a common picture. So that is going to be an important part of this.

Question: Communications Daily. In your survey where you attempted to identify the gaps, the input that you got was that from what you would describe as a consensus of public safety that would show what the gaps were? And is this funding adequate? Because there is a lot of momentum in various sectors of the FCC and on the Hill to push for more funding.

Secretary Chertoff: We did a survey. We sent people out. We tested. We asked for plans and we tested the plans and exercises. We did take input obviously from local officials as to what they saw as their capabilities and their gaps. But in the end, we made a judgment in the area of equipment, in the area of governance, in the area of protocols about where the gaps were.

I should also point out that there has been money available for years now under our other grant programs that have been used for interoperable communications. And let me take a minute if I can to just kind of dispel an idea that sometimes floats out there which is that in order to make this work everybody has to get on the same frequency.

That simply is not true. In fact there is a division of opinion among responders about what the best frequency is. For example, New York appears to be of the belief that 400 Megahertz is the right frequency for them.

The good news is there exists now technology either in the form of what they call gateways or I think as we move to the Internet through the Internet itself with software programs that allow different frequencies to talk to one another through a bridge mechanism. So it is not necessarily the case that everybody has got to run out and buy brand new equipment. Sometimes the right answer is to take the existing equipment and plug it into something that allows it to talk to one another.

And, therefore, I want to emphasize an important part of this is not just throwing a lot of money at the problem so people can buy a lot of equipment and make a lot of contractors happy. A big part of this is for people to come to an agreement and an understanding to train, to know how to use the gateways and to exercise so that everybody actually can test themselves.

Question: We're coming up on the sixth year anniversary of 9-11. What would you say to people who would make the observation that it seems like this has taken an awfully long time of getting the funding out there. Why has it taken so long since 911?

Secretary Chertoff: What I would say is this. We have been funding these kinds of things for years. We started doing Homeland Security Funding in 2002 and 2003. And communications has always been an eligible area for funding. So this is a process we've continued to build up.

If you look at the scorecards, you are going to see a lot of communications have in fact put in place basic interoperability. In fact, you know, we did a test early on and the10 major cities do have basic interoperability. So although we haven't come to perfection, if you even take Washington, D.C., the national capital region, they have a very fine system of interoperable communications where everybody talks to everybody else. So a lot of this stuff has already been done.

I just think it would be wrong to suggest that somehow we have been sitting on our hands for five years. We have built an awful lot of the system already.

Secretary Gutierrez: And I would just say also that billions have been spent already, so it is not as though this is the first time we're investing in this.

Secretary Chertoff: Yes.

Question: A lot has been said about the problems that existed on 9-11 in New York. Could you describe what you think you can fix through this program? What problems you do not expect to see in the future as you get your baseline?

Secretary Chertoff: The stuff we can fix is this. We can give people money to buy equipment like gateways or things of that sort and to do some training. We can give people an assessment – states and cities – an assessment of where they are. We can give them guidance.

Here are the things that states and cities have to do. They have to ultimately reach an agreement on governance. The police department, the fire department, the emergency services unit in a particular city or a particular region have to come to an understanding of the language they will speak to when they communicate with one another. They have to come to an understanding of what the appropriate level of a commander is to have interaction with colleagues in other services. They have to come to an agreement and an understanding of who will manage the gateway or the switch that allows people to talk to each other.

That is not something the federal government can make people do. We do not have the authority to do it and it would be unwise even if we had the authority to try to impose a Washington-based solution.

We can put the tools on the table but the training and the willpower to use the tools has to rest with state and local officials.

Thank you.

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This page was last modified on July 18, 2007