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[109 Senate Hearings]
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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
_____
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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.
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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.
[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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