<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:87679.wais]
ARE WE READY FOR PRIME TIME? ASSESSING THE STATE OF EMERGENCY READINESS
IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 10, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-18
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
87-679 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 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
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Randy Kaplan, Senior Counsel/Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 10, 2003................................... 1
Statement of:
Harp, Van, Director, Washington Field Office, Federal Bureau
of Investigation; Teresa Chambers, Chief, U.S. Park Police;
and Charles Ramsey, chief, Metropolitan Police Department.. 82
White, Richard, general manager, Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority; David Robertson, interim executive
director, accompanied by Mary K. Hill, chair, Board of
Directors, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments;
and Bob Peck, president, Washington Board of Trade......... 121
Williams, Anthony A., Mayor, District of Columbia; Mark
Warner, Governor, Commonwealth of Virginia; Bruce Tuxill,
Adjutant General, accompanied by Edward T. Norris,
secretary of State police, State of Maryland; and Michael
Byrne, Director, Office of National Capitol Region
Coordination, U.S. Department of Homeland Security......... 13
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Byrne, Michael, Director, Office of National Capitol Region
Coordination, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
prepared statement of...................................... 65
Chambers, Teresa, Chief, U.S. Park Police, prepared statement
of......................................................... 92
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 198
Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 4
Harp, Van, Director, Washington Field Office, Federal Bureau
of Investigation, prepared statement of.................... 85
Peck, Bob, president, Washington Board of Trade, prepared
statement of............................................... 184
Ramsey, Charles, chief, Metropolitan Police Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 103
Robertson, David, interim executive director, and Mary K.
Hill, chair, Board of Directors, Metropolitan Washington
Council of Governments, prepared statement of.............. 154
Tuxill, Bruce, Adjutant General, prepared statement of....... 55
Warner, Mark, Governor, Commonwealth of Virginia, prepared
statement of............................................... 32
Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 7
White, Richard, general manager, Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority, prepared statement of................... 124
Williams, Anthony A., Mayor, District of Columbia, prepared
statement of............................................... 17
ARE WE READY FOR PRIME TIME? ASSESSING THE STATE OF EMERGENCY READINESS
IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2003
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:35 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis of
Virginia (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Shays, Jo Ann Davis of
Virginia, Waxman, Cummings, Kucinich, Clay, Van Hollen,
Ruppersberger, Cooper and Bell.
Also present: Representatives Wolf, Hoyer, Moran and Wynn.
Staff present: Peter Sirh, staff director; Melissa Wojciak,
deputy staff director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Ellen
Brown, legislative director and senior policy counsel; David
Young, counsel; David Marin, director of communications; Scott
Kopple, deputy director of communications; Victoria Proctor,
professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Joshua
E. Gillespie, deputy clerk; Allyson Blandford, office manager;
Shalley Kim, legislative assistant; Brien Beattie, staff
assistant; Phil Schiliro, minority staff director; Phil
Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kristin Amerling, minority
deputy chief counsel; David Rapallo, minority counsel; Karen
Lightfoot, minority communications director/senior policy
advisor; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; Jean Gosa,
minority assistant clerk; and Cecelia Morton, minority office
manager.
Chairman Tom Davis. Good morning. A quorum being present,
the Committee on Government Reform will come to order, and I
want to welcome everybody to today's hearing on emergency
readiness in the national capital region.
The national capital region faces some unique challenges in
its emergency preparation and response planning. It is an area
governed by two States, the District of Columbia and the
Federal Government, each with its own police forces and
emergency plans, but all closely connected by roads, bridges
and mass transit.
The District of Columbia is also the seat of government
that employs close to 370,000 Federal employees, many of whom
live in nearby Maryland and Virginia, and because of its unique
status as the Nation's Capital, a multitude of government
agencies must coordinate their efforts to respond effectively
to emergencies.
The Federal, local and State governments have taken a
number of actions to improve coordination in emergency
situations, but in recent weeks several incidents in the
Capital Region have shown that there is much to be done in the
way of planning, coordination, communication and informing the
public.
For example this past month a disgruntled tobacco farmer
drove a tractor onto the Mall with a permit and threatened to
detonate explosives and effectively held the area hostage for
47 hours. This incident seriously disrupted life and work in
this region when traffic in the Capital's vital areas came to a
standstill.
Law enforcement agencies attempted to negotiate with the
disgruntled farmer, but even as the Nation approached the eve
of war, and the homeland security risk condition had been
upgraded to code orange, control strategies were not escalated.
Law enforcement agencies reported that their priority was to
preserve the rights of a single man. Meanwhile the Nation's
Capital was effectively shut down during three morning rush
hours.
Thousands of employees found their normal commute times
exponentially increased. Federal and private sector employees
were in traffic instead of doing their jobs. Federal and
private sector employees could not make it home in time to pick
up children or attend after-work obligations. Even Congress was
impaired by the incident. Caucuses called off meetings, and
hearings could not occur because Members who were stuck in
traffic were not present. This lack of productivity represents
a significant economic impact, and it is unacceptable.
If local and Federal officials were not able to handle
congestion problems created by one man, how will they handle an
evacuation necessitated by a terrorist attack? When protesters,
packages or acts of nature cause regional officials to close
roads, the effects extend far beyond a mild inconvenience to
commuters.
Road closures also raise serious concerns about first
responders' ability to react to other incidents. How can an
ambulance best respond to calls and transport the sick and
injured to hospitals when the roads are closed? How can the
fire department arrive at the scene of a fire in a timely
manner?
For all the planning to prepare for emergencies, it seems
that the numerous agencies and jurisdictions couldn't resolve
the situation with a disgruntled farmer in a timely manner. We
plan to examine whether they acted according to the book, and
if so, whether it is time to revisit and rewrite the book.
It cannot be said that there is a shortage of plans. The
problem is making sure that the plans are workable and will
meet the needs of all those involved. The plans need to be
tested and coordinated.
After the events of September 11th, the Federal Government
invested over $432 million to assist regional jurisdictions to
prepare to combat terrorism and respond to emergencies in the
national capital region. I've asked the GAO to examine the
budget and spending plans for Maryland, Virginia and the
District of Columbia. This report will help Congress identify
whether this region is sufficiently funded and is using the
funds to its fullest capacity.
We've assembled an impressive group of witnesses to help us
understand the progress of the national capital region for
planning and emergency preparedness response. We have three
panels with us. The first will focus on government planning in
the Federal, State and District level. The second will focus on
law enforcement, and the final panel will focus on some of the
private entities involved with emergency planning in the
national capital region.
We look forward to the testimony, and I would now yield to
the ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7679.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7679.002
Mr. Waxman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased
that the committee is holding today's hearing on emergency
readiness in the national capital region. Ensuring preparedness
in this region is particularly challenging given the severity
of threats facing the area and the range of Federal, State and
local entities involved in responding to the threats across
jurisdictional lines. This committee should do everything it
can to promote optimal coordination of these efforts.
I want to welcome the distinguished witnesses, who I know
have devoted a lot of time and energy to regional preparedness.
Your work may help prevent serious harm to many citizens of the
national capital region--indeed it may already have done so and
I know I speak for many others in telling all of you how much I
appreciate your commitment to this effort.
Our side will be anchored today by Representative Chris Van
Hollen, a new member of the committee from suburban Maryland.
Mr. Van Hollen represents this area and has devoted a lot of
attention to ensuring that we have the best possible security
plans. He will bring an invaluable perspective to this hearing
and the tough security challenges we face.
I also want to note that Congresswoman Norton of our
committee has been tireless in her work to advance national
capital region emergency preparedness. Ms. Norton's efforts
include authorizing the original amendment that laid the
foundation for the Office of National Capital Region
Coordination, now directed by Mr. Michael Byrne, one of our
witnesses today. Unfortunately, Congresswoman Norton was called
out of town unexpectedly and could not attend today's hearing.
This is a great disappointment to her, because she is
actually the person who first suggested this hearing. Ms.
Norton wanted this hearing for several reasons: One, to ask Mr.
Byrne to describe his vision of what his job will entail; two,
to obtain a status report on preparedness plans in this region
to date; and three, to seek reassurance from witnesses about
planning in the region, particularly in light of the recent
increase in the alert level.
I know that Ms. Norton had a positive recent meeting with
Mr. Byrne and will be following up with him after the hearing.
And finally, I want to commend Chairman Davis for having
this hearing and for his great interest in homeland security
issues.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7679.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7679.004
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no formal
statement other than to thank you for holding this hearing and
to thank our distinguished panelists. They are all very
distinguished in their fields of work. We appreciate what the
Mayor is doing, what the Governor is doing, and what is
happening in Maryland as well. And thank our officials, too.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you for holding this hearing.
I want to thank our ranking member, Congressman Waxman, for
asking me to participate today along with him since I represent
suburban Montgomery County here and Prince George's County.
I also want to thank Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
for her leadership on this issue, and my other colleagues here,
it is great to have my other colleague from Maryland as well.
Congressman Cummings and Congressman Ruppersberger obviously
have a keen interest in this.
Depending on how you define the national region, you can--
you know, and this is an issue that I know we're going to want
to talk about exactly what constitutes the region that we want
to plan for. We can enlarge it beyond what is actually in the
statute itself, the homeland security statute, but I look
forward to the discussion today about how we can improve
security in our region.
I would like to say at the outset that obviously the
Washington region is not an island within the country. So
although we're going to be focusing on this region today, it is
important to understand that the resources that we dedicate to
homeland security on a national basis have an impact on our
security here. I mean, if a container ship was to come into a
California port containing a nuclear weapon and was to come
across the country to Washington, DC, that it obviously deals
with our national domestic security readiness. And I was
disappointed that efforts in the House recently to increase the
appropriations and funding for domestic security have not so
far been included in the supplemental appropriations bill. I
hope that will be increased, because how we deal with this
nationally, of course, has an impact on our region in addition
to our specific efforts to get this region ready.
So I want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing
and thank my colleagues.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like
to say thanks to you for taking the time to discuss the
security concerns of the Nation's Capital region. As a target
of the terrorist attack of September 11th, it is imperative
that our region be prepared to meet the challenges of this new
world.
Mr. Chairman, you've gathered a distinguished panel of
policymakers, leaders and experts, and I'd like to thank you
all for joining us today, and especially to you, Governor Mark
Warner. I appreciate you taking the time to be here today
representing our great Commonwealth on this very serious
matter.
I realize that the focus of this hearing is the Nation's
Capital region; however, I'm very interested how this area is
going to be defined. I certainly understand regional
boundaries, but it's my hope that during this discussion today
and in the future, that critical infrastructure for this area
is not simply seen as inside the Beltway. After all, God forbid
if we must endure a future attack, it is imperative that
outlying areas, including the Interstate 95 corridor through
the Fredericksburg region, which is Virginia's fastest growing
region over the past decade, and maybe even down into the
Richmond area, that they are equipped and properly funded to
supply a mass exodus from Washington.
I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to
today's testimony.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Tennessee.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to
extend a particularly warm welcome to my friend and former
classmate, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mark
Warner.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
express my appreciation for you holding this hearing today.
Mr. Chairman, in the audience we have our superintendent of
the Maryland State Police, Ed Norris, and when I see him there,
I cannot help but think about when he was serving as the head
of the Baltimore City Police, he and our mayor, I mean, many,
many months ago, they were the first folks that I ever heard
really talk about homeland security. I don't know whether you
used that term, but the fact is, is that he stood up when so
many other people were silent. And now this issue has become a
major issue, and I'm so glad I want to take a moment to thank
him and our mayor, Mayor O'Malley, for standing up on this
issue.
I'm sure that we will hear quite a bit of testimony, but
one of the things that we need to be very clear on is that it
takes money to do these things. You know, we can go, we can sit
here and talk from now until ever more about how we want things
to be, but the fact is, Mr. Chairman, our State governments are
suffering. I know what you've gone through, Governor Warner,
and it's been very tough, and we're going through the same
things in Maryland. And so I'm hoping that not only will we
learn about the preparedness, but we need to know what this
Federal Government needs to be doing to help the city of
Washington, the State of Maryland and Virginia, because that's
the real deal.
I don't want us to be in a position where we have motion,
commotion and emotion and no results, and the only way we're
going to have results is to do what Ed Norris said many, many
months ago. First, put our money where our mouths are; and No.
2, maximum cooperation between the Federal Government and our
State and local officials.
And so I'm excited about this hearing. I'm glad that all
the witnesses are here, and let me be one of the many here to
thank all of you for what you are doing to protect the citizens
of this great country. We're going through some very difficult
times, and you have a tremendous amount of responsibility on
your shoulders. And it is up to us in this Congress and
certainly the executive branch to help you help our citizens
and protect them.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Chairman, first, I'm happy that we
have such a great panel here today. I think this issue is one
of the most important issues that we have to deal with. There's
been a lot of focus on the war, but we have to focus on our
homeland security. I like to call it hometown security, because
I think we need to focus on the hometown, not only Washington,
DC, but the entire region and the region as represented here
today.
I was a county executive in Baltimore County on September
11th, and along with other county executives and the mayor of
Baltimore, we worked very closely to try to address the issues
that we hadn't addressed for a long time. I've always believed
that you can turn a negative into a positive, and I think as a
result of what happened on September 11th, that there's been a
lot of refuges on what we need to do to protect ourselves from
terrorism. And I think it's very important, and that's why I
really like seeing this panel here today, that it be done in a
regional basis, teamwork basis, issues such as mass transit and
how do we deal with it. We need to make sure that we continue
to get our intelligence. We need to make sure that we have the
teamwork, both Federal, State and local.
You know, a lot of leads come from local government, but
just because you get information and you get the information,
you also have to do something with that information.
And the final thing is the resources. I think it's
extremely important that we refuges some of our moneys in the
Federal Government into the issue of homeland security,
hometown security, and that a lot of that should go to the
States and the local government, because the first responders
will be our police officers, our firefighters and our health
officers, and if we don't protect them and their lives and give
them the equipment and the resources, they will not be able to
protect us.
Also, General Tuxill, I acknowledge that you're here today.
We've had a good relationship in my former job and now, and
good luck.
I see Superintendent Norris. Thank you for being here. I
know you bring a lot of knowledge from New York and the State
of Maryland, and we're looking forward to all you do to protect
us and the State and the entire region. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent that Representatives Hoyer, Wolf,
Moran and Wynn, who are not members of the committee, be
permitted to participate in today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Moran, would you like to say anything?
Mr. Moran. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just came from a hearing of the legislative branch on
security. I suspect that--in fact, I'm confident anything that
needed to be said has been said, but sometimes we find another
way of saying it.
Just last week we had tens of thousands of people delayed
for at least an hour because we had an accident on the 14th
Street bridge, and I know the reason is because they were going
through the mechanics of insurance processing. Those vehicles
need to be moved out of the way. It is much too costly
economically, socially, every other way to cripple the Nation's
Capital for an automobile accident. And this tractor man
business where we have one guy in a tractor able to bring the
Nation's Capital to a grinding halt can't happen again. Imagine
if we had had some kind of attack when everything was ground to
a halt? It should serve as a warning to us. It should serve as
an opportunity to figure out a way to move things along.
You know, I don't want to be too harsh about this, but I
think sometimes we deal with these things with kid gloves. You
know, our first concern is that we show the political
sensitivity that we feel we need to one individual and make
sure that we don't harm them or upset them. Same thing happened
on the Wilson Bridge. We got a guy that crippled Washington for
an entire day--I think it was more than a full day--because he
was threatening to jump. He finally jumped. He jumped into the
water. No harm done. And now--I know it wasn't well received
when I suggested we should have just pushed him, but I think we
can come up with some more practical approaches than we're
implementing right now.
And I appreciate the fact that the chairman gave me an
opportunity to listen in on this hearing, because there are few
things that are more important to people than when you disrupt
their lives. You don't give them an opportunity to get back to
their child's day care center in time. When the kids are stuck
at school, when they've got important things at work and
everything grinds to a halt because of one, two or three
individuals, it is wrong. We've got to figure out a way to stop
it. If not for the economic reasons, now for the national
security reasons.
So that is all I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman. I suspect
others have said it, and I thank you for giving me an
opportunity to say it as well.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
We have a very distinguished panel here today. We have the
Mayor of the city of Washington, Tony Williams. We have my
Governor, Mark Warner, who has been a leader, by the way, in
transportation and traffic. And, Mark, I appreciate everything
that you're doing. We have Major General Tuxill from Maryland
State Police, and Mr. Byrne is the new coordinator for homeland
security for the Washington metropolitan region.
It is the policy of the committee we swear our witnesses.
So you just rise with me and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Why don't we start with the Mayor, move to the Governor and
move right down.
Tony, thank you for being with us today, and we appreciate
the job you're doing as well.
STATEMENTS OF ANTHONY A. WILLIAMS, MAYOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA;
MARK WARNER, GOVERNOR, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA; BRUCE TUXILL,
ADJUTANT GENERAL, ACCOMPANIED BY EDWARD T. NORRIS, SECRETARY OF
STATE POLICE, STATE OF MARYLAND; AND MICHAEL BYRNE, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF NATIONAL CAPITOL REGION COORDINATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mayor Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a long
history of working with the District of Columbia Subcommittee,
and I look forward to working with the main committee with you
as Chair and Congressman Waxman as the ranking member;
certainly look forward to working with Congressman Norton in
this capacity. I'm sorry she's not here. She has called for an
examination and review of this issue.
We look forward to working with my good friend of
longstanding, Congressman Van Hollen, and all of the members of
the committee. Thank you for your interest and your oversight
and your support.
I'm going to try to abbreviate my remarks, because of the
time constraints of the committee and also because we do have a
distinguished panel with many, many things to do.
The chairman has spoken of the gravity and the need for
this kind of review and the complexity and demands of the
national capital region. So I will quickly report on two major
elements of our planning effort and leave it to the rest of the
panel to touch on other areas.
In fact, the leadership of the District, the State of
Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia have established an
unprecedented level of cooperation among our jurisdictions in
the national capital region. Each jurisdiction has designated
our respective homeland security directors and the directors of
our emergency management agencies to form something called the
Senior Policy Group. The Senior Policy Group is charged with
defining and implementing strategic objectives for achieving
security across the jurisdictions. This group and work groups
created by it have strengthened relationships with one another,
local jurisdictions, Federal agencies, and public and private
organizations in the national capital region.
In August 2002, a national capital region summit was
convened. The summit produced an agreement among former
Maryland Governor Glendening, Governor Warner and myself. We
are committed to work together to fulfill the following eight
commitments to action: One, terrorism prevention; two, citizen
involvement in preparedness; three, decisionmaking and
coordination; four, emergency protective measures; five,
infrastructure protection; six, media relations and
communication; seven, mutual aid; and eight, training and
exercises.
Now, as Governor Warner, Major General Tuxill and Michael
Byrne continue with their remarks, we will collectively cover
all of these eight commitments, and I'm going to provide some
information on two of the commitments to action: One, citizen
involvement in preparedness; and, two, media relations and
communications.
I understand that you've requested information specifically
on regional cooperation; appropriate roles and
responsibilities; transportation, evacuation and street closure
planning. Also you've requested information on medical
assistance and response preparedness, telecommunication and
communication implementation and coordination.
As we review the eight commitments to action, we will cover
each of these topics as they fit into and within the
interjurisdictional planning context that we've developed in
these commitments to action.
So without further ado, to talk about citizen involvement
and preparedness, the goal of this commitment to action, it is
to utilize mechanisms for regional cooperation in endorsing and
implementing citizen core programs within the national capital
region. To date, partners in the region have succeeded in
integrating the operations and planning of our citizen core
programs, including regular regional meetings and exchanging
program information and outreach activities.
The offices are also developing action plans for
coordinating Neighborhood Watch programs, Volunteers in Police
Service, and Medical Reserve Corps. In times of emergency, our
citizenry is one of our most valuable resources. Effective
management of this resource is critical to ensuring an
efficient response. Programs such as Citizen Corps, Volunteers
in Police Service and Medical Reserve Corps provide a mechanism
to engage citizens, identify specific skills, and provide
community members with training opportunities. These programs
are beneficial by increasing awareness, by establishing
response plans, and developing a better-educated citizenry.
I myself have had four or five town hall meetings in our
city. Citizens want to be involved. Hundreds of citizens are
showing up at these meetings, and these citizens recognize that
often the first response will be citizens, and God forbid we
were to have a major event and--or major technological tools
are no longer at our disposal, we may be relying on more
classic means of notification and citizens themselves for
notifications within their community.
So this is very important, and the President's emphasis on
Citizen Corps could not be coming too soon.
One of the most important ways citizens can help mitigate
the efforts of an emergency is to learn how to prepare their
household in an emergency. The American Red Cross, the
Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Maryland and the
District have all released preparedness guides specifically
targeted to help households plan for emergencies.
Here in the District we've distributed more than 1 million
copies of our Family Preparedness Guide. We've translated it
into seven languages and Braille, and we've distributed it in
public schools, libraries, clinics, public meetings, community
forums, as well as through the Washington Post.
Now, one of the issue areas you've inquired about in
preparation for this hearing is transportation and evacuation,
particularly as the issue has been accentuated by the incidents
and the episodes that the Chair and Congressman Moran have
alluded to, the tractor man, for example. This is an area that
intersects with a strategic policy group goal of citizen
preparedness. Clearly an area of major concern for those who
work, visit and live in the District is being prepared for any
incident that would require knowledge of how to safely exit the
city in the event of an emergency. To address this concern, the
District and Maryland and the Virginia Departments of
Transportation entered into a memorandum of understanding to
develop a regional transportation strategy. As a result of this
partnership, event evacuation routes were established and
clearly marked with signage. During a public incident, 70
critical intersections in the District will be staffed with
uniformed police officers to assist in the evacuation process.
Now, I may say parenthetically that in talking to Mr. Byrne
and in talking with Governor Warner and Governor Ehrlich, we
have all asked for an after-action report for lessons learned
from the tractor man incident, and I don't mean to minimize the
lessons that can be learned from that and the need to take
action quickly as a result of that, but I do want to stress
before the committee one important point, as I do at every
public forum, and that is most often the right thing to do
during an emergency is to stay exactly where you are.
Evacuation of the city or even a large portion of it would be a
very rare and extraordinary occurrence, and I think it's
important for citizens to know that.
Let me briefly touch on another key point and priority area
in our planning, and that is media relations and communication.
The goal of this commitment to action is to develop processes
and protocols for use of a virtual joint information center for
the region during response to a major emergency, bringing
together a coordinated voice to our public and to the media.
We're all one regional community. We need to speak with one
voice.
In addition to increasing public awareness within the
District of Columbia, the region has made great strides and
coordination since September 11, 2001. On that day
communication between levels of government, between local
government and the Federal Government left much to be desired.
We all know that.
While local authorities have a variety of resources to
verify incidents, the general public and even governments in
the region across the country must sometimes rely on media
reports for information. Interjurisdictional coordination with
the media is imperative to ensure that the message put forth by
the Federal Government and the jurisdictions is consistent.
Developing a joint information system to serve as an ongoing
operational concept will allow each organization to maintain
its unique identity while being viewed as part of a whole.
Now, interjurisdictional communication is also essential.
The District, Virginia and Maryland each have emergency
operation centers that function 24 hours a day and can contact
key emergency response personnel throughout the region. Our
emergency operations centers are equipped, excuse me, to secure
video telecommunications so that we're able to communicate and
coordinate face to face during emergency situations. Through
our own emergency management agency, we're also able to access
local leadership, the local county executives, for example, via
a regional incident communication and coordination system.
So the long and short of it, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, is that in the area of these eight policy goals,
progress is being made. Yes, there is a need to make sure that
in terms of policy, plans and principles, that action is being
taken, but I believe that we're well on our way, and I believe
that as a result of September 11th, we are achieving an
unprecedented level of cooperation and coordination between and
among our region, and I'm proud of it.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Williams follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Governor Warner, thank you for being
with us today.
Governor Warner. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear. Mr. Chairman, I want
to commend you as well on your foresight in holding this
hearing at this point. I think it is absolutely critical.
I'd like to extend greetings as well to my friends from the
Virginia delegation, Mrs. Davis and Congressman Moran, it was
great to see you, and respond as well to my former law school
classmate Mr. Cooper from Tennessee. It's good to see you back
in Congress.
I want to touch briefly in my remarks as well as echo what
the Mayor has already said in terms of the very close working
relationship that has developed between the Commonwealth of
Virginia, Mayor Williams, and Governor Ehrlich and his team,
and Michael Byrne. You have my written statement. I'll just
make a few brief comments.
Obviously with our Nation focused so much on the war in
Iraq at this point, Mr. Chairman, I think it is also very
appropriate that you hold this hearing for us to refocus our
efforts as well on our mission here at home. We must ensure the
preparedness of Virginia, the national capital region and the
Nation for all sorts of emergencies and disasters, including
terrorism.
Obviously this mission involves the citizens, the news
media, the private sector, State, local and Federal agencies,
and it is, frankly, a mission that requires us to put aside the
traditional jurisdictional battles.
My comments today are built around two fundamental
principles. If we're going to be fully prepared to address
emergencies in the national capital region, we must coordinate
at all levels, and we must have the resources to get the job
done.
I'm pleased to report that we have established clear
procedures and lines of communication between all the
jurisdictions in the region, the Federal, State and local
level. The level of cooperation, as the Mayor said, is
unprecedented, and I believe that it can serve as a model for
the rest of the country. If the neighboring jurisdictions can
cooperate effectively in the national capital region, they can
do it anywhere.
In addition, it is clear that Federal support remains a
critical component of this region's preparedness efforts. On
behalf of the three jurisdictions, I want to thank you and your
colleagues for the recent funding for high-threat urban areas.
This down payment is an important step in the right direction,
but it is only a first step. We are aware of your ongoing work
on the supplemental appropriations bill for this year, and we
are grateful for the additional sums that it will contain for
our homeland security efforts.
Clearly we are better prepared for emergencies and
disasters than we were before September 11th. We are all giving
much greater attention at all levels of our respective
governments, but much more has to be accomplished. Our work in
Virginia and with our partners in the national capital region
is designed to achieve solutions to the unique challenges of
this region. Like all State governments and local governments,
we have to do this during a period of unprecedented fiscal
crisis at the State and local level. We have done so mindful,
though, of the region's unique needs and responsibilities to
the Nation.
My Secure Virginia Panel is providing important leadership
in the homeland security area. I've selected former Lieutenant
Governor John Hager, who is with me here today, to serve as my
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness, a new cabinet-level
position we created to coordinate Virginia's homeland security
efforts, and I appreciate all the good work that that panel has
done.
Cooperation is key to our ability to deter and prevent
attacks, reduce vulnerability and, if necessary, respond and
recover. We also must continue to educate and inform, as the
Mayor has outlined in some of his comments.
Obviously, the safety and preparedness of this region is
critical to the national and economic security of America. As
the Mayor indicated, the Mayor, former Governor Glendening,
Secretary Ridge and I met in August and prepared a plan for the
region. Out of that effort came the eight points that the Mayor
outlined and the ongoing efforts of senior policy leaders in
each of our respective jurisdictions to work together.
Now, this need for closer coordination is not to suggest
that any single effort alone can accomplish this goal. We're
all working together, but as well, we have a series of other
ongoing partnerships and relationships. The Washington, DC,
Metropolitan Council of Governments, the Potomac Conference of
Greater Washington Board of Trade and the Northern Virginia
Regional Commission are among the many organizations that are
continuing to pursue goals in this area as well.
We remain steadfast in maintaining strategic focus across
the national capital region and in moving forward on all eight
areas of commitment. Now, the responsibility for achieving the
needed coordination is a role for State, local and regional
leadership.
The Senior Policy Group that the Mayor has mentioned
continues to meet, and I continue to be updated on those
meetings. And I want to echo what others have already said,
that the Commonwealth applauds the selection of Mike Byrne to
serve as the Director of the Office of National Capital Region
Coordination. Mr. Byrne has already proven that he will be a
strong asset in achieving solutions. He is personally leading a
continuing effort to maintain the effort we started.
As the Mayor addressed two of the eight issues, I'd like to
address three other priority areas that we outlined and that we
continue to work on.
First, terrorism prevention: While much of our focus
continues to be on how to best respond when attacks occur, it
is also clear that steps to deter and prevent attacks are
equally important. Consequently, we cannot overstate the
importance of continuing to aggressively share information
between the Regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the
Antiterrorism Task Forces with our local, State and Federal
members.
Now, progress has been made in developing templates for
regional law enforcement intelligence reports, establishing
better reporting communication, and integrating information
technologies to support these efforts. We cannot afford any
weak links, and this information-sharing effort is designed to
guard against critical information slipping through the cracks.
Anything Congress can do to encourage and promote better
information will be crucial to this effort. I think we've seen
the increased level of cooperation when we all had to live
through those 3 very challenging weeks last fall with the
snipers, but the law enforcement cooperation in that effort was
unprecedented.
Second, infrastructure protection: In the national capital
region, we recognize that government alone cannot do it all.
That is why we are committed to work with the private sector to
identify and set protection priorities for infrastructure
assets and services, such as computer systems or communication
networks, and as we all know, Mr. Chairman, with over half the
Internet traffic in the world passing through northern
Virginia, this is terribly important for the Commonwealth.
Specifically, we have partnered with the Greater Washington
Board of Trade to identify private sector core groups to help
manage this complex but critical public-private effort. The
three jurisdictions have agreed to leverage the resources that
Congress has provided in joint cooperation efforts, working
across each sector in the region.
I'm pleased to report, Mr. Chairman, that the Virginia
General Assembly has recently enacted legislation to promote
information-sharing relative to threats to critical
infrastructure. This new law was modeled on the legislation
that you sponsored at the Federal level.
Third, training and exercises: Our commitment in this area
is to coordinate plans for terrorism and security-related
training across the national capital region. Clearly the best
way to do this is for first responders, managers and leaders to
train and conduct preparedness exercises together. To that end,
we have shared training courses being offered throughout the
region, and we are encouraging cross-jurisdictional and private
sector participation.
Next month we will participate in the TOPOFF II national
exercise to test command and control, information-sharing and
joint information dissemination capabilities. This fall we will
conduct a joint regional full-scale field exercise with first
responders. Again, this cooperation and sharing of information
allows us to stretch our resources further.
In conclusion, let me mention that the national capital
region's security depends on Federal partnership and support.
As a matter of philosophy, no Federal responsibility is more
fundamental than defense of the homeland, and nowhere is this
more true than the Capital region. And as a practical matter,
State and local governments simply do not have the resources to
pay for this all on its own.
Second, we would ask that you give existing homeland
security funding procedures a chance to work. I understand
there's growing pressure for Congress to fund homeland security
efforts directly to local governments, bypassing States. I
would say that such efforts should be approached with caution.
In some cases, they could weaken efforts to promote cooperation
between neighboring jurisdictions, or they can simply be funds
not well spent.
As I said at the outset, if we can cooperate, then we can
accomplish a great deal. Since we've moved to code orange, in
Virginia, for example, the State is disproportionately bearing
the additional burdens brought about by code orange by
increased State police presence at our critical infrastructure
sites, increased presence at our health department, increased
staffing at emergency control centers. So, please, before we
move away from the existing funding formula, please give us a
chance to work this through, because the State participation is
absolutely essential.
Finally, as I know you know, Mr. Chairman, and the members
of your committee, there is only one National Capital, and we
have a special responsibility to protect this region. Obviously
we recognize that any emergency here would affect not only the
jurisdictions bordering the District of Columbia, but their
neighbors as well.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to join you. I'm proud
of the work that we're doing here in the national capital
region, and on behalf of the Commonwealth, let me recommit to
continuing to work with our colleagues in Maryland, the
District, and, Mr. Byrne, to ensure this important priority is
maintained.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Governor Warner follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. The bells that went off are just three
votes over on the House floor.
What I would like to do--Mr. Byrne, I don't know what you
and General Tuxill's schedule is, but if we could do questions
really quickly to the Mayor and the Governor, we could dismiss
them, and then you could have a half-hour break, and we could
come back, and you could give your statements and ask
questions. Would that be acceptable to you? I really appreciate
both of you being here. I think you're both doing a great job
under difficult circumstances, and you've always been
cooperative with us on these issues.
Let me ask--Mr. Shays, any questions?
Mrs. Davis, any questions?
Let me ask over here, Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to
both of you. It is good to see you, the Mayor, and my classmate
from graduate school. And, Governor Warner, welcome to you as
well.
And we don't have much time, so my question gets to a point
raised by Congressman Cummings early on, which is to translate
these plans and ideas into reality, we obviously need
resources. There is the resources we need at the Federal level,
nationally, then, of course, the resources we need locally in
terms of first responders.
I'd like you both to assess the adequacy of the resources
that you've been receiving from the Federal Government. There
was, as you know, an expectation at one point of many higher
resources, and Lieutenant Governor Hager described recently the
amount of resources that Virginia got as a real let-down,
because you've been expecting $80 million, and you got $12.7,
and he described it as peanuts. And it was definitely compared
to what the expectations were.
So my question to both--and I know the District has been
bearing a lot of the burden of going to code orange, as you are
in Virginia. My question is, are you receiving an adequate
level of resources for first responders and other requirements?
If not, what do you think an adequate level of resources would
be? And where are the shortfalls right now? Where would you be
spending those additional resources, and what's the risk if we
don't provide those adequate funding?
Governor Warner. Well, the short answer to the first
question is, no, I don't believe we are receiving the adequate
resources. We have the expectation last fall, as Lieutenant
Governor Hager has indicated, of substantially more dollars.
What that does is it raises the expectations amongst the first
responders. When they don't see their dollars, their ability to
plan, to move forward is seriously impaired. That ratchets up
the pressure for some of the first responders to say, well,
let's just bypass the State and bring these dollars straight to
the local community. Whereas, when we moved right now up into
code orange, well, local governments are having increased
costs--a really disproportionate share is being borne by the
State in increased State police presence, in increased
presence, for example, in terms of the higher levels of the
health department, higher levels at our emergency control
center, and consequently we're getting squeezed both ways.
Those are dollars that we haven't planned for, allocated for,
and the cost is not a line cost, a linear cost, because
depending on how long we're at code orange, you can only build
in so much overtime. You're then going to need additional
personnel. And so that cost rises exponentially.
Mayor Williams. Mr. Chairman, I would look at two things,
Congressman. One is operation, and the other is capital. As
many people know on the capital front, the District has been--
how can I be diplomatic--uniquely treated, and so we have been
given the dollars we need, both in terms of categorical grants
with health and bioterrorism, as well as a grant of around $156
million for general preparedness funding in the capital. And
that is, as the chairman is saying--and I welcome a review by
the GAO, and it ought to be.
On the operational front, thanks to the leadership of many
of you, we've received $50 million reimbursement beginning in
2003, and so if you would ask me what is the real need at some
increment that we're experiencing above that $50 million per
year where we're going beyond that to meet responsibilities
like protests, you know, terrorism threats, threat levels and
the like, so it's really largely a personnel cost.
I would also add, I think--just as I think our regional
cooperation can, I think, set a model for the rest of the
country, I think the review of this committee can set a model
for the rest of the country, and I would urge the committee in
your conversation with Mr. Byrne to look at the State and local
advisory component of the President's Homeland Security
Advisory Council. We recommended to the President a package of
criteria for funding State and local, regional response plans.
I, actually serving as vice chair for that panel, think it is a
good set of criteria.
My point is that I think it's important that we get the
funding, and also important that we have a consistent set of
criteria that are flexible at the local level across the
country to use the funding.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.
We're going to have to leave in just a minute. I know Mrs.
Davis has a question.
Let me make just one comment. First of all, I appreciate
everything you're doing, and for Governor Warner, I don't think
anyone has been more proactive in trying to get transportation
dollars and moving traffic than you have in a generation, and I
mean that, and I appreciate what you've been working on.
One of our concerns, and Mr. Moran expressed it earlier, is
we're going to have to look at routine traffic incidents and
others with the idea of moving the flow, and if you'd work with
us maybe on writing a new book or whatever, and Governor Warner
mentioned it as well. This is a huge concern to commuters
coming in, and we are going to have to find the right balance.
If you'd just work with us on that, if nothing else comes out
of this hearing, but understanding that is very important to
the operations of government as well as to our constituents, I
think that it will be successful.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just real quickly, Governor, I've been married to a retired
first responder for 28 years, and he served in the fire
department for almost 30 years and just recently retired, and
so consequently I've met with a lot of the first responders,
and their complaint to me is that the money goes to the State,
and they never see it. How do I respond to that? And they tell
me there's plenty out there. They just can't get it.
Governor Warner. Mrs. Davis, I only wish that were the
case. We actually are very proud of the fact that as the
Federal Government moves dollars into programs, we've had--I
know there was an issue raised, for example, yesterday with
Arlington. On average we've been able to get those dollars from
the time we receive it, out into the field in about a 60-day
timeframe. As a matter of fact, there's a new series of dollars
up right now that--in terms of additional planning dollars that
are--requests were due March 31st--the dollars will be out by
the end of May.
I think what has happened, and I think Lieutenant Governor
Hager touched on this yesterday, is there's a lot of
information out there from first responders thinking that these
are kind of untapped pots of dollars. But as you know, we had
an expectation at the State level of receiving $85 million. We
received $12 million. I'm not sure of the fact that what we
ultimately received ever trickled down to the first responders,
and they had hopes and expectations of much larger dollar
amounts.
What we are going to continue to do is make sure the first
responders know what kind of ultimate dollar amount we end up
with, but we feel very pleased that we're working on about that
60-day turnaround from the time we get the dollars to getting
those dollars out the door.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Do they have to request the
dollars?
Governor Warner. Yes. I think the chairman touched on this
earlier. Looking at how all these dollars are spent, the value
of having the State be part of the intermediary of this process
is to ensure that there is coordination between all of the
efforts of the local first responders. If not, you could end up
with a hodgepodge of equipment and training going on out there
and not allow us to go then into the coordinated fashion, not
only within the State, but also as we look at
interjurisdictional requirements. It is absolutely essential
that we have that accountability with these Federal dollars
flowing down to the first responders.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Governor, and I'd love
to work with you on that if I could.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
I'll give Mr. Moran the last word here.
Mr. Moran. I'm not going to ask a question, because I know,
Governor, that you're doing a great job, with former Lieutenant
Governor Hager, for the State. But I just have some comments I
want to make, and I first want to make a comment to Tony
Williams to think about.
Federal transportation officials tell us that they are not
aware of any citation being issued in 20 years for hazardous
materials trucks going through populace areas, even though
there is a law that says that you're supposed to use any
alternative routes unless there's no practicable alternative
available. They're still using major highways, Southeast
Expressway, etc., right through the city. A couple tickets, and
the word might spread with some of the HAZMAT trucks.
And with regard to the State, I hope we're making progress
in getting the hotels and the hospitals available if we did
have some kind of spread of a serious infectious disease, that
we move people out and make those beds available.
And last, we get thousands of our trash trucks going
through the Washington area, going to these major trash
disposal places in California. California and Pennsylvania have
more than any other State, as you know, Governor. I know you're
concerned about that. We never check what is in those trash
trucks coming particularly from New York or New Jersey. Once in
a while a little--I don't know how the heck you do it, but I
know that's an area of vulnerability we ought to think about.
And thanks for being here at the hearing and for what
you're doing.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you both for your leadership. We
look forward to working with you, and I'll recess. We'll get
back about 5 minutes of 1. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Chairman Tom Davis. General Tuxill, we will let you go next
and Mr. Byrne. The hearing will be resumed.
General Tuxill. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Davis and distinguished members of the committee,
I am Major General Bruce Tuxill, the Adjutant General for the
State of Maryland. And while it may seem strange to have
someone in uniform here, I have Maryland Emergency Management
under me.
I am here representing Governor Ehrlich. He wished he could
have been here today, but truly appreciates your focus on
homeland security in the national capital region.
I would like to extend my thanks and the Governor's thanks
to Representatives Elijah Cummings, Dutch Ruppersberger and
Chris Van Hollen for their service on this committee and
especially their interest in homeland security.
Maryland has been working with the District, with Virginia
and the Department of Homeland Security, now, and since
September 11, 2001 on our mutually supportive preparedness
efforts for the national capital region.
At the strategic and policy level, Maryland's homeland
security Advisor, Tom Lockwood and Emergency Management
Director, Mr. Don Keldsen, have worked closely with their
counterparts within the NCR Senior Policy Group. I and other
members of this panel testifying today will elaborate on the
eight commitments as the Mayor briefed.
And for us--for me it's the Emergency Protective Measures
and Mutual Aid. And interwoven in my talk, I will address
though, as mentioned by the Governor and the Mayor, we have
been working together with our partners represented on this
panel.
We are very pleased that Mike Byrne was selected as the
Director of the Office of National Capital Region Coordination.
He truly is a catalyst for the effective Federal integration
agency coordination within the region.
Two, he understands our State and local perspectives. In
the State of Maryland, we have collaborated through the
Maryland Terrorism Forum. Action groups operating within the
Forum use cross-discipline representation to include emergency
management, law enforcement, health, fire, emergency, medical,
transportation and the National Guard. Action groups exist for
equipment, training, emergency public information, advanced
technology and communication, and health and medical.
We have incorporated new partners such as the U.S.
Attorney's Office, and we are active participants in the
Antiterrorism Task Force for Maryland. Cooperation with the
local governments within the NCR is enhanced by Regional
Planning and Coordination Forums on at least a quarterly basis.
The private sector is the owner of most of the critical
infrastructure in the Nation and the region. Thus a partnership
between Government and the private sector is essential. We have
collectively embarked on a Critical Infrastructure Protection
Planning Session in the region and across the State of
Maryland. You will hear more about that from one of our
partners, the Greater Washington Board of Trade.
Because the private sector is also comprised of the general
citizenry, our joint government and private sector
responsibility is to inform them of what they need to do to
prepare for an incident and what to do when an incident occurs.
Additionally, while not having an operational role or
authority from either the State or local perspective, the
Committee of Government has served a very useful role in the
coordination and spreading of the word to the various publics.
Maryland has been a dedicated partner with Virginia and the
District on transportation issues on a daily basis, and also in
the planning to overcome the repeat of the September 11th
traffic situation. Much progress, as the Governor and the Mayor
have mentioned, much progress has been made in transportation
planning for an incident in the region, including clearly
marked routes, the capability to synchronize signals across
jurisdictional lines and alternate route planning.
The pier transportation planning and coordination aspect is
just part of the solution. Street closures in the District are
complicated by security issues and a large number of
independent authorities beyond the three branches of
Government.
Mike Byrne has been instrumental in the creation of a Joint
Federal Committee, a standing committee to address the
multitude of coordination issues within the Federal family in
the region. We have committed to develop a common set of
protective measures to protect the health and safety of the
public in the event of a major emergency in the region.
OPM, FEMA and GSA have coordinated plans for the staged
release of Federal employees which would avoid putting everyone
in the ``Exit D.C.'' mode at the same time. These protocols
have been coordinated with the District of Columbia, the States
and also the private sector.
Another aspect of this issue is the commitment to mutual
aid. Fortunately, Maryland, Virginia and the District are all
signatories to the National Emergency Management Assistance
Compact [EMAC], which provides a quick and effective mechanism
to provide all types of assistance when an emergency is
declared by one of the jurisdictions.
Maryland has a statewide Hospital Emergency Department
Communications Network, which optimizes effective emergency
medical services dispatch and can coordinate responses within
the District and Virginia as necessary.
In the health arena, we partner with the District of
Columbia and Virginia on syndrome surveillance and other
disease indicators to enable us to rapidly identify trends.
In terms of emergency protective measures, we collectively
learned from the anthrax attacks, from the smallpox vaccination
planning and recently the severe acute respiratory syndrome
[SARS] infections. Protocols are shared among health officials
in terms of mutual aid. Coordinating of credentialing medical
personnel across State lines is ongoing.
Maryland, Virginia and the regional local jurisdictions are
connected for telecommunications to the Washington warning and
alert system, a dedicated circuit. The States and D.C. are
connected through FEMA, regional dedicated circuits, radio nets
and satellite capabilities.
On a daily basis, we are alerted to incidents having a
regional impact through the Regional Incident Coordination
Communication Center System [RICCS], via e-mail, pager and/or
cell phone. Mutual aid communication resources may be available
through Emergency Management Assistance Compact, depending upon
the necessity for interoperability.
In closing, let me say that the level of cooperation and
collaboration among the partners of the national capital
region, regardless of one geographical definition, continues to
be remarkable. I applaud all involved for making this a
cooperative effort and making it work so well.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Tuxill follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Byrne, thanks for being with us,
and thanks for staying here.
Mr. Byrne. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis, Congressman
Waxman, distinguished members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss
emergency preparedness in the Nation's Capital. I am honored to
sit with the distinguished members of this panel. The clear,
focused leadership demonstrated by Governors Warner and
Ehrlich, Mayor Williams, and my boss, Secretary Ridge, has
allowed us to accomplish much in a short time to make the
Nation's Capital safer and stronger.
The Office of National Capital Region Coordination was in
Section 882 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, with the
mission to oversee and coordinate Federal programs for and the
relationships with State, local and regional authorities in the
region.
Congress established this office in recognition of the
importance of our region as the symbol of the Nation, the seat
of our Government and home to millions of people. The
complexity of relationships, roles and responsibilities that
exist within the national capital region also requires special
consideration.
Unfortunately, a commensurate threat exists for which we
all must prepare. Success in preparing and securing the
national capital region is not simply a Federal or even a
public matter. All of us within the region must work together
to ensure our collective security, including the Federal
Government, State and city governments, private-sector,
nonprofit organizations, as well as individual citizens. Each
brings to the table their own responsibilities and authorities,
and it is the job of the Office of National Capital Region
Coordination to see the capabilities that each group brings are
coordinated and integrated into a widely known and well-
practiced system that ensures our preparedness and security.
As I had mentioned, the complexity of relationships,
jurisdictions, roles and responsibilities is staggering. Many
separate local jurisdictions must work in concert with each
other, with their State counterparts, the Federal Government,
all three branches of the Federal Government and the private
and nonprofit sectors in order to achieve preparedness. We are
off to an outstanding start. The leadership of the District of
Columbia, Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia have
established an unprecedented level of cooperation among the
jurisdictions.
As mentioned earlier by previous speakers, the Senior
Policy Group and the work groups it creates strengthens these
relationships. Additionally, coordination and cooperation is
greatly improved among Federal departments and agencies.
We have created a Standing Joint Federal Committee drawn
from all three branches of Government to coordinate Federal
work force protection with other regional efforts. The Joint
Federal Committee developed the protocol addressing the Federal
Workforce Emergency Release Process, expanding protective
options and integrating State and local government into the
process. Protocols defining each decisionmaking process were
briefed to the legislative, executive and judicial branch
Chiefs of Staff in February 2003.
Another recent success that demonstrates the improved
Federal cooperation and coordination is the release of the
Office of Personnel Management's Guide for Federal Employees
and Managers. OPM developed the guides in concert with a wide
range of expertise from across the Federal Government. Our
office was instrumental in bringing together the right experts
to work with OPM and participate in the development of the
guides. In the few weeks that these guides have been available,
they have been downloaded by more than a quarter of a million
people to use.
Additionally, on March 25th, I joined the Director of the
Office of Personnel Management to discuss emergency readiness
with 24 unions representing Federal employees. Much progress
has been made, yet much work needs to be done.
We will continue to develop and improve relationships and
cooperation at all levels of government and with the private
sector. The high-threat, urban-area funding, that has been
targeted for the national capital region, provides a unique and
exciting opportunity to strategically utilize the funds
available to improve capability across all jurisdictions that
compose the national capital region. These funds will be used
to build capacity and support the region by developing joint
planning, training and exercises.
One of the primary response concerns in the national
capital region is quick and efficient transportation out of the
area during an incident. We must coordinate egress routes that
allow for a safe and fast exit from harm's way without
eliminating all ingress routes that will allow our emergency
responders to do their jobs effectively. This is a significant
challenge that will require both creativity and flexibilities.
Currently our office is working with the District, Maryland
and Virginia and all the local jurisdictions on a plan that
will address our protective measure options which include as
one of them, evacuation.
Additionally, the Joint Federal Committee is working with
State and local law enforcement, Emergency Management and
Transportation Agencies to develop practical protocols for
security-related street closures.
In closing, the Nation's Capital presents a unique
challenge for those who protect its citizens and institutions,
especially from the threat of terrorism. The Office of National
Capital Region Coordination serves a key role in the support of
the Senior Policy Group to continue to enhance the broad
regional, strategic perspective and coordination.
These efforts have begun to achieve this aim, but
continuing dialog is critical to its ultimate success. More
importantly, the effort represents the collective decision that
preparedness is not the responsibility of a few, but rather the
united efforts of the many.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Byrne follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you both. Mr. Byrne let me just
start with you.
I know you were brought in for the homeland security aspect
of this, but really when you talk about the Federal, city and
the Nation's Capital, it came to bear after an incident in 1783
when a group of pensioners from the Revolutionary War marched
on the Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. The
local militia was sympathetic to the pensioners, allowed the
pensioners to march and chased the Continental Congress across
the river into New Jersey, and that is what inspired Madison
and others to say we need a Federal zone because there is a
Federal responsibility here, and we need to control our own
areas.
We have had a number of incidents over the past few months,
some of them tangentially homeland-security related, some of
them traffic accidents and others, where traffic is held up 2,
3 hours sometimes. We can't get quorums and start hearings on
time here. Agencies coming to a standstill. And although local
police and Federal police--it is a whole--each incident has
it's own little matrix. But it seems that moving people around
in the Capital City is not the priority. And gives us some
thought that maybe we ought to federalize those aspects
because, frankly, moving people in and out of the Nation's
Capital so they can do the Nation's business is a Federal
responsibility and something we in the Congress are accountable
for. And if we can't get the recognition and the prioritization
at the local level, it may be something we have to take over.
What are your thoughts on this?
Mr. Byrne. In the time I have been meeting with local
officials on these issues, I would have to say, Mr. Chairman,
that there is no one that doesn't agree with you about the
priority in this and everybody is willing to work it better.
I think the challenge is to provide vehicles for
coordination, and I see that as an opportunity for my office to
play a role in terms of making sure that the right people are
communicating together quickly and early when things happen and
to, you know, facilitate that.
Chairman Tom Davis. Let me give you another example.
It is not just the local delegation and a bunch of angry
constituents. My friend and colleague from northern Virginia
just walked in. Frank, I wonder if you could share with them a
comment you had from a member yesterday about the traffic jam
on the 14th Street Bridge. And we are hearing from members
about their ability and inability to get here on time.
Mr. Wolf. First of all, let me say I don't think VDOT, the
State, the region are doing the appropriate job to enable
people to get back and forth. Yesterday, because of what took
place on the 14th Street Bridge--which may very well not be in
Virginia territory but it is a Virginia obligation, because
there are Virginia people that are backed up--this member, I
won't give the name, passed me a note showing that he left his
House at 5:32 a.m., yesterday and got in at 8:52 a.m.,
yesterday. We have asked VDOT, and we have asked the region to
come together to deal with this. Several months ago on the
George Washington Parkway, a bus stayed on the Parkway from
4:15 a.m., to 7:15 a.m. Nobody moved it. Every other week there
is a major accident or fender bender on the other side.
So if you are talking about evacuating this region--we
can't even deal with just a fender bender on the 14th Street
Bridge, the Memorial Bridge, the T.R. Bridge, Woodrow Wilson
Bridge or the Key Bridge--and it took that individual over 3
hours and some minutes.
For some reason, VDOT and the region just can't get
together. You need tow trucks on all these bridges to move
vehicles quickly, pull them off and deal with the traffic
problem later on. But getting in and out is becoming very, very
grim every morning, and I don't know if that is the subject,
what people are talking about. It is out of control.
Chairman Tom Davis. In trying to preserve the scene of the
accident, so they can get the pictures and have an officer come
and see where everybody is, it is important to that case.
Ordinarily, I would think you would want to do that from a
police perspective. But when you are holding up tens and
thousands of commuters, stopping the workings of Government,
not allowing congressional hearings to get a quorum, we
couldn't get a quorum yesterday. We couldn't get a quorum in
our caucus yesterday morning. It is usually about a half hour
to 45 minutes for me to drive in. It was almost 2 hours
yesterday morning. And I know there are accidents, and it is
complicated, and there are going to be delays, but the priority
ought to be to get everybody off, safely, but off the road as
quickly as we can so we can clear the arteries and then
commerce and Government can function.
And I guess the concern here is, as Mr. Wolf says, if a
fender bender stops this or a guy with a tractor with a bad day
can bring us to a stop, imagine what a terrorist can do. That
is the concern. And I wanted to deliver that. It is not just
the regional delegation. There are members that are pinning on
us wondering as well. And if we have to federalize it, we will
federalize it. This is serious business, and if we can't
coordinate locally over who is to do it, then we will have to
take it over. And you are the guy.
Mr. Byrne. Yes, sir. Those are my comments.
Chairman Davis. Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome,
gentleman. General Tuxill good to see you again. Mr. Byrne,
welcome.
I asked the members of the earlier panel about the resource
question because I hear from my county executives in Montgomery
and Prince George and my colleague, Mr. Ruppersberger, hears
from his local officials that they are not getting the funds at
the local level, the resources they need to meet the security
needs for first responders.
There are two possibilities. One is adequate funds are
flowing to the States but they are not flowing down to local
officials. My sense is that adequate funds are not flowing to
the States.
You may recall we had an Omnibus Appropriations Bill pass
out of here a little while ago. $3.5 billion additional funding
for domestic. The way it came out of here, to the regret of
many of us, people actually took money from other areas for
first responders to count toward the $3.5 billion. So you
didn't have anything on the order of a $3.5 billion increase,
and the results of that--and I am hearing from the States there
are inadequate resources at the State level.
So I would ask both of you gentleman if you could respond
to whether or not the States are receiving adequate resources
to meet the jobs and needs in this Capital region. If not, what
additional resources are necessary, and what are the risks that
we are taking now by not providing those resources.
Mr. Byrne. First and foremost, in the supplemental request,
there is a request for additional funding, so we agree we need
to get more funding to State and local levels.
You know, we think that the important thing about that,
consistent with the President's strategy for homeland security,
is that it be part of a comprehensive plan, which is why we see
the need to work with the States and have the States work with
their local communities to have the same kind of system, the
same identification or types of resources and things like that.
In the supplemental request, there is $1.5 billion for
additional--additional $1.5 billion, and we think that will
help along and provide the kind of resources that they need.
I think another important step, that is actually in the
proposals for the 2004 budget, is that, you know, we sort of
need to update and spend the money effectively and prudently,
that we do an update of the assessment that was done.
In fact, most of the assessment work was done pre-September
11th and to look at the State and local capabilities and to
identify, which is something I am going to be working with the
local jurisdictions here in the region to do, to clearly
identify what the right requirements are, so we can
intelligently and effectively answer your question.
General Tuxill. One of the things--as far as money getting
down to the local level, we have had a lot of press out that
says, OK, look how much money is coming to the State. One of
the interesting things is we have obligated all of our funds
for fiscal years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 designated for the
local jurisdictions. And the State obligation for Maryland is
almost complete for 2002. The current cycle, 2003, which we are
in, is just being received, and we are starting to process it.
So as you can see we are almost 9 months into the State
fiscal year and a little over 3 months into the Federal or,
excuse me or even more than that, 6 months into the Federal
fiscal year. So there is a big delay in receiving those funds.
While we hear the press release when it happens and when
Congress says we have got the funds, it takes it a good while
to appear in the State. So I think that is one of the problems
that we have. I can tell you in Maryland, sir, what we do is
get all of the players around the table to include all of the
local jurisdictions and some of the State agencies, and we sit
down and say, here is how much money we have and we start a
collective consensus to get the things that people need, so
that we have that interoperability.
I think Governor Warner was right on the mark when he said
that the State should get the money, so that we ensure
interoperability. We had a terrible problem with that in the
military and Goldwater Nickels came out and said, you will talk
to each other. So we get the Navy talking to the Marine Corps,
talking to the Army, talking to the Air Force. We have to make
sure we don't have something like that happening in the
national capital region. Communicative powers and that we are
able to collectively address situations and that is part of
that equipment.
Mr. Van Hollen. Same issue, quick followup for Mr. Byrne.
You mentioned the additional funds coming to the region
from the Urban Area Security Initiative. It is about $18.2
million. How are you going to allocate those funds, and have
you made any decisions in that regard?
Mr. Byrne. We are going to look at this as a region, and it
got cooperation from the two Governors' offices and the Mayor's
office to work together to do the kind of things that are
strategically the right fit for the regional area. And that is
to look at the kinds of joint training, where not just
individual jurisdictions are sitting in the classroom on a very
simple basic level, but they are all getting the same training
on a planning level, to do some of the better planning we need
to do, especially in the area that has been brought up many
times, you know, about movement of people and things like that.
I think that is an opportunity for that. I also think it is an
opportunity for us to identify assets and resources and
capabilities that could have strategic regional capability. And
we are going to sit down and plan that out. There are some
things that seem obvious already that would be high on the
priority list to include interoperable communication, data
sharing across the jurisdictions so that the USCs are all
seeing the same information simultaneously and also in the area
of health and medical, like surveillance and things like that.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Before I yield to Mr. Wolf, we are
putting money into some of these areas, but to move a bus, to
move cars on time, to do some of these things doesn't take a
lot of money, it just takes strategic thinking. But while we
are waiting for the big one to happen, and getting ready for
the huge attack, we have these mini-attacks everyday, some of
them intentional, some of them unintentional. But one guy with
a tractor holding up the rush hours is, in my opinion,
something for the money we are spending. If the current
leadership can't do it, we have to find somebody who can.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thanks for having the
hearing.
Three points: we are closing too many roads in the District
of Columbia. You cannot keep closing the roads. We're becoming
vulcanized. You can't get in front of the White House or back
of the White House. You are having problems all over this town.
Somebody has to meet with the White House, and you are now the
Area Coordinator--and say, we can't keep closing these roads
because everytime you close a road, you make it harder and
harder for people to come in and then leave the city.
Second, coordination. I have a request from a group of
hospitals in northern Virginia asking for communications
systems, but they don't include Sibley. They don't include the
hospitals in Maryland. If something were to happen, the
likelihood of somebody being taken to a Maryland hospital or a
D.C. hospital is just as great as coming out to Loudoun or
Fairfax. On communications, the George Washington, Hospital
Center, Sibley, they all have to be tied in. So if you could
comment on that. And do all these requests for the region come
in through you simultaneously when people are asking? Somebody
has to coordinate, so we don't buy a system for Fairfax
hospital and they can't speak with Sibley.
Last, working with Mr. Davis, we put money in to create the
Emergency Response Center at the George Washington University
Loudoun campus to train emergency response people. Are you
involved in that? Are you making sure that the regions from
Warren county to Frederick county up in Maryland, that our law
enforcement people, police, rescue and fire will all be in the
first class that will be trained in that center? So on closing
of the roads, on the coordination and are you involved in
making sure who goes through that center first?
Mr. Byrne. On the road closure issue yes, we formed this
Joint Federal Committee that pretty much the security people
are from. And the law enforcement aspects, you know, Secret
Service, Park Police, Federal Protective Service, Capital
Police, Supreme Court Police, we have representatives on that
committee, and we look at the issue of road closing more
clearly and come up with a better protocol for it.
We have to look at this strategically and in the levels
that are appropriate. I think there are sections of it. So if
there was an incident where a building had a fire and everybody
needed to get out of the building. You know, having to close
the street in front of that building is like an immediate
thing, where all we want to do is have notification. Then there
are things that we can talk about more. We can sit down, and we
have time to evaluate, to discuss and say look, what are we
really trying to accomplish and what is the most effective
protective action we can take for that building or that
facility. And there is a dialog, and we are going to look to
improve the way that process happens.
On the issue of hospital communication and coordination, I
think that is critical. In fact, I have been in touch with HHS
and with some of the Hospital Association people to look at
that. I think there is a communication system in place. As to
whether or not it is doing the job it needs to do, is something
I look forward to looking into more closely.
Mr. Wolf. Do all of the grant applications for secuirty--I
just used as an example--do they all go through you, so you
know what everyone else in the region is doing so there is not
an overlap. Do all the grant applications at least have to be--
do you have to check off on them or do they say we are sending
something in but here's what we're sending, so you see
everything in the region?
Mr. Byrne. I think--one of the best parts of creating the
Department of Homeland Security was the effort to consolidate
the way all grants are administered within one department. I
work closely with that office. I think it makes sense from a
strategic point of view that the overarching policy body takes
a look at those things, so we don't do as you suggest, buy
something that works for that one community but can't work
across the whole region.
Mr. Wolf. But there is no process now to send everything
through you before they come to Washington for the region?
Mr. Byrne. There is no fixed process at this point in time,
but we are developing one. The office is only a couple weeks
old.
Mr. Wolf. The last question is the GW Training Camp.
Mr. Byrne. I met with them. I was over at GW about 2 weeks
ago. This area is so rich in each kinds of functional area in
terms of fire training, law enforcement training and hospital
training and emergency medical training. We are looking to
establish and work with especially with GW in the area of the
emergency medical capabilities.
Mr. Wolf. And you will have all of our people trained there
first?
Mr. Byrne. The idea is that everybody in the region would
get the same kind of training. It is really important to be on
the same page when you are working a disaster, so that when you
say, this is this kind of asset, that everybody right away
understands that. So we are looking not only to have everybody
get trained in the same area, but to get the same training, the
same curriculum that is consistent across the whole region.
Mr. Wolf. And knowing where I think you live, how long did
it take you to get in to work yesterday?
Mr. Byrne. Sir, I left pretty early, it only took me about
45 minutes. I left----
Mr. Wolf. What time did you leave?
Mr. Byrne. Quarter of 5.
Chairman Tom Davis. That is a nonstarter from here.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I know neither one of you have a lot to
do with the traffic issue. But on the Maryland side, I live
north of Baltimore City and yesterday--usually it takes me the
most an hour and 30 minutes. I left at 6:30 a.m. and got here
at 9:45, so it was only 3\1/2\ hours.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that if this is a
continuing problem, and it is not being solved, maybe we should
look at it from a Federal perspective because it is going to
take a regional approach from both Federal and State to deal
with that issue.
First thing my background comes--I have been in local
government for 18 years. I was a county executive for 8 years.
I was a county executive during September 11th. And during that
period of time, we took a lot of resources and transferred
resources into the homeland security area. We were learning as
we went along, as all of us were. I am a rookie so the bells
bother me a little bit. So the issue there was transferring a
lot of resources and trying to make sure we could take care of
the problem because it was a very active issue at the time.
Now, yesterday we had a hearing which kind of concerned me.
It was a hearing involving narcotics and drugs. And we had
individuals from Federal, State and local government that
really were stating yesterday that there are a lot of resources
that are being transferred from the Drug Enforcement into
Homeland Security and that to me is very dangerous because we
still can't take the eye off the narcotics ball.
If you look at the statistics, narcotics and drugs are--
probably at least 80 percent of all violent crime is drug
related. Now, if we are going to take our resources from that
one end to another, that is really going to create even more
problems. What the issue is, the issue is we need more
resources. It has been said over and over, we equipped our
troops as we should. We give them the resources, but we haven't
done the job here to give the resources that are needed. If we
don't face that issue now, it is going to start to affect a lot
of things that are happening because we are going to keep
moving in the area.
Now, let us talk about implementation. No. 1, again
referring to my job as county executive, I thought one of the
most effective programs when we dealt with the Federal
Government was the COPS program. And that was a program that
really if you could justify why you needed the money, you had
to be held accountable for what you did, we get money directly
from the Federal Government to the local government, and we
would get police on the streets right away. I am sure the
National Association of Governors might not like that. I know
our Governor, Bob Ehrlich, who I know very well and have a good
relationship with, has no problem with that. He wants the money
to go where it's needed.
And what happens when you get money from the--when the
local money gets money from the Federal Government, the Feds
press down on the State, the State presses down on the locals,
and the locals don't have any place to press. What happens when
you have that and you get that money, I would say sometimes
half that money goes to bureaucracy, and it doesn't go to where
the needs are. And I want to ask you the question more of you,
Mr. Byrne, then Major Tuxill, I would like you somehow, if you
would consider taking back to the administration the formula
that we used in the COPS program because it worked and it
worked well.
I know there is politics there with the Governors, but if
the other Governors would take the position of our Governor in
Maryland that he doesn't care who administrates it, let's just
get money to the first responders so we can make a difference.
And let me say this, and I will let you answer the
question. In the Second Congressional District that I
represent, I have NSA, Fort Mead, BWI, the port of Baltimore,
Abderdeen and I have--80 percent of all the chemical companies
in the State of Maryland are located in my District.
So there are a lot of issues involving homeland security
other than just those institutions I talked about. And why I
say that, it's my understanding that a lot of the money is
being given out on the issue of population, and it seems to me
we need a lot more flexibility. The population is where the
risks are. It's like saying if D.C. doesn't have the population
that South Dakota has, give more to South Dakota. That doesn't
make any sense. I raised those issues, and I would like you to
respond, especially to the COPS program, because I want to find
a way as quickly as we can to get money to first responders,
because I think you know if September 11th occurred a week ago,
and we were asking for money right now, we would get it. And
how soon we forget, and we can never forget. So let us make
sure we get what we need for our homeland security.
Mr. Byrne. We certainly support getting money for first
responders. I spent most of my career as a first responder. I
was a New York City fireman for 20 years and I know--I just
want to do my job, and I wanted the resources to do it.
So we definitely want to see the money get where it needs
to go and to build the capability, because again, the single
best chance we have of impacting an incident, no matter what
kind of incident, in a way that saves lives and protects the
people, is to have our first responders get there, have what
they need to get it done.
Looking at the COPS program, I am not as familiar with that
program as I am with some of the other programs, but we
certainly will take a look at that, based on your
recommendation, and see if maybe that is a better way to do it.
But the important thing is for us--is that--is that public
safety in our country is a bit disjointed. Different
jurisdictions do things and respond in different ways. I think
our sort of luxury of being able to operate that way is no
longer the case, and we need to line up in a way that doesn't
take away the individual autonomy of each of the components,
but have them at least have common ways of doing things. And
the best way for us to do that is to have some kind of
centralized leadership, so that when they do spend this money
and spend it effectively, it builds the Nation's capability, in
our case, the region's capability and not just an individual
jurisdiction, so that their capability stops at the border.
September 11th, as a New York City fireman, I never thought in
all my career I would ever see the need--we had 16,000 firemen
and EMS personnel in the New York City Fire Department. I never
thought I would see the need to have people come in from the
outside to help us. September 11th proved me wrong big time and
I recognize that we need to be one united team.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I feel very strongly, and I would like
you to look at that program. Your president of International
Fire Fighters was pretty strong. I am not saying his quotes,
because I don't think I should criticize the president at this
time. His quotes were very strong that we're not getting what
we need. And you know we can talk about team work, but we're
not getting anything accomplished. And I think it is extremely
important that we try to get to the basics and get to some
implementation. I am going to do everything I can to encourage
the president to do that. And I would hope that you at least
consider it. It could be controversial because it's money that
goes directly to the locals, but that's what we're calling out
for.
And getting back to traffic, the entire issue with traffic
has got to be a regional situation. And you know, the day of
imagery and taking pictures, you know, someone is on an
accident scene for 3 hours. Mr. Chairman you make a lot of
things happen here, I would like to work with you on that
issue.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I will make
this quick because we have to go vote.
First, Mr. Byrne, thank you for your service as a
firefighter for 20 years. That is near and dear to my heart.
According to Virginia's Rappahannock Planning District
Commission, over 27,000 people commute from my district back
and forth to Washington, DC, everyday. And if you have been on
95 going south, you know what that congestion is like. If we
are faced with a mass exodus from Washington, the traffic in my
opinion, the HOV merge lane at Prince William/Stafford border
would probably back up all the way to Springfield, and I think
we would have a major problem.
My question is, has your office had conversations with the
local authorities south of Prince William County. No. 2, is
there currently any coordination with the first responders who
may be needed in an area-wide emergency and are Prince William
County, Stafford County and Fredericksburg expected to be ready
to support the Beltway efforts.
Mr. Byrne. At this point in time, I haven't had the
opportunity to talk to any of the jurisdictions outside of what
has been defined as the national capital region and the
legislature. But I do think it is important they know what we
are doing. You are absolutely right; at some point, the people
may be headed their way. So I think it is important for us to--
you know, not plan in vacuum but to share those plans. As to
what role they would play in a response, I am not at the point,
now, where I can make a definitive statement as to what their
support and what kind of requirements we would be asking them
to come into.
But going back to that bigger issue, I think we are looking
to create within the Department a sort of standard system for
public safety, you know, that would facilitate that kind of
cooperation and response.
Mr. Davies. I certainly would hope that you would keep that
part of the District in mind, because like I said, 27,000 folks
is a lot of people, and I would like to say Mr. Chairman, I
welcome the sheriff of Stafford County, who is here today.
Chairman Tom Davis. General Tuxill, thank you for staying
with us. It was very helpful, your testimony. Mr. Byrne, I
understand this is your first time before a congressional
committee, you did a great job. I look forward to having you
back. You have a very tough job, and you have nothing but our
respect and admiration as we work through some difficult
problems. And we learn from our experiences. We have traffic--
some of it because of the laws we have passed. We haven't done
the right things and everything else and we get frustrated, but
we can do a better job working together, and that is only one
aspect of your many responsibilities, but you did a great job
here, and we appreciate having you here.
We are again voting, but this is just ordering the previous
question, and perhaps after--this is just a vote on a rule, so
we should be back here in 15 minutes to start our next panel.
Meeting is in recess.
[Recess.]
Chairman Tom Davis. We're ready to start the next panel. If
you'll remain standing.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much, and thank you for
being patient with us. We're not expecting another vote for an
hour and half. I hope I can get through both panels in that
period of time and get everybody home.
Mr. Harp, why don't we start with you, and then Ms.
Chambers and then to Chief Ramsey. And we have your whole
statement in the record. You can highlight what you'd like to,
and we'll go right on to questions. It won't be too bad.
STATEMENTS OF VAN HARP, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; TERESA CHAMBERS, CHIEF, U.S.
PARK POLICE; AND CHARLES RAMSEY, CHIEF, METROPOLITAN POLICE
DEPARTMENT
Mr. Harp. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis, and members of
the committee. I welcome the opportunity to appear before you
to discuss our role and capabilities regarding emergency
preparedness and response in the national capital region.
As you know, in recent months, the FBI has undergone
extraordinary positive changes to better address the most
important priorities set by Director Mueller. The top priority
at the FBI is preventing future terrorist attacks. In addition,
the FBI is actively pursuing threats posed by foreign
intelligence services and transnational criminal enterprises.
In meeting these priorities, the FBI, as an organization, and
WFO, in particular, thoroughly understand that these priorities
can only be effectively met by focusing on the outstanding
relationships that we have established over the years with our
law enforcement and first responder partners.
Located in the Nation's Capital, WFO has a strong standing
tradition of cooperation with State, local and Federal
agencies. That tradition is steeped in the history of diverse,
joint investigations, numerous joint responses and regularly
scheduled joint training initiatives. WFO is unique, in that it
is the elite investigative agency in the Federal Government's
response to terrorism incidents that directly affect the
national capital region.
These close relationships were established long before the
terrorist attack on September 11th. They cover the full
spectrum of criminal counterintelligence, counterterrorism and
cyber crimes, and are best exemplified by our Joint Terrorism
Task Force which was established a decade ago.
Coordination begins at the executive management level, and
there isn't a day that passes where I'm not in direct contact
with area police chiefs, sheriffs and Federal agency heads to
include representatives from our military intelligence
agencies.
There are daily conference calls and in-person briefings. I
have provided the various chiefs and sheriffs with networked
instant paging to further enhance our ability to share
information in intelligence in a real time format, and in fact,
just this morning, we completed and in-depth intelligence brief
with approximately 30 to 35 of the departments in the national
capital region represented.
WFO has one of the oldest JTTF task forces in the United
States, and it was established in 1993, and also has the
largest number of participating agencies currently consisting
of 23 State, local and Federal agencies, all collocated as one
investigative counterterrorism unit. This is mirrored by our
other joint task force operations across the gamut of our
operations.
Training is provided directly to outside agencies by WFO,
FBI personnel, and is accomplished through tabletop exercises,
joint practical exercises, joint SWAT team scenarios and
various in-services. Real-life scenarios are utilized,
recreating the events Washington, DC, law enforcement has faced
through the years.
Participants in these exercises cover the area, State,
local, Federal agencies and emergency response, fire and rescue
service, military and intelligence agencies. My assessment is
that the level of cooperation between myself and our partners
is outstanding and unparalleled in law enforcement in the
United States.
This spirit of cooperation has been passed down to the case
agents and representatives assigned to the various task forces
within the Washington field office.
This has been exemplified during past several years and in
such cases as the CIA murders, the murder of the agents in the
Metropolitan Police Department officer at MPD headquarters, the
recent sniper investigation and the murder of the two Capitol
Police officers in the Capitol in 1998.
In addition, our cooperative efforts were put to the test
during the Pentagon attack and the anthrax attacks affecting
you and your colleagues, and I believe we in law enforcement
passed exceptionally well with respect to the level of
cooperation.
The spirit of cooperation was so great, in fact, that a
review of the Pentagon response was funded by the Department of
Justice for Arlington County, VA for dissemination across the
United States. The independent report, which is available upon
request, finds that the level of cooperation exhibited in the
National Capitol Region was so extensive, that it should be
duplicated for the entire United States.
I'd like to also describe the Joint Terrorism Task Force
and our National Capitol Response Squad, if I may, which are
just two of WFO's squads and operations that conduct
counterterrorism operations in conjunction with local
authorities.
The WFO, JTTF was established in 1993, as I said, and it is
one of the oldest and currently the largest JTTF in the United
States with the 23 outside agencies and 15 agent--FBI agents
assigned to it. It's located in our office base and trained,
funded and supplied totally by the FBI, WFO.
All 23 detailees work full-time for the JTTF and have the
same clearances and access as FBI agents. A list of all the
agencies represented in the JTTF is too extensive, but I have
it available with me.
Each detailee has a top security clearance and has direct
access to all FBI data bases, communications and intelligence.
Each detailee has a WFO-provided computer on his desk along--
his or her desk along with a computer link to his or her home
agency. In this way, the JTTF can almost instantly access 24
separate data bases from one investigative squad.
It is literally a one-stop shopping for counterterrorism
information and intelligence, and it is the most effective
platform prevention since it includes the assets and the best
each agency has to offer.
Collocated with the JTTF is the National Capitol Response
Squad. The NCRS is a rapid response highly specialized
counterterrorism unit designed specifically for the National
Capitol Region. The unit was formed out of the original JTTF in
1999 to give the region a quick response capability for
terrorism incidents.
The unit is designed to be part of the first responder
community in daily works within that arena. The NCRS responds
to the various incidents which occur in this area each day and
meshes with the other local first responders to jointly resolve
whatever situation they encounter.
It was designed specifically to respond to identify,
isolate, mitigate and control incidents of an explosive
chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or armed assault-
type of incident. It is also designed to work in isolated
environments where outside support may be prevented from
reaching the unit quickly.
The unit was designed literally to hold until relieved by
the various national assets that could be called upon to assist
from the FBI critical incident response group, the Department
of Energy and the Department of Defense or others.
The National Capitol Response Squad consists of our SWAT
team, the hazardous materials response team, the special agent
bomb technicians, evidence response team, tactical medical
program, weapons of mass destruction program, our rapid
deployment team and the joint FBI/Department of Energy special
search team.
The NCRS is collocated with the JTTF to directly support
their investigations and operations and to provide a direct
link between these specialized teams and the 23 agencies
assigned to the JTTF.
The Washington field office is a full partner with all of
the other responsible agencies in the National Capitol Region
in the fight against terrorism in the herculean efforts to
prepare for the unthinkable. Daily we work with all of the
other agencies and are mutually supportive of each other. The
efforts and the progress of this area serve as a shining
example to the rest of the United States as to how this process
should work.
Due to the unique location within the Capitol of this great
country, the Washington field office long ago became the leader
in the fight in the war on terrorism and the cooperative
efforts necessary to ensure the safety of the American people.
Let me conclude by saying that the nature of the threat
facing the National Capitol Region is unique in all of America.
The FBI Washington field office takes its responsibility as a
law enforcement agency, intelligence service and partner of
first responders with the utmost sense of gravity and urgency.
We value the partnerships with the professionals in the law
enforcement and intelligence community that we have established
over the years and continue to seek out ways to enhance those
relationships.
Let me again express my gratitude to you, Mr. Chairman, and
the committee for your invitation, and I look forward to
responding to any questions.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harp follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Chief Chambers.
Chief Chambers. I will abbreviate my oral testimony, sir.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on emergency preparedness in the
Nation's Capital. Although I've been the chief of the U.S. Park
Police for just 14 months, I retired from a police agency just
inside the State of Maryland and am familiar with both the
challenges and the many positive aspects of policing in this
region.
The U.S. Park Police's primary areas of responsibility are
the National Park areas of Washington, DC, New York City and
San Francisco, and we have arrest authority in any unit of the
National Park's system. We also have provided law enforcement
expertise in many different venues, including the Summer
Olympics in Atlanta, GA, the Republican National Convention, at
Independence National Historic Site and the Cuban Boat
Flotilla.
In the President's National Strategy for the Physical
Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets, the
Department of the Interior is the lead Federal Department with
primary jurisdiction over national icons and monuments. To
enhance our efforts, Secretary Norton recently requested that
the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of
Justice conduct an independent assessment of the National Mall
and those areas around the White House where the U.S. Park
Police patrol.
This assessment is already underway, with the Department of
Homeland Security and Department of Justice providing important
feedback to the U.S. Park Police.
When large events occur in our area, operations are often
seamless between the myriad of local, State and Federal
agencies involved. One of the best examples occurred in
Washington, DC, last year on the Fourth of July.
Nearly 1,200 officers from numerous agencies helped ensure
a safe environment for the thousands of people who came
downtown to celebrate America's independence.
The Police Chief's subcommittee of the Washington, DC, Area
Council of Governments meets monthly. Also on at least a weekly
basis, area chiefs and other law enforcement leaders engage in
conference calls to share the latest intelligence and
operational information.
Our officers sit side by side in a number of assignments
including Joint Terrorism Task Forces, Department of Homeland
Security details and the Metropolitan Police Department's Joint
Operations Center.
In the recent case involving a disgruntled farmer who drove
his large farm tractor into Constitution Gardens, we were
joined by a number of governmental and private organizations.
Most closely involved with us was the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
which played a key role in assessing the potential threat posed
by this individual, the three vehicles he drove into the pond,
and the explosives he claimed to possess.
We also conferred with experts via conference call to
receive their input on the explosive potential and related
scenarios.
Also closely involved was the U.S. Secret Service, whose
members were on the scene to assist us within minutes of the
event unfolding. The Metropolitan Police Department of
Washington, DC, the Federal Protective Service and the U.S.
Capitol Police also provided assistance.
We appreciate the generous support of the District of
Columbia's Emergency Management Agency, the Washington, DC,
Fire Department, the American Red Cross and the D.C. National
Guard, who also assisted us.
The U.S. Park Police kept in constant communication with
members of the press to provide valuable information in order
to protect the public from potential harm. The Department of
Homeland Security was in close communication with us, and Mr.
Byrne, who you heard testify, conducted several telephone
briefings every day with people involved or affected by this
matter.
Please allow me to take this opportunity to thank all these
agencies for the support and expertise they provided to the
U.S. Park Police during the tractor incident. They played an
integral part in achieving a successful outcome that avoided
the loss of property and more importantly avoided the loss of
life.
In the case of a major crisis resulting in a mass exodus
from the city of Washington, it is useful to look at our role
on September 11, 2001. Within minutes of the plane striking the
Pentagon, members of our aviation unit flying the U.S. Park
Police helicopter Eagle 1 were in the area over the crash site.
Because of the heavy smoke, Reagan National Airport traffic
controllers asked the Eagle crew to take control of the
airspace over Washington while the situation was assessed. A
second Park Police aviation team treated injured persons on the
scene of the Pentagon and transported those who needed
additional care to nearby hospitals.
At the same time, our officers rerouted traffic to allow
the greatest number of motorists to safely leave the city in
the least amount of time, and we deployed our officers at
national icons and around the White House.
The U.S. Park Police is responsible for one bridge and five
of the major routes into and out of the city. Officers assigned
to those areas are directed to maintain their focus in those
locations should a disaster occur so they can readily
facilitate the rapid evacuation of motorists out of the city.
The U.S. Park Police has three helicopters available for
medical emergencies. These helicopters are staffed with
certified pilots and paramedics. All three aircraft are capable
of search and rescue missions, such as those we accomplished
during the Air Florida crash and the many river rescues we
perform each year.
The U.S. Park Police is beginning its migration to digital
narrow band radio systems in Washington, DC, New York and San
Francisco. We're developing partnerships with other units of
the National Park Service, as well as other Federal agencies to
implement interoperable trunked radio systems that will allow
for secure encrypted voice transmissions and cross-talk
capabilities.
We're also participating in the Federal Wireless
Interoperability Project, which will allow for the exchange of
data messages between mobile units of the U.S. Park Police, the
Capitol Police, the Secret Service Uniformed Division, and the
Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC.
We're also participating in the Capital Wireless Integrated
Network [CapWIN], that will allow for the exchange of data
messaging between local, State and Federal public safety
agencies within the Washington, DC, area.
The United States Park Police is the oldest Federal
uniformed law enforcement agency in the Nation. We date back to
1791, when Congress created us at the request of President
George Washington. We're very proud of the role the men and
women of the U.S. Park Police have traditionally played and
will continue to play in the protection of important icons and
symbols of America's freedom and the lives of the hundreds of
thousands of people who visit them, as well as in assisting in
the protection of our President, Vice President, and other
dignitaries.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I'll be happy to
answer any questions you or other members of the committee may
have, sir.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Teresa Chambers follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Chief Ramsey, thanks for being with us.
Chief Ramsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, other members of the
committee, staff and guests. Thank you for the opportunity to
update you on the state of emergency preparedness in the
District of Columbia from the perspective of local law
enforcement. Through the leadership and efforts of many people,
including the President, the Congress, members of this
committee, Mayor Williams and his administration, and
especially our police officers, I feel very confident today in
stating that law enforcement in our region is better prepared
than ever before for a large scale emergency, whether that
emergency be a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or
something else.
Law enforcement in our region recognizes that the stakes
are very high. We understand and appreciate the need for
cooperation, coordination and information sharing, and most of
all, we have pulled together as never before around a common
goal and mission, securing the homeland by protecting our
Nation's Capital.
That is not to suggest that we have completed our work in
this area. We have not. This whole arena continues to change
very rapidly, and we in law enforcement need to remain vigilant
and flexible in our response. But I am confident that we have
built a solid foundation among the law enforcement community in
the D.C. area, a foundation of trust, cooperation and
partnership that will serve us well for years to come.
My testimony today covers law enforcement developments in
five critical areas. My written statement provides more
details. I'll just cover the highlights here.
The first area is cooperation among agencies. I know that
police chiefs in other parts of the country have, at times,
expressed frustration with their local FBI field offices and
other Federal agencies, but thanks to the leadership of
Assistant Director Harp and other Federal officials in our
region, our experience here in D.C. has been just the opposite.
In our region, communication and cooperation are taking place
at the executive level, at the senior management level and at
the operational level. Our department is actively involved in
both the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Antiterrorism Task
Force.
The MPD's Joint Operations Command Center continues to
serve as a critical communications and operational hub for law
enforcement during periods of heightened alert or for major
events such as the antiwar and antiglobalization protests
expected this weekend.
And I'm in regular contact with Assistant Director Harp and
receive timely information and support from the Washington
field office.
In addition to the Federal and local cooperation, our
region continues to benefit from strong local coordination,
including regular conference calls among the region's police
chiefs on intelligence and preparedness issues. In addition,
the MPD now holds weekly conference calls among intelligence
coordinators in six other major cities, and I have detailed one
of our detectives to the New York City's Police Department
antiterrorism intelligence unit for a 90-day pilot project.
Finally, all of the chiefs in our region are working with
the Council of Governments, and now the new homeland security
coordinator for the Washington region, to ensure our individual
plans are coordinated regionally.
A second and related area involves the coordination between
government and private sector. The District's emergency
response plan is our overall road map for preparing for and
responding to any emergency. Part of the plan's strength is
that it defines specific roles and responsibilities, and it
recognizes the importance of the private sector in emergency
preparedness. The MPD has actively participated in a series of
neighborhood-based community meetings, organized by D.C.'s
Emergency Management Agency.
Our department has also reached out to the business
community to provide them with specialized information on
crisis planning for their facilities, and working with the
local news media on how to get accurate and timely information
out to the community during an emergency.
A third critical area involves our level of response
preparedness. Over the past 18 months the Metropolitan Police
Department has made tremendous strides in our overall level of
preparedness, thanks in large part to the $16.8 million
provided by Congress. These funds have allowed us to provide
basic warm zone personal protection equipment to every sworn
member of the Department, something that very few, if any,
major city police departments have been able to do.
In addition, we have equipped and trained 141 officers who
can operate in actual hot zones as part of our new Special
Threat Action Teams [STAT].
In terms of training, all of our sworn members have
received the basic 8-hour course in weapons of mass
destruction. Our staff members have received more specialized
training in hazardous materials, radiological operations and
self-contained breathing apparatus, and members of the MPD
command staff including myself have been through a variety of
WMD courses so that we can be more effective and informed
leaders during an emergency.
Another area of major concern for people throughout the
region is transportation and traffic management. While the
District Department of Transportation is the lead agency, the
MPD continues to assist on a variety of implementation issues.
For example, we have identified approximately 70 key locations
that the Metropolitan Police Department is prepared to staff
for traffic control purposes during an emergency. Most of these
intersections are along the evacuation routes that DDOT has
identified and marked. While our ability to move traffic safely
through an emergency is better today than it was on September
11th, I think that all of us need to be realistic about
traffic.
As the recent incident in Constitution Gardens illustrated,
if major arteries need to be closed when large numbers of
motorists are trying to enter or exit the city at the same
time, traffic is going to be backed up.
I understand that during an emergency, most people's
instincts will tell them to get in their vehicles and try to
leave the city, but depending on the situation, traveling by
car could actually put people at greater risk, especially if
they leave a safe area and drive toward a hot or warm zone.
There are very few scenarios in which the entire city would
have to be evacuated at the same time. A more likely scenario
would be the need to evacuate people within a defined
geographic area while having the majority shelter in place. The
bottom line from a public safety perspective is that we don't
want to program people to automatically get into their vehicles
at the first indication of an emergency. It's important that
our evacuation routes be posted and staffed during an
emergency, but it's even more important for individuals to be
informed and to remain calm and flexible in their response.
The fifth and final area I want to touch on is especially
important here in the D.C. region. With so many Federal,
regional and local agencies that may be involved in an
emergency response, and that is telecommunications and
information sharing. September 11th illustrated the challenges
for different agencies in communicating with one another via
radios. Over the last several months, a number of steps have
been taken to address the interoperability issue here in D.C.,
but we haven't yet solved the problem.
Recent congressional funding has allowed the MPD to launch
a major upgrade of our radio communications system, including
the conversion of our radio system from analog to digital to
enhance interoperability with other agencies. In the meantime,
our Department has procured a small number of 800 megahertz
radios that we could use in an emergency to communicate with
fire, EMS and other agencies.
In addition, our Department has begun a pilot project with
the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division, the U.S. Capitol
Police, and the U.S. Park Police to share information more
easily and more securely over our agencies in-car computers,
and the MPD continues to participate in the regional CapWIN
Project, a Federal effort that is designed to boost cross-
agency communications and information sharing in emergency
situations.
I thank you again for the opportunity to present this
testimony. I'm very proud of our police officers and civilian
employees for their hard work and professionalism in enhancing
our level of preparedness, but we have only built the
foundation for the future. We've not completed the entire
structure. Maintaining what we have in place now and building
for the future, particularly in the critical area of voice and
data communications, will be critical and potentially costly.
We will need additional resources to protect the investments
we've already made while continuing to update and expand our
equipment, training and technology.
Our Department is very appreciative of the tremendous
support we've received from Congress in helping us get to where
we are today, and we welcome and look forward to working with
the committee in ensuring that we remain prepared for what the
future may bring. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Charles Ramsey follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. I thank all of you, and we appreciate
the job you're doing, and the troops under you are doing every
day to bring safety to our region.
Let me go back to where we were with the first panel,
though, and that is the situations like we had on March 17th,
18th, 19th timeframe, where you have an emergency situation,
dealing with it and all the factors that are taken into account
as we walk through.
I think in retrospect, we go back and we are redoing that
incident with Mr.--well, we call him ``tractor man'' would you
have handled it differently?
Ms. Chambers, would you have handed it differently? You
were the group in charge.
Chief Chambers. I was, sir, and we worked in collaboration
with Mr. Harp sitting next to me, who was the lead man at the
command post with us----
Chairman Tom Davis. If we had to do it over again, any
lessons learned?
Chief Chambers. The first thing that is happening now that
will help me in the future is an afteraction critique, first
within my own agency and then with the other agencies who were
involved. We do that after every major event. And, sir, I'm
sure that there will be lessons learned. There will be things
that we did correctly and we will make certain occur in the
future, and there will be things that we could do differently.
I don't know at this point, Mr. Chairman, what those will be.
The first critique happens later this week, and then others
will happen over the subsequent weeks.
Chairman Tom Davis. Would you be good enough to share that
with the committee once you get it, or is that privileged?
Chief Chambers. Sir, the actual report we prepare is
privileged, but I will be able to give you a condensed version.
I'd be glad to do that, sir.
Chairman Tom Davis. I'm looking at National Park Service
director's Order No. 9, the law enforcement program. This
directive permits the use of intermediate weapons approved by
the Park Service such as electronic restraint devices, tear
gas, grenades and beanbag grounds to restrain or control
violent, threatening or restive behavior.
On the evening of Monday, March 17th, the President
addressed the Nation and gave 48 hours notice before declaring
war on Iraq. Simultaneously, the Nation's threat alert was
raised to orange. Why wasn't alternatives followed with perhaps
tear gas or whatever? As it turns out, and I just say in
retrospect, the only dangerous item this guy had was tobacco at
the end of the day. Why weren't these other items--or the other
alternatives, were they looked at, were they reviewed? Why
wouldn't tear gas have been appropriate in this case?
Chief Chambers. Sir, a number of options were looked at,
including some of those that you mentioned, and at one point
tear gas was deployed. It had no effect other than to cause the
gentleman to go to the far end of the pond where he retreated
and held on for several more hours toward the end.
For each option that we looked at, there were inherent
risks, and we had to weigh that against the benefit. We had a
gentleman who threatened from the very moment that this began
to detonate an explosive. He had a large enclosed trailer that
caused great concern to ATF, the experts to whom we looked for
advice on what the potential blast factor was and what the
impact would be to the lives of people that were in that inner
perimeter. We knew that anything that would check and we had to
consider the real possibility that he could hit a trigger
switch or that he would have a switch go off should he be
incapacitated, and early in the stages, the risk was far too
great to take that type of action. As he changed toward the
end, we did deploy the tear gas. Of course, as I mentioned, it
had no positive effect, sir.
Chairman Tom Davis. Chief Ramsey, the Raleigh News and
Observer published their online version March 18th, and you're
quoted as saying, ``right now, this is the only game in town,
and you can afford to wait. If there were multiple events going
on, we'd move him.''
What would you have done if there were other events in town
to have brought this to closure?
Chief Ramsey. It would depend, sir, on the nature of the
events that were taking place. If his risk to the public at
large had gotten to the point where consideration for lethal
force became an issue, then certainly that would be considered.
Fortunately, we didn't run across that particular scenario,
although if it had, we had people in position that could have
taken that kind of action.
You have to deal with these events as they unfold. If we
can contain it, which in this case they were able to contain
it. He was in an area where he was isolated from the public at
large in the middle of a pond in a mall. So there was no direct
threat to others other than some of the law enforcement people
around, the decision was made to contain, and I don't disagree
with that decision. But had the situation changed, I'm certain
that other actions would have been brought on the table and may
have had to have been actually implemented.
Chairman Tom Davis. There were three rush hours that were
held up. I can understand one going through at two. I gather
from your statement it could have been 20 as long as it was
brought to a peaceful conclusion, that there is really no limit
in terms of how long the public at large would be
inconvenienced, as long as it was brought to a successful
conclusion. Is that basically as I read you?
Chief Chambers. Sir, I don't have the crystal ball to know
how many rush hours it could have been. I did consider that. I
was very concerned about the inconvenience to motorists and to
residents of the city. I was more concerned about their safety.
Certainly I didn't want any injury or death to any passers-by.
It is important, though, to know that from the very----
Chairman Tom Davis. You cordoned, what--a 6- to 8-block
area was cordoned off. Right?
Chief Chambers. Sir, I don't know the exact dimensions. I
would have to get back to the operational plans and look at
that. I know that as the days went on, we actually opened up
intersections to help with the flow of traffic. We were never
at a standstill, Mr. Chairman.
We were moving forward. We knew that we were getting closer
to resolution, and those were the things that I couldn't share
with the public at that time, because we knew that the
gentleman was also listening carefully to the reports in the
media. And so never did I give up hope that we weren't moving
closer and closer. In fact, when I spoke to Mr. Moran at an
Appropriations Committee hearing on the final day, I was
confident enough to tell him that I knew that we were much
closer than we had ever been, and certainly within an hour or
two of that time, the situation had been resolved. And so it
was not going to go on forever, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. During this period, the Metropolitan
Police Department had 14,057 calls, 4,993 police dispatchers
during that time, and during the rush hours, ambulances
couldn't get through. Police couldn't. I mean, it was absolute
gridlock in places from Georgetown, downtown Capitol Hill,
anywhere around here. So innocent people who were obeying the
law were put in jeopardy during this time period, too. How is
that factored into the decisionmaking?
Chief Ramsey. Well, again, first of all, let me say that--
--
Chairman Tom Davis. Where their rights again and their
convenience and their safety, how are they weighed against the
other?
Chief Ramsey. I mean, you take everything into
consideration. One of the positive things around this, we did
have a traffic plan and had traffic rerouted around the area.
As this thing unfolded, people were more aware, and----
Chairman Tom Davis. Chief, let me just say. You reroute the
traffic around the area, but it clogs everything else up, and I
think that's what you need to understand. You couldn't get down
the GW Parkway. You couldn't get through Georgetown. And
ambulances, I saw an ambulance trying to get through in
Georgetown, and it couldn't--literally there was no way to get
through. It was blocked up.
Chief Ramsey. Yes, sir. That is a consequence of that. I
would say that what we're about to have this weekend with the
IMF and World Bank will probably do far more damage to our
traffic situation than tractor man did, and yet we have those
kinds of meetings and protests and things of that nature that
cause us problems on a fairly consistent and regular basis, and
we have to work around them the best we can. We didn't create
the situation. We just tried to resolve it the best we could,
taking into consideration----
Chairman Tom Davis. This is one guy, three rush hours.
Chief Ramsey. Well, sir, maybe I'm at a loss here, because
I don't believe in killing people to move traffic.
Chairman Tom Davis. Neither do I.
Chief Ramsey. Lethal force is always an option, but it is a
last resort.
Chairman Tom Davis. Nobody is mentioning lethal force.
Chief Ramsey. When you're at the scene and you see what
options are available to you and a lot of the lethal technology
is only good in a certain range----
Chairman Tom Davis. Were there certain technologies that
were available that we might give you the resources to deploy
in----
Chief Ramsey. I'd be glad to look at that, sir, and have
people that are experts in weaponry find out----
Chairman Tom Davis. After you have looked at it, have you
gone out and said, gee, what else can we do, what are other
places doing around the world in this? Remember, this was an
orange alert.
Chief Ramsey. I do realize it was an orange alert, sir. I'm
very sensitive to the fact that it was an orange alert. But we
also have a deranged man and a situation where he's claiming to
have explosives. He could very well have access to firearms.
There's all kind of things going on at the time. We're trying
to resolve it the best we can, and in looking back at
situations, one can always say that, well, it was really no
threat, we could have stormed the tractor. But we're not going
to put our officers' lives at risk unnecessarily either. So
it's a very difficult situation. Fortunately, there was no loss
of life, and we were able to move on from it.
Mr. Harp. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. May I respond to that?
Chairman Tom Davis. Sure.
Mr. Harp. I spent probably more time personally actually on
the scene than Chief Chambers or Chief Ramsey, and at the
outset, he did threaten with a bomb, and according to ATF and
our people, the blast radius would have been somewhere between
500 to 1,500 feet.
Now, I think that dictated somewhat the closure of
Constitution and some of those related problems. But focused on
the interperimeter and what was going on, as long as the
gentleman was isolated on the tractor in the middle of the
pond, he was only a threat to himself. Our primary concern is
the private citizen's safety, the safety of our officers, as
well as the safety of Mr. Watson, I believe his name was.
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, I mean, I'm glad you're concerned
about Mr. Watson's safety, but--let me--you'll get a chance.
This is just the police department's emergency calls. We
haven't yet--we're still tallying the number of emergency calls
that came in on September 11th for fire and the rest, and this
backed out into the Virginia suburbs. And in Maryland. I mean,
this was everywhere, and all I'm saying is, we want to learn a
lesson from this. We don't want to harp on it. I understand
everything that went into this decision, and you and I have had
this discussion, and I appreciate it. You were going by the
book as it was written at the time, but we need a new book.
Mr. Harp. Well, I understand that, and I agree there should
be some type of intermediate step. But during--starting--right
after the immediate response, we developed an investigative
strategy during the first day and a half, from Monday
afternoon, Monday night, Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon. We
obtained and executed, I believe, four search warrants down in
North Carolina. We're trying to develop the information and
assess, first of all, does the fellow have the capability to do
what he's threatening to do? Does he have all that--all of
those issues?
We even located the girlfriend down in jail in Miami, FL to
interview her. We contacted the fertilizer distributors in the
southern county area contiguous to D.C. We went to the
licensing and regulating entity down in the State of North
Carolina to see what his purchases were. There was an issue
about the possibility of a 45 caliber side arm, and as long as
he was out in that pond, we were not going to--he was, like I
said, the only threat was to himself. If he approached the lip
of the pond, we were going to employ the gas, and if that was
not successful, then we were going to escalate it to what was
necessary.
Simultaneous to that, we developed a wiretap, and on an
emergency basis--this all takes time to do this. So we were
monitoring his calls. After the first day and a half, we were
starting to get telephone calls that he was intending to
surrender.
Now, if we would have taken proactive steps in the middle
of this investigation in the standoff, that would have
precipitated a reaction by him that would have caused him to
react in a way we did not expect and then to have to employ
deadly force after we already have those conversations, I can
guarantee the issue in this hearing would be different. I dug
up the newspaper articles following the 1982 standoff at the
memorial, I think with a Mr. Buyers or Meyers, whatever his
name was, and once he started down that hill, they shot at him
to disable his truck, I believe. The ricochet killed the
gentleman.
There was a 6-week grand jury investigation following that,
and I will just tell you right now, my experience, I am
familiar with both Ruby Ridge, and I am familiar with Waco, and
I have experienced a couple of these incidents in my career,
and the alternative very difficult. We have an agent still
paying the price as a result of a legal shooting employing
deadly force after----
Chairman Tom Davis. You're afraid of getting sued. Is
that----
Mr. Harp. Not in the least. That gentleman would have
driven that tractor off--out of that pond and approached the
lip, we were going to use the gas, and if it went further, I
was prepared and we were prepared to exercise deadly force if
that was required.
We could not even sneak up to him, because the tractor in
and of itself was a deadly weapon. That water, 3 to 5 feet of
water, was no impediment to that tractor.
Chairman Tom Davis. He had a permit. Is that--at one point.
Am I right, Chief?
Chief Chambers. He had a permit but not for the
Constitution Gardens area. It was for a static display, being
his tractor, up at the Washington Monument. He had been there
in prior years as well.
Mr. Harp. May I add one comment?
Chairman Tom Davis. Yes.
Mr. Harp. Shortly after Director Mueller called me over and
got some of the senior executives at headquarters and asked the
very same question about intermediate steps, we've already
begun looking at less than lethal to be able to use in those
type of situations, and we will employ additional tactical
expertise on scene, but----
Chairman Tom Davis. I think we have to. I mean, or we see
the next one and the next one and the next one, and we have
people say, well, we're going to protect this guy, we're afraid
of the repercussions on agents, and we want to protect the
citizens, and one person ties up the town.
Mr. Harp. I agree, but when you look at the nature of the
threat on the front end----
Chairman Tom Davis. I understand how you react to that.
Look, I understand that.
Mr. Harp. In 47 hours--and I understand the traffic issue
and----
Chairman Tom Davis. I just don't want it to happen. I mean,
we can't afford to have these kind of things recurring and
recurring and recurring. I remember the Woodrow Wilson Bridge
incident where they didn't even prosecute the guy, and it
happened again after that. And Chief Ramsey, the great
frustration you heard from Mr. Wolf earlier, and we're hearing
from Members and staff is I know you have some very tough
situations, bomb threats in tunnels. We've talked about that.
You know, but we have to have a strategy to try to minimize the
impact on traffic as well and make that a consideration and a
factor, if nothing else, when there's an accident, get an
officer out on the scene to move people around as quickly as
you can there and at other key assets.
Three hours getting in town for one of our--that's--you
know, it basically holds up the mechanisms of government, and I
know you get some really tough situations, but we just want to
work with you to try to--as Mr. Wolf had suggested, having tow
trucks available quickly. Yes, you want to get all the facts
about an accident, but frankly, in my opinion, the facts of
that accident in terms of future proceedings in court are
minimal compared to holding up, you know, 100,000 people trying
to get into the city, holding up the workings of government and
the like. And if we can just work to try to improve on this,
every incident is more difficult.
Chief Ramsey. Yes, sir. I don't disagree. I don't know if
you're referring to yesterday's accident on the 14th Street
Bridge. And I don't know if that was a reference to that or
not. I think it was mentioned earlier. But just as a point of
information, that accident occurred at 7 a.m. It was a five-car
accident. Three cars had to be towed. One pregnant woman had to
be taken by ambulance to a hospital. As a result of that, it
did shut down one lane. Three lanes we left open, but it did
cause a tremendous traffic jam, and unfortunately when those
kinds of accidents occur, there's going to be a traffic tie-up.
Whenever it's a property damage accident, then obviously
getting those vehicles off the roadway as quickly as possible
so that traffic can flow and even in personal injuries, that's
something that's always the goal.
I know that based on what we heard earlier, our deputy
mayor is already looking at a proposal to perhaps take a look
at requesting some funding for additional cranes and other
types of resources to perhaps be able to position them in a way
where they're right by the bridges and be able to snatch it off
the bridge very, very quickly.
Chairman Tom Davis. I understand yesterday that----
Chief Ramsey. And that's the sort of thing that I think
you're looking for.
Chairman Tom Davis. It was an hour and 15 minutes before
the trucks came to tow yesterday, and during that time, it's--
it makes a----
Chief Ramsey. It was a total of an hour and 15, of what I
have. 7 to 8:15 a.m. But we also had an ambulance run because
one woman was injured, and we had three cars that needed to be
towed. So it was cleared at 8:15 a.m. But, again, it did tie up
traffic. It doesn't take much to tie it up around here.
Chairman Tom Davis. Again, I'm hearing increasing
frustration, and not just from commuters, but holding up
government at a time with orange alerts and everything else,
that we need to rewrite the book. So, that's why, Chief
Chambers, as you look at what we might have done different, we
want to work with you and hear from you so that when it happens
again, we're not tied up three or four or five rush hours, and
no one knows how many it might have been, as we're waiting for
this guy. We have to have additional strategies, and if it
takes additional equipment, that's pretty cheap, the price,
whatever it is.
Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm
sure you'll hear from all Members who are here right now all
from the Washington region about traffic frustration in various
degrees. God knows one thing that did not change between the
time I moved from the State legislature in Annapolis where I
was for the last 12 years to Washington, is even though that's
five times as far, it takes me just as long if I'm driving into
town. So there are lots of issues and lots of issues we have to
deal with in the Transportation Committee, obviously to resolve
our traffic problems as a region.
But that is one component, obviously, of the bigger issue
that we're here about, which is readiness with respect to a
terrorist attack, and it's difficult with the bells going off,
and all the votes to really dig into these issues. So I hope,
Mr. Chairman, we'll have a further opportunity as we go to
discuss the medical preparedness in the region, issues of the
real preparedness of first responders. There are a whole host
of questions you don't have an opportunity to get into in this
limited time.
But there is one issue that is sort of at the intersection,
of course, of traffic issues and a terrorist attack, for
example, like a chemical attack or some other kind of attack,
and that is the question of evacuation. And Chief Ramsey, you
raised a very good point that others have made as well in
earlier panels, which is in the event of an attack like a
chemical attack, we don't necessarily want everybody getting on
the roads and getting on the Metros.
It may be that people are much safer staying in place or
going underground, and my question is what kind of information
system do you have for gathering the data, assessing the threat
and letting the public know--I mean, the natural instinct of
people is going to be to want to get out of town, if not to get
away from an attack, to go see their families in the suburbs.
What kind of information systems do you have for
identifying the location of the attack, if it's a chemical
attack, what the direction of the plume, for example, is, and
how quickly can you do that, and how then do you communicate to
the public whether they should be getting out of town, because
they may be in the direction of a plume in the case of a
chemical attack, or whether they should stay put. Have you
addressed those kind of issues?
Chief Ramsey. Yes, sir. Should there be a situation where
we suspect a chemical attack of some kind, the Joint Terrorism
Task Force responds to these scenes automatically. So does our
Fire, EMS and HAZMAT unit that will do a quick assessment to
find out what it is that we are up against.
There is software that will give you information relative
to any plumes that would develop as a result of that depending
on the substance, wind direction, temperature, all those kinds
of things to let you know what the area is that perhaps you
need to evacuate if that was the situation.
The media is the quickest way of getting information out,
both radio and television, the Internet. I mean, every means
available to us to get information out to the public would be
used, but the quickest way is obviously through the media, and
passing along that information to get people not to go toward
an area that could be contaminated, but also to get them out of
an area that we may need to seal off, whatever the size of that
area might be.
So we do have the technology in terms of software that can
give us the radius that would be needed to clear, and we also
have people that respond very quickly to these scenes to try to
quickly assess their--there is other technology that I
shouldn't talk about in an open forum that is available in the
city as well to quickly detect those kinds of releases.
So I hope I answered your----
Mr. Van Hollen. Yeah. Who's responsible in this effort
between local and State and Federal officials? Who's
responsible for getting that information out across the media
outlets? I mean, is that dependent on the situation, or do you
have a plan where there's an evaluation made, for example, at
the Federal level, and that information is then communicated to
the--I mean, I assume the National Weather Service, for
example, has input with respect to the direction of any plume
in the event of a chemical--how does that information get
coordinated, and who is responsible for disseminating that
information to the public as quickly as possible?
Chief Ramsey. Well, actually, at the local level, our
department of Emergency Management, EMA, coordinates all those
kinds of things for us. Peter La Porte is here with us now. The
software that I'm talking about that we use for the direction
of the wind and all that, that's plugged in directly to the
National Weather Service, so you get real-time information
about wind speed, direction, temperature, all those kinds of
things that would impact the affected area.
So that is done fairly quickly, but it is the local
government that would be primarily responsible for getting that
information out. But to determine what that information is that
needs to get out, of course we rely on Federal assistance as
well as our own fire, EMS and other specialists that are there
to tell us what it is we're up against.
Mr. Van Hollen. What is your assessment of the level of--
this is just a general--what is your assessment of the level of
preparedness in the Washington region to a chemical attack, a
low-level--or a nuclear explosion that took place? I mean, are
we ready? If we're not ready, what additional measures do we
need to take?
Chief Ramsey. Well, I think we're ready, but, again, that's
all relative. If you have a nuclear device explode, you're
going to have loss of life. If you have a release of a chemical
agent, depending on what that agent is, you can have some loss
of life. But do we have the equipment we need to be able to
respond and work in that environment? Yes. Do we have the
ability to be able to detect as quickly as possible what that
is so we can save as many people as possible? Yes. But being
prepared doesn't mean you have zero loss of life. I mean, there
is a price that is paid if we have a situation like this, and
we can only hope to minimize any injury to the public at large.
But we have been given the resources. We have the training. We
have the communication and the coordination in place that I
think makes us as prepared as any region, if not more prepared
than any other region in the country.
Mr. Van Hollen. Now, clearly, clearly there would be
terrible loss of life if any of those, especially a nuclear
attack happened. My question related to our ability to respond.
And with respect to the deterrence and prevention aspect, what
has been the level of cooperation between--to the regional
governments and the Federal Government with respect to them
providing you with information about the nature of the threat?
Have you felt that information has been communicated quickly
and accurately to you with--the full amount of information that
you need that they're getting, whether it's getting down to
you?
Chief Ramsey. Yes, sir. I'm very, very pleased. I have a
clearance, and I'm privy to information that comes in as it
affects Washington, DC. Mr. Harp mentioned earlier that we have
regular conference calls. We have a standard weekly conference
call that we have, and we have it daily when we need to if
there's a specific threat to Washington, and that's all the
regional law enforcement agencies. We have regular meetings
there at the Washington field office. In fact, there is one
today that took place that covered some intelligence
information. I've had other briefings as well. I couldn't be
happier with the amount of information that comes to me as it
relates to threats against Washington, DC, and I know that
there's been some, you know, discussion on the part of some
chiefs that weren't in the same position that I'm in,
unfortunately, but as far as Washington goes, the cooperation
and coordination of not only the FBI, but I feel that way about
the Secret Service as well and the other Federal agencies that
we have regular contact with.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director
Harp, Quantico Marine Corps base is located in Prince Williams
County, part of it in Stafford. As you know, on that facility
is the FBI Academy and the DEA Academy, and we have a lot of
folks there. It's dissected by Interstate 95, and my question
is have adequate measures been taken, in your opinion, to make
sure that facility is protected and that the people there know
what to do in case of a terrorist attack?
Mr. Harp. I believe so. The continuity of operations plan
has been developed for Quantico. In an attempt to shorten my
statement, I did skip over the specific mention of the Quantico
academy and the Quantico Marine Base, but they are included as
well in our deliberations and practice and training and all
those considerations.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. You know, I travel that corridor
every Monday and Friday going back and forth to home, and I
will tell you that the bottleneck, when you get off of where
the HOV lanes are, you get right into that Quantico/Triangle
area, and that is my concern that I keep talking about today.
If we had to have a mass exodus out of D.C. because of
something like we had on September 11th, even getting out of
D.C. on September 11th was next to impossible for most of us,
but I just have got a real concern about what would happen down
in that corridor, and I certainly hope everyone is going to
keep that in mind----
Mr. Harp. Yes.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia [continuing]. When you think of our
evacuation plans, that you keep that in mind that it really
bottlenecks there now without a terrorist attack.
Mr. Harp. We are cognizant of those threats, and we've
attempted to address them in our planning.
Mrs. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Yeah. Let's get back a little bit to the
issue that happened in the park. You know, I really think that
you as law enforcement are there to respond, and you do a good
job, and you have the techniques, but you just don't have the
resources. And I understand the next panel is going to be more
about transportation. But I think whenever you affect someone's
everyday pattern of life, especially at a place like
Washington, DC, where we all come to work, it causes a lot of
frustration, and as elected officials you get a lot of
complaints and phone calls. But if we're really going to take
this seriously, first we have to come up with a plan that will
work and second, we have to find a way to fund it.
And I think a lot of what we're talking about is maybe a
flexible transportation plan that is going to cost billions of
dollars, but really studies some of the best transportation
systems in the world. And if we're going to really make our
Nation's Capital a place where we have incidents--and we always
will--and we're going to be able to move traffic in situations
like this or just an automobile accident, we're going to have
to have a plan, we're going to have to have somebody in
leadership at the top who can make decisions to divert roads
and close roads to make sure we get traffic patterns moving,
including cameras almost as a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week situation,
but it's going to cost a lot of money.
Now, the possible good news if we're willing to undertake
that, is that every elected official who works in the Capital
somehow lives near this area, one way or another, and
understand that this is the Nation's Capital. And if you look
at this Washington, DC, from at least my perspective, it may
not be your opinion, I think we have a deteriorating
infrastructure that has to be dealt with. And if you don't take
care of the basics first, things start to deteriorate. Roads,
potholes and situations. And it's not Mayor Williams. He's
doing the best he can, but he needs more resources. He needs
people to live in the district who can pay the taxes to help
pay for these things.
So I'm looking forward to the next panel, because I think
really the issue, you responded, you tried to do the best you
could. You created your perimeter because you want to save
lives and you want to save the life also of your police
officers, plus your citizens. But there needs to be some
flexibility and technology. It is there, but we have to be
willing to pay for it. And thank goodness you have Chairman
Davis here who lives in the area, and what I understand, likes
to get things done. Maybe we can really take this to another
level.
Getting back to some of the issues on homeland security, I
think WMATA is something that we have to deal with, with
terrorism. Terrorism is a lot different than other crimes, so
to speak, and the terrorists want to create a situation that
will have impact in the news media. I don't know who can answer
the question; but do we have the resources, the sensors, the
radiation sensors, the chemical sensors that we can help to
discover if something occurs or try to stop things before it
occurs? Where are we with respect to that, or are we
underfunded and we don't have those resources? And, by the way,
the things I am talking are chemical sensors, biological
sensors. If you have a biological or chemical, you can have a
decontamination right there or close by like you would have a
fire hydrant. Anything of that nature?
Mr. Harp. I think some of that could be answered by the
next panel. With respect to our preparations, our National
Capital Response Squad does have those assets. We are working
very closely with DOE on the anthrax investigation. We have
employed all of the national labs. We have had eight specific
conferences in my office deliberating on the anthrax threat and
the investigation. We have done, I think the best we can within
our ability, our Hazardous Materials Response Unit and our
Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit at headquarters. Both are a
national asset and they address those concerns.
We did employ them during the tractor incident. We could
always use more. I understand that--and, you know, we had never
been attacked prior to September 11th, but since then we have
had not only the Pentagon and the Trade Center, but we have had
anthrax, we have had a host of hoax letters and our personnel
from the JTTF and the Capital Response Squad deploy to what are
possible hot scenes. So, yes, we could use more resources.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Chief Ramsey, how many people in your
organization really do you assign to work narcotics?
Chief Ramsey. That I assign to work on narcotics?
Mr. Ruppersberger. Drug enforcement.
Chief Ramsey. I can get you exact numbers as to how large
NSID is. Close to 100.
Mr. Ruppersberger. We had testimony yesterday that because
of the homeland security and the terrorist threat, that there
are a lot of resources that are being taken out of the
narcotics enforcement, which is still our biggest problem in
the United States from a crime point of view. Do you agree with
that?
Chief Ramsey. It is a large problem, yes, sir.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Are you having problems because of
resources you are getting and putting into homeland security,
taking away from areas, especially narcotics.
Chief Ramsey. Not necessarily narcotics, but neighborhood
patrols and the narcotic enforcement at the District level
suffers as a result of that; not necessarily just the narcotics
section, but the officers in the districts that work on local
narcotic problems. Now, as a good example, with the IMF World
Bank coming up and code orange, and those kinds of things, when
we have to take resources to start dealing with some of those
threats, we pull out of the neighborhoods to an extent,
although we do everything we can to make sure our numbers stay
up in the neighborhoods, but it strains us tremendously.
Mr. Ruppersberger. May I make one more comment? Since
September 11th, we know that things have changed. But I think
there is no question that from a terrorist point of view that
Washington, DC, and probably the Nation's Capital would be a
target. And I think because of the cooperation between Federal,
State and local, I think each one of your organizations has
done a tremendous job in the intelligence end, working together
as a team, more than I ever seen, and I think that is one of
the reasons we have done well.
Now, of course, the arrest or capture of Mohammed, that had
a real significant impact. But if you look at what has happened
in the presence of law enforcement--I was driving in another
spot in Washington last night where I hadn't been. I saw police
cars with lights on. I think you all should be commended so
far--I said so far; you want to keep it up--but I think there
has been tremendous cooperation and I think everyone who is
working in law enforcement wants to make a difference and they
want to make sure that they protect their citizens. Now it is
our job to get you the resources.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you all very much. It has been a
long day for you. We appreciate the job you are doing and we
need to look ahead at new strategies as the situation continues
to evolve here in the Nation's Capital.
Anybody want to add anything? If not, if you want to answer
anything supplementary, feel free to send it in and we thank
you very much. We will take a 2-minute break and then go to the
next panel.
[Recess.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. We are on our
final panel now. We have Richard White, the general manager of
the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; David
Robertson, the interim executive director of Metropolitan
Washington Council of Governments, accompanied by Mary Hill,
one of the supervisors from Prince William County and very good
friend who is Chair of the Board of Directors. And to round out
the panel we have Bob Peck, the president of the Greater
Washington Board of Trade. Thank you all for your patience. And
if you just stand with me, I will swear you in and we can get
right to it.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Let the record show that the answer is
in the affirmative. And, Mr. White, why don't we go with you
and go right down? And, again, I apologize. The congressional
schedule is something we can't always control.
STATEMENTS OF RICHARD WHITE, GENERAL MANAGER, WASHINGTON
METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY; DAVID ROBERTSON, INTERIM
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACCOMPANIED BY MARY K. HILL, CHAIR, BOARD
OF DIRECTORS, METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS;
AND BOB PECK, PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE
Mr. White. Chairman Davis and members of the committee,
good afternoon and thank you for asking me to testify. My name
is Richard White. I am the general manager and chief executive
officer of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
Mr. Chairman, my written statement, which I am submitting
for the record, explains in detail WMATA's emergency
preparedness in coordination with the region. So in the
interest of time, I will offer a summary of those remarks.
As the largest transit provider for the national capital
region, Metro takes its responsibility in homeland security
with the seriousness it demands. Metro holds a unique position
in the region in making the transformation required for
operating in a post-September 11th environment. In making the
necessary adjustments, WMATA must focus on two eventualities:
the prospect of being both a target of an emergency event and a
critical component of regional response and recovery. In doing
so, we must consult, coordinate, and plan our activities across
numerous Federal, State, and local jurisdictions.
As it pertains to working with the region, one of the
questions of this hearing, WMATA'S emergency preparations and
security upgrades will provide limited benefits for the
national capital region without considerable coordination and
planning among all the region's Federal, State and local
government players as well as the private sector. It is quite
fitting for me to share this table with David Robertson from
the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and Bob Peck
of the Washington Board of Trade. Thanks to the efforts of COG,
the region has made significant progress on the issue of
regional emergency response planning and coordination.
In September of last year, COG adopted a Regional Emergency
Coordination Plan that was the culmination of a year-long
effort involving numerous agencies and entities. And I'm sure
Mr. Robertson will be referring to the RECP and the Regional
Instant Communication and Coordination System [RICCS]. So I
will pass on that.
Complementing COG's emergency preparedness outreach efforts
is the greater Washington Board of Trade, a critical link to
the region's business community. The Board of Trade has been an
active partner in working with others in the region toward
development of the RECP, participating in the Emergency
Preparedness Council of the COG, and also partnering with the
Office of National Capital Region Coordination. They also are
an extremely important partner in ongoing coordination and
consultation efforts.
I would like to speak specifically to the appointment of
Michael Byrne to lead the Office of National Capital Region
Coordination [ONCRC]. ONCRC provides a tremendous asset for
helping the region to move forward with its emergency
preparedness, particularly as it pertains to coordinating
activities between the region and the Federal Government and to
acting as a clearinghouse in coordinating activities amongst
various elements of the Federal family.
The Office of National Capital Region Coordination has
recently initiated a process with private and public sector
infrastructure providers in this region, including WMATA, to
assess vulnerabilities and interdependencies and to make
recommendations for critical infrastructure measures.
Transportation spanning the public and private sectors is
one of the four sectors that ONCRC will be evaluating in this
effort along with telecommunications, energy, and public
health. The results of this analysis will become an important
component of the ONCRC's baseline assessment to the Congress on
the emergency preparedness of this region as well as making
recommendations on needed resources.
So I would put an emphasis on that, Mr. Chairman, in that
this new Office of the National Capital Region Coordination is
in the process of preparing a baseline assessment and the
importance of that assessment to the Congress. And I do believe
the assessment will provide real direction for the region as to
where we need to go to improve our capabilities as a region.
Of course, this infrastructure protection is just one
component of the emergency preparedness equation. All employers
in the region, both private and public sector, need to take
responsibility for having emergency plans in place and for
actively communicating and rehearsing these plans with
employees. In turn, they are dependent upon receiving accurate,
timely, and substantive information from various responsible
parties and assisting them with their emergency planning and
response activities.
The ongoing efforts of the Office of Personnel Management
in coordinating activities for the executive branch of the
Federal Government and the Board of Trade in acting as a
catalyst for coordinating activities with private sector
employees and employers are extremely important in this regard.
As it pertains to another question of yours, transportation
evacuation planning, we do have a framework in place for action
in the transportation arena, but we are still in the process of
learning how to make the plan operational, and much more work
is required in this area.
There is an annex to COG's regional plan that provides
specific guidance on evacuation planning for the region,
including a number of potentially promising strategies to
facilitate management of mobility and usage of the
transportation network, and there is an extensive listing in
those strategies both in the plan and attached to my testimony.
What needs to be done now is to get the necessary resources
and commitment and efforts in place to take what we have
already accomplished to the next level so that an actual
operational evacuation plan can be put into place, something
that we do not have today. The region's key players, in turn,
must commit to resolving in advance key decisions on specific
actions in order to obtain a consensus on a preapproved set of
operational response strategies in anticipation of any number
of potential scenarios.
As it pertains to WMATA's specific issues, we do a big job
today. The amount of people we carry and the percent of the
work force, including the Federal work force, that we deliver
is in our testimony. One important message from me to you is
that we do not have an unlimited capacity to carry people. We
are at the upper limits of our current availability to
accommodate riders during the rush hour, so in the event of an
emergency we could have a situation where our transit system is
burdened beyond its existing capacity limits. And in my
testimony is reference to a considerable analysis WMATA has
done at the urging of this committee and in response to a
report from the General Accounting Office that lays out the
detailed road map we need to follow to give us the additional
capacity capabilities that we do not have today.
Unfortunately, these needs are over and above what we are
receiving from Federal, State, and local sources and what we
expect to receive from the upcoming reauthorization of the TEA
21 surface transportation bill. The set of needs under critical
infrastructure and addressing redundancy is a very important
consideration of WMATA and is now our No. 1 homeland security
priority. We are actively coordinating this issue with Michael
Byrne in the Office of National Capital Region Coordination and
asking the Congress and the administration to assist us in our
effort to make operational in a timely manner a comprehensive
backup operations control center to ensure WMATA's continuity
of operations under a variety of threat conditions.
Our transit police and safety specialists are currently
facing challenges in ensuring that they receive in a timely
manner the tools they need to respond to emergencies from
Federal agencies offering assistance, such as FEMA and the
Office of Domestic Preparedness within the Department of
Homeland Security. Given the unique jurisdictional boundaries
that define WMATA's service area, we don't fall neatly into any
single State in terms of applying for first responder
assistance that flows from the Department of Homeland Security
to the States. In a sense, we are an institutional orphan. We
frequently slip through cracks and spend a considerable amount
of time working through the application processes with three
State-level emergency management agencies.
In order to expedite this process, WMATA and other regional
agencies should be able to apply directly to the Federal
agencies offering first response and other emergency
assistance. Any assistance the Congress can provide in this
manner will be greatly appreciated.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the rest of the
members of the committee for the opportunity to present these
remarks and for the support you have provided to Metro over the
years. We look forward to continued discussions with the
region, the administration, and the Congress on ways to enhance
the emergency preparedness response and recovery capabilities
of WMATA in the national capital region, and of course I would
be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. White follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Robertson, thank you--Mary.
Ms. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my first time as
well, so I am excited. Be kind. First and foremost, I am a
local elected official, and I say that in appreciation of
Congressman Ruppersberger's comments earlier about the hometown
responsibility that local elected officials have in providing
effective emergency response. But this year, I am honored to be
the chairman of the Metropolitan Washington Council of
Governments. As you know, Mr. Chairman, having served as its
president in the past, the Council of Governments is an
organization of our 18 local jurisdictions within the
Metropolitan Washington Region. At this time, I also serve as
the first Chair of the national capital region's Emergency
Preparedness Council, and I am pleased to be here today to
begin COG's presentation on its role in emergency preparedness.
I am accompanied, or I was accompanied earlier, by the two
vice chairs of our Emergency Preparedness Council, Carol
Schwartz, who is a member at large of the Council of the
District of Columbia, and Bruce Williams is also vice chair of
the Emergency Preparedness Council. He is mayor pro tempore of
Takoma Park; and vice chair of the Board of Directors, Mayor
Judith Davis of Greenbelt, who was also with us earlier. Still
with me is David Snyder, a member of the Transportation
Planning Board at COG and also a key member of the team that is
working on emergency preparedness, particularly the
transportation evacuation annex.
Let me acknowledge at the outset some of COG's most
important partners in addressing emergency preparedness who are
here today: Richard White, general manager of WMATA, and Bob
Peck, president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade.
Collaboration with the region's major transportation authority
and the principal organization representing the private sector
was key to making the regional process both comprehensive and
effective.
COG and its partners want to express our gratitude and
appreciation to Members of Congress because they recognized
quickly the need for a regional role in emergency planning.
Without your interest and support, we could not have mounted
the planning process or achieved the level of coordination we
will describe here today. And we are proud to say that by
funding the regional planning progress, Congress demonstrated
vision and leadership even as our Nation was recovering from
the shock of a terrorist attack.
The tragedies of September 11, 2001 alerted all levels of
government and the citizenry at large to the need for improved
response to natural or human-caused emergencies in the national
capital region. This need has been addressed at three levels:
at the Federal level through the creation of the Office of
National Capital Region Coordination within the Department of
Homeland Security; at the State level through the national
capital regional Summit, sponsored by the Office of Homeland
Security, the Governors of Maryland and Virginia, and the Mayor
of the District of Columbia; and at the regional level through
COG and the governmental, private, and nonprofit first
responders in the national capital region.
Our testimony will cover discussion of COG and its role in
the region that was produced as a result of the COG-led
emergency planning process and the goals that will buildupon
current accomplishments.
Finally COG's testimony includes a status report on
specific issues of interest to the committee. And I would like
to acknowledge that two outcomes of that committee--of the task
force--was the creation of the RECP, which is the Regional
Emergency Coordination Plan which was approved last September
11, 2002 on the 1-year anniversary of the terrorist attack, but
it now just demonstrates the level of coordination and
cooperation within the region. It has now been adopted formally
by 16 members of the COG and there are two jurisdictions yet to
adopt it, but it is on their docket for adoption, and also the
risks which you heard mentioned, which after September 11th
where it took 8 hours for a lot of that conferencing to occur.
Now, as a result of the RICCS, within 30 minutes of a terrorist
incident or threat of an incident, the RICCS goes into
operation.
Mr. Chairman, the national capital region's emergency
planning process has created a vital partnership among the
groups here today to report to you, and we are very proud of
what has been accomplished so far. And, more importantly, we
are committed to maintaining a State of readiness to help
assure the security of the citizens of this great region.
I would like to thank you personally, Congressman Davis,
for your support in cosponsoring legislation which
unfortunately did not make it out of committee last year, but
legislation by Congressman Kingston of Georgia, which would
have allowed for regional funding for homeland security
efforts. And I still believe that is necessary to the success
of our region and other regions throughout the country.
Another issue that is important to me is the need to
provide for our first responders. And one of the things that
you may not be aware of, one of the needs of our first
responders that has gone unmet for many many years, is the
liability and indemnification issue that has a federalism
aspect to it that has been very difficult to provide a solution
for because of the disparate State laws and different laws in
the District of Columbia so that our responders will have the
indemnification and our local governments will not have that
liability issue, and we will need your support in that. And
Secretary Ridge and Mike Byrne have agreed to help us with that
as well. But it is an important issue for our public safety
folks as well as others.
And let me take the opportunity to introduce our former
interim executive director, but as of yesterday he is our new
executive director at COG, David J. Robertson, who will
continue our statement. And thank you very much for the
opportunity to be here today.
Chairman Tom Davis. This means he is permanent now?
Mr. Robertson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. As was referenced----
Chairman Tom Davis. I am a former president of Council on
Governments and Metro rider--I have got you all.
Mr. Robertson. I am very pleased to present the balance of
COG's testimony concerning the Regional Emergency Coordination
Plan. We are tremendously proud of that. We believe it is the
first regional coordination plan in the Nation's Capital,
certainly, but also in the Nation as whole. We modeled that
plan after the State and Federal emergency plans, so there is a
full consistency between these local Federal and State plans.
We have worked very hard to develop the regional incident
communication and coordination system. Several of the speakers
have referenced that as part of their comments and it was
extensively used by the Council of Governments not only in the
sniper incidents several months ago, but has been regularly
tested by our local first responders and they have found it to
be a very worthy tool to improve coordination and cooperation
in the national capital region. It is also important to note
that just about all of the stakeholders that have been present
for this testimony today have been part of the creation of the
Regional Emergency Coordination Plan.
COG sees its role as a convener in forum to bring together
sometimes disparate interests to find a common ground and
common solutions that we believe are necessary in the Nation's
Capital region.
I will now focus and respond quickly to the points that
were asked by the committee. Our expanded written testimony was
provided to the committee along with the summary of the
Emergency Coordination Plan. We share the assessment that there
has been a great deal of communication and a great deal of
cooperation but more needs to be done. The stakeholders at the
State level and the Federal level are active partners in our
national capital region Emergency Preparedness Council and have
been part of the deliberations and actions by COG. We recognize
that COG's role is not operational but we also find value in
the coordination of those agencies that have operating or
response capability.
On the matter of transportation, evacuation, and street
closures, our Regional Emergency Plan also includes a
transportation and coordination annex that is the foundation
for further work by Metro, the Board of Trade, State Department
of Transportation, State emergency management agencies and
others.
Additionally, the medical assistance and response
preparedness, we have been working very closely with Federal
agencies and State health departments and local health
departments to build on the disease surveillance systems that
are currently being pursued by the Federal Government.
And last but not least, of course, communications and
technology. We believe that the RICCS system provides an
unprecedented access to decisionmakers to provide them real-
time information so that decisionmakers need not get all of
their information from the media, but from responsible
emergency management officials and can make decisions
accordingly.
In the interest of time, that concludes my presentation and
I will be available for questions.
[Note.--The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
publication entitled, ``The Regional Emergency Coordination
Plan.'' may be found in committee files.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Robertson and Ms. Hill
follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Peck, thank you very much for being
here and waiting. Last but not least.
Mr. Peck. I used to work on the other side so I know how
long these things can go. Thank you for allowing us to be here.
The Board of Trade now has 18 months' experience working on
emergency preparedness in this region. I want to recognize,
over my left shoulder, Caroline Cunningham and George Radenberg
who chairs our committee, who is with AOL Time Warner. I want
to thank the Council of Governments because they have, as the
phrase now goes, embedded our members in just about every
subcommittee they have working on emergency preparedness.
I want to say that there is--a lot is better than it was on
September 11, 2001, obviously, in terms of emergency
preparedness. I also want to say I think there is lot left to
be done. And I also want to say, as the only person here who
doesn't get a government paycheck and is maybe a little freer
to talk, I don't believe that the region as a whole has been
working at a pace in the 18 months since September 11th that
reflects the urgency of this situation. We may be saying, what
war on terrorism? I don't think we are moving at a wartime
pace.
Second, I am speaking here today, if I can presume to do
so, for the 80 percent of employees in this region who are not
employed by either State, Federal, or local governments. There
are a lot of us. We are better prepared today. Communication is
better among all of the regional law enforcement authorities,
transportation authorities, and regional leaders. The COG
communication system, RICCS, has done a tremendous job on that.
We have private utilities beginning to work with the Department
of Homeland Security on critical infrastructure protection. The
public health sectors now have a syndrome reporting system
which should prepare us or let us know as soon as possible if
we face a biological threat. Our hotels are better prepared.
And schools, we note, are beginning to send home notices to
parents about what is going to happen in the schools.
But overall, what we are concerned about is the lack of
consistent and available public information, particularly to
employers and their employees, and still critical
infrastructure report.
We think that the Congress and you particularly,
Congressman Davis, did a great job in setting up the Office of
National Capital Region Coordination, and we could not be
happier that Mike Byrne has been appointed to head it. Every
time Mike Byrne speaks to one of our groups, and he has done it
several times, he speaks with authority. He is plain talking,
clear thinking, action oriented, and is eager and even willing
to collaborate. Every time he does address a group,
participants walk away calmer, better informed, and knowing
what courses of action they might be required to take, and just
as importantly, what courses of action they are probably not
going to be required to be taken.
And I have to say the same about Chief Ramsey who has given
some terrific briefings to business. And you heard an excerpt
from it today, when he told you, among other things, that it is
most unlikely we would ever need a mass evacuation of the city,
and we need to repeat that more to our employers. The likely
scenarios are those that don't require mass evacuations. They
do require something that's even more difficult to impress upon
people in the public, which is they probably got to stay put.
That requires people be prepared. You can't expect when
something starts to happen and the flee response kicks in, that
everyone is going to stay put unless we have been prepared for
it.
There is urgent action required in bridging the gap between
what is government planning which is realistic and hard-nosed
and the public information we are getting. We think the public
is prepared for and able to assimilate tough unpleasant
information and we don't think the public's been getting it. We
can't be prepared if the public isn't clued in and prepared in
advance. It is not enough to say, have a kit and when something
happens we will tell you what to do. By the time we try to tell
people what to do in the midst of an emergency, people will
have already taken their own separate actions and things won't
work well. So we need some better information flowing from
public officials overall.
I also have to tell you that our employers feel both the
moral responsibility and a legal responsibility to take care of
their employees. And I want to call one issue to your attention
which our members have been apprising us of more and more in
recent weeks, and that is their concern over the liability,
legal liability as well as moral obligation that they face in
making decisions about emergency preparedness.
A lot of employers are concerned about what actions they
might be held liable for taking or not taking if something
should happen, or even in the case of just practice drills. And
I believe at some point that we may want to come back to you
and suggest legislation to deal with this issue. In the absence
of clear and unequivocal government advice, employers are
really at risk when they try to take their own actions on
emergency preparedness.
I want to talk a little bit about the incident, the tractor
man incident. There is nothing that has happened in the 18
months since September 11th that has more degraded the public's
confidence in our ability as a region to handle an emergency.
We thought, before that incident, people were beginning to
believe that we had things well in hand; and I think we do have
things much better in hand. You would be hard-pressed to know
it from having looked at the tractor man incident.
I want to make a couple of points. One, I heard the Park
Police director on television say that the real problem is that
there had been some minor damage to Park Service property. You
correctly identified there was a much larger issue at stake,
and I'm not sure it was immediately apparent to some of the
Federal officials.
Second, the metropolitan police department was very active
in helping close down the streets and man the barricades around
the incident. Our office at 17th and I street, I was able to
watch several rush hours go by, and it was only the very last
morning that I saw any traffic control officers appear on the
streets, on I or K streets. Used to be when I was a kid growing
up here, we had traffic control officers at major intersections
every rush hour. This time we didn't even have it during a
major incident causing gridlock. I think that ought to change.
And I think as a daily instance, we ought to consider some
different way of controlling traffic in the city.
On critical infrastructure, 82 percent of the critical
infrastructure in this region is owned and operated by the
private sector. Mike Byrne has set up a group to work on this
and the critical infrastructure companies in our region, gas
and electric, communications, are currently paying for
increased security and surveillance already. However, many of
the federally recommended infrastructure improvements are not
currently included in their capital plans because the resources
aren't available. Metro is prohibited, I believe, from using
customer-generated revenue on capital expenditures.
And I would add that the Federal budget doesn't consider
critical infrastructure protection eligible for the funding
which is otherwise eligible for first responders and emergency
planners. So I hope we will be able in subsequent
appropriations to develop some funding for the critical
infrastructure people in the region.
Just two other comments about transportation and emergency
transportation. Mr. Chairman, there is, as you have noted and
as Congressman Wolf noted, a need for a regional response to
transportation. I will note again the Board of Trade for years
has suggested that there be a regional transportation
authority. Finally I will note that every day--we held a
conference last year called Unlock Gridlock. Estimates are that
every day in this region, 40 percent of the traffic congestion
is caused either by an accident or construction projects on the
roads. Some of that congestion could be reduced by better
management, whether it is stationing tow trucks and cranes in
strategic locations, doing a better job managing construction,
better signage. There are ways to deal with this issue which is
one we face every day and not just in emergencies.
Thank you for inviting me and I will be happy to answer any
questions.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Peck follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Peck, I didn't write your
testimony, but I could have, particularly on the incident on
the Mall, but I know of at least two cases where emergency
vehicles were significantly late because they couldn't get
through the traffic and fortunately there were no deaths. It is
a big picture, the total picture. And we heard them talk about
the life of one person and they wanted to protect that, and
that is important. But over time, if you can't get through
other emergencies and you shut down the town, there are huge
ramifications.
We have to find a balance. I don't want to beat it to
death. That is the point. It is not just everybody is
inconvenienced and you lose productivity and Congress can't
meet--and most people don't care about that. But the fact is
when you can't get emergency vehicles through, then there is a
huge impact.
Mr. Peck. I will just say again, in most other cities you
do see police officers on the street during major rush hours.
At almost every bridge and tunnel that you see, there are
dedicated tow trucks. And I know in lots of tunnels, the
strategy is if somebody gets stuck, you can't have a tunnel
shut down. And you were talking before that you know they have
to take the accident report, and a lot of tunnels, they push
the vehicles out of the tunnel if they have to. They don't mess
around, and I think that may be called for.
Chairman Tom Davis. I think they are going to come back
with some new strategies. Hopefully, this has been helpful and
motivating to do that.
Mr. White, let me start with you. Let me talk about the
blizzard, the snowstorm. I got the last train out of Union
Station that night. I had flown in from Florida to New Jersey.
Had to get my son back, who had an exam at Mr. Van Hollen's
alma mater the next day since they weren't canceling school.
And then I took the train the rest of the way down with my
daughter and got the last train out to Vienna, but obviously it
was tough. That place was packed. But I gather from running
them during the evening of the snowfall, damage was incurred
and the like, and I wonder if you could elaborate on that,
because I know when government finally reopened, you had a
number of cars that were out of commission.
Is there anything we can do to prevent that? I just don't
understand it well enough to understand what happened, how we
can prevent it, and maybe you shouldn't have put them out there
the night everybody was stuck.
Mr. White. It is a tough call. And in that particular
instance when the snowfall began in earnest largely on Sunday,
with Monday being a holiday, there were a number of events that
were going on in the region. People were urged to take Metro to
these events that were going on at the MCI Center, the
Convention Center, other places. I don't know what everybody
was doing in the system with that kind of snowfall going on,
but there were a remarkable number of people in the system at
that particular point in time.
And we needed to make a decision. When we would normally
then move into a major protect-our-system and snow-removal
mode, we had all these people in the system. And we were caught
with that judgment to make, and we made the judgment that we
really--and have lived by this creed for all of our history,
that our job really is if we bring you in, we bring you home.
And we found that to be the need. That was the compelling need.
There is no doubt when our--this is not a major snowbelt
area, unlike like the Northeast. We get a storm like this
statistically once every 9\1/2\ years. And our equipment,
unlike those in other weather-prone parts of the country and
the world, can't handle snowfalls in excess of about 8 to 10
inches. When that happens, it just attacks and destroys our
equipment in huge numbers.
Chairman Tom Davis. We would be paying a lot of extra money
for the equipment to get up to speed.
Mr. White. That is the point, Mr. Chairman. The question
is, do we fund ourselves at a level to prepare for an event
every 10 years statistically, or do we grin and bear it and
attempt to learn each time to make improvements each time that
we can make to make the situation better and the response
better? And that, quite frankly, is kind of the double-edged
sword that we have lived by. The decision to take care of our
customers during that first day led to consequences that were
obviously impacted by our customers in the subsequent couple of
days.
The other interesting comparison, Mr. Chairman, is the last
major snow event we had of this magnitude was back in 1996. And
during that event, the major employers shut down for 3
consecutive days, and 4 out of 5 working days after the snow
event. In this case, the major employer shut down 1 day.
So there is an obvious relationship between the earnest
desire that people return to normalcy and return to work as
soon as possible. And it wasn't just the Metro system that was
suffering from the effects of the snowfall. Our road system was
basically in the same kind of shape with respect to limits on
our capacity. And obviously, we as a region saw the effect of
those sets of conditions.
So I think this issue is--and our board has agreed to
relook at these things, and we are working with the COG and our
partners. Do we continue to stick with what our creed has
always been? Will we take care of the people we bring in? Do we
need to modify that decision in some fashion? And secondarily,
do we want to consider toughing up for an event that occurs
every decade or not?
Chairman Tom Davis. That was our first code orange that
weekend. Nobody could get through anywhere. I understand that
dilemma. I don't know what I would have done at Union Station.
I didn't get to ride with the 76-ers. I was back at the cheap
seats on the same train. But we got there. You couldn't get a
cab.
Mr. White. We were the only thing moving.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
waiting through a long hearing. I appreciate it.
Mr. White, while we've got you here, one comment with
respect to proposed Metro fare raises. I just urge you to look
very carefully before we increase Metro fares, because I think
it will have an impact clearly on Metro ridership.
I know you have been a victim of your own success in many
ways. I am very concerned that an increase in the fares will
result in fewer people taking the Metro and putting them on the
road. So I really hope that you will take a good look at that.
That, of course, is related to the kind of resources that you
received elsewhere. And that leads to my question. Have you
received any funds from any source for the specific purpose of
responding to domestic security issues?
Mr. White. Yes, we have. We are quite grateful to both the
Congress and the administration in the first go-around in
appropriations that took place a little over year ago where the
region received a considerable sum of money. We were the
beneficiaries of $49 million, $39 under the appropriation
control of the Congress, and $10 that was released under the
authorities of the executive branch. And in my testimony there
is reference to a number of activities that we have used to
increase our preparedness. It is money that has been very, very
important to us.
We have spent most of the money. There is only very little
of it that hasn't already been put in place and has done things
running the gamut of making major improvements for our police
departments, providing explosive-resistant trash receptacles in
our stations, to target-hardening ourselves with a variety of
cameras and alarms and putting in chemical sensors in our
stations and a lot of things.
A lot of good things have come from this investment, but
there are other things that we still have been making a request
on for subsequent improvements as well.
Mr. Van Hollen. What is the nature of your----
Mr. White. Our most significant liability at the moment,
and that which has been identified by Federal vulnerability
assessment conducted by the Federal Transit Administration, is
the fact that we are an enormously centralized operation. And
because of the centralization, both the control of our trains
and buses, the communications, the process control, our
business systems and lack of sufficient redundancy and
supplemental capabilities is the single thing that we are most
concerned about; overcoming that and building enough initial
alternate and redundant capabilities so we can properly control
the movement of our trains and buses, properly communicate any
and all types of normal circumstances in the event that we need
to be able to do it out of the location where it is currently
conducted.
Mr. Van Hollen. Are you eligible for the funds out of the
Urban Area Security Initiative?
Mr. White. That's an interesting question. And in my
testimony, I draw a little bit of a reference to that. I'm not
the expert on it, but my understanding is that there is the
formula that drives the money out to the States, and then there
is a process through which the States allocate the money back
out to the local jurisdictions. We are not owned by anybody.
You perhaps were not in the room during part of my
testimony. In essence, we are an institutional orphan and we
don't have a chief elected official that owns us. We don't have
a legislative body that owns us. Granted, we get a lot of help
from a number of people. But when money gets driven in a State-
driven process, we are not the first thought of a chief elected
official from a State or a city.
Mr. Van Hollen. Part of the purpose of coordinating things
that we talked about earlier is to identify priorities within
the region. And I would hope that if there are any legal
obstacles to sharing in that part of the money, if it is
identified as a priority in the region, that you let us know so
we can address those issues. If it is identified by the group
that providing additional funds for WMATA is necessary, I would
hope that we----
Mr. White. Yes. And there I think lies the critical
importance and really the luck that we have that our region was
designated really with special status with the creation of the
Office of National Capital Region Coordination and, of course,
Secretary Ridge's appointment of Michael Byrne to head that
effort up. He has hit the ground running, and his task at hand,
amongst all the things that the members have directed to him,
is that he is obligated, or that office and the Department is
obligated, to provide this Congress with the baseline
assessment of our region and what that baseline assessment is,
including the vulnerabilities and the interdependencies and in
essence what are the priorities the region needs to attack.
He is also conducting a coordination of critical
infrastructure review to determine again vulnerabilities and
interdependencies of critical infrastructure review. He has
reached out to all of us to participate in the process, and for
that we are very, very grateful. And we are looking forward to
the outcome of that process, because I am hopeful that it will
provide a clearer road map to everybody who is looking for what
are the most important things that the region needs to attend
to that perhaps they are a little bit exposed to at the moment.
Mr. Van Hollen. And one other question to you which relates
to you--and you are right, I have been running back and forth
to the Education Committee where we are voting on a series of
amendments, so I am sorry if you already addressed this. But
with respect to sensors in the Metro system, can you elaborate
on what you have done, because that is a critical issue? Some
of these potential chemical weapons, you can't see them, you
can't smell them. They could be in the system for a period of
time before people know they are there. And obviously early
sensors are critical. How comprehensive is our sensor system in
the Metro?
Mr. White. I heard your interest and other Members'
interest in their line of questioning with some of the previous
participants. Again, we are very, very grateful to the work
that we have done with the Department of Energy, the Department
of Justice, and the Department of Transportation. We are the
single laboratory in the world right now for the testing of
chemical sensors in a mass transit environment. There is no one
else in the country, or the world for that matter, that is
testing out a civilian application thing.
Part of the money that the Congress gave us and the
President gave us is being used to begin building that
capability up. We have sufficient funds to do some portion of
our underground stations. We have some capabilities today. We
are continuing to expand those capabilities as we finish the
spending out of that money. That includes the sophisticated
engineering modeling to determine as to how these various
substances would work and the piston effect of trains moving
through stations. It is coordinated with first responders so
they have remote detection capabilities, before they might go
into harm's way, to know what they are about to go into so that
they can prepare themselves properly.
So this is a very sophisticated capability and it is giving
us an enormous tool that others don't have to hopefully send a
message of deterrence and, second, give us the capability to
respond far faster than any other transit system might be able
to do.
In addition, we have capabilities in the arena of
biological and radiological detection and response as well.
Mr. Van Hollen. Just in closing, I want to thank the other
witnesses for being here.
Mr. Peck, I agree with you with respect to the need for
greater urgency in transmitting information to the public,
because the best plans will be totally confounded if the
public--and it has to be done in a measured way. I think you
know, clearly, we had the incident with the duct tape and
plastic which scared people more than was necessary. What we
need to do is address this in a measured way when we are not
moving from one threat level to another and allow people to
know things, like in the event of an attack you shouldn't be
getting in your car and driving out necessarily. And if we
don't communicate that effectively to people ahead of time so
that people, just as they prepare for any other kinds of
emergencies that might occur in their household, if we don't do
that ahead of time, the best made plans will in fact come to
nothing. And so I appreciate you speaking out as part of this
forum and other forums you have been speaking out on that.
Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. It is great to see that we have a region
that is trying to work together. I wish I had more knowledge of
the Virginia and Washington area. I know more about the
Maryland area.
One of the things I think with regional cooperation, it is
important to pull together, because if you have come together
you have more influence and power to get what you want. But you
have to come to a conclusion on your priorities.
Are you having a problem as a region working together with
the different counties involved, putting together the
priorities that you think you need for homeland security, for
transportation, for some of the issues we talked about today?
That is one question.
The other thing, Mr. Peck, I am happy you are here today,
because I think it is very important having a partnership
between business and government. Government can't do it all. It
won't do it all, and if you rely on them it isn't going to
happen.
There is a lot that we talked about in homeland security.
And one of the things we haven't talked about is the impact of
security with respect to business; you know, coordinating our
high-rise office buildings, getting our real estate people
together, looking at the ventilation systems, finding out how
you are going to evacuate your own building, finding out if you
need sensors. I mean, there is a lot that we haven't talked
about.
The people who are coming and being impacted by traffic are
the people that are working in those buildings. And I think
that is important. But I am going to ask you another question
later on. The first question about the priorities, sir.
Ms. Hill. Yes, Congressman Ruppersberger, I acknowledged
earlier when I made my remarks that I appreciated your remarks
earlier about hometown responsibility. COG is an organization
of local governments, 18 local governments in this region. We
adopted our Regional Emergency Coordination Plan. I believe you
received a copy of the brief on September 11, 2002. At this
point we have had 16 of our 18 jurisdictions sign the MOU and
adopt this formally, and 2 have it left on their docket for
adoption very shortly. The point being is that the local
governments throughout the region, not just the elected
officials, that we have committees of our police chiefs, our
fire and rescue folks, public works, planning, transportation,
everybody has been involved in this process. But also at the
table we have been very inclusive. We decided, as local elected
officials on the board of directors, very shortly after
September 11th that, yes, being on the first line of
responsibility for providing for our first responders and also
being the folks that our constituents meet in the grocery
stores--we hear a lot from our constituents and I am sure you
do as well, but we hear from them all the time that we needed
to do something. So the local elected officials are very
committed to working at the regional level. Our group brought
together the Board of Trade, the Red Cross, the State folks.
And Secretary Ridge has been very, very supportive. And I'm
very appreciative of Mike Byrne.
There was a point made earlier when you talked about how
well we are working together. I think for the local elected
officials it is working great. We have been working closely
with the State. But we do have budget constraints. The States
are in trouble and the localities are in trouble.
And then you get to money--you raised the issue of drug
enforcement money earlier. I will give you an example in
Virginia of why I think it is important not just to fund at the
State, but also to provide funding at the regional level. In
Virginia, I have been trying to get a drug court in Prince
William County. We just funded a juvenile drug court through
our budget process. We could have gotten money through the
intensive Drug Enforcement Agency's moneys that are funneled
through to the States, but those IDA moneys were put into the
general fund in Virginia. I am sure they go for worthy causes,
but the transparency just isn't there for me. I don't know
where they go. But it would have been money that would have
been available.
Mr. Ruppersberger. With respect to your regional
cooperation, have you set goals and priorities? Because I think
it is very effective to do that. And a lot of times it is
difficult to pull that together.
Mr. Peck, let me ask you a question. You made the comment
that you feel that there hasn't been enough information that
has been flowing. What information would you like to hear or
see? What do you think where it would be better?
Mr. Peck. I will give you a specific example. At one of his
briefings, Chief Ramsey was asked when everybody started
talking about shelter in place or staying put, the concept
which still most of the public hasn't heard of--and it is
probably the most important thing we need to tell people. But
he was asked, well, do we need to buy cots for our employees?
And he had the guts to say, we are probably talking about being
there more like 8 hours than 8 days. I don't think you need to
be prepared to stay overnight.
That is important for people to hear because there are
scenarios being bantered about on TV and the media in general
that would have people think they are going to be on their own
for goodness knows for how long. And that is the specific kind
of thing.
Here are the likely scenarios that you're going to face is
really important because at least we can prepare people for
those. No guarantees, but it would be good.
Can I make one other point about the local coordination? I
think we have done a great job in this region of setting
priorities.
I really think flowing funds through the States just like
transportation funds get flowed through the States means that
regions don't necessarily get the allocation that you might
expect them to get.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I agree with you--but I was in local
government for 18 years, so I feel differently. It's more
efficient that way, too.
And I will say about the Board of Trade, I served on the
Olympic committee. Unfortunately, we didn't get that; and the
Board of Trade had a lot to do with it. We really would have
had some issues there with respect to traffic had we gotten
that, but I also think that the Board of Trade, which would be
a good business partner with any organization--because you do
your research and get your facts and data. I think if you look
at the intercounty connector just in Maryland, you had a lot to
do with influencing and getting the information.
However, I would say this. I think a lot of businesses talk
a lot, but they are not as involved as they could. Let me tell
you why.
I think, right now, we need help. We talked about traffic
engineering. We talked about that we might not have the
expertise or the money or whatever, but there are a lot of
engineers out there in the business community who could come
together, do the same thing that you did with respect to the
intercounty connecter and some other issues and help and give
us the resources in the government arena; and that is extremely
important, something I think we need to work on.
Also, I think the issues that you heard about here today--I
know my time is up, so I'll move quickly. But you take more
time than I do when you answer the questions.
You know, I think anything--management starts at the top,
and you have to be held responsible if you're at the top. Now,
I praised the police departments, and I think they are doing a
good job, but right now--and I said that right now, but
sometimes people are used to doing the same things over and
over, and there is a lot that has changed since September 11th.
And just the frustration of being involved in traffic and not
having a live individual who can redirect something, I think,
you know, we've got to learn from those mistakes, and I think
that you and the public are putting the pressure on to make
sure that we look at this and have the authority so that the
person at the top who is making the decisions can make the
right decisions and be held accountable for those decisions.
So there's a lot to do. I believe we can turn a negative
into a positive with September 11th.
We've got a big problem here in Washington. We have the
Nation's Capitol, but its infrastructure is really inadequate,
and there needs to be a lot of money, probably Federal money,
but its got to be more of a teamwork approach.
This reminds me more of a transportation hearing today than
it was a--and I'm glad we talked about that, because in the end
whatever happens with the terrorism issue, we're going to have
to decide, do we stay, do we go, what's going to be impacted,
is it going to be our subways, is it going to be our traffic,
is it going to be our airline, you know, all of those issues
that need to be involved. So keep being involved.
And, again, I'm calling after you, Mr. Peck, because you
have a good record. You're Board of Trade. We need a lot more
help from the business community in a lot of the areas that I
mentioned.
Mr. Peck. Thank you. I agree.
Chairman Tom Davis. I guess I get to ask a few questions. I
won't keep you much longer, but thank you very much.
Let me ask you--I don't know, Mr. Robertson or Ms. Hill, if
you know, who leads the RICCS conference calls and how is it
decided who the parties are?
Mr. Robertson. The RICCS conference calls--the RICCS
server, it's a computer-based server that is headquartered
currently in the D.C. Emergency Management Agency, because it
is a 24/7 emergency management center. We also have a new
center that's been established in Montgomery County, and an
additional one will be put in Fairfax County and also in the
State emergency management agencies in Richmond and in
Reisterstown, MD.
The RICCS data base is populated by information from the
various stakeholders. For example, the emergency management
directors at the State and local level, we have the contact
information. We put that information in through the Council of
Governments, and then it's----
Chairman Tom Davis. Who leads the call, though?
Mr. Robertson. The conference call is typically led by
either the chief administrative officer, the city and county
managers for the incident location, or it could well be a
Federal agency or State agency, but it is----
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Peck, do you think that the typical
business owner knows what to do in the event of an emergency or
what actions to take when a color code alert activity level
changes?
Mr. Peck. No.
Chairman Tom Davis. I don't either. I was at a Q and A and
somebody said, we understand at code red the airports are
closed. I said, oh, that can't be right; and I went back and
checked it; and I think that may be right.
Mr. Peck. Well, there is an assumption, for example, that
at code red all the museums on the Mall will close; and that's
not a part of the SOP. So, you know, people don't know, and to
the credit of the Homeland Security Department, they have
defined code red now as something that only happens when there
is an actual incident, and people don't know that either, but I
can tell you every time we go to a code change and nobody sees
any changes on the street, there's a loss of confidence. And
maybe that's fine, because it may be that it only applies to
the emergency responders, but people need to know that, too.
They'd feel better just having--being clued in on what this
testimony is all about.
Chairman Tom Davis. My experience is we have some really
great people who work in the homeland security, like Mr. Byrne
and stuff, but it's getting started late. I mean, they just got
the duct tape off the doors, what, about a month ago, to open
the thing. So it's just been very late to develop, but we're
getting there, and, fortunately, we haven't had any--if the
biggest incident we're complaining about is tractor man, we're
OK. I mean, we could have done better, but we're lucky at this
point.
Mr. White, I was just struck by something you said that
I've known, and that is we don't really have any capacity to
move more people at this point. I know at least on the Virginia
side--I don't know if you do on the Maryland side or not--but
we don't have the capacity without significant infrastructure
improvement. Is that correct?
Mr. White. Yeah. That's correct. And we've heard some
members of this panel kind of come up with that observation.
This region has a serious problem with its transportation
infrastructure and with respect to its insufficiency, both on
the transit side and the roadside.
The COG has done a tremendous amount of analysis with all
of the States and local governments in this arena, and today
the region as a region spends $3 billion every year in its
surface transportation program. And based upon a reasonable
assessment, not a wish list but a reasonable assessment of what
the region needs to be spending to protect its infrastructure
and have a modest expansion, we need another $1.7 billion a
year.
So, as a region, of all the resource that has come in,
Federal, State, local government, we're just not getting the
job done, and it's going to--and, you know, on a good day the
network is so fragile that the capacity is barely able to meet
the demand. And with any hiccup, 40 percent comes from a
nonrecurring event, as Mr. Peck said. Any event just spins out
of control quickly.
It's kind of like water going down a faucet. The minute
that piece of lettuce gets stuck in your drain, you know,
it's--and that's what happens to our road system and even our
transit system, for that matter.
Chairman Tom Davis. I'll just make one other thought. I
don't know if I'm off the wall or not. But I wonder if it's
possible to get one set of cars that are more snow resistent so
in emergency times you could run one out to Orange line, one
out to Green line, one out to Yellow line. Do you know what I'm
saying?
Mr. White. Yes.
Chairman Tom Davis. That way you wouldn't have to change
the whole system, but you would have some capacity at that
time.
Mr. White. Through improvements that have occurred over the
years since the original pieces of rolling stock that we
bought, the industry has gotten smart and we have gotten
smarter on how to weather protect the equipment; and although
most of that equipment is in the undercarriage of the train, it
is not sitting on the top of the train, it is down below, we
figured out and the supply side of the industry has figured out
to better weather protect and to seal this equipment. So our
newer cars are performing far superior to our older cars.
As we rehabilitate those cars, we bring these
improvements----
Chairman Tom Davis. Do we still go to Italy to get the cars
or where are they----
Mr. White. The particular order we have coming now is
coming--it's a Spanish company who's doing a domestic final
assembly here in the States----
Chairman Tom Davis. I was afraid you were going to say it's
a French company.
Mr. White. No. It's one of our friends and allies, without
making a political comment on this. But----
Chairman Tom Davis. I can see the amendment on the floor.
Mr. White. And, Mr. Chairman, we have an option that we
need to exercise in less than 2 years to buy more rail cars to
bring this capacity in from this company and its other company
that is supplying cars to us. It's an enormous opportunity, and
it will pass us by if we're not able to generate the resources
in the next couple of years.
Interestingly, we're only using 58 percent of the Metro
rail design capacity, that which the builders built for us.
We're using less than 6 out of 10 percent of that, and we can
move ourselves toward greater capacity by implementing the
steps that people said we should take over time.
Our system was designed to accommodate a maximum of eight
cars in any train setting, and today we're running fours and
sixes. So as we buy more cars, they're better designed, better
weather protected, better able to deal with the inclement
events; and it gives us that broader capacity to carry more
people, particularly during surge moments when we have to have
the ability to do that.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Any other questions?
Well, we thank the panel.
Mary, you did great your first time out here. Hope to see
you again here.
Mr. Robertson, congratulations on your permanent
appointment.
Bob Peck, always great to see you. We appreciate all the
things that the Board of Trade is doing, and we thank you very
much.
We would like to thank all of the witnesses for appearing
today. I want to thank the staff who worked on the hearing. I
want to thank particularly my two colleagues from Maryland who
stayed here the whole time. I really appreciate it. It shows
their interest in the regional interest in this.
I want to add that the record will be kept open for 2 week
to allow witnesses to include other information in the record.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:19 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay and
additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]
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