<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:21954.wais]
ASSESSING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY'S MISSION EFFECTIVENESS:
IS IT ENOUGH TO MEET THE TERRORIST THREAT?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 9, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-34
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 9, 2005..................................... 1
Statement of:
Chertoff, Michael, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security................................................... 27
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Brown-Waite, Hon. Ginny, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Florida, prepared statement of................ 82
Chertoff, Michael, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, prepared statement of............................ 30
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 22
Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 5
Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nevada, prepared statement of..................... 82
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut:
Letter dated October 15, 2001............................ 78
Prepared statement of.................................... 18
Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 10
ASSESSING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY'S MISSION EFFECTIVENESS:
IS IT ENOUGH TO MEET THE TERRORIST THREAT?
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2005,
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia, Shays, Mica,
Gutknecht, Souder, Platts, Cannon, Duncan, Miller, Turner,
Issa, Brown-Waite, Porter, Dent, Fox, Waxman, Maloney,
Cummings, Clay, Watson, Ruppersberger, Higgins, and Norton.
Staff present: Melissa Wojciak, staff director; David
Marin, deputy staff director/communications director; Keith
Ausbrook, chief counsel; Jennifer Safavian, chief counsel for
oversight and investigations; John Hunter, counsel; Chas
Phillips, policy counsel; Rob White, press secretary; Drew
Crockett, deputy director of communications; Teresa Austin,
chief clerk; Sarah D'Orsie, deputy clerk; Corinne Zaccgnini,
chief information officer; Andrew James, staff assistant; Phil
Barnett, minority staff director/chief counsel; Kristin
Amerling, minority general counsel; David Rapallo, minority
chief investigative counsel; Andrew Su, minority professional
staff member; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean
Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Chairman Tom Davis. The meeting will come to order.
I want to welcome everybody to today's hearing, and we are
very privileged to have Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security, with us today. The purpose of
this hearing is to get the Secretary's assessment of the
Department's overall effectiveness in meeting its core
mission--specifically its operations, management, opportunities
for performance improvement, as well as discuss our concerns
about how certain programs are being implemented in the
Department.
The Department of Homeland Security was created in response
to the terrorist attacks of September 11. The formation of the
new Department constituted the most massive Government
reorganization since 1947. It integrated 23 separate agencies
and bureaus, it employs over 180,000 people, it has a budget of
$38.5 billion for fiscal year 2005 and a proposed budget of
over $41 billion for fiscal year 2006, and it spends an
estimated $11 billion on contracted services. It is an enormous
undertaking to put together this new Department and make it
work. This committee has a direct interest in assessing the
effective integration of the 23 agencies into one single
Department.
The wide-reaching mission of DHS is critical to the safety
of the Nation. The ultimate objective is to protect the
American people from future terrorist attacks and to respond to
natural disasters. The war that threatened our country, and
every civilized country, has the historic combat component, and
our troops show every day just how effective the United States
is in conventional combat. We have no peers in this arena.
But America's enemies today don't confine themselves to
conventional combat alone. They target communities, schools,
and civilians. They fly planes into buildings and take great
pride in the murder and maiming of scores and scores of
innocent men, women, and children. Combat soldiers, no matter
how brave or well equipped, are not the optimal weapon in this
environment.
This committee has responsibility for assuring that areas
such as personnel management, agency organization and
integration, procurement and particularly utilization of
technology, information sharing, and information security are
receiving adequate attention and the congressional policies on
these issues are being implemented throughout DHS. With the
huge investment of Government resources and the critical nature
of the Department's mission, it is our job to determine how
well the Department is functioning to meet the terrorist threat
and to provide adequate protection to our citizens.
Secretary Chertoff initiated a comprehensive review of
DHS's organization, its operations, and its policies shortly
before he became Secretary. Known as the second stage review,
this evaluation is not yet complete, but the exercise signals a
recognition that additional work is needed to fully integrate
and coordinate the disparate entities that comprise the new
Department. I welcome the results of this review. Since its
ultimate recommendations will most certainly affect issues of
vital interest to this committee, I want to have further
discussions with the Secretary as this review progresses.
I am heartened to know that Secretary Chertoff's approach
to the organization and operation of DHS is to integrate the
areas of intelligence, policy, and operations. As we exercise
our oversight responsibility of the committee, it is important
to focus on all three of these areas, not just the first.
Intelligence gathering is critical, but how that intelligence
is evaluated and acted upon depends upon whether the Department
performs each of its critical missions.
The optimal weapon is information: information moved to the
right people at the right place at the right time; information
moved within agencies and across departments; information moved
across jurisdictions of Government as well, seamlessly,
securely, efficiently. The homeland security battle, therefore,
is not just about intelligence, but what we do with it.
We need to be able to identify terrorist threats and defeat
them. Our success depends on collecting, analyzing, and
appropriately sharing information found in data bases,
transactions, and other sources. This committee has long been
concerned about the lack of information sharing and analysis
within the Government and among the relevant public and private
sector parties. This committee was heavily involved in the
information sharing portions of the Intelligence Reform
legislation, requiring the President to establish an
Information Sharing Environment within the Federal Government
to share information and better protect us from further
attacks. I am interested in learning how the Department is
addressing this important issue.
Although I had initial concerns, I supported the elevation
of the Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity within DHS. The
White House, through the Office of Management and Budget, has
oversight of Government-wide information policies. The
Assistant Secretary should bring focus to the issue within DHS.
However, this individual should not sit at the center of all
Federal agencies and direct and control their policies on
information sharing and cybersecurity. That has been, and
should remain, in my judgment, an issue for the White House.
There is an important difference between operational authority
and policy authority.
Another area of committee oversight is the status of the
implementation of the new personnel system at the Department.
In the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Congress gave the
Secretary and the Director of the Office of Personnel
Management authority to establish a new, department-wide human
resources management system, rather than simply cobbling
together the dozens of pre-existing personnel systems. I am
interested in hearing about the implementation of the new
system from the Secretary, including the funding.
The committee continues to monitor DHS's integration of
acquisition functions within its 23 agencies. A recent
Government Accountability Office report found several successes
in DHS's implementation, but also a number of significant
challenges. I will be anxious to hear from the Secretary about
DHS's efforts to implement GAO recommendations to strengthen
centralized procurement policies and practices throughout the
Department.
The committee is concerned about the performance of the
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. There have been
mounting issues of coordination and efficiency in the many
processes used by the agency to accomplish its mission,
particularly in the information technology systems. I am
concerned that many legal immigrants, the people who follow the
rules we have established for entering the country and the kind
of people we want to welcome to America, are falling through
the cracks of a broken immigration system.
The committee is also launching an aggressive review of the
U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology [U.S.
VISIT] program being implemented by DHS. A fully functional
U.S. VISIT system will go a long way toward securing our
borders from terrorists. During the implementation phase, we
want to make sure that U.S. VISIT will help secure our borders
without disrupting the Nation's travel or commerce. Balance on
this is paramount.
In addition, the committee has held hearings on the
Department's implementation of the Support Anti-Terrorism by
Fostering Effective Technologies [SAFETY] Act of 2002, which
was enacted to provide incentives for the development and
deployment of anti-terrorist technologies. I have expressed
concern about the pace of implementing the application
processes and conferring designations, as well as the
burdensome effect of the process on applicants and the lack of
coordination with the procurement process. I was glad to see
Secretary Chertoff acknowledge that problems existed with the
implementation of the SAFETY Act and that he is committed to
making sure that the intent of Congress is followed.
The committee looks forward to hearing from the Secretary.
We are honored to have you here today, and I want to once
again welcome you and thank you for being here.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. I will now recognize our ranking
member, Mr. Waxman, for his opening statement.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
join you in welcoming Secretary Chertoff to our hearing today.
Secretary Chertoff has an extraordinarily difficult job.
The mission of his Department is to protect the United States
from terrorist attacks. This could not be more important. Yet,
the organization he now runs is seriously dysfunctional.
At a hearing of the National Security Subcommittee earlier
this week, I expressed my growing concerns about Federal
procurement policy under the Bush administration.
The fact is, this administration has misspent literally
billions of dollars on wasteful and ineffective Federal
contracts. Private contractors may be making millions, but
taxpayers are getting soaked. Whether the explanation is gross
incompetence or deliberate malfeasance, the result is the same:
taxpayers are being vastly overcharged.
The litany of administration mismanagement of Federal
contracts is long and costly. The value of no-bid contracts has
skyrocketed under the Bush administration. Oversight of Federal
contracts has been turned over to private companies with
blatant conflicts of interest. And when government auditors do
find abuses, their recommendations are ignored.
Nearly every week, the newspapers are full of stories of
contract abuse. The FBI has spent $170 million on Virtual Case
File software that doesn't work. In Iraq, Halliburton has
overcharged by hundreds of millions of dollars, yet the
administration continues to shower the company with bonuses and
special treatment. New equipment worth billions has been sold
by the Defense Department at fire-sale prices.
Some of the worst problems, however, are at the Department
of Homeland Security. As a series of investigative reports have
revealed, the Department has spent hundreds of millions of
dollars on homeland security contracts that have proven largely
ineffective.
In April, the Washington Post reported that the Government
is spending over $200 million to buy a high-tech system of
cameras and sensors to monitor activity on the Mexican and the
Canadian borders. But this surveillance system has been plagued
by incomplete installments and doesn't work.
In May, the New York Times reported that the Department has
spent billions of dollars on screening equipment at the
Nation's entry points. But the radiation devices bought by the
Department can't differentiate between radiation emitted from a
nuclear bomb and radiation from cat litter or bananas.
And in May, the Washington Post and the New York Times
reported that the Department has spent over $1 billion to
install massive equipment to screen luggage at airports. But
the equipment doesn't work right and it has been plagued by
high rates of false alarms.
Perhaps the largest contract being managed by the
Department is the U.S. VISIT contract with Accenture to create
a ``virtual border'' around the United States. Yet, critics say
that this $10 billion contract may turn into an enormous
boondoggle that never runs effectively.
And while billions are being wasted on these contracts, the
Department's Inspector General has found that taxpayers'
dollars are being lavished on perks for senior agency
officials. One IG report found that the Department spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars on a lavish conference,
complete with hula dancers, in Hawaii. Another IG report found
that the Department spent hundreds of thousands more on a gold-
plated gym for senior executives and other employees.
Secretary Chertoff, I recognize that some of these problems
will be difficult and time-consuming for you to address. But
there is one step you could take right away that would have
immediate benefits. And that is to change the culture of
secrecy that envelopes and the Department and impedes
accountability.
And I want to give you an example. Last fall, there were
reports suggesting that the Department and your predecessor,
Secretary Ridge, inappropriately awarded multiple contracts to
clients of a Philadelphia law firm, Blank Rome. I don't know
whether those reports are true or not. But to learn more about
them, I joined with the ranking member of the Homeland Security
Committee just to request basic information about the contracts
between the Department and Blank Rome.
That was 5 months ago. We still have received no
information in response to our requests.
And this is not an isolated example. The Department is so
secretive that it even tried to conceal the identity of a newly
appointed ombudsman for the Transportation Security
Administration, whose responsibility it was to interact with
the public regarding airport security. We couldn't even get the
identity of the ombudsman.
Secretary Chertoff, your Department may be able to succeed
in keeping this kind of information secret. After all, I am a
member of the minority party, and I don't have the power to
issue subpoenas or call hearings. But I am a Member of
Congress, and your Department should be giving out information
to all Members of Congress, and particularly those on the
committees that have oversight jurisdiction.
You may be successful in keeping this culture of secrecy
going, but I hope you will realize that your Department won't
succeed if you do. Our system requires checks and balances. The
surest way to stop wasteful spending and improve performance is
to encourage--not resist--oversight and accountability.
Your appearance at this hearing today is a good first step,
and I look forward to your testimony at this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Chertoff, welcome to the committee. Before you
even say a word, your presence here this morning is powerful
testimony to the fact that homeland security reaches into every
aspect of American government. The Committee on Government
Reform, with oversight jurisdiction over all Federal programs
and unique purview over intergovernmental relations, can help
you implement the Department's unfolding mission.
The first hearing on a bill to create a Department of
Homeland Security [DHS] was held in this room. We saw the need
to unify and coordinate scattered functions to confront a new
lethal post-September 11 security paradigm. But, truth be told,
we created a fairly blunt instrument to wield against an agile
and subtle foe. In effect, we built a four-headed octopus and
asked the behemoth to perform brain surgery the next day. We
know there has to be a learning curve on both sides of these
tables.
Mr. Secretary, I look forward to the results of your review
of DHS structure and operations. The disparate elements of the
Department have begun to fuse into a force as nimble and
discerning as our enemies. The full committee's Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats, and International
Relations oversight has raised some issues that merit your
sustained attention.
The alert system. Bleach out the colors. The current system
is not consistent with good risk communication principles.
People deserve to know all they can about specific threats and
what they can do about them. That takes words targeted to
specific audiences, not just colors splashed coast to coast.
Radiation detection. The technology may not be ready, and
we shouldn't indulge a false sense of security about its
capabilities. Plutonium or highly enriched uranium give off
very little in terms of detectable radiation and are easily
shielded. Intelligence is still our best portal monitor against
those trying to import radiological terror.
Technology triage. The Department's technology assessment
process seems without consistency or clear priorities.
Developers who try to give innovative concepts to DHS are
rebuffed, while the Department spends millions buying marginal
technology from big defense contractors.
Exercises. Federal counter-terrorism training and exercise
programs still offer first responders a confusing smorgasbord
rather than a cohesive curriculum. Local exercises can lack
realism, and lessons learned are not consistently captured and
fed back into the system.
Standards. We will never know if preparedness is improving
if first responders can't answer the basic question: Prepared
for what? Efforts to define essential capabilities to meet
specific threats need to be accelerated so States and
localities know what to do, not just what to buy. The focus on
equipment standards over functional benchmarks invites wasteful
spending.
Mr. Secretary, we know that this is a new job for you and
the challenges that I have outlined are challenges that we know
you are trying to address, and not certainly created by you or
even your predecessor; it is just the task of getting such an
important department to function the way it needs to.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
I ask Members to try to limit opening statements. I know
Mr. Souder has one, and our side has the subcommittee chairman
with some jurisdiction on this.
Gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary. I am glad to see you here.
Mr. Chairman, I do thank you for calling today's vitally
important hearing to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency
of the Department of Homeland Security's operation and
management.
Following the tragic events of September 11, the DHS was
created, representing one of the most significant
transformations of the Federal Government in 50 years. The
central mission of the DHS is to ``lead the unified efforts to
secure America, prevent and deter terrorist attacks, and
protect against and respond to threats and hazards to this
nation; ensure safe and secure borders; welcome lawful
immigrants and visitors; and promote the free flow of
commerce.''
To carry out this important mission, the DHS employs
approximately 180,000 employees and manages a budget of $38.5
billion for fiscal year 2005. In light of the need to better
protect the homeland in the post-September 11 world, I was
deeply troubled to learn that DHS's own office of Inspector
General found that the Department has much to do to establish a
cohesive, efficient, and effective organizations. That is what
they said.
While the Department's massive jurisdiction makes it
impossible to discuss all my concerns in this statement, I
would be remiss if I failed to mention several challenges that
I believe particularly undermine the ability of DHS to fulfill
its mission, in addition to those things that were stated by
Mr. Waxman.
To begin, DHS recently unveiled a new personnel system that
would needlessly undermine our Nation's longstanding commitment
to employee protection, independent arbitration and collective
bargaining rights. Specifically, DHS issued regulations that
would substantially restrict what issues are covered by
collective bargaining. As described in the new regulations, the
DHS is no longer mandated to bargain over ``the number, types,
grades, or occupational clusters and bands of employees or
positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work
project, or tour of duty.''
The new personnel system also fails to establish an
independent entity to resolve labor management disputes and
establishes a performance-based pay system that can provide a
means for politicization and cronyism within the DHS without
the necessary safeguards and clear standards needed to measure
employee performance. I do not believe that the new personnel
system supports an efficient and inclusive relationship between
employers and employees at the DHS, specifically, the type of
relationship needed to keep morale high, support retention, and
attract skilled and capable prospective employees to serve at
the DHS.
Furthermore, congressional investigations and increasing
instances of terrorists or alleged terrorists illegally
entering into the United States have left me seriously
questioning the DHS's ability to secure our southwest border.
Weak decisions on our border system undermine our efforts to
protect our homeland from terrorism and drugs.
As ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Criminal
Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, I have seen first-
hand how the terrorism fueled by the drug trade can be just as
destructive as the terrorism fueled by religious extremism. We
cannot lose sight of the fact that nearly all of the cocaine
consumed in the United States, and most of the heroin consumed
on the east coast, originates in Colombia. The Customs and
Border Protection Office within DHS is, therefore, essential in
identifying and stopping terrorists and drug traffickers before
they enter our Nation.
Unfortunately, the President's budget for fiscal year 2006
makes it more difficult to address these concerns by
inadequately funding the hiring of new Border Patrol agents and
Immigration and Customs officers. Related challenges the DHS
must address are the Transportation Security Administration's
troublingly high failure rate in detecting weapons, a homeland
security threat advisory system that is unsophisticated and
vague, and a poor distribution of limited resources.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, in no uncertain terms, the American
people anxiously look to their government to ensure our efforts
or protecting the homeland and making sure that those efforts
are effective and efficient, and driven by a commitment to
common sense. In the end, they expect us to protect their
communities from those that seek to do us harm. Sadly, there is
much work yet undone if we are to achieve this worthwhile end.
I look forward to the testimony of today's witnesses, and
with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, Chairman Davis. I want to thank you
for this opportunity and for holding this important hearing.
I would also like to thank Secretary Chertoff for his
willingness to come today and join us. And I thoroughly support
your goal of improving the operations and the efficiency of the
Department of Homeland Security, and look forward to hearing
the results of your second stage review.
Although the Department has made major strides, much
unfinished business remains, and I do not envy your job. It is
no secret that the American public has become increasingly
exasperated about our Government's inability to control our
Nation's borders. I have seen that impatience and anger at
numerous border security hearings, in many border communities,
both rural and urban, and even in my home district in Northwest
Indiana at every meeting I go to. If there is one thing that
your Department must get better at, and soon, it is border
control.
Our constituents know what we know, namely, that it is
quite easy to cross our borders illegally and to bring in all
kinds of contraband. Well organized, large-scale smuggling
organizations are going on at every hour of every day along our
borders. Alien smuggling, terrorist smuggling, narcotics
trafficking and weapons smuggling are not random acts of
aggression but, rather, well planned, well executed, well
funded ventures. The networks that support these smugglers are
international in scope and rival our own security agencies in
sophistication.
Smuggling takes its toll throughout the country in ways
that might surprise most people. Elkhart County law enforcement
officials in my district recently took down two operations that
produced fake green cards, and in Fort Wayne, my hometown, yet
another fake green card operation was taken down. At a wedding
reception Saturday night, a doctor told me that every single
doctor in his practice has had their Social Security Number
stolen, resulting in financial hardship and legal hassles.
Yet another person at the same table told me their identity
had been stolen. Four different people had their Social
Security Number. Most of this is being used to produce fake
IDs. This is a national network in scope, along with the
coyotes who plane in, who arrange the vans, who move them
through the different States, who then bring them into our
States, who provide the networking for the jobs. These are
massive networks. The public expects us to take action.
Congress, of course, needs to do its part. For example, we
need to enact tougher laws to prosecute the human traffickers
along the borders, whose agents are often called coyotes, and
these networks that go there. It is one thing to pick on an
individual worker. It is another to say, ``who are these huge
networks that are bringing in hundreds of thousands of illegal
people funded often by drugs and other contraband?''
But I also believe the Department needs to get its own
house in order. Organizing the numerous agencies that were put
in DHS is a difficult task. But in some cases the Department
not only hasn't improved coordination and efficiency, it has
actually made them worse. In fact, your Department's lack of
organization has an impact on the entire Federal Government.
The most glaring example of this is a current division between
Customs and Border Protection [CBP] and Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement [ICE]. Congress put the old INS and Customs
Service in DHS back in 2002. The Department then decided to
break these agencies apart and split the border inspectors and
the patrol agents away from the investigators.
I have met lots of inspectors and investigators at the
border in every single southwest border State and almost every
single northern State, and I can't remember a single one of
them who believed that this is working. To the contrary, it is
roundly criticized wherever I go. The Department has broken
down the old working relationships between cops on the beat and
the detectives without putting new ones in place.
In addition, the Department has created one agency
completely focused on the physical border, CBP, and another one
physically cutoff from the border, ICE. Theoretically, they are
supposed to cooperate, but, as a practical matter, they are
doing it less so than they used to. It means that no
operational agency at DHS is looking holistically at border
security. It has also left several agencies which are
essentially, particularly in the narcotics war, that worked
well both at the border and on the border, like Customs Air and
Marine, and the Shadow Wolves Native American Customs Patrol
officers in Arizona, without any logical place because they do
both things.
The fact is that the different narcotics trafficking
groups, human trafficking groups, contraband trafficking,
terrorists do not work in isolation. In fact, the reason they
don't cross anymore at San Ysidro as much in El Paso, the large
groups are going in between. We don't hold them anyway. So
unless they have another type of crime, we don't detain them
more than just a few hours; we send them right back. So the
only ones that are working through are parts of large
organizations. And what I have been told is that if there are
20 or more people, they can't afford to delay, because we do a
fairly good job of catching them the first time and then
sending them back.
But if you are moving a group of 20 to 50, then it becomes
inconvenient, because we get 2 here and 2 there. And if they
want to move them in a group, they are now saturating Arizona
and Texas. And a picket fence isn't going to do this. They are
working behind the border, passed the border. You have people
in your department working on Colombia, you have them working
inside, and you don't have a logical place to do it if you
don't merge the two things.
Meanwhile, this lack of organization has been reflected in
the lack of coordination. Here are some questions I hope you
will address, if not directly today, then in writing back: Are
you at least considering merging the enforcement components of
CBP and ICE? What specific steps are you taking to improve the
coordination and cooperation on intelligence and information
sharing within the Department? The stove-piping has gotten
worse, not better, and it is less coordinated than it was
before.
Do you support the House-passed legislation that moved the
Shadow Wolves to ICE and will you expand the program to include
other Native American reservations along the northern border?
Because this is one of the most effective, sensitive types of
things that has worked, and it is being disbanded, in effect,
by making them a picket fence. Fourth, are you going to
dedicate specific funds to the Office of Counter-Narcotics
Enforcement to allow it to carry out the coordination and
oversight responsibilities that Congress gave it? The
administration continues to try to zero it out and not provide
any actual dollars and, instead, just detailed employees.
Thank you for coming here, and I look forward to working
with you in the future, both here and on the Homeland Security.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Members' statements, without objection, will be put in the
record today.
I recognize you now, Secretary Chertoff. Again, it is an
honor to have you here. For the record, I think you are doing a
great job, but I think this review is the appropriate thing
coming in there, and we are honored by your presence.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Secretary Chertoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Ranking Member Waxman. I actually have a full statement for the
record, which I respectfully request be included. I am just
going to make a few brief points before I make myself available
for questions.
I appreciate the opportunity to make my first appearance
before this committee to talk about where I see us going at the
Department of Homeland Security. As has been observed by the
chairman, 2 years into the establishment of the Department, I
have initiated what we are calling a second stage review to
identify where we have been, where we are headed, and what
course corrections we need to make.
Now, this process, of course, builds on the very fine work
done by my predecessor, Governor Ridge, and his Deputy, Admiral
Jim Loy. They had the enormous challenge of launching the first
stage of the Department, as someone observed, the largest
reorganization of departments in the Government since 1947. So
we now have a chance, 2 years into the process, to look back
and see where we can make some improvements.
My basic philosophy is this: our structures and our
programs have to be outcome-oriented, not the reverse. We don't
drive the mission and the outcome by the structure; we drive
the structure and operation by the mission and the outcome. So
the second stage review is designed to take a close look at the
mission, see how we can achieve our goals, where we have gaps,
and what we can do to bridge between where we are and where we
need to be.
The philosophy of risk management is the template for our
decisions, so the Review is examining nearly every area of the
Department to identify ways in which we can better manage risk
in terms of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. This will
help make sure that we have a coherent set of priorities about
how we deal with homeland security. And, of course, Congress
can help in this by making sure that, in the distribution of
funds and other activities, we are driven by risk management as
our principle template.
Now, I am very pleased to say the first phase of this
Review, which entailed an overarching effort to gather
information on the policies, operations, and organizations, was
completed ahead of schedule. One of the things I wanted to do
was to get us in the habit of setting deadlines and meeting
deadlines. I set a deadline for the gathering of information of
May 31st, and I am pleased to say it was beaten by 1 day, which
I thought was an important message.
Now, I am beginning the process, over the next month, of
sitting down with the various action teams and discussing the
specifics of what they have found and what they are going to be
recommending we do to move forward. I anticipate that I will
begin to be able to discuss the first set of recommendations
that we are going to have based on this Review in approximately
a month.
Our objective is to develop a model agency for the 21st
century that supports a unified national effort to secure
America. I am well aware of the fact that the Department was
not created simply to assemble 22 agencies in a big tent. It
was created to enable the agencies to operate in a unified and
coordinated fashion.
So, as the chairman observed, what we need to do is
integrate intelligence policy and operations across the
Department so that each component is directed from a
Department-wide perspective with a clear focus on the outcomes
we need to attain. That means we have to eliminate bureaucratic
stovepipes and we have to learn to share information. And part
of that, of course, is the technical process we have underway
of deploying IT systems to allow, for example, for complete
email and network consolidation.
Within the management arena, we are making important
strides, although we have more to do, in the area of functional
integration, procurement, and human capital. And through the
management directorate of the Department, we are developing
leadership and guidance on our integration efforts. And as the
chairman observed, we were recently praised by the GAO in terms
of the progress we have made on our functional integration
efforts, and we view that as a spur to continue to complete
this task.
In specific areas such as procurement, we have seen marked
improvement. After consolidating acquisition support throughout
areas of the Department, we are achieving more effective and
efficient acquisition of resources. But we are still not there
and we still need to do more.
I remain committed to ensuring the credibility of the
procurement process and for developing strategies to enhance a
Department-wide driven procurement process.
One thing I want to observe, since I think the Inspector
General was mentioned, actually, before I was confirmed, I
identified as one of the things I wanted to do upon my arrival
was to use the IG as a better management tool to identify for
us what we need to do to adopt the best practices in
acquisition and procurement across the government, both from an
ethics standpoint and from and operational standpoint.
And within a matter of a few weeks of being on, I met with
the IG, I tasked him with carrying this out. He has come back
to me and we have begun discussion. I have had several meetings
with the Inspector General and I have been personally
interested and have given my personal stamp on the effort to
make sure that we are bringing our practices in line with the
best thinking on procurement ethics and procurement strategies.
Now, as we make important changes in the Department, we
have to continue to support our employees and to provide the
necessary tools to recognize their accomplishments and build on
their successes. Through MaxHR, the new human resource
management system, we will foster a culture of integrity,
accountability, and effectiveness that enables each employee to
achieve mission goals and be rewarded for excellence. A major
goal of the system is to unite managers and employees to ensure
that all are coordinating to achieve and accomplish the DHS
mission. We also want to be competitive with the private sector
in terms of attracting the best talent.
And one of the things we want to build with this new
performance-based system is a reward for operating in joint and
coordinated fashion. Just as in the military, part of the
process of advancing a career requires you to work with other
components and to learn how to operate in a joint environment.
We have to build that same effort and that same set of
incentives into our backbone if we are to complete the process
of integrating our Department.
I appreciate the support of this committee and I look
forward to working with you on these and other matters as we
seek to achieve our shared goal of a safe and secure homeland.
Thank you, and I would be delighted to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Chertoff follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for
that statement. I am going to start the questioning on our side
with Members who didn't make opening statements.
Mr. Gutknecht, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gutknecht. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Chertoff, for coming. I echo the
comments of some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as
they made their opening statements.
One of my concerns really has been, and continues to be,
that when we started this Department, we were told that by
consolidating these 22-odd different departments into one
department, that we would eliminate duplication and, at the end
of it all, it would actually be more efficient and may not be
any more expensive to run this big department.
And I don't have the number in front of me right now, but
as a former member of the Budget Committee, it strikes me--and
I think I am correct that the budget actually now is more than
double what it was when the Department was created. And when
you combine that with some of the other stories that we hear
daily or read regularly in the papers, I guess the real problem
is there is developing almost a problem of confidence not only
among the general public, but I think among Members of
Congress, we see ourselves spending lots of money and we
continually hear that things are not like they were supposed to
be.
So it seems to me that you have a very, very difficult job.
First and foremost, I think you have to restore confidence
among the American people that this Department is really doing
what we thought it was going to do. And then I think, almost as
important, you have to restore the confidence among those of us
who, in effect, sign the checks on behalf of the American
people that their money is being well spent. And that is not
really a question as much as it is a comment, but I think that
really is the mission that you have, and we wish you well.
But I think it is important that as we go forward, that
this committee and others get regular reports in terms of the
kind of progress that is really being made, because, as I say
and as our colleagues have said, we hear reports in the news
media and from our constituents that things aren't really
getting better, they are actually getting worse. And I will
give you one example.
Particularly in rural parts of America, we have real
problems with a drug called meth, and we have meth labs where
people are actually making this drug. But we are learning more
and more that an awful lot of that drug is not being made in
the United States, it is actually coming across the border from
Mexico; and apparently it is very easy to get it across the
border.
And that is just one example of how we are not really
getting the job done. We are spending an awful lot of money and
there is a growing at least suspicion that things are not
getting better, they are actually perhaps getting worse.
So that is not a question so much. You may want to respond
to it, but we do want to wish you well, because in some
respects we all have a huge stake in making certain that this
Department succeeds.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to
talk about this a little bit, because I am very sensitive about
the fact that everybody, as a citizen, has a real stake in our
doing our job efficiently and achieving the result of bettering
American security. We are stewards of the public fisc. We have
to be responsible in the way we spend money. I have to say,
frankly, a lot of the increase in the budget reflects an
increase in the substance of what we need to protect the
country.
For example, in the area of the Coast Guard, we have
requested substantial funding because we need new ships, new
planes, new physical assets which will give us the capabilities
to do exactly what you want us to do: intercept drugs, protect
our ports, protect our maritime area, protect our fisheries. So
that is an area where increases we are requesting in money are
not about bureaucracy or about process, they are about real
stuff that we actually deploy.
We are also making some substantial efforts to do some
consolidation. And I know it is a long process, it is something
that is going to take a little while, but we came in with 22
separate human resource agencies. We are now down to 7 offices
servicing the 22 components; 8 payroll systems have been
consolidated to 2; 19 financial management centers have been
consolidated to 10. I am not saying we are at the end of the
process, but I do think it is fair to tell the American people
we have made some progress in that direction.
I am acutely aware of the issue that we have at our
borders. That is a very significant problem from a variety of
standpoints, not only security, but because we need to assure
the American people that if we have borders and we take them
seriously, we are going to get control of them. And we are in
the process now of looking at what our border strategy is.
A couple of years in a row now we have had an Arizona
border control initiative which has really paid off in terms of
increased apprehensions of people and bad things coming across
the border, and one of the lessons that we have learned from
that is that the best way to address the problem is with a
comprehensive combination of technology and people: better
awareness of who is crossing, some infrastructure to block
vehicles from coming across, and then an ability to direct the
Border Patrol where they need to go.
So I think, based on those lessons, we are now looking
across the entire span of the border to see how we can most
efficiently use technology and people to get us control.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Waxman.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Chertoff, I want you to know that I have a lot of
confidence in you personally, you have an excellent record, and
I am encouraged by what you have had to say today. But I have
always felt that one of the ways to make sure that the
Government is functioning the way it should, every department
is functioning the way it should, is to make appropriate
oversight both from within the Department and from outside the
Department; and Congress has that responsibility. There have
been, unfortunately, a number of incidents that raised
questions regarding whether the Department's leadership
encourages such oversight, and I want to ask you some questions
about these incidents.
Last year, press accounts raised questions about the
relationship between former Secretary Ridge and his aides and
an outfit called Blank Rome, which is a Philadelphia law firm.
According to these accounts, two top aides of Secretary Ridge
left government soon after the Department was established to
work for Blank Rome, and the Secretary himself was a close
personal friend of the chairman of Blank Rome. Blank Rome
reportedly lobbied DHS on behalf of 29 firms and Blank Rome
clients have been awarded major DHS contracts.
Well, to examine whether there was any impropriety--and I
am not suggesting there was, but I think it ought to be looked
at, this relationship between Blank Rome and top DHS staff--I
joined in a letter with the ranking Democrat on the Homeland
Security Committee in the House and we requested all the
communications between Blank Rome and top DHS political
appointees and staff. In a followup meeting shortly thereafter
between my staff and my office and Representative Thompson's
office, Bennie Thompson from Mississippi, who is the ranking
Democrat of the Homeland Security Committee, DHS agreed to
provide this information in several batches, the first one
encompassing communications specifically with DHS management.
Yet, 5 months after our request, we have yet to receive any
information.
I would like to know whether you would commit right now to
providing us with copies of all communications between Blank
Rome representatives and DHS management by the end of June
2005.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, first of all, let me say that I
am not obviously personally familiar with this, nor has anybody
brought to my attention any allegation of impropriety. In terms
of the information, my understanding is that we had offered
some information, and we will certainly--in fact, I was
informed of the fact that the offer was not acted upon. I will
certainly commit to furnishing what we offered to provide
promptly, within a month.
Mr. Waxman. Well, I appreciate that. That would be the
first batch which the Department agreed to give us many months
ago. I would also like to suggest that we get the remaining
batches of the responsive materials by the end of July. I think
this is a straightforward request. It was made close to half a
year ago by us, and that ought to be sufficient time to get
that second batch of information to us as well. Are you
prepared to give me that commitment?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, not knowing what the information
is, as I say, what we have previously agreed to give we should
certainly give. I am not in a position to tell you right now if
there are legal or other constraints on giving other
information. We will certainly address the request promptly and
make available what is appropriate to be made available.
Mr. Waxman. OK.
On March 1, I wrote to Chairman Chris Shays as the
committee launched an investigation into the growing use of
secrecy, particularly with respect to non-classified
information designations. These are rapidly proliferating, and
these designations are called things like ``sensitive but
unclassified,'' or ``for official use only,'' and then the
information is not given out. An example is in February 2002,
the Department of Homeland Security concealed the unclassified
identity of a newly appointed ombudsman for the Transportation
Security Administration, an official whose responsibility was
to interact with the public.
Well, in response to my request for this investigation,
Chairman Shays agreed and together we sent a letter to your
Department on March 4th. Just to be clear, this request was
sent to you, not Secretary Ridge. Chairman Shays and I asked
for you to provide the committee copies of reports and other
documents that the Department issued in two forums, in a public
version and in a what is called ``sensitive but unclassified''
version, that way we, as an oversight committee, could compare
these documents and evaluate the propriety of your Department's
redactions.
It has now been over 3 months since this bipartisan
request; however, we have received no response whatsoever. We
haven't even received a letter saying you are working on this.
Would you commit to providing this information by the end of
this month so that we can get the information that we have
requested?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I can certainly tell you we are
working on it. Not knowing what the volume of information is or
how difficult it is to assemble, I would be hesitant to make a
timeframe commitment. What I can tell you is that I will ask
that I get a report as to where we are in the process of
responding to this and that we come back by the end of the
month with a timeframe within which we think we can do what is
appropriate.
Mr. Waxman. I appreciate that. Let me just tell you what is
involved. We had statements that were redactions that were
given to us, and the redactions were not classified
information, but information that was called sensitive but
unclassified. So Members of Congress on the appropriate
committees are now requesting that we get the original
information that was redacted out so we can see what kind of
information is being withheld.
This is not national security; these are not classified
documents. There is this new description that is being used to
hide information, not just in your Department, but in others as
well, where they are labeled ``sensitive but unclassified'' or
``for official use only.'' There is no legal standing to it.
Thank you very much, and we look forward to working with
you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dent.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Secretary. To what extent do you support
the use of State and local law enforcement to supplement
immigration enforcement activity? And do you support the repeal
of the Memo of Understanding requirements for Federal
immigration training and assistance to States and localities?
Secretary Chertoff. I don't think I heard the last piece of
the question.
Mr. Dent. Do you support the repeal of the Memo of
Understanding requirements for Federal immigration training and
assistance to States and localities?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I will say I generally support
the idea where States and localities want to assist we have
under 287(g). We have the ability to have them properly trained
in order to assist us in terms of enforcing the immigration
laws. That is not something that we compel States and
localities to do; some want to do it, some don't want to do it.
They obviously need to be trained properly. So I am
unequivocally in support of that.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, sir. And a following question,
according to DOJ's Inspector General, DHS officials expect to
check approximately 800 people out of roughly 118,000 visitors
a day who should be screened against the FBI data base. Is this
accurate information?
Secretary Chertoff. I have never heard that figure. I am
not sure the context in which it has been publicized, so I
can't really respond. I mean, we do check. Under U.S. VISIT, we
have the capability and we actually do check everybody who
comes in against both the IDENT data base and the relevant FBI
data base.
Mr. Dent. And with respect to the Real ID Act, which we
just enacted a few months ago, the legislation establishes
minimum standards for Federal acceptance of driver's licenses
and State-issued identity documents, and provides for
rulemaking through your Department to enact reforms. How are
you taking action in this area?
Secretary Chertoff. Within a day or so after the act was
passed, I told my Acting General Counsel that I wanted him to
put together for me a map about what we need to do to go
forward in terms of implementing the necessary rules and
regulations to make the act effective.
Mr. Dent. OK. Finally, with respect to the so-called
Minutemen Project, what are your thoughts about that
organization and whether or not there should be any utilization
by those folks through your Department?
Secretary Chertoff. You know, it is a free country and
people are, of course, entitled to go peacefully wherever they
want and demonstrate or raise issues. What people cannot do, of
course, is take the law into their own hand or interfere with
either law enforcement authorities or, in fact, try to engage
in self-help to interfere with people coming across the border.
You know, we are committed to have a professional system of
controlling our border, and that means a system that involves
well trained people who know what the rules are, who are
properly backed up with equipment. And our strategy is to go
forward and find the best mix of personnel and technology to
give us control of the border.
Mr. Dent. Would that include the temporary placement of
National Guard on the border until these new Border Patrol
agents are trained?
Secretary Chertoff. I don't know that the National Guard is
in a position from a training standpoint or resources
standpoint to play that role. There are issues of appropriate
legal authorities to be exercised against people coming across
the border, which, frankly, do require a certain amount of
training and a certain amount of supervision, which is
typically something we accomplish through putting Border Patrol
agents through training and is not, as I understand it,
typically a part of the training you get in the National Guard.
So I would hesitate to suggest that is a solution.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. The gentleman has a minute remaining. I
know Mr. Cannon would like you to yield to him.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a question.
In the first place, welcome to your new job, Mr. Chertoff.
I am a big fan and I know that you are going to do a great job
there. The Federal Protective Service is a component of the
Department of Homeland Security, and that has been transformed
into a proactive law enforcement agency in the aftermath of
September 11, 2001.
I am concerned that the officers and agents of the FPS are
not allowed to have in their possession their authorized
weapons while off duty. I think it is vital that the FPS, like
other Federal law enforcement officers with the same training,
be authorized to carry their firearms while off duty and be
available to respond to problems. I suspect you would agree
with this, that having trained officers with the authority to
carry weapons while off duty would increase our security. Would
you work with me to see that we can rectify this anomaly?
Secretary Chertoff. I will certainly work with you to see
what the issue is and make sure we come to an appropriate
resolution.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
I yield back.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. Recently, the
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General issued yet
another report on the poor performance of airport screeners and
found once again that undercover agents were often able to
smuggle weapons past TSA airport screeners at multiple airports
around the country, including those used by the September 11th
hijackers. Why are airport screeners continuing to demonstrate
poor performance and, bluntly put, are our airports and
airplanes still vulnerable?
Secretary Chertoff. Let me begin by saying our airports and
airplanes are safe, and the reason they are safe is because we
use a layered strategy of protection, meaning, unlike before
September 11, our strategy now involves several different
layers of defense. We have the inspection when people come
through the checkpoint at the airport; we have hardened cockpit
doors which repel anybody who tries to get in the cockpit and
take control of the plane; we have Federal air marshals, we
have Federal flight deck officers who are armed. So we have a
lot more layers of protection in place now, which I think do
make the system safe and sound. That is not to say we don't
always try to improve it.
In the area of screening, a question arises whether we have
essentially hit the limit of what we can do to reduce human
error in the absence of deploying more advanced technology. We
actually have more advanced technology. We are now deploying
these air puffers which detect trace amounts of explosives at
airports. I saw one in Los Angeles last week.
There are back scatter machines, which would allow us
actually to see organic compounds and explosives concealed on a
person. Some of these issues are financial issues. Some of
them, frankly, are making a decision to go forward. Some people
don't like some of the technologies. I think we have to make a
decision, if we are going to keep our airports secure, that we
are going to have to deploy these technologies; we are going to
have to take appropriate steps to preserve privacy; but that in
order to move to the next level of detection, we have to start
to make use of the one thing we have that the terrorists don't
have, which is our ingenuity in getting technology out into the
real world.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Secretary, how does it work as far as the
first persons that you see when you go in line are usually with
the airlines or a private security company, and then you are
transferred to TSA personnel. Has that been seamless? Has it
been pretty trouble-free?
Secretary Chertoff. You know, TSA has the responsibility
for dealing with the screeners. I think, as with any other
human system, anecdotal reporting indicates that there are
sometimes problems. Sometimes people say the system works very
well; sometimes people say there are slips in the seams. And
that is why we build layers, because I think human experience
tells us that statistically, out of every 1,000 people, you are
going to get a small number who are going to mess up.
What we want to do, though, as I say, is by building the
technology in place, we want to reduce the scope of human
error. And I have to say, in fairness to the TSA screeners--
because I was out there in Los Angeles and I have been in a
number of airports--they actually do a phenomenal job working
with the technology in being able to identify dangerous items
on baggage or on people. It is not just machines, it requires
trained people. So we have to treat that work force with
respect.
Mr. Clay. Let me say that since September 11 I too feel
safer boarding an airport and feel safer in airports. But,
hypothetically, would you say Mr. bin Laden may be sitting
around with some of his compatriots and saying look at those
foolish Americans, they have now spent billions on airport
security and we will never use another airplane again as far as
a weapon?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, first of all, based on some of
the successes we have had overseas in the last few years, it is
my belief that Mr. bin Laden and his compatriots are spending a
lot of time worrying about their own hides, which, of course,
is part of the strategy, is to force them to worry about
themselves. I do think you are right, we can't really just
fight the same battle over and over again. And we are looking
at maritime, land borders, the whole complex of issues we have
to be concerned about.
I do have to say, though, that the intelligence continues
to support the idea, and has supported the idea over the last
few years, that the terrorists still regard the airplanes as a
significant target. And the economy of this country is so
dependent on air transportation that we have to be careful to
preserve that system and its integrity and public confidence in
the system.
Mr. Clay. I appreciate your responses. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your attendance here today. I
am from Michigan, and I know there is a lot of consternation
about the southern border of our Nation, but I am very
concerned about the northern border of our State. In fact, in
my particular district and in the region in southeast Michigan,
I had your predecessor in and we took him on a helicopter tour,
and I would like to invite you to do the same thing just to get
a perspective of the kinds of dynamics that we have that have a
lot of concern for all of us.
The Ambassador Bridge, which is the first busiest
commercial artery on the northern tier, is there, along with
the tunnel to Windsor. In my district, we have the Blue Water
Bridge, which is the third busiest commercial artery and the
only one that allows for transit of hazardous material. We have
the Sea and Rail Tunnel there. We have an interesting dynamic
along the liquid border that we share with Canada. We call it
Chemical Valley because there is a huge concentration of
petrochemical plants along there.
And, of course, being right on the lakes, the Great Lakes,
which are fully one-fifth of the freshwater supply of the
entire planet, there are a number of interesting dynamics that
we have there. As well, we, of course, document as much as we
can the kind of illegal immigration that is happening there,
whether they are transiting across the infrastructure or just
simply coming across by boat. That is happening all the time,
in all types of weather conditions.
And there had been some talk with the Department of
Homeland Security about the potential of having regional
homeland security headquarters across the Nation. In fact, we
were very interested in pursuing that in the Midwest region
there with your Department. I don't know where that has all
gone. I also sit on the House Armed Services Committee.
Obviously, we are very interested in the BRAC process.
And part of the criteria for the BRAC process was that the
DOD should be working with the DHS about not only national
security, but homeland security for some of the various bases.
And one of the bases that is in my district has some of the
components under your umbrella. It is an Air National Guard
base, but it has the Coast Guard, the Border Crossing, some of
these different kinds of things.
I am just wondering if you could fill me in on where you
are with the concept, if you have plans to move ahead with any
of these regional homeland security headquarters.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, this is a matter I know that has
been proposed and it is something that we are looking at. My
concern is I want to be sure that whatever we do is something
that does not add a layer of bureaucracy, but that actually
streamlines things and flattens the organizations. So as we
move forward we will obviously look at all different kinds of
configurations for making sure we maximize the--we want to get
the outcome of more regional cooperation. What the right way to
do that is and how to organize the individual elements of the
Department to do that is still something, frankly, that is kind
of an open question.
Mrs. Miller. If I could ask just one more question. As
well, a particular dynamic that occurs on our border, because
of a number of reasons, we have been cannibalizing nurses from
Canada to work in our health care system, particularly in
southeast Michigan. In fact, if you go into any of our
hospitals, probably 25 percent of all the nurses are Canadian
citizens.
And there was some consternation about how they were
transiting across with the kind of work permits that were
required through your Department. And I think, for the most
part, most of them are now operating under this NEXUS program.
If you could comment on how is that working and were you aware
about the Canadian--we actually, during September 11, had to
stop surgeries for all practical purposes, because we couldn't
get our nurses across the border. So it is a concern there.
Secretary Chertoff. I can't say that I was particularly
aware of the nurses, but I am aware of the fact that our
economy is very interdependent with the Canadian economy. It is
true in services, it is true in manufacturing. And a critical
challenge for us is to have the right balance between security
and efficiency, because if either one of those gets out of
balance, we are really going to hurt our economy, we are going
to hurt our country.
So NEXUS is a terrific program, it is a program that
basically allows us to check people and make sure they are
essentially trusted travelers, and then let them move back and
forth more quickly. And, frankly, that is the way forward
across the board for this country in terms of travel in and out
of the country and in terms of a whole series of things.
We need to offer people the opportunity to get into a
program where we can do a reasonable background check, get some
biographical information, make sure they are not a threat, and
then build them a biometric identification card that assures
that the person holding the card is the person we have checked,
and then let them move through the system rapidly. That gives
us both more security and more efficiency, which is, I think, a
win-win for everybody.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your testimony. I have a
couple of questions. One has to do with the personnel system. I
note in today's Washington Post that the Pentagon is delaying
implementation of its personnel system, very much like what was
approved for your Department. Your Department, of course, has
even more employees. This is a radical change, obviously, in
the Government, a profound change. I don't envy you, having all
you have to do, having also to deal with these--arcane is the
only word for them--details.
We had a witness here at one point who seemed not even to
understand the root reason for this rather ponderous system
that the Government has. You, of course, are not a lawyer. Due
process comes into play here when you are talking about pay for
performance; due process doesn't come into play when you are
talking AT&T or whoever in the private sector. So it becomes
really complicated. One doesn't want to build a system that is
full of opportunities for litigation and the like.
What is being changed, of course, is everything from pay
for performance--and that is the real zinger if you are talking
about a Government system where you have to show that you are
being fair given Constitutional strictures on the Government--
but there are label disputes. Frankly, from top to bottom, the
personnel system is being changed. The Pentagon is delaying
major aspects, it looks like, of its plan, and I would like to
know the status of the changes, comparable changes in your
Department.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, let me first identify I think the
philosophical and practical reasons for having this new set of
improvements in the personnel system. You know, we brought
together legacy personnel systems that had to be integrated,
and rather than integrate them according to the least efficient
model, the thought was let us take the opportunity, as long as
we have to do some integration, to integrate to the 21st
century state-of-the-art with respect to personnel.
We need to get high performers into the Government. We have
jobs that need to be done now that are increasingly more
sophisticated. We are competing with the private sector and,
candidly, we cannot do that if we cannot offer some reasonably
competitive rates, including pay bands and pay for performance,
so that people who are good performers have some degree of
confidence that they are going to be rewarded.
At the same time, I think the cornerstone of the philosophy
is our system has to be fair, it has to be transparent, and
also has to be efficient. And a key piece of that is training.
We need to make sure that as managers and supervisors get
involved in the process of reviewing as part of this system,
they really understand how to do it in a way that is fair,
transparent, and efficient. And, by the way, we should be
reviewing the reviewers. We should be making sure that the very
fairness, transparency, and efficiency levels that they employ
are themselves a function that is being reviewed.
Ms. Norton. Of course, that would assume standards. This is
the Government. That sounds like any personnel system. This
sounds like what any manager anywhere in the United States
would say. When you are talking about 800,000 employees going
to pay for performance, for example, those are words.
The real challenge for you and your Department is how do
people make that judgment so that you are not overridden with
litigation, grievances or complaints. And that is really my
question. The question goes to standards and whether or not you
believe your Department is ready to move forward, as apparently
the Pentagon, with its civilian employees, does not.
Secretary Chertoff. I believe we are ready to move forward.
I think we are looking to implement the current regulations in
August of this year and to start the new performance management
system; not the pay piece, but the performance management in
October. And the idea is to do this in stages to lay down
specific metrics, the kinds of things that are going to be
measured in terms of performance, and to train managers to do
that so that everybody has confidence in the system.
But in that regard I do have to make a point about a
problem that we have. As I look at what has been done in the
current stage of the appropriations, we have had a substantial
cut of money, a $26 million from MaxHR and $98 million from
management, which also is responsible. Frankly, if we want to
have the system work well, if we want it to be fair and
transparent and efficient, we have to pay for it. We can't
shortchange the training; we can't shortchange putting in place
a process that is going to be fair and efficient. And that is
why I think it is very important to fund the system so that it
works.
I guess the last observation I would make is this. I think
delay is the worst of all worlds. I lived most of my life in a
pay for performance system in the private sector, and I think
that it can work and it will work. I think the uncertainty
after transition is always the hardest piece and, frankly, the
longer we delay the transition and the more we drag it out, the
more apprehension people are going to have and the more
anxiety. And that is why I think we are committed to doing this
and we should move in a disciplined but brisk manner in getting
this implemented.
Ms. Norton. I couldn't agree more.
Chairman Tom Davis. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Norton. Just to finish, I couldn't agree more.
Grievances and complaints that go on for years and years, I
don't see how they assist either the agency or the person. I
must say, though, Mr. Secretary, that if a court gets
grievances or gets cases, training will not be what the court
will look at. The court will look at something you mentioned in
passing that is so important, and that is the measures, what
they were and whether the supervisor has indeed met those
measures.
And I just want to emphasize again--and the reason I do it
is because we had someone before us who acted as if due process
did not come into play with the Government. Whether you go into
pay for performance or whether you have this old GSA system--I
ran a Federal agency; you will not find me a fan of that
system--that standard is not going to change if people, of
course, sue the agency.
And let me just finally say that I am very pleased to hear
what you said about screeners, that we have probably reached
the level of what you can expect of human screening, and
instead of just beating up on screeners, we now have to face
the fact that the next level is the technology level.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
holding this hearing concerning the Department of Homeland
Security.
Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for all of your efforts
in the important and enormous job of keeping our country safe.
Your dedication to that critical goal is certainly what will be
part of our great success in keeping this country safe.
You have already acknowledged that one of the challenges
that you face is the area of information sharing and data
warehousing, trying to get the various branches of the Federal
Government and of your Department to share information and
effectively use it. The January 2005 GAO High-Risk Series
Report identifies appropriate and effective information sharing
mechanisms in Homeland Security as one of the new areas of high
risk, and when they issued this report this year, they stated,
``As in prior GAO High-Risk Update Reports, Federal programs
and operations are also emphasized when they are at high risk
because of their great vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse,
and mismanagement, and are in need of transformation.''
In looking to the processes of transforming that area,
which is going to be so critical to our success, I wanted to
ask you some questions of your thoughts of the issues of the
application of commercial processes for information sharing. In
my district we have NCR, which is one of the preeminent data
management and terror data companies in the country. They do
the processes for Wal-Mart and Federal Express, which are both
known as companies that utilize information and data sharing to
make certain that they are successful. And in talking to
representatives of NCR, they talk about the process that they
work with with clients, in looking to what information is
needed and then designing systems both that produce data and
that can manage data and effectively transmit data.
So many times I think we are fearful when the Federal
Government begins to look at trying to seek the acquisition of
systems, for example, in trying to acquire a hammer, that they
might try to redesign the hammer instead of just going and
looking for a hammer. In this instance we know that out in the
commercial sector are companies in the United States that have
focused on data management that have been highly successful.
There is both technical expertise and management expertise that
we can tap into.
Could you talk to us for a moment about your efforts to
reach out to the commercial sector so that, as we look to this
important issue that GAO has identified as high-risk, we could
take advantage of some of the resources we already have here?
Secretary Chertoff. As a matter of fact, this morning I met
with CEOs from the software industry and the Business Software
Alliance to talk generally about some of their issues, and I
said to them I thought that we need to do a better job of
tapping into the ingenuity of the private sector in providing
solutions. In other words, not necessarily coming in and saying
let us build something from scratch, which I think, as
experience shows, has often resulted in an overpriced and
underperforming system. And this is not just computers, it is
across the board. But sometimes we should be a little less
ambitious, take what already has worked and figure out how to
adapt it to our current circumstance.
We need to do that in this Department. We need to do it by
completing the process of integrating our IT acquisition and
rollout coordination, which we are in the process of doing. We
then need to make sure that we are looking at what is out there
in the real world as examples, as opposed to buying pie-in-the-
sky promises. We also have the challenge, of course, of having
existing legacy systems which we can't entirely scrap, and we
have to figure ways to bridge between those existing systems
with platforms that will operate across them.
The desired end stage, as you say, is an ability to have,
like we are on the verge of having now, single email system,
single information system, and one that has adequate screening
and adequate security so we are not worried about penetration
from the outside.
Mr. Turner. Thank you. I appreciate your efforts in that
regard, because it certainly will enhance our success to the
extent that we go to those that are already being successful in
these processes. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
incredibly important hearing.
And welcome, Mr. Chertoff. I represent New York City, lost
many friends and neighbors on September 11, and we certainly
wish you well.
But this copy that came out recently, June 6th, on U.S.
News & World Report entitled, ``Pigging Out: How Homeland
Security Became Washington's Biggest Porkfest,'' is not
encouraging, to say the least. It is extremely discouraging and
really frightening, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this is not
the only article on this. We have seen headlines like this too
often. This article highlighted TSA spending $500,000 for silk
plants and artwork, and then they were purchasing sub-zero
refrigerators at a cost of $3,000 each. And as one who
represents what remains to be target No. 1 in America, New York
City, I find that very troubling.
But even more troubling is not addressing the moneys toward
really preventing danger coming to our citizens. In this they
talked extensively about our Nation's cargo screening strategy,
and in it they reported, ``that nuclear specialists say some of
the efforts suffer from misplaced priorities and rely on
detectors so primitive that they cannot tell the difference
between highly enriched uranium and naturally occurring
radiation in kitty litter.''
And on the same day that this report came out, ABC News
reported that, ``the new drive-through detection machines being
installed at a cost of half a billion dollars cannot detect the
enriched uranium that many say poses the greatest threat to our
Nation,'' and this expert says that it could leave our
country's ports--and I represent, along with New Jersey, one of
the biggest ports in our country--but it would leave our ports
susceptible to terrorists smuggling nuclear weapons or material
in one of the thousands of containers that came into the
country every day.
And in this report they quoted Dr. Tom Coburn, the Director
of the National Resource Defense Council, a nuclear program, as
saying, ``Unfortunately, we have about a half a billion dollars
worth of kitty litter detectors that will not detect enriched
uranium reliably.'' They further reported that in tests it
conducted in 2002 and 2003, uranium shielded and lead easily
passed by detection machines that were in place.
I believe that this is totally an unacceptable situation.
The smuggling of nuclear material, a dirty bomb or weapons of
mass destruction, in a commercial cargo still represents
probably one of the most important, if not the most important
or most significant, security threat to our Nation and to our
citizens. In fact, there was a movie out of England that showed
what would happen if a dirty bomb exploded in England, and it
was horrifying. And some economists estimated if one happened
in our country, there would be well over a million casualties
and an impact of well over $300 billion to several trillion
dollars.
But despite this threat, the fact is that most currently
deployed non-intrusive inspection systems in ports were
designed to intercept contraband, stolen vehicles, stowaways,
and not designed to detect--which is truly our most important
threat--dirty bombs or weapons or mass destruction. So I would
like to go to the root of the problem. The article alleges that
the problem is a sole source contract. That is what the article
alleges, that is the problem.
So based on that situation, I really would like to ask you
how you feel about this. And specifically, Mr. Chairman, do you
believe in best value procurement so that DHS can properly
balance cost and technical capacity in purchasing key
technology? Do you agree that the lowest cost is not
necessarily the best value? Do you believe in full and fair and
open competition for DHS procurements? Do you believe DHS
should procure by sole source methods when there are possibly
multiple U.S. sources available? And do you think the best
technology should be used to detect weapons of mass destruction
in cargoes?
Chairman Tom Davis. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mrs. Maloney. And my time is up.
Secretary Chertoff. Let me, if I may, just take a moment to
answer. I agree that nuclear material being smuggled in is a
very, very high priority for us, and that is one of the reasons
the President's budget has asked for funding of about $227
million for a domestic nuclear detection office, which would
bring together a lot of the programs we now have to develop
systems and technology to identify and detect and thereby
intercept nuclear bombs or nuclear material coming into the
country. That is a very high priority.
I have to say this about articles like that, though. It
strikes me you can pretty much find a self-styled expert to say
something about everything. And I think the article overstates
dramatically the problem that we have. The radiation detector
monitors which we have in ports in fact do detect radiation
quite well; they are extremely sensitive to radiation.
There are certain inherent physical limitations as between
different types of radioactive material--for example, plutonium
versus highly enriched uranium--which are endemic in the
physical substance. In other words, we don't create that
problem, God creates the problem because that is the way the
physics of nuclear energy works. So we do actually have a
robust detection system.
Second, it is misleading to say that the machines can't
distinguish between kitty litter and other kinds of isotopes,
because the way the system is structured is there is a capacity
to send back to a targeting center a profile of the particular
characteristics of what is being read on the monitor, and
scientists sitting in the targeting center are in fact capable
of distinguishing between kitty litter and isotopes. So that
is, again, a misleading statement in the article.
Finally, with respect to shielding, it is true that
shielding can create a problem for radiation detection? What
the article doesn't tell you, though, is that part of what you
do in a layered protection system is you build in a detector
that detects the presence of shielding. So that there may be
sufficient shielding to protect the radioactive material from
direct detection, but another detector will point out that
there is shielding. And if I see there is shielding in a
container, I am going to open it up and I am going to look
inside.
Mrs. Maloney. But, Mr. Chertoff, my question was not
whether kitty litter could be detected or not. My question was,
was this a sole source contract; where is the justification
document for that contract? Do you believe----
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, unfortunately, Mrs. Maloney, your
time is up.
Mrs. Maloney. Could you just answer in writing to my
questions since my time is up?
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, you had a 4\1/2\ minute question,
and that made it tough for him to get everything in. So I am
going to have to go on to the next.
I would just say to Members everybody has been waiting
here, and I am just trying to move this along fairly.
Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary, I have a border region in San Diego, and I have
a unique situation that I have been working through your
predecessor organizations for a very long time, and that is, as
you well know--but most people in the United States don't
know--we have border checkpoints more than 70 miles inside the
United States. And the Border Patrol, under management after
management and different secretaries, has always tried to
defend these even though the Government Accountability Office
study shows that they are hard to defend.
It would be perfect to tell you exactly how hard to defend
the effectiveness of these except that the Border Patrol
systematically doesn't deliver accurate information as to where
apprehensions are. Every time there is a study, every piece of
released information always simply talks about regions and
areas, when in fact there are exact points that they could say
we apprehended them here, here, and here.
Having said that, I want to make it very clear that I
support the Border Patrol when they try to do things that make
sense. In June 2004, the Temecula Border Patrol station
conducted a series of illegal immigrant sweeps in inland areas
in my district. During that time, they were called Mobile
Patrol Group, made up of 12 Border Patrol agents. They
successfully had 450 arrests in 18 days, nearly double the
monthly average for 2003 not for 12 people, but for the whole
station, for everybody.
Secretary, those mobile patrols, at the orders of
Washington, were stopped. A lot of double-talk about, well,
they weren't officially stopped. They were stopped. The Border
Patrol wants to conduct those, and I don't really care if it is
a Border Patrol, it is ICE, it is the man in the moon, who it
is. Your organization is reorganizing exactly like the Polish
cavalry before World War II. If you continue to use horses that
don't succeed, well, there are tanks that do succeed.
Effective enforcement, when demonstrated in Southern
California, is being thwarted through your Department by simply
not allowing the Border Patrol to organize under whatever set
of rules and guidelines you have to, or ICE, in order to go
after illegal immigrants who otherwise would not be caught.
I want to make it very clear that it is not about just
catching illegals. Because if you want to catch illegals, you
can go to any farm in my district, any hotel in my district,
you can go anywhere you want; but, in fact, about successfully
collecting the worst offenders.
And to that extent, although it is not directly your
jurisdiction, I want to make you further aware--and get your
comments on this--the fact that the U.S. attorney in San Diego
has refused to prosecute coyotes, no matter how many times they
are arrested, unless they use violence or specifically endanger
a life or are carrying drugs. And if you think that is
appropriate or not would be my first question. Should we be
having a zero tolerance for the coyotes even if we cannot
effectively arrest the more than 11 million illegal immigrants
in this country?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, of course, it is true that the
U.S. attorneys are not in my purview. I used to be a U.S.
attorney, but that was many years ago and that was in a
different part of the country. Obviously we need to focus on
deterring people who are trafficking, starting, of course, our
highest priority are the organizations. If we can take down the
organizations, we get the maximum bang for the buck.
The more deterrence we can bring to bear, the better off we
are. I recognize that U.S. attorneys have constraints. Among
other things, you have court constraints; there are only so
many judges, so many courtrooms. When you charge people, you
have to try them. So that is a numerical limit.
As far as the particular tactic you are telling me about,
I, frankly, don't know whether it was stopped or why it was
stopped. What I can tell you is that----
Mr. Issa. But are you familiar with the mobile patrols and
the success? It was nationally covered in a fairly broad way.
Secretary Chertoff. I think I was probably a judge when it
was being covered, and I was focused on doing judicial things.
But I do think that we have recently unified our command and
control over Border Patrol across the board, the idea being
that we don't want to have ad hoc decisions made about how
border tactics are operated, we want to have a comprehensive
picture, recognizing that there are different tactics that work
on different parts of the border because of the topography. So
we are committed to the best practices. If there is anything
there that works well that is legal, we are going to do it.
And I am more than happy to go back and say, look, let us
see if this worked and it is not continuing, what else do we
need to do; should we re-inaugurate it. There is no pride of
authorship here. We want to do the best to maximize the effect
we have with the resources we can bring to bear.
Mr. Issa. I appreciate that. And if, after you have looked
at the success of the mobile patrols out of the Temecula
checkpoint, you would get back to my office with either your
comments in the negative, if you don't think it worked or if
there were serious problems, or how, on a centralized basis,
perhaps we could begin using these kinds of techniques to
target those who are either the most dangerous or the least
desirable among the 11 million illegals that operate here in
the United States today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Secretary, first, I want to say you
have one of the toughest jobs in Washington. But don't feel
alone, because we all need to come together to work with you in
our different agencies. I mean, to take 22 different agencies,
it is tough enough getting 2 agencies together. And I think
really what starts in anything that we do is management, and
management at the top.
Now, I have a letter, it is a bipartisan letter written on
October 15, 2001, and it was to the President and it is a
letter that I am going to give you a copy of. Basically what
the letter says and asks, it asks what are our vulnerabilities
as it relates to terrorism and national security, what are the
threats, what are our priorities, and how do we link that to
funding, and that is basically risk management. Now, what I am
interested in is to find out where you are today or where you
think you are today as it relates to the threats, the budget
priority and the funding.
Now, I have other questions--and I know that we have 5
minutes--that I am going to submit to you and ask that you
respond to that and maybe to the contents of this letter. But I
think it is important. We can talk about immigration, we can
talk about money going to the locals. There are a lot of
things, but we are not going to be able to accomplish it. So
let us start from a management perspective, from risk
management, all the threats, what we are looking for as it
relates to funding.
Secretary Chertoff. We are 110 percent on board with the
proposition that we have to be risk-based in funding, and that
means we look at three characteristics: we look, first of all,
at consequence; we look at vulnerability; we look at threat. We
have a national preparedness plan which identifies, again,
against that template of those three characteristics, the kinds
of capabilities and tasks that individual localities or States
ought to be able to carry out in order to be prepared to meet
the risks as we have outlined them. And we are capable of
working with computer modeling resources that we have--for
example, at the National Sciences Laboratories--at being pretty
specific in determining--using, again, consequence,
vulnerability and threat--what our highest priority targets
are, what are the things we ought to be worrying about the most
so we can address those things first.
That is the template that we use in terms of driving
everything that we do. And one of the things we are undertaking
in the second stage review is we are trying to build a way of
looking at all the threats, vulnerabilities and consequences,
and having accountability as part of a three dimensional matrix
for making sure that we have in place everything we need to
address the highest priority targets in terms of those
characteristics.
There is something Congress can do to help. We have to
continue to move to a funding system that is risk-based. The
more ability we have to apply our funding based upon risks that
are identified through this disciplined process, the closer we
are in giving the American public what they are entitled to
expect, which is the maximum value for their hard-earned
dollars.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Based on what you just said and the
matrix that you have, what would you say are your top five
threats from a priority point of view? I mean, management,
again, is about prioritizing.
Secretary Chertoff. It is a little hard to take a matrix
and compress it into five. I would say that among the things
that are high priority are obviously things which could yield a
catastrophic response, a threat which would yield a huge loss
in human life or a huge economic impact. So we do think about,
for example, nuclear/biological/chemical. Those are things
which would be very significant.
Mr. Ruppersberger. With each one that you are going to talk
about, how much funding are you putting into these areas?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, again, it is a little more
granular than that, because we have, for example, in the
nuclear area, the President has requested $227 million for a
domestic nuclear detection office. Obviously, there are
programs; Department of Energy is doing stuff, Department of
Defense----
Mr. Ruppersberger. All right, I see my yellow light is
coming on. I want to get one more question out, and we will see
where we can go. Two years ago Congressman Waxman and I asked
GAO to do a risk management of Department of Homeland Security,
especially as it related to maritime security. And, by the way,
I think GAO has some of the top risk management people, and I
would hope that you would use them in your second stage review
and get information, as we do, from them, because I think it is
a great resource.
But getting back to the question that I asked about your
priorities--and we are not going to have enough time to finish
it--it is important, I think, that we pick those priorities,
and I would like to know where they are and also where your
priority of funding, because it is all about funding in the
end.
I have the letter I am going to give you, and I have other
questions that I would like you, if you could, to get back to
me.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK, thank you.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your being here, and certainly
thank you for your many years of public service, especially now
as head of the Department of Homeland Security. I wanted to
touch on two specific issues that relate to the passage of the
Department of Homeland Security Financial Accountability Act
last October. I sponsored that legislation, and this committee
moved it and the House and Senate passed it, and the President
signed it into law. We worked very closely with your
Department, prior to your being there, in drafting, amending,
and kind of getting a consensus.
Two parts that have not yet either been fulfilled or the
Department is showing now, after the fact, an unwillingness to
comply. The first is the issue of your CFO. The law says that
within 6 months of its passage, that the President would
nominate for Senate confirmation a new CFO or designate CFO,
and that the current CFO could continue serving until
confirmation occurred. That 6 months passed about 45 days or so
ago. My understanding is you have not yet even begun
interviewing potential nominees, and I would be interested in
why the delay. The law says what it does; it was written in
cooperation with the Department and the administration. What is
the timeframe that is in place today to get this law complied
with?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, we have a very able CFO on board
now and, of course, we know we need to find somebody who is
going to ultimately be nominated for a Senate-confirmed
position. As you know, there has been a substantial turnover in
the Department. I mean, when I came in with the deputy, we had
a large number of vacancies in the top management of the
Department. We have been working very hard to fill those. Some
of those are getting filled. I think you know the process of
searching tends to be a cumbersome process, not the least of
all because, first of all, these are challenging jobs, and
sometimes the people you want for them don't necessarily want
to give up their lucrative careers to take them, and sometimes
because it is a cumbersome background check process.
So we are aware of the legal requirement; we are committed
to meeting it. We are dealing with market constraints and kind
of practical constraints, but we are actively involved in the
process of trying to fill the position.
Mr. Platts. Well, I hope that the process will pick up,
because it is something regularly in my subcommittee, when we
talk about various agencies, that we have laws on the books and
agencies just fail to comply with the law and there are never
any consequences. That certainly doesn't work back home when
citizens don't comply with the law.
The law was agreed to by the administration, and the fact
that we are now a month and a half past the 6-month deadline,
so we are 7\1/2\ months past when the Department knew this was
a requirement. And it is not simply to go through the process;
it is because Congress has said we believe that in these
departments it is important to have the best possible officials
in place, and that Senate confirmation process is part of
ensuring that.
I certainly don't have anything bad to say about Andy
Maner, your current CFO, but the law is as it stands and it
needs to be complied with.
Related to that, the same piece of legislation deals with
internal controls. The President's management agenda, one of
the core areas was financial management, and through the
legislation we have sought to help strengthen your Department's
financial management process. You inherited, I think, more than
15 material weaknesses in the various agencies. Getting to that
foundation is assessing your internal controls.
The law, as passed, said in the current year 2005 you have
to make an assertion regarding your internal controls, and in
2006 have an audit of your internal controls. In this year's
budget that came up to Congress from the administration, there
was language proposing to delay the assertion 1 year and to
delay the internal control audit 2 more years, so a total of 3
years from the time the law was passed.
I would like to know why you don't want to go forward with
that and what is the Department's position today in compliance
with the law as it stands?
Secretary Chertoff. Let me tell you where we are. In March
of this year the CFO established an internal control committee
which was responsible to implement the provisions of PO 108330.
Last month, in May, we developed an implementation guide for
the internal control provision, working with OMB and an
interagency committee.
We also began executing the planning phase of
implementation to determine what documentation we would need
and the kind of testing that would need to be performed. And
over the summer we plan to complete the GAO internal control
management and evaluation tool as the assessment process to
support the statement of assurance in fiscal year 2005.
We have also, in the fiscal year 2006 budget, which is
pending, requested a little over $5.2 million and five full-
time equivalents to support remediation efforts to transform
the legacy internal control structured in an integrated control
framework.
So we are moving forward on this briskly. It is a
challenge. As you point out, we have a lot of legacy agencies,
so we have not only the challenge of meeting a new standard,
but also bringing together and binding all the existing
legacies. And I think we have a brisk program to move forward
and complete what we need to do.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. If you could followup
maybe in writing to the committee a timeline proposed for
confirmation of the CFO and specifically your intent to comply
with the law passed last year regarding the assertion for 2005
and the internal control audit for 2006, that would very much
be appreciated.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Platts.
Mr. Porter.
Mr. Porter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your being here and your depth
of knowledge in such a short time of being in that role.
If you look at the economies of every State in the Nation,
each has their strengths, from ranching, farming, industrial,
chemicals. It depends on the State. I represent the community
of Las Vegas, NV, area, one of the major tourist destinations
in the world, where close to 40 million a year visit a State of
about 2 million. Of course, after September 11th we experienced
some very, very serious downturn in our economy.
But, more importantly, we realized at that point, more than
ever, the importance of coordination between the Federal
Government and the State governments. In that Nevada's No. 1
economy is tourism, I think many times overlooked that in every
State in the Union travel and tourism is one, two, and three in
every State as far as their economic base, but also employment.
I believe so much in the fact that we needed to have
representation in the Department of Homeland Security. We
worked, in the bill that passed last year, of course, the
Reform Act, to create a role for your special assistant,
Alfonzo Martinez-Fonts, who is now working closely with the
tourism travel industry. So first let me say thank you for the
efforts of your assistant.
But also to reiterate the importance, as you are developing
your new plans--I know you are creating in the Department
possibly a Department-wide policy office--that the tourism and
travel industry--whether it be Anaheim, Disneyland, Orlando,
Chicago, New York, wherever in this country, New Orleans--we
handle a lot of people, and a great mass of people, and we work
closely with TSA and other parts of your Department.
I want to reiterate the importance of that communication so
we can play a major role in helping you, because security
certainly is paramount. The community of Nevada, our hotels,
our resort industry are state-of-the-art, the latest security,
the latest technology, and we appreciate the efforts so far,
but want to reiterate for the future that is important.
So more of a comment than a question. And if I could
followup now with a more specific question.
As you know also, Nevada has been chosen as the site for
high-level nuclear waste to be buried at Yucca Mountain. I
appreciate comments today about the current uranium detection
methods being problematic. As we are looking at homeland
security and the possible transportation of 77,000 tons of
nuclear waste through most every State in the Union, I would
appreciate, one, a comment, of course, on the tourism aspect,
but also on plans to secure our community as this waste travels
by schools and churches and malls and parks, that we have the
proper security in place.
Secretary Chertoff. Let me try to address both of those
issues. We are very sensitive about the fact that tourism and
travel is a significant component of the economy, not just for
the hotels, the airlines and shipping. I mean, across the board
it has a major ripple effect. And one of the things that we are
trying to do, as we move forward, for example, with security in
airports and infrastructure security, is to build a system that
actually facilitates ease of movement in travel and tourism
while building in security.
Now, you need both of those, because we know if there are
security problems people are not going to want to travel. But
we also know that if it is inconvenient and inefficient, people
are not going to want to travel. So we try to maximize both.
In line with that, I met, when I was in New York a month or
so ago, with representatives of the travel and tourism
industry, when I was overseas a couple weeks ago I met with
overseas travel and tourism representatives, to make this
point, to say that we want to build systems for security that
work with the needs of our travel and tourism sectors of the
economy, and not across purposes.
As far as nuclear goes, we work hand-in-hand with the NRC
and the other agencies that have the substantive expertise in
terms of transporting and storing nuclear waste, to make sure
that they have the benefit of our insights with respect to
security-type issues. They often own the expertise and have
been doing a lot of work, frankly, over a number of years, even
before September 11, in modeling the kinds of threats there are
to nuclear material and how you can best protect against them.
And that is an area where we are going to continue to be
actively involved, again, working with the NRC and the other
responsible agencies who have direct supervision over nuclear
material, to make sure that we are assuring safety for
communities.
Mr. Porter. And I appreciate two diverse questions in a 5-
minute period. But back to the tourism, I think it is important
and imperative to note that our goal, like yours, is the
security and the safety of these individuals. We work closely
with TSA, and we have evolved, I think, a premier facility at
our airport, McCarran Airport, in handling these 30-some
million that travel through our airport. And we would like to
offer our assistance in other areas because of our expertise.
It is certainly economic but, more important, that we can help
balance the security with that.
I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Mica, followed by Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize; I have had
to run in and out for another hearing across the hall,
actually, two hearings today.
Nice to see you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for participating
today and giving us sort of an update of where we are and where
we want to go. One of the concerns that we have, and I have
heard expressed on the floor, is the checking of cargo. They
say that only some 6 percent of cargo is examined, either
coming in or commercial aircraft, etc., and right now you have
a system that is based on really going out and doing spot
checks and using sort of intensive and costly personnel.
Have you given any consideration to setting standards,
looking at a system that relies more on you setting sort of the
rules and, again, process that should be followed and checking
of companies, as opposed to sort of a massive--it would
probably bankrupt the system or completely slow down the
economy or bring it to a halt if we did 100 percent cargo
check. Are you looking at an optional approach?
Secretary Chertoff. I think the answer is, first of all, we
are acutely aware of the fact that we screen and then we
inspect a percentage based on what we screen. But if we were to
physically inspect everything, I think you are quite right, the
system would grind to a halt. So we have to take into account a
number of things. We have to consider the risk. You know, we
deal with cargo that travels on passenger planes versus cargo
that travels on cargo planes. There may be some differences in
the way we want to handle that.
And as a general principle I think we are always open to
the question of are there ways we can build a process that does
not require Federal ownership of the process, but where the
Federal Government sets standards and checks the checkers, but
puts the responsibility on the people who are other players in
the process, private players, to actually make sure that they
are keeping standards.
Now, the devil is in the details. There may be different
requirements in different settings. That, by the way, is a
model we use in a lot of different areas in government. We use
it in the securities area. I know when I was in the area of
being a prosecutor, we had increasingly found the use of
private sector ombudsmen or inspectors general as a way to have
compliance in business that did not require the Federal
Government itself to own the compliance. But we could create a
model in which someone else would have that responsibility with
our supervision and checking.
So that is probably a long-winded answer to the question
that we are open to systems that minimize cost, maximize
efficiency, and give us the best possible protection.
Mr. Mica. Well, the same type of approach or similar
approach, having you set standards, say, for passenger
screening. I believe you have already certified some companies,
and we have five private screening companies that have worked
very well under Federal supervision. Micro-managing all of that
from Washington in sort of a Soviet style system has proven
very difficult. I mean, you haven't been in office that long,
but you will be getting requests from Members here. The lines
are backed up at my airport. What are you going to do in
Orlando? And I am chairman of Aviation.
We had a request for additional screeners. It took some 6
months to do an evaluation. Then by the time the folks got on
board--well, they changed the numbers slightly--the situation
had changed because of the fluctuation of schedules and
requirements and season, conventions, all kinds of things.
Is it possible for us to look at decentralizing the system?
You know, we have the opt-out which I authored in the bill. And
the major problem, too, we have with opt-out right now--and
many airports would do it across the country if the liability
question was satisfactorily resolved for them. Where are we on
that?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, as I say, we do have some pilot
programs, I think five. We have had five opt-outs. We are
always interested, obviously, in seeing how that approach
compares with the current approach. As I said earlier, I
continue to think--well, we have identified, but deploying
existing technologies that would do a better job in terms of
puffers and back-scatter, if we can finance that and get it out
there, that is going to make a big difference.
As far as the SAFETY Act goes, that is a very significant
tool if we are going to get the private sector involved in
carrying its share of the burden of security. And I am pleased
to say that we have, in the, I guess, 3\1/2\ months I have been
on the job, we have approved I think more than twice as many
applications than had been approved during the preceding 2
years. But I don't regard that as a mission accomplished; I
regard that as merely a kind of a direction we have to point
the way.
Philosophically, my understanding of the intent to Congress
with the SAFETY Act was not to put the DHS in the position of
picking the best or the winner or having a competition, but
picking technologies that were good, that added value, and then
getting them reasonable protection under the SAFETY Act. And I
think if we have an appropriate philosophy, we are going to see
a much more efficient use of that process.
Mr. Mica. Well, the high-tech proposal that we have
offered, just in conclusion, we solicited your support because
high tech is the answer, not only expediting checked baggage
screening, but also passengers, and giving us better detection
at much lower cost, as GAO had pointed out.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, a couple of years ago, when the Congress
passed the farm bill and it had the word security in it, the
Wall Street Journal had an editorial which said that any time a
bill had the word security in it, we should give it four times
the scrutiny, because their point was that every department and
agency was trying to come up with security measures so they
could get higher funding.
And I remember when Governor Gilmore, who chaired the
President's Commission on Terrorism and what to do about it, in
his final report to the President, in his letter he said we
must resist the urge to try to seek total security, because it
is not achievable and it will drain resources away from things
that are attainable.
So it seems to me that what the most difficult question
here is how do you achieve the balance necessary? Because we
all want to keep the country as safe as possible, and, yet, we
are thousands of times more likely to be killed in a car wreck
on the highways, or even more likely to be struck by lightning
or win a lottery, than being killed by a terrorist.
So how do you achieve that balance? What is the common
sense approach that is necessary to do what we need to do but
not go ridiculously overboard in that process? I have heard on
the news and read that there are hundreds of companies now and
thousands of ideas that have been submitted to your Department.
Everybody has the latest product, the latest idea. I mean, this
seems to me to be a very difficult process, but I just wanted
to get your thoughts in response to what I have just said.
Secretary Chertoff. My response is I agree 100 percent with
what you just said. We should be a secure nation, but not a
security nation; meaning our life should not just be about
security, our life should be about our prosperity and our
freedom. And our security is what is indispensable to preserve
our way of life.
I think the first thing we do is we have an honest--we are
honest with the American people; we say exactly what you have
said and what I have said, we are not going to protect
everybody against every bad thing every place at every moment.
Before September 11, apart from terrorism, there have been bad
things that have happened; there have been train derailments,
there have been fires, there have been things of that sort. We
have to take reasonable precautions.
And that is where risk management comes in. We have to
identify those things that are truly catastrophic and we really
have to work hard on those. And then there are things that are
going to happen that are going to be bad, but, frankly, we are
going to look to our State and local partners and private
citizens to take reasonable precautions.
As you say, every day we make judgments, we take some
risks, because we want to be able to get in the car, go to work
or go to the movies. So part of it is we have to make sure we
have a very clear statement to the American people, which I
think, by the way, they will have no trouble understanding,
because I think they do it in their own life. We need to build
risk management into our programs and we need to then walk the
walk, meaning we need to make decisions that do not
overprotect.
And what I am happy to say is I think in some of the things
we have been able to do since I got here, which I know about,
we have started to make some decisions that I think are common
sense decisions that balance risks. For example, there was an
issue about should we remove placards, hazardous material
placards, warning placards from railcars because there is some
risk that might identify a target for a terrorist.
And we balanced the risk, we said, look, it is more
important to have first responders know what is in the car, if
there is an accident, than it is to worry if some terrorist is
going to read it. So we said, OK, we are going to keep the
placards up. General aviation at Reagan. Again, we balanced
risks against benefits, and we have, in principle, come up with
the idea that we are going to open it up in a limited,
controlled fashion.
So we are now starting to make decisions in this Department
that produce results that balance properly, and I think the
more we do that the better off we are going to be.
Mr. Duncan. Well, very good answer. Let me go to another
direction very quickly. I have read several articles that we
are most vulnerable now on cybersecurity. We have taught
especially young people, but we are teaching almost everybody
the worst of the computer today. And I know they can do
miraculous things, but are you also discussing or looking into
encouraging companies and agencies to keep old-fashioned backup
paper systems? Or what steps are you taking to really work on
this cybersecurity threat, which I read is extremely dangerous?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, as I said, I met this morning
with the Business Software Alliance, which are CEOs of a number
of prominent companies, to talk about cybersecurity. We have
identified that as something we need to beef up in our
Department. Part of it is having defenses against various kinds
of cyber attacks; part of it is physical security. You know,
there are technologies now where you have dual authorizations;
not only a password, but it is a thumb print. And promoting
that kind of security and building those kinds of standards in
what we do internally, as well as what our private sector does,
is an important step in protecting our computer assets.
Mr. Duncan. All right.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for
being here. I am going to try to move quickly through my
questions.
The new personnel system that is being implemented, the
House took some actions on an amendment a couple weeks ago that
basically hurt the funding for that. Do you want to comment on
that? It is at a critical stage in its development, and zeroing
out those funds, has that hurt?
Secretary Chertoff. Mr. Chairman, it is essential we have
the funding to move the program forward. The worst possible
world would be to have a system that we cannot properly operate
because we haven't trained people. If nothing else, fairness to
the people in the system requires that we fund it in a way that
allows us to get it moving.
Chairman Tom Davis. I talked to Mr. Menendez, whose
amendment took the money. I don't think he was even aware that
this was the money to implement that system. And I hope we can
make sure in the conference that money is restored.
Two weeks ago we did a press conference; your people were
just excellent. We had former TSA Assistant Secretary Stone
announcing the pending release of interim final rule reopening
Reagan National Airport to general aviation. Do you know what
the status of that rule is?
Secretary Chertoff. I believe we are working on the
technical aspects of the rule, and I hope to have it out within
a few weeks.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
The U.S. VISIT program is absolutely critical at this
point. What kind of plans does the Department have to generate
stakeholder ownership, as well as a buy-in at the Department of
State and the Department of Justice in order to have a really,
truly integrated border management system? Also, what are the
next major increments of the U.S. VISIT program that DHS would
deliver, and how is it going from your perspective?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, it has been very successful so
far. By the way, when I was in Europe, I had unsolicited praise
from three separate government officials in European countries
about how Europeans like the system because it moves them much
more efficiently. We are working to put--we have pilot programs
with U.S. VISIT at several ports of exit, so we can get the
exit piece of it, and we are now more efficient about being
able to tap into both our own data base and the FBI's data base
from a single point of contact at each of the ports of entry
where we have deployed U.S. VISIT. We are going to continue the
program going forward and we are going to use it as a platform
to actually have a more robust effort to have knowledge of who
is coming in and who is leaving our border.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Switching to cybersecurity, do you see a need to have a
senior person in the White House or OMB to coordinate
cybersecurity policy across the Government agencies, or is this
DHS's role, or do you think DHS should be maybe working with
the critical infrastructure that is owned by the private sector
and coordinating policies? I think you know what I am asking.
Secretary Chertoff. Yes. We are looking to upgrade our
capability in terms of doing our cybersecurity piece, and a
large part of what we do is we network, not surprisingly, with
the private sector, because they actually own most of the
assets and they have a good deal of the ingenuity. So we are
looking to, as part of our second stage review, find a way to
further build on those relationships to give us kind of a
comprehensive approach to dealing with cybersecurity.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Let me just finally ask--there has been a considerable
debate up here over container security and how much is actually
inspected. Could you just give us your views in terms of how
safe the containers are coming to this country, what other
strategies might be pursued, how open you are to some new ideas
in those areas?
Secretary Chertoff. I will answer both parts of that. We
use a layered approach now. We screen 100 percent, we inspect
those containers that, under our screening system, are high
risk. We are continuing to move to commence the inspection
process at the port of departure, as opposed to the port of
entry. We are deploying radiation detection monitors. I
announced last week that by the end of the year the Port of Los
Angeles, which I think is the largest in the United States for
containers, would be fully deployed with radiation portal
monitors by the end of the year.
The next stage, which I think you asked about, is equally
important. I think----
Chairman Tom Davis. Let me just try to take that a
different way. Let me look at an idea. For example, the SEC
would require traded companies to have their financial affairs
in order. But they don't actually check the books themselves;
they have third-party auditors, certified auditors with their
reputations on the line, accomplish that. Is there any way that
the CBP should look at shifting that type of system where you
could be prepared by independent third-party auditors, rather
than having you do that? Is that a concept, do you think?
Secretary Chertoff. Absolutely. I think a concept we look
at is the idea, again, of using, as I said, the private
inspectors general and modern supply chain management.
Companies now have the ability to track their stuff at a very
specific level. We are starting to talk about how we can tap
into that expertise, so we don't have to own everything
ourselves. We want to set the baseline, we want to be confident
and assured; we don't necessarily want to operate it all as a
government operation.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Secretary, if anything anybody has watched
is the breathtaking scope of the job that you have, and I
wanted to raise--it is an unusual opportunity here as you are
redoing the Department--a couple of additional questions, and I
know we will continue to work through these both on homeland
security and other areas.
First, let me thank you for your efforts on the Coast
Guard, because that is one of the classic examples of
multitasking. If the boats go out of Alaska, the fishing
industry and all of Alaska and the Northwest United States
could be destroyed. If we don't have search and rescue in the
Great Lakes, people are going to drown, and off Florida and
elsewhere. In the Caribbean we depend on the Coast Guard for
drug interdiction, as well as terrorist interdiction. And the
bottom line is if you don't have more boats, these boats can't
be in harbor, in the Caribbean, in Alaska, on the Great Lakes.
And I appreciate your support for our boats, and we are going
to meet more. But I appreciate your earlier comments.
Also, I know yesterday the drug task force meeting was
canceled. I hope you can do that. Many members have expressed
to me--because you are the largest combined drug agency that
there is because of the legacy Border Patrol, legacy Customs,
Air and Marine, Shadow Wolves, Coast Guard. All those things
are in your Department, and 30,000 people die from narcotics.
Terrorism is a perceived and there is certainly a great
potential threat, but every year narco-terrorists are doing
this, and the money is very interrelated.
Also, I have interacted with your staff on the Capitol
airspace security question. I spent quite a bit of time with
Chairman Rogers last night, and he is working with that. I just
believe there needs to be better coordination. We weren't even
out of the cloakroom and that building would have been blown
up.
We are dependent, here in the Capitol Building, on earlier
warning, earlier detection, and certainty of security, because
there is no way they can move us out of these buildings, no
matter how hard they try, and they were yelling at all of us
but we can't get out. And it is clear there are still arguments
going on between the different agencies, and it isn't just a
matter of the White House. Congress and the Supreme Court are
equal branches, and there has to be some kind of coordinated
security.
Also, Congressman Reyes raised on Fox and Friends this
morning another unusual thing related to the border, and that
is Mexicans are immediately deported if you don't have another
crime. At El Paso they used to have 17 times you were detained,
but as long as you don't have another crime now, they just send
you back to Mexico.
But we have about 10 percent of the people who aren't
Mexicans. When I was on the border last, there were Brazilians,
Middle Easterners being picked up, and we don't have detention
facilities to put them in. They are then on a deportation
hearing up to their own recognizance. We have enough of a
problem with people coming in with Mexican IDs and going back
to Mexico.
But clearly, we are going to have to have some kind of way
to address these others who are not coming back for their
deportation hearings. And while they may not have a criminal
record, they certainly are potential. It is a huge
vulnerability. And I wonder if that and one other question if
you could address. Do you support additional detention centers
for non-Mexicans so that we don't just release them into the
United States?
And then the last thing is, given the incident on the
Canadian border last week with the murderer who killed the two
Canadian citizens, we have a problem at these small border
crossings. Short-term it is not our greatest problem, but the
millennium bomber came across at a small crossing at Port
Angeles. It was dependent on the local agent from your
Department actually intuitively saying this person seems
suspicious.
And we don't have adequate blood detection equipment; we
don't have adequate other types of things to put at all these
small borders. But I wonder if this has done any re-evaluation.
This guy had a bloody chain saw in his back seat and other
guns. Is there some kind of additional type of check that this
has made you re-evaluate, like a bloody chainsaw rule or
something?
Secretary Chertoff. Those are a lot of questions. I think
they break into two parts. Let me try to answer them both.
We are very mindful of the issue of people other than
Mexicans across the southern border. One approach which we have
expanded is expedited removal, which allows us to remove them
more quickly. There is now additional funding in the budget for
more beds. Clearly, the ability to detain--you know, we detain
those who have criminal records. The ability to expand and
detain others, particularly those who are flight risks, is
important.
We also are looking at alternative ways of ensuring that if
we release people, we can get them back, which is bracelets or
monitoring and supervision. So those are our approaches that we
are working on now to see if we can have a better ability to
make sure people don't just get released into the population
and never return.
On the issue of the report on the Canadian citizen, I don't
want to get too specific. I will say that, as with the Rissom
case, our best weapon in many cases is still good old-
fashioned, well trained intuition. Even with the machinery,
even with the high tech, you have to read it, and that requires
training. And I am continually impressed by the phenomenal job
that our folks do at the border and at the airports in picking
up on the cues that you need to know something.
I think in this particular case, in fairness, there was not
a failure to identify that there was an issue. My understanding
is that the local Border Patrol folks questioned the person,
seized the weapons, checked relentlessly to see if there were
any outstanding warrants or paper or charges.
At the end of the day, though, a U.S. citizen is entitled
to return to the country, and we cannot hold people without a
legal basis. And I think in that particular case, whatever the
ultimate disposition of the case is, there was no legal basis
on which to hold this person. So it was not a failure of
investigation or failure of the process, it was kind of an
inherent limitation of our system of law.
Mr. Souder. Is there an automatic check with the RCMP?
Secretary Chertoff. I don't know if there is an automatic
check, but my understanding is they checked with every
conceivable--in every way they could think of to see if there
was paper out. I think they caught onto the fact that there was
something to ask about. That is my understanding; that is what
I have been told.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Shays [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Secretary, you have a reputation that says that you
think strategicly, that you are organized, that you are
demanding. I think those are some very important
characteristics, and we appreciate the job you are doing and we
appreciate your coming before this committee.
Some of your staff, when we put in the legislation on color
coded in the authorization bill, almost seemed offended that we
would put it in the legislation, because I think you folks are
moving away from colors to be a little more helpful. But I just
want to understand your attitude about how the alert system
should work.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, first of all, I want to be clear,
because there is sometimes a little bit of a misunderstanding.
The Department of Homeland Security is not on the alert system,
it is actually an HSPD, a Presidential directive. And a number
of agencies participate in the process of setting the alert.
The system serves two functions----
Mr. Shays. Let me just say parenthetically, that is why we
wanted to have some say in that by why we put it in the
authorization bill.
Secretary Chertoff. I think it serves two functions. One is
we have geared in the private sector and State and local
government a series of measures that one takes when we get up
to orange, including certain funding mechanisms. So obviously
we now have baked into the system a whole lot of stakeholders
who have made their own arrangements based on the idea of
elevating the level.
Sometimes, as was the case last year, I think in the
financial sector, in the New York metropolitan area, we are
able to give some specificity to the threat. Sometimes the
threat, although credible, is not particularly specific, and we
have to weigh whether, under the circumstances, we should
advise State and locals and private sector to take additional
protective measures. That is a hard task.
There is a public awareness dimension as well, which is
also important but has certain different dynamics. As with
anything else, this is a system which we have had experience
with for 2 or 3 years. It clearly makes sense to look at it and
see if there are improvements that should be made. Congress has
indicated we should do that.
We want to make sure, at the end of the day, we can
preserve both elements, we can have a system that works for our
stakeholders operationally and also a system that is not overly
alarming to the public, gives them reasonable insight into what
is going on in the world around them, but does not place a
burden on them or impede the living of their daily lives.
Mr. Shays. Well, let me just share with you that I think
our legislation clearly wants you to be geographic when you can
be, to be economic sector specific when you can be, and it
wants us to tell the public what it means, in other words, what
actions they might take.
And I can tell you a few years ago, just close to the New
Year's Eve, we knew that we were looking for radioactive
material; we knew we were looking in five cities. And I will
tell you every staff member who had that briefing made sure
they took specific action and didn't go in specific places. And
it seemed outrageous to me that the people who knew what the
threat was took one action and the people in general, who
didn't, had no sense of what action they should have taken.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, you know, we do try, and
obviously want to continue to try, to be as specific as to
sector or as to geography as we can be. You know, the issue of
what we can tell people, we are obviously always constrained by
sources and methods, and we have to be careful sometimes not to
create a panic. I mean, often we get information that is very--
you really have a doubt and you have to balance whether it is
sufficiently definite that you want to put out a warning,
particularly if it is going to result in people taking dramatic
activity that could have real unintended consequences.
The last piece you raise is kind of a moral issue. You have
more insight into threats than the average person, and we often
struggle with the fact that we cannot take steps on our own
behalf that we would not warn other people about. That is kind
of a personal moral issue we have to deal with. But we clearly
want to convey as much information as we can consistent with
not overly alarming people and consistent with the quality of
the intelligence and the preservation of sources and methods.
Mr. Shays. It is clearly a tradeoff. But I will tell you if
you know that a site is dangerous, at least parents should--and
it is a public place--at least parents should have the
recognition that if they go there, they take a chance. And
maybe they want to go but not bring their kids. There are
things that I think the public has a right to know, and I hope
that the Department will move more in that direction than the
other direction.
I know you want to leave. Let me just quickly ask you about
the cargo issue. And the cargo issue is, frankly, we don't
check cargo on passenger aircraft. That is the bottom line. And
I hope we refrain from saying we check it, because we have
known cargo.
It strikes me that Congress has been reluctant to even put
a deadline on this. We did it for baggage, we did it for
luggage under the belly of an aircraft. Why shouldn't we be
expecting from you that you should tell us this is what we can
do by this period of time and this is what we can do by this
period, and this is what we can do by this?
Secretary Chertoff. One of the things I asked when we set
out the second stage review is specifically this question. I
said we need to develop a plan to determine how we are going to
handle the issue of cargo on passenger planes and cargo on
cargo planes. It has to be a system that works in a way that
does not destroy the cargo industry, because it makes it
impossible to ship things because it takes too long.
And it has to assure us reasonable security. Whether the
approach is the one suggested by Chairman Mica or whether it is
another approach, I do agree this is one of the things we need
to have an answer in really the short term, and I expect one of
the things that will emerge from the second stage review will
be a plan and a set of recommendations about how to go forward
to address this very important issue.
Mr. Shays. OK.
I know that you just have one question. The Secretary
wanted to leave by 12 noon, so if it could be a quick one.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Sure.
I was a former county executive during September 11, and
one of the bigger issues is the standards of getting money and
resources to first responders to State and local, and then
holding them accountable for their performance. As you know,
there has been some lack of accountability, a lot of money that
has been wasted. And I just want to throw it out as far as
where we are with respect to the standards as it relates to
getting resources, money to the first responders, and then the
issue of what is going for what purpose and then holding them
accountable for performing it?
Secretary Chertoff. We have a set of national preparedness
goals which breaks down basically all the things you need to be
prepared to do across the spectrum, from prevention through
response, for first responders, and below each of the
categories are some very specific things that every particular
region or area needs to have. We don't give design, we give
performance.
You know, we recognize there are differences geographically
and in terms of communities. That is the template we are going
to be using in terms of distributing grant money. We are going
to be saying these are the things you need to be coming forward
and saying I need money to do this, that, or the other thing
under this particular goal or standard.
That tool, when it is fully deployed, will be a tool that
will allow us to have both intelligent application of resources
and real accountability.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Which includes areas, for instance, like
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York versus maybe
Jackson Hole, WY.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, there are two separate issues.
One is how we divide among areas. And I think that we are going
to do based on a risk-based theory. And as I said, the
President's budget and the administration has urged that we
move away from large guaranteed amounts per State, down to I
think the House passed 0.25, because that gives us more money
we can allocate.
But, you know, we are not driven by State; we are driven by
infrastructure, we are driven by consequence. It is not a
question of jurisdictional lines, it is a question of what our
analytical tools show us is the most intelligent way to spend
money.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Secretary, you have been generous with your
time, and we wanted to get you out by 12. Thanks for staying a
little later.
We would ask that the record remain open for 10 days for
Members' questions and any other information we need to insert
into the record.
Secretary Chertoff. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shays. And we will put Mr. Ruppersberger's letter into
the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Hon. Jon C. Porter and Hon.
Kenny Marchant and additional information submitted for the
hearing record follow:]
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