<DOC> [109 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:23159.wais] S. Hrg. 109-359 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: SECOND STAGE REVIEW ======================================================================= HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ JULY 14, 2005 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs _____ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 23-159 WASHINGTON : 2006 _________________________________________________________________ For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001. COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel Kathleen L. Kraninger, Professional Staff Member Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel Holly A. Idelson, Minority Counsel Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Collins.............................................. 1 Senator Lieberman............................................ 3 Senator Voinovich............................................ 4 Senator Akaka................................................ 5 Senator Lautenberg........................................... 5 Senator Domenici............................................. 6 Senator Pryor................................................ 8 Senator Coburn............................................... 20 Senator Coleman.............................................. 23 Senator Dayton............................................... 29 Senator Carper............................................... 32 WITNESS Thursday, July 14, 2005 Hon. Michael Chertoff, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security: Testimony.................................................... 8 Prepared statement........................................... 39 Questions and responses for the Record....................... 55 Appendix Memorandum from Shawn Reese, Analyst in American National Government, Government and Finance Division, Congressional Research Service, sent to Honorable Susan Collins, dated July 12, 2005....................................................... 72 Letter dated July 14, 2005, sent to Honorable Frank Lautenberg from Daniel P. Mulhollan, Director, Congressional Research Service........................................................ 75 Memorandum from Shawn Reese, Analyst in American National Government, Government and Finance Division, Congressional Research Service, sent to Honorable Frank Lautenberg, dated July 8, 2005................................................... 76 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: SECOND STAGE REVIEW ---------- THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2005 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:33 p.m., in room SD-562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Collins, Lieberman, Voinovich, Coleman, Coburn, Domenici, Warner, Levin, Akaka, Carper, Dayton, Lautenberg, and Pryor. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order. Good afternoon. This afternoon the Committee will examine the results and recommendations of the Second Stage Review of the Department of Homeland Security conducted by Secretary Chertoff. I applaud the Secretary and his team for a thorough analysis of the Department's organization, strengths, and weaknesses. We meet in the aftermath of a grim reminder of why this review is so significant. The terrorist attacks last week in London remind us that the enemy we face has an unlimited capacity for cruelty. They remind us that terrorists can be blocked again and again, yet they need carry out only one successful plot to cause death and destruction. And the attacks remind us that we must strive for success every single time. I know we all extend our deepest condolences to the people of Great Britain. I also know that these attacks only strengthen their resolve and our commitment to stand with them against those who would destroy our way of life. The Department of Homeland Security was created to help us respond to the enormous challenges we face. Our Nation was attacked by a new enemy in a new way, and we responded with a massive and innovative effort to better protect our Nation against the threats of the 21st Century. This Committee, which crafted the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security and which has confirmed two generations of its top officials, works closely with the Department to continually improve our Nation's homeland security posture. We have always viewed our role not as critics of the Department but as partners in a common cause. Whether the issue is the security of our cargo ports or our chemical facilities, equipping and training of our first responders, or improving counterterrorism intelligence and information sharing, we have worked with the Department not just to identify problems, but also to forge solutions. This Second Stage Review comes, appropriately enough, as the second generation of Department leaders takes over from the commendable start of its predecessors. As Secretary Chertoff said in previous testimony shortly after he announced this review, the Department ``was created to do more than simply erect a large tent under which a lot of different organizations would be collected.'' The Secretary's announcement yesterday outlined a strong direction for the Department, one of better integration, risk- based planning, and dynamism. The proposals put forth in his review do not construct additional partitions within that big tent but, rather, seek to remove those that are counterproductive to the comprehensive approach that homeland security requires. It is about accomplishing goals and objectives, not about preserving the status quo. Within this overall theme, of course, there are a great many specifics that we will discuss today and over the coming months, particularly where implementing legislation is required. We will also address several organizational proposals, such as the merger of Infrastructure Protection, Domestic Preparedness, and other entities into a new Directorate of Preparedness, and the establishment of a much needed Policy and Planning Office to develop coherent strategies and comprehensive policy guidance at the very highest levels of the Department. The Secretary has also proposed the creation of a Chief Intelligence Officer responsible for both internal and external coordination. I am particularly interested in this proposal, as just 3 months ago Senator Lieberman and I urged the Secretary to assess the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate and its relationship with the intelligence community, State, local, and tribal governments, and the private sector. As with so many aspects of homeland security, the collection, analysis, and dissemination of critical intelligence require not just a Federal strategy but a national strategy that recognizes the contributions of intelligence not only across the Federal Government but from our State and local partners as well. I believe that strengthening the Department's intelligence efforts and giving its chief a direct line of communication with the Secretary would help begin to resuscitate what appears to be a rather moribund and underutilized part of the Department. I hope that the efforts of the Second Stage Review lead to further functional integration. As Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson and I discussed during his nomination process, the Department-wide management functions, particularly in procurement, information systems, and finance, must be integrated with and support the Department's missions. And I know that the Secretary's reorganization plan recognizes and addresses those critical management issues. Secretary Chertoff's predecessor, Tom Ridge, often described the creation of the Department of Homeland Security as the greatest IPO in history, a merger of unprecedented size and complexity. The organizational challenges are extensive, and DHS will need to continue to evolve. I commend the Secretary for his leadership on this crucial matter. I look forward to hearing from him today in more detail about his findings and his specific plans and recommendations. Senator Lieberman. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Secretary Chertoff, welcome back to the Committee. Thank you for appearing today to discuss the top-to-bottom departmental review you commissioned when you were confirmed as Secretary 5 months ago. The Department has made our country safer than it was before, but I think we all would agree that it is not yet as safe as we need it to be, and the Department was ready, it seems to me, for a second chapter step back to look at where we have been and see how we can carry out our responsibilities better. It appears to me that you have done a thorough, honest, constructive job here that will help you, as the head of the Department with primary responsibility for the protection of the American people at home, to not only fulfill your responsibility but to fully take advantage of the opportunity you have to guide the Department into the critical second stage of its post-September 11 development. I want you to know that I was encouraged by several parts of your recommendations as I took a first look at them, and I know we will discuss them in more detail today. First was the emphasis on strategic policy planning. Highlighted in oversight hearings of the Department that the Committee held earlier in the year, the establishment of an Under Secretary for Policy is very important and hopefully will lead to a clear setting of priorities, which has not been as much the case as we would have wanted up until now. Intelligence is a critical function of the Department. We focused on that in the legislation creating the Department, and I would say although a number of significant improvements have been made across the intelligence community, particularly when we passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act last year, I do not think that the Department's Office of Information Analysis has to date received the support that it needs. Therefore, I take the separation out of that office and the creation of a Chief Intelligence Officer as a step in the right direction. I certainly hope it is, and I look forward to discussing with you your ideas for supporting the intelligence activities of the Department and improving the coordination among the various intelligence agencies within DHS and the intelligence support that is received. Also, the proposal for a Chief Medical Officer makes a lot of sense to me. It is something that I have been interested in myself. In legislation I proposed earlier this year, BioShield II, we called for the creation of an Assistant Secretary for Medical Readiness and Response, and it seems to me--I hope-- that the Chief Medical Officer that you are talking about creating will fulfill that role. And this is to coordinate and galvanize preparedness for one of the nightmares of the age of terrorism, and that is a biological terrorist attack. I do have questions about some of the other reorganization proposals. I want to hear more about the rationale for separating FEMA from the Department's preparedness programs and for eliminating the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security. And I must say just generally, as I heard your remarks yesterday, I was concerned about the extent to which you feel limited by the limitation of financial resources, and I will bring to you the experience that I have had as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We always say to the people at the Pentagon, ``Don't let your decisions be budget- driven. We are talking about the security of the United States of America.'' And I would say the same to you as you go forward. In that regard, as you may know, there has been a lot of controversy today about some statements you made yesterday, and I want to ask you in your opening statement if you could respond to them. And this is on questions that you were asked yesterday about mass transit protection, and you were quoted in an Associated Press story this morning as saying that-- basically you are contrasting aviation security with mass transit, and you say, ``By contrast, mass transit systems are largely owned and operated by State and local authorities.'' And then you seem to be saying that the Federal Government must focus on attacks that could produce the most casualties. The quote is, ``The truth of the matter is a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you are going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first.'' I am reading from the AP story this morning. ``Asked if this meant communities should be ready to provide the bulk of the protection for local transit systems, Chertoff said, `Yep.' '' This has alarmed a lot of us who have mass transit going through our States. A lot of people who ride mass transit are already worried about security because they are not closed systems. And, inevitably, I think this has to be, at least in part, a national responsibility. So I use that as an example to just say that in all the structural changes you are making, which generally to me seem to be heading in the right direction, we also need you to not let your decisions, which are life-and-death decisions, be budget-driven. I thank the Chair. Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. We are expecting to begin roll call votes, a series of them, shortly after 3 o'clock. So I would ask my colleagues to keep their opening remarks extremely short, and if you could even bring yourself to submit them for the record, that would be even better. Senator Voinovich. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I applaud your leadership and the expediency for calling this hearing one day after Secretary Chertoff released the Department of Homeland Security Second Stage Management Review. I am anxious to hear what he has to say today. I ask that the rest of my statement be inserted in the record so we can move on to hear the Secretary. Chairman Collins. Thank you so much. [The prepared statement of Senator Voinovich follows:] OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Thank you, Madam Chairman. I applaud your leadership and expediency for calling this hearing one day after Secretary Chertoff released the Department of Homeland Security's second stage management review. Secretary Chertoff, you have one of the most challenging jobs in the Federal Government. Therefore, I would like to thank you again for your service to our Nation and for your willingness to relinquish a lifetime appointment to the third circuit court of appeals in order to serve as Secretary of the Department. Mr. Secretary, you face great challenges. In addition to securing our homeland from terrorists, the Department is forging a unified corporate identity for 180,000 employees from 22 disparate Federal agencies. This monumental effort is to important that the Government Accountability Office included implementing and transforming the Department of Homeland Security on their high-risk list of programs especially susceptible to mismanagement. As Chairman of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee, I am interested in ensuring that the Department continues to improve its operations. In fact, Mr. Secretary, just this morning, I held a hearing on the security of the National Capital Region, an area I encourage you to closely examine. In addition, I have been monitoring the Department's implementation of the human resource management system known as MaxHR. Given the Department's significant management challenges, I believe that we should be conducting more oversight and directing more resources to management issues. This includes better coordination between DHS's authorizing and appropriating committees in Congress, which in turn will lead to better oversight of the Department. In closing, I commend Secretary Chertoff for initiating this comprehensive review of the Department's operations. I look forward to his testimony and stand ready to help him implement his recommendations. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Chairman Collins. Senator Akaka. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I want to add my welcome to the Secretary and say thank you for being here. I will not have an opening statement, but let me say that we have just received the Secretary's proposal on reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security, and I just want to say that at first glance some of the Secretary's recommendations look good. But I would like to take the time to try to understand how they impact our security. So I look forward to the Secretary's statement and also possibly future hearings by this Committee as we explore how to best proceed. Thank you very much. Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Senator. Senator Lautenberg. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG Senator Lautenberg. I do have a statement, Madam Chairman, and I will try to make it brief. But this is a rare opportunity for us to meet with the Secretary and to explain to the public how we see things to make certain that we are not rushing past a chance to learn more about what is taking place at Homeland Security. And I particularly want to thank Secretary Chertoff for being here. Yesterday he unveiled proposals to make the Department of Homeland Security more effective, and we respect that greatly. But while Secretary Chertoff was announcing these steps yesterday, the Senate acted contradictorily to his goal of protecting our homeland from terrorist attack. The Senate voted to reduce the amount of homeland security grant money that will go out based on highest risk. And in the real world, that means that we are thwarting Secretary Chertoff's desire to protect our country to the best of his ability. And I will only continue to say loudly and clearly that the only basis for allocating homeland security resources as the 9/11 Commission requested is to distribute to the area of highest risk. If we knew of an imminent anthrax attack targeting Detroit, we would not send 40 percent of the limited vaccine to California. So why should we do that with our national security grants? Nearly 1 year ago, DHS put out an Orange Alert on three jurisdictions: New York City, Washington, DC, and northern New Jersey. People in our area are justifiably worried, but we assured them that the government would be doing all it can to keep their communities safe. One of those targets was a building in Newark, New Jersey. But if this happens again, I am not sure what we can tell them. Tell them that the money is in Kansas someplace? We have to live up to our responsibility. The Administration has been very clear about what they want. They want to put the money where the risk is. Last summer, the risk was within sight of my New Jersey office. Our intelligence services gathered data showing that terrorists have studied the Prudential office building. That is how you measure risk, analysis and intelligence, not a simple formula. Secretary Chertoff wrote a letter to all the Senators yesterday in which he says providing enough flexibility to distribute over 90 percent of grant funds on the basis of risk, so that confirms your view. And there seemed to be a question about whether or not figures that CRS developed were accurate or not. And I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Daniel Mulhollan, the Director of CRS, be included in the record.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The letter referenced by Senator Lautenberg appears in the Appendix on page 75. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Collins. Without objection. Senator Lautenberg. Thank you. This is dated July 14. He said, ``We have reviewed the calculations that underlay the data presented in the memorandum''--to me \2\--``dated July 8 and have confirmed their accuracy.'' So we are not making any mistakes about the mathematics included in this. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ The CRS report dated July 8, 2005, appears in the Appendix on page 76. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- And I was hoping that the London attacks would finally wake up the Senate to this reality. Unfortunately, I was wrong. And I look forward to hearing the testimony of our distinguished Secretary. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Senator Domenici. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DOMENICI Senator Domenici. I regret that I cannot just say nothing, but I will be very brief. Chairman Collins. Please proceed. Senator Domenici. First, Mr. Secretary, I hope that you will have confidence in what you are doing in spite of the difficulties of organizing because everybody should know that you have either the privilege or are the victim, whichever, of having to organize a reorganization that is the largest in 50 years. And when you consider how big we are, and you have that big of a reorganization, it is hard to put it together. And I think it will require more than one reorganization effort. So keep the faith. Second, I was going to ask about the border, but it has become so prevalent these last few days on the floor and in your commitments that you are going to talk about it. You cannot do enough, but the border is organizable, with your Commissioner who is in charge, who is excellent--we spoke to him at length. If his game plan is your game plan, you ought to promote it. It is terrific. It will get us there. It will control the border within the next 4 or 5 years without putting the United States military on the border. Last, a little tiny thing that I think is a big thing, and that is: Since September 11 the flow of foreign students to our universities has turned from a river to a trickle. There may be some around that say, ``Great. What do we need them for?'' But, frankly, that is abysmal for America, not only because they should be coming here to get educated, but because the best way to influence countries, including countries like China, is to have 20,000 to 30,000 of their students here going to our great universities and then having them go home. And the trickle has to be reconverted to a river. We have to turn it back into a flow. You have from time to time spoken about your ideas regarding students coming to America. If you do not address it today, I will seek your position. And if we need legislation, I will be glad to pursue it. I think it is very important, subtle but dramatic. Thank you, Madam Chairman. [The prepared statement of Senator Domenici follows:] OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DOMENICI Madam Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing to discuss the Department of Homeland Security's second stage review. Thank you also, Secretary Chertoff, for discussing your departmental review with us. Your Department is young, but it is tasked with the difficult job of securing our Nation. Your Department also represents the largest reorganization of governmental departments in more than 50 years, so I understand that there are some areas we can address to improve our security. I look forward to working with you throughout the second stage review process to determine what our homeland security needs are, and how we can best address those needs. There are a few specific areas that I am eager to hear about today. First, I would like to learn about your thoughts on the coordination of the Department's research initiatives, which I hope will be a focus as you coordinate DHS activities. I believe DHS must collaborate its research and development efforts within the Department and with universities and national labs. For example, in my home State of New Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security works with Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories at the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center to understand the consequences of disruptions to our Nation's infrastructure. The Department must continue to work with worthwhile partners like this. Second, I look forward to hearing more about your plan to strengthen the border and improve the immigration process. This is an issue of critical importance to my State and other States on the southern and northern borders. I agree with you that we can provide more security by adequately staffing our borders with immigration and border experts and investing in new technologies like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. I am also anxious to learn more about your efforts to improve border infrastructure because 1986 was the last time we launched a major effort to upgrade the infrastructure at our land ports of entry. That last effort, which occurred almost 15 years before September 11, 2001, was headed by former Senator DeConcini and myself, and I believe the time for further improvements to our border infrastructure is now. Similarly, I am eager to hear more about your thoughts on an industry-wide temporary worker program and eased restrictions for immigrants seeking to study in the United States. Prior to 2001, the United States was a preferred place for foreign students to obtain post-graduate degrees. Students came to the United States to study, but they stayed here to work. Thus, our country was obtaining many of the most brilliant minds not only from within our borders, but from across the world. Unfortunately, that has changed because of the restrictions and limitations put on student visas post-September 11. Now, many of the leaders of the next generation choose to attend school in places like Great Britain, where they have easier access to universities. Lastly, I am interested in your thoughts on our Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers. I am pleased to see that FLETC will maintain its autonomy and will report directly to Deputy Secretary Jackson under your proposed Department reorganization. Additionally, because New Mexico is home to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center where our Border Patrol Agents, Federal Air Marshals, Federal Flight Deck Officers, and other Federal agents train, I am eager to hear about your review of the agency. I know that your review has covered many other areas as well, and I look forward to discussing each of those topics with you as well, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Pryor. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just want to thank you, and the Ranking Member, for your leadership. Secretary Chertoff, good to have you here in the Committee today. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you very much. Senator Dayton. Senator Dayton. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I look forward to hearing from the distinguished Secretary, so I will pass. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. You may proceed with your statement. TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL CHERTOFF,\1\ SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Secretary Chertoff. Thank you, Chairman Collins and Senator Lieberman. I will ask that my full statement be made part of the record. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Secretary Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 39. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Collins. Without objection. Secretary Chertoff. I will just try to briefly cover some points and then open myself up to questions. First of all, I do want to give you my sincere and deep gratitude for the counsel and advice that you, Madam Chairman, and Senator Lieberman and the rest of the Committee have given me in discussions about this Department over the period of time since even before I became the Secretary and up to the present time. We have had an opportunity to talk about a number of the ideas here, and a number of the ideas, frankly, are plagiarized from suggestions and proposals that have been offered by this Committee, and I invoke every means of paying tribute to your good suggestions. But I think maybe the most eloquent is that we have adopted a lot of them in the reorganization as well. So we have paid a lot of close attention to what this Committee is doing. Let me outline briefly, kind of give an overview of what we have tried to do here, and then I want to respond a little bit to Senator Lieberman's point in his opening statement. Neither my speech yesterday nor my testimony today is a complete review of everything that we need to do and are doing. We have had some previous testimony here about, for example, chemical site security. I did not feel the need to repeat that again yesterday. We are working very hard on that issue because we do recognize that there is a lot of concern about making sure that chemical sites do not become weapons in place. But some things which I think we had not talked about seemed appropriate to talk about yesterday: Preparedness, making sure that we have focused on preparedness for our greatest risks, and that includes biological, nuclear, chemical, things of that sort; transportation, including mass transportation, making sure we have better systems that move people and goods into the country and around the country, and taking account of the nature of the systems themselves, to be able to bring modern technology into play, and also to make sure we are being interoperable, that when we set up various trusted traveler programs and screening programs, we build them in a way so that they work together, and so that eventually, instead of having four or five separate trusted traveler cards, people can have one, and that can do the duty for all the different kinds of screening that we need to do. This kind of thinking smart not only promotes security, but it promotes privacy and it promotes efficiency. Borders and immigration, obviously a huge issue. Senator Domenici, I can tell you that the discussion that the Commissioner had with you reflects the way this Department is approaching the border, which is an integrated approach that is looking to take and coordinate new technology, infrastructure, and people in a way that makes them work together. Also, it does something we sometimes don't do in government, which is take a strategic look at the whole picture. Because the issue of dealing with illegal migration is not just apprehension, but it is also, when we apprehend people, do we detain them? If we detain them, how quickly can we remove them? And all of these pieces work together. I can tell you, sometimes we make a mistake when we flood a lot of resources to one piece of the system and we do not take account of the fact that it is going to bottleneck another piece of the system. And what we are doing now is we are going to have a program manager who is going to build an entire system and make sure that all the pieces are properly scaled so that we actually increase efficiency. Likewise, too, I am delighted to point out, Senator Domenici, in terms of the foreign students, as I announced yesterday, Secretary Rice and I are working on an agenda that we hope to announce shortly that will expedite and make it easier and more welcoming for those who want to come to the country to visit and study in a positive way to come here. There is no question part of the struggle against terrorism is the struggle of ideas, and we want to embed our ideas overseas. And that is one of the reasons why we want to be welcoming and not forbidding. Information sharing is a key element, and the Chief Intelligence Officer that we envision is going to have the ability and the authority to fuse the intelligence that is generated by the over 10 components in our Department that currently have some intelligence responsibilities, and to do it with a view to having strategic intelligence that fulfills the unique mission that I think Congress envisioned for this Department, which is not merely playing ``catch the terrorist,'' but is talking about how to help our State, local, and private partners protect their infrastructure, prepare themselves for any eventuality, and prevent acts of terrorism on State and local levels. Finally, I would be remiss and I would have been remiss had I not mentioned organization as a critical part of what we are trying to do. That is why I mentioned it yesterday, and that means not only procurement policy--and we talked about this. I sat down with the Inspector General very soon after I arrived and said, ``I want to get your ideas about how to make procurement work with efficiency and integrity,'' but also having human capital to properly move forward where you have MAX HR. One of the things I am trying to do is not only move that forward and implement it in a way that is reassuring and accessible to the employees of the Department, but also build a culture in the Department where people learn that we are working as a team. And that involves doing things, for example, as encouraging career paths where people can move among different components so that they get a sense that we are part of a larger Department. To do all these things, I have outlined a series of organizational changes which I won't go into in detail in my opening statement, but which I think will give us the tools to make sure when we look at our missions in terms of our policy, our intelligence, and our operations, we look with a single pair of eyes that operate in synchronicity and that allow us to look across the entire Department and drive the agenda and accomplish the mission without regard to the individual component stovepipes. Let me just take a moment to respond to Senator Lieberman's observations about mass transit. I have obviously been closely involved in our response to what happened in London and in dealing with the whole issue of how we are preparing ourselves with respect to transportation, in general. As I think I said during my confirmation hearings, I believe we need to make sure that we are paying as much attention to our non-aviation transportation as we pay to our aviation transportation. But I also have tried to emphasize that these are different systems. They work differently. Their ownership is configured differently. And, therefore, although they each require the same degree of attention, the particular way in which we pay attention may be a little bit different. Aviation is, for example, a closed system. People enter and depart in a relatively fixed number of points. Once you are on the airplane, you are on the airplane. And so our configuration in terms of security is one that is guided and molded by the existing nature of the system. We don't want to break the system. We all know we could not import that system into the New York subway system. I have ridden the New York subways. I have ridden the Washington subways. To have magnetometers would be to destroy the system itself. So we have to think about how do we make that system work with security and with efficiency? And in that regard, one of the things I wanted to be careful to emphasize--and perhaps I am not always as careful as I want to be--is that we have to look at the whole range of threats. Obviously, even a bombing that kills 30 people or 40 people is a very serious matter. But a biological incident in a subway or a chemical incident in a subway which could have the capability of killing many, many more people and, in fact, rendering the subway unusable for a substantial period of time would be a matter of significantly worse consequence. It's part of the nature of my job to make sure that as we go about doing things in terms of our priorities, we take account of the structural differences of the systems we deal with, the differences in consequence. I think that is the essence of risk management. But I do want to emphasize so there is no mistake about it, that as we speak--and frankly, you know, before London we were working very hard focusing on the rail system, and particularly upon those vulnerabilities that people on this Committee have talked about, including concerns about the movement of hazardous chemicals on our rail system, concerns about the possibility, as I say, of chemicals or biological things on the system, and also, obviously, working on new technologies to detect explosives and to allow us to give greater safety to those who use the transportation system. So that is my kind of overview, and I hope I have clarified any misconceptions, and I look forward to answering questions. Chairman Collins. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. During the last 3 years, the Department has invested a great deal of resources, time, and attention in improving our Nation's preparedness and ability to respond to a terrorist attack, and that is obviously a very important part of the mission of the Department. Less attention, however, has been given to the intelligence role of the Department. As Senator Lieberman, who is the chief author of the Department's legislation, can attest, Congress intended the Department of Homeland Security to play the role of integrating a lot of the terrorism-related information reporting and analysis. And that really has not happened. The Department's role has been minimal in the intelligence community, and yet its component agencies, like the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol, critically need access to information and intelligence reporting. I had always thought, when the Terrorist Threat Integration Center was created, that it would be placed within the Department. But as I said, the Department has really never fulfilled its role. Under your new plan, what do you see as the role of the Department within the broader intelligence community at the Federal level and in working with our partners at the State and local level? Relatedly, what role does the new Chief Intelligence Officer play within the Department? Secretary Chertoff. Like you, Chairman Collins, I am passionate about intelligence as the key to doing our job properly. The best way to avoid a problem is to detect it in advance. We have within the Department over 10 individual components that do intelligence. A lot of it is tactical intelligence. For example, Customs and Border Protection needs to know about new types of phony passports, and that is appropriately done at the level of Customs and Border Protection. But there is a strategic component to that as well. As people come across the border, as they are intercepted and we question them, sometimes they are turned away. Sometimes we find phony documents. If you stand back and connect all those dots, you sometimes get very interesting pictures that are not necessarily known to those who are within the individual offices or even within the individual component. We have done some things, for example, on an ad hoc basis where we have pulled Coast Guard intelligence together with Customs and Border Protection and ICE, and we have actually been able to put a team together to assemble a much wider picture of a particular intelligence threat than we could have done in each component on its own. And then we have taken that to the wider community and sat with the FBI and with the DNI and the NCTC, and we have plugged that into what they are doing in a coordinated way. So we have begun this process even before the organization--by doing it manually in the sense that I will call up the head of the components and bring these people and let's sit down, let's fuse this together. The lesson there is that we need to do it institutionally, not just when the Secretary intervenes personally. And that is what we are really trying to build here. The Chief Intelligence Officer will have the authority and the obligation to pull intelligence from all the components inside and make sure it is fused and integrated from a Department perspective. The second piece is we need to make sure that we then become better participants in the intelligence community as a whole. By having more to contribute, first of all, we will have, frankly, a more vigorous place at the table. But I have also made it clear and I am going to continue to make it clear that our intelligence officer, our Chief Intelligence Officer has a unique role to play in the community. We are not simply chasing terrorists. We are looking at this information trying to understand how does it affect our border operations, how does it affect our Coast Guard operations, because we do adjust these based on the intelligence. And then how do we work with our State and local partners and our private sector partners in passing this on and helping them make use of it. So that is a big part of what that job is going to be. Let me conclude by saying that one of the things I announced yesterday was that I had spoken to a number of governors and homeland security advisers in the States about their desire to have fusion centers. We are inviting them all to come meet with me and the top leadership to see how we can network those fusion centers, which are another form of intelligence gathering and distribution mechanisms in order to get them all linked together. So that is an overly long-winded response to your question. Chairman Collins. Mr. Secretary, I want to turn very quickly to a recommendation that you did not embrace. As you know, we have heard testimony before this Committee from the Rand Corporation and others recommending a merger of CBP and ICE, and I have asked the Department's Inspector General to analyze that and report back to us. It appears to me that you are going in exactly the opposite direction by moving CBP and ICE out from under a common Directorate, the Border and Transportation Security (BTS) directorate, and having them report to you directly. If anything, you are further separating the entities. We know that a lot of law enforcement officials believe that it would be better instead to bring them together. Could you give us your thoughts on why you decided to recommend abolishing BTS, separating them further rather than merging them? Secretary Chertoff. I took this question very seriously, and I actually met with the Inspector General to get a sense at least of what he was finding. I also spent time talking to people in the field about it. And, I also have the ability to rely on my own experience doing law enforcement work and as a prosecutor dealing with different agencies. It was a difficult question. I understand the arguments in favor of it. We begin with the fact that a merger like that would in itself impose substantial costs. So I asked myself, What are the problems we are trying to cure here and is there a way to cure them in a less drastic approach? I think one problem is a financial problem that had to do with the original merger, and we are, I think, close to getting that cured with additional funding and additional management controls in ICE. I don't think I would recommend merging the two organizations to correct a management problem in one. I think we just ought to correct the management problem. The second question is, How do you get them to work together operationally? And I think there has been a problem there. Some of it may be cultural, some of it may be a legacy of what was left over from the original merger. I asked myself the question, Is this a case where we have two agencies that are chasing the same type of activity? Usually when you find that, there is a good argument for combining them. But here, actually, although there is some overlap, there is actually a fairly distinct center of gravity to each organization. FAMS, for example, which we have indicated we are going to move back to TSA, really has nothing to do with these two organizations in terms of their main missions. But much of what ICE does in detention and removal and investigation is functionally different to a large degree from Customs and Border Protection. So I guess I concluded that merging them would simply--they would still have to have different functions. They would simply have deputy assistant secretaries instead of assistant secretaries. What seemed to be important was to get them to operationally work together, but to do it with the other components as well, with Coast Guard, for example, and even with Infrastructure Protection. And that is where having an operations and a planning and policy shop Department-wide, I think, supplies the answer. When we sat down to talk about a border security strategy, what we needed to do was to build a plan that was comprehensive, that took us from the beginning of the process through to the end, and that spanned, among other things, the role of CBP, ICE, and the Coast Guard. Putting together a tool that allows us to do that, which is what we have recommended, I think will address the problems that have been identified. Now, as I say, I spent time thinking about it. I understand reasonable minds can disagree. I think that at this point I am confident that our solution has a very good prospect of succeeding, and I look forward to talking about it more with you in the future. Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. Senator Lieberman. Secretary Chertoff, let me come back to the question I asked you about the comments you made yesterday. First let me clarify because I have been asked, and by coincidence, many of us were in a classified briefing with you yesterday. I would never quote from that. I want to make clear this is a quote from apparently a meeting you had yesterday with the Associated Press reporters and editors. I want to read it to you because on the face of the story, if you have not seen it, it is very unsettling coming a week after the London attacks. It must be particularly unsettling to the 14 million Americans who ride rail and transit. We know, as you said in your initial response, in your opening statement, that these are not closed systems, so they are harder to protect than aviation, for instance. But there seems to be a suggestion here that there is not a Federal responsibility to protect local and State rail and transit systems. And to me that goes to the heart of what the Department is about. The Department is dealing with a national threat of terrorism and does not base its protective actions on whether a Federal Government regulation dominates in one area or another. I will just read it to you briefly. This is an AP story today, Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press writer. `` `The Federal Government can provide only limited help to States and local governments to protect transit systems from terror attacks, and local officials must be largely responsible for the cost of improved subway, train, and bus security,' Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday, one week after the bombings in London's subway and bus system. Chertoff said the U.S. Government is bound to financially support the security of the Nation's commercial airlines in part because the aviation system is almost exclusively a Federal responsibility. By contrast, he said, U.S. mass transit systems are largely owned and operated by State and local authorities. He also said the Federal Government must focus on attacks that could produce the most casualties. `The truth of the matter is a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people,' Chertoff told AP reporters and editors. `A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you are going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first.' Asked if this meant communities should be ready to provide the bulk of the protection for local transit systems, Chertoff said, `Yep.' '' So I want to give you a chance to respond to that because I think--I repeat, I gather you have already been challenged to apologize by one of my colleagues on the floor of the Senate. This will create an uproar, and you happen to be here, so I think it is important for you to clarify how you see the Department's responsibility with regard to the safety of rail and transit systems in our country. Secretary Chertoff. We have an equal responsibility to protect Americans across the board in every respect. The way in which we protect differs depending on the nature of what we are talking about. And I think, the point I was trying to make-- and, again, perhaps not with perfect precision--was we have to deal with the differences in the system as we talk about the way in which we interact with the system. My point was the aviation system is essentially a closed system. We can govern people who enter and who have access to it. We can do it in a way that, because of the timing of aviation, allows us to put up portals and things of that sort. And, frankly, there is almost nobody positioned to put the boots on the ground, so to speak, other than what we do. I mean, there are not large numbers of local authorities that will provide screeners. So in terms of a manpower-intensive approach to screening in the aviation area, we do have a large Federal presence. As someone who has ridden subways and trains all my life, most of the boots on the ground are local. They are local police and they are local transit police and local transit authorities. So a lot of the actual folks who do the work and a lot of the kind of manual day-to-day stuff is held by local governments and some by private, for example, bus lines and things of that sort. So our responsibility is the same, but our way of interacting is going to be different. The help that we can give transit authorities, for example, may come in a different form than what we do with respect to airlines. No one is suggesting, I think, that we take Federal police and put them on subways. What we want is the ability to use our technology to do the kinds of things we are now doing, for example, here in Washington, and in other places like Boston and New York, to have better detection equipment, use of synchronized video cameras with, for example, chemical and biological sensors so we can get better efficiency and more efficiency with respect to the way in which we protect our subway and transit passengers. So it is not a question of not having responsibility across the board. It is a recognition of the fact that different sectors of our economy are configured differently, and we have to be partners with everybody, and we have to recognize those differences in the way we apply our partnership. Senator Lieberman. OK. I wanted to give you the opportunity to clarify, and I think you have. Let me state what you know, which is, there is an enormous Federal investment, which we are debating right now, in the mass transit systems themselves, leave aside the security question. We are debating that in the transportation legislation, so there is a big Federal involvement there. But I agree, we are not talking in the case of mass rail and transit systems of Federal police, for instance. They are going to require Federal financial support and technological support. And I just want to give you the opportunity to clarify that you believe that there is a Federal responsibility, specifically through the Department of Homeland Security, in assisting rail and transit systems around America and protecting the security of the 14 million people who ride them every day. Secretary Chertoff. Absolutely, and we do that, and we will continue to do that. My point is that we will do it in partnership with those systems. We are not going to come in and take the system over. Senator Lieberman. Understood. Secretary Chertoff. We are going to do it with them and, in fact, that is what we have been doing. Senator Lieberman. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think we need to reiterate the fact, Mr. Secretary, that you have 180,000 people from 22 separate agencies trying to come together. The Government Accountability Office has said that the way the Department is coming together is on the high- risk list, and I would hope that during your tenure one of the goals you have is to get it off the high-risk list. I was there when Senator Gregg gave his opening remarks on the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, and he showed us four feet of reports, many of them critical, that have been done on your Department during the last couple of years. I would hope that perhaps 2 years from now there will be fewer critical reports of the Department. How many committees in Congress do you have to report to? Secretary Chertoff. Boy, that is tough. I am sure, obviously, we have two authorizing committees, two appropriations subcommittees. I would say in the Senate, I think we interact with at least two, if not three additional committees, and I think in the House probably the same. So I think we have, I would venture to say, somewhere on the order of eight to ten committees probably with some degree of jurisdiction. Senator Voinovich. Madam Chairman, the issue of oversight is important, and the 9/11 Commission was very critical of us in this regard. I remember Jim Woolsey, the Director of the CIA, said that when Congress was in session 185 days, he made 205 trips here to Congress. I would like you to discuss just how often you have been here because the more time you are here, the less time you have to run your Department. Secretary Chertoff. Well, I can say--and I say this with mixed emotion--that I think next week some Department representative will have attended the 100th hearing on Capitol Hill since the beginning of the year. So that is a milestone of some sort. Senator Voinovich. As you know, I am very interested in human capital, and I applaud you for your MAX HR program. I would like you to share with the Committee what would happen if the cut that has been made in the House of $96 million, from your proposed $146 million management account, became law, what impact that would have on your ability to get the job done. Secretary Chertoff. I think, Senator, it would have a very serious impact. As it is, I believe based on the cuts in the 2005 budget, we extended the period of time for phasing into MAX HR from 2 years to 3 years. I think we are in jeopardy if we don't adequately fund this to have the worst of all worlds, which is to have a pending change of significance but no ability to move it forward, which creates a great deal of tension among the employees and a great deal of uncertainty. So I would strongly encourage full funding to allow us to move forward. Senator Voinovich. In other words, without full funding, you are not going to be able to implement the human capital and other management things that Congress has asked you do. Secretary Chertoff. We will not be able to do it in a reasonable or timely fashion. Senator Voinovich. As a Governor, I dealt with FEMA, and from my perspective it is the agency with the most expertise in working with State and local governments to prepare for, respond to, and recover from events. Many stakeholders consider that FEMA's role was diminished after it was incorporated into DHS. Under your Second Stage Review, it appears that the FEMA Director would not report to the Under Secretary for Preparedness. Secretary Chertoff, with the Division of Preparedness and Response, how will FEMA's all hazards mission be coordinated with the roles and responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Preparedness? Secretary Chertoff. The Under Secretary for Preparedness, Senator, is going to have to--let me actually begin by saying FEMA does a terrific job and has done a terrific job. What we have tried to do is make sure FEMA is focused on the mission that it is obligated to do and that it does well. Now, preparedness really covers the gamut. It covers prevention as well as protection as well as response and recovery. The expertise that will be drawn upon by the Preparedness Directorate will be clearly expertise residing in FEMA, also expertise that comes out of the Coast Guard and out of some of our other operating arms as well, including, for example, Secret Service, which does a very good job in developing the kind of planning you need for preparedness. So the idea here is not to decouple the skills of FEMA from Preparedness. It is to allow FEMA to pursue its core mission as a direct report to the Secretary and then look to the Preparedness Directorate to draw on FEMA's skill set and the other skill sets in equal measure in order to make sure it is covering the entire gamut of preparedness from prevention through response and recovery. Senator Voinovich. We had a hearing this morning on National Capital Region security coordination. You have a Mr. Lockwood in your Department, and I must say that I was impressed with his testimony. Secretary Chertoff. Yes. Senator Voinovich. I asked him how many people he had working for him, and he explained it to me. The gentleman who represented the State of Maryland said that Mr. Lockwood does not have the people necessary to get the job done. I would appreciate your looking into that situation. I am very concerned that so often we--the Congress--ask the Executive Branch to do a mission, and we do not give them the resources to get the job done. Secretary Chertoff. I agree with that. I think they have done a fine job, and I think, in fact, it was in working with that office and the Mayor of Washington and the Governors of Virginia and Maryland in the most recent period of time after London last week, I saw what a fine job they do. And I will certainly make sure that they are adequately supported. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Senator Akaka. Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Secretary Chertoff, I am sure you will agree with me that financial accountability is critical to the success of the mission of DHS. That is why I wish to bring to your attention the Administration's noncompliance with legislation. I, along with Representative Platts and former Senator Fitzgerald, successfully passed legislation that brings the Department under the Chief Financial Officers Act. Our bill, which became law on October 16, 2004, requires the President to appoint a Chief Financial Officer for the Department no later than 180 days after enactment. As with all CFOs, the DHS CFO is to report directly to the Secretary. However, your Second Stage Review neglects the position. I would be interested in knowing, first, the status of the nomination of a CFO as required by the Department of Homeland Security Financial Accountability Act of 2004; and, two, given the direct reporting requirement under law, where will the DHS CFO be placed in the proposed reorganization? Secretary Chertoff. Well, I don't know that we have identified the person to hold that position yet. We currently have a person on an acting basis who is holding the position. It is important--obviously, there is a legal obligation of a direct report, and I can tell you that I probably work more closely with the acting CFO now than I do with many people in the Department. I think it is important, though, that still remain well coordinated with our overall management function. As I say, I envision complying with the law, but making sure that our CFO and his very important function, first of all, has authority and coordination over the entirety of the Department, which I think is critical in terms of making sure the financial system works together, and that it is closely configured with the other management elements of the Department, which include procurement, human capital, and things of that sort. Senator Akaka. Mr. Secretary, this morning, the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, chaired by Senator Voinovich, held a hearing at my request on security in the National Capital Region. We discussed how important the DHS Office of National Capital Region Coordination, ONCRC, is to the success of the NCR. Under your proposal, the Director of ONCRC would report to the Under Secretary of Preparedness instead of to you, the Secretary, as is current policy. My question to you--and this has been touched on already-- is: What rationale led you to create another layer of bureaucracy between yourself and the National Capital Region? And, two, what steps do you intend to take to ensure sufficient full-time employees rather than detailees are available to staff this critical function? Secretary Chertoff. Well, again, there are numerous direct reports to the Secretary, and what we have tried to do is look at the actual work flow and pattern within the Department and configure people who do a lot of work closely together in a manner that gets them close together in the organization chart. The National Capital Office, which has really the function of preparedness for the capital, does something that needs to be very closely linked with preparedness in general. For example, a lot of the work that we want to do under our proposed Chief Medical Officer is going to have direct effect on the capital because we have suffered an anthrax attack here. I want to make sure they are working together. In fact, what this does is it enhances the ability of the National Capital Office to participate in our preparedness planning, and including the biopreparedness planning, using the perspective that he has, drawing from the unique challenges that you face in this particular city given the fact that it is the seat of government. So I actually do not view it as diminishing the role of that office, but actually as enhancing its ability to touch and influence many of the preparedness functions that we need to use that will be of direct significance to protecting the capital of the country. Senator Akaka. Mr. Secretary, you have mentioned the need to enhance and speed up baggage inspections, and you call for more research on sophisticated detection equipment. I have a suggestion that is budget neutral. To help solve this problem, I urge you to improve TSA screener rights and protections. As an example, the checked bags at Dulles International Airport are placed on conveyors where they are taken to the basement for inspection. Bags are physically lifted off the conveyor belts, placed on screening machines, and then again lifted off and loaded on baggage carts. If a conveyor belt breaks down, which happens often at Dulles because several airlines ignore weight limits and the machinery is overstressed, the bags are physically moved by TSA baggage screeners many yards to a working screening machine. This example clearly demonstrates why employee input on working conditions and new technologies is important because employees know firsthand the impact technology will have on their ability or inability, as the case may be, to do their jobs. However, without the rights and protections granted to the other DHS employees, TSA employees may hesitate to disclose problems that directly affect the efficiency and security of our transportation systems as well as costs, since TSA employees have high rates of workers' compensation claims due to the physical nature of their jobs. I believe granting TSA screeners full whistleblower protections, including appeal rights to the Merit System Protection Board, will improve our screening capability. And I ask you, what is your view on whistleblower protections for TSA employees? Secretary Chertoff. Well, first of all, I do not think that anybody needs to hesitate about suggesting improvements in the screening system. In fact, I believe that when we do procurements, and particularly when we design requests for proposal, we need to do that by up front going to the operators and making sure we understand the operational conditions and constraints. It makes no sense, as you point out, to build equipment that in real life does not work because the people who operate it--it does not work in the real-world environment. So we are going to be encouraging participation by people with operational experience in the process of designing and procuring our systems going forward. Senator Akaka. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Akaka. Senator Coburn. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN Senator Coburn. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your testimony. A couple of things. First of all, to follow up on CFO. I do not know if you are aware, but the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee has been looking at this, and I can tell you in terms of the President's management agenda, a qualified and vibrant and active CFO is a must for you to meet that, plus the PART assessments, plus IPIA, which is the Improper Payments Act, plus all the other acts from GIPRA on up, so I would just encourage you to get that settled because that is going to help us help you. The second thing, under your six imperatives that you outlined, the second one dealt with borders and immigration. You mentioned strengthening border security, interior enforcement, and reforming immigration processes. I note that the third was reforming immigration processes, and I understand that works with it, but I want to make sure you understand that the consensus in the country, even though we have to have some immigration reform, is to secure our borders, northern and southern, and it is important for me, for this President and the people who work for him in positions such as you, to let the American people know what we are actually doing and what is the priority. Is it to change immigration policies, or is it to secure the border? I understand that they all are interdependent, but which is the greatest priority? I would also bring forth to you the fact that we had some questions of Mr. Aguilar in some of our oversight hearings, one of which is I asked him specifically to get to me exactly what they needed, his Department, to secure the border. I want to tell you, what he sent us could have come from a second grader in terms of being vague, noncommittal. In other words, he sent us some information but did not send us any information. I think that is inappropriate, first. Second is we really do need to see assessments. You see the amendments on the Senate floor about increasing border patrol? That is a reflection of the tension that is in the country, and I would just ask for you to comment on what we are doing on our borders. Do we have the money? Do we have the personnel? Do we have the training capabilities to secure the border first in conjunction with our immigration reform? Secretary Chertoff. I am acutely aware of how troubled people are, and justifiably, about the situation at the border. I think I said in my speech that flagrant violation of our borders not only undermines our security, but it really flouts the rule of law, and of course it imposes a particular burden on the border communities. I do not know when you got the information from Chief Aguilar, but I can tell you what we are doing. We are, as I said earlier, looking at this whole picture as a total system because the tendency--I can say, going back to my years when I was a prosecutor, a line prosecutor in the Federal Government-- sometimes is to flood a lot of resources to a piece of the system in a way that breaks the system. This is about border patrol agents in part, but only in part. You have to be able to deploy them effectively. That means you have to have surveillance technology, it has to be integrated, in command and control, with the boots on the ground. You have to have changes in infrastructure so people can move more quickly. And then you have to do some other things. You have to have, for other than Mexicans--you cannot simply deport to Mexico--you have to have beds. But then when you look at beds, you have to ask yourself this question, how long does somebody occupy a bed? It now takes an average of about 40 days to get a person back to their home country. If we can cut that, we have effectively doubled the beds. You understand the point. I think we have now mapped out this system in its entirety. I think we now know all the moving pieces. I will tell you I personally spent a fair amount of time, including some weekend time, on this. We are now finding a program manager, and we need to build a very specific set of plans that will now do things like, say, OK, for every X number of border patrol or X number of OTMs, how quickly do we have to move them out of their beds? What do we need to do that? Where does that mean we flow the funding? You are exactly right to expect that we do that. One of the main reasons I am arguing for a policy and a planning directorate is to give us the people who can take these policies and now really, literally grind out the instructions very specifically about how we get there. I am convinced we can do it. We are working on it now. We are looking to start immediately on the detension and removal issue. It is not going to happen overnight, but we are also looking to do a system- wide procurement for a suite of technology and infrastructure and people that will be integrated and will get us to where we need to go in a way that does not create a bottleneck. Senator Coburn. Let me just follow up. We also had a June 7 hearing on the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology and Homeland Security. Mr. Aguilar discussed the expedited removal process for OTMs on our southern border. I was impressed by what we have heard so far. Currently that is being done in 2 of 20 sectors, both on the southern and northern border. Senator Kyl asked him for a time frame when we could expect this to expand from 2 to 20, and Senator Kyl's actual words were, ``Are we talking about a matter of months, or what are we talking about?'' And Mr. Aguilar's quote was, ``I would feel comfortable with that if DHS approves everything else, yes, sir.'' So what does it take to approve that so that we get that type of process going in all 20 sectors? Secretary Chertoff. I have approved it, I think, for a couple more sectors since then. The limiting factor, Senator, is beds. An expedited removal for a non-Mexican means you have to arrange to send them back to their homeland. Senator Coburn. I understand. Secretary Chertoff. Now we need beds, but let me just give you one other little example of a small thing we could do that would make it better. Right now sometimes we wait, I think, for a period of days perhaps for a consular officer from a local country to appear and talk to the person before we can move him out. If we put in video conferencing and we get them to do it in a matter of hours, we can cut bed time. So Chief Aguilar was right. We are talking about rolling this out. We are talking about a matter of months to scale this up. But we need to make sure that when we scale it up on expedited removal, we have fully scaled up all the rest of the process. Senator Coburn. And you feel confident that is moving along? Secretary Chertoff. Yes. Senator Coburn. Thank you, sir. Chairman Collins. Senator Lautenberg. Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Secretary, those of us who come from urban area States are extremely concerned with the commentary made about transit systems and the Federal role in helping fund security for those systems. Now, many of these systems are interstate systems. We have Amtrak. Is Amtrack considered part of a national responsibility or does that, too, get divided up somehow in terms of supplying security funds? Secretary Chertoff. I think Amtrak police are Federal employees. I mean, as I say, I have ridden the same systems that we are talking about for many years. I do not think anybody suggested we make the New York City Transit Police Federal police, or the New Jersey Transit Police Federal police. The hiring, the payment, and the managing of those police will continue to remain, as I understand it, in the State and local hands. What we can do is we can add value in areas like technology and things of that sort, and we can give some financial help. But I guess, again, the way the ownership and the operation of those systems works is different in every different context. Senator Lautenberg. It is a clouded definition, and we are going to need Federal help in many of these operations. We just do not have the means in the States to take care of it on our own. Mr. Secretary, we took an action here yesterday that runs contrary to the statement that you make that you would oppose any amendment that does not allow 90 percent of the funding to be based on higher risk. Now, yesterday we voted within the Senate to decrease the funding that goes to the high-risk area by $138 million, confirmed by CRS. Does that represent an impairment for your operation in any way? Is it too small a sum to be concerned about? Secretary Chertoff. I thought I was about as clear as you could possibly be in the letter, and I am sure I am better in letters than I am sometimes when I speak off the cuff. I mean obviously the closer we move to a totally risk-based system, the more ability we have to manage our resources in an effective way. Again, risk-based means looking at consequence, vulnerability, and threat. And as I tried to make clear, you cannot necessarily tell--maybe some people think they can--I cannot necessarily tell you which States, ``win or lose under that formula.'' What I can tell you is that a risk-based formula that lets us use our resources in a way that is driven by our analysis of risk as opposed to predetermined categories is what we favor. Senator Lautenberg. Are you familiar with the statement made about the most dangerous 2-mile stretch in the country as an invitation for a terrorist attack; you are familiar with that? Secretary Chertoff. We have talked about this, I know we have, yes. Senator Lautenberg. Do you believe that is true? Secretary Chertoff. I cannot tell you what the most dangerous 2-mile stretch is. I can tell you we look in a very disciplined way at all the infrastructure and the way infrastructure is built around each other, and we are very mindful of what reflects the highest dangers based not only on obviously the location of the population, but also the relationship with the infrastructure that can have cascading effects on things that are very far distant. I think again, I mean what we advocate is, and what I advocated in the letter is, a funding mechanism that allows us to use some of the tools we have developed, and some of them are quite sophisticated, in analyzing threat vulnerability and consequence of all different kinds of infrastructure in different parts of the country and then let us allocate the money on that basis. Again, bearing in mind what I said, a lot of the infrastructure is in private hands, and so that means the private sector has to bear its fair share of the responsibility, as do our other partners. Senator Lautenberg. It is suggested in a review of chemical hazards in the country, that fairly significant damage could result from an attack on any one of these. One of the most threatened place to the largest number of people is a chemical facility in Carney, New Jersey, which is part of the New York/ New Jersey region, and it is estimated that as many as 12 million people could perish if an accident or a raid took place there. Do you have any reason to challenge these estimates? Secretary Chertoff. I cannot say that I have heard of 12 million based on a single chemical plant. I can tell you what we do, and what we are continuing to do, is look at chemical plants, for example, and I think we have grouped them into tiers in terms of the threat that they would pose to particular parts of the country or numbers of people. It depends a lot on the nature of the chemical, the location of the plant, and how it is configured relative to other parts of a particular community, and I certainly do not want to announce publicly what the most dangerous ones are, but that is the model we are going to look at, as to the extent we have the ability to apply our resources in a risk-based way, and that is the kind of modeling we will use and go forward on. Senator Lautenberg. Thanks very much. Chairman Collins. Senator Coleman. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN Senator Coleman. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Mr. Secretary, just to follow up on Senator Lautenberg's comments, the whole idea of risk assessment is not an exact science. It is not a mathematical calculation that will allow you to rank order of most risk. There is a whole range of factors that enter into that, including the part that we do not understand, which is what is in the mind of the terrorist, soft targets, hard targets. Minnesota has a nuclear power plant on the Mississippi River, so it is not a matter of the number of people that could be affected. You could affect commerce, one of the major flows of agricultural commerce in the United States, if that was the target, or the Mall of America, which is in a suburb outside of Minneapolis-St. Paul, but has 30 or 35 million visitors a year and is a symbol. As we go about doing what we do in the Senate, I mean those of us who represent States with large cities but not of the size of New York or Los Angeles, risk is throughout this country. Do you think that is a fair statement? Secretary Chertoff. I do, and I think, something here, Senator, I wanted to point out because it did not get as much attention in the speech as I thought it might, when we talked about the bio, having a chief medical officer and making preparedness for biological threats, putting it in the top rank of things, I was careful to talk about threats to animals and to our food supply. I mean that is something which people do not talk about perhaps that much here in this part of the country, but we all eat. I think we are all familiar with the impact, for example, that foot and mouth disease can have on our agriculture, and just look at what happens with one cow. So that is an example of something that I do put as high risk. Again, every risk we deal with differently does not mean we are going to have Federal cattle police sitting on the farms, but it does mean that when we think about preparedness, that is the kind of thing that I do want to put a lot of emphasis on. Senator Coleman. I would note that I did not make a formal statement, but in my formal remarks I wanted to say I was encouraged by the focus you have provided with a chief medical officer and the impact that has on food safety which is a huge issue. But let me just talk about the issue of preventing terrorists from acquiring and detonating nuclear weapons. Clearly, it is a major concern. I think I recall in the presidential debate that this was one of the issues both candidates said, ``this is the most important issue that we are facing.'' There are two areas I just want to probe, the first being radiation portal monitors. I know that you are committed to getting those employed. I believe that we are, almost 4 years after September 11, I think we have one seaport has complete installation of RPMs. Can you tell me what your vision is and when you think we can get that done? Secretary Chertoff. I think we have RPMs at a number of ports, land and sea. I think there may be a couple that have been 100 percent done. Others are not 100 percent. We want to continue that process, but the President's budget requests money for a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which would get us to the next level. We want to make sure we are working on the next level of detection equipment as well. Senator Coleman. And that is the other area that I wanted to say that I am encouraged by the creation of a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. My question is concerning the ability of that office to coordinate with departments outside of the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, State, and Energy. Can you tell me a little bit about what steps that you will take to ensure that DNDO will be fully coordinating its activity with those branches of government that are outside DHS? Secretary Chertoff. Sure. And one of the reasons I wanted to make a direct report was to give it the stature to attract people in the office that would not just be DHS people, but would be senior people from the Department of Energy and the interested departments. I have spoken to Secretary Bodman about this. We are both very committed to making this work. I know the President is personally interested in this as well. I think we all know this is a unique threat, and that is not to say that it is a threat that is imminent, but it is a threat that if it ever comes to fruition would be of a character unlike anything we have ever seen. So there is a very high level of commitment to making this thing work, and if we can get the adequate funding--we are already working on it--we are going to continue to move in a very brisk fashion. Senator Coleman. And I do want to applaud you. I think it is a bold step, and I think it is critically important. Let me just ask about the soft side of Homeland Security, but one that has a lot of impact on people's lives. The requirement that is being instituted now for passports, travel between the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean. In northern Minnesota and I presume in northern Maine and maybe some other places, people have a lot of commerce that goes back and forth, and they do not have a lot of options for commerce. What they have is important, and that you want to maintain it. They travel back and forth. They do not keep their passport in their back pocket. It is about 97 bucks for a passport. If you have a family of five and you want to go fishing, all of a sudden you--you do not, by the way, have the passport operations in those areas. If you look at a map of where the offices are, they are not in the areas very directly impacted, in those northern regions. So I am concerned about the impact on ordinary citizens. It is that kind of balance between securing our borders, which the Senator from Oklahoma talked about, but also doing it in a way that does not unduly burden average Americans going about living their lives, and particularly those areas that it is a real economic impact, is a real quality of life impact. Are you considering other ways to address this other than the passport requirement? Secretary Chertoff. We are, Senator, and I think we made clear at the very beginning we were looking and anticipated alternatives to passports. Obviously, a passport would be sufficient. And by the way, I do not think this requirement would come into effect under the law which Congress passed as part of, I believe, the Intelligence Reform Act for a few years. We have a few years to stage into this. But the idea is to identify other forms of secure identification that would suffice for purposes of doing this, and that is again why I am driving the point of having interoperable systems of cards and verification of documents so that you could use a wallet-size card that would do a number of different things for you, and it may be that under the--as we develop our regulations under the REAL ID Act, it may be that we can move to the point that even driver's licenses will be able to satisfy the requirements of the statute. Senator Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Madam Chairman. [The prepared statement of Senator Coleman follows: PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN I would like to begin by commending your foresight and strong leadership in re-examining the structure and priorities of the Department of Homeland Security. The terrorist attacks in London last week reminded us that we are still engaged in a Global War on Terrorism. These attacks underscore the importance of this review and remind us that our enemies continue to seek to harm us and therefore, we must continually work to strengthen the security of our homeland. Both DHS and the Senate must collaboratively ensure DHS is adequately structured, financed, and focused to protect our homeland. I personally look forward to working with you and DHS to pass the legislation needed to implement the reforms you have outlined. I am privileged to Chair the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and, as you know, we have closely followed supply chain security--specifically the implementation of the Container Security Initiative, or CSI, and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT. As we discussed with Commissioner Bonner at our May 26 hearing, entitled ``The Container Security Initiative and Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism: Securing the Global Supply Chain or Trojan Horse?'' these programs are promising concepts, yet require considerable changes to transition into sustainable initiatives. Commissioner Bonner and CBP have begun to implement some positive changes, yet much work remains. To follow-up on our May hearing and assess these changes as well as the impact on the private sector, PSI will hold another hearing on this issue in the fall. I am encouraged by the launch of the Secure Freight Initiative and hope to hear you expand upon this during your testimony today. I also hope, Mr. Secretary, that DHS will continue to work closely with my Subcommittee on programs and initiatives to strengthen our supply chain security. And as I have said previously, instead of security becoming a cost of doing business, it must become a way of doing business. My Subcommittee is also closely following programs designed to confront the threat of nuclear terrorism. The threat of terrorist acquiring and detonating a nuclear weapon in the Untied States is real and we need to prioritize programs to prevent terrorists from obtaining material as well as programs to detect these materials abroad and domestically. It is simply unacceptable that today, almost 4 years after September 11, only one seaport has actually completed the installation of Radiation Portal Monitors, or RPMs. I am encouraged to hear that you have publicly indicated that the deployment of RPMs will be completed and urge that this becomes a top priority of DHS. Installing these portals must be a priority and this job must be completed. Also, as you may know, I am a strong supporter of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and believe that under the direction of Vayl Oxford, this is the right and necessary concept for a coordinated and focused response to the threat of nuclear terrorism. No reform is more important in preventing a nuclear attack than eliminating the diffuse and disparate programs within DHS and across other Departments. I urge your personal involvement as DNSO seeks to enhance the coordination of the various Departments engaged in this issue. Just like Chairman Collins, as a representative and a resident of a border State, border security is an issue of personal interest and importance to my constituents. We need to implement strong and sensible policies to secure our border, yet need to be mindful of the millions of Americans who travel freely across this border on a daily basis. As you all know, I have expressed concern over the far-reaching and perhaps, unintended consequences of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. I hope that together we can find an acceptable solution that ensures security without infringing upon the lives of millions of my fellow residents along the Northern Border. To that end, I would also like to note that my Subcommittee will continue to follow border security issues closely and focus on programs that facilitate trade, process people, and deport individuals that are here illegally. Strengthening these initiatives will ensure that all our borders are more secure. Finally, I am very excited that the legislation championed by Senators Collins and Lieberman--and which I co-sposnored--was recently passed by the Senate and will lead to the fair distribution of homeland security grants. I want to thank you for addressing the grant problem between Minneapolis and St. Paul and also thank you in advance for taking the time to visit my good friend, Mayor Kelly in St. Paul next week. I look forward to your testimony today, and look forward to continuing to work with you as a Member of this Committee, as a Subcommittee chairman, and as a concerned citizen who wants to make our country more secure. Chairman Collins. Senator Pryor. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Secretary Chertoff, let me ask if I may something that Senator Coleman referred to a few moments ago and you followed up on about the food supply and agriculture generally. What is your assessment of the risk of an attack to agriculture, what we call that agroterrorism? Secretary Chertoff. I do not know that I can give you a number. I think the general issue of biological attacks on human health and animal health and food, it is an area that we need to be concerned about. We know historically that terrorists have looked at biological and chemical weapons, and I think it is not hard to see how that might be applied in an agricultural setting, as well as in a human setting. Now, the principal point in our general governmental preparedness process for dealing with these issues is the Department of Agriculture, and they own the expertise. But our responsibility as those who essentially have to look at the total architecture of our preparedness is to make sure that we are working with the Department of Agriculture, that we have a good set of plans, a good set of preparedness for what to do in the case of an attack like this. Obviously, part of this is keeping these agents out of the country in the first place. But we also know that there are naturally occurring things like foot and mouth disease in the world, so there is a fair amount of learning and understanding about how to deal with that, and we just need to make sure we have a good set of plans and resources in place in case something like that should happen. Senator Pryor. You mentioned a good set of plans and good preparedness. Do you feel like the Department is there? Secretary Chertoff. I think we have done a lot, but I think by indicating my desire to consolidate preparedness and make it accountable in one place, that I feel we need to polish up what we have, and we need to make sure that to the extent there are issues that you have to debate about how you deal with these things, that we get those debates done in advance and make some decisions about what the appropriate course of action is before, God forbid, we face an actual crisis. Senator Pryor. So in other words, you are saying agroterrorism is real? Secretary Chertoff. I think we have to treat the danger of a biological attack or a chemical attack on our agricultural system as a priority concern. Senator Pryor. Also would you include as part of that, using agriculture chemicals in an attack, like the Oklahoma City bombing? Secretary Chertoff. That is a somewhat different category of issues. I mean the question of explosives--and we know that fertilizer can be used as an explosive---- Senator Pryor. Right. I just mean they are much more available in agricultural areas. Secretary Chertoff. I think that is true, although I must tell you there are a disturbing number of household chemicals that can be used to make powerful explosives. So that is a species of a larger problem that I would consider a little bit separate from the biological problem. Senator Pryor. I may want to follow up with you on that separately at some point and talk about that in more detail. Do you think that agriculture security will be considered a high enough risk to be part of the risk-based funding? I mean are we there on that? Secretary Chertoff. It is clearly a high risk in terms of our priority. Again, I guess I want to come back to the original point I made to Senator Lieberman. I cannot equate priority necessarily with the amount of money that is spent. There are going to be many things that are very high priority in which the infrastructure, frankly, is in private hands, and I am not going to say that the Federal Government is going to pay private people to protect what they own. We will use other ways to encourage the private sector to do what it has to do. So I can tell you that agroterrorism is a very high priority. How that plays out in terms of funding depends on the particular characteristics of that sector of the economy and the way that business model works. Senator Pryor. Great. And tell me about the chief medical officer. How do you envision that working? Secretary Chertoff. Again, we do not own--the expertise in human health is principally HHS. The expertise in animal health is principally Agriculture, and that is before we even get to all the State officials who have a tremendous amount of expertise in this area. I do not see DHS as competing to seize control of the expertise. What we do have the obligation to do is to look at the total picture, make sure that we turn to the departments with the expertise, and ascertain that they have a plan in place, that it is properly integrated with everything else we are doing in terms of preventing and protecting against an attack and responding if we have an attack. Making sure, if there is uncertainty about that plan, that we get that resolved and we have certainty, and ultimately owning the responsibility for coordinating a response with these experts in the various departments across the board. And that is what is really laid out in the National Response Plan which the President has issued. Senator Pryor. I am curious about your new organizational paradigm there that you are trying to set up. Do I understand correctly that Border and Transportation Security is merging into Preparedness? Secretary Chertoff. No. What is going to happen, we are going to take the--Border and Transportation Security did three things. It was responsible for policy planning and was responsible for operations, but only with respect to some of the components of the Department. It covered, for example, Customs and Border Protection, TSA, and ICE. It does not cover Coast Guard, for example, or other functions. What we are doing, essentially we are building on a good idea. We are taking the good idea of that planning function, but we are making it part of a department-wide directorate that is going to have the ability to plan for all of the components, not just some of the components. We are going to take--Border and Transportation Security had an operational capability, but with respect to a few components. We are going to take that and create an office that can be operational coordinator for all of the components. Once we do that, we have effectively taken the functions of the BTS, and we have made them more nimble and made them more wide spanning across the entire breadth of the Department. At that point we really do not need another layer to stand between some of the components and the Secretary. We have taken out the functions, we have distributed them across the board, and I think we can actually flatten the organization. Senator Pryor. So if I can summarize, this sounds to me like it is an example of the Department being up and running for a couple years, learning some lessons about how some things work and some things do not, and you are trying to streamline and make things more efficient. Secretary Chertoff. That is exactly right. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Senator Dayton. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON Senator Dayton. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for taking on these many enormous burdens. We have had two instances in the last 13 months with a small private plane, originally unidentified, at least not communicating its identification to Capitol Police, and evacuations, and I think both of them have demonstrated different gaps in communications. The first, as I recall, the FAA was aware the plane did not have an operating transponder and under its own regulations should not have been permitted, but it was, and they knew that. They did not communicate that. There was an open line established, I guess, among different agencies to communicate post-September 11. That was not staffed so the information was not shared. More recently, the evacuation, I believe, showed a lack of communication between the Federal and the City of Washington, DC, and as we learned this morning at a hearing that Senator Voinovich chaired, a subcommittee, was instructive because they had representatives from the States of Virginia, Maryland, and then Washington, DC, and then the Federal agency. And the complexity of these intergovernmental entities and relationships means, it seems, that there have to be these multiple communications, which in an emergency situation, seems the more complexity you have, the more likelihood that something is not going to function properly. Is your agency responsible? Is there an overriding responsibility that someone has to protect the Capitol and to make decisions that become necessary if that kind of a situation occurs again? Secretary Chertoff. I guess we have responsibility for managing the relationship and the response with our State and local partners. To the extent, of course, that F-16s go up, as they do when we have these incidents, those F-16s obviously are part of the Department of Defense and operate within the authority of the Department of Defense. What we did in the wake of--there frankly have been many incidents with small planes. Very few of them get to the point of getting reported. And they are by and large innocent. People either get mixed up or sometimes they are trying to avoid weather. What we did after a recent incident was we sat down with the city and with everybody else. We have an operations center in which both States and the City of Washington, DC, are represented and have people present who can listen real time to the discussion over the airways when planes are coming in. We decided that as a back-up it made sense for the District of Columbia to have somebody present in our Transportation Security Administration Operations Center, which is a second center, and have that person again able to listen live. And then I think there is also some additional steps the District has taken to tap into some of our preexisting warning communication systems---- Senator Dayton. Excuse me. My concern is that in both of those instances, although people were evacuated--I give the Capitol Police, I mean they were heroic to stand their ground and get people out--but if either of those planes had been a hijacked terrorist plane, it would have crashed in the Capitol well before hundreds of people would have been evacuated. Secretary Chertoff. Well, actually--let me try to address it this way. Of course the time frame within which you know that a plane is coming is very short. We get hundreds and hundreds of planes that within a certain number of miles do raise our interest. I can tell you first of all that I do not think there is any doubt that had it been necessary, the Air Force would have had the capability to remove any threat, any airborne threat. But that raises a second question, which is to caution that evacuation is not always the right step in the face of an attack. A small plane--and I know this is being looked at now-- does not necessarily have the capability of doing to a strong building what people envision, let us say in the case of what happened on September 11. On the other hand, a small plane carrying a chemical or biological agent would actually do more damage if people go out in the street than if people shelter in place. And if there is one message I can leave to the country at large on this issue of preparedness is, our intuitions about the right reaction in the face of a threat like an airplane, which is often to run, sometimes turns out not to be right. Sometimes we are better off sheltering in place. That is why one of the things we encourage people to do is, as part of preparedness, is to think through and understand--we want businesses to do this, too, and government agencies--to understand that sometimes the right advice is do not run out of the building, stay where you are, maybe go down to a basement, and that is actually safer. So we have spent a lot of time on this. I am confident we have the situation well in hand, and we continue to monitor it and train on it. Senator Dayton. Along those lines, how does opening National Airport to general aviation improve our homeland security? Secretary Chertoff. What it does is it is the recognition of the fact that where we have sufficient systems in place to protect ourselves, we ought to consider lightening the burdens and restrictions as well as making them heavier. Senator Dayton. We have no security at the terminals I have gone to that charter planes, no screening, nothing. Secretary Chertoff. Actually, when the regulation becomes effective--and I think that should happen within a very short period of time, a matter of days--it will not allow general aviation to come in. It will require general aviation that comes in to be previously identified, required TSA screening at the place in which the general aviation departs from. It requires certain other security measures that are in place, precisely to avoid the situation you are concerned about. Senator Dayton. If the greatest burden placed on somebody is to have to land at Dulles and drive in, as I have done several times for that reason, I mean, it seems to me that is a very small burden on anyone, and with these planes you say it has happened a number of times without having an evacuation, it just seems to me having that many more planes and pilots with different degrees of knowledge about the procedures and all, you are begging for more incidents related to the Capitol. I do not get it. I think it is one of those burdens that can be justified. I am sorry my time is limited. I am sorry to cut you off. But let me ask something else. Last night Senator Akaka offered an amendment to increase the funding for the first responders program, including the UASI and the like, and we were told by the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee on the floor, he said, ``The simple fact is that you cannot disregard the fact that there is $7 billion in the pipeline for first responders, $3 billion from the year 2004, $4 billion from 2005 that has not been spent.'' Is there $7 billion in the pipeline because we would surely love to direct some of that pipeline to Minnesota. Secretary Chertoff. I think the figure I have in my mind on State homeland security funding and Urban Security Initiative Funding in the last several years, I think, is a total of $8.6 billion. That is over a period of years. That is in various parts of the pipeline. Some of it has been spent, some of it has been obligated, some of it is going to be awarded in grant programs that we currently have under way. So again, often figures get sliced in different ways, and I am never quite sure---- Senator Dayton. But never in the Senate. Secretary Chertoff [continuing]. How they are being sliced, but I can tell you that I think the figure I have for the last several years has been $8.6 billion. Senator Dayton. Madam Chairman, I will direct a question, if I may, and ask for a written response that really details that because I think if that was a misstatement on the Senate floor, it should be corrected. If it is accurate, I would like to know why there is $7 billion that has not been distributed and why areas of Minnesota were zeroed out in funding, and I will follow up on that. Finally, I noted with interest your comments in your prepared testimony, Mr. Secretary, about FEMA. We have had a couple of experiences in Minnesota with flooding disasters. In 1997, the Red River flooded and Grand Forks, East Grand Forks, and the lake were seriously damaged. From all accounts, FEMA was outstanding there and responsive, minimum of red tape. When the city of Roseau in Northwestern Minnesota flooded in 2002, it was not the same efficiency of response. I was up there myself a couple of times in the immediate aftermath, and the FEMA individuals came in from, I believe it was Washington State, but they were right on the spot. They could not have been more wanting to be forthcoming. But they were trying to explain these programs to beleaguered men and women who lost their homes, lost their businesses, lost their farms, whatever, and you had to have an advanced degree in computer science to track these different programs and intricacies and everything else. And then they had to apply, and then they got turned down, and then they did not know they had to appeal. I mean we could have made it a lot easier, and without just throwing money at people, they needed some oversight. This is a time when people are down and out, they are in despair, and if ever government needed to undo a lot of the bureaucratic red tape and just be able to be forthcoming in a reasonable way would just improve, I think, not only the quality of the service but just the attitude that those people have toward their own government in a time of critical need. So I would urge you to bring to us, as soon as you can, any suggestions or whatever you need from us, to untie the hands of these people and simplify these programs or assistance, and authorize the people on the spot to do a job, empowering them to approve these awards and get the money in the hands of these people. Thank you. I am finished. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you. I just want to make sure Senator Carper has time for his questions because the vote has started. Senator Dayton. He said I could have his time. Chairman Collins. And you did. [Laughter.] Senator Dayton. He does not remember that. Senator Carper. I would like to insert my prepared statement at this time. [The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:] OPENING PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER Thank you, Madam Chairman, for holding this important hearing on Secretary Chertoff's plans to refocus and reorganize the Department of Homeland Security. I supported the creation of the Department of Homeland Security as a Member of this Committee 3 years ago now because I believed it would enable Federal agencies to do better, and more efficiently, prevent, prepare for, and respond to disasters and terrorists attacks. Since the Department came into being, I think we've had some successes. There are certainly areas, however, that need improvement. We established the Department of Homeland Security to reduce the vulnerability of the Untied States to terrorism. The bombings in London last week and in Madrid last year, however, demonstrate the very real threat to our own transit and rail systems. But to date, the Department of Homeland Security, to my knowledge, has not set out a review of the threats to and vulnerabilities in our surface transportation system. Nor has the Department provided standard guidance to our Nation's transit and rail operators as to how they should protect their riders. We need the Department of Homeland Security to work proactively to establish standards and help build the infrastructure necessary to prevent and prepare for future attacks. They can't respond only to the specific type of attack we suffered on September 11. But the Department has failed, in my view, to tackle rail and transit security needs the way they've tackled aviation security. In the Department's defense, Congress hasn't put the same focus on rail and transit security as we have on aviation security either, and this is something we need to change. The Senate unanimously passed legislation last year to establish a transit and rail security program. However, the House did not act on it before the end of the session and neither body has done anything since. While we've stood by, the FBI has warned us on more than one occasion that al Qaeda may be directly targeting U.S. passenger trains and that their operatives may try to destroy key rail bridges and sections of track to cause derailments. Following the successful attacks in London and Madrid, it's likely that al Qaeda and other like- minded groups will target rail and transit systems in the United States. We need to provide our transit agencies and Amtrak with the guidance and support they need. We can't afford to wait for a London- or Madrid-style attack to occur on our shores before taking action. Further, many municipalities--including the District of Columbia-- are concerned about the movement of hazmat by rail and by truck through their cities. Because the lack of Federal guidance regarding who must be informed about hazmat movement through sensitive areas, cities and States are moving ahead with their own rules and often fighting this out in the courts. The experts at the Department of Homeland Security need to analyze this issue and provide us with some guidance so that we can provide a consistent, safe standard regarding the movement of hazardous materials across our country. In closing, I'd note, Madam Chairman, that Secretary Chertoff mentioned in his speech yesterday announcing the results of his second stage review the need to tighten transportation security--including rail and transit security. I look forward to hearing some details this afternoon about what he might have in mind in this area because it's vitally important that we hit the ground running in the wake of the London bombings and work together to do what needs to be done to prevent loss of life here at home. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER Senator Carper. Mr. Secretary, welcome. Thanks for joining us again today. It is good to see you as always. I know this question came up earlier, and I was unable to be here when it was raised. But I believe you may have testified before a committee in the House either today or yesterday. I was asked by a reporter to respond to something that she thought that you had said. The tenor of her question, the thrust of her question was: Secretary Chertoff suggested before the House yesterday or today that the States really should assume the responsibility for underwriting the cost of terrorist protection, or protection against terrorist attacks on inter-city passenger rail and on commuter rail services. I do not know if she was goading me or what, but she was trying to get me to kind of lash out at you. And my first response was, I find that hard to believe that he would have said that. So I think it has probably come up here earlier, but I just wanted to hear it with my own ears what you said. Secretary Chertoff. It did come up earlier, Senator, and it is fascinating to watch the velocity of misunderstanding as it increases over time. While I may not have been crystal clear, what I said to the reporter--it was not in a hearing, but what I said to the reporter is this: We deal with different systems--we obviously have a Federal responsibility for protecting everybody in the country. We deal with the mechanics of different systems, and so the way in which we carry out that protective responsibility differs in different systems. The aviation system is one in which it is a closed system, and basically Federal authority is the only government authority that operates in the area of air travel. When it comes to, for example, subways--and here I am speaking from my own personal experience riding subways--a lot of the boots on the ground are local boots on the ground. There are transit police, local police, and conductors. Although we have, for example, screeners at the airport that are federally employed, I do not think anybody would suggest we should federally employ all subway, transit police, or subway conductors. The way in which we work with protecting our transit systems is to work in partnership with State and local authorities. And the boots on the ground largely are owned by those State and local authorities, they are not Federal police. What we do bring to the process is we give assistance, we have technological assistance, we have intelligence. I have talked at some length here about some of the detection equipment and detection systems we have worked with the States and locals to put into place, as well as worked with, which we are continuing to be doing. And of course we have made aid available through various transit programs, as well as through the President's budget, which contemplates $600 million in targeted infrastructure protection that is available for transit systems. We talked earlier about the State Homeland Security grants and the Urban Security Initiative grants. That is $8.6 billion, and that money is certainly--transit protection is eligible for that kind of assistance. So we play a major role working with our partners in protecting our rail and bus systems. But the way in which that role is played, of course, is different in that partnership setting than it is, for example, in a setting, in an aviation setting where it is a different kind of a system. Senator Carper. I am told that if you add up all the people that ride subways and buses and trains, and you look at the amount of money that we are spending as a Nation to protect them from terrorist attacks, it works out to about 12 cents per rider. I am told that if we look at the amount of money that we spend on those of us who ride airplanes around the country and around the world, that we spend as a Nation about $7.50 dollars per rider. I do not know if those numbers are correct, but if they are, we are spending roughly 50 times more for a rider on an aircraft than we are on those who may be on a train or on a subway. I appreciate the need for a partnership, but I have a concern. There are a lot of other expenses and needs that State and local governments are trying to meet with the Federal grants that they get, and to load onto that a major expectation for them to help protect inter-city passenger rail and transit, I think is unwise, and I am encouraged by what I hear you say, but I want to have a chance to think about it a bit more. Let me just come back to funding for this current fiscal year. My recollection was in the appropriations bill for Homeland Security in fiscal year 2005 that we included about $150 million to look to the needs of transit security in particular. I do not know that there is any money there for inter-city passenger rail, but about $150 million. And I am told that we spent precious little of that money during the course of this fiscal year. I do not know if that is true. Maybe you can clarify that for me if it is. But if it is true, if we spent none or little of the $150 million. I am also told the Administration did not ask anything specifically for 2006. I think we have about $100 million in the bill now on the Floor, probably going to adopt an amendment to add to that. But my question is, what is the Department doing to facilitate moving that money out to where it might be put to best use? Secretary Chertoff. We retooled our process of analyzing how we were spending this year in order to be somewhat more rigorous and disciplined in terms of how to get the money out, and I think the real money, some of the real money that was stopped is now in the process of being moved out. I have to say, I think, I read an article in the paper in the last couple days where the head of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority said he had a lot of money he had not spent yet. And they were asking him why, and he said: ``Because I do not really know what to spend it on. I am waiting to see what kind of technology is the best technology to use.'' This is very important to protect transportation, but it is important to protect it in the right way and not to waste the money, and I can guarantee you, if we waste the money I am going to be reading stories in a year about how we wasted money on gyms and stuff like that, which I know from going back a couple years. Senator Carper. It is hard to waste money when we are not spending it. I do not think anyone is going to accuse you of wasting money in providing for transit security. Secretary Chertoff. I think what we are doing is we are spending it, but I think we have a program now to make sure it is being spent wisely, and of course, again, when I hear the head of transit authority say, well, he is not sure he wants to spend his money yet because he does not know what to spend it on, that does put a little kind of cautionary flag up. I do want to say that we are doing a lot of stuff in rail. We are doing a lot of stuff with respect to, for example, chemical and biological detection equipment, integrated systems with video and with detectors which we now have in Boston and in New York and in Washington. We have Biowatch centers in 32 cities in the country. We are accelerating development of that. That is focused on a very significant threat in the subway system, which is the threat not just of a bomb which could kill--it would be bad enough to kill a few dozen people, but imagine a biological agent put in a subway system that killed thousands of people and made the system unusable for a period of months. So I want to make sure that we are focused on putting our considerable resources that we are putting into transportation security, again, in a disciplined and prioritized way. Finally, let me say, in this year's budget, we basically combined a number of programs, and actually our targeted infrastructure protection program requested $600 million, which would put in the area of rail and other similar things more money than would have been available to all of those things individually based on the prior year's spending. So we have actually put considerable additional money into this, and I want to remind the public that in addition, we have large general grant programs for homeland security which are fully available for transportation. So we should not view transportation as limited to a few hundred million. We have literally made billions of dollars available to States and localities in various programs over the years that have been used to spend on enhancing transportation facilities. Senator Carper. My time has expired. Let me just say, if the folks in New York or somewhere else do not know how to spend some of these dollars, I am sure there are folks in other States, including my own, and probably some other States that are represented here on this panel, that could figure out how to do it. I would urge you to consider, your Department to consider putting out guidelines to help New York or anybody who is having a hard time figuring it out. Last, we do not have time to do this here. If I did, I would ask you just to share with us, what do they do in London? What systems do they have on the ground in place that enable them to track down so quickly the perpetrators of the crimes that were committed and killed all those people? Chairman Collins. Cameras. Senator Carper. That is what I hear. But we do not have time for that today, but it was amazing what they accomplished in a very short period of time in figuring out who did this, who perpetrated those crimes, and tracking down the perpetrators, identifying them. Thank you. Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Secretary, we do have a vote on. You are in luck because that means this hearing has to conclude. I want to make two very quick points in closing. The first is that as I review your plan, I see that you intend to make some truly fundamental changes to the Department without requesting legislation. Your list of legislative changes is very narrow, and I think you are pushing the boundaries on that. I hope you will work with the Committee so that we can draft a more comprehensive reauthorization bill. I think many of the changes you are proposing really should be done by law and not just administratively. So that is an issue we will be pursuing with you. Second, I cannot let the record go uncorrected in response to the comments from the Senator from New Jersey about the Collins-Lieberman Homeland Security Grant Amendment, which was adopted by the Senate overwhelmingly yesterday, with more than 70 votes, 71 as a matter of fact. I want to make two points. First, the Collins-Lieberman Amendment doubles the amount of money that would be allocated based on a risk assessment as compared to current law. In fact, the latest Congressional Research Service report, which I will put into the record, says that nearly 80 percent of the funding would be allocated based on a risk assessment.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The CRS report dated July 12, 2005, appears in the Appendix on page 72. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Second--and this is a very important point--the Secretary of Homeland Security will have unprecedented authority to allocate funds. We asked the Congressional Research Service to see if they could find any other grant program in excess of a billion dollars where a Secretary was given such unfettered discretion, and they could not. Colleagues on both sides of the aisle have expressed concerns that we in the Congress are giving you too much authority to allocate these funds as you see fit. So in fact, we have moved a long ways toward the position that you have advocated, despite the concerns of the Senator from New Jersey. I hope your future public statements on this will reflect these key points as well. Senator Lieberman. Madam Chairman. Chairman Collins. Senator Lieberman. Senator Lieberman. May I just say that in this, as in so much else, the Chairman speaks for the Ranking Member. [Laughter.] I do want to say it struck me, as we were all focused on London, that it bears mentioning that from all that we know now, the plot to attack rail and transit in London was put together in Leeds, a smaller town, and it follows the pattern of the September 11 attacks here, and it shows the important role of local law enforcers in stopping such plots, not to mention the fact that agroterrorism, obviously, would be carried out in rural areas as well. So we are together on this. Thank you very much. Chairman Collins. Thank you. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days. I am sure many of the Members will have additional questions for the record as well as other materials to submit. Thank you very much for appearing today. We look forward to working closely with you. Chairman Collins. This hearing is now adjourned. 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