<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:99863.wais]
S. Hrg. 109-195
Senate Hearings
Before the Committee on Appropriations
_______________________________________________________________________
Department of
Homeland Security
Fiscal Year
2006
109th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
H.R. 2360
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES
Department of Homeland Security, 2006 (H.R. 2360)
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800
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S. Hrg. 109-195
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
before a
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
H.R. 2360
AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2006, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
Department of Homeland Security
Nondepartmental witnesses
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
__________
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri TOM HARKIN, Iowa
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
CONRAD BURNS, Montana HARRY REID, Nevada
RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HERB KOHL, Wisconsin
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire PATTY MURRAY, Washington
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
LARRY CRAIG, Idaho DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado
J. Keith Kennedy, Staff Director
Terrence E. Sauvain, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the Department of Homeland Security
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire, Chairman
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
TED STEVENS, Alaska DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HERB KOHL, Wisconsin
LARRY CRAIG, Idaho PATTY MURRAY, Washington
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah HARRY REID, Nevada
WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
Professional Staff
Rebecca Davies
James Hayes
Carol Cribbs
Kimberly Nelson Hill
Shannon O'Keefe
Charles Kieffer (Minority)
Chip Walgren (Minority)
Scott Nance (Minority)
Drenan E. Dudley (Minority)
Administrative Support
Avery Forbes
C O N T E N T S
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Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Page
Department of Homeland Security.................................. 1
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Department of Homeland Security.................................. 117
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Department of Homeland Security.................................. 349
Nondepartmental Witnesses........................................ 435
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:34 a.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Thad Cochran presiding.
Present: Senators Cochran, Byrd, and Leahy.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
STATEMENTS OF:
MICHAEL J. GARCIA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS
ENFORCEMENT
ROBERT C. BONNER, COMMISSIONER, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
EDUARDO AGUIRRE, JR., DIRECTOR, U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND
IMMIGRATION SERVICES
STATEMENT OF SENATOR THAD COCHRAN
Senator Cochran. The hearing will please come to order.
Today we begin our committee's review of the fiscal year 2006
budget request for the Department of Homeland Security. We will
consider specifically the request for programs and activities
of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and
Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
I am pleased to welcome the Director of U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services, Eduardo Aguirre; the Commissioner of
Customs and Border Protection, Robert Bonner; and the Assistant
Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Michael
Garcia.
Our committee will work with you to help ensure that we
provide the funds necessary for your agencies to carry out
their responsibilities and missions. For fiscal year 2006, the
President's budget requests $12.9 billion to fund the
organizations appearing before us today. This includes
mandatory and discretionary appropriations, user fee
collections, and trust funds.
We thank each of you for submitting to the committee copies
of your statements in advance. These will be made a part of the
record and we invite you to make any comments you think will be
helpful to the committee's understanding of the budget request.
Before hearing from the witnesses, I am pleased to yield to
Senator Leahy or other Senators who may wish to make opening
statements. Senator Leahy.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. LEAHY
Senator Leahy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think these three agencies before us have the duty of
keeping our Nation safe, but also keeping our historic
commitment to legal immigration. I know I have to think about
the fact that my grandparents came, my maternal grandparents,
came to this country not speaking any English. If they had not
been here, their grandson would not be here, and how proud and
how happy they were to come.
I remember talking with my grandparents as a child and how
much it meant to them to be the first generations of Americans.
It has left a mark in my own mind. You look around this room,
look around anywhere else, look at your own backgrounds, and we
know that we are a Nation of immigrants. We have to keep being
able to do that.
BUDGET SHORTFALLS AND INCREASED STAFFING FOR THE BORDER PATROL
When we held hearings on these three agencies last year,
Mr. Chairman, they were facing substantial budget shortfalls.
They had imposed hiring freezes. I want to know where we stand
today on these issues. I am concerned that the administration
is ignoring Congress's clear and consistent call, call from
both Republicans and Democrats, for substantial increases in
staffing for the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol's presence on
our northern border--and I want to remind everybody we have a
northern border as well as a southern border; I live an hour's
drive from it--it was minimal before the September 11th
attacks. I think we had something like 300 agents stretched
over 4,000 miles of border. There is no other place in the
world similar to that.
I authored a provision in the Patriot Act to triple that
number. It has been achieved. A lot more needs to be done. The
President signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004. That mandated increasing at least 2,000
Border Patrol agents for fiscal year 2006, 20 percent of them
for the northern border. But that is the good news and the
President did sign that bill for the 2,000, but his budget
provides only enough funding for 210. So he signed the bill
with great fanfare for 2,000 and put the budget in for 10
percent of it. And it appears none of them go to the northern
border.
So I hope Mr. Bonner will explain why the administration is
not heeding this Congressional mandate and whether he now
believes it is time to declare mission accomplished for the job
of protecting our northern border.
LAW ENFORCEMENT SUPPORT CENTER
Assistant Secretary Garcia and I have spoken a number of
times about the excellent work of the Law Enforcement Support
Center. We have visited this. This is the place that stores
information for State and local police. It provides immigration
status and identities of aliens any time of the day or night,
every day of the year.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 BUDGET REQUEST FOR CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
SERVICES
Of course, Mr. Aguirre, we talked before, I am concerned
about the President's proposed budget for Citizenship and
Immigration Services. It calls for a 50 percent cut in the
amount of directly appropriated funds for CIS. At the same time
the President says he will achieve his goal of reducing the
average wait time for applicants for immigration benefits to 6
months.
He has asked the Congress to enact a guest worker program
that is going to significantly increase the CIS workload. That
is fine, we can increase it, but if the administration is
cutting the manpower for this substantially, but wanting to add
to the workload, I do not know how you ever get here.
H2B VISA PROGRAM
I hope--the last thing is I hope the CIS and the
administration will support bipartisan efforts in Congress to
increase the cap for the H2B visa program. The Department
announced in January for the second straight year the statutory
cap has been reached and that is causing tourism-related
businesses across the country to go into justifiable panic and
concern.
We have a bipartisan group of 16 colleagues introducing S.
352, the Save Our Small and Seasonal Business Act of 2005. It
would allow aliens who obtained H2B visas in recent years to
reenter under that program. I hope the administration would
support it. It is a quick, easy, I think effective, cost
effective way of handling this.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are some of the concerns
I have. I thought I would express them here because I know we
are going to have votes in between and I may have to go back
and forth.
Senator Cochran. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Byrd.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD
Senator Byrd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Excuse me, I am sorry.
Senator Leahy. Any time you want.
Senator Byrd. Thank you.
Well, today, Mr. Commissioner and also Mr. Assistant
Secretary and Director Aguirre, we hold the first hearing on
the President's budget for the Department of Homeland Security.
Chairman Cochran and I have worked together over the last 2
years to produce bipartisan legislation to fill critical gaps
in the security of our homeland. I commend Chairman Thad
Cochran for his excellent leadership of this subcommittee and
of any other committee or subcommittee that he chairs. I know
how well it is going to be run.
Today our witnesses will focus on issues related to border
security, immigration, and trade. For the third year in a row,
the President has submitted a budget for the Department of
Homeland Security that ignores the stark reality of the
resources needed to secure the homeland. The 9/11 Commission
report concluded this:
``More than 500 million people annually cross U.S. borders
at legal entry points, about 330 million of them non-
citizens.'' What a flow of humanity. ``Another 500,000 or more
enter illegally without inspection across America's thousands
of miles of land borders or remain in the country past the
expiration of their permitted stay.'' Now, that was the
commission talking.
The commission concluded that, quote: ``Two systemic
weaknesses came together in our border system's inability to
contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks:
one, a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a
part of border security; and two, an immigration system not
able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support
counterterrorism.''
INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT
In response to the commission's findings, Congress enacted
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. In a
December 6, 2004, letter to the Congress urging final passage
of that Act, President Bush stated, ``I also believe the
conference took an important step in strengthening our
immigration laws by, among other items, increasing the number
of Border Patrol agents and detention beds.'' Close of
quotation.
As enacted, the Act authorizes the hiring of 2,000 new
Border Patrol agents and 800 new ICE investigators and the
funding of 8,000 new detention beds for illegal alien
immigrants. Yet, when the President submitted his budget
request months after sending that letter, virtually no new
funds were requested for any of these activities.
At the same time, the President's own terrorism experts are
extremely concerned about the threat posed by terrorists to our
borders. In written testimony before the Senate Intelligence
Committee on February 16, 2005, the Department's Deputy
Secretary, Admiral James Loy, cited recently received
information as the reason for his concern about the threat
facing the Mexican border. He called it a ``very serious
situation'' and added: ``Several Al Qaeda leaders believe
operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico
and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal
entry.'' How about that, ``believe illegal entry is more
advantageous than legal entry for operational security
reasons.''
FUNDING ISSUE
Despite this testimony, there is virtually no funding in
the budget to increase our border security. In addition to
having a strong deterrent to illegal immigration at the border,
it is critically important for the Department to have the
resources to enforce our immigration laws. Therefore, I am very
troubled by the fact that 6 months into the fiscal year we have
not received a supplemental request or a reprogramming proposal
to address a shortfall in funding for immigration and customs
enforcement.
Since last spring, the Congress has been ringing the alarm
bell--ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling--that the
Department's primary investigative arm, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, ICE, faced significant budget shortfalls. To
partially address this problem, ICE last year instituted a
hiring freeze, significantly reduced spending, and took other
painful steps--bring on the aspirin--to cope with the
shortfall. There were even media reports that some apprehended
illegal aliens were being released because ICE could not afford
to cover the costs associated with holding these individuals.
Well, Congress stepped up to the plate. This man, Cochran,
he is on the ball. Congress stepped up to the plate by
providing ICE with $193 million more for the current fiscal
year than requested by the President. However, the hiring
freeze and other spending restraints remain in place halfway
through the new fiscal year. We are being warned by the
Department that ICE faces a funding gap of nearly $300 million
for the rest of this year.
Has the President found any room in his $81.9 billion
supplemental spending request to address this gap? No. He is
willing to request billions of dollars for foreign aid to build
the most expensive U.S. embassy in the world in Baghdad. I do
not plan to go there often. But he does not seem to be able to
find the funds to hire and support the men and women fighting
the war on terrorism here at home.
Today I sent a letter to Secretary Chertoff raising these
issues, and I hope that he will work with the White House to
send to the Congress a request that would implement the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission contained in the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.
[The information follows:]
Letter From Senator Robert C. Byrd
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, March 2, 2005.
Hon. Michael Chertoff,
Secretary, Department of Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
Dear Secretary Chertoff: Congratulations are in order as you assume
the task of leading the Department of Homeland Security, an immense and
important burden. Sadly, the President, in his fiscal year 2006 budget
request for the Department, has not made your task any easier.
For the third year in a row, the President has submitted a budget
that ignores the stark reality of the steps needed to secure the
homeland.
The 9/11 Commission report concluded that:
More than 500 million people annually cross U.S. borders at legal
entry points, about 330 million of them noncitizens. Another 500,000 or
more enter illegally without inspection across America's thousands of
miles of land borders or remain in the country past the expiration of
their permitted stay. The challenge for national security in an age of
terrorism is to prevent the very few people who may pose overwhelming
risks from entering or remaining in the United States undetected.
Our investigation showed that two systemic weaknesses came together
in our border system's inability to contribute to an effective defense
against the 9/11 attacks: a lack of well-developed counterterrorism
measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not
able to deliver on it basic commitments, much less support
counterterrorism.
In response to the Commission's findings, Congress enacted the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. In his December 6,
2004, letter to Congress urging final passage of that Act, President
Bush stated, ``I also believe the Conference took an important step in
strengthening our immigration laws by, among other items, increasing
the number of border patrol agents and detention beds.'' As enacted,
the Act authorizes the hiring of 2,000 new Border Patrol agents and 800
new ICE investigators, and the funding of 8,000 new detention beds for
illegal aliens immigration. The President's letter called that ``an
important step.'' Yet that letter appears to be another empty
rhetorical gesture. When the President submitted his budget request 2
months after sending that letter, virtually no new funds were requested
for any of these activities.
At the same time, the President's own terrorism experts are
extremely concerned about the threat terrorists pose to our borders. In
written testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February
16, 2005, the Department's Deputy Secretary, Admiral James Loy cited
recently received information as the reason for his concern about the
threat facing the Mexican border. He called it a ``very serious
situation'' and added, ``several Al Qaeda leaders believe operatives
can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe
illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational
security reasons.''
Mr. Secretary, I know that this budget was completed prior to your
coming onboard. I strongly encourage you to work with the White House
to formally request additional resources to implement the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act authorization enacted to respond to
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
In addition to having a strong deterrent to illegal immigration at
the border, it is critically important for the Department to have the
resources to enforce our immigration laws. Therefore, I am very
troubled by the fact that, 6 months into the fiscal year, we have not
received a supplemental request or reprogramming proposal to address a
shortfall in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since
last spring, the Congress has been ringing the alarm bells that the
Department's primary investigative arm, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), faced significant budget shortfalls. To partially
address this problem, ICE last year instituted a hiring freeze,
significantly reduced spending, and took other painful steps to cope
with the shortfall. There were even media reports that some apprehended
illegal aliens were being released because ICE could not afford to
cover the costs associated with holding these individuals.
Congress stepped up to the plate by providing ICE with $193 million
more for the current fiscal year than requested by the President.
However, the hiring freeze and other spending restraints remain in
place halfway through the new fiscal year. We are being warned by the
Department that ICE faces a funding gap of nearly $300 million for the
rest of this year. Has the President found any room in his $81 billion
supplemental spending request to address this gap? No. He is willing to
add to the deficit to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to build
the most expensive U.S. embassy in the world in Baghdad, but he does
not seem to be able to find the funds to hire and support the men and
women fighting the war on terrorism here at home. To them, he suggests
they carpool to work.
Mr. Secretary, you really have your work cut out for you. Our
repeated entreaties to the President and his representatives to provide
the resources to meet these threats fall on deaf ears. I know that you
will do all that you can to get this Administration to put its money
where its rhetoric is. I wish for you success.
With kind regards, I am.
Sincerely yours,
Robert C. Byrd,
U.S. Senator.
Senator Cochran. Thank you, Senator Byrd.
STATUS OF SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES 2 YEARS AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
I am going to ask our witnesses, in view of the fact that
it has been almost exactly 2 years--March 1, 2005, actually
would have been the second anniversary of the establishment of
the Department of Homeland Security--in your estimation from
what you know as administrators of these important agencies at
the Department, are we safer now 2 years later after the
Department of Homeland Security has been created than we were 2
years ago?
Mr. Garcia, would you like to start?
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That is a
question I often hear in many different forms, and everybody
brings I think their own perspective.
Senator Cochran. I am going to ask each one to answer that
before you proceed with your statements. Tell us what you
think?
ICE RESPONSE
Mr. Garcia. I think we are safer, yes, and I bring
perspective I think that is somewhat unique to that answer. I
was a prosecutor in New York in the 1990s. I prosecuted many of
the terrorism cases before 9/11 and I saw terrible exploitation
of our immigration systems and our border security in those
cases. Now, as part of the Homeland Security Department, I am a
piece of the Government's response to those attacks in a
Department that was created to address the vulnerabilities that
were exposed by the 9/11 attacks.
From that vantage point, I can clearly say that we are
safer, and I see evidence of that, Mr. Chairman, every day. I
will speak mostly about the ICE contributions here and how my
agency has responded with creativity, using these new combined
authorities that we have been given in ICE. You look at the
systems and we have created--and I think Senator Leahy and
Senator Byrd may have mentioned--overstays and how there was no
tracking. We have created a Compliance Enforcement Unit that
sends out thousands of prioritized leads to look at deterrent
effect, to look at enforcing our immigration rules and bringing
integrity to the system as a whole.
We work very hard in benefits fraud with Director Aguirre's
folks to close those vulnerabilities that were exploited in the
past. So we are improving the integrity of the system.
Senator Cochran. Let me ask Mr. Bonner for his reaction to
that question before you proceed with your full statement.
CBP RESPONSE
Mr. Bonner. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all,
yes, America is absolutely unquestionably safer now than it was
before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security on
March 1, 2003. Our borders are more secure now than they were
before 2001--excuse me, March 1, 2003. Part of that is that one
of the truly big and important ideas of the Department of
Homeland Security was to create one front-line border agency
for our government that combined at our front line all of
Customs' powers and personnel, Immigration powers and
personnel, agriculture protection, and most importantly anti-
terrorism as a focus and a priority mission.
So as a result of that one step alone, unifying our border
agencies, whereas before March 1, 2003, they had literally been
fragmented at our borders, at our ports of entry, among four
different agencies of government reporting to three different
Departments, it is now one front-line border agency, that is
Customs and Border Protection, within the Department of
Homeland Security, with a priority mission which is nothing
less than keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of our
country.
So are we totally safe? No, but we are safer and more
secure because our borders are more secure.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Aguirre.
USCIS RESPONSE
Mr. Aguirre. Mr. Chairman, as the Director of the agency
that is responsible for administering immigration services, I
say unquestionably we are safer from the vantage point in which
I sit. We process 6 to 7 million applications a year and we
have implemented some national security components and fraud
deterrent components that were simply not there 2 or 3 years
ago. Therefore I think we have tightened the filter, if you
will, to determine those who may do us harm or who wish to take
advantage of our good nature. I think we are much better off.
There is no finish line to this effort, but I think we are
far, far beyond where we were a couple years ago.
Senator Cochran. Thank you very much.
Now you may proceed with your opening statements. Mr.
Garcia?
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL GARCIA
Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd, Senator Leahy, it
is my pleasure to be with you today to discuss the President's
fiscal year 2006 budget request for U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the largest investigative arm of
the Department of Homeland Security. The $4.36 billion request
underscores the vital role that ICE plays in the Department's
mission of ensuring the security of the American people.
In order to provide a better understanding of the
President's 2006 budget request for ICE, I would like to first
provide you with the context in which the request is made.
Specifically, I would like to share with you a few highlights
of significant ICE achievements as well as some of the
challenges we have faced.
SIGNIFICANT ICE ACHIEVEMENTS
ICE removed a record number, 160,000, illegal aliens from
the United States in 2004. More than half of those were
criminal aliens. We also arrested a record number of fugitive
aliens. In fact, that was an increase of more than 100 percent.
ICE conducted 7,600 money-laundering and other financial
investigations. ICE agents conducted more than 2,500
investigations into illegal exports that would have sent
sensitive technology and weapons components to Iran, Iraq,
China, and other nations. ICE arrested more than 5,000 sexual
predators since Operation Predator was launched and have
removed almost half of them from the United States. ICE agents
also made the first 11 arrests for child sex tourism, targeting
U.S. citizens who attempt to exploit children overseas.
ICE arrested more than 1,600 human smugglers and ICE's
Federal Protective Service officers made more than 4,000
arrests, a nearly 60 percent increase over the previous year.
ICE Federal Air Marshals logged millions of miles on tens of
thousands of flights and Air Marshals have completed advanced
training, an important benchmark to ensure professionalism and
peak performance.
Senator Leahy mentioned the Law Enforcement Support Center
in Vermont. That Center received more than 600,000 inquiries
from Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials last
fiscal year, a 12 percent increase over the year before. 15,000
detainers with police agencies nationwide on aliens were lodged
from Vermont alone.
I could continue with many, many additional examples of
achievements that ICE's employees have made. I would like to
note that ICE's accomplishments over the last 2 years, which I
believe are unprecedented in law enforcement, were brought
about despite significant challenges. In addition to the
challenges faced in creating a new law enforcement agency, ICE
has faced severe budget issues related to resource allocations.
During the organization of the new Department, the budgets for
component agencies, including those for overhead, information
technology support, legal support, and other administrative
functions, were broken apart in ways that were not entirely
consistent. As a result, in some cases ICE was paying for
services when the funds for those services had been allocated
to other agencies.
BUDGET ISSUES
When we realized the budget issues that would arise from
these allocation errors, we took swift action. ICE placed a
freeze on new hires. We limited expenditures to those deemed
mission essential and we moved to set clear priorities for
funding. We also worked with the Department to undertake a
budget review to determine what money was appropriately due to
ICE in return for shared services.
These measures got results. Diligent and conscientious
efforts on the part of our employees and field management
helped us to realize tens of millions of dollars in short-term
savings during fiscal year 2004. In addition, ICE identified
and recouped more than $500 million from other agencies in the
second half of 2004. ICE also bought services from other DHS
components as part of the shared services concept, such as
human resources, logistics, and fleet management.
We are also in the process of systematically improving
financial management throughout the entire agency. Some changes
have been implemented and we expect to implement additional
improvement in the coming months. These steps have been further
outlined in a letter recently submitted to this committee.
COMMUNICATION WITH ICE EMPLOYEES
While this has been a challenging time for ICE, we have
made every effort to communicate the facts to our employees at
every opportunity through such measures as town hall meetings,
broadcast messages to all employees, and visits by myself and
other senior members of the agency's leadership to all of our
field offices.
Over the past 2 years, ICE employees have refused to be
defined by our challenges, but rather we have been defined by
our achievements, which represent the true story of our agency.
Our accomplishments represent the abiding commitment of all ICE
employees to meeting these challenges head-on and accomplishing
the critical mission with which we are charged.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 BUDGET REQUEST
The proposed 2006 budget builds on the foundation of our
accomplishments while addressing many of the challenges
outlined above. The President's 2006 budget request seeks more
than $4.36 billion for ICE, which represents an increase of
more than 13 percent over fiscal year 2005. I would like to
briefly address these enhancements.
DETENTION AND REMOVAL
The President's 2006 budget proposal request seeks $176
million in enhancements for Detention and Removal operations.
These enhancements will be used to fund detention bed space and
management, Alternatives to Detention, Fugitive Operations, the
Institutional Removal Program and interior repatriation. This
funding will help ICE to continue to build on the vigorous
enforcement efforts we have developed in the last 2 years.
INVESTIGATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE
The President's budget also seeks $171 million in
enhancements for ICE investigations and intelligence.
Specifically, the budget will replace funding for Organized
Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force activities. This enhancement
requests no additional positions or money, but proposes that
346 positions currently on board be paid by direct
appropriation instead of reimbursement from DOJ. In addition to
a base increase, the enhancement allows for maintenance of Visa
Security operations initiated in 2005 and support for one
additional Visa Security Unit overseas. It funds 143 positions
and training to successfully implement a worksite enforcement
component for the proposed temporary worker program.
FEDERAL AIR MARSHALS SERVICE
We are also seeking enhancements to increase staffing for
the Federal Air Marshal Service, funding for additional
attorneys required to improve the ability of ICE's legal
program to complete matters in Immigration Court, and money for
Department-wide secure classified and computer to computer
connectivity.
OVERVIEW OF ICE FISCAL YEAR 2006 BUDGET REQUEST
The President's 2006 budget request for ICE is a solid step
forward for this agency and ICE is dedicated to protecting the
homeland by enforcing immigration and customs laws, restoring
integrity to the immigration system, as we discussed before,
and ensuring the sanctity of our financial and trade systems.
We protect Federal property and we ensure the security in our
civil aviation.
That is a broad and diverse mission, but the men and women
of ICE are dedicated to building this agency into a model for
law enforcement in the 21st century. The 2006 budget request
provides us with the resources that will make this goal a
reality as we strive to secure the American homeland and
protect the American people.
PREPARED STATEMENT
I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd,
Senator Leahy, for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael J. Garcia
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd, and distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee. It is my pleasure to be with you today to discuss the
President's fiscal year 2006 budget request for U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative arm of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This $4.36 billion request
underscores the vital role that ICE plays in the Department's mission
of ensuring the security of the American people.
By integrating these various components in a single agency, ICE is
able to more effectively meet the threats of the post-9/11 world,
wherever these threats may arise--across our borders, within the
Nation's interior, in our financial systems, at Federal facilities
nationwide, in cyberspace, or civil aviation.
With ICE's broad authorities and expertise, we are prepared to
counter the threats posed by criminal and terrorist organizations in
ways not possible before the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security.
REVIEW OF ICE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In order to provide a better understanding of the President's
fiscal year 2006 budget request for ICE, I would first like to provide
you with the context in which the request is made. Specifically, I
would like to share with you a few highlights of significant ICE
achievements as well as some of the challenges we have faced.
--Prioritizing Removals of Criminal and Fugitive Aliens.--As part of
our mission to restore integrity to the Nation's immigration
system, the Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO)
removed a record number of illegal aliens from the United
States, posting approximately 160,200 such removals. More than
half of those were criminal aliens. 7,200 fugitive aliens were
removed last fiscal year--an increase of 112 percent over the
previous year.
--Protecting U.S. Financial and Trade Systems.--The ICE Office of
Investigations conducted 7,670 money laundering and other
financial investigations in fiscal year 2004, resulting in more
than 1,368 arrests, 895 indictments and the seizure of more
than $202 million. These achievements stem from ICE's
Cornerstone initiative, in which we direct our expertise in
financial, trade, and intellectual property investigations
toward shutting down the schemes that criminal or terrorist
organizations use to earn, move, and store their assets.
--Checking Illegal Flows of Weapons and Sensitive Technology.--ICE
agents conducted more than 2,500 investigations into the
illegal export of U.S. arms and technology in fiscal year 2004.
These investigations protect national security by keeping
sensitive technologies and weapons--whether it's missile
components or night vision technology, laser scopes for
military rifles or sensitive software--out of the hands of our
Nation's adversary. In the last year, ICE investigated export
violations that would have sent sensitive technology and
weapons components to Iran, Iraq, China, and other nations.
These investigations not only contribute to the security of the
United States, but they serve to enhance the security of our
troops and allies around the globe as well.
--Protecting Children from Sexual Exploitation.--Under Operation
Predator, ICE arrested more than 4,900 sexual predators since
the program was launched in 2003. We have ensured that 2,100 of
those predators were removed from the United States. ICE agents
also made the first 11 arrests for child sex tourism, targeting
U.S. citizens who attempt to exploit children overseas under
the PROTECT Act. Leads developed out of ICE investigations into
online child pornography have been provided to foreign law
enforcement authorities through ICE's 54 International Attache
offices. These leads have led to the arrest of approximately
850 child pornography subscribers overseas. ICE Attaches also
provided expertise and support to their law enforcement
counterparts in areas ravaged by the tsunami waves in southeast
Asia in December, to ensure that children were not victimized
by sexual predators or trafficking networks.
--Targeting Human Smuggling and Trafficking.--Another of ICE's top
priorities is to dismantle criminal organizations that smuggle
and traffic human beings for profit. In fiscal year 2004, ICE
arrested more than 1,630 human smugglers. Operation ICE Storm,
an initiative we launched in 2003 to target violent human
smuggling networks in Arizona, has brought charges against more
than 300 defendants and resulted in the seizure of more than $7
million. This unprecedented seizure of alien smuggling proceeds
is a direct result of the combination of our immigration and
customs authorities (particularly customs financial crimes
expertise). Law enforcement authorities in Arizona have
credited Operation ICE Storm with a dramatic decrease in
homicides and other violent crime in the Phoenix metropolitan
area.
--Improving Security at Federal Facilities.--ICE's Federal Protective
Service (FPS) made 4,426 arrests in fiscal year 2004--a 58
percent increase over the previous fiscal year. In addition,
FPS officers prevented nearly 550,000 prohibited items and
weapons from being carried into Federal facilities--a fourfold
increase over the previous year. FPS officers also responded to
430 bomb threats and more than 875 calls about suspicious
packages and other items. All of these achievements are key
components of the FPS mission to provide a safe and secure
environment for Federal workers and the American public.
--Enhancing Security in the Skies.--ICE's Federal Air Marshal Service
(FAMS) once again logged millions of miles on tens of thousands
of flights in fiscal year 2004, as part of the division's
enhanced mission of providing security in the air since 9/11.
All FAMS recruited and deployed since 9/11 have successfully
completed advanced training--an important benchmark to ensure
professionalism and peak performance.
--Stopping the Flow of Drugs into the United States.--ICE plays a
leading role in the Nation's war on drugs, with significant
results. In fiscal year 2004, ICE agents, working in
cooperation with our partners at other agencies, were involved
in the seizure of roughly 3.1 million pounds of illegal drugs
in fiscal year 2004--a 63 percent increase over the previous
year. Another key achievement stemming from an ICE
investigation was the extradition of one of the leaders of Cali
drug cartel from Colombia, as well as the arrest of several
leaders of the Norte Valle cartel.
--Providing Support and Assistance to the Law Enforcement
Community.--ICE's Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC)
responded to more than 603,000 inquiries related to immigration
status from Federal, State, and local authorities in fiscal
year 2004--a 12 percent increase over the previous year. In
addition, the LESC placed more than 15,000 immigration
detainers with police agencies nationwide. These detainers
allow ICE to more efficiently remove aliens from the United
States once their jail term is expired.
CHALLENGES
I could continue with many, many additional examples. I would like
to note that ICE's accomplishments of the last 2 years--which I believe
are unprecedented in law enforcement--have taken place against a
backdrop of significant challenges.
First, we have faced the organizational and logistical challenges
inherent in bringing our various divisions together into an integrated
whole within the Department of Homeland Security. The challenges of the
DHS reorganization have been likened to ``trying to change the engine
in an airplane in mid-flight.'' We have certainly experienced those
challenges at ICE, where we have had to build a new agency almost from
the ground up--bringing together divisions from four separate agencies
into a single functioning unit, and melding the cultures and missions
of various units into a unified whole. This process was analogous to
that of building a new start-up company while performing a large-scale
merger and acquisition--with the notable difference that we had but a
few weeks to accomplish our merger, compared to the months, or years,
that would be devoted to a merger in the private sector. While the
reorganization is still ongoing, I am pleased to report that the
majority of these organizational and logistical challenges have been
met and addressed, thanks to the commitment, and perseverance of ICE
employees.
Another significant challenge that ICE has faced has been budget
issues related to resource allocations. During the reorganization of
the new department, the budgets for component agencies--including those
for overhead, information technology support, legal support, and other
administrative functions--were broken apart in ways that were not
entirely consistent. As a result, in some cases ICE was paying for
services when the funds for those services had been allocated to other
agencies. When we realized the budget issues that would arise from
these allocation errors, we took swift action. ICE placed a temporary
freeze on new hires; we limited expenditures to those deemed ``mission
essential''; and we moved to set clear priorities for funding. We also
worked with DHS to undertake a budget review to determine what money
was appropriately due to ICE in return for shared services.
These measures got results. Diligent and conscientious efforts on
the part of our employees and field management helped us to realize
$120 million in short-term savings during fiscal year 2004. In
addition, ICE identified and recouped more than $500 million from other
agencies in the second half of fiscal year 2004. ICE also bought
services from other DHS components as part of the shared services
concept such as HR, logistics and fleet management.
We are also in the process of systematically improving financial
management throughout the entire agency. Some changes have been
implemented, and we expect to implement additional improvements in the
coming months. We will update the Congress periodically with details on
our reforms in reports requested by the Committees.
While this has been a challenging time for ICE, we have made every
effort to communicate the facts to our employees at every opportunity--
through such measures as town hall meetings; broadcast messages to all
employees; and visits by myself and other members of the agency's
senior leadership to all of our field offices.
Over the past 2 years ICE employees have refused to be defined by
our challenges, but rather by our achievements, which represent the
true story of our agency. Our accomplishments represent the abiding
commitment of all ICE employees to meeting these challenges head-on and
accomplishing the critical mission with which we are charged.
BUDGET REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
The proposed fiscal year 2006 budget builds on the foundation of
our accomplishments while addressing many of the challenges outlined
above. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget request seeks more than
$4.36 billion for ICE, which represents an increase of 13.5 percent
over fiscal year 2005. This budget request will allow ICE to pursue our
priority missions--including the apprehension, detention, and removal
of illegal aliens; financial and trade investigations; protection of
Federal infrastructure; and protection of the civil aviation system--
with even greater effectiveness. In my testimony, I will address our
major program areas--Investigations, Detention and Removal Operations,
the Federal Air Marshal Service, and the Federal Protective Service--as
well as issues related to management, administration, and information
technology.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 ENHANCEMENTS
The President's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal request for ICE
Detention and Removal Operations will enhance public safety and
national security by ensuring that those aliens who pose the most
critical threats are removed from the United States first--a critical
objective in ICE's long-term strategy to restore integrity to the
Nation's immigration system. In addition, this funding will help ICE to
meet its detention needs, which are growing every year as we move to
aggressively enforce immigration laws. This funding will help ICE to
continue building on the vigorous enforcement efforts we have developed
in the last 2 years.
Detention and Removal Operations.--The DHS Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) fiscal year 2006 President's budget seeks $176.0
million in enhancements for Detention and Removal Operations:
--$90 million/16 Full-Time Employees (FTEs) for Custody Management/
Bedspace. In many cases, apprehended aliens must be detained
while they go through immigration proceedings and until they
are removed. Custody Management provides safe, secure, and
humane confinement for these aliens. It also ensures that
aliens in ICE custody appear for their immigration hearings,
and then for their subsequent removal. This request would
provide $90 million to fund requirements of the Custody
Management budget activity, adding 16 FTE and increasing funded
bedspace by 1,920 beds. This enhancement will improve detention
efforts that ensure public safety and national security.
--$5.4 million/7 FTEs for the Alternatives to Detention program. The
Alternatives to Detention program places low-risk aliens under
close supervision, rather than into traditional detention,
serving as a cost-effective way to ensure their appearance for
an immigration hearing or for removal. ICE's Intensive
Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) is a community-based case
management program that is aimed at improving the appearance
rate of aliens at immigration hearings. This request includes
$5.4 million/7 FTE to expand the ISAP to two additional
locations.
--$8.9 million for Fugitive Operations. Approximately 465,000 aliens
have received final orders of removal but are not confirmed to
have departed the United States. This request includes $8.9
million to enhance case management resources that enable the
Fugitive Operations program to locate and apprehend fugitive
aliens in the United States. This investment will serve to
improve the integrity of the immigration enforcement process
that is instrumental in deterring the efforts of potential
absconders.
--$5.4 million/19 FTEs for the Institutional Removal Program (IRP).
Many removable aliens are currently incarcerated in Federal or
State prisons for criminal convictions. If these aliens are
released upon completion of their criminal sentence, they are
likely to avoid immigration removal proceedings. The IRP
ensures that these aliens are not released back into the
community before they are removed from the United States. The
$5.4 million requested would provide for Immigration
Enforcement Agents to enhance the IRP with staff support needed
to facilitate the removal of aliens following completion of
criminal sentences.
--$39.3 million for Interior Repatriation, as part of the Arizona
Border Control multi-agency effort. One of the major components
of enhanced border control is a focus on border safety through
the removal of migrants from the dangers associated with
crossing the border illegally. The United States, in
cooperation with the government of Mexico, has focused on the
use of every available tool to break the cycle of migrant
deaths in the dangerous terrain where human smugglers value
profits more than the human life they often sacrifice for
personal gain. One of the major tools agreed to by both
countries is the use of a voluntary interior repatriation
program. The interior repatriation program allows for movement
at the U.S. border of Mexican nationals who voluntarily return
to selected cities within the interior of Mexico by means of
commercial flights. Without this program, a significant number
of persons who are apprehended and returned to Mexico at the
border seek re-entry through dangerous border terrains, thus
repeatedly risking injury or death in the process.
--$24.0 million for the Office of Detention and Removal. This request
provides that the base budget for Detention Removal Operations
be adjusted by $24 million for salary costs and operating
expenses. These funds will augment support for increased
detention and removal activities to ensure the departure of
removable aliens from the United States through the fair
enforcement of immigration laws.
ICE's Office of Investigations and Office of Intelligence play a
vital role in advancing national security and homeland defense through
aggressive investigations and cooperation with other agencies to share
information on organized criminal activity and terrorist organizations.
ICE's investigators have a long history of targeting money laundering
networks; narcotics trafficking; criminal financial schemes;
counterfeiting and piracy; trade fraud; export violations; and other
financial and economic crimes. In addition, our investigators lead the
way in targeting child sexual predators, human traffickers, and child
labor violators. Our investigators are also at the forefront of
combating immigration violations, including enforcement of immigration
laws at worksites and shutting down organizations that provide
fraudulent documentation for a price.
Investigations and Intelligence.--The ICE fiscal year 2006
President's budget seeks $171.7 million in enhancements for
Investigations and Intelligence:
--$43.7 million/346 FTEs for Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task
Force (OCDETF) activities. This increase replaces funding
previously received on a reimbursable basis from the Department
of Justice (DOJ) for ICE's participation in the OCDETF program.
OCDETF is a Federal drug enforcement program that focuses on
the disruption and dismantling of major drug trafficking
organizations. OCDETF has been in existence since 1982 and
operates under the guidance and oversight of the Attorney
General. Employing the resources and expertise of 11 member
Federal agencies, along with support from State and local law
enforcement agencies, OCDETF has contributed to the successful
prosecution and conviction of more than 44,000 members of
criminal organizations and resulted in the seizure of cash and
property assets totaling more than $3.0 billion. This
enhancement requests no additional FTEs but proposes that 346
positions currently on board be paid by direct appropriation
instead of by reimbursable funding.
--$5.0 million/5 FTEs for Visa Security Program Expansion. The ICE
Visa Security Program provides follow-up investigations on visa
applicants seeking to enter the United States, for the purpose
of denying visas to terrorists, criminals, and persons of
special interest. Officers are assigned to posts to perform
this law enforcement review of immigrant and nonimmigrant visa
applications prior to visa issuance by consular officers of the
Department of State. This enhancement would allow ICE to
maintain operations initiated in fiscal year 2005 and support
one additional Visa Security Unit overseas.
--$18.0 million/72 FTEs for Temporary Worker Worksite Enforcement. As
part of the President's proposed temporary worker program (TWP)
to match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers,
enforcement of immigration laws to ensure compliance is
required. The requested resources would fund 143 positions and
the required training to conduct employer audits, investigate
possible violations, and prepare criminal employer case
presentations. This funding more than doubles the resources
dedicated to the worksite enforcement effort.
--$105.0 million for the Office of Investigations. This request
includes $105 million for salary and support costs, including
vehicle and other equipment purchases.
--$3.5 million/24 FTEs for Legal Proceedings. This enhancement would
provide funding for additional attorneys and support staff
required to improve the ability of ICE's legal program to
complete matters in Immigration Court and help reduce the case
backlog.
--$11.3 million/1 FTE for the Homeland Secure Data Network (HSDN). A
total of $37 million is required for the HSDN to provide for
secure classified, computer-to-computer connectivity. The HSDN
is expected to streamline and modernize the classified data
capabilities of DHS to facilitate high-quality and high-value
classified data communication and collaboration within DHS and
with other Federal agencies and organizations, including the
Department of Defense (DOD). Based on modern network and
telecommunications designs, the HSDN will optimize both the
classified data exchanges between DHS offices, and other
networks of classified data such as the Anti-Drug Network
(ADNET), Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN), and Defense
Message System (DMS). The HSDN will provide a scalable
infrastructure, capable of supporting the growth and evolution
of the DHS mission. ICE's allotted portion in support of the
network is $11.3 million. Enhancement request includes one
position to serve as a liaison between ICE and DHS.
The Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) has been charged with
providing security in the skies since 9/11. The President's budget
request will help FAMS to continue in that mission as we continue the
evolutionary process of integrating this key Homeland Security division
into the agency.
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS).--The ICE fiscal year 2006
President's budget seeks $14.8 million in The Federal Air Marshal
Service (FAMS) has been charged with providing security in the skies
since 9/11. The President's budget request will help FAMS to continue
in that mission as we continue the evolutionary process of integrating
this key Homeland Security division into the agency.
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS).--The ICE fiscal year 2006
President's budget seeks $9.9 million in enhancements for the Federal
Air Marshal Service (FAMS). This enhancement request would allow the
FAMS to increase its staffing level to a level that will allow it to
meet its mission objective through the risk-based deployment of Federal
Air Marshals. In accomplishing this objective, FAMS works closely with
DHS and other Federal, State and local agencies and private industry to
develop, deploy and sustain a comprehensive intelligence-driven
approach and response to terrorist and related criminal threats against
the United States and its interests. FAMS provides critical support to
the DHS mission to prevent terrorist acts within the United States,
reduce vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize damage from potential
attacks.
CONCLUSION
The President's fiscal year 2006 budget request for ICE is a solid
step forward for the agency. ICE is dedicated to protecting the
homeland by enforcing immigration and customs laws; restoring integrity
to the immigration system; ensuring the sanctity of our financial and
trade systems; protecting Federal property; and ensuring security in
the air. That is a broad and diverse mission, but the men and women of
ICE are dedicated to building this agency into a model for law
enforcement in the 21st century. The fiscal year 2006 budget request
provides us with the resources that will make this goal a reality as we
strive to secure the American homeland and protect the American people.
We look forward to continuing to work with you to accomplish these
worthy objectives.
I would like to thank you, Chairman Cochran, Senator Byrd, and
Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to testify before you
today. I look forward to answering any questions that you may have.
Senator Cochran. Thank you very much, Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Bonner, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. BONNER
Mr. Bonner. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd,
Senator Leahy. I am very pleased to be here this morning to
discuss the fiscal year 2006 budget request for U.S. Customs
and Border Patrol, or CBP. I am also very pleased to be here
with my colleagues from the Department of Homeland Security,
both Director Aguirre of CIS and Mike Garcia, the Assistant
Secretary for ICE.
I particularly want to thank the members of this
subcommittee for your strong support of the work that CBP does
every day 24-7 to protect and defend the borders of our
country. As you know, CBP's priority mission is homeland
security and for a front-line border agency, which is what we
are, that means that CBP's priority mission is keeping
terrorists and terrorist weapons from getting into the United
States.
The budget request for 2006 in my view will provide
resources to perform our all-important priority mission, our
anti-terrorism mission, as well as our traditional missions,
which go from everything from interdicting illegal drugs at our
border to determining admissibility of people appearing at our
ports of entry to apprehending people illegally entering the
United States, protecting American agriculture, regulating
trade, as well as collecting about $27 billion in duties and
fees.
FISCAL YEAR 2004 WORKLOAD STATISTICS
The magnitude of our border task is reflected by just a few
statistics from fiscal year 2006, because in fiscal year 2004
CBP through its Border Patrol agents apprehended over 1.1
million people illegally entering our country or attempting to
enter our country, 1.1 million. By the way, you want to
translate that? It is about 3,000 each and every day of the
year, day and night.
CBP officers at our ports of entry and Border Patrol agents
collectively seized slightly over 2 million pounds, nearly 1
million kilograms, of illegal drugs attempting to be entered
through our ports of entry. That is 56,000, by the way,
separate seizures of illegal drugs at our borders last year.
We seized almost $46 million in cash and currency that was
leaving the United States, much of that of course is from the
proceeds of illegal drug trafficking. We just seized about $1.7
million in cash in a vehicle a couple of days ago that was
going outbound in a vehicle through the Port of Laredo back to
Mexico.
There were 450,000 aliens that were turned around at our
ports of entry. By that I mean they were not allowed to enter
the United States because they were determined to be
inadmissible. There were 78,000 fraudulent passports and other
documents that were seized and intercepted by CBP at our
borders.
ONE FACE AT THE BORDER
So it gives you an idea of the magnitude of the task, but
it also tells you what we are doing and that the job is getting
done. We have unified our work force to create one unified
front-line border agency for managing and securing and
controlling the borders of our country. We have developed a
comprehensive border strategy at our ports of entry for our CBP
officers and Agriculture specialists and between our ports of
entry, primarily our land borders with Mexico and Canada, with
our CBP Border Patrol agents.
The transfer of the air and marine operations to CBP last
November I believe further strengthens our effort to secure our
borders, to interdict drugs at and beyond our borders, and to
support our homeland security mission.
TRADE/TRAVEL FACILITATION
We have moved forward on important initiatives set in
motion after 9/11 to secure the movement of goods and people
across our border and our ports of entry without unduly
impeding the legitimate flow of trade, the flow of legitimate
trade and travel that is so important to our economy.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION DETECTION TECHNOLOGY
We are also deploying more technology at our ports of entry
and between them to help detect potential terrorists and
terrorist weapons, including potentially weapons of mass
destruction, and I am talking about nuclear devices and
radiological weapons, at our borders. This includes, by the
way, already the over 400 radiation portal monitors at many of
our major ports of entry. We are in phases three and four of
that project to deploy better radiation detection equipment at
our borders.
As I said, Mr. Chairman, because the personnel and
functions from the front-line border agencies of our you have
been unified into one border agency, our Nation's borders are
more secure and our Nation is safer than it was when we were
literally fragmented between four agencies and three different
departments of government that were responsible for our border.
With over 41,000 approximately FTE Customs and Border
Protection, about one-fourth of all the employees of the
Department of Homeland Security, is by far the largest actual
merger of people and functions taking place in the Department.
COMPREHENSIVE BORDER CONTROL STRATEGY
Having one border agency also allows us for the first time
in the history of our country to implement a comprehensive
border strategy, not just at our ports of entry but between our
ports of entry as well. Between our ports of entry--along the
Mexican border and the Canadian border--the strategic goal is
clear. That goal is to establish operational control of our
borders, which by the way I think was always an important goal
for our country, but is absolutely essential, as Senator Byrd
suggested in his comments. It is absolutely essential in the
post-9/11 era, in the era of global terrorism.
Now, to do this, by the way, it is not all about staffing.
It is also about the better use and deployment of technology.
It is about organizing ourselves better in terms of how we
protect and secure our border. To do this, we have done a
number of things that are not widely known. One is we have
centralized the Border Patrol command structure and increased
the use and deployment of technology, including remote camera
system and sensoring devices. We are pioneering as the first
law enforcement agency ever the use of unmanned aerial
vehicles, or UAV's, to establish literally an aerial patrol
over significant segments of our borders.
But we recognize that technology alone, by the way, is not
a substitute for well trained and dedicated Border Patrol
Agents. One of our goals of our strategy to control the border
is to increase our ability to more rapidly deploy Border Patrol
Agents to respond to weak spots along our borders with Mexico
and Canada.
CARGO/SUPPLY CHAIN SECURITY
Let me just say one other thing. Just shortly after 9/11,
U.S. Customs, now CBP, developed a strategy for securing the
movement of cargo to the United States and we did that through
essentially four interrelated initiatives: the 24-hour rule to
get advance information on all cargo coming into the United
States; the use of an automated targeting system to identify
the high-risk cargo, particularly for the terrorist threat, and
that is done at our National Targeting Center in Northern
Virginia; the container security initiative, an initiative that
partners with other governments to screen high-risk containers
before they are loaded on board vessels for the United States.
Currently there are 35 foreign seaports that are partnered with
us in CIS, including ports like Singapore and Rotterdam, and
most recently Shanghai, China.
Through the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-
TPAT), our partnership with the private sector, many major
importers in the United States, oceangoing carriers and others,
to improve the security of the supply chain literally back to
the manufacturer, the foreign loading docks of manufacturers in
foreign countries, all the way to U.S. ports of arrival, in
exchange for benefits of faster processing that CBP can give to
goods of companies that have better secured their supply chain.
Those initiatives provide greater protection for our
country against potential terrorist attack and not a one of
those initiatives existed before 9/11.
PREPARED STATEMENT
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me make an opening
statement and for this opportunity to appear, and I look
forward to answering any questions you or the other members may
have.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert C. Bonner
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Chairman Cochran, Ranking Member Byrd, Members of the Subcommittee,
it is a privilege and an honor to appear before you today to discuss
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) fiscal year 2006 budget
request.
I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to the Committee for the
support it provided for important initiatives implemented by CBP last
year. That support enabled CBP to make significant progress in securing
our borders and protecting our country against the terrorist threat. As
the Commissioner of CBP, I look forward to working with you to build on
these successes.
As the frontline border agency, CBP's mission is to prevent
terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States. That
extraordinarily important priority mission means improving security at
our physical borders and ports of entry, but it also means extending
our zone of security beyond our physical borders--so that American
borders are not our first line of defense.
And we must do this while continuing to perform our traditional
missions well. These missions include apprehending individuals
attempting to enter the United States illegally, stemming the flow of
illegal drugs and other contraband, protecting our agricultural and
economic interests from harmful pests and diseases, protecting American
businesses from theft of their intellectual property, regulating and
facilitating international trade, collecting import duties, and
enforcing U.S. trade laws. In fiscal year 2004, CBP processed almost 30
million trade entries, collected $27 billion in revenue, seized 2.2
million pounds of narcotics, processed 428 million pedestrians and
passengers, 121 million privately owned vehicles, and processed and
cleared 23.5 million sea, rail and truck containers.
We must perform all of this important security and border-related
work without stifling the flow of legitimate trade and travel that is
so important to our Nation's economy. In other words, we have ``twin
goals:'' Building more secure and more efficient borders.
The fiscal year 2006 budget for CBP totals $6.7 billion, including
$5.6 billion in appropriated resources and $1.1 billion from user fees.
The total program increase request for fiscal year 2006 is $261
million. This increase is paramount to help CBP fulfill its priority
mission of preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering
the United States. As Commissioner, I will continue to ensure funds are
devoted to support the traditional missions for which CBP is
responsible, including resources for the automation and information
technology programs that will improve overall operations of the agency.
Mr. Chairman, although I will touch on each of the priority
programs and initiatives in my statement, I want to point out that in
many cases, funds spent in one area have a direct and positive impact
on other areas. For example, funds spent on automation and information
technology provide invaluable assistance to our priority mission of
preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United
States. Also, funds spent on our priority anti-terrorism mission often
result in improvements in our effectiveness and efficiency in carrying
out our traditional missions, such as interdicting narcotics.
By way of summary of the fiscal year 2006 budget for CBP, I can
tell you that the program increases we are requesting include:
--$125 million to continue the deployment and enhancement of Weapons
of Mass Destruction Detection Technology to our Nation's ports
of entry (POE);
--$19.8 million for the continued deployment of surveillance and
intrusion detection technology along our Nation's land borders
through the America's Shield Initiative;
--$36.9 million to hire 210 new Border Patrol Agents thereby
increasing border security and enhancing control of the borders
between the ports of entry;
--$20 million to replace 12 of the Border Patrol's 58 Vietnam-era
vintage helicopters ensuring that Agents on the ground have
adequate and reliable air support;
--$5.4 million to enhance and improve the efficiency our cargo,
conveyance and passenger screening systems ensuring that
legitimate trade and travel crosses our borders without delay
and that terrorists and their weapons, criminals or contraband
are intercepted before entering the United States;
--$2.0 million for expansion of the Immigration Advisory Program to
additional overseas locations ensuring that terrorists,
criminals or persons traveling with fraudulent documents do not
board aircraft bound for the United States;
--$5.4 million to expand the Container Security Initiative to
strategically important foreign seaports;
--$8.2 million for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism to
increase supply chain security and expedite the clearance of
legitimate trade;
--$1.0 million for the operating expenses associated with the Arizona
Border Control Initiative;
--$3.0 million for the operation of the Automated Biometric
Identification System (IDENT)/Integrated Automated Fingerprint
System (IAFIS) so that CBP Officers and Border Patrol Agents
can positively identify known terrorists and criminals
attempting to enter the United States;
--$31.7 million to operate and maintain the long range radar system
in partnership with the Department of Defense, ensuring that
aircraft are detected and tracked as they attempt to enter U.S.
airspace; and
--$3.2 million to contribute to the development of the DHS-wide
Homeland Security Data Network.
In my statement, I will discuss these programs and others that CBP
has been working on during the past year, and outline the actions CBP
is planning to take in each area. I would like to begin, though, with a
brief update for the Subcommittee on the status of CBP after its second
year of existence as a consolidated agency within DHS.
CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION--THE SECOND YEAR
Fiscal year 2004 was the first full year that CBP operated as the
single, unified border agency for the United States. From a strategic
and operational standpoint, this consolidation has significantly
increased our ability to execute our anti-terrorism and traditional
missions at our Nation's borders more effectively than ever before,
thereby enhancing the security of the United States, its citizens and
the economy. I believe firmly that the United States is safer today
than it was on September 11, 2001, because of the creation of CBP and
the efforts and vigilance of CBP's personnel.
Achieve One Face at the Border
With the creation of CBP, one agency has the responsibility for the
entirety of our country's borders, for all purposes, customs,
immigration, agriculture protection and, importantly, terrorism. This
means that for the first time in our Nation's history, we are able to
design a comprehensive strategy for our borders.
To create ``One Face at the Border,'' CBP had to unify and
integrate its operations and workforce. CBP is the largest merger of
people and functions taking place within the DHS. Nowhere was
unification more critical than at the ports of entry (POEs) where
19,000 legacy Customs, Immigration and Agriculture inspectors joined
together to carry out CBP's priority and traditional missions. To unify
the Inspector workforce at the POEs, CBP established a new frontline
team--the CBP officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist. In March 2004,
former Agriculture Inspectors became CBP Agriculture Specialists and in
July, all former Customs and Immigration Inspectors were converted to
the CBP Officer position with a new series, title and job description.
The two occupational groups wear the same uniform and have been unified
under a single compensation system for overtime and premium pay,
ensuring efficient and equitable assignment of work and compensation.
This consolidation was commemorated in August when the new CBP badges
with the DHS seal were issued to our personnel. Today CBP Officers and
CBP Agriculture Specialists are our frontline team at all of our
Nation's ports of entry and overseas pre-clearance locations.
Secure and Improve the Flow of Global Trade
For the first time ever, on December 9, 2004, the World Customs
Organization (WCO) Policy Committee endorsed a Framework of Standards
to secure and facilitate global trade. The WCO represents 164 Customs
administrations from around the world and accounts for 99 percent of
all global trade. The framework is based in large part on principles
designed and implemented by CBP in the aftermath of September 11,
including: the 24-Hour Rule; the Advanced Targeting System located at
the National Targeting Center; the Container Security Initiative, and
the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). The WCO
framework encourages cooperation among worldwide Customs
administrations to secure international supply chains and facilitate
the movement of legitimate trade and travel.
Develop and Implement a Comprehensive Border Control Strategy
As a sovereign Nation, it has always been important that we control
our borders. In light of the terrorist attacks of September 11, and the
continuing threat posed to our country by international terrorists, it
is now absolutely essential that we do so. and it is likewise essential
that we have a coherent and understood strategy for doing so. We are
developing a new Border Patrol strategy designed to achieve the goal of
operational control of the United States borders. This strategy will
build on the previous Border Patrol strategies, but will be enhanced to
reflect the current threat environment.
CBP's Office of Border Patrol is a vital part of CBP, responsible
for controlling the border between official ports of entry. In the last
2 years, the Border Patrol has made significant strides in improving
our ability to control our border and establish a substantial
probability of apprehending terrorists and their weapons as they
attempt to illegally enter the United States between the ports of
entry. For example, CBP has tripled the number of Border Patrol Agents
on the Northern Border since 9/11, centralized the Border Patrol's
command structure, and deployed additional technology to improve border
enforcement operations, including cameras, electronic sensors, and
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
As important as these milestones are, we cannot afford to become
complacent or let down our guard. To meet the threat of global
terrorism, we must implement a layered, defense in-depth strategy to
protect our borders. New challenges and opportunities are on the
horizon for CBP. Our achievements over the past year and the
President's fiscal year 2006 budget will serve as the foundation to
meet them.
Integrate Air and Marine Operations
The fiscal year 2005 Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Appropriations Act directed the transfer of missions and assets of the
Air Marine Operations (AMO) from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) to CBP. The transfer will be completed in two phases. Phase One,
which was completed on October 31, 2004, moved AMO intact from ICE to
CBP. This included the transfer of operational responsibility and
responsibility for all AMO personnel, missions, commitments,
facilities, and assets to CBP.
Phase Two, which commenced in late November, is the integration of
all CBP air and marine personnel, missions, and assets. To accomplish
this, CBP is using the Transition Management Office (TMO) process that
was used successfully during the merger of the legacy CBP entities. CBP
has made significant progress in Phase Two. I am confident that upon
completion of this process, we will have a more integrated, effective
and efficient aviation and marine program.
Provide Assistance to the New Government of Iraq
In August, teams of CBP Officers and Border Patrol Agents were
deployed to the Jordanian International Police Training Center to train
officers of the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement. The Iraqis have
been provided with courses on border security tactics, human rights,
defensive tactics, weapons training, and vehicle searches; in addition
to basic customs and immigration activities. To date, CBP personnel
have assisted in the training of more than 2,100 Iraqi border control
officers. The training provided by CBP personnel will continue in the
aftermath of the recent elections and focuses on keeping saboteurs,
terrorists and armaments from crossing into or out of Iraq. The Iraqi
officials CBP trained are now putting these skills to use at their
country's borders and ports of entry.
meeting our twin goals: building more secure and more efficient borders
As the single, unified border agency of the United States, CBP's
mission is extraordinarily important to the protection of America and
the American people. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of
September 11th, CBP has developed numerous initiatives to meet our twin
goals of improving security and facilitating the flow of legitimate
trade and travel. The fiscal year 2006 budget will help us expand upon
those initiatives to ensure further protection of both the American
people and the American economy. Our strategy in implementing these
initiatives involves a number of factors, including: (A) constant
improvement of our targeting systems to better screen people and goods
entering and departing the United States; (B) extending our zone of
security outward by partnering with other countries; (C) extending our
zone of security outward by partnering with the private sector; (D)
deploying advanced inspection technology and equipment at our ports of
entry to improve our ability to detect weapons of mass destruction; and
(E) deploying advanced detection and monitoring equipment between our
ports of entry to detect illegal crossings of our land borders with
Mexico and Canada.
Enhancing Our Ability to Identify High-Risk People and Cargo
Information is one of the most important keys to our ability to
increase security without stifling legitimate trade and travel. Good
information enables us to more accurately identify--or target--what is
``high risk,'' defined as a potential threat, and what is low risk or
absolutely no risk whatsoever. The separation of high risk from no risk
is critical because searching and scrutinizing 100 percent of the cargo
and people that enter the United States would cripple the flow of
legitimate trade and travel to the United States. What is necessary and
advisable is searching 100 percent of the high-risk cargo and people
that enter our country. To do this, we need to be able to identify what
is high risk, and do so as early in the process as possible. CBP has
several programs and initiatives that help us accomplish that task.
Automated Targeting System
The Automated Targeting System (ATS), which is used by National
Targeting Center (NTC) and field targeting units in the United States
and overseas, is essential to our ability to target high-risk cargo and
passengers entering the United States. ATS is the system through which
we process advance manifest and passenger information to pick up
anomalies and ``red flags'' and determine what passengers and cargo are
``high risk,'' and therefore scrutinized at the port of entry or, in
some cases, overseas.
The funding increases sought for ATS in the fiscal year 2006 budget
will allow for the continued improvement of the system as well as
provide it with the capacity to process the electronic data related to
the ever-increasing number of people and goods entering the United
States. For example, the funding will allow us to develop and implement
a version of ATS that, for the first time, will be able to identify
potentially high-risk travelers in passenger vehicles. It will also be
used to upgrade our passenger targeting system by improving the amount
of government data that the system can access and analyze as well as
provide us with the capacity to train more people on the use of the
system. On the cargo side, the funding will permit ATS to increase its
capacity and upgrade its capabilities by utilizing cutting edge
information analysis technologies developed by CBP and the private
sector.
Extending our Zone of Security Outward--Partnering with Other Countries
Container Security Initiative (CSI)
To meet our priority mission of preventing terrorists and terrorist
weapons from entering the United States, CBP must extend our zone of
security outward--so that our borders are not the first line of defense
to keep terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the United States. We
have done this by partnering with other countries on our Container
Security Initiative (CSI), one of the most revolutionary and successful
homeland security initiatives developed and implemented after September
11, 2001.
Almost 25,000 seagoing containers arrive and are off loaded at U.S.
seaports each day. That equates to nine million cargo containers
annually. Because of the sheer volume of sea container traffic and the
opportunities it presents for terrorists, containerized shipping is
uniquely vulnerable to terrorist attack. Under CSI, which is the first
program of its kind, we are partnering with foreign governments to
identify and inspect high-risk cargo containers at foreign ports,
before they are shipped to our seaports and pose a threat to the United
States and to global trade.
The three core elements of CSI are:
--First, identifying ``high-risk'' containers, using ATS and the 24-
hour rule, before they set sail for the United States.
--Second, performing security inspections of ``high risk'' containers
at the foreign CSI port before they are shipped to the United
States.
--Third, using technology to perform security inspections of the
high-risk containers, including both radiation detection
equipment and large-scale imaging machines, to detect potential
terrorist weapons.
CSI continues to generate exceptional participation and support.
Right now, CSI is operational in 35 foreign seaports, including:
Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Le Havre and Marseilles, France;
Bremerhaven and Hamburg, Germany; Antwerp and Zebrugee, Belgium;
Singapore; Yokohama, Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe Japan; Hong Kong;
Gothenburg, Sweden; Felixstowe, Liverpool, Southampton, Thamesport, and
Tilbury United Kingdom; Genoa, La Spezia, Naples, Gioia Tauro and
Livorno Italy; Busan, Korea; Durban, South Africa; and Port Kelang and
Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia; Piraeus, Greece; Algericas, Spain; and Laem
Chabang, Thailand; Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver, Canada; and most
recently Shanghai, China.
I want to express my gratitude to the Committee members for their
support of CSI in fiscal year 2005. With the $5.4 million increase in
funding requested for fiscal year 2006, we will continue expanding CSI
capabilities to ports with strategic importance or ports through which
containers from high risk areas are transshipped. The fiscal year 2006
budget will allow for future expansion of the program to additional
high-risk or strategic foreign ports.
Immigration Advisory Program
The Immigration Advisory Program (IAP) extends our zone of security
outward by screening passengers before boarding aircraft destined for
the United States. Immigration Advisory Program teams identify high
risk and terrorist watchlisted passengers using the Automated Targeting
System and are able to intervene by questioning high risk passengers at
overseas boarding areas of foreign hub airports. They are able to check
documentation of high-risk passengers prior to departure and make
preliminary decisions whether the passenger will be admissible to the
United States upon arrival. If potentially fraudulent identification or
immigration documents are identified, or the individual's purpose poses
a threat, the airline is advised not to board the passenger and the
host country law enforcement is contacted. The IAP teams have access to
the passenger screening information produced by CBP's NTC through the
vetting of passenger manifests against terrorist watch lists and
criminal databases. If a ``hit'' occurs or documents are found to be
deficient or fraudulent, the passenger is not allowed to board the
aircraft. There are two significant advantages to this approach. First,
terrorists, criminals or inadmissible aliens are not allowed to board,
thereby preventing their entry into the United States and/or the
inconvenience and expense of an in flight diversion of the aircraft.
Second, the United States Government avoids penalties and the costs of
detaining the individual before being deported and the airline avoids
the costs of transporting the individual back to the originating
airport.
IAP is currently operating on a pilot basis in Amsterdam's Schipol
Airport in the Netherlands and at Chopin Airport in Warsaw, Poland. The
fiscal year 2006 budget includes $2.0 million to expand IAP to two
additional overseas locations. I thank the Committee for their support
of this program in the fiscal year 2005 DHS Appropriations Act.
Extending our Zone of Security--Partnering with the Trade
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT)
The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) is a
voluntary partnership between CBP and industry to secure international
supply chains from end-to-end. C-TPAT importers secure supply chains
from the foreign factory loading docks of their vendors to the port of
arrival in the United States. CBP, in return, offers C-TPAT shipments
expedited processing and provides C-TPAT participants with other
benefits.
As C-TPAT has evolved, we have steadily added to the rigor of the
program. In order to join C-TPAT, a company must conduct a self-
assessment of its current supply chain security procedures using C-TPAT
security criteria and best practices developed in partnership with
logistics and security experts from the trade. A participant must also
commit to increasing its supply chain security to meet minimal supply
chain security criteria. Perhaps most importantly, participants also
make a commitment to work with their business partners and customers
throughout their supply chains to ensure that those businesses also
increase their supply chain security. By leveraging the influence of
importers and others on different participants in the supply chain, C-
TPAT is able to increase security of U.S. bound goods to the point of
origin (i.e., to the point of container stuffing). This reach--to the
foreign loading dock--which is beyond the regulatory reach of the
United States Government, is critical to the goal of increasing supply
chain security.
C-TPAT is currently open to all importers, cross-border air, sea,
truck, and rail carriers, brokers, freight forwarders, consolidators,
non-vessel operating common carriers, and U.S. Marine and Terminal
operators. We are currently enrolling certain foreign manufacturers in
the C-TPAT program as well, and we will continue to develop ways to
include this important element of the supply chain in the program. The
intent is to increase point of origin to point of arrival security into
the supply chain with active C-TPAT links at each point in the
logistics process.
Although C-TPAT is a partnership, the risk is too great to simply
take participants at their word when it comes to their supply chain
security. We have created a cadre of specially trained supply chain
security specialists to validate the commitments made by C-TPAT
participants--to ensure that they are increasing supply chain security
as they have promised CBP. These specialists meet with personnel from
C-TPAT participants and their business partners and observe the
security of their supply chains, including security at overseas loading
docks and manufacturing plants, as well as transportation links
outbound to the United States. Through this process, we work with C-
TPAT participants to identify ways that they can further increase their
supply chain security and we ensure that companies that are not
honoring their commitments lose their C-TPAT benefits. As of January
12, 2005, C-TPAT had reviewed and verified the security profiles for
4,460 companies; there are more than 3,500 company profiles pending
acceptance. We have validated or are in the process of validating parts
of the supply chain of over 1,200 of the 4,460 certified partners, or
approximately 27 percent. Our fiscal year 2006 program increase request
of $8.2 million will enable outreach activities and continue
validations and verifications of C-TPAT certified partner profiles.
Using Technology to Detect Weapons of Mass Destruction at our Ports of
Entry
As trade increases, CBP's reliance on Non-Intrusive Inspection
(NII) technology to secure the borders becomes more and more critical.
Only by using NII technology to speed the inspections process for
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and contraband can CBP meet its twin
goals of increasing security and at the same time facilitating trade.
CBP uses various technologies in different combinations to
substantially increase the likelihood that a nuclear or radiological
weapon or weapons grade material will be detected. In addition, CBP
also uses NII technology to detect and interdict narcotics, currency
and other contraband secreted in large containers and commercial
shipments. Technologies deployed to our Nation's land, sea and air
ports of entry include large-scale X-ray and gamma-imaging systems--
systems that can image the contents of an entire container in minutes.
These systems include the Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System (VACIS),
Mobile VACIS, Truck X-ray, Mobile Truck X-ray, Rail VACIS, Mobile Sea
Container Examinations Systems and the Pallet Gamma-ray System. In
September 1996, our first large-scale NII system, a Truck X-ray, became
operational in Otay Mesa, California. Today, we have 145 large-scale
NII systems deployed.
In addition, we have developed and are implementing a comprehensive
radiation detection strategy at our ports of entry. Pursuant to that
Strategy, we are deploying nuclear and radiological detection equipment
to include personal radiation detectors (PRDs), radiation portal
monitors (RPMs) and radiation isotope identifier devices (RIIDs). In
combination with our layered detection strategy--working overseas to
prevent the proliferation of nuclear materials and to detect them
before they are shipped to the United States--and our use of multiple
inspection technologies, these tools currently provide CBP with
significant capacity to detect nuclear or radiological weapons and
materials. We currently have over 400 RPMs deployed at our borders.
The fiscal year 2006 request includes $125 million to continue the
acquisition, deployment, and enhancement of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Detection Technology at our Nations ports of entry. These actions will
be coordinated with the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), which
is being established to develop, acquire and support the deployment of
the national nuclear detection architecture, including future
acquisition issues. CBP's radiation detection strategy will be
integrated into the overall strategy developed by DNDO.
Our investment in WMD Detection technology is paying off as
demonstrated by the following recent event. On January 26, 2005, at the
Los Angeles seaport a PRD activated in proximity to a vessel from Kwan
Yang, South Korea. A search of the vessel revealed that the source of
the radiation was located in the ship's engine room. Subsequent
screening with a Radiation Isotope Identifier and analysis by CBP
Laboratory and Scientific Services Personnel stationed at the NTC
revealed that the material was Cobalt 60, a material used in industrial
and medical applications. Following coordination with the Science and
Technology Directorate's Secondary Reachback Program, scientists were
dispatched from the Department of Energy Radiation Assistance Program
and it was confirmed that the radiation levels posed no threat to
safety and that it was emanating from a gauge in the ship's fire
extinguishing system. Although this alarm proved to be benign, the
event demonstrates CBP's improving ability to detect sources of
radiation in conveyances arriving at our borders and quickly take
appropriate action to resolve any potential threats. Indeed, since CBP
installed the first RPMs in May 2002, we have resolved over 10,000
radiation hits of vehicles or cargo shipments crossing our borders.
Detecting and Responding to Illegal Crossings Between our Ports of
Entry
America's Shield Initiative (ASI)
The America's Shield Initiative, formerly known as the Integrated
Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS), is an effort to develop a
comprehensive and unified system of electronic surveillance of our
entire land borders. ASI is a critical part of CBP's strategy to build
smarter borders. This, in turn, is critical to the Border Patrol's
ability to increase its apprehension capabilities along our borders,
and thereby establish greater control of our borders. The deployment of
ASI is critical to prevent terrorists from entering the United States
and to achieve operational control of our Nation's borders.
I thank the Committee for the $64.2 million provided for ASI in the
fiscal year 2005 Appropriations Act. These resources are being used to
solicit and award a contract for the nation-wide integration of legacy
ISIS capabilities and to deploy additional systems along our borders.
Nation-wide integrated ASI capabilities will provide the Border Patrol
with a tactical, command and control, situational awareness and
intelligence collection and management system. The $19.8 million
requested for fiscal year 2006 would enable CBP to broaden
substantially its ASI coverage of the northern and southern borders by
deploying the system where no coverage currently exists. In addition,
with the advent of ASI, system capabilities will be improved to enhance
the sensor and video surveillance capabilities of currently installed
components, integrate new, state of the market surveillance
technologies and increase interoperability with other law enforcement
agencies.
ASI acts as an important force-multiplier that allows CBP's Border
Patrol agents to remotely monitor the border and respond to specific
illegal border crossings rather than having to exhaustively patrol an
area adjacent to the border. By contrast, Border Patrol operations
without ASI support are not only less effective, they are more
resource-intensive and less safe for Border Patrol Agents. Expanding
the portion of the border covered by electronic surveillance,
integration of new components and technologies, and improved Agent
support equipment via the ASI program will provide the Border Patrol
with the increased ability to meet its and CBP's priority mission
threats.
Border Patrol Aircraft Modernization and Replacement
Aviation is one of the most effective force multipliers used in
securing our Nation's borders. Aircraft perform a multitude of missions
in this environment, including border surveillance, operational patrol,
personnel deployment to permit rapid response to intrusions, and
medical evacuation. In fiscal year 2004, CBP Border Patrol Aircraft
flew almost 46,000 hours, apprehending 96,341 persons and assisted in
seizing $103.6 million in illegal narcotics. This equates to 2.1
arrests and $2,259 in seized contraband for each flight hour. The
largest segment of the Border Patrol fleet is its helicopters;
including 58 that are Vietnam era vintage. The high level of fight time
is taking its toll on these important assets. New parts are no longer
manufactured, requiring that salvaged parts be used to repair broken or
damaged aircraft. The $20.0 million requested will allow CBP to begin
implementation of the fleet modernization and replacement plan through
the acquisition of 12 new helicopters. This initiative will improve
Border Patrol Agent safety and ensure that these valuable assets,
essential to effective border control, continue to be available to our
frontline personnel.
Border Patrol Agent Staffing
An increase of $36.9 million is included in the fiscal year 2006
budget to enhance Border Patrol staffing by 210 Agents. The additional
Agents will be deployed along the southwest border to areas with the
highest concentration of illegal entry activity. To date in, fiscal
year 2005, there has been a 15 percent increase in apprehensions along
the southwest border when compared to the aliens from the same time
period in fiscal year 2004. In addition, there has been an increase in
the number of Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and High-Risk Other Than
Mexican illegal entrant aliens that pose an increased threat to U.S.
national security. CBP has experienced significant operational success
in targeted areas. Additional Agents and supporting resources are
necessary to sustain and expand the progress made in border control
efforts.
Arizona Border Control Initiative-ABCI
This landmark program supporting the mission of CBP to detect and
deter terrorist activities and cross-border illegal trafficking of
people and drugs was initiated on March 16, 2004, in the Border
Patrol's Tucson Sector. Working in partnership with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government of Mexico, state, local,
tribal and Federal law enforcement organizations, the CBP Border
Patrol-led ABCI was designed to produce a safer and more secure
southwest border at one of the weakest segments of our border with
Mexico.
The goals of ABCI were and are to: (1) achieve operational control
of the Arizona border (2) support CBP's priority antiterrorism mission;
(3) significantly impair the ability of smuggling organizations to
operate; and (4) decrease the rate of violent crime and reduce the need
for social services in southern Arizona. In fiscal year 2004, as part
of ABCI, CBP repatriated 14,058 Mexican nationals on a voluntary basis
to the interior of Mexico by means of commercial flights. This is the
first successful interior repatriation effort, and it is a result of
cooperation of and coordination with the Government of Mexico. These
flights decreased the incidence of border crossing recidivism and
reduced the number of heat related exposure deaths in the Arizona
desert by 69 percent--from 45 in fiscal year 2003, to 14 in fiscal year
2004 (during the period of July 12th through September 30th). ICE will
assume responsibility for the interior repatriation flights in fiscal
year 2006. Our fiscal year 2006 budget request of $1.0 million will
assist in offsetting the costs of CBP's continued participation in the
ABCI. These resources will be used for Border Patrol Agent support
costs and other operational expenses including fuel, vehicle
maintenance, and overtime associated with increased border surveillance
within the Arizona area of operation.
Long Range Radar
The fiscal year 2006 CBP budget includes a total of $44.2 million,
an increase of $31.7 million over base resources for our share of the
joint agreement with the Department of Defense (DOD) to assume
financial responsibility for the operations and maintenance costs of
the primary component of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
long-range radar system. Beginning in fiscal year 2006, CBP and DOD
will share these costs equally.
Continued access to the primary component of the long-range radar
system is essential to our ability protect the United States from acts
of terrorism and drug smuggling via cross-border aviation. The FAA's
primary radar system is used to track aircraft that either do not have
transponders or have their transponders turned off in an attempt to
avoid radar detection. Most small, non-commercial aircraft do not have
transponders and these are the vehicle of choice for smugglers
attempting to bring loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin to the
United States from Mexico and other source countries in Central and
South America.
IDENT/IAFIS
The Automated Biometric Identification System/Integrated Automated
Fingerprint Identification System otherwise known as IDENT/IAFIS, was
established to merge the capabilities of the FBI's criminal master
fingerprint file and the former Immigration and Naturalization
Service's immigration violator database. These systems have been
integrated into one system that captures biometric and biographical
information through the use of a ``10 Print'' fingerprint machine and
computer based facial imagery. The goals of the system are to identify
repeat immigration offenders and identify criminals and previously
deported aliens who should be detained. IDENT/IAFIS provides CBP's
front line personnel with access to approximately 48 million criminal
history records dating back to the 1920's. All Border Patrol field
locations now have access to integrated IDENT/IAFIS and all CBP Ports
of Entry will have access to the system by the end of this year.
Previous studies indicate that combining IDENT and IAFIS checks
increases the probability of identifying criminal aliens by almost 10
percent. In addition, significant efficiencies are gained by being able
to electronically scan fingerprints to and get a response back from the
databases within ten minutes. From October 1, 2003, through August 31,
2004, IDENT/IAFIS technology assisted Border Patrol Agents in the
arrest of 138 homicide suspects; 67 kidnapping suspects; 226 sexual
assault suspects 431 robbery suspects; 2,342 suspects for assaults of
other types and 4,801 suspects involved with illegal drugs.
The Directorate of Border and Transportation Security has assumed
ownership of the IDENT/IAFIS system. The fiscal year 2006, $3.0 million
budget initiative will offset CBP's share of IDENT/IAFIS operations and
maintenance costs.
AUTOMATION/INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Chairman, no discussion of a successful strategy to protect the
American people and the American economy in the 21st century would be
complete without consideration of the central importance of automation
and information technology to CBP's mission.
Automated Commercial Environment
The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is an important project
for CBP, for the business community, for our country, and for the
future of global trade. If done properly, it will reform the way we do
business with the trade community. It will also greatly assist CBP in
the advance collection of information for targeting high-risk cargo to
better address the terrorist threat. And in doing so, it will help us
expedite the vast majority of low-risk trade.
The successful implementation of ACE has been and continues to be
one of my top priorities as Commissioner. Increasing support from
Congress and the Administration for ACE has been essential to the
development of the new system. Funding of $321 million in fiscal year
2005 has enabled us to continue development and begin to expand the
first installment of ACE benefits to the trade community. Indeed, since
my testimony last year, I can tell you that the development of ACE and
the efforts to put its capabilities to work on America's borders have
continued full throttle. We have over 350 importers, brokers, and
carriers using the ACE Secure Data Portal and, since June 2004, have
been collecting an increasing amount of duties and fees via the ACE
Period Monthly Statement. CBP is also operating a pilot test of the ACE
truck cargo release software in the port of Blaine, Washington, and
plans to expand this new capability to ports across our northern and
southern borders. In parallel with this development, CBP is working
with the DHS Chief Information Officer and the US-VISIT program to
ensure compliance with the DHS Enterprise Architecture and position the
ACE architecture so that it can be leveraged to support the broad
homeland security mission.
Included within the $321 million for ACE is $16 million dedicated
to continuing support of the International Trade Data System (ITDS).
ITDS is our mechanism for coordinating intergovernmental support for
ACE and ensuring that ACE meets the needs of government agencies with a
need for trade data and a stake in border security. To that end, the
ITDS Board of Directors has adopted a standard set of trade data as a
step toward realizing the concept of using the ACE portal as the
``single window'' into government for the trade community. We are
pleased to report that the original group of eight participating
agencies in ITDS has now grown to twenty-six. Representatives from
these agencies are actively involved in defining the releases of ACE
software.
I want to thank Congress again for its past support of ACE. The
continued support of ACE with $321 million in funding for fiscal year
2006 will enable us to keep pace with our schedule for future ACE
releases including:
Account Revenue and Secure Trade Data
ACE Release 5, scheduled to be complete in fiscal year 2007 will
leverage the inherent capabilities of CBP's core financial system, SAP.
Release 5 will integrate the entry summary business process from
manifest receipt to entry liquidation. Through this release, ACE will
become the system of record for all entry summaries.
Screening and Targeting Capabilities
The Targeting Foundation scheduled for release during fiscal years
2005 and 2006 will extend ACE capabilities to entry summary processing
through enhanced links to the NTC and its systems. Advanced Targeting
capabilities will be expanded providing risk assessment and modeling,
data mining, link analysis and pattern recognition capabilities.
Homeland Security Data Network--HSDN
The Homeland Security Data Network addresses the Department of
Homeland Security's requirement for a system capable of managing and
disseminating sensitive and classified information in a secure
environment. The HSDN effort will streamline and modernize the
classified data transmission capabilities of DHS in order to facilitate
communication and collaboration within DHS and with other Federal
agencies including the Department of Defense. When implemented, the
HSDN will facilitate transmission of data between DHS offices and other
networks including the Anti-Drug Network (ADNET), Automatic Digital
Network (AUTODIN) and the Defense Message System (DMS). HSDN will
provide a scalable infrastructure, capable of supporting the growth and
evolution of the DHS mission. CBP's share of this DHS-wide initiative
is $3.2 million in fiscal year 2006.
OTHER TRADITIONAL MISSIONS
Although CBP's priority mission is preventing terrorists and
terrorist weapons from entering the United States, we know that we
must--and will--accomplish that priority mission while continuing to
perform our traditional missions well. Included among those missions
are our responsibilities for interdicting drugs, apprehending
individuals who enter the United States illegally, regulating and
facilitating international trade, and protecting U.S. agricultural and
economic interests from harmful pests and diseases.
Drug Interdiction
Our anti-terrorism and counter-narcotics missions are not mutually
exclusive, and one does not necessarily come at the expense of the
other. The initiatives we have put in place to prevent terrorists and
terrorist weapons from entering the United States have enabled us to be
more effective in seizing other illegal contraband, including illegal
drugs. Indeed, one of the first results we saw after implementing ATS
for commercial trucks on the land border was a large narcotics seizure
from a targeted shipment. And, it is worth noting that the lessons we
have learned in our battle against international drug trafficking will
help us in the fight against international terrorism.
It would be a grave mistake for drug traffickers and other
criminals to misinterpret our focus on terrorism as a weakening of
resolve on other fronts. If anything, we have made life even more
miserable for drug smugglers as we have intensified our overall
presence along America's borders. Our heightened state of security
along America's borders has strengthened, not weakened, our
counternarcotics mission. As we have added staffing for both inspectors
at the ports of entry and Border Patrol Agents between the ports of
entry, acquired more inspection technology, conducted more questioning
of travelers, and carried out more inspections of passengers and goods
in response to the terrorist threat, we have seized greater amounts of
narcotics. In fiscal year 2004, for example, we seized almost 2.2
million pounds of illegal drugs, and made some of the largest
individual seizures ever recorded by officers safeguarding our borders.
The CBP Office of Air and Marine Operations (AMO) protects the
Nation's borders and the American people from the smuggling of
narcotics and other contraband with an integrated, coordinated and
highly trained air and marine interdiction force. To accomplish the
mission, AMO's thoroughly trained interdiction assets are deployed
throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Air and Marine Operations Center
(AMOC) in Riverside California, provides command, control,
communications, and intelligence for those assets by assimilating
information from a wide array of sensors.
Effective coordination between inspectors at the ports of entry and
agents who carry out investigative activities is essential to the
success of our counternarcotics mission. For that reason, CBP will
continue to cooperate closely with special agents from ICE to carry out
this mission.
Apprehend Individuals Entering Illegally Between the Ports of Entry
CBP's Office of the Border Patrol is specifically responsible for
patrolling thousands of miles of Mexican and Canadian international
land borders. Its primary task is securing America's borders between
official ports of entry by preventing the illegal entry of people,
goods, and contraband across our borders.
The Border Patrol relies on agents, enforcement equipment (such as
a fleet of specialized aircraft and vehicles of various types),
technology (such as sensors and night vision cameras), tactical
infrastructure (such as roads and vehicle barriers), and intelligence
to carry out its mission. Applied in the correct combination, these
resources can effectively deter, detect, monitor, and respond to
illegal border crossings, as we have seen in locations such as the San
Diego Sector and during operations such as Desert Safeguard.
In fiscal year 2004, the Border Patrol played a key role in
safeguarding the United States from the entry of terrorists, criminals,
and illegal immigrants. Among the nearly 1.2 million people apprehended
by the Border Patrol in fiscal year 2004 were 643 aliens from special
interest countries.
CBP will continue to work with other agencies and the Mexican
Government to re-institute and increase the operational tempo of the
Arizona Border Control Initiative this year. Under this initiative, CBP
will aim to substantially reduce the number of illegal entries that
occur in Arizona, and, as a result, will reduce the number of deaths
that occur as aliens try to cross the Arizona desert. In turn, CBP will
increase its ability to apprehend potential terrorists seeking to enter
through the Arizona corridor.
Prevent Individuals from Entering Illegally at the Ports of Entry
With respect to preventing individuals from entering the country
illegally at the ports of entry, CBP continues to stop hundreds of
thousands of people a year who are inadmissible into the United States
for a variety of reasons, including prior immigration violations,
criminal history, or the possession of false or fraudulent documents,
and potential terrorists.
We are helped in this effort by our close work with the Department
of State to ensure CBP inspectors have the tools they need to verify
the identity of visa holders and the authenticity of visas issued by
the Department of State. Data on holders of immigrant visas is
transferred electronically to ports of entry. When the electronic
record is updated to reflect an immigrant's admission at a port of
entry, that data is transferred electronically to the Bureau of
Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) for production of a
permanent resident card and creation of the immigrant file.
--In fiscal year 2004, CBP processed more than 262 million aliens
attempting to enter the United States through the ports of
entry; 643,091 were deemed inadmissible under U.S. law. CBP
Officers also intercepted: 78,255 fraudulent immigration
documents; recorded 1.8 million lookout intercepts; and,
apprehended 399 travelers for terrorism or national security
concerns. In addition, 19,740 criminal aliens attempting entry
were not admitted and 566 stowaways were intercepted.
Regulate and Facilitate International Trade
CBP maintains responsibility for regulating and facilitating
legitimate international trade. As I mentioned earlier, many of the
initiatives CBP implements serve the twin goals of increasing security
and facilitating trade. With the right level of industry partnership
and the right combination of resources, we can develop innovative
solutions that not only protect legitimate trade from being used by
terrorists, but also create a better, faster, more productive system
for moving goods and people across our borders and thus contributing to
U.S. economic growth. The key to the success of this effort is
partnerships, and we devote considerable time and effort to dialogue
and interact with both large and small enterprises engaged in trade.
We have two major venues for engaging the trade community on an
ongoing basis. The Commercial Operations Advisory Committee, created
under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, is the primary group that
provides advice on the CBP issues. The Committee meets quarterly and
holds lively discussions on the full range of critical issues on our
common agenda. The COAC was particularly important in helping us
implement the Trade Act, and they most recently have worked on a series
of measures to implement the Maritime Trade Security Act and to improve
the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT).
Another key group of our private sector partners is the Trade
Support Network (TSN), whose members work on developing specific
requirements for the Automated Customs Environment to ensure ACE
delivers the critical functionality required by both CBP, the trade and
other government agencies. The TSN recently created a Supply Chain
Security Committee, which will be the focal point for helping us
identify information required to achieve the end-to-end view of the
supply chain and identify the parties capable of reporting that data.
As I have indicated, we have continued to work with the trade on
these security and trade facilitation matters over the past year, and
we will continue to do so in the year ahead. In fiscal year 2004, CBP
processed 27.6 million entries of goods, a 7.9 percent increase over
fiscal year 2003 levels and processed 23.5 million sea, truck and rail
containers entering the United States, an increase of 5.5 percent over
fiscal year 2003. CBP also collected more than $27 billion in revenue
in fiscal year 2004: second only to the Internal Revenue Service in the
Federal Government sector. CBP officers also completed 2,681 cargo
merchandise seizures totaling almost $233 million and effected 8,586
seizures of counterfeit commodities with a fair market value of $48.4
million
To increase our effectiveness and provide national direction over
trade concerns, CBP has a National Trade Strategy that focuses on
priority trade issues such as revenue collection, intellectual property
rights, anti-dumping and countervailing duties, textile enforcement,
and risks associated with intentional or unintentional contamination of
agricultural products. The goals of the National Trade Strategy are to
collect the appropriate duties, protect American businesses and our
economic interests from theft of intellectual property and from unfair
trade practices, and from the contamination of agricultural products by
aggressively targeting high-risk shipments. In addition, CBP is
responsible for key deliverables in the Administration's Strategy
Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP) initiative, a multi-agency effort to
improve protection of intellectual property rights, such as using state
of the art analytical techniques to target suspect shipments and using
post-entry audits.
Protect U.S. Agricultural and Economic Interests and the Food Supply
CBP also enforces the laws and regulations pertaining to the safe
importation and entry of agricultural food commodities into the United
States. The traditional goals of the Agriculture Inspections (AI)
program have been to reduce the risk of introduction of invasive
species into the United States, protect U.S. agricultural resources,
maintain the marketability of agricultural products, and facilitate the
movement of law-abiding people and commodities across the borders.
Accordingly, inspecting potentially high-risk travelers and cargo is
critical to keeping the prohibited items out of the United States,
monitoring for significant agricultural health threats, encouraging
compliance with regulations, and educating the public and importers
about agricultural quarantine regulations. In August, 2004, CBP
Agriculture Specialists at the Port of Miami, intercepted and
quarantined a shipment of habanero peppers infested with Mediterranean
Fruit Fly larvae at and the False Coddling Moth. This shipment was
manifested as coming from the Netherlands but was suspected of
originating elsewhere. The quick actions of the CBP Agriculture
Specialists prevented an incident that could have created severe
economic losses to Florida's burgeoning agricultural products industry.
With the creation of CBP, the AI program has expanded its focus to
include a new priority mission of preventing potential terrorist
threats involving agriculture. Indeed, the threat of intentional
introductions of pests or pathogens as a means of biological warfare or
terrorism is an emerging concern. To address this threat and to enhance
its traditional AI missions, CBP has already begun using the Automated
Targeting System, and its collective expertise regarding terrorism and
agriculture, to strengthen our ability to identify shipments that may
pose a potential risk to our agricultural interests.
In addition, CBP working closely with the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to implement the Bioterrorism Act to guard against
threats to the food supply. The implementation of Phase III of the Act
requires that prior notice of importation or intent to import all food
to be consumed by humans be provided to both CBP and the FDA. Under the
BTA, food products shipped by truck require two hours advance notice,
by rail and air four hours and by sea eight hours. Enforcement of the
provisions of the BTA are designed to protect the food that is on every
table of every American household and to detect potential incidents of
bio- and agroterrorism involving food. These efforts have built on our
priority and traditional missions to make the food supply more secure,
and will be supported in part by the targeting funding sought in the
fiscal year 2006 budget.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, I have outlined a broad
array of initiatives today that, with your assistance, will help CBP
continue to protect America from the terrorist threat while fulfilling
our other important traditional missions. Because of your support, we
are far safer today than we were on September 11th. But our work is not
complete. With the continued support of the President, DHS, and the
Congress, CBP will succeed in meeting the challenges posed by the
ongoing terrorist threat and the need to facilitate ever-increasing
numbers of legitimate shipments and travelers.
Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I will be happy to
answer any of your questions.
Senator Cochran. Thank you very much, Mr. Bonner.
Mr. Aguirre, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF EDUARDO AGUIRRE
Mr. Aguirre. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
Chairman Cochran, ranking member Byrd, and Senator Leahy. My
name is Eduardo Aguirre and I am the Director of USCIS. I
appear before you to discuss the President's USCIS budget
request for fiscal year 2006.
PROGRESS SINCE MARCH 2003
Yesterday, as was noted, USCIS celebrated its second
anniversary. Today I am looking forward to sharing with you our
tremendous progress since March 2003. We are delivering on the
President's promise to welcome immigrants with open arms, not
endless lines. Our remarkable progress is not an anomaly, but
rather a strong foundation and a new baseline from which to
grow in the coming years. We secure America's promise as a
Nation of immigrants by fundamentally reforming our tired
system of immigration services.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 BUDGET REQUEST
USCIS is one of the largest fee-funded agencies in the
Federal Government. Our 15,000 employees and contractors serve
applicants throughout our broad national and international
network. The President's fiscal year 2006 budget will allow us
to build upon the progress we have made. The budget includes a
total for USCIS of $1.854 billion, $80 million in appropriated
funds and $1.774 billion in fees. This budget will allow USCIS
to process over 7 million immigration benefit applications.
We note that fiscal year 2006 will be the final year of the
President's 5-year plan for backlog elimination. Our budget
includes a total of $100 million to support backlog elimination
efforts as well as improvements in applications processing.
This brings the 5-year total for this aggressive initiative to
$560 million. We are on track to achieve the President's
backlog elimination mandate.
As Will Rogers eloquently stated, even if you are on the
right track you will get run over if you just sit there. Thus,
we have taken and continue to take a hard reengineering look at
the way we currently conduct our business. Since my appointment
and confirmation as Director of USCIS, our leadership team has
continually reviewed our processes, identified opportunities
for streamlining and further improvement, and implemented
meaningful changes.
Let me plainly state that as we improve our ways we are
committed to never compromise national security in an effort to
increase productivity. From day 1, USCIS established three
crystal-clear priorities: One, eliminate the immigration
benefit applications backlog; two, enhance national security;
and three, improve customer service. Let me briefly touch upon
progress made on each of these priorities.
BACKLOG ELIMINATION
Eliminating the backlog. Operationally, fiscal year 2004
was truly an outstanding year for USCIS and we continue the
momentum so far in fiscal year 2005. We successfully reduced
the backlog to 1.365 million cases, down from a high of 3.8
million cases just a year ago in 2004. We increased overall
completions by 21 percent processed, met, or exceeded cycle
time targets in 15 of 16 major form types. We completed 109,000
asylum cases in fiscal year 2004, a 20 percent increase, and
also 53,000 refugees were admitted to the United States in
fiscal year 2004, an 86 percent increase.
NATIONAL SECURITY MISSION
Ensuring national security as well as preventing and
detecting fraud are essential elements of our mission. Our
newly created Fraud Detection and National Security Unit
developed a joint anti-fraud strategy with ICE. We enhanced our
background check process and we share information with key law
enforcement and intelligence agencies.
IMPROVEMENT IN CUSTOMER SERVICE
As an immigrant who once passed through the old INS system,
I insist that we treat those who come before USCIS with dignity
and respect. That brings me to improving customer service.
Therefore, we have promoted a customer service culture and
expanded many of the services available to customers online and
by phone. Electronic filing now supports 50 percent of the
total volume of benefit applications.
InfoPass, our web-based system, enables applicants to go
online in 12 different languages to schedule appointments. No
more endless lines outside our immigration offices. We expanded
phone services and access to customer's case status information
via our website.
Finally, in the past year USCIS has naturalized more than
7,000 military service members. This past October, I personally
led a USCIS team to Afghanistan and Iraq and launched overseas
naturalizations to our military.
PREPARED STATEMENT
In summary, although we have a long ways to go before our
destination, I note that we are on the right track and moving
forward to make USCIS an exemplary United States Government
agency. This concludes my opening remarks, prepared remarks. I
thank you for your support and for the invitation to testify
before this subcommittee, and of course would be happy to
answer your questions. Thank you, sir.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Eduardo Aguirre, Jr.
Good afternoon Chairman Cochran and Ranking Member Byrd and Members
of the Subcommittee. My name is Eduardo Aguirre and I have the honor of
serving as the first Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, within the Department of Homeland Security.
We are a welcoming Nation, and the hard work and patriotism of our
immigrants has made our Nation prosperous. Since USCIS was established
in March of 2003, we have made tremendous progress, which I will share
with you today, to deliver the President's vision of ``welcoming
immigrants with open arms . . . not endless lines.'' It is my sincere
belief that the progress we have made in the past year is not an
anomaly, but rather a strong foundation and a new baseline from which
to grow.
USCIS will continue to secure America's promise as a Nation of
immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our
customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an
awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity
of our immigration system. Our vision is to strengthen America's future
by becoming a customer-focused innovator of benefits processing, a
catalyst for citizenship education, instruction and outreach, a
recognized and credible source of useful information, and a leading
contributor to the security of the United States.
USCIS has established three core values: integrity, respect, and
ingenuity. We shall always strive for the highest level of integrity in
our dealings with our customers, our fellow employees, and the citizens
of the United States. We will also demonstrate respect in all our
actions to ensure that everyone we affect will be treated with dignity
and courtesy regardless of the outcome of the decision. And we will
also use ingenuity, resourcefulness, creativity, and sound management
principles to strive for world-class results.
USCIS is one of the largest fee-funded agencies in the Federal
Government--charging fees for a variety of immigration benefits from
individuals seeking to enter, reside, or work in the United States.
Therefore, the actual cash flow for our business operations, including
a network of 250 local offices, Application Support Centers, Service
Centers, Asylum Offices, National Customer Service Call (NCSC) Centers,
Forms Centers, and Internet portals, varies from year to year with the
number of immigration benefit applications received.
In any typical work day, our workforce of 15,000 (one-third of whom
are contractors) will:
--Conduct 140,000 national security background checks.
--Receive 100,000 hits to our Internet website (www.uscis.gov).
--Answer phone inquiries from 80,000 callers at four National
Customer Service Centers.
--Process 30,000 applications for an immigration benefit.
--Answer in-person inquiries from 25,000 visitors to information
counters at 92 local offices.
--Issue 7,000 green cards.
--Capture 8,000 sets of fingerprints at 130 Application Support
Centers.
--Welcome 3,000 new citizens.
--Welcome 3,000 new permanent residents.
--Welcome nearly 200 refugees from around the world.
--Help American parents adopt nearly 80 foreign-born orphans.
--Process the naturalization application of 50 individuals serving in
the U.S. military.
--Grant asylum to 80 individuals already in the United States.
USCIS has established three priorities: (1) enhancing national
security, (2) eliminating the immigration benefit application backlog,
and (3) improving customer service. In our second year of operations,
we have successfully reduced the backlog to 1.5 million cases (down
from a high of 3.8 million cases in January 2004), expanded electronic
filing to support 50 percent of the total volume of benefit
applications, expanded InfoPass (a USCIS Web-based system that enables
the public to go online to schedule appointments), expanded phone
services to allow round-the-clock access via automated means, expanded
access to customers' case status information via the USCIS website, and
created the Fraud Detection and National Security Unit to work closely
with the appropriate law enforcement entities in responding to concerns
relating to aliens who may pose a threat to national security or public
safety.
The President's fiscal year 2006 budget will allow us to build upon
the progress we have made in the past year. The budget includes a total
for USCIS of $1.854 billion, $80 million in appropriated funds and
$1.774 billion in fees. The fiscal year 2006 budget will allow USCIS to
process over 7 million immigration benefit applications and is the
final year of the President's 5-year plan to achieve a 6-month cycle
time standard or less for all immigration benefit applications at every
USCIS office, including a total of $100 million to support backlog
elimination efforts as well as improvements in application processing.
This brings the 5-year total for this aggressive initiative to $560
million.
The USCIS fiscal year 2006 budget also includes two important fee-
related legislative proposals. One proposal involves the removal of a
statutory cap on the Temporary Protected Status processing fee. This
proposal will allow the fee to be adjusted above the current $50 to
recover full costs, subject to a fee review, similar to the way other
immigration benefit application fees are currently set. The other
proposal is a customer service enhancement that authorizes expansion of
premium processing service to non-employment based applications and
petitions. The Department is currently authorized to collect a $1,000
premium processing fee, in addition to the normal processing fee, for
employment-based applications and petitions. This proposal would
authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security to set the premium
processing fee for certain non employment-based applications and
petitions, such as travel documents, advance parole, employment
authorization, re-entry permits, fiance adjudications, etc., not to
exceed $1,000, and in excess of $1,000 for the investor visa (EB-5)
program.
Eliminating the Backlog
Although we are on track to achieve the President's backlog
elimination mandate, we fully realize that funding alone will not
enable us to achieve this goal. As Will Rogers so simply stated, ``Even
if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
there.'' Thus, we have taken, and continue to take, a hard look at the
way we currently conduct our business. This commitment is not just one
of words, but one of action. Since my appointment and confirmation as
Director of USCIS, I have worked closely with the leaders in USCIS to
continually review our processes, identify opportunities for
streamlining and further improvement, and to implement meaningful
change. Let me assure you that USCIS will never compromise national
security in an effort to increase productivity.
In the past year, USCIS forwarded to the Congress a Backlog
Elimination Plan that outlines the roadmap to achieve the President's
mandate. We will continue to provide the Congress with quarterly
progress reports on our Backlog Elimination status and achievements.
Fiscal year 2004 was truly an outstanding year for USCIS. USCIS
increased overall completions by 17 percent over the fiscal year 2003
volume and met and/or exceeded cycle time targets in fifteen of sixteen
major form types. In addition, USCIS completed a total of 109,000
asylum cases in fiscal year 2004, representing a 20 percent increase in
productivity from the previous fiscal year, when it completed 91,000.
USCIS also worked steadily with its refugee program partners to
successfully meet refugee admissions levels designated by the President
while ensuring that the integrity and security of the program remained
intact. USCIS officers conducted refugee status interviews in 50
countries around the world and interviewed more than 70,000 refugee
applicants of at least 65 different nationalities. As a result of these
efforts, almost 53,000 refugees were admitted to the United States
during fiscal year 2004, an 86 percent increase over the previous
year's admissions.
USCIS will increase its focus on Information Technology through an
enterprise-wide transformation effort to ensure that long-term backlog
elimination goals are sustained, customer service is improved, fraud
detection and national security capabilities are enhanced, and a
technology environment is deployed to support new processes and
workflow aligned with the DHS mission and the Presidential mandate for
eGov standards. USCIS is currently undergoing an infrastructure upgrade
of its District and Service Center operations, upgrading its web
presence environment, and developing a new integrated case management
system to ultimately operate in a paperless adjudication environment.
Ensuring National Security
USCIS understands that ensuring national security and preventing
and detecting fraud are essential elements of its mission. As such, our
newly established Fraud Detection and National Security Unit (FDNS)
developed a joint anti-fraud strategy with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), hired and trained nearly 100 anti-fraud officers,
and is in the midst of implementing an anti-fraud initiative throughout
the United States. The FDNS is also leading the enhancement of USCIS'
background check process, which is aimed at identifying applicants,
beneficiaries, and petitioners who pose a threat to national security
and public safety prior to granting them immigration benefits. The FDNS
is also leading USCIS' information sharing initiative with key law
enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The establishment of a Refugee Corps with an expanded management
support structure will provide a strong and effective overseas refugee
processing program that will more efficiently identify inadmissible
persons and those who are of national security interest without
compromising the U.S. Refugee Program's (USRPs) humanitarian
objectives. A Refugee Corps will ensure responsiveness to USRP
commitments and goals, while greatly reducing the need to draw on
scarce domestic program resources. It will also ensure the quality and
consistency of refugee adjudications and improve the detection of
refugee application fraud and the identification of security concerns
relating to refugee admissions.
USCIS also implemented the Safe Third Country Agreement on Asylum
with Canada to help strengthen public confidence in the integrity of
the immigration system and ensure that all asylum seekers will be
heard, that they will receive procedural safeguards, and that they not
be removed until either Canada or the United States has made a
determination on the protection claim, in accordance with national laws
implementing treaty obligations.
Improving Customer Service
The Office of Citizenship continues to focus on providing
information to immigrants at two key points in their journey towards
citizenship: when they first become Permanent Residents and later when
they are ready and eligible to begin the formal naturalization process.
In the past year, the Office of Citizenship introduced an orientation
guide entitled ``Welcome to the United States: A Guide for New
Immigrants.'' The guide, which will be available in 10 languages in
fiscal year 2005, contains practical information to help immigrants get
started in the United States, and provides information to assist
immigrants in the civic integration process. The Office of Citizenship
also held a series of focus groups across the United States during the
spring of 2004 to hear directly from local communities about their
strengths, gaps, and needs in the areas of immigrant integration and
citizenship preparation. The results of these focus group discussions
were published in a report called ``Helping Immigrants Become New
Americans: Communities Discuss the Issues.''
Additionally, we have been examining the standard of knowledge in
the current citizenship test to ensure that prospective and new
citizens know not only the facts of our Nation's history, but also the
ideals that have shaped that history. We also are working to
standardize testing procedures in an effort to ensure equitable and
more uniform results. Currently, a candidate in Los Angeles is, in all
likelihood, not tested the same way or asked the same questions as a
candidate taking the same exam on the same day in Boston.
We do not want to make the test more difficult. We do not want to
make it less difficult. We want to make it more meaningful in a way
that does not have an adverse impact on any particular group of
applicants. Therefore, we will carefully pilot test the revised
English, history, and government tests before implementing them. And we
will consult with our stakeholders to solicit their input, as we have
done throughout the process. Once the test development is done, the
Office of Citizenship will coordinate the creation of educational
materials to complement this important initiative.
Our plan is to begin implementing the new test and testing process
in 2007. Given the importance of the ultimate benefit for those
tested--U.S. citizenship--this process is not one that can or should be
rushed. We are committed to improving the current process and to
improving it in the right way.
In our commitment to modernize and enhance the delivery of
immigration services, InfoPass was launched in Miami in June of 2003.
InfoPass is a free, easy and convenient alternative to waiting in line.
It allows USCIS customers to go on-line and use an Internet-based
system to make an appointment to speak with an Immigration Information
Officer at a time that is convenient for the customer. InfoPass is now
available for customers at all USCIS District and sub offices.
Other conveniences available on www.uscis.gov include ``E-Filing''
for certain immigration applications, including the renewal and
replacement of ``green cards,'' (Form I-90). E-Filing provides a quick,
easy and convenient way for customers to complete, submit, and pay fees
for petitions and applications at any time, from any computer with
Internet access. As a further time saver, the USCIS Web site is now set
up to accept credit cards for the payment of application fees. To date,
USCIS has received more than 250,000 applications through its E-Filing
system. E-Filing now supports form types that account for 50 percent of
the total volume of benefits applications USCIS receives annually.
During fiscal year 2005, USCIS plans to combine E-Filing with the
Lockbox program to further streamline our internal processes. E-Filing
will also play a key supporting role in implementing Premium Processing
for additional form types; the newly enacted H1-B/L-1 Visa Reform Acts;
and an electronic adjudication initiative.
Additionally, the public is encouraged to use the Internet to check
the status of applications filed with any of USCIS' Service Centers.
Our Case Status Service Online, available in English and Spanish,
allows customers who have a receipt number for an application or
petition filed at a USCIS Service Center to check the status of their
pending case online through the USCIS website (USCIS.gov), or by
calling the toll-free telephone number of our National Customer Service
Center. The Case Status Online system offers customers the option of
establishing a portfolio of up to 100 cases that can be checked through
a single login 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Customers can also elect
to have USCIS automatically send an email informing them of any change
in status of a pending case.
In the past year, USCIS has responded to over 11,000,000 queries
for verification of immigration status. USCIS provides immigration and
employment authorization status information to over 126,000 government
and private sector users. By providing the best possible verification
services to thousands of agencies and employers, USCIS saves the
Government money by ensuring that only eligible aliens receive public
benefits. In addition, an employment verification pilot program
authorized in 1996 and reauthorized in 2004, helps to ensure that jobs
are available only to workers authorized to accept employment in the
United States.
As you are aware, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal
year 2004 authorized overseas military naturalizations. In the past
year, USCIS has naturalized more than 7,000 military service members
both in the United States and overseas, and posthumously naturalized 39
service members who died in service to the United States.
Finally, USCIS committed itself to the global effort to recover
from the earthquake and tsunami by announcing temporary relief measures
for those individuals who are unable to return to their home country
due to the destruction and humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia. USCIS
is expediting the processing of certain immigration benefit
applications, including requests for advance parole and relative
petitions for minor children from the affected areas. USCIS also is
more readily approving applications from visitors from the tsunami-
affected countries who requested a change or extension of their
nonimmigrant status.
This concludes my prepared remarks. I thank you for the invitation
to testify before this committee and I would be happy to answer any
questions.
Senator Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Aguirre.
ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION
This morning National Public Radio did a report on
Alternatives to Detention and the program run by the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency using ankle
bracelets to keep up with and track noncriminal aliens as they
await the outcome of their immigration cases being considered
and disposed of. What is the utility of this method and do you
consider it more humane, more efficient, and less expensive
than detaining through forcible imprisonment, or whatever other
devices you have, those who you know may not be legally
entitled to be in our country? Mr. Garcia?
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A timely topic as
there is a $5.4 million enhancement for that program in the
2006 request. We right now have eight sites where we do
Alternatives to Detention and we plan to expand that two more
for a total of ten.
This is a program, Mr. Chairman, that does exactly what it
says. It is an alternative to detention. These are illegal
aliens who would otherwise be subject to incarceration. The
program is in three steps: a 30-day period with an ankle
bracelet, a monitoring and reporting requirement. If the alien
complies, the bracelet comes off and then it is telephonic
interviews and home visits. After an additional period, it
becomes only telephonic interviews.
It is extremely cost-effective, estimated at a quarter of
the cost of detention space. It provides assistance to the
aliens in the process, linking them with pro bono services, et
cetera. And it asks for responsibility on the part of the
alien, who has voluntarily opted into this program, and that is
an important point. This is a voluntary program. But it asks
for responsibility on the part of the participants and if they
show that, then the conditions become less onerous over time.
USE OF RADIATION MONITORS
Senator Cochran. Mr. Bonner, we understand too the
importance of upgrading technologies in the Border Patrol area,
and you highlighted that in your statement. What is the success
that you anticipate from using radiation monitors? Is this a
technology that has been proven? I ask this in the context with
our experience in Iraq, where the weapons inspectors were using
radiation monitors there and David Kay made a point of saying
you can deploy these monitors, but after the sand and the heat
and the other influences of nature take place you might have a
useless piece of equipment there in the desert. Have you had
any experiences similar to that at CBP?
Mr. Bonner. Well, first of all, the main thing that we have
going in terms of detecting against a nuclear device or special
nuclear materials is a combination of technology that we would
deploy and we are deploying at our ports of entry principally.
So there is where we have radiation portal monitors. We have
completed the first two phases, which is the International Mail
Facility, so every package that comes in is screened. The
International Air Express Consignment Facilities are completed.
We have substantially deployed well over 200 portal monitors on
our northern border ports of entry with Canada. We are in the
process of now deploying a significant number along our
southern border ports of entry with Mexico, and we have started
deployment at some of our major seaports.
We have a long way to go here. But the question is are they
effective. Well, you need a combination of technology.
Radiation portal monitors are highly sensitive to both gamma
and neutron detection. In other words, you can have, without
getting into sort of the classified area here, you can have a
fair degree of confidence in the fact that you are going to
detect radiation. In fact, since we started deploying the
radiation portal monitors--and these are large things at our
ports of entry, through every--not just commercial truck, every
passenger vehicle that comes through--since we have started
deploying them, we have resolved over 10,000 radiation hits.
The good news to tell you is that those radiation hits
turned out to be negative. In other words, we resolved them to
be naturally occurring radiation sources or radioactive
material consistent with the shipment of goods. That might be,
by the way, a shipment of tiles, which very frequently emits
radiation that reads for thorium and so on.
So this is not the only thing, though. We combine that with
our targeting system, and our NII equipment, that is our large-
scale X-ray scanning machines, as well as isotope identifiers
and other personal radiation detector equipment, to give us a
combination of resources that improves our ability to detect
against a dirty bomb coming across our border and/or
potentially a nuclear device, which is obviously of the most
momentous consequence one can imagine.
We have found them to be effective. Now, we are looking
for--we are always looking for better technology to detect
against this issue.
SIX-MONTH AVERAGE FOR PROCESSING BENEFITS APPLICATIONS
Senator Cochran. Mr. Aguirre, you mentioned reducing the
backlog of your benefit application cases down to 1.3 million
cases from a high of 3.8 million in January of 2004. I know you
have devoted special funding in this area, too. Once you do not
set aside dollars to bring down the backlog, are you going to
be able to maintain this 6-month average of processing
applications?
Mr. Aguirre. Senator, I am certain of that. I am certain
that we are going to meet the commitment to eliminate the
backlog by September 2006. In fact, I will be surprised if we
do not beat that by a little. And in the process, we have re-
engineered all our processes so that not only are we
eliminating the backlog and perhaps put it below a cycle time
of 6 months, but also making sure that we are taking care of
the applications that are coming in day in and day out.
So once this 5-year commitment expires, I do not feel that
we are going to need to go back to any appropriated funds for
this particular endeavor.
Senator Cochran. We have a vote that is occurring on the
floor of the Senate right now. But before we cut off the right
of any Senator to ask questions, I am going to proceed and
recognize Senator Byrd and Senator Leahy both if they wanted to
ask questions before we go vote.
Senator Byrd. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your courtesies
always.
First, let me ask unanimous consent that a letter from me
to the Honorable Michael Chertoff be included in the record
following my earlier statement.
Senator Cochran. Without objection, it is so ordered.
ANTIDUMPING/COUNTERVAILING DUTY COLLECTIONS
Senator Byrd. Thank you.
Commissioner Bonner, on December 17, 2004, Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) issued its regular annual report on the
Byrd Amendment trade law. The annual report describes how
hundreds of millions of dollars in duties are not being
collected by Customs, and the agency has been unable to explain
why it cannot collect these funds.
In fiscal year 2003, the agency failed to collect $130
million in duties owed to the United States under the U.S.
anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws, and CBP failed to
collect an additional $260 million in fiscal year 2004. The
majority of that $390 million is the result of uncollected
duties on goods imported from China. The conference report
accompanying the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations
Act for fiscal year 2005, which was enacted in October 2004,
included language that directed Customs and Border Protection
to submit a report to the House and Senate Appropriations
Committees by January 15, 2005, on the implementation of
recommendations that were made by the U.S. Treasury
Department's Inspector General concerning the Customs and
Border Protection's implementation of the Byrd Amendment trade
law.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet received
that report. Why is this problem of noncollection growing, and
what are you doing to address it? Finally, do your efforts
respond to the recommendations of the Treasury Inspector
General?
Mr. Bonner. Let me first of all say, Senator Byrd, that we
are committed, I am personally committed, to improving our
collection efforts. I am troubled that we used to say when we
were settling cases that we were leaving too much money on the
table here that is not collected. It is not accurate to say
that we are unable to explain what the problem is. I think we
have a pretty good understanding of the problems and we have
taken some steps to improve our collections of antidumping and
countervailing duty assessments. But let me just identify a
couple of ways where we are moving forward. One of the problems
in terms of collections was the insufficiency of continuous
duty bonds for these kinds of high-risk shipments. These tend
to be, by the way, agriculture and seafood products, a lot of
it coming from China, but some other countries, and the
continuous duty bonds were not nearly sufficient when the
ultimate duty assessment was made by the Department of
Commerce.
So we have taken steps to raise the continuous duty bonds
on goods that are particularly those types of goods that are or
are very likely to be subject to antidumping duties, a final
order.
There were insufficient single entry bonds. In other words,
we did not have recourse. So we are more diligent. We now have
something that is very close to real-time monitoring of
shipments that are subject to preliminary orders of commerce or
potentially high-risk shipments of goods, and are raising the
single entry duty bonds to higher levels that are more
consistent with what we expect the ultimate duty assessment to
be.
By the way, just to let you know that we have taken not
just those two steps to increase the bond coverage, but we have
a better mechanism now for potentially identifying
circumvention of the antidumping duties. By the way, as you can
imagine, there is all sorts of circumvention. It is everything
from fraudulent misdescribing of the goods, so that it is not a
good that was subject to an antidumping order--we have had
that, by the way, with respect to catfish shipments mislabeled
as groupers. I know you are interested in this issue, Mr.
Chairman. But we have had that.
We have had sham companies that are set up and so forth. So
we have ratcheted up our enforcement effort through our
Commercial Enforcement Division and, frankly, are working very
closely with ICE in nine significant and hopefully potential
criminal prosecutions, but criminal investigation of fraud. We
think that it would be very important to bring additional cases
in this area for its deterrent value.
We are better coordinating with the Department of Commerce
so that we are actually in communication with them before even
a preliminary order comes out and we can take some steps.
DEFAULT OF A SURETY COMPANY
We have discussed with the Treasury Department one other
issue, and that was actual default of a surety company, which
was about $100 million of the total failure to collect. This
was a surety company that had been approved by the Treasury
Department and it defaulted on its surety bond obligations. So
we are working with Treasury to make sure that the surety
companies that are approved by the Treasury Department to write
customs bonds are financially viable when payment time comes
up.
INITIAL PRELIMINARY ORDERS IN LIQUIDATION
So we have taken all these steps. Now, there is a lag time,
as you know, between the initial preliminary orders in
liquidation. So it is going to take some period of time before
we see substantial results here, but I do think we have taken
some very important steps to identify the problem and take
concrete actions that are going to improve, and I hope
substantially improve, our collection rate.
Senator Byrd. Mr. Commissioner, I am heartened by your
response. I know that you are very much alert to the problem.
It is complex, it is difficult, and I compliment you on the way
that you are working with other agencies and departments to
deal with this problem. I thank you. I urge you to continue to
work on it and to work even harder. I do appreciate your
efforts.
Mr. Bonner. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Byrd. Mr. Chairman, let me close, because we are up
against the voting situation over there. Incidentally, I have
cast over 17,000 votes, but I do want to cast some today. I am
going to submit the remainder of my questions, if I may, to be
answered for the record.
I thank all the witnesses.
Senator Cochran. Thank you, Senator, for your contribution
to the hearing.
ICE HIRING IN FISCAL YEAR 2006
Senator Leahy. Just very quickly and I will put most of my
questions in the record. To Assistant Secretary Garcia: When
ICE was here last year it had severe budget problems, a hiring
freeze. Does the fiscal year 2006 request bring ICE back to
fiscal solvency? Will you be lifting the hiring freeze. If not,
when?
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Senator Leahy. You are correct, we
were here last year, we had a hiring freeze. We have taken a
number of steps to address that. Working with the Department,
we continue to do that. We need to take further steps.
Secretary Loy testified a couple of weeks ago to that effect.
The 2006 as we have proposed it will move us forward. We
will be hiring in 2006.
Senator Leahy. All these temporary people who have been
there for 3 or 4 years, does that mean they can be looking for
permanent positions now?
Mr. Garcia. That is certainly our intention, Senator. I
know that there are a number of those temporary positions at
our Law Enforcement Support Center up in Burlington. As we have
discussed, I only see the role of that Center expanding and
becoming more important under our homeland security mission.
Senator Leahy. Does the budget cover what you need or are
you going to need reprogramming?
Mr. Garcia. Hard to answer because, as we go along I will
look at that. I have not been able to do that yet, obviously,
because of the lack of clarity on some of the budget issues and
the challenges we have been facing. But it is an issue that we
consider a top priority.
BORDER PATROL AGENT STAFFING INCREASES
Senator Leahy. Mr. Bonner, I mentioned before the budget
only asks for 10 percent of the mandated agents. You think we
need further agents on the northern border.
Mr. Bonner. Well----
Senator Leahy. Because you are only asking for 10 percent
of what Congress mandated.
Mr. Bonner. As you know, Senator, I am in full, violent
support of the President's budget request, which requests 210
Border Patrol agents in addition to, of course, replacing
attrition.
Senator Leahy. But none of them for the northern border?
Mr. Bonner. Well, you know, you did note----
Senator Leahy. We needed more.
Mr. Bonner. You did note and let me note that we had 360
Border Patrol agents on the northern border for the entire
border with Canada on 9/11. On March 1, 2003, that was up to
about 500.
One of the first actions I took was to direct Border Patrol
to meet the 1,000 goal, which they did actually in fiscal year
2003.
Senator Leahy. Do we need any more--this is what the bottom
line is. Do we need any more on the northern border? Do we have
enough on the northern border today?
Mr. Bonner. You mean beyond what we have in the request?
Senator Leahy. No, no. Do we have enough on the northern
border with the number we have today. There is no request for
the northern border. It is 210, 10 percent of what we mandated.
But that is not for the northern border.
Do we have enough on the northern border? It is an easy
answer, yes or no.
Mr. Bonner. We do not have enough agents. We do not have
enough technology to give us the kind of security we need on
the northern border.
Senator Leahy. I am just a lawyer from a small town in
Vermont. I do not understand. Is that a yes or a no?
Mr. Bonner. I am just a lawyer from a small town in Kansas,
so--
That moved to California at some point.
Senator Leahy. Here we are in the big city. Is it yes or
no?
Mr. Bonner. Well, we need more agents----
Senator Leahy. Help me out here.
Mr. Bonner. We need more agents. But look, I think it is
the right combination of people and technology, and essential
to this is the American Shield Initiative. The fiscal year 2006
budget includes $81 million for technology, for more
helicopters, and for UAV's for the Border Patrol. We need to do
a smarter and a better job. I think we can do that. The
President's request is for 210 more Agents. I do not know that
they are necessarily earmarked all for the southern border. If
you are asking me, I think probably most of them will go there.
Senator Leahy. We should have this discussion in greater
detail, because I am not happy. I do not think we are getting
the number, we are certainly not getting anywhere near the
number that the Congress mandated.
I-91 CHECKPOINT
I also want to have your staff and mine talk about this
checkpoint you have on Interstate 91 in Vermont, a long, long
distance from the border, that just stops honest Vermonters
that have been driving back and forth there forever and ever.
You had people--aliens that have been there for ever and
ever, they keep getting stopped over and over and over again.
There is a real suspicion of some racial profiling people who
have honestly, working in New Hampshire and Vermont for years
and years, and just continuously get stopped. They continuously
get asked the same questions as they got asked the day before.
The irony is, of course, if anybody wanted to circumvent
that they would just go out one of the back roads, and the
agents would never find them.
So let our staff talk about that. It is creating, both in
the ``Live Free Or Die'' State of New Hampshire and the former
independent republic of Vermont, it is creating a bit of a
concern. It is not going to do anything to stop people from
coming across the border, because they are not the ones getting
stopped.
Mr. Bonner. Could I briefly respond, though? That is that
part of the strategy is not putting everything on the line
itself. There has to be a second line of defense. It is not
that the checkpoint is necessarily going to--that terrorists
that might come across the Canadian border into the United
States. Part of the strategy of a checkpoint is lateral
enforcement from the checkpoint. It gives us a second line of
defense.
Senator Cochran. Senator, we have a vote.
Mr. Bonner. It is going to be important. It is an important
part of the overall strategy to get better control of our
borders, something you and I have a common interest in.
Senator Leahy. Yes. But when I have to stop and prove my
identification and I am a U.S. citizen, I know this is helping
somebody. It is sort of like security stopping Ted Kennedy a
dozen times from going on a plane because he is seen on a
terrorist list and the government does not know how the hell to
get him off it.
Thank you.
Mr. Bonner. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Cochran. This Senate hearing will stand in recess
until we go vote and we will return to resume our questioning
of the witnesses. We appreciate your indulgence.
NEW OFFICE OF SCREENING COORDINATION AND OPERATIONS
Thank you very much for your patience. I apologize for
having to go vote on the floor of the Senate during our
hearing.
The President's budget proposes to create the Office of
Screening Coordination and Operations within the Border and
Transportation Security Directorate. How do each of you see
this new office contributing to the Department's ability to
implement the 9/11 Commission recommendation? Mr. Bonner, let
us start with you.
Mr. Bonner. Well, I would say this, that certainly there
will be some benefits from thinking through this issue of
screening, particularly for the terrorist threat. So I expect
that it will assist in terms of coordinating those efforts,
understanding that there are fundamentally very different
screening opportunities that are presented depending upon which
homeland security agency you are talking about.
We have the broadest law enforcement authority of any law
enforcement agency in our country, Customs and Border
Protection, and that is because we have the full authority to,
without cause or suspicion, ask questions of anybody who is
crossing our border or entering our country through our
official entry points and certainly to arrest anybody who is
not. Secondly, we have the broad customs search authority,
which is the broadest search authority under the Fourth
Amendment of our Constitution, which permits us to search and
inspect luggage of everybody, by the way, U.S. citizens, non-
citizens, without cause, warrant, or suspicion.
So we have broad authorities, which we are using right now
in terms of being as intelligent as we can to perform that
priority mission of preventing terrorists from entering our
country. But I think nonetheless the Screening Coordination
Office should, I believe, play a helpful role.
VETTED TRAVELER PROGRAMS
There is another area, just briefly let me touch on it, Mr.
Chairman, where the Screening Coordination Office I think could
play a valuable role. That is, there are in place right now
essentially what I call trusted, vetted traveler programs.
Customs and Border Protection vastly expanded the Nexus program
at the Canadian border. We now have almost 80,000 people that
we have vetted. That is not only taking biometrics from them;
that is a personal interview to make sure that they pose no
terrorist threat or smuggling threat. We have a similar program
that we inherited from INS, the SENTRI program at the Mexican
border. We have FAST, the FAST program for commercial truckers
from both Mexico, coming from Mexico or Canada, and so forth.
We have mature actual programs. They are not pilots. We
have enrolled about 200,000 people into these programs. But on
the other hand, TSA is piloting a registered passenger program
and so forth. You need to look at the issue of what are the
biometrics that should be collected from each person that is
enrolled or is going to be considered to be a trusted or
registered individual for receiving some benefits. You need to
look at the biometric you use to identify them when they appear
at the border port of entry or when they appear at the airport
if it is a TSA issue and the like, and so forth.
I think the Screening Coordination Office could play a very
important role in getting those policy decisions, and they are
policy decisions, made and implemented in the most visionary
way possible, so that at the end of the day somebody that is
vetted in for one of these programs, let us say for the Nexus
program, would be cleared in for other kinds of trusted
passenger programs.
That is a big idea and I think the Screening Coordination
Office can and I hope will play a valuable role in harmonizing,
if you will, the technology issues for these different kinds of
trusted, vetted, or registered passenger or traveler programs.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Garcia, this was part of the
presidential commission, the National Commission on Terrorist
attacks, the 9/11 Commission's, recommendations, that there be
a centralized office created, designed to provide comprehensive
screening across, addressing common problems and setting common
standards in a systemwide operation. Do you see this office
contributing to the Department's ability to implement this
recommendation?
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, absolutely.
Again, you tie it back to the 9/11 Commission report. I think
you also look at the staff report on terrorist travel, the
recommendations in there, incredibly important work, the
conclusion that terrorist travel is at least as important an
area or vulnerability as terrorist financing. This center
certainly moves us forward in addressing those vulnerabilities.
ICE will play a role, as we will CBP and CIS, in working with
that center. For example, as we discussed, people who are
screened who are turned back we now can follow through with
associates present in the country by looking at our systems and
our data.
We can use our forensic document lab to examine their
travel documents and provide bulletins and intelligence
analysis to the front-line folks by analyzing that travel
documentation that terrorists or other national security
threats use to try to enter the country.
So certainly centralization of the screening function, and
as importantly I think what will flow from that within the
Department and within the agencies.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Aguirre, does this affect your agency
and how are you cooperating in this effort if so?
Mr. Aguirre. Mr. Chairman, it does affect our agency
because, of course, we are all in the immigration business to
one extent or another. Even though we are not on the
enforcement side, we are involved in the biometric of,
capturing biometrics of millions of applicants year in and year
out, and those biometrics of course are oftentimes being used
for law enforcement purposes where necessary.
I actually view the issue from a service standpoint, in
contrast to the enforcement standpoint. Any time you can have
consistency and coordination of the identification process and
the biometrics and so on, it can be an expedited opportunity
for those who do not have hits or do not have any reason to
feel the need of scrutiny.
So I think it would expedite the processing of the 97, 98
percent of those individuals that cross in and out. As you
probably know, USCIS is the organization that generates many of
the cards that are being used today. For instance, the Green
Cards are produced by us. We have put in those Green Cards--
permanent residency card--any number of biometric data for our
colleagues on the enforcement side to be able to work with.
OFFICE OF SCREENING COORDINATION AND OPERATIONS MISSION
Senator Cochran. Commissioner Bonner, should the Office of
Screening Coordination and Operations have actual operational
authority for various screening programs, as proposed, or
should it focus on the integration and coordination function
necessary across so many programs involved in the activity?
Mr. Bonner. I would say with respect to operations, you are
talking about the actual gathering of biometric data on
potential enrollees. You are talking about the actual interview
that we do and have done with a couple hundred thousand people.
I think that probably should be an operational function left
with the agency that is ultimately responsible for and going to
be held accountable for whatever benefit is being given.
If you took just the border issue in terms of our screening
at our ports of entry, international airports, land border,
ultimately CBP is operating these programs right now--the NEXUS
program, the SENTRI program. It may well make sense to leave
that operation at the agency level, in the agency that actually
is responsible.
Now, having said that, let me say we have a new Secretary
of Homeland Security, Mike Chertoff. By the way, I think
Secretary Chertoff is somebody who, based upon my past
experience, is going to be an extraordinary Secretary. He
ultimately makes the decision, not me, as to how you make this
distinction between what operational functions should remain at
the agency level and what, if any, systems functions should be
performed by the Screening Coordination Office.
I do not think that has been decided. Those are my views
subject to, of course, further guidance from Secretary
Chertoff.
Senator Cochran. Director Aguirre, what is your take on
that? Just from an opposite point of view, should the
Citizenship and Immigration Services programs, screening
programs, be moved to the Office of Screening Coordination and
Operations?
Mr. Aguirre. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure that in the vacuum
of this hearing I can give you an accurate answer. I think the
issue of operations and the issue of ``who is responsible for
what'' needs to be weighed in the context of is it working
well/is it not working well/and how can it work better. So
within Homeland Security I think we have a number of components
that can always stand improvement, and to determine here and
now what is better or worse, I would be ad libbing.
INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT/BORDER PATROL STAFF INCREASES
Senator Cochran. Mr. Bonner, this request does not include
resources to fulfill the new Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act authorizations. Were the new authorizations
considered or was the bill enacted into law too late to be
considered when the fiscal year 2006 budget process was
completed inside the administration?
Mr. Bonner. That is a good question. I need to probe my
memory on it in terms of the time line. Obviously, as you know,
the process is that we did make a request that goes through the
Department process, and ultimately ends up getting a lot of
scrubbing and review. I actually participated in the
Departmental Resources Review Board. I am not on that Board,
but I was allowed to be present and to present the CBP budget
request.
I need to get back to you. I do not have the time line
clearly in mind, but I do not remember as I was presenting the
CBP budget to the Department that the intelligence bill I do
not believe had passed with that authorization level. In fact,
I am just reminded it was not signed until December 17, 2004.
So it may have been one of those things where the budget was
being put together before we even knew what the Congressional
intent was in the intelligence bill.
That said, by the way, let me say that--and I was
addressing this a little bit with Senator Leahy--we have in the
last 10 years or so, literally tripled the size of the Border
Patrol, from about 4,000 Border Patrol Agents in the mid-90's
to now, and with the President's request it will be just about
11,000 Border Patrol Agents.
There is a limit, by the way, in thinking of bringing new
agent resources on board, there is a limit to how much a law
enforcement organization like the Border Patrol can absorb.
There are limits to how many agents the Border Control can
recruit, hire, and train in a single year, and still maintain
its cohesiveness as a law enforcement organization.
But that is going beyond your question, Senator. I think
the answer is I do not believe that the 2000 number was out
there as the budget request was going forward.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE VISA REFORM ACT
Senator Cochran. Mr. Aguirre, the Visa Reform Act was
passed as part of the fiscal year 2005 Consolidated
Appropriations Act. That act tightens controls on the L1 visa
and expands the cap on the H1B visas. What steps have been
taken to begin implementation of that act?
Mr. Aguirre. Well, Mr. Chairman, on the L1B visas there is
a provision for additional resources, human resources, to be
ensured that we can prevent fraudulent applications on the L1B.
I think you are clearly aware that fraud is a major issue for
Immigration Services, and L1B visas in particular are ones that
we have felt, and I think the Congress has felt as well, that
it is vulnerable to fraud. Therefore we are putting additional
human resources and applying our fraud detection and national
security unit to make sure that the applications are properly
processed, and expedited in the normal process, but that we
identify if there are any indices of fraud that we can identify
appropriately.
L1 VISA INTER-AGENCY TASK FORCE
Now, on the H1B applications, as you know, there is a
provision for an additional 20,000 applications, or the cap is
raised by 20,000. We are in the process of implementing that
number and within the next few days, if not weeks, we will have
an improved process to take advantage of that.
Senator Cochran. Has the L1 Visa Inter-Agency Task Force
been set up?
Mr. Aguirre. Senator, I am not aware of that, no, sir.
UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES--CATFISH IMPORTS
Senator Cochran. Mr. Bonner, this committee is interested
in the progress to protect American industries from unfair
competition. You mentioned the catfish and grouper issue a
while ago. Of importance of course in our State and in the
South is the catfish industry and the enforcement of
antidumping orders in connection with Vietnamese tra and basa.
What are ICE and CBP doing now to enforce this antidumping
order?
Mr. Bonner. Well, I can tell you, Senator, that going back
to October of last year we began a special enforcement effort
to essentially identify the misdescription, mislabeling of
catfish, imported catfish that would be subject to antidumping
duties. We do have a laboratory science and services branch
where we were taking samples literally of imports that were
coming into the port of L.A., Long Beach, Miami, and the Port
of New York, and determining whether in fact they were what
they were represented to be. We found that there was
significant misdescription of a product that was being shipped
from Vietnam.
We have taken three important actions. One, based upon that
identification at the port levels, we have raised the
continuous duty bonds. We are requiring higher single entry
duty bonds with respect to product that we believe in fact was
subject to the countervailing duties, that is to say was in
fact catfish. We have required payment of additional duties. We
are actively pursuing what are called section 1592 penalty
actions against those importers who imported mislabeled, I
might say falsely and potentially fraudulently mislabeled
product. We are working with ICE, as I indicated to Senator
Byrd, to attempt to get further investigation through the ICE
special agents, and potentially we are hopeful to get criminal
prosecutions in at least some of these cases in conjunction
with the Department of Justice and the relevant U.S. attorney's
offices.
Clearly, we have taken some steps. We are moving out on
this issue because there is clearly some false labeling that is
taking place here to essentially circumvent and fraudulently
evade the antidumping duties.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Garcia, you have some responsibilities
in this area as well, do you not?
Mr. Garcia. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. ICE, as Commissioner
Bonner indicated, is responsible for investigations in this
area. We are committed to doing that. I know this crime has a
very real impact on industries in this country. I have spoken
with a number of members of Congress about those impacts in
their particular districts and particular industries.
I have seen a number of significant cases, and again
Commissioner Bonner touched on them, that have come across my
desk. I believe that we will be moving forward, again with the
relevant U.S. attorney's office, to seek to bring criminal
charges in a number of cases. We are using our overseas assets
very aggressively to root out some of the fraud that has been
going on in this area.
So we have made progress and we are committed to continuing
those enforcement efforts.
BORDER PATROL AIRCRAFT REPLACEMENT
Senator Cochran. Mr. Bonner, the budget request includes
some money, $20 million, to begin replacing Border Patrol
helicopters. The plan calls for the full replacement of the air
fleet to be completed in 2010. Is the request that is included
in the budget sufficient to get you started in this direction?
Would additional resources allow you to speed up the
replacement of the fleet?
Mr. Bonner. I am happy to get started on the
recapitalization of the Border Patrol air assets. As I think
you know, Mr. Chairman, out of the 110 or so air platforms that
the Border Patrol has, roughly--this is a rough estimate as I
do not have the exact number, about 40 to 50 of those are
Vietnam vintage aircraft--the OH-6's, the small bubble
surveillance helicopters, as well as about maybe 10 or 12
Vietnam vintage Hueys.
It is a good start. As we move forward with the integration
of the Air and Marine Office in a better configuration with the
Border Patrol air assets, we are going to find that there are
some benefits there in terms of how we look at the air
resources we need.
But nonetheless, there is a significant amount of
recapitalization that is going to need to be done and this is a
start on it. Yes, Mr. Chairman, if there were more funding it
would help us get there faster.
INTEGRATION OF CBP AIR AND MARINE ASSETS
Senator Cochran. The integration of the air and marine
resources has begun, as you point out. What progress is being
made toward integrating the units with the Border Patrol?
Mr. Bonner. There is some good progress. First of all, of
course, the first phase of it was essentially the integration
or the transfer. In some ways I see it as a transfer back to
U.S. Customs, but anyway it was the transfer in November of
last year of the Air and Marine Operations (AMO) office to CBP.
That was phase one. That has been completed.
We are now into phase two. In phase two, I am using the
Transition Management Office process that we used very
successfully to unify and integrate CBP. It is a process that
essentially looks at the ways that we can now further integrate
essentially the air assets and also the marine assets that are
now all within CBP.
By the way, there have already been some very important
benefits from this, from the transfer of AMO to CBP in terms of
better operational coordination between the Border Patrol and
AMO and the like. But phase two will do this. It will better
integrate one procurement, for not just the Border Patrol and
not just for AMO, but for both. It will better integrate one
maintenance system for all aviation air assets, one training
system for all of our pilots, whether they are from the Border
Patrol or whether they were AMO pilots. Ultimately, as part of
this process, we are going to determine ways to better
operationally integrate the efforts of both of these air and
marine groups and assets.
I have had several briefings on this already. I believe
that we will be able to make some key decisions along the lines
I have described certainly in the next couple of months or so,
so that we are continuing to move forward with the best optimal
organization, if you will, of the sum total of the air and
marine assets that are now within CBP.
Senator Cochran. I appreciate very much the cooperation of
each of you and your agencies with our committee and the
requests that we submit for information from time to time.
Particularly, I appreciate your taking time to come here today
and participate in this hearing, which is very important for us
to have to get a full understanding of how you are allocating
the resources under the budget request and what the priorities
are.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
We want to help you succeed in your activities. So we thank
you very much for your cooperation with our subcommittee.
Senators may submit questions to you in writing and we ask you
to respond to those within a reasonable time for our committee
record.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Thad Cochran
CONTINUED FUNDING SHORTFALLS--ICE
Question. In September of 2004, this Committee approved a request
to transfer and reprogram $152 million in order to allow Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ``to effectively manage its financial
position through year end''. In other words, the request was to move
$152 million to ensure that ICE did not have a shortfall.
This Committee worked with the Department to permanently move $193
million in base resources from Customs and Border Protection to ICE in
the fiscal year 2005 Appropriations Act. Admiral Loy recently testified
to the House Appropriations Committee that he expects there to be a
reprogramming request submitted soon to provide anywhere from an
additional $250 to $300 million to ICE in order to finish out fiscal
year 2005.
The cycle of stopgap solutions needs to end. Too much time seems to
have been spent trying to figure out how this situation came about--
what is termed ``mapping''--rather than trying to make sure this
problem is resolved so that we can move forward to ensure that an
agency vital to combating terrorism is solvent.
When will this Committee receive the transfer/reprogramming
proposal to address the fiscal year 2005 shortfall?
Answer. The notification of the proposed reprogramming was
transmitted to the Appropriations Committees on March 12, 2005, in a
letter dated March 11, 2005.
Question. Have Congressional initiatives funded in the fiscal year
2005 Appropriations Act been deferred until this problem is resolved?
Answer. In the proposed reprogramming, ICE is proposing to defer
$85.216 million of the $193.916 million in enhancements, i.e.,
Congressional initiatives, funded in the fiscal year 2005
Appropriations Act. Item 2, on page 5 of the Report of Proposed
Reprogramming Action discusses, in detail, the enhancements which are
being reduced from their original appropriated amounts. The
enhancements that have been reduced are shown below:
Fugitive Operations
The enhancement is reduced to $9 million from the appropriated $50
million level. This will allow funding of 42 positions instead of the
236 positions originally planned. The reduction will mean that fewer
Fugitive Operations teams can be deployed as originally planned.
Institutional Removal Program
The enhancement is reduced to $4 million from the appropriated $30
million level. This will allow funding of 37 positions instead of the
279 positions originally planned. Higher cost Special Agents will
continue to perform some institutional removal duties, instead of
replacing all of them with Immigration Enforcement Agents.
Compliance Enforcement Units
The enhancement is reduced to $11 million from the appropriated
level of $16 million. This will permit funding of 89 positions instead
of the 130 positions originally planned.
Alternatives to Detention
The enhancement is reduced to $2 million from the appropriated
level of $11 million. This will permit funding of 11 positions instead
of the 60 positions originally planned. Some capacity increases will
occur at each of the current eight Intensive Supervision sites, though
not to the anticipated levels.
Guantanamo Migrant Operations Center
The enhancement is reduced to $2 million from the appropriated
level of $6.2 million. The level should be sufficient to support the
Center's operations. (Note: remaining, fully-funded, enhancements
include $26.5 million for Detention Bed Space; $25 million for Benefit
Fraud; $14 million for the Visa Security Unit and the Office of
International Affairs; $6 million for the Immigration Court Backlog; $5
million for Worksite Enforcement; and, $4.2 million for the Cyber Crime
Center.)
Question. What assurance do we have that the fiscal year 2006
request for ICE will solve this problem permanently?
Answer. The full funding level requested in the President's Budget,
internally realigned for the impact of the fiscal year 2005
reprogramming request, will allow ICE to carry out its mission during
fiscal year 2006. We do not foresee the need for further reprogramming
or funding transfers among bureaus.
Question. ICE has now lived under a hiring freeze for close to a
calendar year. What impact is this having on the organization's ability
to carry out its mission?
Answer. ICE has had to implement several measures to ensure it
operates within existing resources. It has had to prioritize funding
requirements. In all cases, ICE has worked to ensure that mission
critical requirements have been funded with the intent of minimizing
any adverse impact on its national security related mission.
Question. There are significant resources requested for fiscal year
2006 to increase the base funding available to ICE: $105 million for
the Office of Investigations, $24 million for the Office of Detention
and Removals, and a significant portion of the $90 million for Custody
Management. What method was used to come up with these estimates?
Answer. Estimates were derived by looking at the entire operation
and determining that the resources of these offices/programs needed
increases in order to attain key operational goals.
Question. Will the fiscal year 2006 request provide ICE with the
funding necessary to enable it to lift the hiring freeze on October 1,
2005?
Answer. ICE continues to work closely with DHS, BTS, and OMB to
identify solutions to address its financial issues. One of ICE's
priorities is to implement financial solutions that will allow the
lifting of the hiring freeze. This work is ongoing and as a result, it
is too early to state whether the hiring freeze will be lifted on
October 1, 2005. An alternative may be to implement solutions that
would allow the freeze to be lifted later in the fiscal year.
Question. According to the just delivered ``ICE Financial
Management Overhaul'' report, ``The ICE Assistant Secretary brought in
a team from other components of DHS on a 90-day detail to help identify
solutions to ICE's financial issues. The team will make recommendations
to the Assistant Secretary by later this Spring.'' Its charter
includes: development of short-term recommendations to address fiscal
year 2005 funding issues; an action plan with key recommendations to
place ICE into a stable funding position for fiscal year 2006 and
beyond; and recommendations for policies and procedures that will
result in transparent budget and financial planning and execution. What
potential is there that these recommendations could cause significant
revisions to the President's fiscal year 2006 budget request?
Answer. The President's Budget includes the necessary funding to
ensure ICE can accomplish its mission to detect vulnerabilities and
prevent violations that threaten national security. As mentioned in the
``ICE Financial Management Overhaul'' report, the team is developing
recommendations to improve ICE's financial position in 2006.
As noted in your question, the final report is due to the Assistant
Secretary later this spring. The team's recommendations will be shared
with the ICE's new CFO and Budget Director. ICE appreciates your
interest in this effort and looks forward to working with you and your
staff where necessary to implement any recommendations.
Question. How is it that this organization is almost 2 years old
and is just now looking to develop sound financial planning policies
and procedures?
Answer. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security
represented a reorganization unprecedented in the Federal Government.
2005 represents the first year that ICE has focused on issues other
than transition and reconciliation. It is an opportune time to further
refine financial policies and procedures previously implemented and to
continue developing sound policies and processes as necessary.
Question. ICE has two outsourcing competitions on going--labor
management and intelligence support. Is this an area where ICE could
see significant cost savings?
Answer. Fiscal year 2005 would have been U.S. Immigration and
Custom Enforcement's (ICE's) initial full year of participation in
competitive sourcing since its inception. ICE intended to initiate its
original studies on a relatively small scale in order to properly
establish its competitive sourcing infrastructure. Significant cost
savings were not expected to be realized based on the fiscal year 2005
studies. More significant savings would be anticipated based on broader
studies under consideration for fiscal year 2006. ICE expects to be an
active participant in the initiative in fiscal year 2006.
Question. Please provide a chart with the on-board staffing level
for ICE, by position type, for September 30, 2004, and fiscal year 2005
through January 31, 2005, both excluding Air and Marine Operations.
Answer. Attached are the ICE on-board staffing charts for the end
of fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005, through the pay period ending
February 5, 2005. Federal Protective Service positions are included,
but Federal Air Marshal Service positions are not included.
Highlighted changes from 2004 to 2005 are:
--An increase of 185 positions transferred from Customs and Border
Protection to ICE for International Affairs
--The movement of 112 Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force
positions from reimbursable to direct
--The movement of 138 positions from reimbursable to direct
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Question. Please provide updated fee projection charts for each fee
account for fiscal year 2006 as compared to fiscal year 2005, with the
chart for the Student Exchange Visitor Information System broken out by
month.
Answer. Attached are fee projection charts for ICE by fee account
for fiscal year 2006 versus fiscal year 2005.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year
Fee accounts 2005 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Immigration User Fee.................... $100,000 $101,621
Breached Bond Detention Fund............ 114,000 115,260
Student and Exchange Visitor Program:
I-901 Revenues:
October......................... 1,459,215 2,039,431
November........................ 2,636,660 2,166,852
December........................ 3,451,620 3,135,481
January......................... 2,211,365 2,092,676
February........................ 1,970,220 1,485,072
March........................... 2,661,321 2,661,321
April........................... 4,452,487 4,452,487
May............................. 6,211,727 6,311,727
June............................ 7,225,460 7,509,932
July............................ 7,149,570 7,441,213
August.......................... 4,515,573 4,524,954
September....................... 2,072,375 2,072,375
-------------------------------
Total......................... 46,017,593 45,893,520
===============================
I-17 Revenues:
October......................... 30,659 1,050,960
November........................ 27,960 403,680
December........................ 38,416 187,920
January......................... 28,540 231,420
February........................ 33,330 320,740
March........................... 29,000 211,120
April........................... 29,000 372,940
May............................. 29,000 309,720
June............................ 29,000 161,240
July............................ 29,000 132,820
August.......................... 29,000 53,360
September....................... 29,000 62,640
-------------------------------
Total......................... 361,905 3,498,560
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Please provide a chart with the fiscal year 2006
annualization projections broken out by fiscal year 2005 initiative.
Answer. Please see table below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enhancement Annualization One-time costs Net
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compliance..................................................... $13,743 ($9,710) $4,033
IRP............................................................ 28,478 (11,420) 17,058
Fugitive Ops................................................... 25,799 (11,543) 14,256
Alternatives................................................... 4,925 (2,856) 2,069
Bed Space...................................................... 2,869 (1,326) 1,543
Backlog........................................................ 13,256 (2,222) 11,034
Worksite....................................................... 3,044 (1,648) 1,396
------------------------------------------------
Total.................................................... 92,114 (40,725) 51,389
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Please provide detailed comprehensive justifications for
each program increase requested in the fiscal year 2006 President's
budget.
Answer.
Homeland Security Data Network (HSDN)
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Program 2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 budget 2006 change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ICE's portion of HSDN \1\....................... .............. .............. 11,300 11,300
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Note: There is no base budget for HSDN. However, the Department's Working Capital Fund assessment for fiscal
year 2005 is currently estimated to be $8.695 million. ICE contributed $3.2 million to the WCF in fiscal year
2004 for HSDN.
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for HSDN totals $11.3 million and
1 FTE.
HSDN is a multi-agency, Department-wide project, funded from
contributions from participating agencies. For fiscal year 2005, ICE's
estimated contribution to HSDN is $8.7 million. In fiscal year 2004,
ICE contributed $3.2 million to HSDN. Although ICE contributes funding
for HSDN, the development, deployment, and management of the network is
the direct responsibility of the HSDN Program Office which also manages
all the funding for this ICE-sponsored initiative.
The HSDN is a secure communication network for transmission of
information classified up to SECRET. It has been designed to replace
several disparate legacy systems. HSDN will provide connectivity to the
Department of Defense (DOD) Secret Internet Protocol Router Network
(SIPRNet) to all users. DOD has indicated that non-DOD agencies should
not use the SIPRNet as their primary classified communications medium.
HSDN will provide access to SIPRNet via controlled gateways, satisfying
this DOD concern. There are more than 400 DHS sites requiring HSDN
deployment. Funding of this initiative will provide access to as many
as 700 users in fiscal year 2006.
Funding for this request would support a HSDN coordinator to serve
as a liaison between ICE program offices and the DHS's Science and
Technology (S&T) Directorate, the HSDN program manager. The remaining
resources would be provided to S&T for costs associated with the HSDN
development process, including a survey of ICE locations, installation
of equipment, set-up of terminals, and activation of service to
terminals.
HSDN implementation was designed to follow a phased schedule. The
first phase--which included the design and approval of the overall
network design--has been completed. The second phase proposes the
installation of a limited number of terminals in 72 locations. Among
these, 13 are ICE locations which include facilities within the Office
of Intelligence and Office of Investigations. Equipment installation at
these ICE locations is expected to continue through fiscal year 2005.
The remaining HSDN implementation phases will encompass the
installation of all remaining locations including State and local
offices. ICE has identified an additional eighty-eight locations which
will have the HSDN installed in these remaining phases. These include
the remaining Special Agent in Charge Offices, most Resident Agent in
Charge Offices, Intelligence Collection and Analysis Teams, and
remaining Office of Intelligence locations.
Performance Impact.--Funding of this initiative will provide access
to HSDN as follows:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Performance increase 2006 request 2007 request 2008 request 2009 request 2010 request
level level level level level
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total number of HSDN users...... 700 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visa Security Unit
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Program 2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base 2006 budget 2006 change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visa Security Unit.............. .............. 10,000 10,000 15,000 5,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for VSU totals $5 million and 5
FTE.
The ICE Visa Security Unit (VSU) conducts in-depth review of visa
applicants wishing to enter the United States, with the goal of denying
visas to terrorists, criminals, and persons of special interest. Visa
Security Program officers are assigned to posts to perform this law
enforcement review of immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applications
prior to visa issuance by consular officers of the Department of State.
For fiscal year 2005, the VSU's first year of funding, $10 million
was provided to: (1) establish permanent operations in Saudi Arabia;
(2) expand visa security operations to five additional high-risk
locations (locations are not named here due to law enforcement
sensitivity); and (3) hire 22 permanent positions (five at Headquarters
and 17 at the overseas posts).
The enhancement requested for fiscal year 2006 would support nine
additional positions ($4.827 million) and provide $173,000 for
Investigations Training. These resources would advance incremental
progress toward program expansion.
A $5 million enhancement to the base would:
--fund new overseas visa security post (to be selected based on
current risk), staffed by three permanent Visa Security
Officers, to expand the scope of visa security operations.
Overseas operations involve: conducting in-depth scrutiny of
high risk visa applicants; providing advice and training to
consular officers to enhance their ability to detect terrorist,
criminal, and otherwise fraudulent visa applicants through the
consular adjudication process; and initiating investigations
under DHS authority;
--hire two additional officers at Headquarters to provide operational
and administrative support to the overseas operations;
--hire four permanent officer positions to replace temporary duty
personnel currently investigating Security Advisory Opinions
(SAOs) and ``Section 306'' cases (visa applicants from a State
Sponsor of Terrorism);
--expand funding for Consular Training programs, including
Headquarters consular training program development, Rapid
Response Team capability, and consular evaluation program
development.
Performance Impact.--The Homeland Security Act authorizes the
Secretary of Homeland Security to assign employees of the Department to
diplomatic and consular posts at which visas are issued, unless the
Secretary determines that such an assignment to a particular post would
not promote homeland security. The Secretary must submit an annual
report to Congress that describes the basis for each determination that
the assignment of an employee of the Department at a particular post
would not promote homeland security.
Conducting the activities of the VSU in Saudi Arabia and expanding
to the locations designated as highest risk by the Secretary are
expected to generate an increase in homeland security outputs such as:
recommendations to refuse individual visa applications, generation of
investigative leads, additional lookouts and watch list entries,
identification of visa fraud schemes (including fraudulent documents,
businesses, organizations, and associates), delivery of formal and
informal training to consular officers, and other enforcement actions.
The outcomes associated with these outputs may include a decrease in
the vulnerabilities in the visa issuance process, increased integrity
of the immigration system, and a greater awareness of terrorist
suspects and activity patterns.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Fiscal year 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Performance level 2005 est. request request request request request
level level level level level level
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percentage security review of all 100 100 100 100 100 100
visa applications in Saudi Arabia
Percentage of high risk visa NA
applicants scrutinized at the non-
Saudi posts......................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Proceedings
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Program Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006
2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base 2006 budget enhancements
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Principal Legal Advisor......... 86,423 113,105 119,514 123,014 3,500
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Funding from the Salaries and Expense account only. Does not include reimbursable funding.
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for Legal Proceedings totals $3.5
million and 24 FTE.
Of the fiscal year 2005 enhancements, 16 attorney and 12 support
positions are scheduled for Headquarters while 38 attorneys and 8
support positions are targeted for the Field. The Headquarters
positions will be distributed among existing Headquarters teams dealing
with the following areas:
--Commercial and Administrative Law Division (primarily working on
Merit Systems Protection Board appeals, and defending Equal
Employment Opportunity claims generated by ICE clients (Federal
Protective Service (FPS) and Federal Air Marshals (FAMS)), and
handling bid protests primarily generated by FPS contracts;
--the National Security Law Division overseeing the litigation of
national security cases, providing legal advice to the Office
of Intelligence, and performing liaison activities with other
law enforcement agencies;
--the Customs Enforcement Law Division, dealing with policy issues,
and day to day monitoring of undercover operations, and ongoing
criminal investigations; the Enforcement Law Division, dealing
with a wide range of issues generated by the Office of
Detention and Removal, the Office of Investigations, FAMS, and
FPS, including statutory authority, search and seizure, use of
force, and parole and custody issues, and the Human Rights Law
Division, coordinating the litigation and advices the field on
human rights abuser and persecutor cases.
The fiscal year 2005 field positions will be devoted to the
following field areas:
--increased time and efforts spent on national security, predator and
persecutor cases at the field level;
--increased training of staff on national security and persecutor
issues;
--increased review of Notices to Appear prior to issuance or the
hearing date;
--more timely movement of ``change of venue cases'' between district
offices to cut down on adjournments because the agency
representative does not have the file;
--increased amount of time spent on preparing a case for hearing,
with a particular focus on review of alien evidentiary
submissions and investigation thereof so as to minimize the
number of adjournments required for document checks (by the
Forensic Document Laboratory, the Department of States, and
ICE/CIS offices abroad);
--increased emphasis on benefit and asylum fraud, including
development of criminal prosecutions, so as to discourage the
filing of fraudulent or frivolous applications;
--increased emphasis on responding to motions to reopen and filing
responses to alien briefs before the Board of Immigration
Appeals so as to diminish the number of non-meritorious cases
that are reopened, and to speed up appeal processing at the
Board of Immigration Appeals level.
These increased resources will also be used to assist the Office of
Immigration Litigation (OIL) and the Offices of the United States
Attorney (USAO) litigating Petitions of Review of removal orders and
habeas challenges to custody and removal.
Past, current, and planned deployment of resources (Attorneys/
Support):
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Planned fiscal Planned fiscal
Current year 2005 year 2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arlington....................................................... 11/4 13/4 14/4
Atlanta......................................................... 8/3 9/3 10/3
Baltimore....................................................... 10/4 11/4 12/4
Boston (Includes Hartford Office)............................... 19/6 21/6 23/7
Buffalo......................................................... 8/3 8/3
Chicago (Includes Kansas City Office)........................... 17/7 19/7
Dallas.......................................................... 10/4 10/4
Denver (Includes Helena and Salt Lake City Offices)............. 11/5 12/6 12/7
Detroit (Includes Cleveland, Cincinnati Offices)................ 12/4 14/5 16/6
El Paso......................................................... 10/4 11/4 12/4
Honolulu........................................................ 2/1 2/1
Houston......................................................... 18/7 19/7 20/7
Los Angeles (Includes Las Vegas Office)......................... 75/26 83/28 89/32
Miami........................................................... 52/18 56/19 60/22
Newark.......................................................... 21/7 23/7 24/8
New Orleans (Includes Memphis Office)........................... 14/5 16/5 17/5
New York........................................................ 75/26 77/27 80/29
Orlando......................................................... 11/4 12/4
Philadelphia.................................................... 15/5 16/6 17/7
Phoenix......................................................... 22/8 25/9 27/9
St. Paul (Includes Omaha Office)................................ 8/3 10/3 11/3
San Antonio (Includes Harlingen Office)......................... 22/8 23/8 23/9
San Diego....................................................... 25/9 25/9
San Francisco................................................... 41/14 43/14 45/15
San Juan........................................................ 3/2 3/2
Seattle (Includes Portland and Anchorage Offices)............... 11/4 11/4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EOIR's statistical data demonstrates that the largest pending case
load exists in descending order in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San
Antonio (including Harlingen), San Francisco, Chicago, Boston
(including Hartford), Orlando, Arlington, and Philadelphia Many cases
from Harlingen are ultimately transferred through a change of venue
order to more urban locations.
The specific results expected by the investment of resources and/or
the impact of not providing the investment:
At present, six different entities (CIS--Asylum Offices and
Examinations; CBP--Inspections and Border Patrol; ICE--Investigations
and Detention and Removal) create the Notices to Appear (charging
documents) that form the basis for litigation before the immigration
court. With these expanded resources, ICE legal staff will be able to
review more ICE generated charging documents to ensure better quality.
It can also take more proactive steps to review charging documents
created by other offices prior to the first master calendar on these
cases, amending those charges that are legally deficient and filing
such amended charges with the court in advance of the hearing date.
This will lead to a reduction in adjournments. In addition, it will
also permit the ICE litigation staff to terminate any cases that may
have been improvidently brought.
Another source of adjournments (and hence backlog) stems from those
cases where venue of the hearing has been transferred from one district
to another. Frequently, because of a lack of support staffs, the needed
files are not forwarded to the gaining office on a timely basis. With
these added support resources, more focus can be made on those files,
which are the subject of a change in venue, with either the losing
office sending the file more expeditiously or the gaining office making
more determined efforts to obtain the needed file in advance of the
scheduled hearing date. These same support personnel can also more
readily assist Assistant Chief Counsel in administrative tasks, which
consume a great deal of attorney time best spent on moving a case
forward.
The nature of immigration court litigation case has grown
exceedingly complex. In the larger city offices, the vast majority of
cases before the court are asylum claims, which are very time intensive
to litigate. Unfortunately, asylum claims are frequently fraudulent and
can be used by unscrupulous individuals as a way to gain status in the
country. As part of the application process, aliens normally provide a
large number of documents in support of their claim, many of which may
have been manufactured. To attempt to ensure the process is not abused,
the Assistant Chief Counsel must conduct intensive alien file and
document review. The Assistant Chief Counsel attempts to make full use
of the Forensics Document Laboratory and other avenues of investigation
to determine if the claim/documentation is bona fide. The Assistant
Chief Counsel must also try to track down related alien files to
determine if the alien has applied for a benefit under a different
alien number/different name, locate alien files of relatives to
determine consistency of the claim, and run extensive record checks.
Assistant Chief Counsel also needs to contact victims in cases that are
brought under the ICE Predator Initiative to assure that they are
available to testify regarding the life long adverse impact these
actions caused to them to assure alien sexual violators are removed and
their relief applications are denied. With these additional attorney
resources, Assistant Chief Counsel will be in a better position to do
more complete and timely case review, and to request document checks,
make record checks, and review related files in a timely manner. This
in turn not only makes a better record on which the immigration judge
can base his/her decision; it speeds up resolution of the case because
all the crucial steps in the process are undertaken sooner.
Agency lawyers also work closely with the Office of the United
States Attorneys, and Office of Immigration Litigation litigators by
preparing litigation reports, reviewing records where remands are
proposed, preparing recommendations for further review where judicial
decisions are adverse to DHS interests and by providing guidance,
advice and assistance on complex immigration law issues.
In a related vein, in larger city offices, ICE tries to have joint
attorney-investigator focus on travel agencies and corrupt attorneys
who actively encourage and assist in the filing of fraudulent or
frivolous asylum cases. These cases clog the system and lead to
additional court backlog. Currently, these joint attorney-investigator
efforts have had to be more ad hoc and limited in nature. With these
additional attorney resources, the staff would devote more time and
effort to identifying the individuals who are the source of such
claims, and work more closely with the criminal investigators in
developing criminal prosecutions for the United States Attorneys
Offices.
Temporary Worker Worksite Enforcement (TWP/WSE)
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Program 2004 budget Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
\1\ 2005 budget 2006 budget 2006 change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWA............................................. .............. 5,000 23,000 18,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ No funding was devoted to ``Temporary Worker Worksite Enforcement'' in fiscal year 2004, but approximately
$18 million was devoted to Worksite Enforcement in fiscal year 2004.
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for TWP totals $18 million and 72
FTE
As part of the President's proposed temporary worker program to
match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers, enforcement
of immigration laws to ensure compliance is required. Under the
President's proposal, the temporary worker program would be open to new
foreign workers, and to the undocumented men and women currently
employed in the United States. The program would allow workers who
currently hold jobs unlawfully to participate legally in America's
economy, while not encouraging further illegal behavior.
The spend plan for the $5 million enhancement in fiscal year 2005
focuses on field training, employer outreach, and reconstituting the
Worksite Enforcement Program infrastructure within the Office of
Investigations in Headquarters in the final half of fiscal year 2005.
Resources requested for fiscal year 2006 will primarily fund the
deployment of FTEs to States (CA, TX, FL, NY, IL) having the greatest
population of unauthorized workers.
The $18 million enhancement (of which $16.216 million is required
in the Investigations Operations activity and $1.784 million is
required in the Investigations Training activity) would fund 140
Special Agent and 3 support positions.
Performance Impact.--The additional resources will broaden the
scope of the worksite enforcement program's strategic goals to include
protecting the jobs and wages of legal workers by identifying and
removing unauthorized workers. ICE will increase its presence at
worksites, concentrating on employers in specific industries and
geographical areas who intentionally violate the law or who have
historically hired large numbers of unauthorized workers. ICE will also
coordinate with Citizenship and Immigration Services to improve and
expand verification services (Basic Pilot Program) to employers
nationwide pursuant to the Basic Pilot Program Extension and Expansion
Act of 2003.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year
Performance measure Fiscal year 2006 request level 2007 request 2008 request
level level
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Administrative Worksite Case Completions...... Base............................ + 20 percent + 30 percent
Criminal Employer Case Presentations.......... Base............................ + 20 percent + 30 percent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF)
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Program 2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 budget 2006 change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OCDETF.......................................... 47,300 33,100 43,678 10,578
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: In fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005, OCDETF funding was reimbursable. In fiscal year 2006, funding
proposed to be directly appropriated to ICE.
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for OCDETF totals $43.678 million
and 346 FTE.
Currently, funding for ICE OCDETF is provided on a reimbursable
basis from the Department of Justice (DOJ). Beginning in fiscal year
2006, funding is being requested via direct appropriations to ICE.
Funding requested would cover salary costs for 332 Special Agents
($41.840 million) and 14 Intelligence Research Specialists ($1.838
million) for a total of $43.678 million.
The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program is
a Federal drug enforcement program that focuses attention and resources
on the disruption and dismantling of major drug trafficking
organizations. OCDETF provides a framework for Federal, State, and
local law enforcement agencies to work together to target well-
established and complex organizations that direct, finance, or engage
in illegal narcotics trafficking and related crimes. Related crimes
include money laundering and tax violations, public corruption, illegal
immigration, weapons violations, and violent crimes. The OCDETF program
has been in existence since 1982 and operates under the guidance and
oversight of the Attorney General. Utilizing the resources and
expertise of 11 member Federal agencies, along with support from State
and local law enforcement partners, OCDETF has contributed to the
successful prosecution and conviction of more than 44,000 members of
criminal organizations and resulted in the seizure of cash and property
assets totaling more than $3.0 billion.
No new FTEs are being requested. Rather, existing personnel will be
paid by direct appropriation instead of by reimbursable funding.
In fiscal year 2004, ICE was reimbursed $47.3 million for costs
associated with OCDETF. The reimbursable agreement for fiscal year 2005
provides for up to $33.1 million--a decrease of $14.2 million.
Performance Impact.--This initiative is intended to restore funding
that was cut in fiscal year 2005, to ensure a consistent and more
reliable funding source for ICE OCDETF activities, and to establish an
appropriated base in lieu of reimbursable funding. This initiative is
intended to provide funding that supports dedicated resources engaged
in OCDETF activities and to maintain priority status for the program.
The impact resulting from the decrease in reimbursable funding in
fiscal year 2005 has ICE OCDETF requirements competing for funding--
including priority status--within the ICE operational base. As a
result, there can be no assurance that prior year performance levels
can be maintained or achieved. Direct appropriated base funding is
expected to support out-year ICE operations' planning that promotes the
continued collaboration with other OCDETF participating agencies to
achieve OCDETF goals and objectives.
$105 Million Base Increase for Investigations Operations
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Program Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006 budget Fiscal year 2006
2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base \1\ enhancements \1\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Investigations Operations..... 796,478 1,138,495 1,099,554 1,267,437 167,883
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Note: The President's budget proposes enhancements of $167.883 million to the Investigations Operations
budget activity. Of that amount, $105 million is a base increase, $4.827 million is for the Visa Security
Unit, $16.216 million is for Temporary Worker Worksite Enforcement, and $41.840 million is for OCDETF
activities.
The $105 million base increase will provide resources required to
fund base requirements for the Office of Investigations, including
salary costs, vehicle replacement, and other general expenses.
Performance Impact.--Improved infrastructure on which to support
continuation of investigative activities, both domestically and
internationally.
Detention Bed Space
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Program Fiscal year fiscal year Fiscal year 2006 budget Fiscal year 2006
2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base \1\ enhancements \1\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRO-Custody Management \1\.... 550,912 697,855 594,169 727,769 108,600
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Note: There are three enhancements to the Custody Management program, totaling $90.0 million, $25.0 million,
and $18.6 million respectively. The $25.0 million for ABC/Interior Repatriation is excluded in this display,
as it is described separately.
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for Detention Bed Space totals
$108 million and 16 FTE.
The President's Budget requests an additional $90 million for
detention bed space and $18.6 million as a base increase for the
Custody Management program. Approximately $63 million of the $90
million is intended for the direct cost of providing an additional
1,920 beds. The balance of the $90 million request is intended to fund
32 new positions (16 FTE) to provide staff to support to those beds.
This increase in bed space responds to increased demand for detention
bed space generated by apprehending agencies (e.g., Border Patrol,
Inspections, Investigations, etc.). The $18.6 million increase will
provide resources required to fund base requirements for the Custody
Management budget activity within the Office of Detention and Removal.
The fiscal year 2005 appropriation provided an additional $26.5
million for 1,216 new beds and 28 positions (14 FTE) above fiscal year
2004 levels.
Detention capacity and the necessary resources are fundamental
components to the immigration enforcement mission. For the immigration
enforcement mission to be successful, detention capacity must be
considered at an appropriate ratio compared with resources provided for
investigations and apprehensions. Increased detention capacity will
improve the ability of ICE to verify alien identity, deter subsequent
illegal entry, dramatically increase removal rates, prevent criminal
aliens from returning to communities, and protect national security.
Criminal aliens comprise more than half of the total detained
population and we expect their numbers continue to rise due to enhanced
enforcement efforts like IRP (Institutional Removal Program) and 287(g)
expansion (local law enforcement authority to enforce immigration
violations). Criminal aliens comprise a significant portion of our
mandatory detention population (those individuals who have received
final orders of removal and whose removal is imminent, those who are
pending expedited removal activities, and those who are otherwise
required by law or policy to be detained). In recent months, ICE's
mandatory population has increased at a gradual, but steady rate due to
increased enforcement activities (particularly from Expedited Removal
initiative). As these targeted enforcement efforts continue, further
growth in our mandatory detention population is likely. ICE continues
to improve the efficiency of its detention program by consolidating
populations and improving capacity management. These measures are
anticipated to reduce costs by eliminating travel from detention
facilities to proceedings, reducing average time in detention, and
providing for more consistent and higher quality conditions of
confinement for the detained population.
ICE will continue to enforce its robust facility inspection program
and coordinate with our governmental organizations and non-governmental
organization partners in pursuit of maintaining acceptable and
appropriate conditions of confinement for the detained population. We
are committed to effectively enforcing our immigration laws and
protecting our Nation's security in a manner that affords the rights
and proper treatment obligated under our laws to detainees, including
those claiming asylum.
Fugitive Operations
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Program Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006
2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base 2006 budget enhancement
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRO-Fugitive Ops................ 26,916 44,687 48,121 57,001 8,880
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for the Fugitive Operations is
$8.88 million and 0 FTE.
The President's Budget requests an additional $8.88 million to
support increased efforts to apprehend fugitive aliens. While estimates
vary, the alien absconder population is more than 465,000 and that it
continues to grow at a rate of more than 40,000 absconders per year.
Experience with the current fugitive operations teams suggests that
each team yields at least 500 absconder apprehensions/case closures per
year. This success is very encouraging and expanding these efforts will
stem the growth of the alien absconder population and begin to reduce
the overall numbers of alien absconders at large.
ICE currently employs 16 fugitive operations nation-wide. Cities
with fugitive operations teams include: Los Angles (2 teams), Boston,
San Francisco, Miami, Houston, New York City (2 teams), Chicago, Newark
(2 teams), Detroit, Atlanta, Baltimore, San Diego, and Seattle.
The fiscal year 2005 reprogramming request reduced the $50 million
appropriated enhancement to $9 million. For fiscal year 2005, $9
million will support 42 full time positions (21 FTE) and additional
funding for bed space and operating costs associated with increased
apprehension activity.
This proposed enhancement is aligned to Department of Homeland
Security Strategic Objective 2.2, Enforce trade and immigration laws.
All increases in removal rates increase the control DRO has over
the removal alien population which contributes directly to national
security.
Institutional Removal Program (Criminal Alien Program)
[In thousands of dollars
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Program Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006
2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base 2006 budget enhancement
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRO-IRP......................... 17,467 31,512 33,706 39,041 5,335
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fiscal year 2006 Institutional Removal Program (IRP)
enhancement is $5.355 million and 19 FTE.
The President's Budget requests an additional $5.355 million to
expand the IPR program and to continue the transfer of the program from
the Office of Investigation to the Office of Detention and Removal
Operations. The fiscal year 2005 amount will complete the transition of
the State of New York and a sizable portion of the State of California.
The fiscal year 2006 amount will continue the staffing of California.
IRP, now referred to as ICE's Criminal Alien Program (CAP),
identifies aliens who are in criminal incarceration and processing them
for removal prior to their incarceration release. This is an effective
approach to preventing criminal recidivism and to ensure removable
aliens are actually removed once so ordered by an immigration judge.
Currently, the ICE Office of Investigations administers the IRP
program with a variety of resources (including job series 1811 criminal
investigators). The workload for each immigration enforcement agent
(IEA) is 300 charging documents served per year. This figure
encompasses the number of interviews and record checks of individuals
that are not amenable to removal but are of foreign birth. The plan for
CAP is to interview 90 percent or more of all foreign born inmates in
Federal, State and mega-county (populations over 1 million) areas.
287(g) (local law enforcement authority to enforce immigration
violations) and video teleconferencing will serve the outlying areas.
ICE has placed increased emphasis on complex criminal
investigations for its 1811 job series. In recognition of this,
Congress provided an additional $30 million in the fiscal year 2005
appropriation to initiate the transfer of IRP from OI to DRO. The
fiscal year 2005 reprogramming requests the enhancement be reduced to
$4 million. This will allow for 37 positions and thus, Special Agents
will continue to perform some institutional removal duties, instead of
replacing all of them with Immigration Enforcement Agents (IEA).
Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is the unification of the old
Institutional Removal Program (IRP) and the Alien Criminal Apprehension
Program (ACAP). All DRO activities in the incarcerated criminal alien
arena will be referred to simply as CAP in the future.
STAFFING MODEL
Based on recent production numbers from New York State Department
of Corrections (DOC) and Florida Department of Corrections, an IEA will
in a year will do 600 interviews in Southern tier States and 500
interviews in Northern tier States. The statistics from these two DOCs
suggest a higher percentage of naturalized foreign-born individuals in
southern tier States requiring more interviews to obtain the goal of
300 charging documents issued per agent.
The transition will focus on a state-by-state transition of
responsibility from OI to DRO. The first States, in order, are New
York, California, Texas, Florida and Illinois. The transition, to date,
is limited to the New York City Jail of Riker's Island.
New York.--The plan has been coordinated with NY State Department
of Corrections and New York City Department of Corrections, the two
largest non-Federal partners. Pre-existing system and partnerships with
Executive Office for Immigration Review and Bureau of Prisons exist
under legacy Institutional Hearing Program (IHP). Video
teleconferencing will cover traditional ACAP locations at smaller
county facilities. Equipment and staffing will be at newly completed
Castle Point Facility which offers space for increased staffing.
California.--Plans have been discussed to improve the efficiency of
identifying and starting removal proceedings for amenable aliens with
the California Department of Corrections. The system is currently in a
number of locations. Pre-existing system and partnerships with EOIR and
BOP exist under legacy IHP. Video teleconferencing will cover
traditional ACAP locations at smaller county facilities. Equipment and
staffing will be hired and located to meet the needs of the State of
California stretch the capacity of the New York VTC center. Due to the
costs of installing VTC equipment to local detention facilities, the
need will be relatively small in the first years and will be built up
as demand grows.
Arizona Border Control (ABC)/Interior Repatriation
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Program 2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 budget 2006 change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABC............................................. .............. .............. 39,349 39,349
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This fiscal year 2006 enhancement is $39.349 million for the ABC/
Interior Repatriation Program. With this funding, the Interior
Repatriation program will transfer from Customs and Border Protection
to ICE/DRO in fiscal year 2006. DRO is in the business of removals and
will use its experience to build on previous successes.
Interior repatriation (IR) is a component of the Arizona Border
Control initiative (ABCI). ABCI is a multi-pronged approach to
controlling the Arizona Border, which includes anti-smuggling
investigations, fugitive arrests, as well as controlling and arresting
illegal crossings. IR has a singular focus of the repatriating Mexican
nationals. IR's aim is promoting deterrence, reducing recidivism of
illegal crossings and thus reducing the number of deaths along the
Arizona border.
In fiscal year 2004, 14,058 undocumented immigrants were
voluntarily flown from Tucson, AZ, to the interior of Mexico from July
12 to September 30, 2004, after screening by DHS and a Mexican Consular
Official. During the IR, Border Patrol Agents interviewed 96,793
potential candidates.
Of those interviewed, 82,735 refused to participate. Of those who
declined to participate, 14,069 had been deemed ``at risk'' migrants.
These migrants as well as the other migrants who refused to participate
were processed either through voluntary return to the Arizona/Mexico
border or other removal mechanisms.
A total of 7 percent (1,008) of IRP participants were arrested
attempting re-entry into the United States during the IRP operation
dates. This is much lower than the Tucson sector's average recidivism
rate of 37 percent.
Interior repatriation can result in a dramatic reduction in the
number of deaths in the desert suffered by intending immigrants.
Interior repatriation efforts have resulted in strong U.S.-Mexico and
cooperation. Since the IR pilot last year, DHS has also implemented
expedited removal between ports of entry in the Tucson and Laredo
sectors, resulting in additional apprehensions in the Tucson area.
Alternatives to Detention
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006
Program 2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base 2006 budget enhancements \1\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRO-Alternatives.............. 8,659 12,202 12,733 23,533 10,800
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Note: There are two enhancements to the Alternatives to Detention program, each totaling $5.4 million.
The fiscal year 2006 enhancement for Alternatives to Detention
totals $10.8 million and 7 FTE.
The President's Budget requests an additional $5.4 million to
expand the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) and $5.4
million increase for the Alternatives to Detention program, for a total
of $10.8 million in enhancements. Alternatives to Detention include
intensive supervision, electronic monitoring, and telephonic voice
recognition. Currently, ICE (through the Office of Detention and
Removal Operations--DRO) is piloting several alternatives to detention
initiatives. Early indications are encouraging and suggest that these
approaches to monitoring aliens who are not in physical custody may
yield better appearance rates to immigration proceedings and better
rates of removal once an alien has been ordered removed. The program is
still too new to draw definitive conclusions. Over the next 6 to 12
months ICE will be collecting data and evaluating the efficacy of
various alternatives to detention strategies.
ICE began piloting this initiative in fiscal year 2004 and has
expanded the pilots in fiscal year 2005. Pilot cities include: Miami,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland, Denver, San Francisco, and others.
The fiscal year 2005 Budget provided $11 million to expand the number
of pilot locations and to fund 60 new full time positions (30 FTE). The
fiscal year 2005 reprogramming reduces the funding to $2 million which
permits funding for 11 new full time positions.
DRO will measure the performance of the ISAP program on three
levels: (1) Do aliens enrolled in ISAP have a greater rate of
appearance at hearings than the rate of a control group of non-detained
aliens not enrolled in ISAP? (2) If ordered removed or granted
voluntary departure, do aliens enrolled in ISAP surrender/depart at a
greater rate than a control group? (3) If the alien fails to surrender
for removal or otherwise fails to depart, are absconding aliens in ISAP
re-apprehended at a greater rate than that for a control group?
DRO and its ISAP contractor are collecting certain data to test the
hypothesis that the performance measures for aliens in ISAP will
indicate a greater success rate than the performance measures for a
control group of non-detained aliens. ``Success'' is defined as a
statistically significant increase in the appearance rates, surrender
rates, and re-apprehension rates. The hypothesis test will involve
standard statistical tests (such as ``t tests'') and commonly accepted
levels of statistical significance (generally the significance level in
social science research is set to .05). DRO expects it will have gained
a sufficiently large sample population to draw statistical inference
within the next 6 to 12 months.
DRO and its contractor will also collect data on the appearances at
hearings, surrenders for removal, departure from the United States,
number of re-apprehensions of absconders.
The ISAP population is non-criminal aliens that are not mandatory
detention, who live within a reasonable commuting distance of an ISAP
office, and who agree to the conditions of the program. DRO will select
a control group of non-detained aliens that are not participating in
ISAP. These aliens will be selected from Docket Control Offices that
have ISAP. The control group will closely match the ISAP group on such
relevant characteristics as country of origin, gender, and length of
stay in the United States.
General Explanation and Justification for the Initiative.--
Detention of all aliens that are apprehended and placed into removal
proceedings is not the only way to ensure that aliens appear at their
immigration hearings or for removal. Aliens who disappear from ICE
supervision pose a potential threat to public safety and national
security. To mitigate this flow of cases into the fugitive population,
ICE's DRO seeks to further develop alternatives to detention in two
ways. First, expansion of the ISAP to two additional locations in
fiscal year 2006. Each site is intended to accommodate 200 participants
daily. These additional resources would bring the total number of
participants nationwide on any given day to 2,000. The ISAP is a
community-based, case management program that provides close
supervision of illegal aliens emphasizing compliance with Immigration
Court requirements. Expansion of the program requires 14 positions (7
FTEs). In order to properly execute the alternatives to detention
program within DRO, positions must accompany program expansion. These
positions will be used to manage the alternatives to detention docket
including enrolling participants, managing the data, ensuring departure
from the United States as required, and acting as the local Contracting
Officer's Technical Representative.
This proposed enhancement is aligned to Department of Homeland
Security Strategic Objective 2.2, Enforce trade and immigration laws.
Performance Impact.--This is a cost-effective way to ensure that
aliens will appear for their immigration hearings or for removal. This
program will increase the integrity of the immigration enforcement
process by adding two additional ISAP locations, each intended to
accommodate 200 participants daily. ICE is still analyzing the results
of alternative to detention programs and will baseline the appearance
rates in fiscal year 2006 to begin measuring the true outcome of ISAP.
The goal of this program is in line with the strategic objective of
removing all removable aliens. The anticipated increase in appearance
rates will also mean fewer cases entering the fugitive population.
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year
Program Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006 budget 2006
2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 base \1\ enhancement
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAMS............................ 610,290 662,900 678,994 688,860 9,866
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This enhancement will allow the FAMS to increase its staffing level
to a level that will allow it to meet its mission objective, the risk-
based deployment of Federal Air Marshals. FAMS works closely with DHS
and other Federal, State and local agencies and private industry to
develop, deploy and sustain a comprehensive intelligence-driven
approach and response to terrorist and related criminal threats against
the United States and its interests. FAMS provides critical support to
DHS' missions to prevent terrorist acts within the United States,
reduce vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize damage from potential
attacks.
Additional information can be provided in a secure manner.
Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP)
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Program 2004 budget 2005 budget 2006 budget 2006 change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEVP............................................ 1,465 40,000 \1\ 58,100 \1\ 18,100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ These numbers have been revised since submission of the President's budget on February 7, 2005.
DHS Strategic Objective Supported: 2.2 Enforce Trade and
Immigration Laws
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) was created to
restore integrity to the U.S. immigration system by ensuring that
international students, scholars, and exchange visitors studying in the
United States comply with the terms of their visas. One of SEVP's
primary functions is to track the immigration status of foreign
students and exchange visitors.
In fiscal year 2004, SEVP operated with two separate streams of
funding--a fee collection process for school certification and
appropriated dollars from counter-terrorism funds. The Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 mandated
the establishment and maintenance of a fee collection process to
support the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and
SEVP. To become a fully fee funded program, SEVP implemented a fee
collection process (the SEVIS I-901 Fee) on September 1, 2004. This fee
is paid by all prospective students and exchange visitors ($100 for
most and $35 for some exchange visitors) prior to seeking a visa at the
consulates and embassies overseas. The I-901 fee and the fees collected
from schools seeking certification to host nonimmigrant students (I-17
Fee), provides the full funding for SEVP, portions of the Compliance
Enforcement Unit (CEU), and the Department of State efforts.
In fiscal year 2005, SEVP projects it will collect $46 million from
the SEVIS I-901 fee and $362,000 from the I-17 school certification
fees. In addition, SEVP had a carryover balance of $2.6 million from
fiscal year 2004. Although SEVP projects to have total resources of
$49.0 million for fiscal year 2005, the execution level will remain at
$40 million to ensure continuity of funding for the program.
In fiscal year 2006, SEVP projects to collect $45.9 million from
the SEVIS I-901 fee and $3.5 million from the I-17 school certification
fees. The increase in I-17 school certification fees is based on SEVP
collecting initial fees as well as the re-certification fees whereas in
fiscal year 2005 they will only collect initial fees. In fiscal year
2006 SEVP will have a full cycle of SEVIS I-901 fees since its
inception in September 2004. SEVP projects to have total resources of
$58 million for fiscal year 2006 that includes a $9 million carryover
balance from fiscal year 2005.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
The additional $18.1 million spending authority for fiscal year
2006 will allow SEVP to:
--Maintain staffing levels--the cost of salaries and benefits of
newly hired employees
--Continue to improve SEVIS with IT enhancements--allows SEVP to
accelerate the implementation of planned enhancements to
improve the batch and real time interface processing,
incorporate historical data from the SEVIS predecessor (CIPRIS)
and implement a user-friendly reporting tool. This increase in
funding will also allow SEVP to develop a search tool for the
historical data.
--Conduct analysis of current fee structures (I-901 SEVIS fee and I-
17 school certification)--fee studies for both the I-901 SEVIS
fee and the I-17 school certification were conducted in early
2000
SEVP will continue to perform the following functions:
--Certify schools desiring to participate in SEVIS
--Provide law enforcement with current information on F, M and J
nonimmigrants
--Conduct outreach to the academic community
--Accept and process fee payments
--Enhance the functionality of the SEVIS system
--Write policies and regulations to implement statutory requirements
--Train users of the SEVIS system
--Assist ports of entry, DoS consular officials, schools and program
sponsors with the entry and stay of F, M and J nonimmigrants
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year
Performance Increase 2006 request 2007 request 2008 request
level level level
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percent of F, M, and J nonimmigrant information maintained in 100 100 100
SEVIS..........................................................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Are there any services that ICE is being assessed working
capital fund charges for in fiscal year 2004 or fiscal year 2005 that
are not directly utilized by ICE? Is ICE being charged for services on
a basis proportionate to its usage?
Answer. According to the DHS Working Capital Fund reimbursable
agreements, ICE will only be billed for actual services received. This
was true for fiscal year 2004 WCF billings, and is expected for fiscal
year 2005 billing. DHS provided detailed proration guidance with the
fiscal year 2005 anticipated WCF billings. ICE agrees with DHS
proration of WCF costs.
OFFICE OF SCREENING COORDINATION AND OPERATIONS (9/11 COMMISSION
RECOMMENDATION)
Question. The President's Budget proposes to create the Office of
Screening Coordination and Operations within the Border and
Transportation Security Directorate. CIS has significant screening and
identification capabilities and needs, yet the President's budget does
not propose moving the operational responsibility for any of those
programs out of CIS. In order to ensure that there is the closest
possible coordination across screening programs, should CIS screening
programs be moved to the Office of Screening Coordination and
Operations?
Answer. The Office of Screening Coordination and Operations (SCO)
is the first step in implementing the requirements of HSPD-11, which
directs DHS to review and integrate all screening requirements across
the Federal government. USCIS operational requirements and other
security elements are being reviewed within the Department, and where
deemed appropriate, may be incorporated within the purview of the SCO.
TERRORIST TRAVEL (9/11 COMMISSION REPORT)
Question. In addition to the formal 9/11 Commission Report, the
Commission issued two staff monographs, one of them on Terrorist
Travel. While no specific recommendations were made, the report reached
interesting conclusions. One conclusion was that ``Border inspectors
today still do not have basic intelligence and operational training to
aid them in detecting and preventing terrorist entry.'' They are not
talking about people who are on watchlists, but providing inspectors
with training to detect terrorists not on the watchlist. What steps is
CBP taking to incorporate the information uncovered by the 9/11
Commission staff on terrorist travel into basic training for CBP
officers?
Answer. CBP has established anti-terrorism response protocols to
more effectively handle potential terrorism threats identified by CBP
personnel. These national-level CBP policies operate both for a CBP
Officer questioning a person applying for admission at a port of entry
and for a Border Patrol Agent processing an individual who's been
apprehended after crossing the border illegally to ensure consistent
application throughout the border. CBP has also developed specific
anti-terrorism training for passenger processing that includes specific
instruction in behavioral analysis, deception detection and eliciting
information.
The integrated curriculum for new CBP Officers includes three (3)
specific components: Pre-Academy, Academy Basic training at Glynco, GA,
and post-Academy training conducted at the Ports of Entry (In-port
training). Academy Training courses for new CBP Officers include new
anti-terrorism passenger training and fraudulent document detection.
Most importantly, the role of an Officer in CBP's priority mission,
anti-terrorism, is taught on day one and reiterated throughout the
curriculum.
Under our new curriculum, our basic trainees receive 16 hours in
fraudulent document training at the Academy that culminates with a
graded practical exercise during which trainees examine characteristics
of unique documents and determine if the documents are genuine,
counterfeit or altered. The course highlights fraud indicators that may
be present in evaluating any document for authenticity. Security
features of United States entry documents and imposter detection are
emphasized as well. Trainees that fail to successfully complete the
course are removed from training. All instructors teaching this course
have received training from the Forensic Document Lab.
With regard to questioning techniques, we use practical exercises
throughout a trainee's 15 weeks at the Academy. With the help of role
players, students are presented with scenarios based on primary
inspection situations. During the labs and graded practical exercises,
trainees review documents presented, question role players about their
visit to the United States and make ``refer or release''
recommendations. Interviewing labs require trainees to practice
observational skills and questioning skills, while applying their job
knowledge of documentation requirements, immigration issues, customs
exemptions, prohibited and restricted articles, and agricultural
issues.
Question. Has CBP considered asking the 9/11 Commission staff to
put together a seminar on its findings for all current inspectors,
allowing them to sharpen their skills?
Answer. CBP is open to new training concepts, and though we are not
sure that using former Commission staff for training CBP inspectors is
an optimal approach, we will keep such ideas in mind as we continue to
refine training programs.
Question. The report on Terrorist Travel also calls attention to
the lack of ``viable options to prevent documents known to be
fraudulent from being returned to travelers denied entry into the
United States''. What additional authority would CBP need to be able to
confiscate or in some way invalidate fraudulent documents prior to
denying entry to someone?
Answer. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) implemented on
January 1, 2005, under existing legal authority, a comprehensive
program for the seizure and systematic processing of fraudulent travel
documents presented for admission into the United States. Key parts of
that program include the requirement that no fraudulent travel document
be returned to the subject presenting the document and the mandatory
forwarding of all seized documents to CBP's newly established
Fraudulent Document Analysis Unit for intelligence collection and final
disposition (return to issuing authority for destruction). Subjects
from whom fraudulent documents have been seized are now issued a Single
Journey Letter (SJL) to facilitate their return travel. The SJL
conforms with all International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
Annex 9 standards for issuance of such documents. It includes
interdiction and biographic information as well as the subject's
photograph and fingerprints from both right and left index fingers.
Question. The report also states ``There is no programmatic effort
to focus on terrorist travel facilitators, and special agents lack the
resources and authority to pursue visitors for immigration violations
associated with terrorist activity''. What is the Department's position
on this statement? What can be done to change this?
Answer. ICE has special agents assigned to CBP's National Targeting
Center (NTC), the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Travel Task Force (FTTTF) and
the FBI's Terrorist Financing Operations Section. All three locations
have developed specialized databases to facilitate the investigation of
terrorist travel and terrorist travel facilitators. ICE Attaches
assigned to posts around the world, and the ICE special agent assigned
to the Department of Defense Central Command, are also well-positioned
to act upon information relating to terrorist travel facilitators.
Question. One of the most interesting findings included in the
report on Terrorist Travel, was related to the U.S. Department of
Justice's Absconder Apprehension Initiative, started in 2001. Today,
this initiative has become the responsibility of ICE's Fugitive
Operations Program.
Of the almost 6,000 aliens determined to be the highest priority to
track down and remove, 5 percent had been granted U.S. citizenship or
had become legal permanent residents after being ordered deported. Can
ICE and CIS guarantee that this can never happen again? What steps have
been taken to ensure that this cannot happen again?
Answer. ICE works to ensure that data is shared and has developed
and implemented agreements with CIS to share data. ICE also routinely
runs CIS cases against the fugitive database. In addition, CIS has
access to the Deportable Alien Computer System (DACS), which tracks all
cases under removal proceedings.
Question. Is all of the relevant information that each organization
has in its records being shared today? Is the Department confident that
someone who has been ordered deported from this country can not be
granted U.S. citizenship while an absconder?
Answer. The information regarding who is an absconder is readily
available for queries and searches for CIS to determine if an applicant
is considered an absconder or fugitive. An applicant for citizenship
has the burden of establishing that he was lawfully admitted for
permanent residency in the United States. The Naturalization
application requires additional identity and security checks; a
definitive response from the FBI background checks, and IBIS checks. In
addition, all applications are processed in accordance with established
Naturalization Quality Procedures (NQP).
Question. When someone is found to be attempting to fraudulently
obtain U.S. citizenship, through the use of a false name or some other
method, why does it take so long to bring them to justice?
On February 10, 2005, Mostofa Kamal, aka Shaheen Sardar, a native
of Bangladesh, was arrested in New York. He entered this country in
1994, over 10 years ago. He was ordered to leave the United States in
1997. This individual made his first fraudulent request for benefits in
1997. Mr. Kamal was interviewed by CIS in connection with his
application for U.S. citizenship in November of 2004, an application
that was received by CIS in August of 2003, but he was only arrested 3
weeks ago. The Department has known for sometime where he was--employed
by the New York City Police Department as a Traffic Enforcement Agent.
What is the issue? Is it resources, priorities? Why do these cases drag
on so long before ICE arrests someone?
Answer. In the referenced case, the subject had previously entered
the United States in 1993 under a false name and made claims to
political asylum. His asylum claim was denied, and an Immigration Judge
granted him Voluntary Departure with an alternate order of deportation
should he not depart by the specified date in May of 1996. In 1997, he
changed his name (name referenced in question), married a U.S. citizen,
and applied for a benefit through that relationship. Based on that
relationship, he left the United States, reentered, and was admitted to
the United States as a Lawful Permanent Resident in 2000. He, in
effect, caused an alternate order of deportation when he departed the
United States to pick up his Visa. As a result of the name change, the
fraud had not been detected. In continuance of this fraud, the subject
applied for citizenship, for which he passed all stages in the process
and was awaiting a naturalization date. The fraud was discovered. In
February 2005, he was presented for criminal prosecution in the
Southern District of New York for committing naturalization fraud.
It may take many years for an individual to exhaust his legal
administrative remedies. Normally, arrests would not take place while
there is an adjudicative or administrative judicial process being
pursued and would only take place if the subject were considered likely
to abscond. Generally, single scheme frauds are not accepted for
criminal prosecution unless there are extraordinary circumstances that
would sway the U.S. Attorney's office to consider it.
ARIZONA BORDER CONTROL INITIATIVE
Question. The Arizona Border Control (ABC) Initiative has been
underway for almost a full 12 months. What are the results of this
initiative so far? Has it been a success?
Answer. The Arizona Border Control Initiative (ABCI) has been very
successful. Initial successes have established a foundation to expand
on during fiscal year 2005 in order to achieve operation control of the
Arizona/Mexico Border under control. Intelligence and arrest trends
collected through ABCI indicate that alien smugglers have been forced
to change their operating procedures as a result of ABCI. Selected
statistics associated with ABCI are as follows:
--42 percent increase in arrests over the previous year
--105 percent increase in narcotics seizures over the previous year
--26 percent decrease in migrant deaths
--22 percent increase in Immigration Felony Prosecutions
--461 percent increases in vehicle seizures
--350 percent increase in weapons seizures
Question. What lessons from the ABC initiative can now be
incorporated into the operations of CBP, ICE and others across the
Nation?
Answer. Lessons learned that can be incorporated throughout the
Nation include:
--Development of Planning Cell Committees of agency leadership
personnel to coordinate the creation of operation plans to
foster a seamless flow of information and to establish
operating coalitions.
--Establishing a coordinated leadership structure with an emphasis on
information and intelligence sharing and ensuring that
sufficient resources are deployed is a requirement for success.
--Integrating operations between all BTS entities, State, local,
tribal agencies and foreign governments achieve better results
than working alone.
--Integrating ground-based surveillance technology, air surveillance,
and ground personnel creates a ``defense in depth'' posture,
which inhibits the ability of criminal enterprises to operate
freely along the U.S./Mexico Border.
Question. Funding for this initiative has been requested in the
fiscal year 2006 budget request. Should this initiative now be regarded
as a permanent resource enhancement?
Answer. The $1 million increase included in the fiscal year 2006
President's Budget for the Arizona Border Control Initiative (ABCI)
should be considered to be a permanent increase to CBP's base funding.
These additional resources are required to meet the objectives of the
ABCI.
Question. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles as a part of the ABC
initiative has been considered very successful. However, the contract
vehicle that the Science and Technology Directorate was using to
provide the UAVs has ended, and there is no UAV coverage while CBP
evaluates how best to continue this project. When does CBP expect to
have this issue resolved so that UAV coverage can be put back into
place in the Tucson Sector?
Answer. CBP is currently refining requirements to issue a request
for proposals (RFP) to the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry. The
contract will specify delivery of the system within 30 days of contract
award, which will allow CBP to establish a UAV initial operating
capability on the Southern Border in support of the Arizona Border
Control Initiative. CBP expects to award a contract for UAV procurement
in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2005.
ASYLUM AND EXPEDITED REMOVAL
Question. The United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom recently issued a report entitled ``Asylum Seekers in Expedited
Removal''. The report contains a number of recommendations for the
Department of Homeland Security. The report raised specific issues on
the difficulty of applying the standards for asylum and credible fear
in a consistent manner across the Department. Has a working group or
other mechanism been put in place to look into how the standards are
applied and ensure consistent treatment of asylum seekers?
Answer. Since the inception of the expedited removal process in
1997, a standing inter-agency working group has addressed expedited
removal issues. The Expedited Removal Working Group is an established
forum for discussing all issues relating to expedited removal and
comprises experts from each of the affected DHS entities (U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection,
and Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
Pursuant to former Deputy Secretary Admiral James Loy's concurrence
with a joint memorandum from former Undersecretary of Border and
Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson, USCIS Director Eduardo Aguirre,
and Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Daniel Sutherland, the
Expedited Removal Working Group has been tasked with coordinating
review of the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom report, ``Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal.'' The working
group also will draft the Department's responses to the report's
recommendations. The working group will report on its review and
proposed responses to BTS, USCIS, and CRCL, and their report then will
be forwarded to the Secretary.
Question. The report also raised concerns about the detention
policies and facilities used for the majority of asylum applicants.
CBP, ICE, and CIS must all balance the national security needs of this
country with the humanitarian needs of legitimate asylum applicants. In
fact, almost at the same time that this report was made public, the
11th defendant in a significant case ``Operation Jakarta'' involving
asylum fraud and document fraud pleaded guilty in a Federal court in
Virginia. What is being done to review these programs and evaluate the
specific recommendations of the Commission?
Answer. The Department of Homeland Security established a working
group to review and respond to the recommendations suggested by the
Commission. The working group will issue an evaluation on those
recommendations this summer.
Question. What steps have been taken as a result of ``Operation
Jakarta'' to track down anyone who received benefits fraudulently
because of this criminal enterprise and remove them from the United
States?
Answer. During the course of the criminal investigation, the USCIS
Asylum Offices have reviewed 12,000 Indonesian asylum cases in order to
identify all fraudulent cases related to ``Operation Jakarta.''
Approximately 800 principal asylum cases were directly linked to the
perpetrators of the fraud and will be processed for termination. Due to
the high volume of fraud cases, the Asylum Offices have created teams
of Asylum Officers to process the cases expeditiously. As the cases are
terminated, the individuals will then be referred for judicial review
to the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR). All of the
individuals that applied for and/or received benefits associated with
this fraud will be entered as ``lookouts'' in the Treasury Enforcement
Communications Systems (TECS).
USE OF STOLEN PASSPORTS--INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT
Question. In December of 2004, the Department of Homeland
Security's Office of Inspector General issued a report entitled ``A
Review of the Use of Stolen Passports from Visa Waiver Countries to
Enter the United States''. Both ICE and CBP concurred with the
recommendations in this report. What progress has ICE and CBP made to
implement those recommendations?
Answer. ICE and CBP have implemented coordinated standard operating
procedures to ensure ICE receives information on all individuals
present in the United States who entered on a lost or stolen passport.
On January 28, 2005, the Director of the National Targeting Center
(NTC) sent the ICE Compliance Enforcement Unit (CEU) a letter
confirming the agreement between ICE and CBP. CBP will ensure lookouts
are placed on all lost or stolen passports, conduct appropriate
database queries, and forward information to the CEU on anyone present
in the United States who entered on a lost or stolen passport.
Question. Please provide the Committee with a detailed, item by
item, breakout of any fiscal year 2004 representation funds that were
allocated to CBP, CIS, ICE, and the Under Secretary for Border and
Transportation Security.
Answer. The requested information has been provided in the tables
below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Organizational element 2004 Fiscal year
appropriated 2004 obligated
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Office of Under Secretary for BTS....... .............. ..............
CBP..................................... $40,000 $37,661
ICE..................................... 15,000 6,837
USCIS................................... 5,000 4,953
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FISCAL YEAR 2004 SUMMARY OF RECEPTION & REPRESENTATION FUND OBLIGATIONS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date Event Amount
------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Customs and Border
Protection
30-Oct-03....................... Official luncheon $381.14
held in honor of
U.S./Mexico Border
Partnership
Meeting.
13-Nov-03....................... Protocol Supplies.. 170.98
03-Nov-03....................... Refreshments served 74.82
at the Operation
Safe Commerce
Meeting.
08-Nov-03....................... Sponsor the 150.00
Ministers from
Trinidad & Tobago
at the Marine
Corps Ball in
Trinidad in
furtherance of
CMAA negotiations.
12-Nov-03....................... Refreshments for 21.09
meeting hosted by
Deputy
Commissioner with
Mexican Delegation.
17-Nov-04....................... Official Dinner in 402.82
honor of Lars
Karlsson, 2nd
Deputy Director
General, Sweden
Customs.
19-Nov-03....................... Official Dinner 923.55
with officials
from New Zealand
during CIS
Discussions.
02-Dec-04....................... Official reception 326.97
for the opening of
the CSI Port in
Durban, South
Africa.
12-Dec-03....................... Protocol Supplies-- 1,200.00
Commissioner of
Customs office.
18-Dec-04....................... Official Reception 10,523.50
hosted by
Commissioner of
Customs in honor
of foreign
dignitaries and
high level
officials from
various Embassies.
21-Jan-04....................... Honorary Award Item 95.00
for WCO Regional
Security
Conference in
Senegal.
21-Jan-04....................... Official luncheon 148.00
hosted by Chief De
La Vina in honor
of Mexican
Officials,
Fernando Creixell
and Agustin Caso.
23-Jan-04....................... Official luncheon 213.68
in honor of Canada
Border Security
Agency, President
Alain Jolicoeur
and Director Greg
Boatbe.
28-Jan-04....................... International 3,473.00
Customs Day
Reception.
29-Jan-04....................... Official dinner 1,487.20
hosted by
Secretary Ridge in
honor of Canadian
Prime Minister and
delegation.
24-Feb-04....................... Official Luncheon 608.00
for Italian
Delegation during
CSI Program Review.
03-Mar-04....................... Flowers sent on 219.06
behalf of Customs
and Border
Protection upon
the death of
Comptroller of
Customs, Robin
Dare (New Zealand).
24-Mar-04....................... Official luncheon 125.13
hosted by Acting
Assistant
Commissioner,
International
Affairs in honor
of Mr. Kaci Abes,
Director, External
Cooperation &
Relations.
22-Apr-04....................... Protocol Supplies 261.52
for US/EU Signing.
28-Apr-04....................... Official Luncheon 379.10
hosted in honor of
US/EU signing and
the Joint Customs
Cooperation
Committee.
08-May-04....................... Protocol Supplies-- 10.60
Office of Trade
Relations.
13-May-04....................... Official luncheon 592.62
hosted in honor of
Mr. Mu Xin-Sheng,
Minister, General
Administration of
China Customs and
his delegation.
24-May-04....................... Refreshments during 616.92
meetings held with
the European
Community & U.S.
Expert Groups on
Container Security.
08-Jun-04....................... Dinner hosted by 450.00
Commissioner
Bonner in honor of
the U.S./Canada
Shared Border
meeting.
08-Jun-04....................... Official luncheon 514.30
hosted by
Commissioner
Bonner in honor of
U.S./Canada Shared
Border meeting.
08-Jun-04....................... Official Reception 1,967.06
hosted by
Commissioner
Bonner at the U.S./
Canada Shared
Border Meeting.
14-Jun-04....................... Official luncheon 216.25
hosted by
Commissioner
Bonner in
conjunction with
the U.S./Mexico
Bilateral Meeting.
16-Jun-04....................... Official luncheon 562.50
hosted by Acting
Assistant
Commissioner,
International
Affairs in honor
of high level
Georgian Officials.
22-Jun-04....................... Official luncheon 323.01
hosted by Acting
Assistant
Commissioner, INA
for the New
Zealand delegation
attending the WCO
Policy &
Commission
meetings..
25-Jun-04....................... Official luncheon 421.65
and toast hosted
by Commissioner
Bonner at the
signing of the CSI
agreement with the
Hellenic Republic.
28-Jun-04....................... Official Luncheon 495.00
hosted by
Commissioner
Bonner for high
level French
Customs officials.
14-Jul-04....................... Refreshments for 297.01
CSI Global
Targeting Assembly
of Technical
Experts Conference.
27-Jul-04....................... Official luncheon 878.41
hosted by Acting
Deputy AC, INA for
attendees of the
U.S./Australia
Regional Movement
Alert List System
Conference.
04-Sep-04....................... Protocol Supplies-- 27.73
Director, Trade
Relations.
15-Sep-04....................... Refreshments during 106.60
conference with
Russian officials
and CBP on
Passenger Name
Record
connectivity.
22-Sep-04....................... Protocol Supplies-- 290.76
AC, INA and
Commissioner
Bonner's Office.
22-Sep-04....................... CSI PTP, Malaysia 301.62
Luncheon.
23-Sep-04....................... Honorary Award 8,404.74
Items for Foreign
Officials.
------------------
Total Obligation.......... ................... 37,661.34
==================
U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement
11-Dec-03....................... Assistant Secretary 1,325.89
Holiday Reception
for members of
Congress and other
dignitaries.
3-Feb-04........................ International 717.75
Attache briefing w/
light refreshments
hosted by the
Federal Air
Marshal Services.
Dignitaries and
honorable guests
traveled from
Netherlands,
Austria, Japan,
China, Belgium,
Egypt,
Philippines,
Brazil, New
Zealand, Hungary,
et.al.
2-Mar-04........................ Breakfast with 205.53
Danish Minister at
ICE.
3-Mar-04........................ ICE One Year 299.06
Anniversary Event
attended by
Captains, Chiefs
of Police, State
Police Officials,
and
representatives of
other Federal
Agencies.
20-May-04....................... Luncheon event for 416.75
the Office of the
Assistant
Secretary with
local officials
and dignitaries
who made
substantial
contribution to
Nation or DHS.
8-Jun-04........................ Detention and 203.66
Removal Operations
Dinner during Four
Country Conference
in San Diego, CA
to address mutual
immigration and
removal issues.
Hosted by DRO;
attendees included
representatives
from the Embassy
of Australia;
Canada Border
Protection Agency;
United Kingdom
Immigration
Service; and other
foreign officials.
20-Aug-04....................... Opening ceremony 490.00
for ICE Air and
Marine Operations--
Bellingham Branch;
attended by U.S.
Senator Patty
Murray, U.S.
Representative
Rick Larsen, and
other
Congressional
representatives.
Purchase of food 476.08
and beverage items
for AMO ceremony.
18-Sep-04....................... ICE Air and Marine 2,702.13
Operations
briefing and site
visit for
Congresswoman Kay
Granger and
others. Includes
purchase of
refreshments for
the event.
------------------
Total Obligation.......... ................... 6,836.85
==================
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services
Kitchenware 389.07
supplies for
Director's suite,
for hosting VIPs
and dignitaries.
Honorary award 998.93
items (coasters)
for VIPs and
dignitaries.
Official luncheon 25.77
with dignitary
Eduardo Ibarolla
and Director
Aguirre.
Official dinner 220.96
with incoming
Mexican Ambassador
Icaza and Director
Aguirre to
establish
professional
rapport.
Honorary award item 79.95
(Cufflinks) for
guest speaker at
USCIS 2004
Director's
Leadership
Conference.
Honorary Award 1,075.95
Items (Cufflinks)
for senior
representative and
foreign
dignitaries during
official travel
and visits.
Honorary Award 1,135.00
Items (Lapel Pins)
for distribution
by Director
Aguirre during
official travel
and visits.
Honorary Award 1,000.00
Items (Pewter
bowls and
platters) for high-
level dignitaries.
Official Luncheon 27.52
with senior-level
guest (Alecia
Casteneda) to
establish
professional
interagency
rapport.
------------------
Total Obligation.......... ................... 4,953.15
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECURE ELECTRONIC NETWORK FOR TRAVELERS RAPID INSPECTION PROGRAM
(SENTRI)
Question. In June of 2004 the Department of Homeland Security's
Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on the Secure
Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection program, known as
SENTRI. CBP agreed with the recommendations made by the Inspector
General. Please provide an update on the progress that has been made in
implementing each of the OIG's recommendations regarding the SENTRI
program.
Answer. On January 24, 2005, a new Standard Operating Procedure
(SOP) Manual was sent to the San Diego, CA, and El Paso, TX, Field
Offices for the administration of the SENTRI program that addressed the
majority of the recommendations in the OIG's report, including stating
clearly the program eligibility criteria, establishing procedures for
background checks and their resolution, developing minimum documentary
requirements, separation of duties between initial enrollment and final
approval, monitoring continued eligibility, and recording SENTRI
violations. Certain other recommendations, relating to the Global
Enrollment System and integration with related information systems are
awaiting technical upgrades to achieve completion.
IMMIGRATION ADVISORY PROGRAM
Question. The Immigration Advisory Program is designed to improve
border security against the threat of terrorism by enabling CBP to
identify and intercept suspected terrorists and undocumented passengers
before they board planes bound for the United States from overseas
locations. The pilots established in Amsterdam and Warsaw in 2004
appear very promising. The fiscal year 2006 request includes funds to
expand this program to two additional airports. Can, or should, this
program be expanded more quickly?
Answer. Based on the results from Amsterdam and Warsaw through
February 28, 2005, CBP believes the IAP should be expanded and has
great potential for similar success at other large European, Latin
American, and Asian hub airports. IAP expansion is dependent on
reaching a bilateral agreement with the host country government and
will be rolled out as expeditiously as possible while ensuring
operational connectivity to port of entry operations.
Question. Please provide any evaluations or reports on the
effectiveness of the IAP pilots.
Answer. Accomplishments for June 5, 2004, to February 28, 2005, for
Amsterdam and September 5, 2004, to February 28, 2005, for Warsaw
follow:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Board Advisements.................................... 222
Fraud Intercepts........................................ 34
NTC Targets Confirmed................................... 16
CBP Costs Avoided....................................... $334,554
Potential Carrier Savings............................... $414,150
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CUSTOMS-TRADE PARTNERSHIP AGAINST TERRORISM
Question. The fiscal year 2006 budget requests an additional $8.2
million to expand the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-
TPAT). The fiscal year 2006 President's budget states that as of
January 12, 2005, CBP had reviewed and accepted the security profiles
of 4,460 companies, making these companies certified partners. The next
step in the process is validation. According to information that was
submitted for the record after last year's hearing, CBP planned to
complete 400 validations of C-TPAT certified partners in fiscal year
2004. Was that goal met last fiscal year (fiscal year 2004)?
Answer. CBP initiated 500 validations and completed 287 during
2004. As of March 25, 2005, over 540 validations have been completed,
with an additional 400 underway or in various stages of completion. CBP
anticipates that over 900 validations will be completed by the end of
fiscal year 2005.
In fiscal year 2004, CBP created a new position, Supply Chain
Specialist (SCS), and sought to recruit qualified officers throughout
the year. CBP continues to aggressively recruit permanent Supply Chain
Specialists, and has trained field officers to help assist in the
initiation of validations.
Question. What is the target number of validations CBP plans to
complete in fiscal year 2005?
Answer. CBP will complete 500 validations in fiscal year 2005, for
a total of 900 since the inception of program.
The overwhelming response by the trade community (volume of
applications) forced CBP to reconsider the original goal to validate
all certified members within a 3-year period.
CBP's strategy is for C-TPAT to determine and prioritize which
sectors of membership will be selected for validations, selecting
individual companies based upon a standardized risk assessment, and
identifying ``company specific'' high-risk supply chains to better
focus our efforts/resources.
Question. How many more validations will CBP be able to complete
each year with the new resources that have requested?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 request of $8.2 million will allow CBP
to conduct as many as 600 more validation trips per year. Oftentimes,
multiple validations are conducted on a single trip.
CBP anticipates having 100 Supply Chain Specialists (SCSs) on board
by the end of fiscal year 2005. Each SCS is expected to complete 17
validation trips per year, with more than one validation conducted per
trip. With 100 SCSs on board, CBP anticipates completing 1,700
validation trips per year. When fully staffed with SCSs, CBP could
complete 2,669 validation trips per year.
Question. Last year, the Committee was informed that validations of
foreign manufacturers would begin in calendar year 2004. Was that
review of foreign manufacturers begun last year (calendar year 2004)?
Answer. During calendar year 2004, CBP initiated 500 validations of
importers' foreign supply chains, which includes foreign manufacturers,
and completed 287.
Validations of the Mexican manufacturer enrollment sector began in
earnest in March 2005. Additional validations of Mexican manufacturers
are being planned for June 2005.
AMERICA'S SHIELD INITIATIVE
Question. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget includes a
request of $19.8 million for the America's Shield Initiative (ASI).
These funds will allow CBP to begin deployment of next generation
technology for electronic surveillance along our Nation's land borders.
CBP is working on awarding a contract for the integration of ASI
sometime this year. At the same time, CBP needs to operate and maintain
the equipment that is in the field today. There are currently
significant critical operational breakdowns, cameras with unusable
pictures, cameras down due to lightening strikes, camera control
problems, cameras that have been replaced but are missing enclosures.
In fact, the maintenance contract for the current installations lapsed
in September of 2004, and CBP is still working on finalizing the
replacement of those services. What is the plan to get the maintenance
backlog taken care of?
Answer. As noted, CBP is moving ahead with plans to develop and
implement the America's Shield Initiative (ASI), which will provide a
more comprehensive, integrated solution to electronic surveillance the
border. But simultaneously, CBP is still working to ensure that
existing border surveillance infrastructure remains operational. For
example, with regard to operational Remote Video System (RVS)
installations in the field, activities are underway to address repair
issues for operational sites. In addition, data and lessons learned
from these current activities are being used to provide baseline data
towards the development of an interim operations, maintenance, and
repair program. This interim program will provide maintenance and
repair support to existing field equipment pending the development and
implementation of a maintenance and repair program that will support
both existing and new field equipment.
Currently within CBP, the ASI Program Management Office (PMO), the
National Emergency Equipment Repair and Maintenance Program (NEEMR),
and the Tactical Communications Organization (TCO) have partnered to
address several of these repair issues. For example, NEEMR, TCO, and
the ASI (PMO) partnered to address the lightning strike incident that
occurred at the Douglas, AZ Border Patrol RVS site. A team consisting
of these three components responded to repair this installation. That
activity was initiated at the beginning of February and concluded at
the beginning of March. The result of this activity was the repair of
the installation to a pre-lightning strike state, an assessment of
current installation issues, and a collection of significant amount of
baseline data regarding how these components worked together.
Question. When will the maintenance backlog be cleared up?
Answer. Establishing the ASI Program Management Office and the
partnership with the National Emergency Equipment Repair and
Maintenance Program (NEEMR) and the Tactical Communications
Organizations (TCO), and awarding contracts for parts and equipment
repair to original equipment manufacturers has significantly reduced
the maintenance backlog. CBP believes that the maintenance backlog will
be completely eliminated during the summer of 2005.
Question. This fiscal year, the plan for ASI calls for spending $10
million on surge technology. Please provide an explanation of what this
is and what the plans are for this surge technology?
Answer. Surge technology is surveillance equipment that can be
rapidly deployed in self-contained system packages that have the
mobility and deployment capabilities to allow it to be positioned in a
very short period of time to support changes in national operational
needs. The plan at this time is to procure vehicle-mounted ground radar
equipment that is co-mounted with a cooled, thermal imaging system that
can sense and identify a vehicle as well as a human over 5 miles away.
A system of this type will allow the detection and tracking of multiple
items-of-interest and provides vectoring information to agents on the
ground. By virtue of their mobility and transportability, CBP will be
able to deploy these assets to the geographic regions or corridors that
align with the current, nationally-assessed threat environment.
Question. CBP also plans to spend $10.6 million for replacement/
repair of ground sensors in fiscal year 2005. Given that plans are in
place to possibly award an integration contract to upgrade all of this
technology, why are we replacing ground sensors now? Is it possible we
will be replacing these again with something new in just a year or two?
Answer. In the early 1990's, the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) modified the spectrum range of commercial and government
frequency usage. As such, CBP is required to change its systems to
support the FCC frequency spectrum allocation requirements. CBP's
Office of Border Patrol (OBP) is purchasing new unattended ground
sensors to further augment its already deployed sensor fleet, to meet
operational objectives, and to meet these FCC requirements.
An objective of this procurement effort is to ensure compatibility
with any future systems that are acquired. Replacement of newly
procured unattended ground sensors in a year or two is not anticipated.
An objective of this procurement is to ensure that these sensors will
readily integrate with future systems.
A cost analysis is being performed regarding the ability to upgrade
our currently deployed unattended ground sensors that were procured and
deployed prior to the FCC frequency spectrum allocation modification.
This effort is also being undertaken in such a manner as to ensure that
these upgrades are made to meet FCC requirements and future systems
integration.
Question. What is the timeline for initiating and completing all
identified ground sensor repairs?
Answer. A proposal has been developed to augment sensor
capabilities in Tucson Sector with 1,240 new digital sensors. As these
sensors are deployed, the ``old'' sensors that are replaced, or rotated
in from the field will, be assessed for redeployment to other Sectors
as needed and in alignment with current enforcement objectives and
national threat assessments. The project is scheduled to begin June
2005, with projected completion March 2008.
AUTOMATED COMMERCIAL ENVIRONMENT
Question. CBP has been working on modernizing the information
technology systems that it uses for some time. The most significant
project is the Automated Commercial Environment, known as ACE. Last
year, CBP released the re-baseline estimate for completion of the ACE
system. The new schedule has ACE being fully deployed in 2011, and
costing an additional $1 billion. How confident is CBP that this new
timeline can be accomplished?
Answer. CBP is confident the project can be completed in that time
frame. That said, the new proposed baseline is presently under review.
CBP will continue to strive to find ways to deliver ACE better, sooner,
and at less cost. In addition, CBP has worked to improve ACE
management. The staffs of legacy systems were merged into the CBP
Modernization Office last December. The merger greatly increased the
number of government staff on the program, as well as available subject
matter expertise and IT project management skills. This will help keep
the program on budget and schedule.
CBP now also has the advantage of working with an operational
system. Release 3, implemented in June 2004, is fully operational and
has already increased the amount of duty collected via Periodic Monthly
Statement from $80,000 in June to over $109 million in February 2005.
The Release 4 pilot in Blaine, Washington although currently
experiencing some technical problems, has processed over 40,000 trucks.
Having these ACE systems operating in ``real-world'' CBP environments
provides excellent experience and feedback for the program team, and
provides a solid base on which to build future capabilities.
Question. What is the status of the pilot in Blaine, Washington, of
e-Manifest Trucks?
Answer. The ACE truck cargo/eManifest pilot was initiated in
Blaine, Washington, on December 12, 2004. The system was very well
received by the CBP Officers in the port, demonstrating a number of
improvements over previous systems. However, system issues were
uncovered, which caused delays in the processing of trucks. This
resulted in a temporary halt to the pilot in late December in order to
implement necessary changes.
The ACE pilot was re-started in mid-January with improved
capabilities and significant streamlining of the cargo screening and
release functions. With these changes, ACE has been processing trucks,
on average, more quickly than the different release systems that had
been in use prior to ACE. Average truck processing times were in the 70
second range.
Additional problems with the pilot were uncovered in early March.
These problems were manifested as a result of the increased volume of
trucks being processed (over 40,000 trucks had been processed with
ACE). The problems have been corrected, and the revised system has been
tested. Since the testing results were positive, CBP re-started the
pilot April 4.
Part of the reason for difficulties with the pilot has been the low
volume of electronic manifests submitted by carriers and service
providers. A combination of difficulties with the CBP eManifest
certification process and the effort required by the trade participants
to make changes to their systems have led to the low participation.
However, for those eManifests that have been submitted, ACE has
performed extremely well, demonstrating the full promise of the system.
CBP is working closely with the carrier community to increase, as
quickly as possible, their use of eManifests.
CBP firmly believes that the current problems with the ACE pilot
will be quickly corrected and the pilot will be operating successfully
in the Port of Blaine. Plans have been developed to expand ACE to
additional ports on the northern and southern land borders. Efforts are
also underway to support 28 new carriers and service providers who have
state their intentions to begin providing eManifests.
AIR AND MARINE OPERATIONS--RECAPITALIZATION
Question. A request for funding to begin the re-capitalization of
the Border Patrol air fleet was included in the fiscal year 2006
budget, but there is no request for the replacement of Air and Marine's
fleet. When can we expect to see such a request?
Answer. A program increase for re-capitalization of the Air and
Marine Operations (AMO) fleet is not included in the fiscal year 2006
President's Budget, however, the fiscal year 2006 AMO base budget does
include approximately $55 million for the procurement of replacement
aircraft and deployment of new aircraft to CBP air wings.
Modernization of CBP air and marine assets is a priority in order
to meet expanded missions in the areas of detection, surveillance,
deterrence and apprehension, search and rescue, interdiction and
Airspace Domain Security.
CBP is currently conducting a review of AMO and Border Patrol air
and marine missions, operations and assets with the objective of
determining how best to allocate and manage resources. It is
anticipated that areas of both integrated and distinct aviation and
marine missions will be defined, and opportunities for combining fleet
modernization requirements will be identified. The existing AMO and
Border Patrol modernization plans will be reviewed in the context of
supporting the updated mission needs resulting from the transition
analysis. All opportunities for commonality of aircraft, vessels,
facility locations, command and control, maintenance and procedural
standards are being reviewed. Potential benefits include enhanced
threat engagement, procurement cost efficiencies, reduced life cycle
costs, increased mission readiness and operational performance.
Development of a unified recapitalization plan for all CBP air and
marine assets is will commence following completion of the integration.
WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT
Question. The President's budget requests $18 million for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to double the resources
devoted to worksite enforcement. The President's budget does not
request any additional investigators for this program. Are there a
sufficient number of investigators to pursue any leads or cases that
may be developed?
Answer. ICE's fiscal year 2006 President's Budget requests $18
million for the temporary worker program to fund 140 agents and
investigations training. It is proposed that the agents be assigned to
field offices nationwide primarily to conduct employer audits, examine
and prioritize leads, prepare and deliver Notices of Inspection and
Notices of Inspection Results, and develop employer cases involving
administrative fines. Agents would be assigned to field offices in the
States with the greatest number of unauthorized workers.
The requested resources would enable ICE to increase its presence
at worksites in specific industries and geographical areas,
concentrating on employers who intentionally violate the law or who
have historically hired large numbers of unauthorized workers.
Question. Please provide the Committee with a description of ICE's
current worksite enforcement program, including what authorities are
being enforced and how the program is run.
Answer. ICE worksite enforcement program activities focus primarily
on removing unauthorized workers from critical infrastructure
facilities to reduce the risk of terrorist attack from insiders. This
may be accomplished through screening and arrest operations to identify
and remove the unauthorized workers, as well as through strategic
partnering with employers and the law enforcement entities controlling
facility access. ICE worksite enforcement activities also target
criminal employers whose violations have a nexus to human smuggling,
immigration document or benefit fraud, and worker exploitation.
The authorities being enforced generally include one or more of the
civil and/or criminal provisions of INA 274A (Unlawful Employment of
Aliens). Many criminal employer investigations also charge violations
relating to harboring, smuggling, and document fraud.
Question. Please provide the Committee with a breakout of worksite
enforcement workload of administrative cases versus criminal
investigations for fiscal years 1999 through 2004, including a breakout
of the FTE devoted to this area by type of employee for those same
years.
Answer. Please see table below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Performance category --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Criminal Employer Cases.............. \1\ 182 \1\ 109 \1\ 239 \1\ 21 \1\ 4 \3\ 59
Notices of Intent to Fine Issued..... \1\ 443 \1\ 213 \1\ 141 \1\ 73 \1\ 16 \1\ 3
Number of Fines Collected............ \4\ 890 \4\ 478 \4\ 292 \4\ 115 \4\ 54 \4\ 64
Fine Amounts Collected............... \4\ $3,690, \4\ $2,234, \4\ $1,599, \4\ $509,8 \4\ $212,3 \4\ $118,5
575 181 323 35 22 28
Worksite Arrests..................... \5\ 2,849 \5\ 953 \5\ 418 \6\ 816 \6\ 505 \6\ 642
Investigative Work Years (Work \5\ 278 \5\ 202 \5\ 134 \5\ 152 \5\ 105 \5\ 90
Year=1,695 hours)...................
Case Completions..................... \5\ 3,844 \5\ 1,966 \1\ 1,595 \1\ 2,061 \1\ 1,490 \7\ 523
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Source: LYNX.
\2\ Source: TECS.
\3\ Calculated utilizing Treasury Enforcement Comms System(TECS) records (criminal employer cases opened).
\4\ Source: Debt Management Center.
\5\ Source: PAS.
\6\ Manually calculated utilizing internal reports submitted by field offices.
\7\ Manually calculated based upon the number of completed cases in LYNX and the number of cases reported closed
in TECS.
VISA SECURITY UNIT
Question. The President's budget requests an increase of $5 million
to expand the Visa Security Unit. The recently submitted ``Visa
Security Program: Annual Report for 2003-2004'' talks about the
critical need for coordination and training with the Department of
State Consular Affairs and CBP. What mechanisms are in place to ensure
that there is the closest possible cooperation in this program?
Answer. The Visa Security Program (VSP) within ICE is responsible
for implementing Section 428(e) of the Homeland Security Act, which
calls for the deployment of DHS officers to visa-issuing posts, unless
such a deployment would not benefit homeland security. One of their
principal duties under Section 428(e)(1) is to provide advice and
training to consular officers regarding specific security threats
relating to the adjudication of individual visa applications or classes
of applications. DHS Visa Security Officers in Saudi Arabia are
currently providing this training, and upcoming deployments of Visa
Security Officers will expand this activity to additional posts. In
addition, ICE and the Department of State have designated points of
contact at Headquarters who coordinate closely on issues including
consular training. A representative from the Visa Security Program has
briefed each graduating class of consular officers since October 2004.
VSP also coordinates with CBP on several operational levels. Visa
Security Officers regularly utilize the National Targeting Center as a
supporting element in their in-depth review of visa applications. In
addition, CBP officers have served temporary details at Headquarters
and in the field. Finally, VSP has opened announcements for permanent
positions to both ICE and CBP officers in order to recruit officers
with a full range of immigration enforcement skills to serve overseas
as Visa Security Officers.
The President's requested increase of $5 million in fiscal year
2006 will fund expanded VSP operations in the field and at
Headquarters, to include its consular training responsibilities.
Question. In August of 2004, the Department of Homeland Security's
Office of Inspector General issued an evaluation of DHS activities to
implement section 428 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. This
evaluation included a number of recommendations to improve the workings
of the Visa Security Officers. What is the status of implementing each
of the recommendations in that report?
Answer. Since the DHS Inspector General's (IG) evaluation in late
2003, shortly after the initial deployment of officers to Saudi Arabia,
Visa Security Program operations in Saudi Arabia have made significant
progress. Of the IG's twelve recommendations, three had been closed at
the time of the report's publication. The remaining nine
recommendations were resolved, and remain open while they are
implemented. Below is an update on each of the IG's recommendations.
Recommendation 1.--Develop a curriculum of homeland security
training for consular officers consistent with the requirement in
Section 428(b)(1) of the Act.
ICE is working to develop homeland security training for consular
officers. A VSP's program development staff member has attended the
Basic Consular Training Program at the Department of State's (DOS)
National Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC) as a basis for ICE's
recommendations to DOS about consular training. VSP staff also held a
curriculum development conference with training experts from the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) and ICE Academy to plan
the development of the consular training program. Since October 2004,
VSP leadership has been addressing each graduating class from the Basic
Consular Training Program, to introduce them to the visa security
mission and to prepare them to work with Visa Security Officers in the
future.
Recommendation 2.--Develop a training program for Visa Security
Officers (VSOs) that includes foreign languages, country studies, and
interview and fraud detection techniques.
Working with the ICE Academy and FLETC, VSP developed a 4-week
training curriculum for Visa Security Officers, incorporating the IG's
content recommendations. With specific regard to language training,
ICE's VSO selection criteria will continue to emphasize language
ability, and VSP will continue to exercise best efforts to provide
additional language training where necessary.
Recommendation 3.--In coordination with DOS, develop performance
standards to evaluate consular officers.
ICE continues in an audit capacity, to advise DOS on consular
performance evaluation. A VSP staff member recently attended Basic
Consular Training to assess how consular officers currently are trained
and evaluated.
Recommendation 4.--Develop written criteria for assigning VSOs to
other countries.
Closed. ICE established such criteria in early 2004, and the OIG
closed this recommendation as it published the report in August 2004.
Recommendation 5.--Assign responsibility to develop and publish the
report to Congress required by Section 428(e)(4).
ICE/VSP will prepare the report, and BTS will submit the report to
Congress.
Recommendation 6.--Conduct a study of the personnel management
techniques used by other agencies with a global workforce and evaluate
ways to facilitate the overseas rotations of DHS employees.
DHS is continuing to evaluate its international presence. No
specific policy recommendations have yet been announced.
Recommendation 7.--Discontinue the practice of filling the VSO
positions with temporarily assigned officers and move toward filling
the positions with permanently assigned officers.
VSP has announced and selected positions for Saudi Arabia. VSP will
announce permanent positions for all future offices.
Recommendation 8.--Establish criteria for selecting VSOs based on
required experience and skill sets to support the visa security
operation.
Closed. ICE established such criteria in early 2004, and the OIG
closed this recommendation as it published the report in August 2004.
Recommendation 9.--Establish a funding mechanism to ensure that the
visa security operations receive all required support and that DOS is
promptly reimbursed for the support that it provides.
VSP has received funding in fiscal year 2005 for its existing posts
in Saudi Arabia and for expansion to four additional locations. This
will become the base for fiscal year 2006 and the out-years for all
locations opened in or already in operation as of fiscal year 2005. To
facilitate administrative coordination, DOS and VSP recently signed a
Memorandum of Agreement that explains how reimbursements and other
administrative matters will be handled.
Recommendation 10.--Propose a technical correction to Section
428(i) to align it with Section 428(e) and permit DHS to review only
those applications with homeland security interest in Saudi Arabia.
Closed. The OIG agreed with ICE's position that the legal
requirement to review all visa applications in Saudi Arabia should not
be modified. The OIG closed this recommendation as it published the
report in August 2004.
Recommendation 11.--Evaluate the possible benefit of analyzing the
existing visa applications in DOS files of young Saudi males who were
issued visas in the 2 year period prior to September 11, 2001. BTS
should coordinate with DOS, the FBI, and other Federal agencies, as
necessary, before making a determination about whether, or how, to
proceed to analyze the applications.
ICE agrees that there may be value in reviewing certain
applications submitted in Saudi Arabia in the 2 years prior to
September 11, 2001. DHS is still evaluating whether or how to proceed
with such an analysis.
Recommendation 12.--Develop an interface between BTS and DOS
computer systems that permits a fast and efficient method to automate
the visa security name check process and eliminate the duplicative data
entry for database checks.
ICE has been working with DOS to improve information sharing and
access and has succeeded in virtually eliminating the manual data entry
that the IG observed in late 2003/early 2004. VSP is working with DOS
to further enhance regular information sharing and expects the new
process to be in place in the third quarter of fiscal year 2005.
OVERHEAD COST SHARING
Question. Last fiscal year and this fiscal year, ICE plans to
charge a portion of the headquarters overhead costs to the Federal
Protective Service (FPS) and the Federal Air Marshals (FAMS). On what
basis were the overhead charges calculated to ensure that those
organizations were paying for services they received on a basis
proportionate to their usage?
Answer. Early in the fiscal year, FPS and/or FAMS were expected to
provide funding for overhead based for the actual costs for services.
The headquarters (HQ) overhead costs are allocated to the ICE
components using full-time equivalents (FTE), at the beginning of the
fiscal year, to construct the proration percentages. Following a review
of the overhead costing issue for the FAMS and FPS, a final decision
was made that the FAMS and FPS would only pay for services actually
being utilized. However, they will not be assessed an overhead charge
in fiscal year 2005.
Question. Will this become a permanent charge to FPS and FAMS? If
so, why are no additional resources being requested to ensure that the
funds are available to pay these bills?
Answer. All ICE Programs, Projects and Activities (PPAs) should be
expected to share HQ overhead costs for the overhead services that ICE
provides. However, for fiscal year 2005 there will not be an assessment
for FPS and FAMS.
HQ overheads are covered out of base appropriated funds.
Additionally, every new enhancement request includes funds for HQ
overhead in the modular costs used to compute the enhancement.
Question. Will this have an adverse impact on the ability of the
FAMS to maintain its staffing levels?
Answer. No, the FAMS are not being assessed an overhead charge.
FUGITIVE OPERATIONS
Question. The President's budget requests an increase of $8.8
million to expand the capabilities of the fugitive operations teams. In
answer to questions submitted after last year's hearing, ICE stated
that the strategic plan called for the elimination of the 400,000
fugitive backlog within 10 years based on significant increases in the
fugitive program.
What impact are the continued funding shortfalls having on the
Office of Detention and Removals' ability to implement that plan?
Answer. ICE continues to track and apprehend fugitives and continue
to surpass goals and previous year's statistics. However, some existing
teams need additional staff that have not yet been hired, and no new
teams have been deployed. When corrected later this year, this delay
will have no effect in meeting the 10-year plan.
Question. Does the fiscal year 2006 budget request include
sufficient resources for ICE to continue making progress in locating
and deporting absconders?
Answer. Yes. The fiscal year 2006 Budget will allow ICE to show
significant progress in locating, apprehending and removing absconders.
Question. Has ICE been able to move ahead with the data integrity
projects related to the absconder records despite the funding
situation? What results have been seen from the data integrity
projects?
Answer. ICE has been investigating data integrity issues with the
records of absconders. ICE drew random samples of records of aliens
with an unexecuted order of removal that did not indicate that the
alien was an absconder. There are approximately 130,000 such alien
records (does not include aliens with an acceptable reason for an
unexecuted order). The samples indicated that almost 70 percent of
those aliens were absconders. The absconder statistics have been
revised accordingly. DRO estimates that the absconder population on
September 30, 2004, was 465,353 aliens.
ICE believes that the new data system to track aliens in removal
proceedings (EREM) will address many of the data integrity concerns.
The data system will be easier to use which will encourage completeness
and accuracy. It will also be more tightly integrated with the work
process used in an alien's case.
FEDERAL AIR MARSHALS
Question. On January 27, 2005, ICE announced the creation of the
Federal Air Marshals (FAMS) Advisory Board. The advisory board will
provide information and recommendations on key FAMS policy and
operational issues. Some of the issues the FAMS Advisory Board will
initially address are hiring, dress code, technology, the FAMS role in
airport security and the FAMS career ladder within ICE. When does ICE
expect that the advisory board will begin making recommendations on
some of these issues?
Answer. While it is difficult to predict with specificity when the
FAMS Advisory Board will be prepared to make recommendations, the Board
is currently meeting on a regular basis. One of the objectives of the
Board is to increase the pace of the FAMS integration into ICE. To that
end, the Board hopes to be in a position to make recommendations in the
near future.
INSTITUTIONAL REMOVAL PROGRAM
Question. What progress has been made in transitioning the
Institutional Removal program from the Office of Investigations to the
Office of Detention and Removals?
Answer. In the planning for the transition of responsibility from
the Office of Investigations (OI) to Detention and Removal Operations
(DRO), a review of performance standards and available resources was
completed.
This review found less than 50 percent of criminal aliens were
being identified and removed from the United States (comparing State
Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) numbers to the Performance
Analysis System (PAS)).
The prior performance standard based on the number of aliens
removed is not reflective of the function of the Criminal Alien Program
(CAP). The performance standard for DRO will be the percentage of
incarcerated foreign born screened for removal. A performance level of
90 percent of all foreign-born incarcerated in Bureau of Prisons, State
department of corrections and mega-counties (areas with populations
over 1 million) will provide a high level of coverage throughout the
United States. Smaller population areas would be encouraged to
participate in 287(g) programs or video teleconferencing with newly
established VTC centers.
After careful consideration, DRO determined that a state-by-state
approach would be the most effective way to ensure a successful
transition. By approaching the transition on a State level, staffing
plans and proactive communications with relevant State agencies can
enhance the productivity and workflow.
The State of New York was determined to be the first State to
transition because of the existing work force available in DRO to
assist in covering the City of New York. DRO assumed sole
responsibility for the City of New York Department of Corrections (NYC
DOC) on December 17, 2004. With ten facilities, one satellite facility
in Bronx, 120,000-130,000 inmates admitted annually and with an average
daily population of 15,000, NYC DOC is one of the largest detention
programs in the United States.
The transition at NYC DOC has been remarkably smooth and in the
first quarter of fiscal year 2005, improvements have been substantial.
In the last quarter of fiscal year 2003, prior to the transfer, 921 of
3,542 incarcerated aliens were screened (26 percent). In the first
quarter of fiscal year 2005, there were 1,866 of the 2,696 incarcerated
aliens screened (69 percent). Though well below the stated performance
level; significant progress has been made without additional staffing.
As staffing becomes available, NYC DOC operations will achieve the
target level of screening.
The State of New York effort has provided an excellent blueprint
for subsequent transfers, and using the lessons learned, DRO has
completed transfer plans for California, Florida, Illinois, Arizona and
New Mexico.
Question. Are there other ways ICE could be working with State and
local officials to improve communication in order to identify
incarcerated aliens in a more timely manner?
Answer. In the planning for the transition of responsibility from
the Office of Investigations (OI) to Detention and Removal Operations
(DRO), a number of possible communications enhancements have been
explored by DRO.
The most basic approach to improve communications is and continues
to be open, face-to-face dialogue with the local and State officials to
determine the needs and requirements of both parties, to establish an
approach to accomplish the mutual goals, and to maintain an open line
of communication between the parties.
During the planning for the State of New York, ICE met with State
officials that oversee the entire New York State Department of
Corrections, Parole and Probation and the State Police. These
discussion have led to an enhanced streamlined approach to processing
aliens, centralized release of aliens to ICE custody, created a
procedure for State of New York Parole to compare information and
update their information based on removal information and opened the
dialogue to continue improvements in the areas of conviction documents,
appeal processes in State courts and new procedures for automated
immigration status checks. Dialogue has already been started with the
State of California and a meeting between ICE/DRO and the Assistant
Chief of Staff of the Governor's office has been planned for the end of
March.
ICE has also investigated whether the 287(g) program by State and
local governments is another opportunity to train local law enforcement
in the authorities as well as what the information provided to them
means. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and supportive data
bases can be confusing to experienced officers, much less individuals
that have not had years of experience in these issues. The formalized
training allows for concise communication of status to ensure proper
enforcement of the INA. Expansion of the 287(g) program has a direct
impact on the DRO program through the additional identification of
individuals amenable to removal.
The PEGASUS program is operated under a COPS grant and allows a new
venue to share information with local and State authorities. The
program provides Sheriffs and municipal law enforcement with secure
access to other participating law enforcement agency databases. Through
recent presentations, DHS is considering how best to incorporate parts
of our databases to assist identification of aliens amenable to removal
as well assist DHS in our mission. The databases in question would
definitely include the Deportable Alien Control System (DACS) and would
allow an automatic data search system via a ``pointer system''. The
possibilities of an automated system would greatly enhance the
identification of aliens in removal proceedings and those already
removed. The extent of the data sharing that DHS is willing to consider
is still under review.
The Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) continues to provide a
one-stop location for searching several data systems. The LESC,
currently operated by OI, accepts queries from a multitude of law
enforcement agencies and sends responses back to the originating
agency. In cases where the alien in question is identified as a
removable alien, a detainer is placed by the LESC for the local DHS
office to pursue appropriate removal action.
FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE
Question. The Federal Protective Service (FPS) has been in the
midst of a very difficult transition from the General Services
Administration's (GSA) financial management system to that of ICE.
Given the financial problems of ICE, which extend to not having
proper internal fund controls, why wasn't more consideration given to
having FPS continue to use the GSA financial system for at least 1 more
year, or until eMERGE2 was ready?
Answer. The Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Under
Secretary for Management, initially directed that the FPS transition
from the GSA financial management system be completed by October 1,
2003. Following the initial review of the unique financial management
requirements needed to support the FPS offsetting collections program,
the transition date was extended to October 1, 2004. At the time that
this decision was made, ICE felt that the additional year for planning
the transition would be sufficient to avoid any major problems. The GSA
and ICE Financial Management staffs worked closely to plan for a smooth
transition. However, the technical financial and accounting differences
between the GSA and ICE financial systems proved to be much greater
than either agency had anticipated. The ICE Financial management staff
has been following an aggressive plan and timetable to complete the FPS
transition by September 30, 2005.
With regard to the specific financial situation, specific planning
milestones called for a successful transition of FPS to ICE, as agreed
with GSA, FPS and ICE. This plan was successful, with the only
contributing factor being data transmission problems from GSA. That
situation exacerbated payment problems in the ICE transition. Much of
the data from the GSA financial system has had to be manually uploaded
into the ICE system, requiring additional quality assurance steps to
maintain the highest level of data integrity.
Question. The current remediation plan for fixing the financial
problems at FPS call for the reconciliation of payments to be finished
by March 31, 2005. How will this plan solve all of the problems and
ensure that contractors will get paid in a timely manner?
Answer. In addition to a full reconciliation of FPS payments, ICE
is convening a high level working group to address the financial
problems at FPS. This group will evaluate and make appropriate changes
in the business process flow to ensure that contractors are paid timely
and that financial events are properly and timely recorded. ICE will
continue to work with GSA to resolve any discrepancies in the balances
transferred. A full reconciliation of financial activities is
anticipated by September 30, 2005.
HUMAN SMUGGLING
Question. What is ICE doing in the area human smuggling? What has
happened in the Carreto case that was the subject of a recent CBS News
report?
Answer. Recognizing that global human smuggling is of the nature of
organized crime, ICE has employed Task Force methodologies to attack
and dismantle the operations and networks that profit from these
crimes. An example of this methodology is Operation ICE Storm in
Phoenix, Arizona. ICE, in conjunction with partners in the Federal,
State, local and foreign law enforcement community, has initiated a
task force to address widespread violence, kidnapping, extortion, and
other crimes associated with human smuggling. By vigorously applying
its money laundering authorities, ICE and our State and local and
partners in Arizona have deprived human smuggling organizations of
nearly $7.3 million of their criminal proceeds. Since the inception of
ICE Storm in October 2003, over 320 persons have been prosecuted for
human smuggling and related crimes and over 170 firearms have been
seized. Over 6,700 smuggled aliens have also been arrested and removed
from the United States.
ICE is fully supporting the Arizona Border Control (ABC)
Initiative, which was developed to focus on criminal organizations and
supporting infrastructures that are currently exploiting the Arizona
region. ICE's role in this initiative, which is being coordinated
closely with other BTS components as well as State, local and foreign
law enforcement agencies, focuses on interdiction and investigation
efforts to target human and contraband smuggling organizations
operating near the Arizona/Mexico border. To date, a total of 635
individuals have been prosecuted as a direct result of those
enforcement efforts. In addition to what has already been seized under
ICE Storm, approximately $2.1 million in U.S. currency has been seized
and 26 weapons have been removed from the streets.
Since July 2004, ICE has implemented the LAX Initiative, which was
developed to address the human smuggling organizations using the Los
Angeles International Airport. This operation targets not only the
vulnerabilities of airline and border security, but related financial
institutions and support industries directly affected by the identified
criminal activity. ICE has seized approximately $1.2 million in U.S.
currency, 486 undocumented aliens have been arrested, and there have
been 11 Federal prosecutions in connection with these enforcement
efforts.
At this time, we cannot comment on the Carreto case, since it is an
ongoing criminal investigation.
BACKLOG REDUCTION PLAN
Question. CIS has reduced the benefit application backlog to 1.5
million cases, down from a high of 3.8 million cases in January of
2004. What is the plan for maintaining a 6-month average processing
time--once dollars are no longer specifically set aside for this
purpose?
Answer. USCIS is in the process of reengineering its business
practices to ensure that it will be more efficient and effective. USCIS
also plans to invest in IT transformation efforts, including a new case
management system, to build the necessary infrastructure to ensure that
backlogs do not return for the foreseeable future. Finally, USCIS has
recently completed an in-depth staffing requirements analysis which
will ensure that each USCIS office receives the appropriate amount of
staff necessary to maintain the 6-month cycle time standard.
Question. What assurances do we have that the productivity gains
are not coming at the expense of quality, that the right decisions are
still getting made by the adjudicators?
Answer. Backlog elimination efforts will not come at the expense of
national security or adjudicative integrity. USCIS has struck a solid
balance in this area by ensuring that processes facilitate legal
immigration, while preventing those who would misuse the system from
entering or remaining in the United States. It is imperative that the
integrity of the benefits process not be compromised in the effort to
stimulate additional productivity.
Efforts to benchmark and assure quality are at the heart of every
production initiative. For example, USCIS is committed to attacking
benefit fraud and has created an Office of Fraud Detection and National
Security (FDNS) specifically to lead USCIS efforts in this area. FDNS
will assist USCIS adjudicators in verifying applicant and petitioner
information, and will work cooperatively with ICE to ensure that fraud
schemes are identified and referred to ICE for criminal investigation
and prosecution. USCIS field officers have been instructed to issue
Notices to Appear for removal proceedings in instances where an
applicant or beneficiary has attempted to defraud the government.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Question. In order to improve customer service, CIS is working on
improving the ability of beneficiaries to interact with the Department
of Homeland Security electronically. USCIS has now expanded electronic
filing to support 50 percent of the total volume of benefit
applications. When is the next expansion of the online filing of
benefit applications planned?
Answer. The e-filing system currently includes 8 application form
types, which represent approximately 50 percent of the USCIS workload.
The e-filing application volume has doubled each year since its
inception. The current phase entails enhancing system functionality and
capabilities, which will include accepting Premium Processing filings
of the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker (Form I-140) in the third
quarter of this fiscal year.
Question. Which applications does CIS plan to add next?
Answer. USCIS intends to expand e-filing, but has not yet
determined which applications will be targeted for the next e-filing
phase.
Question. What are the current plans for re-designing and re-
launching the CIS website?
Answer. USCIS is creating a consolidated ``Customer Service
Portal'' to integrate and align all public-facing USCIS websites. The
current USCIS web configuration of ``core'' USCIS.gov content was
completed in 1998. While the core content is continually refreshed, its
underlying information architecture (IA) has never been refreshed.
Moreover, three additional USCIS customer service websites, each adding
a valuable new service, were appended onto USCIS.gov. However, their
development was not integrated into the core website due to technical
limitations at the time.
This new project will enhance the ability to manage the USCIS.gov
web content; enforce the DHS branding guidelines; standardize the
presentation of all USCIS.gov web content as being part of ``One Voice,
One Face, Many Channels,'' and help initiate the development of a
comprehensive USCIS-wide web governance.
The development of the USCIS customer service portal will be
conducted in phases. The initial phase of the project seeks to enhance
USCIS.gov content by developing a comprehensive information
architecture (IA) within which all current and anticipated USCIS.gov
web content and e-services may be organized. The initial phase includes
standing up a refreshed, customer-oriented USCIS.gov in the newly
developed environment, with emphasis placed on the requirements of the
USCIS Office of Communications. Additional phases will concentrate on
the development of the consolidated web portal, and the requirements of
other organizations providing content to USCIS.gov and integrating, to
the degree possible, content from the three service-oriented websites,
InfoPASS, Customer Relationship Interface System (CRIS), and e-Filing
into USCIS.gov. As of March 2005, the project has been funded by the
USCIS Senior Review Board. A Statement of Work for all phases of the
project is currently being drafted, and USCIS anticipates awarding the
contract in fiscal year 2005.
Question. What is the status of the initiative to begin electronic
adjudication of Temporary Protected Status applications?
Answer. The electronic adjudication of Temporary Protected Status
(TPS) applications began with the re-registration of TPS applicants
from Honduras and Nicaragua on November 6, 2004, and continued with
applicants from El Salvador on January 5, 2005. The next designated TPS
country eligible for electronic adjudication is unknown at this point
in time.
OFFICE OF FRAUD DETECTION AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Question. Please provide a detailed update on the establishment and
expansion plans for the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security
(FDNS).
Answer. USCIS Director Eduardo Aguirre created the Office of Fraud
Detection and National Security (FDNS) to implement two high priorities
that support the USCIS mission:
--Conducting effective background checks on persons seeking
immigration benefits, and;
--Detecting and combating immigration benefit fraud.
Background: In fiscal year 2004, FDNS developed and implemented a
joint anti-fraud strategy and initiative with the Bureau of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE). To support this effort, the FDNS
developed the necessary policies, procedures, and organizational
structure. This included incorporating the staffs of the Service Center
Fraud Detection Units (FDU) with the allocation, deployment, hiring,
and training of over 150 new employees at field and headquarters
locations throughout the interior United States starting in fiscal year
2004. The present staff of the FDNS is 222 permanent and term
appointment employees. Of the new employees, 110 are field office
Immigration Officers located within Districts, Sub-offices, Regional
offices, and Headquarters. Within the FDUs and Headquarters, FDNS has
61 Intelligence Research Specialists and 30-term appointment
Investigative Assistants. The remaining staff provides administrative
and management support to the field officers and are located within the
FDUs and Headquarters offices. Utilizing fees generated from the H-1B
and L Visa Reform Act of 2004, USCIS plans to fill 160 FDNS positions.
These new positions will enable FDNS to make adjustments to current
staffing and provide specific levels of support for both the anti-fraud
and national security operations.
Fraud
The primary objective of the anti-fraud operation is to detect and
combat immigration benefit fraud by referring articulated leads to ICE
for criminal investigation, and conducting administrative inquiries
when ICE rejects a request for investigation. The primary duty of an
FDNS Immigration Officer (IO) is to review fraud-based leads referred
by adjudicators and other sources. This review consists of performing a
variety of system checks, including data mining; conducting field
administrative inquiries, which includes interviewing various entities;
and supporting criminal investigations conducted by ICE and
prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys. It also includes placing individuals in
removal proceedings when fraud is verified, collecting and analyzing a
variety of intelligence data, and posting look-outs on individuals
involved in fraud conspiracies. By removing cases containing elements
of fraud from the mainstream adjudications process, adjudicators are
able to concentrate their expertise on applicants and petitioners
deserving of, and eligible for, the benefits sought. Thus, this anti-
fraud effort will improve the quality of adjudications, increase
productivity, and reduce cycle times. The 160 new positions will enable
FDNS to:
--Place FDNS IOs in the largest districts and each center, where the
overwhelming majority of immigration benefit fraud exists, as
well as in most of the sub-offices.
--Put a position in the Department of State's Fraud Prevention
Program Office in Washington, DC, to enhance inter-departmental
fraud detection and planning efforts.
National Security
Shortly after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, USCIS
implemented a policy requiring the completion of background checks on
applicants, petitioners, beneficiaries, and other individuals seeking
immigration benefits. The National Security Unit has developed, and is
implementing, a new policy and process pertaining to the
identification, reporting, and resolution of IBIS national security
hits. The Interagency Border Information System (IBIS) is the primary
tool used to conduct background checks on applicants, petitioners,
beneficiaries, and other individuals seeking immigration benefits.
Currently, FDNS is conducting a pilot to test the electronic/paperless
resolution of background checks and the entry and check of all aliases
at the front end of the adjudication process.
Question. How are the relationships working with the Department of
State and Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
Answer. ICE and the Department of State (DOS) have a productive
working relationship and coordinate on issues of visa security as well
as critical law enforcement issues often involving foreign governments.
For example, ICE is working closely with DOS to develop and implement a
``diplomatic'' strategy to encourage several countries to accept
repatriation of their citizens when they are ordered removed from the
United States. Additionally, ICE works closely with DOS and other
agencies as members of the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center to
synthesize intelligence, law enforcement and other information to bring
effective international action against smugglers, traffickers of
persons and criminals facilitating terrorists' clandestine travel. In
U.S. embassies around the world, a network of ICE attaches, who with
DOS, are working with their counterparts in foreign law enforcement
agencies combating transnational crimes involving national security,
financial, smuggling, illegal arms exports, forced child labor, child
pornography, human trafficking, intellectual property rights,
commercial and immigration fraud violations. ICE looks forward to
continuing and expanding the collaborative relationship with DOS to
further safeguard our borders and the American people.
Question. Please explain what the FDNS fraud tracking system will
be? Who will have access to this system? What are the timeline and
major milestones for development of the system?
Answer. FTS Requirements:
--The ability to maintain and report on fraud lead and case data in a
central repository that is available at a national level to all
FDNS staff and authorized external agencies
--The ability to reference benefits application data related to the
subject of a case
--The ability to share case and lead data on validated fraud cases
with fraud investigators at ICE
--The ability to perform reactive and ad-hoc data searches against
benefits claims data
--The ability to perform data mining analysis on benefits claim data
--The ability to define fraud profiles and apply them against
incoming application receipts
--The ability to track fraud profile matches and analyze data
commonalities
--The ability to generate and report information for management use
--The ability to generate and automatically report G22 statistics for
FDNS
Access.--FTS is being sized to accommodate up to 500 simultaneous
users. This will accommodate the current 222 FDNS field staff,
supervisors, managers and support staff located in geographically
disparate locations nationwide, but also potential expansion. It will
also accommodate information sharing with other agencies such as the
FBI, CIA, Department of State, and other DHS and intelligence entities
with need to access this information for national security and law
enforcement purposes.
MILESTONES AND TIMELINES
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Days Start End
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discovery Stage................................................. 7 2/18/05 3/17/05
Design Stage.................................................... 13 2/18/05 3/25/05
Configuration Stage............................................. 18 3/10/05 4/04/05
Validation Stage................................................ 15 3/22/05 4/11/05
Deployment Stage................................................ 4 4/12/05 4/15/05
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Please provide a detailed plan for the development and
rollout of the benefit fraud assessment tool, including timelines and
milestones.
Answer. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's (CIS) Fraud
Detection and National Security (FDNS) Unit will implement a Benefit
Fraud Assessment program (BFA). This program was approved in February
2005, and will be implemented in various phases through October 2005.
ICE supports FDNS conducting the BFA so that ICE can direct its
resources to investigating/prosecuting actual benefit fraud violators.
OFFICE OF CITIZENSHIP
Question. Please provide the following information regarding the
Guide for New Immigrants: which languages will the guide be produced
in; how many will be printed in each language in the initial run; how
will the guides be distributed electronically and physically; what is
the timeline for translating the guide into each of the planned
languages; and what is the timeline for producing hard copies in each
language.
Answer. To ensure that immigrants from a variety of language groups
have access to the Guide, the Office of Citizenship will translate the
English version of the Guide into ten (10) languages--Spanish, Chinese,
Vietnamese, Tagalog, Portuguese, Russian, French, Korean, Haitian
Creole, and Arabic.
Hard copies of the Spanish and English versions of the Guide will
be available for purchase through the Government Printing Office (GPO),
and all other versions will be accessible online. In order to initially
market the product, the Office plans to print approximately 250,000
copies of the English guide and 150,000 copies of the Spanish guide.
In addition of the current availability of the English Guide online
(additional languages to be posted as translations are completed) the
Office is coordinating a national mailing list of community and faith-
based organizations, immigration service providers, State and local
contacts and adult educators in an effort to disseminate the Guide
nationally. USCIS Community Liaison Officers and local field Directors
will also receive copies of the Guide for additional local
dissemination. GPO order forms will also be included as part of the
dissemination effort. In addition to planned dissemination efforts, the
Office also plans to implement a comprehensive outreach/public
education effort in key communities. These events will be strategically
located according to where the centers of the various foreign language
communities are. Plans include high-profile events in: Los Angeles for
the Spanish version (May); San Francisco for the Chinese, Tagalog, and
Vietnamese versions (May); New York City for the Russian and Korean
versions (July); and Detroit/Dearborn for the Arabic version (August).
Spanish translation should be completed in April; Chinese, Tagalog
and Vietnamese will be completed in May; Russian, Korean and Arabic
will be completed in June; and Portuguese, Haitian Creole and French
will be completed in July.
Hard copies of the English and Spanish guides will be available in
June. All other translation will be available online late summer. There
are currently no plans to print hard copies of the additional
languages.
STAFFING
Question. Please provide a complete FTE staffing plan for fiscal
year 2005 and 2006, including but not limited to; location (i.e.,
District Office, Service Processing Center, etc), position type (i.e.,
Immigration Information Officer, Adjudicator, etc), and physical
location (i.e., Burlington, VT; Dallas, TX; etc).
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Question. Please provide a breakout of attrition rates for each of
fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005 by type of position and location.
Answer. USCIS only has attrition rates for fiscal year 2004. For
the major position types, they are:
--Adjudications Officer: 2.3 percent
--Asylum Officer: 6.1 percent
--Asylum/Adjudications Clerk: 2.3 percent
--Immigration Information Officer/Customer Service
Representative: 1.2 percent
Data is not available by location.
Question. Please provide a chart with the numbers and types of
employees that have been trained at Glynco, GA for each of fiscal years
2003, 2004, and 2005.
Answer:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Position type Fiscal year 2005
2004 (estimate)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adjudication Officer.................... 751 1,098
Asylum Officer.......................... 116 170
Immigration Information Officer......... 142 207
Other................................... 58 85
-------------------------------
Total............................. 1,067 1,560
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year 2003 data is not available.
CALL CENTERS
Question. Please provide a chart with the number of contractors
assigned to each call center for fiscal years 2004 and 2005.
Answer. USCIS does not determine the number of contractors assigned
to each contract call center. Under our contract, the vendor is
required to have sufficiently trained staff to meet our performance
requirements, and is responsible for determining the placement and size
of each of its operations.
Question. Please provide a chart for each of fiscal years 2004 and
2005 of the total number of calls received by call center, broken out
by type of call.
Answer. USCIS has two kinds of call centers. Contract call centers,
which provide initial live assistance, and USCIS staffed call centers,
which answer questions that cannot be answered by the contract staff.
Our contract call centers operate as one. We do not route calls to
our general customer service line based on the nature of the call, but
based on agent availability. Calls are routed to the next available
agent with the appropriate language skills regardless of location.
Thus, staff scheduling, availability and performance affect call
routing, not the nature of the call. USCIS, therefore, does not track
information by type of call.
The table below shows the volumes and percentage of live assistance
calls handled by staff at each of the four (4) contract call centers
for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005 (through mid-March).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2004 2005 (through mid-March)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Volume Percent Volume Percent
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phoenix, Arizona................................ 1,269,059 16.0 531,867 17.1
Lawrence, Kansas................................ 1,534,164 19.3 636,945 20.4
Corbin, Kentucky................................ 4,800,717 60.5 1,809,688 58.1
Arlington, Virginia............................. 334,911 4.2 138,153 4.4
Total live assistance calls handled by contract 7,938,851 .............. 3,116,653 ..............
call centers...................................
Total calls received to USCIS................... 21,295,256 .............. 8,454,022 ..............
Percent of total calls that were handled by .............. 37.3 .............. 36.9
contract call centers..........................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Ted Stevens
ICE--CYBER CRIME CENTER
Question. Last year, $4.2 million was secured in the fiscal year
2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act to expand the ICE Cyber Crime
Center to ICE field offices. Are these funds at risk of being diverted
to address the base budget shortfall within ICE this fiscal year?
Answer. At this time, it is ICE's intent to execute the entire $4.2
million in fiscal year 2005 for the purpose for which it was
appropriated.
IMMIGRATION SERVICES
Question. With the split of immigration and enforcement functions
precipitated by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security,
Alaska's capitol, Juneau, was left with no personnel to provide
immigration services. Without immigration services, immigrants are
forced to fly to Anchorage to access services. What steps have been
taken by the Homeland Security Department to ensure Juneau's need for
immigration services will be met?
Answer. Since the creation of USCIS, the agency has met the needs
of Juneau and other distant communities of Alaska by sending an officer
2 or 3 times each year on periodic circuit rides to conduct benefits
interviews, naturalization ceremonies, and community outreach. USCIS
has recently expanded the circuit rides to 4 times a year, even though
there were only 400 Naturalization and Adjustment of Status cases in
the entire District in the first quarter of this year. The most recent
trip was in November 2004, and there are trips to Juneau scheduled for
April, August, and October of 2005. The current cycle times are just
over 6 months for naturalization, and just under 6 months in Adjustment
of Status cases.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Pete V. Domenici
LAND PORT OF ENTRY
Question. America has 197 land ports of entry, and it has been
almost 20 years since we launched a major effort to upgrade
infrastructure at those ports. That last effort occurred in 1986--
almost 15 years prior September 11, 2001.
Since September 11, we have placed increasing emphasis on upgrading
protective measures for our airports, seaports, and critical
infrastructure. It is imperative that we also improve land port
security if we are going to be successful in the war on terror. To that
end, I intend to introduce a bill which will authorize additional funds
for investment in our Nation's border crossings.
Have you considered what kinds of improvements are necessary at our
land ports of entry and how much these upgrades might cost?
Answer. CBP has initiated a Construction Master Planning Process
that will allow for increased security at the Nation's borders by
providing critical facility and infrastructure improvements that are
prioritized using a rigorous capital investment planning process.
The planning methodology and resulting allocation of construction
projects will optimize available resources to support the expanded
methods of CBP operations and comprehensive border enforcement
strategy. The construction planning process aligns with the DHS mission
and strategy, forecasted future growth, identify and justify required
projects and estimate their associated costs. The CBP Construction
Master Planning Process was developed in response to the reporting
requirements included in House Report 108-774 and House Report 108-541.
Question. Based on your experience at CBP, what do you believe are
the three top priorities for securing our land ports?
Answer. Since September 11, 2001, CBP has tightened procedures for
entry into the United States at all ports of entry, based on three
strategic priorities:
--Advance Information and Risk-Targeting.--CBP has moved forward with
programs that provide information regarding cargo and
passengers as far in advance of arrival to the United States as
possible, and systems to review this information and develop
targeted response to high-risk cargo and individuals. These
programs and systems include C-TPAT, CSI, advance cargo
manifests, Advance Passenger Information Systems, all screened
through our National Targeting Center.
--State of the Art Technology.--CBP is investing in state-of-the-art
technology, including non-intrusive radiation detection
systems, making additional information systems available to
inspectors at the ports of entry, and addition of biometric and
other systems to enhance security.
--Training.--CBP has significantly revised and reprioritized our
training for CBP Officers based on operational priorities,
beginning with the establishment of anti-terrorism protocols
for all ports of entry and developing and implementing anti-
terrorism training for all CBP Officers.
Question. Specific improvements are needed at the Columbus port of
entry in New Mexico, and I understand that the General Services
Administration (GSA) has proposed that construction on the Columbus
project begin in 2007 or 2008. Do you support GSA's recommendation and
will you keep the project on track for construction?
Answer. CBP has requested GSA to modernize and expand the border
station in Columbus, NM. The existing facility constructed in 1987, is
a full service port of entry with pedestrian, non-commercial and
commercial traffic. It is the only 24-hour border crossing point for
pedestrians and privately owned vehicles in New Mexico. The facility is
in need of significant renovation and expansion to safely process the
increased volume of traffic that has occurred since originally
constructed.
CBP has requested GSA to include this project at the earliest
opportunity. If approved for design in fiscal year 2007, construction
should begin in fiscal year 2009.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Richard C. Shelby
OPERATION PREDATOR
Question. Mr. Secretary, first, let me thank you again this year
for ICE's efforts to stop the exploitation of children. I understand
that Operation Predator has had many successes and I am glad to hear of
its achievements. I believe it is a critical program and I hope it
continues to be successful. We should continue to do all within our
power to ensure that children around the world are protected from those
individuals that would harm them and shamelessly exploit them for
simple pleasure and monetary gain.
To that end, I ask that you share with the Committee some of ICE's
other efforts to eliminate the abuse and exploitation of children. I
know that you have many partners in this effort. I would appreciate you
expounding on your opening statement as to what ICE is doing and who
you are working with to accomplish these goals.
Answer. In addition to Operation Predator, ICE attempts to
eliminate the abuse and exploitation of children by enforcing the laws
related to Forced Child Labor (FCL). ICE has implemented a proactive
outreach schedule targeting an audience comprised of leaders in
domestic industry and their employees/agents responsible for foreign
purchases and related internal security procedures. Our goal is to
educate this community, promote voluntary compliance, and encourage
vigilance and reporting of suspected violators. The ICE FCL program
staff regularly attends other United States Government agency, foreign
government, and non-governmental organization functions related to
forced or indentured child labor. In particular, FCL program staff
attends and participates in monthly meetings with the National Child
Labor Coalition, an organization that exists to serve as a national
network for the exchange of information regarding children in an effort
to end child labor exploitation by promoting progressive initiatives
and legislation; established contacts with various domestic industry
trade show representatives and coordinated participation in commodity
specific events; and published the Forced Child Labor Advisory and
accompanying pamphlet, produced in English and translated into 5
foreign languages for distribution in training and outreach activities.
ICE currently has 20 open investigations related to allegations of the
importation of products manufactured or produced with forced or
indentured child labor. During fiscal year 2005, three new
investigations were opened, twelve were closed, and one investigation
is in pending status.
During 2004, ICE hosted two international symposiums on FCL and
related child exploitation issues as defined in the International Labor
Organization (ILO) Convention 182. These symposiums hosted in Singapore
and Johannesburg, South Africa, were geared at educating foreign law
enforcement partners on U.S. laws, promoting information sharing, and
enhancing networking vital to successful investigations, and included
presentations and training on: Forced Child Labor, the Protect Act and
Operation Predator, Child Pornography, Basic Computer Forensics and
Investigative Techniques, and Child Sex Tourism. In addition, at the
Johannesburg, South Africa conference, a block of training was
conducted by ICE on human smuggling and trafficking particularly with
regard to children on the African continent.
In regard to human smuggling and trafficking into the United
States, ICE does not keep statistics delineating children versus
adults. However, in terms of all human trafficking (men, women, and
children), many of these victims are lured from their homes with false
promises of well-paying jobs; instead, they are forced or coerced into
prostitution, domestic servitude, or other types of forced labor. ICE,
with its wide range of authorities, expertise and capabilities attacks
human trafficking organizations through the aggressive use of human
trafficking, smuggling and money laundering statutes, as well as
identification and seizure of criminal proceeds and assets. Each and
every allegation received by the ICE FCL program is researched,
analyzed, and referred to the appropriate domestic or foreign office
for further investigation. ICE's education and outreach process
provides guidance to ICE agents in distinguishing the clear differences
between human smuggling violations and human trafficking. This process
has enabled ICE agents, our State and local law enforcement partners
and community groups to better understand and identify trafficking
violations and to better care for victims. ICE office of investigations
has also conducted extensive outreach and training with our law
enforcement partners abroad. Coordinating with the ICE Attaches in
numerous countries, ICE works to combat trafficking organizations, in
source and transit nations, as well as in the United States.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Question. Among each of your roles, is the charge to secure our
borders and to control illegal immigration. Estimates of the number of
illegal immigrants range greatly. Some say 8 million others say
millions more. I believe that we all know that 8 million is an
extremely conservative estimate.
What is your best estimate on the number of illegal aliens
currently residing in the country?
Answer. It is estimated that the number of illegal aliens currently
residing in the country is most likely between 11-12 million.
Question. How many new illegal aliens entered the country last
year?
Answer. The total for ``first time'' illegal aliens, in fiscal year
2004, making entry into the United States between the ports of entry is
608,073. These numbers are derived from using the data provided in the
Enforce Integrated Database (EID). This data is based on persons
identified by biometric data (fingerprints) as first time
apprehensions.
Question. Is that an increase or a decrease from the previous year?
Answer. There was a 20 percent increase in first-time
apprehensions/entries into to the United States in fiscal year 2004
compared to fiscal year 2003.
Fiscal year 2004--608,073.
Fiscal year 2003--504,889.
Question. If we are so uncertain about the numbers, doesn't that
seem to indicate that we are not doing enough to secure our borders and
our homeland?
Answer. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is enhancing and
planning operations in areas along the borders which pose the greatest
threat to national security. With the development and implementation of
the Border Patrol's National Strategy, a measured but aggressive
approach is being taken to increase border security. The guidelines and
goals outlined in the National Strategy have been translated into the
CBP/USBP implementation plan.
VISA OVERSTAYS
Question. Another major problem with our immigration system is the
fact that many of those people currently counted as illegals actually
entered the country legally, but have overstayed their visas.
Does the Department have any recent numbers on visa overstays?
Answer. The US-VISIT Program Office conducted an analysis of
biometric entry and exit data for the first 9 months of the program
(January 5, 2004 to September 30, 2004) and initially, the findings
indicate that, for visa holders on whom biometrics are collected at
both entry and exit, nearly 90 percent exit the country before their
periods of admission expire. In addition, US-VISIT's preliminary
findings show that there is no exit record for less than 1 percent of
these visa holders. Due to current limitations in capabilities to
capture complete entry and exit data on all visa holders, the small
sample size, and the abbreviated period covered by the analysis, US-
VISIT is unable to provide more detailed findings.
Question. How many temporary visa holders never return to their
home country?
Answer. Except for the preliminary information mentioned in the
previous question, US-VISIT does not yet contain all the technological
elements that would readily provide this type of status information.
However, according to a report from the Office Immigration Statistics
using data from the Nonimmigrant Information System (NIIS), a total of
23.6 million nonimmigrant departures were recorded by NIIS during 2003.
Of those, 22.1 million or 94 percent were matched to an arrival and
showed valid arrival and departure dates.
The proportion of all admissions matched varies among the broad
categories of admission. Short-term visitors had the highest match rate
(95 percent), followed by diplomats and other representatives (93
percent), students and temporary workers (88 percent), and expected
long-term residents (87 percent). Records missing the category of
admission have the highest non-match rate (48 percent) but as a group
represented less than one percent.
The report also gives length of visit estimates. Nonimmigrants
included in NIIS who departed in 2003, remained in the United States an
average, or mean, of 34 days, or just under 5 weeks, per visit. The
median length of visit was 8 days, indicating half of all departing
nonimmigrants remained in the country for 8 days or less. Over 95
percent of departing nonimmigrants remained for less than 6 months per
trip, with approximately 4 percent remaining between 6 months and 1
year, and 1 percent remaining 1 year or more.
Question. Can you tell us what percentage of the total illegal
population is visa overstays?
Answer. It is very difficult to accurately estimate either
population. The fiscal year 2006 US-VISIT budget request includes $24
million for the person-centric view that would begin the transformation
of these systems so as to provide timely and accurate visibility to all
DOS and DHS officers associated with the visa process regarding those
who chronically overstay, or are overstaying for extended periods.
Question. Given that these people make up a large percentage of our
illegal population, has any consideration been given to strengthening
the vetting process? What I mean by that is, if a large percentage of
those people obtaining visas are not returning do you think there a
breakdown somewhere in the process?
Answer. Managing the entry, stay and departure of alien visitors is
a major component of controlling our borders and requires collecting
information regarding the movement of aliens in, through, and out of
the United States. The information in the US-VISIT system is available
to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at ports of entry,
special agents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
adjudications staff at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
services offices, U.S. consular offices, and other law enforcement
agencies. Such information allows these officers to identify and take
action against those who violate the law, to locate individual aliens
of interest to law enforcement entities, to validate the immigration
status of aliens so that only eligible persons receive immigration
benefits, and to intercept terrorists and other persons who should not
be allowed into the country. Additionally, the United States Government
(USG) will be able to use this data to make informed policy and
management decisions regarding enforcement prioritization,
participation in visa waiver programs, or immigration benefit programs.
Collecting exit information through US-VISIT will strengthen the
vetting process by giving officials who issue visas timely, accurate
and comprehensive visibility into an applicant's compliance patterns,
so that appropriate action can be taken on the visa request. Once all
of the elements of the exit/entry system are in place (i.e., at all
land, air and sea points of entry, including immigration status
information capabilities), we will have the ability to accurately
assess and investigate the overstay population.
Question. Following-up on that what is your agency doing now and
what are you planning to do in the future to ensure that this does not
continue to be a problem?
Answer. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 gave DHS the
responsibility for several significant national security programs/
initiatives to track nonimmigrant aliens' compliance with the terms and
conditions of their admission to the United States. These programs/
initiatives include: the Student and Exchange Visitor Information
System (SEVIS), the National Security Entry/Exit Registration System
(NSEERS), and the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator
Technology (US-VISIT) program. ICE formed the Compliance Enforcement
Unit in June 2003, to investigate criminal and administrative
violations identified through these programs. The CEU receives violator
data from these programs/initiatives, analyzes the data and sends
proactive investigation requests to field offices to locate and remove
the violators. The CEU will continue to exploit the benefits of these
programs/initiatives.
Additionally, the fiscal year 2005 budget provides for the hiring
of additional ICE criminal investigator positions to be assigned to
compliance enforcement units across the country. ICE plans to staff
these additional positions in field offices to support compliance
enforcement investigations generated by the ICE Headquarters CEU. The
positions will support compliance enforcement of the US-VISIT, NSEERS,
and SEVIS programs based on current enforcement need projections.
Question. I know that US-VISIT is slowly being implemented.
What progress has been made to date and what assurances can you
give us that we know who is legally entering the United States?
Answer. The Department of Homeland Security has met the December
31, 2003, and December 31, 2004, Congressional deadlines to deploy an
entry-exit program that strengthens security and facilitates travel for
legitimate visitors while protecting their privacy and ensuring the
integrity of our immigration system. In conjunction with the Department
of State's Biometric Visa Program, we are creating a continuum of
security measures that begins before individuals enter the United
States and continues through their arrival and departure from the
country. US-VISIT also works with commercial carriers to receive
notification of passenger lists before passengers arrive in and depart
from the United States.
Since its beginning on January 5, 2004, US-VISIT has implemented
entry procedures at 115 airports, 14 seaports, and in the secondary
inspection areas of the 50 busiest land ports of entry. In September
2004, US-VISIT was expanded from individuals with visas to include
processing of visitors traveling to the United States under the Visa
Waiver program. US-VISIT processed over 20 million foreign travelers
from January 5, 2004, to February 24, 2005, and has prevented 536
criminals and immigration violators, including Federal and State prison
escapees, from gaining admission to the United States.
US-VISIT is protecting our visitors by making it virtually
impossible for anyone else to claim their identity should their travel
documents to be stolen or duplicated. Our fingerprint matching system
has an accuracy rate (True Acceptance Rate or TAR) of 99.6 percent for
one-to-one verification and a TAR of 96 percent for one-to-many
identification. DHS is currently working with National Institute of
Standards and Technology and industry leaders on several initiatives to
examine mechanisms to increase the level of accuracy.
Later this summer, US-VISIT will conduct tests using automatic
identification (Radio Frequency Identification Technology or RFID) at
land ports of entry to capture entry/exit information. US-VISIT is on
track to deploy entry procedures to the remaining land ports of entry
by December 31, 2005, meeting the Data Management Improvement Act
(DMIA) mandate.
The work of US-VISIT will extend far past these current efforts. In
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Congress
included requirements and actions to be taken by DHS, the Department of
State and US-VISIT with the goal of completing a biometric entry and
exit data system as expeditiously as possible. US-VISIT is preparing a
Strategic Plan that will describe how a single, unified approach to
immigration and border management--a U.S. Immigration and Border
Management Enterprise--will look and operate in the future. The Plan
will include the overarching vision for how the United States
Government will manage immigration and its borders, as well as how
data, facilities, and information technology will contribute to the
Enterprise mission.
Question. Conversely, I believe it is important that we know who is
leaving the country. Specifically, that ties directly into the visa
overstays. If we know that people are leaving we will have a very good
accounting of the number of folks that have chosen to stay here
illegally. Can you tell us what progress has been made on implementing
the exit portion of the program?
Answer. In the air and sea environments, DHS is currently
collecting biographic arrival and departure data through electronic
manifests submitted by the transportation carriers and is using this
data to identify alien travelers whose authorized periods of admission
have expired and for whom no matching departure information is
available. This information is already being shared with U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). US-VISIT is working
collaboratively with the ICE Compliance Enforcement Unit (CEU) to
research existing data limitations and develop protocols and procedures
to effectively vet these records through additional data sources to
develop more complete, accurate and actionable information.
Additionally, US-VISIT is conducting pilots to determine the most
effective means of capturing exit information.
Airport and Seaport Pilots.--US-VISIT is currently piloting three
alternative methods of biometric departure confirmation at one seaport
(Miami International Cruise line Terminal) and eight airports (Chicago
O'Hare; Baltimore Washington International; Denver International;
Dallas/Fort Worth International; Newark Liberty International; Luis
Munoz International in San Juan, Puerto Rico; San Francisco
International; and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County). DHS anticipates
making a decision on the best method(s) to implement shortly, and
determining a schedule to expand biometric exit.
Automated Land Border Entry-Exit.--Later this spring, US-VISIT will
begin testing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Using
an automatic identifier, RFID technology can detect a visitor at a
distance and provide primary inspection with entry information as well
as provide a mechanism for an accurate and timely record of exits. By
July 31, 2005, testing will begin at the ports of Nogales East and
Nogales West in Arizona, Alexandria Bay in New York, and the Pacific
Highway and Peace Arch in Washington. Testing will continue through the
spring of 2006.
Question. When does the Department expect the entire program to be
fully operational?
Answer. DHS will complete deployment of an initial biometric-based
entry and exit program at all U.S. ports of entry by the end of 2005,
meeting the requirements established by legislation. It is important to
note that the Data Management Improvement Act, which established the
majority of initial deadlines, only required the integrating of
existing arrival and departure information--it did not require the
collection of new information, such as biometrics. The Enhanced Border
Security and Visa Entry Reform Act contained a requirement to
biometrically compare and authenticate certain travel documents by
established dates. DHS, recognizing the importance of biometrics in the
process, added the requirement to collect biometric information, and is
establishing additional procedures, beyond those required by statute,
to enhance security.
Ultimately, US-VISIT will manage data on foreign nationals covering
their interactions with U.S. officials before they enter, when they
enter, while they are in the United States, and when they exit. This
comprehensive view of immigration and border management will create a
virtual border and will improve interactions with foreign nationals. In
its strategic plan (required under the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004) US-VISIT will describe how the U.S.
Immigration and Border Management Enterprise will look and operate in
the future.
Question. Mr. Secretary, can you tell me how many people were
detained or deported for overstaying their visas last year? Does ICE
take proactive measures towards apprehending overstays?
Answer. Statistics obtained from ICE's administrative booking
system, ENFORCE, revealed that in fiscal year 2004, 3,784 nonimmigrants
were processed for removal from the United States under the charge of
INA 237(a)(1)(C)(i), violation of nonimmigrant status or condition of
entry. The INA does not have a specific charge for visa overstays. The
above number will include individuals that violated their nonimmigrant
status by overstaying their visa, as well as other nonimmigrant
violators. These other nonimmigrant violators include: student visa
violators, individuals found working without authorization, and
nonimmigrants that have violated their status by committing a crime.
The Compliance Enforcement Unit (CEU) receives violator data from
NSEERS, US-VISIT, and SEVIS. The CEU analyzes the data and sends
proactive investigation requests to field offices to locate and remove
the violators. In fiscal year 2004, the CEU sent out over 2,050 visa
overstay leads generated by NSEERS, US-VISIT, and SEVIS to ICE SAC
offices throughout the country. The CEU will continue to receive and
assign overstay leads to ICE SAC offices for investigation.
Question. What are the ramifications and penalties for overstaying
a visa? There must be a way to keep track of these folks.
Answer. A nonimmigrant that has failed to maintain the status in
which he/she was admitted, or fails to comply with the conditions of
any such status, to include nonimmigrants that stay beyond their period
of admission, is subject to removal from the United States under the
charge of INA 237(a)(1)(C)(i), violation of nonimmigrant status or
condition of entry.
DHS implemented the US-VISIT program in January 2004, to address a
Congressional mandate to implement a nationwide entry-exit tracking
system. Once fully implemented, US-VISIT will biometrically document
the entry and exit of all foreign visitors to the United States. The
CEU works closely with the US-VISIT Program to identify potential visa
overstay violators and to conduct the necessary follow up
investigations.
BORDER SECURITY
Question. Every year, I travel to every county in Alabama to hear
the issues of my constituents and one of their greatest and most
frequent concerns is immigration and more to the point illegal
immigration. Every year I feel compelled to tell my constituents that
while we are making progress we are nowhere near where we need to be.
What is the Directorate doing to make our borders more secure and
to eliminate the influx of illegal aliens?
Answer. ICE is a key player--along with our partners at U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS)--in the Department's mission to secure the
borders and restore integrity to the Nation's immigration system. That
is a mission ICE takes very seriously--as the tragic results that can
follow when those wishing to do us harm breach the Nation's border
security and exploit immigration laws. The key to this effort is
prioritization--systematically attacking the most serious threats
first. Specifically, ICE has made the apprehension and removal of
dangerous criminal aliens and national security threats our top
enforcement priority. This is not to suggest that ICE does not fully
and consistently enforce the law in other situations but that ICE
focuses on addressing the serious threats that individuals with
possible terrorist associations, fugitive alien absconders, violent
criminal aliens, sexual predators, and others pose to our communities,
our families, and our Nation. ICE's objective is to strategically
target our resources and authorities on the most dangerous aliens in
order to remove them from the streets before they can do harm.
It's a strategy that is getting results. In fiscal year 2004, ICE
removed more than 160,200 aliens with more than half of them having
prior criminal convictions and 18 fugitive absconder teams across the
Nation who apprehended more than 11,000 fugitives last year. ICE
created a ``Most Wanted'' list of the most dangerous criminal aliens,
which has been a valuable tool for generating tips and leads. From the
original list, nine of the ten were captured within a few weeks, and
the tenth was determined to have already left the country. Under ICE's
``Operation Predator,'' which targets pedophiles, child sex tourists,
and child pornographers we have arrested more than 5,000 child sex
predators who exploit children for pleasure or profit. Approximately 40
percent of the predators arrested under this program have been illegal
aliens, and an additional 20 percent have been visitors to the United
States who were ``out of status,'' meaning that they had overstayed or
otherwise violated the terms of their admission.
Another priority is to dismantle criminal organizations that
smuggle and traffic human beings for profit. In fiscal year 2004, ICE
arrested more than 1,630 human smugglers. Operation ICE Storm, an
initiative launched in 2003 to target violent human smuggling networks
in Arizona, has brought charges against more than 300 defendants and
resulted in the seizure of more than $7 million. This unprecedented
seizure of alien smuggling proceeds is a direct result of the
combination of ICE's immigration and customs authorities (particularly
customs expertise in financial crime investigation). Law enforcement
authorities in Arizona have credited Operation ICE Storm with a
dramatic decrease in alien-related kidnappings and other violent crime
in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
ICE's Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) responded to more than
603,000 immigration status inquiries from Federal, State, and local
authorities in fiscal year 2004 and placed more than 15,000 immigration
detainers with police agencies nationwide allowing ICE to more
efficiently remove aliens from the United States once their jail term
has expired. ICE is also fostering innovative new relationships through
our 287(g) program, which delegates authority for immigration
enforcement to State and local law enforcement. Under the terms of
Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, Sec. 113, April
30, 1996), State and local authorities can request this authority for
their jurisdictions. Once this agreement is in place, ICE provides
officers with a 5-week training program in immigration issues, and
provides supervision and support for State and local officers engaged
in immigration enforcement. These authorities are currently in effect
in Florida and Alabama.
The examples above are just a sampling of the critical immigration
enforcement accomplishments of ICE. By aggressively enforcing our
immigration laws and targeting criminals, ICE seeks to deter criminal
and terrorist organizations that threaten our way of life. ICE will
continue to work with its partners at the Federal, State, and local
levels to secure the borders and protect the homeland.
Question. How many aliens have been detained and deported in the
last year?
Answer. Based on data reported in the Deportable Alien Control
System (DACS), as of January 2005, ICE removed/deported 161,090 aliens
in fiscal year 2004. This number of final order removals is made up of
criminals and non-criminals, detained and non-detained aliens. This
does not include any voluntary removals, nor does it include any
expedited removals, largely handled by the bureau of Customs and Border
Protection. Virtually all of these removals were detained at least 1
day prior to their removal.
Based on data reported in DACS, as of January 2005, 235,449 aliens
were detained at some point during fiscal year 2004. Some of these
aliens were detained and then released to the community (bond,
supervision, recognizance, etc). Others were granted voluntary
departure, or transferred to other law enforcement agencies. Finally,
some are still in detention for various reasons.
Question. If a Mexican citizen looking for work can pay a fee to a
coyote to traverse our border, what is to keep a terrorist that would
do us harm from doing the same thing?
Answer. ICE recognizes that criminal organizations operating
worldwide are responsible for smuggling and trafficking tens of
thousands of illegal aliens and thousands of pounds of illegal
narcotics into the United States. These organizations generate millions
of dollars in illicit profits that are moved through wire services,
laundered through front businesses and transported out of the country.
By exploiting vulnerabilities in border integrity, criminal
organizations, whether they smuggle humans, illegal narcotics, illegal
arms, or other contraband, are an unquestionable threat to the security
of the United States.
ICE has developed a full range of investigation and enforcement
methodologies to confront the problem at every point--in source and
transit countries, on the seas, at the Nation's borders and ports, and
in the U.S. interior. In U.S. embassies throughout the world, ICE
Attaches work with consular officials and with foreign law enforcement
to better coordinate investigations, gather intelligence and follow the
money trail to seize millions of dollars in profits from these
organizations. ICE is also integrating intelligence and enforcement
efforts and is mobilizing other governments and international
organizations in the fight against human smuggling and trafficking.
ICE has played a significant role in the newly established Human
Smuggling and Trafficking Center (HSTC). The HSTC is a joint initiative
between the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State,
the Department of Justice, and members of the national Intelligence
Community. The HSTC serves as an intelligence fusion center and
information clearing-house, with the goal of converting intelligence
into effective action.
TEMPORARY WORKER PROGRAM AND BACKLOG ELIMINATION PROGRAM
Question. I remain very concerned with the so called Temporary
Worker Program that the President has proposed. Last January, we heard
about this program and despite the claims to the contrary it seemed a
lot like amnesty. The only difference I can see is that the illegals
must have jobs in the United States. Beyond that, these people will be
given permission to work and stay even if only temporarily, in the
United States despite the fact that they are under the law, criminals.
I told you last year that I do not believe in rewarding bad behavior
and I still feel the same way today. Under this plan, over 8 million
people would have an instant status adjustment. I find this
particularly troubling considering the severe backlog of people who are
following the law and waiting sometimes years to be allowed to come to
the United States.
Director, I know you spoke about the efforts to eliminate the
backlog in your testimony and I do appreciate the progress made, but
there is much more to be done.
What are we going to do to rectify these problems?
Answer. The President has stated a Temporary Worker Program (TWP)
must be guided by four basic principles: that America must control its
borders; that immigration laws should serve the economic needs of our
country; that we must not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in
the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully,
or hope to do so; and, that new laws should provide incentives for
temporary, foreign workers to return permanently to their home
countries. In designing such a program, we must remain mindful of these
principles--and, in doing so, address the common and important concerns
that you point out.
The President is also committed to achieving our backlog
elimination goals by the end of fiscal year 2006, which USCIS is on
track to achieve. A well designed and managed and funded Temporary
Worker Program would not adversely affect our backlog elimination
efforts. To ensure this outcome, the TWP program design must be
cognizant of a variety of factors, including current benefit
authorities, options for cost recovery via fees, eligibility criteria,
employer/government partnership opportunities, and application process
requirements.
Question. I understand that the backlog at different service
centers varies, in some cases by months if not years, what is the
problem and how do we fix it?
Answer. USCIS has recently submitted a report to the Congress on
this subject, which speaks to a staffing analysis recently completed
that will help guide the distribution of resources to ensure that
Service Centers can meet and maintain backlog elimination goals.
Question. I am also painfully aware that my abilities to assist my
constituents through casework has been greatly hindered since at least
September of 2003 when the Alabama Delegation contacted the Secretary
regarding staffing at your Atlanta office. To date, my staff has
trouble receiving prompt replies to inquiries made in Atlanta. Often we
can do little more than provide them the information they already have
available to them through your website. What can we do to ensure that
congressional inquiries to your service offices are acted on promptly?
Answer. USCIS places a high priority on effectively serving its
customers. Members of Congress and their staff often contact the agency
in order to facilitate the resolution of constituent immigration
casework. Many times, it is through a congressional inquiry that a case
that has gone off track is identified and resolved. Often these
inquiries can help us identify trends where changes in operational
practices or policies would be appropriate.
Each USCIS District Office and Service Center has staff dedicated
to working with congressional staff. USCIS Congressional Relations has
established national standards for responding to congressional
inquiries. Telephonic inquiries should be acknowledged or resolved by
close of business the next business day, written inquiries should be
responded to within 30 days and email inquiries should be responded to
within 10 days. Atlanta has been meeting these standards. Still, there
are extenuating circumstances where the complete resolution may take
longer or where there may be information identified in national
security background checks that cannot be disclosed to congressional
offices on individual applicants in order to ensure that ongoing
investigations or national security are not compromised.
When we identify a customer service or operational problem specific
to a particular field office, a multi-programmatic Field Assessment
Team is deployed to undertake a comprehensive assessment of operational
effectiveness and responsiveness identifying areas needing improvement,
action plans, and specific follow up. In the case of the Atlanta
District, such a study was conducted and follow up takes place on a
monthly basis. In addition, USCIS has conducted a field study to
determine workload and workforce allocation. Through this study, many
offices were identified as understaffed and new staff is being hired.
As a result of this study, the Atlanta District will be hiring new
adjudications staff this year. As new staff come on board and backlogs
are reduced, the need for congressional inquires should likewise
diminish. The Atlanta District has informed us that they are current
with all congressional inquires. If there are any outstanding cases
within your office we would be happy to work with your staff on
resolving those cases.
IMPORTED SHRIMP INDUSTRY
Question. I know actions are being taken against the imported
shrimp industry in response to a dumping determination by the ITC and
Dept. of Commerce. Can you tell me what efforts ICE and CBP are being
taken in regards to the dumping of shrimp?
Answer. Although the Department of Commerce (DOC) and U.S.
International Trade Commission (ITC) share the joint responsibility for
antidumping and/or countervailing duty (AD/CVD) orders, the
responsibility for the administration and enforcement of these orders
belongs to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In July 2004, CBP amended its continuous bond guidelines
specifically for agriculture/aquaculture AD/CVD merchandise as a
response to the high-risk nature of these imports. A significant number
of shipments were found to have circumvented the AD/CVD cases through
incorrect country declarations, undervaluation, and insufficient surety
bond coverage, thereby preventing CBP to collect the appropriate duties
and make the proper distributions.
The first new case affected by these amended guidelines is shrimp
from China, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Ecuador and Brazil. CBP has
performed a risk-based analysis on the continuous bonds used by
importers of this product to identify circumvention schemes and sham
companies. To date this effort has been successful, with CBP revoking
over 100 continuous bonds for failing to respond to requests for
information. CBP has also worked closely with many importers who are
willing to comply with the new bond guidelines to appropriately set new
bond amounts to cover the potential financial risk associated with the
AD/CVD entries. In addition, CBP is also monitoring imports associated
with this case on a monthly basis to identify new importers, misuse of
more favorable AD/CVD rates, misdescription of goods, all to avoid
paying proper AD/CVD duties.
CBP is also deploying field officers located at Southeast Asian
attache offices to determine if the production capabilities exist for
this commodity. When problems are discovered, CBP will make the
appropriate referral to ICE for further investigation and action.
BORDER PATROL VEHICLES
Question. As you know, the fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security
Appropriations conference report calls for a comprehensive border
patrol vehicle fleet management plan by February 8, 2005. Can you
please inform the Committee of the status of this report, and
specifically the findings with respect to extreme terrain border
regions?
Answer. CBP has developed a draft comprehensive plan that was
delivered to the Committee on June 28, 2005. Field implementation of
the extreme terrain program has begun. The Program consists of four
steps: (1) terrain mapping; (2) the evaluation and development of an
off-road vehicle fleet; driver training; and sector management
orientation. The first step, terrain mapping, involves retrofitting
severe and enhanced mobility vehicles with specialized equipment to
measure and pinpoint terrain severity using a global positioning
system. Agents who have received advanced off-road training operate the
vehicles in performing their regular duties, and CBP thus obtains
accurate information about terrain severity that will be used to
develop the optimal off-road fleet. A total of 10 Border Patrol Sectors
were selected for the terrain mapping step in this Program. Mapping
started in San Diego Sector in June 2004, and has been expanded to
include the El Centro, Yuma, and Tucson Sectors. The following
additional Sectors are scheduled to begin mapping this fiscal year:
Marfa, El Paso, El Rio, Laredo, McAllen, and Blaine.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Robert C. Byrd
VISA WAIVER PROGRAM: FURTHER EXTENSION
Question. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of
2002, which President Bush signed into law on May 14, 2002, established
October 26, 2004, as the deadline by which the 27 existing ``visa
waiver'' countries must have machine readable passports in order for
their citizens to enter the United States without a visa. The Congress
passed legislation last year pushing back that deadline until October
26, 2005.
Does the Department believe that additional time is required for
these visa waiver countries to come into compliance with the machine
readable passport requirements? If so, has authorizing legislation to
achieve this goal been introduced?
Answer. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act
provisions are related to machine-readable passports that are tamper-
resistant and incorporate biometric and document authentication
identifiers that comply with applicable biometric and document
identifying standards established by the International Civil Aviation
Organization. Last year the Administration requested a 2-year extension
of the deadline requiring Visa Waiver Program (VWP) nationals to
present biometric passports. Congress provided a 12 month extension to
give countries designated to participate in the VWP additional time to
implement the required passport changes. Given that, DHS and DOS have
continued to work closely with VWP participants to review the progress
that has been made toward compliance with the new requirement and
deadline. We will be able to report on this progress to Congress
shortly, though there are still concerns with the current deadline. I
look forward to working with you to determine the best solution to both
enhance the security of the VWP and enable facilitation of legitimate
travel.
Question. Former Secretary Ridge stated in one of his departing
interviews that the United States most likely should impose the same
requirements regarding biometric identities on U.S. passports. Has the
machine readable requirement imposed on foreign visas resulted in
negative treatment of U.S. travelers abroad?
Answer. The Visa Waiver Permanent Program (Public Law 106-396)
imposed a requirement that VWP travelers have machine-readable
passports (with the biographic, not biometric, data being available in
a standard manner) for VWP entry on or after October 1, 2007, and that
participating VWP countries certify that they are issuing machine-
readable documents no later than October 1, 2003. Public Law 107-56,
the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 advanced the deadline for use of machine-
readable travel documents by VWP applicants from October 1, 2007, to
October 1, 2003, but provided for the Secretary of State to waive the
requirement until October 2007. In September 2003, the Secretary
extended the deadline for individuals to present machine-readable
documents to October 26, 2004. The requirement for nationals of VWP
countries to present machine-readable passports to enter the United
States under the VWP after October 26, 2004, has not resulted in any
reported negative treatment of U.S. travelers abroad.
Additionally, U.S. visas now contain biometrics (i.e. two
fingerprints and a digital photograph). European Union nations are
discussing options for implementing biometric visa programs as well.
IMPACT OF BUSH AMNESTY ON BACKLOG REDUCTION/WORKLOAD
Question. Your agency's budget request states that, if Congress
provides the minimal discretionary funding you are requesting, you are
on track to meet the goal of reducing to 6 months the processing
backlog for immigration documents.
The President continues to advocate for an amnesty for illegal
aliens already resident in this country under the guise of an
immigration reform proposal. I am concerned about the impact on your
meeting these backlog reduction targets of any immigration proposal. We
discussed this issue at last year's hearing, and you responded that any
impacts on your agency's goals and operations would depend in large
part on what Congress did in response to the President's immigration
``reform'' proposal. He raised the immigration issue again in his State
of the Union address. However, we in the Congress continue to await his
``proposal''. When will Congress get the President's immigration reform
proposal and what impact would his immigration ``proposal'' have on
your backlog reduction proposal?
Answer. The President has outlined his vision for a Temporary
Worker Program (TWP) and said that it must be guided by four basic
principles: that America must control its borders; that immigration
laws should serve the economic needs of our country; that we must not
give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process or
disadvantage those who came here lawfully, or hope to do so; and, that
new laws should provide incentives for temporary, foreign workers to
return permanently to their home countries. The key to processing
temporary worker petitions quickly and efficiently is simplicity in the
design. A well designed and managed Temporary Worker Program would not
adversely affect our backlog elimination efforts. To ensure this
outcome, the TWP program design must be cognizant of a variety of
factors, including current benefit authorities, options for cost
recovery via fees, eligibility criteria, employer/government
partnership opportunities, and application process requirements.
Question. Rep. Sensenbrenner has promised to attach his immigration
bill (H.R. 418) to the Emergency Iraqi War Supplemental. This bill
includes many of the provisions in the original House draft of the
Intelligence Reform Act.
Unlike some rhetorical Bush Administration amnesty, the specifics
of this legislation are known. If the provisions of this bill are
included in the Supplemental or some other piece of legislation, what
impact would it have on your agency's abilities to meet your backlog
reduction goals?
Answer. This bill would not impact USCIS' ability to meet backlog
elimination goals.
CIS LOCAL OMBUDSMAN
Question. Section 452 of the Homeland Security Act called for the
establishment of at least one CIS ombudsman's office in each state. Has
CIS complied with the Act? If not, when does the Department plan to do
so?
Answer. HSA 452 establishes the Office of the Citizenship and
Immigration Services Ombudsman (CISO), an entity independent of USCIS
and reporting directly to the DHS Deputy Secretary. HSA 452(e)(1)(A)
states that the Ombudsman shall have the responsibility and authority
``to appoint local ombudsmen and make available at least one (1) such
ombudsman for each State.''
For fiscal year 2005 the CISO is authorized a total of 24 full-time
employees (FTE), and the majority of these employees are planned to be
onboard during the third quarter of the fiscal year. For fiscal year
2004 the CISO was authorized a total of eight (8) FTE. The fiscal year
2006 Budget maintains the CISO at the 24 FTE level.
The CISO has established a ``Local Ombudsman Pilot Program'' which
is partially staffed at present but planned to be fully staffed by
April 30, 2005. The pilot program is to design and develop a workable
local ombudsman office which will have specific operational
responsibilities over a defined geographic area. The pilot program will
establish personnel certification and training requirements, determine
liaison responsibilities and limitations, finalize facilities
requirements and provide a controlled model for future local ombudsman
office placements. The pilot program will commence upon the arrival to
CISO of the new hire personnel to complete the staffing of the pilot
local ombudsman office (``Beta Office''). The pilot program is
estimated to last for a minimum of 9 months, however that time may
expand or contract depending on the results attained. The following is
a list of tasks to be accomplished during the pilot program:
--Develop personnel job descriptions based on actual job
requirements.
--Conduct a task and skill analysis for each job position to
determine the required skills and knowledge for incumbents, as
well as to determine individual training requirements for
incumbents.
--Design and develop a local ombudsman training and certification
program.
--Determine the requisite support equipment necessary for local
ombudsman operations.
--Determine the most efficient data transfer arrangement between the
Beta Office and the Ombudsman Information Management System
(OIMS) to allow for: (1) inquiries and USCIS actions to be
received by the Beta Office from OIMS; (2) Beta Office inputs
to OIMS; (3) and statistical data and analyses provided in both
directions.
--Develop and establish inter-office and intra-office liaison
methodologies and procedures, with particular emphasis on: (1)
Beta Office to Analysis Branch; (2) Beta Office to Executive
Officer staff; (3) Beta Office to OIMS staff; (4) Beta Office
to USCIS office(s) in geographic area of responsibility; and
(5) Beta Office to individuals/employers as appropriate.
--Develop reporting vehicles for Beta Office operations and
productivity.
--Baseline Beta Office operations, duties and tasks under appropriate
quality assurance standards.
--Develop and produce procedural manuals to baseline Beta Office
operations, duties and tasks.
--Other tasks to be identified throughout the pilot program duration.
NATIONAL BORDER SECURITY ASSESSMENT
Question. The Heritage Foundation issued a December 13, 2004 report
entitled ``DHS 2.0: Rethinking the Department of Homeland Security,''
which made a number of recommendations. One of them recommended that
the Department of Homeland Security ``conduct a national assessment of
the resources required for effective border security.''
Given the comments by Deputy Secretary Loy and other about the
threat facing our borders from a variety of groups, including Al Qaeda,
is the Department actively conducting such an assessment and, if not,
why not?
Answer. Under the goal of Prevention within the United States
Department of Homeland Security Strategic Plan, one of the primary
objectives is to: ``Secure our borders against terrorists, means of
terrorism, illegal drugs and other illegal activity. We interdict
terrorist activities by targeting unlawful migration of people, cargo,
drugs and other contraband, while facilitating legitimate migration and
commerce. The Department will enforce border security in an integrated
fashion at ports of entry, on the borders, on the seas and before
potential threats can reach our borders. Through the continued
deployment of the appropriate balance of personnel, equipment and
technology we will create ``smart borders.'' Not only will we create
more secure United States borders, but in conjunction with
international partners, we will extend our zones of security beyond our
physical borders identifying, prioritizing and interdicting threats to
our Nation before they arrive. We will develop and provide resources
for a cohesive, unified enforcement capability that makes our border
security effective, smarter and stronger.''
DHS operating elements all share in this requirement and are
conducting assessments within their area(s) of responsibility. For
example, the Border Patrol has developed America's Shield Initiative,
which will methodically assess the highest risk illegal border crossing
corridors and, taking into account the topography and other natural
barriers, allocate an efficient suite of aerial or ground sensors,
personnel and equipment, to best secure the areas between the ports of
entry. At the ports of entry, CBP is using and developing enhanced
targeting systems and personnel to inspect the highest risk cargo,
people and conveyances. In addition, radiation portal monitors are
being deployed at our ports to screen cargo for potential weapons of
mass effect. One of the tools enforcement officers at the border also
employ is the United States--Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator
Technology (US-VISIT) program which incorporates biometrics (finger
scans) into entry documentation to ensure we are only letting in those
visitors with valid visas who have been cleared against terrorist
watchlists and data bases holding fingerprints for criminals. Our
national drug control strategy and related annual drug budget also
contains information on the trans-national drug threat and resources
devoted to combating this problem which complements our border security
initiatives. These are a few examples of the family of plans, periodic
reviews, acquisitions and programs that collectively contain the
assessments and resource requirements for national border security.
Annually, those requirements work their way through the budget process
producing allocations to address the highest priority security
concerns.
IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
Question. Last year, Congress provided $5 million for a worksite
enforcement program. For fiscal year 2006, you are requesting $18
million for the same purpose. How have you used the fiscal year 2005
funds? Please describe how the requested fiscal year 2006 funds will
contribute to immigration enforcement.
Answer. ICE will increase its presence at worksites, concentrating
on employers in specific industries and geographical areas who
intentionally violate the law or who have historically hired large
numbers of unauthorized workers. ICE will also coordinate with
Citizenship and Immigration Services to improve and expand verification
services (Basic Pilot Program) to employers nationwide pursuant to the
Basic Pilot Program Extension and Expansion Act of 2003.
DETENTION BEDSPACE
Question. For the current fiscal year, Congress provided funding to
fill 20,660 detention beds--yet the total beds that you are filling
each week thus far is averaging 2,000 below the funded total. Why are
these beds not being filled? What types or categories of aliens are not
being held?
Answer. ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) is detaining
within its budget.
National security cases and criminal aliens are ICE's priority in
immigration enforcement. Daily, ICE is at 100 percent capacity of its
available allocated funding for detention bed space, the majority of
those detained being criminal aliens. This aggressive enforcement
posture is reflected in last year's record 160,284 alien removals,
including record 84,400 criminal aliens removed from the United States.
ICE conducts case-by-case determinations on who will be processed for
removal and who will be detained or released. ICE must also carefully
consider the conditions of release and factor in community safety
especially with regards to criminal aliens. ICE will continue to
aggressively enforce immigration laws against criminal aliens and other
aliens who pose security threats to the country and expects to continue
to achieve increased removals.
Question. Please provide the cost assumptions ICE would use
regarding hiring the first year (fiscal year 2006) authorized level in
the Intelligence Reform Act (800) for ICE investigators as well as the
fiscal year 2007 annualization of those positions. Also, please provide
the same information for the costs associated with meeting the first
year authorized levels for detention bedspace (8,000).
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 Budget includes substantial increases
for increased detention and removal activities. The fiscal year 2006
Budget includes $90 million for detention beds and additional detention
and removal officers. This increase will fund 1,920 beds. In addition,
the Budget provides $1.5 billion for detention and removal activities,
$236 million (19 percent increase) over the 2005 enacted level. In
addition, it also includes $39 million for the detention and
repatriation costs of the Arizona Border Control Initiative. In
addition, 140 new Special Agents will also be hired.
INVESTIGATIONS OF ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT VIOLATIONS
Question. The Department of Justice published revised regulations
in the November 15, 2004 Federal Register that suggested that DOJ--not
ICE--will have the lead role in investigations regarding illegal arms
exports. I understand that in late December, you issued a message which
stated, in part, ``In recent weeks some media reports have suggested
that ICE may be ceding some of its authority to investigate violations
of the Arms Export Control Act, and other export laws. I am writing
today to inform you that nothing could be further from the truth.''
This seems to be another troubling example of this new Department's
willingness to cede authority to other Departments for some of the
traditional roles played by its component parts over the years. The
Secret Service had to assert its authority as the primary protector of
the currency a few years ago and the Department lost some of its lead
role in terrorist financing when former Secretary Ridge signed a
Memorandum of Understanding with the former Attorney General. Even the
Department's central role in coordinating terrorist threat information
was lost--via Executive Order--almost before the ink was dry on the
President's signature of the bill creating the Department.
Please explain for the subcommittee the specific roles played by
DHS--and ICE in particular--and DOJ in arms export investigations.
Answer. For over 25 years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE), has effectively investigated violations of U.S. export control
laws. The export control laws enforced by ICE include the AECA, the EAR
(concurrent jurisdiction with the Department of Commerce), the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the
Enemy Act. ICE uses its border search authority, certified undercover
operations and U.S. money laundering statutes as additional tools to
prosecute export violators and to assist in the identification and
seizure of criminal proceeds of specified unlawful activities. As a
result, ICE has successfully investigated hundreds of significant
export violations.
ICE will continue to vigorously pursue criminal violations of the
export laws and will work jointly with the FBI in export investigations
that have a nexus to FCI.
IMPACT OF THE ICE BUDGET SHORTFALL
Question. In the fall of 2003, Congress began calling for the
Department to respond to the fact that ICE had insufficient resources
to perform its numerous immigration and other investigative duties. In
both the fiscal year 2004 and 2005 Appropriations Acts, Congress
stepped up to the plate and provided Immigration and Customs
Enforcement with more funds than requested by the President to deal
with the shortfall.
Yet even with the full acknowledgement that ICE does not have
sufficient funding, and that the shortfall has hampered its mission and
damaged the morale of its agents, the President has refused to request
supplemental funding to make ICE ``whole'' and to put it on a sound
financial footing.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be able to move forward,
secure in the knowledge that it has the funds necessary to robustly
investigate arms smugglers, terrorists, money launderers, child
predators, as well as enforce existing immigration laws.
However, ICE has been forced to take dramatic steps--including
freezing hiring, stopping training, and limiting travel--for more than
a year in order to live within its constrained budget. The hiring
freeze and other spending restraints remain in place nearly 6 months
into the new fiscal year. And now we are being warned that ICE faces a
funding gap of nearly $300 million this year.
Mr. Secretary, will you end fiscal year 2005 with fewer
investigators than you started with at the beginning of Fiscal year
2004? How has that reduction impacted your mission?
Answer. The pending reprogramming will give ICE the ability to end
fiscal year 2005 with at least the same, if not higher, level than
fiscal year 2004. While ICE has been working through significant
challenges during the past 2 years, at the same time, ICE has been
achieving unparalleled success in its mission areas. During fiscal year
2005, ICE will continue to work through its challenges and accomplish
its critical mission.
Question. Did you seek a supplemental to address the shortfall?
Answer. The proposed reprogramming submitted on March 12, 2005, is
sufficient to address the financial requirements of ICE.
CONTAINER SECURITY INITIATIVE: EXPANSION AND REGULARIZATION
Question. I have long been a supporter of the Container Security
Initiative, or CSI. This program stations CBP personnel at
participating foreign seaports to target and inspect ocean-going
shipping containers prior to their being loaded on U.S.-bound vessels.
While it was initially skeptical of the program, and reluctant to
support the funds the Congress provided to begin its implementation, I
am pleased that this Administration has embraced the CSI.
The Administration seeks a modest increase of only $5.4 million for
the CSI for a total fiscal year 2006 request of almost $139 million.
During visits to some of these ports, my staff has been impressed
with the generally cooperative relationships that have been formed
between the CBP personnel and their host country counterparts. As they
work together and develop increasing levels of trust, the mutually
beneficial aspects of the CSI program to both our country and theirs
become apparent. However, the one constant refrain we heard from both
CBP and host-country officials was the fact that our people are
generally sent over on a temporary basis. They are concerned that once
the relationships have matured during the months that the CBP personnel
are at a port, they are rotated out and the ``trust-building'' process
must begin again.
Could the effectiveness of the CSI be improved by resolving this
temporary duty situation? What are you and the Department doing to
ensure that CBP personnel based overseas for CSI implementation are
able to stay at a port for a healthy period of time? Are there problems
with our State Department representatives that need to be addressed? If
so, has this been discussed by Secretary Chertoff with Secretary Rice?
Answer. CBP is transitioning CSI temporary personnel to permanent
status. This process requires DHS to coordinate with Department of
State (DOS) as required by National Security Decision Directive 38
(NSDD-38). DOS negotiates the placement of permanent personnel at
foreign duty posts and also negotiates the appropriate level of
Privileges and Immunities (P&I) that will be granted by the host
government on behalf of all United States Government agencies.
CBP is currently working with DOS to secure the placement of CSI
personnel into a permanent status with the appropriate level of P&I.
The DOS has placed a high level of priority on assisting CBP with this
initiative.
Question. Without naming any ports or countries, my staff has also
heard that some participating ports are often very reluctant to
cooperate with our requests for more robust inspection and screening of
containers. If this is indeed the case, has consideration been given to
lodging formal complaints with the host government--or even to
suspending a specific port's participation in CSI?
Answer. There are currently 35 operational CSI ports. The standard
operating procedures for these CSI ports are in part governed by a
jointly signed Declaration of Principles, in which the host government
agrees to pre-screen containers that pose a risk for terrorism.
It is also understood that due to host government sovereignty, the
final decision on container examinations is at the discretion of the
host government. However, CBP has authority to issue no load order for
those who refused inspection.
The CSI program has made significant progress in reaching agreement
with host government agencies on what constitutes a high-risk container
warranting an examination.
Challenges still exist at one CSI location with regard to common
and agreed upon definition/designation of high-risk containers
warranting examination(s).
CBP is confident that with the high percentage of CSI locations
operating very effectively that continued progress will be made in this
one location. CBP has, and continues to consult with State Department
(including the U.S. Embassy in this location) to enhance the CSI
operation.
CBP has contemplated the alternatives and is receiving full support
from all Departments and Agencies in making CSI efficient and
effective.
IMPACT OF LATE DUTY COLLECTION ON CRAWFISH INDUSTRY
Question. As mentioned previously, in the past, U.S. industries
like the U.S. crawfish industry have discovered only very late in the
year that millions of dollars of antidumping duties for some reason
have not been collected in their cases against Chinese imports as
required by law. And, because CBP's failure to collect these duties has
been discovered late in the year, the non-collection problem in these
cases could not be addressed in time to enable the industries to obtain
their yearly distribution of funds under the Byrd Amendment. As a
consequence, the U.S. crawfish industry, for example, last year failed
to receive at least $54.4 million it otherwise would have received in
duties paid the United States Government by Chinese importers.
It is my understanding that CBP's Office of Information Technology
(OIT) is fully capable of running an already existing program much
earlier in each calendar year, (meaning by the end of March at the
latest), which would enable both CBP and U.S. industries to learn, much
earlier, if millions of dollars in duties are not being collected by
CBP from U.S. importers of foreign, dumped products.
Why can't CBP's Office of information Technology determine by the
end of this month if there are cases in which CBP is not collecting
duties owed the United States Government and make that information
publicly available as early as possible?
Answer. CBP has responded to the revenue risk posed by the
inability to collect certain AD/CVD duties through several means, one
of which is the monitoring the AD/CVD bills and collections on a more
regular basis. For the distribution of these funds to take place
timely, it is necessary not only to monitor the timely collection of
AD/CVD duties but also to ensure our revenue collection system is
protected from possible circumvention and corporate solvency schemes
designed to enter AD/CVD goods into the U.S. market with the intention
of never paying the proper duties at time of liquidation.
On a monthly basis, CBP is performing a risk-based review of
outstanding bills for AD/CVD duties. The information has proven
effective in identifying high-risk companies for AD/CVD evasion as well
as improve the timeliness of our reviews. CBP is also focused on the
long-term issue of the company's financial solvency and their ability
to pay outstanding AD/CVD bills. The continuous bond guidelines for
imports of certain agriculture/aquaculture imports were amended in July
2004, to address just such an issue. Working with the Department of
Commerce, we are addressing the AD/CVD issues that pose the greatest
risk.
OVERTIME PAY WHILE RECEIVING TRAINING
Question. I understand that since January 2, 2002, your bureau has
not compensated CBP officers who train 6 days a week at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center. In essence, this means that hundreds of
newly trained CBP officers have had to work 6 days a week for up to 12
weeks without any compensation for overtime.
I support your ``One face at the Border'' initiative and
acknowledge that the merging of certain legacy personnel into a new
agency requires intensive training. But I think you would concur that
this should not come at the expense of basic compensation for these
professionals.
How do you plan to correct the current overtime pay problem for
these CBP officers who were trained between January 2002 and October
2004?
Answer. CBP is also concerned about equitable compensation for the
employees who were engaged in training at the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center (FLETC) on a 6-day schedule. As you are aware, the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) determined that the 6-
day schedule was a necessity post-September 11 in order to accommodate
the robust training needs of law enforcement personnel.
The Government Employee Training Act prohibits the Federal agencies
from compensating employees with overtime while its employees are
engaged in training by, in or through government or non-government
facilities (5 USC, 41). There are only a very few exceptions to this
broad legislative prohibition, and the CBP has used these, where
possible, to legally pay our employees so situated.
Chief amongst these exceptions is a different set of regulations
that applies to employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA). Legacy INS inspectors, prior to conversion to the CBP Officer
position and COPRA compensation, were covered by FLSA. We were
therefore able to retroactively compensate them for the overtime worked
on the 6 day during the FLETC training; these retroactive payments were
made in December 2004. Because the agency determined that legacy
Customs Inspectors were covered by COPRA and therefore exempt from
FLSA, payment for the 6 day was not appropriate. The different outcomes
regarding payment of overtime resulted from the fact that these groups
of employees were covered by different laws at the time that the
training occurred.
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) challenged the agency
through arbitration concerning this issue, and the agency's legal
interpretation was sustained by the arbitrator. This is a complex
matter, and there is litigation still pending. It is also important to
note that effective October 1, 2004, FLETC returned to a 5-day training
week
CONTAINER SECURITY
Question. In December 2004, the Department unveiled a draft cargo
security strategy. This strategy stated that the Department proposes to
adopt a ``zero-tolerance policy'' regarding the arrival of weapons of
mass effect at our Nation's borders. I concur that preventing these
weapons from entering the United States should be a priority. I always
assumed that it was.
The conference report accompanying the fiscal year 2005 Homeland
Security Appropriations Act notes that over $200 million has been spent
over the past 3 years on various projects designed to secure cargo
containers entering this country. It also calls on the Under Secretary
for Border and Transportation Security to--among other things--report
to the Congress no later than February 8, 2005 on which DHS entity will
have primary responsibility for cargo container security and the
setting of shipping industry standards. To date we have not received
this report. I assume your agency was closely involved in the drafting
of this report.
How closely were you involved in the drafting of the report and can
you give us a sense of what it might recommend?
Answer. In support of the Department's cargo security strategy
proposal to adopt a ``zero-tolerance policy'' regarding the arrival of
weapons of mass effect at our Nation's borders, CBP has deployed
various types of radiation detection technology nationwide with the
ultimate goal of screening 100 percent of containerized cargo for
radiation.
CBP has provided significant input to the draft report on Cargo
Container Security, including information regarding the current status
of major CBP initiatives addressing cargo security. In providing
summary reporting, CBP outlined the desired end state; namely, securing
and improving operations at existing ports; expanding operations to new
critical international seaports and encouraging global efforts to
enhance supply chain security.
Question. Do you know when the Congress will receive the report
which is now nearly 1 month overdue?
Answer. The final report was submitted to the Committee on June 8,
2005.
AMERICA'S SHIELD INITIATIVE
Question. This Department seems obsessed with selling old wine in
new bottles. The visa tracking program known for years as ``Entry-
Exit'' became ``US-VISIT''. The Office for Domestic Preparedness became
the Office for State and Local Government Coordination and
Preparedness. Now the Border Patrol's Integrated Surveillance
Information System, or ISIS, has been ``re-branded'' as ``America's
Shield Initiative''--or ASI. Regardless of the new names for these old
programs, the fact remains that our borders need to be protected.
America's Shield Initiative is supposed to implement the Border
Patrol National Strategy to strengthen U.S. borders to prevent the
entry into the United States of terrorists and terrorist weapons,
smugglers and illegal aliens, narcotics and other contraband.
Our borders are under attack. The President's own experts know and
are extremely concerned about the threat terrorists pose to our
borders. In written testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee
on February 16, Deputy Secretary Loy cited recently received
information as the reason for his concern about the threat facing the
Mexican border. He called it a ``very serious situation.''
Given this threat, why does the request include only $20 million
for improved technology on our borders, when CBP staff have estimated
the full cost to be $250-300 million?
Answer. The total funding for the ASI program in fiscal year 2006
is $51 million, including $19.8 million for new investments. The fiscal
year 2006 request for ASI when coupled with investments for additional
Border Patrol Agents, helicopter replacements, enhancements to Border
Patrol facilitates and tactical infrastructure will provide CBP with a
complement of resources that will increase operational control of our
Nation's borders.
IDENT/IAFIS UPDATE
Question. The integration of the fingerprint databases created,
maintained, and used by the Department of Homeland Security and the
FBI--among other Federal agencies--continues to be a priority concern
for the Congress and the members of this Subcommittee. It is critical
that we know whether visitors to this country pose a risk to our
citizens. As you know, the 9/11 hijackers came into the country on
student and tourist visas.
Your Border Patrol agents daily compare the fingerprints of illegal
aliens apprehended at our borders against these databases. And it is
your inspectors who--at a growing number of ports of entry--compare the
fingerprints of visa holders and others wishing to enter this country
against these same databases via the US-VISIT system.
That is why I was concerned about the latest Department of Justice
Inspector General report on this subject. It stated that of the 118,000
visitors daily entering this country who are subject to US-VISIT, an
average of about 22,350 individuals are referred for secondary
inspection. According to DHS, by the end of this fiscal year, it
expects to directly check only about 800 individuals each day against
the full FBI fingerprint database known as the IAFIS Criminal Master
File. This is less than 1 percent of the 118,000 daily visitors.
Why are we checking less than 1 percent of visitors to this country
against the FBI fingerprint data base?
Answer. This response contains information considered Law
Enforcement Sensitive and has been provided to the Committee under
separate cover.
Question. According to the Justice Inspector General report, the
Justice Department will be increasing the FBI's capacity to handle
fingerprint checks from 8,000 per day to 20,000 per day by October of
this year. Will you be changing your policies so that CBP is fully
utilizing that capacity to check the criminal backgrounds of visitors
coming into this country?
Answer. DHS and Department of State have found that IDENT achieves
their counterterrorism, major law enforcement, and border management
objectives in timeframes that meet operational needs for processing at
ports of entry. Every day, DHS and DOS run checks on approximately
115,000-120,000 individuals using IDENT. These checks are returned, on
average, within 10 seconds at ports of entry for US-VISIT and within 15
minutes for Department of State. Even if IAFIS increases its capacity
to 20,000 fingerprint checks per day, it still cannot come close to the
number of transactions currently generated by the US-VISIT program.
Additionally, IAFIS returns results, on average, at best within 10
minutes, most (such as those transmitted by State) within several
hours. Currently, IAFIS does not have the capacity to meet our
operational needs for inspecting visitors. However, we are continuing
to work with the Department of Justice on finding ways to better
integrate IAFIS with our existing systems, such as the successful
integration at our Border Patrol stations.
COLLECTION OF DUTIES
Question. Again, two of the problems that CBP has exhibited with
respect to its administration of the Byrd Amendment are (1) Customs'
failure to collect duties rightfully owed; and (2) its failure to pay
duties already collected in a timely fashion to eligible U.S. companies
and their workers.
With respect to the second problem, Customs sometimes holds, in
what are called ``clearing accounts,'' duties that are collected over
many years--but for which the agency is awaiting final ``liquidation
instructions'' from the Commerce Department prior to distribution.
Often, the Commerce Department claims that such instructions have been
sent, but CBP does not know they have been sent or never receives them.
It has been proposed that one solution to this problem would be for
CBP to publish the amount of funds held in CBP's clearing accounts, by
administrative review period, so that CBP and Commerce can work
together to determine which funds should have been liquidated and be
available for distribution to eligible U.S. producers. CBP, in certain
circumstances, has provided such information to Members of Congress
upon request, but has refused to provide such information generally.
Will you commit to identifying (i.e., publishing) the amount of
funds held in clearing accounts by administrative review period?
Answer. The CBP program is designed to generate a bill and collect
the appropriate duties following the liquidation of each entry summary.
However, importers are provided the opportunity to appeal these
decisions, which may involve working with the Departments of Commerce
and Justice to ultimately collect these AD/CVD duties. During this
time, estimated duties collected on the entry summary are held pending
the final liquidation and collection of these duties before they may be
disbursed in accordance with the Continued Dumping Subsidy Offset Act.
To ensure transactions are not inadvertently held and made
available for disbursement, CBP initiated a plan to review and
liquidate entries that may have been inadvertently held in clearing
accounts. CBP provided extensive data to Commerce regarding entries by
administrative review period that remain unliquidated. Feedback from
Commerce on this analysis allowed CBP field offices to finalize 11,000
old AD/CVD entries whose liquidation makes $12 million eligible for
disbursement.
This process also shed light on the cause of the backlog. Over two-
thirds of old unliquidated entries (10 years old or more) resulted from
a weakness in communicating liquidation instructions from Commerce to
CBP. In most instances, CBP is holding old AD/CVD entries with import
scenarios not covered by any published Commerce instructions. This is
particularly true where instructions are contingent on a complex mix of
importer, exporter and/or producer. In fiscal year 2005, CBP is
concentrating on the liquidation of all remaining AD/CVD entries
entered prior to 1995 that remain suspended.
We are committed to working closely with Commerce to ensure that
CBP promptly receives and acts upon all liquidation instructions
issued. This will enable CBP to act as promptly as possible to initiate
liquidation of the affected entries. This could potentially include a
case-by-case comparison of orders.
Question. Will you commit similarly to identifying the reasons for
the lack of liquidation in cases where liquidation has not occurred for
more than 4 years, and provide specific information with respect to
those cases showing the amounts that remain unliquidated accompanied by
an explanation of CBP's understanding of why the amounts have not been
liquidated?
Answer. The antidumping and/or countervailing duty (AD/CVD) modules
within the Automated Commercial System (ACS) do not provide information
by administrative review periods; therefore, CBP cannot track entries
this way. Although one module exists to track liquidation instructions
by review period--the Department of Commerce (DOC), who has sole
responsibility for the AD/CVD modules, has not consistently provided
this information.
A liquidation clean-up project was initiated by CBP in response to
the Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit on CBP's implementation and
management of the Continued Dumping Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA). The OIG
report expressed concern over CBP's unliquidated inventory of 1 million
entries and states ``clearing up the liquidation backlog should be a
priority given the substantial dollars involved.'' At present, CBP is
holding an ``official'' inventory of 2.2 million suspended AD/CVD
entries covering 593 cases. According to the AD/CVD duty module within
ACS only 327 of those cases are current, the rest are either revoked
(once open, but subsequently closed), terminated (investigated, but
never issued), or in some stage of investigation (prior to a decision
on issuance). CBP believes that many of these entries can be closed
out.
CBP provided extensive data to DOC regarding entries that remain
unliquidated despite the fact that their associated AD/CVD cases were
either terminated revoked or did not have instructions issued for a
specific review period. Feedback from DOC on this analysis allowed CBP
field offices to finalize 11,000 old AD/CVD entries whose liquidation
makes $12 million eligible for disbursement pursuant to the Continued
Dumping Offset Act of 2000.
The liquidation clean-up project also shed light on the cause of
the backlog. Over two-thirds of old unliquidated entries (10 years old
or more) resulted from a breakdown in the liquidation instructions from
DOC to CBP. In most instances, import specialists are holding old AD/
CVD entries with import scenarios not covered by any published DOC
instructions. This is particularly true where instructions are
contingent on a complex mix of importer, exporter and/or producer. In
fiscal year 2005, CBP is concentrating on the liquidation of all
remaining AD/CVD entries entered prior to 1995 that remain suspended.
Another reason that monies remain in the ``clearing accounts'' and are
unavailable for distribution via CDSOA are the number of protests on
bills issued by CBP. Payment of a protested bill is deferred until the
protest decision is rendered. Currently many protests of AD/CVD
liquidations are suspended pending the final decision by the Federal
Appeals Court on International Trade.
TRAINING OF CBP INSPECTORS
Question. With the creation of the CBP Officer position along with
the ``One Face at the Border Initiative'', how does the CBP plan to
make sure that one front-line employee can essentially perform job
functions that were previously done by 3 different inspectors? Does DHS
plan to create specialty experts for various legacy Customs and INS
disciplines, or will every officer have to know every detail of both
Customs and INS laws for both the primary and secondary inspections at
the border?
Answer. We are working towards creating an agency-wide law
enforcement and national security culture, establishing unified primary
inspections at all United States ports of entry and conducting
secondary inspections focused primarily on combating terrorism and the
traditional missions inherited by Customs and Border Protection. To do
this efficiently and effectively, we have built a comprehensive
training plan to guide our efforts.
A very stringent 20-day pre-academy and 73-day basic academy
training curriculum has been developed for the new CBP Officer. This
training gives them the foundation needed to work in the primary
setting upon their return to the port, while also giving them a basic
understanding of what occurs in the secondary environments. The
ultimate goal is to train the new CBP Officer to not only be equally
competent in all of the former, individual areas of responsibility, but
also to be better able to meet the expanded mission priority of anti-
terrorism. Their Academy training is then followed by a rigorous 2-year
on the job training program with approximately 40-45 weeks (depending
on environment--air, land or sea) of structured training courses. They
are given training in stages in order to absorb it and be afforded time
on the job to perform the duties and become proficient.
A comprehensive 37 module cross-training program has been built for
those officers who previously performed an Agriculture, Customs or
Immigration function at the ports. Training is being given to those
officers on a ``just in time'' basis to perform the job they are being
asked to do. Instead, CBP has created a curriculum that builds off of
each previous module.
CBP does have several courses which are considered to be advanced
training and they would include those that involve analytical
capabilities and the counter-terrorism response units in our secondary
areas. CBP is currently exploring the possibility of having additional
areas and courses designated as specialized training classes.
Question. Explain how Customs cargo inspection expertise will not
be lost in the transition to the new CBP officer position? Will the new
CBP officer be required to thoroughly understand the massive harmonized
tariff schedule for goods being imported into the United States as well
as being responsible for thousands of pages that comprise the 400
sections of Immigration and Nationality Act, hundreds of pages of INS
Title 8 Federal Regulations and the full INS operations inspection
manual?
Answer. Currently, CBP's Office of Field Operations is developing,
in conjunction with the Office of Training and Development, three
separate Cargo cross-training modules for the air, land and sea
environments. The primary recipients of this training will be the new
CBP Officers and those legacy Immigration Officers new to the cargo
environment. The training consists of both classroom instruction on
cargo processing, and on-the-job cargo training under the supervision
of an experienced CBP Officer. The training consists of reviewing bills
of lading, processing all types of entries and conducting cargo
examinations. Officers will receive this training on a ``just in time''
basis as they are assigned to cargo primary.
The expertise on classification using the harmonized schedule still
resides with the Import Specialists. CBP Officers are introduced to the
harmonized schedule in some of our Customs Secondary training as well
as the cargo courses described above. We teach a basic understanding of
the tariff, how to locate items, and how to do a basic classification/
duty calculation. Final classification and duty calculations are done
by the Import Specialist.
It is expected that our training effort for the CBP Officer and CBP
Agriculture Specialist will be conducted over the course of many years.
CBP policy is that no officer may perform a function or a part of an
assignment without having completed the appropriate training module,
systems training and on the job training that are associated with those
duties.
Question. The Department's ``One Face at the Border Initiative''
merged over 18,000 inspectors from the Customs Service, Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), and the Animal Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS), into one front line inspector position. As you know,
current legacy Customs, legacy INS and the new CBP officers carry
weapons and have arrest authority but are NOT considered Federal law
enforcement officers. With the demands of the Federal law enforcement
officer having evolved over the last decade, do you not believe that
including Federal personnel such as Customs and Border Protection
Officers, who not only protect our border from illegal drugs and
facilitate lawful trade, but must now defend against weapons of mass
destruction and terrorism and the risks that come with these added job
responsibilities, deserve the recognition and benefits that go with
Federal Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) status?
Answer. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers are, in many
important respects, law enforcement officers, because they have the
responsibility for enforcing laws, making arrests, and performing a
critical enforcement and security mission. However, the position does
not meet the current statutory definition for coverage under the
special retirement provisions, which requires the primary duties to be
either investigations of crimes or the apprehension and detention of
criminals or individuals suspected of criminal activity.
Question. The final personnel regulations greatly reduce the
circumstances where collective bargaining will occur for CBP employees.
Can you please tell the committee why the regulations prohibit
collective bargaining over basic conditions of work, such as employees'
rotation between different shifts or posts of duty, or scheduling of
days off, including even post-implementation expedited bargaining? It
appears the current procedures for bargaining over basic workplace
matters such as scheduling have not hampered the agency's homeland
security missions in any way.
Answer. The successful assignment and deployment of the right
employees and technology at precisely the right time is critical to the
accomplishment of CBP's primary mission of preventing terrorists and
implements of terror from entering the United States through and
between our ports of entry. As a result, CBP must be able to assign and
deploy employees, and to introduce the latest security technologies
without delay. To assist in the facilitation of this requirement, the
final DHS regulations provide CBP the flexibility to meet operational
needs in these areas without subjecting such managerial decision to
protracted negotiations and third party review by individuals or
organizations who may not have a full understanding of the complexities
of CBP's anti-terrorism mission and operational requirements.
However, in order to balance these operational requirements with
the interests of employees, the final regulations do provide an
important mechanism for CBP to consult with employee representatives
regarding the exercise of these flexibilities. Specifically, CBP will
continue to inform labor organizations of its policies and procedures
in these areas, to meet and discuss their views, concerns and
recommendations with regard to the procedures by which these management
flexibilities are exercised, and to attempt to reach agreement on such
procedures where possible. Furthermore, where CBP institutes
significant changes during the life of a collective bargaining
agreement affecting the working conditions of employees, the final
regulations provide for negotiations with labor organizations in those
cases where the change is foreseeable, substantial and significant in
terms of impact and duration on the whole or significant portion of the
bargaining unit.
This new framework for interacting with its labor organizations
will better support and facilitate the accomplishment of CBP's critical
national security mission, while providing a viable and streamlined
avenue for the expression and consideration of employee interests and
concerns.
BORDER PATROL--APPREHENSIONS
Question. On average for the current fiscal year, how many illegal
aliens is the Border Patrol apprehending each week? Of those, how many
are considered to be criminal aliens or who require mandatory detention
bedspace? Of the non-criminal/non-mandatory aliens, what is the average
length of their stay in the United States in Border Patrol custody
prior to be being removed/expelled?
Answer. The Border Patrol has apprehended 457,900 illegal aliens to
date in fiscal year 2005 thru March 11, 2005, approximately 19,908 per
week.
Of the total apprehensions to date in fiscal year 2005, 6,171 were
determined to be criminal aliens (which equates to about 268 per week).
The number of mandatory detention varies widely. Often the determining
factor whether aliens are detained or released on their own
recognizance depends on available bed space. The Border Patrol would
like to detain all criminal aliens and non-Mexican apprehensions, but
currently this is not feasible. The Border Patrol does not detain any
aliens beyond 72 hours. Most detainees are turned over to Immigration
and Customs Enforcement/Detention and Removal Office (ICE/DRO) before
72 hours. ICE/DRO has advised us that aliens detained for Expedited
Removal are routinely held for 30+ days. Criminal aliens and those
required deportation hearings are held from 75-100 days.
BORDER PATROL--STATIONING OF AGENTS
Question. On average, how long does it take to identify, hire,
perform a background/suitability check and train a new Border Patrol
agent prior to their being posted on the border?
Answer. Advance recruitment for entry-level Border Patrol agents is
done on a regular basis in order to have a nationwide standing
inventory of eligible candidates who already have passed the written
and oral exams, completed pre-appointment requirements (including
background investigation, medical screenings, etc.), and are ready for
final selection. It generally takes 6 to 8 months following tentative
selection for a candidate to be added to the hiring queue for job
placement. A candidate's position in the hiring queue is based on the
written test score plus any applicable veterans preference points.
When the Office of Border Patrol (OBP) identifies specific
positions and locations to be filled, offers are extended to candidates
in the hiring queue, their starting dates are established, and their
training is scheduled. This process generally takes 2 to 4 weeks.
Within a few days of their hire, the trainees are detailed to the
Border Patrol Academy in Artesia, New Mexico for 19 weeks of basic
training. Upon completion of basic training, the agents are returned to
their home duty stations as certified, credentialed and armed agents.
Formal post-Academy training continues on the job through the remainder
of the first year.
Question. How many Border patrol agents are currently stationed on
the Southwest and Northern Borders? How many agents were stationed on
each border on September 11, 2001? Prior to 9/11, what was the average
placement of BP agents per mile on the Southwest and Northern Borders?
What are those numbers today?
Answer. There are currently 10,525 Border patrol agents stationed
on the Southern and Northern borders with 9,501 on the Southern border
and 1,024 on the Northern border. There were 9,459 Border patrol agents
on the border on September 11, 2001, with 9,124 on the Southern border
and 335 on the Northern border.
The number of agents on duty per mile varies widely based on risk
assessments, traffic patterns, deployed technology in an area and
staffing and personnel changes. For example, the evening and night
shifts typically have a higher staffing level than the day shift since
most illegal intrusion attempts occur during the hours of darkness. As
a result of these variables there is no standard average for agents on
the border at any given moment.
BORDER PATROL
Question. Please provide the cost assumptions CBP would use
regarding hiring the first year (fiscal year 2006) authorized level in
the Intelligence Reform Act (2,000) for Border Patrol agents as well as
the fiscal year 2007 annualization of those positions.
Answer. The Intelligence Reform Act presents an ambitious and
aggressive goal of doubling the size of the Border Patrol Agent cadre
over 5 years. For fiscal year 2006, the Act authorizes an increase of
almost 20 percent to the number of Agents now on-board. There are
practical limitations to the number of Agents that the Border Patrol
can efficiently and effectively absorb in a year. These limitations are
the result of the existing Border Patrol infrastructure (including
training facilities, Border Patrol stations, support personnel,
communication systems and vehicle and equipment repair and maintenance
facilities) and the numbers of agents that can be brought on annually
without undermining the organizational cohesiveness needed for a law
enforcement organization like the Border Patrol. Significant
investments in the Border Patrol infrastructure are required as a
prerequisite to, or at least concomitant with, the increase in the
Agent cadre authorized by the Act.
Assuming that the Border Patrol infrastructure receives
corresponding budgetary increases, a $697.33 million would be required
for fiscal year 2006 and $447.41 million will be required in fiscal
year 2007. This includes to costs to effectively hire, train, equip and
train each new border patrol agent. In addition, it includes costs for
support personnel, infrastructure, relocations, and the IT support
necessary to support such an increase.
WAR ON DRUGS--HISTORICAL
Question. During the 1980s, there was a major focus on the ``War on
Drugs'' on the Southwest Border. Additional resources were provided to
the Border Patrol and then-Customs Service to engage in this fight.
Please provide the total number of Border Patrol agents and Customs
Service personnel (per year 1980-1990) as well as the number of those
personnel in each agency who were dedicated to the Southwest Border.
Answer. Shown below is a chart reflecting the number of Border
Patrol agents and the number of those agents assigned to the southwest
border.
BORDER PATROL AGENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year ending Nationwide
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980.................................................... 2,329
1981.................................................... 2,240
1982.................................................... 2,227
1983.................................................... 2,339
1984.................................................... 2,333
1985.................................................... 3,023
1986.................................................... 3,238
1987.................................................... 3,180
1988.................................................... 4,074
1989.................................................... 3,857
1990.................................................... 3,778
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBP does not have access to personnel data for the 1980-1990
timeframe because the former U.S. Customs Service converted to the
United States Department of Agriculture's Personnel System in 1992.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Daniel K. Inouye
IMMIGRATION OFFICERS IN LOCAL USCIS OFFICES
Question. Being able to talk to knowledgeable immigration officers
in local USCIS offices is an important customer service, especially for
elderly or illiterate USCIS customers. Although InfoPass provides a
free, easy and convenient alternative to waiting in line, InfoPass has
caused confusion for a number of Hawaii customers who were turned away
at the local USCIS office because they did not know how to use
InfoPass. The InfoPass program assumes that all immigrants are
literate, have access to a computer, and are able to type on a computer
keyboard. How is USCIS addressing this problem to enable access for
elderly or illiterate customers with limited computer access and
limited ability to use the Internet?
Answer. USCIS encourages customers who need information about
citizenship and immigration benefits and services to begin with our
website, or call the toll-free customer service number. That is because
many times they can get the information or assistance they need without
having to make a trip to one of our offices.
InfoPass is designed to let customers who do need in-person service
make an appointment to reduce the time they may otherwise have to wait
to be served once they arrive. USCIS prioritizes customers with
appointments to try to ensure that they do not have to wait for
service.
However, we recognize that not all customers have access to the
Internet. We do continue to offer very basic services, such as forms
and standard materials, to customers who do not have an appointment. If
it is determined that a customer needs a service that we provide by
appointment, we will look to see if one is available that day. If not,
and the customer indicates they simply do not have the Internet access
to be able to make an appointment, we will help them make their
appointment for another day.
LIFE ACT
Question. I am aware that the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act
(LIFE Act) was enacted into law in 2001 to reduce the separation of
immediate family members of U.S. citizens who are waiting abroad for an
immigrant visa. The CIS Service Centers were taking approximately 8-12
months to process immediate relative (form I-130) visa petitions. The
LIFE Act created a new K nonimmigrant category that allows a spouse or
child of a U.S. citizen to enter as a nonimmigrant on a K-3/K-4 visa to
reunite with her family, and then apply for lawful permanent residency
while in the United States.
A U.S. citizen can file a K (form I-129F) visa petition for a
spouse or child with the National Benefits Center once he files an
immediate relative (form I-130) visa petition and receives a notice of
receipt from a Service Center. In most cases, the U.S. citizen
petitioner files both the I-130 and I-129F, assuming that the I-129F
will be processed faster, due to the USCIS' announced policy to
implement the LIFE Act. However, petitioners are finding that the
National Benefits Center is slow to adjudicate K visa petitions and is
taking approximately 7 months. Currently, three of the four Service
Centers are processing immediate relative (form I-130) visa petitions
faster than the National Benefits Center is taking to process the I-
129F visa petitions (California Service Center=60 days; Vermont Service
Center=3 months; Texas Service Center=6 months).
The slowness of K-3 processing suggests that the K-3 program is not
working as it was intended, which is to expeditiously reunite U.S.
citizens with their spouses and minor children. Furthermore, U.S.
citizens submitting K visa petitions waste valuable time and money
($165 for each petition) when the program fails to provide them with
the service and benefits that were intended by Congress. What steps are
being taken to effectively implement the K visa program?
Answer. USCIS recently made a processing decision that caused the
situation that we are now facing with Immediate Relative visa petitions
and the processing of spousal nonimmigrant visa petitions.
In reviewing our relative visa petition process, USCIS decided that
the Service Centers should focus their efforts on relative visa
petitions submitted by U.S. Citizens. As a result of these efforts, the
Service Centers have done an outstanding job and have decreased
processing times for this type of relative visa petitions dramatically.
At the same time, the National Benefits Center (NBC), which
processes the K-3 visa petitions, has continued to process K-3
nonimmigrant spousal cases as quickly as resources will allow. The NBC
is currently in the process of acquiring more adjudicative staff to
focus on this workload. In the short term, NBC will realign existing
staff, including utilization of overtime funds, to reduce the pending
workload and achieve currency.
Lastly, it has come to the attention of USCIS that if an applicant
has both an approved I-130 petition and an approved K-3 petition at the
same time, some local State Department Consulate offices make the
decision to give the I-130 petition more weight than the K-3 petition.
This decision has an impact on the Affidavit of Support and Medical
requirements the petitioner must meet before State will issue an
immediate relative visa associated with the I-130. USCIS will work with
the Department of State to review this situation and identify a remedy
to ensure that both types of visa categories are processed effectively.
F2B PREFERENCE VISA PETITION
Question. When a petitioner, who originally filed an F2B preference
visa petition, becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen, his petition is
automatically given F1 status. For those who file petitions for
relatives in the Philippines, they are penalized by becoming citizens
because their beneficiaries' waiting period is extended by several
years.
Section 6 of the Child Status Protection Act allows a petitioner to
opt out of converting to F1 status. The bill was enacted into law
several years ago, but those individuals who applied to opt out are
still waiting for the Attorney General to implement Section 6. The
National Visa Center has informed petitioners that there is no
timeframe for when this review will be completed. Can you please
comment as to when can we expect this issue to be resolved?
Answer. USCIS is in the process of writing a regulation to codify
the Act. We hope it will be published by this summer. In the interim,
USCIS has issued a policy memo to provide guidance on adjudicating
requests tendered pursuant to Section 6 of the CSPA.
1-800 CUSTOMER SERVICE NUMBERS
Question. I have heard from number of comments by USCIS customers
that when they dialed the 1-800 customer service numbers, they received
misinformation that led to sometimes fatal errors in their immigration
application, because the customer service person is reading a script
but is otherwise inexperienced in immigration procedures. Please
comment on this customer service problem.
Answer. All contract customer service representatives must take a
USCIS approved course, and pass a USCIS approved exam, before they can
answer phone calls. The course and exam are designed to ensure that
representatives have an understanding of the terms and language of
immigration, and can find the appropriate materials to convey
information or offer services to a caller, before they assist
customers.
USCIS' commitment to the accuracy and quality of the assistance we
offer is reflected in the fact that we require contractors to monitor
each representative randomly twice a day to measure their performance
against a set of customer service standards. We also have an
independent company monitor calls against those standards. USCIS also
uses a secret shopper program to test and evaluate performance against
a set of future benchmarks for where we want to be in terms of service
provision, and each month conduct a random phone survey of callers to
get feedback about their experience.
However, as with any verbal interchange we recognize that customers
may not recall in its entirety a precise explanation or conversation,
may misunderstand an explanation, or that, for all our controls, a
representative may not convey the correct or complete answer. We also
understand that customers searching for information about citizenship
and immigration benefits, which can lead to life changing events, and
work to improve our process to ensure that we are giving them all the
options and information. One of USCIS' goals is to give each customer
more control over the process, and to give them broader direct access
to the scripts and other materials which we have available. Thus, we
plan to put all of the scripts that we use to answer customer questions
on our website so that customers can do their own research, and can
print the information to be able to review it rather than just hearing
it explained to them. In fiscal year 2005, USCIS plans to release
additional standardized fact sheets and brochures, again to give
customers direct access and something they can take with them. We plan
to make this information available on our website, and in addition will
make them available at our local offices, by phone, and through
community partners.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick J. Leahy
PORTS OF ENTRY IN VERMONT
Question. I understand there are a number of ports of entry in
Vermont that will be overhauled in the next 5 years. What is the
current schedule for construction at the each of the major ports in
Vermont? What, if any, requests has DHS made to GSA for planning or
construction projects in Vermont? Of all the border crossings
nationwide, what is the typical length of highway before the actual
border that is deemed part of the port? How far along the highway do
the longest 5 extend into the United States?
Answer. CBP has requested GSA to consider the Ports of Entry at
Derby Line (I-91), Richford, and Norton, Vermont for construction in
fiscal year 2007. In addition, CBP has requested GSA to begin design in
fiscal year 2007 for Richford (Route 139) and Beebe Plain, Vermont with
construction to follow in fiscal year 2009.
In regards to the typical distance between the land ports of entry
(LPOE) and the international boundary, there are several key factors
carefully considered to ensure the safe passage of traffic and the
trade while maintaining safety for CBP Officers and the public.
Key factors used to determine the LPOE location relative to the
international border are:
--Line of Sight.--An adequate line of sight (direction, slope,
elevation, and obstacles) must be maintained between
operational functions at the LPOE. The distance between the
LPOE and the international border should be minimized to ensure
that activity in the area is effectively observable.
--Alignment of Vehicles.--The alignment of passenger vehicles and
commercial trucks preparing to enter through Radiation Portal
Monitors (RPM) and License Plate Readers (LPR) on the way to
the primary inspection booth is critical. The distance required
for safe vehicular alignment leading up to the LPR/RPM is 40
feet for passenger vehicles and 90 feet for commercial trucks.
--Obstacles.--There should be no obstacles (buildings, vegetation)
located between the LPOE and the international border that
would impede the operational effectiveness of the port or
degrade safety and security for the CBP Officers and traveling
public.
The vast majority of our LPOEs boundaries begin within 100 feet or
less of the international border. We do have several locations where
the distance is greater as a result of environmental wetlands or other
considerations that precluded construction closer to the border. At one
location in Minnesota we are planning to be approximately one-half mile
from the border but will address security requirements through the use
of video monitoring systems. It is standard CBP policy to maintain a
clear line of sight between the operations within the LPOE and the
international border to ensure that our officers monitor all traffic
entering and departing the United States.
BORDER PATROL CHECKPOINTS
Question. I have received many complaints and concerns from my
constituents about the checkpoint that has been established on
Interstate 91 in Vermont. One of my constituents, a naturalized citizen
who lives in Vermont and works in New Hampshire, has been stopped
repeatedly and questioned about his legal status. Other constituents
have expressed concern that racial profiling is occurring at the
checkpoint. (A) Is there anything you would be willing to do to prevent
naturalized citizens from being stopped repeatedly at this checkpoint,
such as offering a frequent traveler card? (B) What measures do your
officers take to avoid racial profiling?
Answer. Border Patrol traffic checkpoints are operated in
accordance with the Constitution of the United States; governing
judicial rulings; and the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section
287(a) (8 U.S.C. Section 1357). The principal court case that affirmed
Border Patrol authority to conduct traffic checkpoints was U.S. v.
Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 556 (1976).\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Additional case law references: U.S. v. Gordo-Marin, 497
F.Supp. 432 (S.D Fla. 1980), and U.S. v. Maxwell, 565 F.2d 596 (9th
Cir. 1977).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Border Patrol traffic checkpoints, such as the proposed permanent
facility on Interstate 91, are a critical component of CBP's
multilayered border security strategy. The Border Patrol maintains over
50 such traffic checkpoints nationwide. Traffic checkpoints have been
established to restrict the criminal elements' ability to use our
highway system to further their entry into the United States. In
addition, enforcement operations around the checkpoints target those
attempting to avoid inspection by circumventing the checkpoints
themselves, further enhancing homeland security. CBP has had
discussions regarding the integration frequent traveler technology like
NEXUS and PALS into the design of the permanent Interstate 91
checkpoint to ensure that regular highway users are impacted to the
minimum extent possible.
The Border Patrol does not condone racial profiling, in fact during
basic training Agents are instructed on how to perform their duties
without profiling certain classes of people. Any and all allegations of
racial profiling are taken seriously and are reported to the Office of
Inspector General for investigation.
LAW ENFORCEMENT SUPPORT CENTER
Question. In your testimony, you mention that the Law Enforcement
Support Center's workload increased by 12 percent last year. A number
of the employees who are making this increase in productivity possible
are temporary employees who have worked for the LESC for up to 4 years,
with the expectation they would have the opportunity to become
permanent employees. What are your plans to convert these temporary
employees to permanent positions?
Answer. Law Enforcement Technicians (LETs) serving under term
appointments have contributed significantly to the overall success of
the ICE Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC). ICE recognizes that the
workload of the LESC is a permanent one and shares the view that the
staff should be permanent as well. It has been the practice of the LESC
to convert term appointments to career appointments as permanent
vacancies become available. It has also been the practice of the LESC
to regularly extend term appointments up to their maximum duration.
However, LESC term LETs are serving under term appointments that have a
maximum duration of 4 years under Federal personnel rules and cannot be
further extended. The majority of LETs serving under term appointments
will not reach their 4-year limit until the spring and summer of
calendar year 2006. Only one will reach the 4-year limit in calendar
year 2005. The remainder will not reach their 4-year limit until
calendar year 2007. As term appointments approach their expiration
dates, ICE will explore all available options consistent with Federal
personnel rules, budgetary considerations and good management to retain
these valuable employees.
DEBT MANAGEMENT CENTER
Question. The ICE Debt Management Center is an integral part of the
financial stability of the bureau. Responsible for collecting debts
owed to the agency, the center is an important part of balancing the
books at ICE. Has the bureau wide hiring freeze affected the ability of
this debt management center and all other financial offices perform
their duties? Have you considered providing some flexibility from the
hiring freeze for offices with financial responsibilities? As these
offices loose individuals from normal attrition, it seems ironic that
the offices with responsibilities to correct the financial situation
Answer. As with all of ICE Financial Management operations, the
Debt Management Center is committed to fully addressing all of its
financial management responsibilities in a timely manner. If approved
by Congress, the ICE reprogramming proposal will provide additional
support to the Debt Management Center (DMC), and the DMC, along with
ICE's Office of Financial Management is closely monitoring ongoing
operations to ensure that essential and critical financial management
requirements are completed in a timely manner.
The ICE OFM has gone through a re-engineering process, finalized in
December 2004. The re-engineering format allows the OFM to address
audit and financial statement activities (abnormal balances, suspense,
cash reconciliation, trading partners, reconciliation of unliquidated
obligations, and analysis) as well as specific financial transactional
activities for our customer base (Debt Management Center, Dallas
Finance Center, financial system support of FFMS and Travel services).
LEGAL ORIENTATION PROGRAMS
Question. I have supported and helped to obtain funding for Legal
Orientation Programs for immigration detainees, with the view that the
immigration system works better for all parties when detained aliens
are informed as to whether they have a legitimate legal case to stay in
the United States. Congress appropriated $1 million for orientation
proceedings in fiscal year 2003, but DHS has still not transferred that
money to the Executive Office for Immigration Review so the proceedings
can take place. Can you tell me when that money will be transferred,
and why it has taken so long?
Answer. ICE has provided $3 million to the Executive Office of
Immigration Review (EOIR) for the Legal Orientation Program covering
services in fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2005. The funding was
provided in increments of $1million at the following times:
$1 million to EOIR in late July 2002 (fiscal year 2002).
$1 million to EOIR in February 2004 (fiscal year 2004).
$1 million to EOIR in February 2005 (fiscal year 2005).
As indicated above, the first $1 million was issued very late in
fiscal year 2002. EOIR used this fiscal year 2002 funding to award a
contract for legal orientation program services that were provided
throughout fiscal year 2003. EOIR continued to provide legal
orientation services based on funding provided in February 2004, and
currently provides legal orientation program services with an
additional $1 million provided in February 2005. There have been no
gaps in providing legal orientation program services because of lack of
funding.
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES FUNDING
Question. The President's budget proposes a 50 percent cut in the
amount of directly appropriated funds for the Bureau of Citizenship and
Immigration Services (CIS), from $160 million to $80 million. Congress
has already substantially cut the direct appropriations you receive. At
the same time, the President has proposed a guest worker program that
would significantly increase the CIS workload. (A) Why is the President
proposing a 50 percent cut in an agency whose workload he wants to
increase dramatically? (B) Are you at all concerned that a system of
immigration services that is supported almost entirely by user fees--
including the expansion of ``premium processing'' fees paid to ensure
faster processing--will be unfair to immigrants of lesser means?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 Budget includes $1.854 billion for
USCIS ($80 million appropriated; $1.774 billion fees), an overall
increase of $79 million, or 4 percent over the fiscal year 2005 level.
The fiscal year 2006 Budget is the final year of the President's 5-year
plan to achieve a 6-month cycle time standard for all immigration
benefit applications, including a total of $100 million to support
backlog elimination efforts as well as improvements in application
processing. This would bring the 5-year total for this aggressive
initiative to $560 million. Backlog elimination funds are reduced by a
total of $80 million. $60 million associated with a one-time increase
in the fiscal year 2005 USCIS budget, and $20 million for Digitization
efforts appropriated by the Congress, but not specifically requested in
the President's budget. The fiscal year 2006 Budget will allow USCIS to
eliminate the backlog by the end of fiscal year 2006.
USCIS is committed to meeting the President's backlog elimination
goals. The key to processing temporary worker petitions quickly and
efficiently is simplicity in the design. Establishing a program that
involves a high degree of employer/government partnership, thorough
background checks, and electronic registration and information sharing
among participating Departments is critical. Based upon the legislation
that Congress passes, USCIS will use fees to support applicant
registration, processing and documentation.
While Federal guidelines require full cost recovery of services
provided, USCIS does have the ability to waive fees on a case-by-case
basis. Any applicant or petitioner who has an ``inability to pay'' the
fees may request a fee waiver. In determining ``inability to pay,''
USCIS officers will consider all factors, circumstances, and evidence
supplied by the applicant including age, disability, household income,
and qualification within the past 180 days for a Federal means-tested
benefit.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Cochran. We are going to continue to review the
budget request for fiscal year 2006 for the Department of
Homeland Security. Our next hearing will be on Wednesday, March
9, in Room 124 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. At that
time the Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and
Response, Mr. Michael Brown, and the Acting Director of the
Office of State and Local Government Coordination and
Preparedness, Mr. Matt Meyer, will be here to discuss the
budget request for the programs under their jurisdictions.
Until then, the subcommittee stands in recess.
[Whereupon, at 12:23 p.m., Wednesday, March 2, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of
the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:30 a.m., in room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Judd Gregg (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Gregg, Domenici, Craig, Allard, Byrd,
Leahy, Kohl, Murray, and Feinstein.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JUDD GREGG
Senator Gregg. I call the hearing to order.
Senator Byrd is the ranking member on this committee, and
obviously on the full committee, and he will be here a little
later. And when he arrives we will accord him the opportunity
of making an opening statement if he should so wish.
We appreciate Secretary Chertoff coming here today. He's
just assumed one of the priority responsibilities in our
government relative to the safety of Americans. He's given up
an extremely important position to take this position on, and
it reflects well on him and I think on this administration as
somebody who has caliber and is willing to do this type of a
job, and we appreciate it.
However, the agency he takes over has some very serious
problems, and this morning before this hearing I was just
writing down--and I didn't do this with any staff assistance--
just off the top of my head, the problems that I've seen and
been reported to me over my brief tenure as chairman of this
committee, they include things like the border patrol, the fact
that our borders are not effectively protected anymore, that
they are not--we have virtually no security along our borders,
that people are pouring over the borders illegally.
It's gotten so bad that in Arizona citizen groups are now
seeking to enforce the borders, which obviously is not good,
that the border patrol training capabilities are not up to what
the Congress asked them to be. We asked for 200 agents a year
to be trained. Maybe they can do 400, 500, if they are
fortunate. They cannot find people. They cannot hire them.
IMMIGRATION
In the area of immigration, this is an agency which has had
a very long history of very significant management issues. Back
when I chaired the Subcommittee on Commerce, State, and Justice
before this Department was moved over to DHS; the Department
had a lot of problems.
Even under the prior administration, the problems were
significant and they have continued in the area of management.
I don't think any member of Congress receives complaints about
any agency with more consistency than about the immigration
issues that we get.
IT ISSUES
We have got the issues of IT. The inability of the
fingerprint capability at the borders to communicate
effectively and in real-time with the database of the FBI.
IDENT is not integrated into IAFIS.
We have the US VISIT program, which I have serious
reservations about whether it is going where it is supposed to
be going as a technology capability.
TSA
We have the TSA. It has become almost a weekly event now
that there is some report that comes out about the TSA's
failures in a variety of areas, from waste and fraud in the
most recent IG report relative to the construction of its
facilities for its headquarters to an internal investigation
which I guess concluded that weapons and contraband were still
going through the airports with regularity, which was totally
unacceptable, to what I consider to be an inexcusable situation
of a large amount of theft being reported from passengers in
this country.
The fact that an agency of the Federal Government would
have thousands upon thousands of reported thefts occurring by
Federal employees against American citizens makes us look like
a third-world country. And it still goes on.
Workman Compensation claims are outrageous. And I think
anybody who goes through airport security has to ask
themselves, at least occasionally when going through airport
security, is this really having an effect on security or is
this simply mindless when you see some of the actions taken by
the TSA.
INTELLIGENCE
The intelligence issue, the agency has ceded intelligence
over to other agencies when originally it was supposed to be
the center of basically coordinating of intelligence. And now
we see that the intelligence decisions are being made outside
the agency by a conscious decision. And maybe it was the right
decision, but essentially the IAIP has been raided the last 2
years from its resources to do other things. And I view
intelligence as probably the essence of whether or not we win
this war.
This is not a war about reacting to events. It is a war
about getting to those events before they occur. And that
involves intelligence.
PERSONNEL CONCERNS
The personnel issues, the senior management turnover is
extraordinary. The number of people in an acting position is
unacceptable and the number of positions which are unfilled at
senior management levels is unacceptable.
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE ALONG THE BORDER
The electronic surveillance capability along the border is
non-existent right now from all I can tell. There has been a
total breakdown in the camera structures; and the unmanned
vehicle program has basically been stopped, even though it was
proving very successful.
OTHER CONCERNS
Contingent to the agency's responsibility is the issue of
protecting us against a biological or chemical attack. And
granted, the HHS has priority here, but the Department has a
very significant role in making sure that HHS is successful.
And it is very obvious that in the area of vaccines, Bioshield
has not produced the results it should have produced, and that
we have not created a robust vaccine capability in this country
against very significant disease issues, specifically anthrax,
botulism, plague, and small pox.
Container ships, we all know we are not getting anywhere
near the scrutiny on the container ships. If we look at the
agency objectively, just on that list you have to say that were
this agency admitted to an emergency room, it would be
considered to be in extreme distress.
The fact is we have not been attacked. And credit on that
goes to the Department, and I give them credit for that. But
the fact also is there are very serious, serious problems,
especially on what I consider to be the three core elements of
the Homeland Security portfolio, which is protecting us from
weapons of mass destruction attack, protecting our borders, and
making sure that they are under control, and making sure that
we have adequate intelligence capability.
So the problems exist now. You did not create them, Mr.
Secretary. They did not come on your watch. You have just
arrived. I congratulate you for setting up a Department-wide
review of what is going on and trying to figure out how to
correct it. But they exist and we have to get our arms around
them.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 BUDGET REQUEST
The budget that has been sent up by this Administration
presumes that the Congress will pass a significant increase on
the fees of people who are flying. I do not think you are going
to see this Congress accomplish that. Certainly, the chairman
of the Commerce Committee here in the Senate has been more than
vociferous in opposition to that proposal, and that is his
authorizing committee, although this appropriating committee
will play a role.
But if you take that number out, the budget that was sent
up is well over a billion dollars less than last year's budget
to operate this Department. If you put that number in, and
giving you the benefit of the doubt that we are going to raise
the fees on travelers in this country by dramatic amounts, even
though the stated amount is that the budget is up by 7 percent,
our estimate is that the budget is up by about a $100 million.
Now it may not be that money solves this problem. In fact,
I do not think it does. I think a lot of this is an issue of
management and structure. But we know, for example, in the area
of border patrol that getting more bodies on the border is
critical, and that is going to cost money. And there are other
areas where we know money may make a difference, for example,
backlogs.
So I am not sure the budget that has been sent up is
reflective of the urgency of the problem that this Department
has relative to different functions that in my opinion are in
distress.
So I hate to start this hearing off with a dark cloud, but
I think honesty is required, and these are not reports which I
have manufactured. They are restatements of public information.
So with that, again, I want to emphasize that I feel that
we are extremely fortunate that you have been willing to take
this job on. But I think you have been dealt a hand that is
difficult to play, and I am looking forward to working with you
to try to improve that hand. And that is the purpose of this
committee, to constructively work with you to give you the
resources you need to accomplish the improvements so that a
year from now we do not have this long list of concerns. With
that, we will listen to your thoughts.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CHERTOFF
Secretary Chertoff. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And
thank you for welcoming me to this first appearance for this
subcommittee, which I am looking forward to working with as we
go forward to improve our performance and make sure we are on
the right track to, as you point out, protecting the American
people, and protecting our infrastructure. And then if worse
comes to worse, appropriately responding.
If I may, I would like to ask that the subcommittee receive
my full statement for the record.
Senator Gregg. Of course.
Secretary Chertoff. I am going to be very brief so that I
can be available to answer questions. Let me try in just a
couple of moments to give you at high altitude the approach
that I think we are taking in this review we have got going,
and also in terms of our moving forward with the Department.
Quite obviously, in creating the Department, Congress
wanted to do more than assemble 22 organizations in a tent. We
wanted to create a single organization that could achieve
outcomes that are important in terms of enhancing our national
security. So one of the critical tasks I think I have as I
begin my tenure at the Department is to see what we need to do
in order to further the process of integration.
I completely agree that means intelligence, which is the
driving guide to what we do all across the board. And we need
to make sure we are appropriately collecting and fusing the
intelligence we have available within the Department, and then
contributing that to the community at large and consuming what
the community has, and operationalizing that.
So we are looking to enhance our ability across the
Department to combine our intelligence, combine our operations,
and combine our policymaking. So we have a Department-wide
approach to these things.
Second, as part of the review we are undertaking, I really
want to be focused on outcome, and to kind of boil the jargon
away. The example I have given to people when I try to explain
what I mean, if my car is not running and I take it into the
shop, and the electrician and the guy who does the transmission
and everybody else takes a whack at it, and I come in at the
end of the day to pick the car up, and everybody says, wow, you
know, we have each done our process exactly right, but the car
does not run, I do not consider myself a satisfied customer.
I am concerned about the outcome. I want a car that runs.
And that is true here, too. We want a Department that produces
the outcomes we care about, and we ought to focus on how we do
that without regard to everybody's individual stove pipes. And
then the alignment of the stove pipes and the alignment of the
organizations and the operations has to be what fits with
getting the outcomes.
The third piece is, we do want to use this risk-management
philosophy. I think you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, in your
statement, there are a lot of important things, but there are
some things that are the highest priority. WMD is one example.
And we have to be disciplined, since we are talking about a
long-term issue with terrorism and threat, about identifying
the priorities and figuring out how we go about optimally
taking what are obviously finite resources and getting them to
where they have to be. And so that risk management approach is
going to be our guiding philosophy.
We are not interested in the Department of Homeland
Security as simply an opportunity for people to, you know, raid
the pots of money. We are interested in making sure that we get
the money and everything we do over our deployment and our
operations in a risk management, focused manner.
PREPARED STATEMENT
So with these kind of general observations, again, I am
delighted to work with the subcommittee. I know it is a very
challenging position, but I know there is a tremendous amount
of support with the American public to getting this job done
right. And that is what I am going to do my level best to do,
and I look forward to answering questions.
Senator Gregg. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Chertoff
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd, and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank
you for the opportunity to address you today, and for your ongoing
support of the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to keep
America secure and free. I am honored and pleased to appear before the
Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
This is my first appearance before this Subcommittee, and I look
forward to a productive exchange as the Department begins to reassess
and readjust priorities and policies in accordance with the changing
threat of terrorism over three and a half years after the September 11,
2001 attacks.
For more than 2 years now, the Department of Homeland Security has
led a national effort to protect our country and our citizens from all
manner of threats. It has been an honor to join the dedicated men and
women who carry out this task daily. Ours is a difficult mission--to
prevent another deadly and catastrophic terrorist attack such as the
one we experienced on September 11, and if an attack occurs, to respond
quickly and prevent further damage.
The 180,000-plus people of the Department carry out this mission
with unflinching resolve and a driving determination that such an
attack should never occur on American soil again. Realizing that we can
make no guarantees, we pursue our mission with a sense of urgency and
daily diligence, so that this Nation can respond and recover quickly,
should an incident or attack occur.
Since its establishment just over 2 years ago, DHS has made great
strides in its efforts to unify the defense of our homeland. We have
continued to integrate 22 distinct agencies and bureaus, each with its
own employees, mission and culture.
But our security requires even greater coordination and effort
throughout the Department, across all levels of government, and
throughout our Nation to create synergy and new capabilities. It
requires an unwillingness to accept complacency as part of anything we
do; rather, we know we must apply all effort to tear down stove-pipes
and coordinate key intelligence, policy, and operational issues across
DHS and the government.
SECOND STAGE REVIEW
I have therefore initiated a comprehensive review of the
organization, operations and policies of the Department as a whole.
This comprehensive review will examine what we are doing and what we
need to do without regard to component structures and programmatic
categories.
We want to understand better what's working and what isn't. We will
be evaluating every element of our working mission and making sure that
the Department is best organized to meet the threats--both current and
future--that face our Nation.
Old categories, old jurisdictions, old turf will not define our
objectives or the measure of our achievements because bureaucratic
structures and categories exist to serve our mission, not to drive it.
Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson has been charged with overseeing
this process. The goal of the review is to help me make informed
decisions as I lead the Department. Deputy Secretary Jackson has
selected a team of Department officials to look at a number of critical
cross-cutting issues and determine how departmental resources and
programs can be most effectively applied to achieve our security goals.
I have asked them to get back to me by Memorial Day with the bulk of
their recommendations. I intend to study and act on their
recommendations.
What will the review cover? Take an issue such as maritime cargo
security, which cuts across several departmental components. Customs
and Border Protection, Coast Guard, Science and Technology, and
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection each address aspects
of this overall mission. Each might perform its element well, but we
must go further to ensure that each is performing seamlessly and in
coordination with the others, that we eliminate any duplication of
effort, and that we reap the full strength of our wide spectrum of
capabilities.
Of course, in executing the initial phase of putting the Department
together and integrating the different components into a working
structure, my predecessor and the men and women of Homeland Security
did a tremendous job. They should be commended.
Now, as we enter into the second phase of the Department's life, we
must also take a fresh, creative look at the Department itself--
including its organization, its operations, and its policies. We are
not yet fully integrated and our entities are still not always
coordinated with each other. Now the challenge is to take the advantage
of 2 years' experience and evaluate the Department to see if there are
potential structural and operational changes that will improve and
enhance our capabilities to protect and safeguard this Nation.
CROSS-CUTTING FUNCTIONS AND INTEGRATION
On the most basic level, we need to take a step back and focus on
the fundamental question: Why was the Department of Homeland Security
created? It was not created merely to bring together different agencies
under a single tent. It was created to enable these agencies to secure
the homeland through joint, coordinated action. Our challenge is to
realize that goal to the greatest extent possible.
Let me tell you about three areas where I plan to focus our efforts
to achieve that goal. First, we need to operate under a common picture
of the threats that we are facing. Second, we need to respond actively
to these threats with the appropriate policies. Third, we need to
execute our various component operations in a unified manner so that
when we assess the intelligence and we have decided upon the proper
policies, we can carry out our mission in a way that is coordinated
across the board.
My intent is to integrate each of these three areas--intelligence,
policy, and operations--across the Department, so that each is directed
from the most senior level of the Department.
Let me turn to intelligence. Intelligence plays a pivotal role in
mapping our mission. When the Department was created, 22 separate and
distinct entities were woven together, a number of which had components
focused on intelligence-gathering and analysis. One of my top
priorities is to make sure that these various intelligence components
function as a cohesive unit, and that our information and analysis is
coordinated across the Department so that DHS, as a full member, can
enhance its contribution to the Intelligence Community.
First, we must organize and combine all intelligence within DHS. To
do this effectively, we must ensure that our own intelligence
components are interoperable. The Department has already made progress
in this area. For example, the Homeland Security Operations Center was
stood up to help the Department develop a common operating picture and
facilitate information sharing.
We must make sure that we are gathering all relevant information
from the field, communicating with each other, and approaching analysis
with a mission-oriented focus. We must ask, for example, whether those
who evaluate the border from the Customs and Border Protection
perspective are learning from analysts in the U.S. Coast Guard. They
each look at border security, but from different vantage points. Only
if they are working together can they fill in key gaps, paint a
realistic picture, and evaluate all of the different pieces of
information and intelligence that they are each gathering. We have to
maximize the fact that all of these components now exist under the same
umbrella.
Second, we must make sure that information is being disseminated
both up and down the ranks of the Department. Strong and effective
coordination does not just mean that our analysts at DHS headquarters
are working together. We need to fuse and exploit all the information
that we learn across the country, so that when a Border Patrol agent in
Texas learns of a new alien smuggling method, that information is fed
up to our intelligence analysts, incorporated where appropriate into
our strategy to combat smuggling, and disseminated across the
Department to others focused on the same problem. We must build a
culture in which the disparate pieces of information are being
transmitted to our analysts so that they, who have the benefit of the
fuller picture, can properly analyze all of our information and inform
our decision-making.
The converse must be true when our intelligence analysts learn of
new vulnerabilities that terrorists are trying to exploit. That same
agent in Texas needs to know, on a timely basis, of the threat and what
he should be looking out for. We have a great many talented individuals
at the Department. Some gather and analyze intelligence. Others learn
critical information as they are in the field performing their jobs.
The opportunities are endless. DHS needs to bring all of these nuggets
of information together and disseminate them appropriately. We need to
have the structure and the correct systems and technologies in place to
take full advantage of them.
Third, our focus must extend beyond the Department itself. We must
review and make use of intelligence coming from the Intelligence
Community and we must play an active role in providing intelligence
information to the Intelligence Community. As the WMD Commission made
clear in its report 2 weeks ago, sharing information across the Federal
Government is critical if we are to succeed. To that end, I am
committed to making sure that our law enforcement and intelligence
partners across the Federal Government have appropriate access to the
Department's information and analysis, to the maximum extent possible
under the law, while protecting the privacy rights and civil liberties
of Americans. By the same token, we must sit as full partners at the
table with full access to others in the Intelligence Community. We must
work in concert with the Intelligence Community. I will work closely
with the Director of National Intelligence, whose job it will be to
make sure that the Intelligence Community is well-coordinated and
mission-focused.
In addition, intelligence and information from other Federal
agencies is critical to our efforts to secure the homeland. The
development of the terrorism information sharing environment, as called
for under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, will
connect the resources (people, systems, databases, and information) of
Federal, State, and local governments, and the private sector allowing
users to share information and improve collaboration.
Finally, we must inform and communicate with our State, local,
tribal entities, and private sector partners. As I observed just last
week during TOPOFF, when it comes to securing the Nation, we must
ensure that these entities are well-equipped both to react to crisis
and to prevent it. As part of this effort, we must improve our ability
to operationalize intelligence. As information comes in, we need to
make sure it is getting out to the right people and in a way that they
can use to strengthen their efforts and contribute effectively to ours.
Intelligence in a vacuum is meaningless. We need to explain how our
outside partners can counter that threat and what we need them to do to
watch out for it.
Now, let me address policy development. Development and
coordination of policy are major responsibilities of this Department.
The Department has the central mission of securing the homeland, but
there are many different aspects of that mission with numerous
contributors. Large elements of DHS include traditional operational
functions in which we deploy personnel, equipment, planes, ships and
vehicles. But other elements principally involve planning and rule
making, and networking with State, local, and tribal entities, and
private parties. All of these must serve and promote our homeland
security imperatives.
Therefore, we need to further enhance our capability to think
through broad and overarching issues like border security, emergency
preparedness, transportation security, and cargo security, with a
Department-wide perspective, rather than just through the lenses of one
particular component. We need to develop our policies by first looking
at our missions and asking the comprehensive, result-oriented
questions, rather than by looking to one particular entity that has the
lead in driving an issue to conclusion.
Accordingly, I believe that we should pull together the vast
expertise and the varying perspectives already at the Department as we
work toward integrating our many crosscutting functions. For this
reason, one of the areas that we are closely studying in the Second
Stage Review is the advisability of creating a department-wide,
substantial policy office. This office will also be a very important
focal point for coordinating DHS's policy work with other Federal,
State, local, and tribal entities.
Finally, let me discuss operational coordination. Just as with
intelligence and policy, we need to find new ways to increase our
operational coordination. Diverse operational components were woven
together when Congress stood up the Department, each with its own
history and identity. As I have become acquainted with these various
components, I have quickly learned that there is a great deal of talent
within them. Each entity has its own unique focus, but often they
address the same mission from differing perspectives. But we cannot
function as a cohesive unit, unless each operational component works
together in combination to promote common missions.
This means that our operations must be driven by mission-oriented
plans. It can no longer be the case that different components tackle
different problems each in its own way and then later look to see if
the pieces fit together. Whether it is preventing a potential act of
terrorism, emergency preparedness, border protection, or countering a
particular threat, we must first define the mission and second deploy
all the tools within the Department to effectively execute each
operation.
The Department has already begun this process. To take but one
example, on the Arizona border, we have a cross-cutting initiative to
protect the border, integrating intelligence gathering, border
enforcement, and monitoring. It encompasses the efforts of several of
our agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, Science and Technology, the Coast Guard, and
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. Each plays an
integral role. The operations themselves involve patrolling the border,
generating information, and using it to take enforcement actions. The
genius of the Department of Homeland Security is that we have the
capability within one department to do all of these things. But we need
to carry out joint operational activities and have a joint perspective
on a routine basis, not only when we stand up a special project.
Operations are also the mechanisms by which we respond to crisis.
We cannot wait for a crisis, however, to learn, for example, whether
TSA has the capability to communicate effectively and coordinate with
FEMA. Nor can we learn in crisis that both are conducting the same
operations or sending different messages to the private sector. The
Department has made significant progress in this area. For example, it
developed the National Response Plan to more effectively map out how to
handle crisis situations. Now is the time to organize around missions
rather than old bureaucracies, work through all of these potential
disconnects in our systems, and operate as one unified Department. But
integrating ourselves cohesively is not enough.
RISK-BASED APPROACH
I have been saying, and you will continue to hear me say, that we
need to adopt a riskbased approach in both our operations and our
philosophy. America is dynamic. Our strength as Americans is the sum of
every generation that has ever been born in or immigrated to this great
land. Our wealth and livelihoods are advanced by the inspired ideas and
innovation of our own people. We prosper through the vast opportunities
that exist to interact with the global economic community.
Risk management is fundamental to managing the threat, while
retaining our quality of life and living in freedom. Risk management
must guide our decision-making as we examine how we can best organize
to prevent, respond and recover from an attack. We need to be realistic
in our prioritization. We must assess the full spectrum of threats and
vulnerabilities.
We all live with a certain amount of risk. That means that we
tolerate that something bad can happen; we adjust our lives based on
probability; and we take reasonable precautions. So, too, we must
manage risk at the homeland security level. That means developing plans
and allocating resources in a way that balances security and freedom
when calculating risks and implementing protections.
The most effective way, I believe, to apply this risk-based
approach is by using the trio of threat, vulnerability, and consequence
as a general model for assessing risk and deciding on the protective
measures we undertake.
Here I inject a note of caution because the media and the public
often focus principally on threats. Threats are important, but they
should not be automatic instigators of action. A terrorist attack on
the two-lane bridge down the street from my house is bad but has a
relatively low consequence compared, to an attack on a major
metropolitan multi-lane bridge. At the other end of the spectrum, even
a remote threat to detonate a nuclear bomb is a high-level priority
because of the catastrophic effect.
Each threat must be weighed, therefore, along with consequence and
vulnerabilities. As consequence increases, we respond according to the
nature and credibility of the threat and any existing state of
vulnerabilities. Our strategy is, in essence, to manage risk in terms
of these three variables--threat, vulnerability, consequence. We seek
to prioritize according to these variables . . . to fashion a series of
preventive and protective steps that increase security at multiple
levels. We must examine the mission and work of all elements of DHS
through this template of consequence, vulnerability and threat. Have we
fully defined our missions? How far have we gone in carrying them out?
What more needs to be done?
The Department is already working with State, local, and private
sector partners to further refine the Interim National Preparedness
Goal to aid the targeting of resources to where the risk is greatest.
There is much that we are doing. DHS agencies, for example, have
provided unprecedented level of funding and resources since 9/11 to
State, local and private sector partners to protect and prepare
America's communities and individual citizens. We continue to improve
the ways for first responders across the Nation to be better equipped,
better trained and more capable of communicating across the public
safety community. But we must bring even greater focus and discipline
to our preparedness mission. We need to take a very substantive look at
how we align our preparedness activities and functions. We need to look
at how best to configure our organizations, operations, programs and
policies so that we can think strategically about preparedness.
What should drive our intelligence, policies, operations, and
preparedness plans and the way we are organized is the strategic matrix
of threat, vulnerability and consequence. And so, we'll be looking at
everything through that prism and adjusting structure, operations and
policies to execute this strategy.
FISCAL YEAR 2005 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Before beginning to outline the major themes of the Department's
fiscal year 2006 Budget request, I would like to highlight a few of the
Department's accomplishments over the past year, including the
following:
--The Department established ``the One-Stop-Shop'' for first
responder grants which allows a single point of entry to the
Federal Government for homeland security preparedness
resources.
--DHS has provided unprecedented levels of funding and resources to
State, local and private sector partners to protect and prepare
America's communities and individual citizens. We continue to
improve ways for first responders across the Nation to be
better equipped, better trained and more capable of
communicating across the public safety community.
--U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) is on track to
eliminate the backlog of immigration benefit applications by
the end of fiscal year 2006. In fiscal year 2004, the agency
increased productivity by 21 percent and successfully reduced
the backlog to 1.3 million cases--down from a high of 3.8
million cases in January 2004.
--United States-Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US
VISIT) was successfully implemented at 115 U.S. international
airports and 14 seaports and immediately demonstrated results
by preventing individuals with criminal records and immigration
violations from entering the United States. In addition, US
VISIT successfully deployed initial capability to the 50
busiest land border ports of entry in December 2004 and was
also deployed at pre-clearance airports in Canada, Bermuda, the
Caribbean and Guam.
--The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) developed, reviewed, and approved 9,000
domestic vessel security plans; 3,200 domestic facility plans;
48 Area Maritime Security Plans and Committees; and verified
security plan implementation on 8,100 foreign vessels.
--USCG interdicted nearly 11,000 undocumented migrants attempting to
enter the country illegally by sea, saved the lives of nearly
5,500 mariners in distress and responded to more than 32,000
calls for rescue assistance.
--Counterdrug efforts remain a top priority for the Department. With
the passage of the December 2004 Intelligence and Reform Bill,
the Department's Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement is
heavily invested in ensuring counterdrug operations and policy
are synchronized across the Department, and that our components
are adequately resourced to perform their counterdrug mission.
In fiscal year 2004, the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection collectively
kept 489,870 pounds of cocaine from reaching the streets of our
Nation.
--In support of Operation Iraqi Freedom the USCG protected, safely
secured, and escorted to sea over 200 military sealift
departures at ten different major U.S. seaports, carrying over
25 million square feet of indispensable cargo.
--The Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC) Homeland Security
Information Network (HSIN) infrastructure to facilitate
providing Secret level connectivity has been expanded to state
level Emergency Operations Centers in all 50 States,
territories, and the District of Columbia.
--The Department's Information Sharing and Collaboration Office
(ISCO) is responsible for producing immediate, near-term and
long-term improved information sharing processes and systems.
ISCO successfully partnered with DOJ to establish a first ever
capability to share information between systems supporting law
enforcement users across the country. The Homeland Security
Information Network (HSIN), Regional Information Sharing System
(RISS), Law Enforcement On-line (LEO), and Criminal Information
Sharing Alliance Network (CISANet) now share information posted
on each system with the users of the other systems with the
result that over 7,000 documents are already posted and the
numbers are growing every day. Users are able to access
information on any of the four systems through a single sign-
on, thus eliminating the need to access all four network
simultaneously.
--Working closely with importers, carriers, brokers, freight
forwarders and others, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has
developed the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-
TPAT) program, which has become the largest government/private
partnership to arise from September 11.
--In carrying out its agricultural mission, Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) Agricultural Specialist conducted 3,559,403
cargo inspections, 111,416,656 passenger inspections and made
more than 400,000 interceptions of prohibited meat and animal
by-products. During the same time period, CBP agricultural
specialists intercepted more than 96,000 prohibited plant
materials and found more than 64,000 agricultural pests.
--The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided $4.9
billion in aid, including hurricane relief efforts for victims
and communities affected by disasters. FEMA, with its DHS
counterparts, responded to 65 major disaster declarations and
seven emergencies in fiscal year 2004.
--Passenger screening by the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) kept 6,501,193 prohibited items from coming on board
aircraft during fiscal year 2004.
--In 2004, TSA screened approximately 600 million checked bags using
advanced explosive detection technologies and over 31 million
mail parcels using explosive detection canine teams.
--Since establishment of the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO)
Program in February 2003, TSA has selected, trained, and armed
thousands of volunteer flight crewmembers to defend the flight
decks of commercial passenger and cargo aircraft against acts
of criminal violence or air piracy. To date, hundreds of
thousands of flights have been protected by one or more FFDOs
serving in mission status.
--A total of 428 million people, including 262 million aliens, were
processed at land, air and sea ports of entry. Of that number
643,000 aliens were deemed inadmissible under U.S. law.
--Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers achieved a 112
percent increase over the prior year for fugitive apprehensions
resulting in more than 7,200 arrests. ICE removed more than
150,000 aliens in 2004.
--Border Patrol agents apprehended almost 1.2 million illegal aliens
between our official ports of entry.
--The Container Security Initiative (CSI), which involves pre-
screening shipping containers to detect and interdict
terrorists' weapons and other illegal material, was expanded to
include 21 countries. CSI is now operational in 34 foreign
ports in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
--Approximately 600 million checked bags were screened using advanced
explosive technologies in 2004.
--More than 2,500 criminal investigations were conducted involving
the illegal export of U.S. arms and strategic technology,
including Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
--The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) provided basic
and advanced law enforcement training to more than 44,750
students, representing 81 Federal agencies, as well as State,
local and international law enforcement organizations.
--Border and Transportation Security (BTS) assumed responsibility for
visa policy under the Homeland Security Act and implemented
improvements in visa review times and transparency.
--The Department planned, designed, and implemented security for five
events designated as National Security Special Events (State of
Union Address, G-8 Economic Summit, Former President Ronald
Reagan Funeral, Democratic National Convention and Republican
National Convention) as well as the support, integration, and
coordination of hundreds of national special events not meeting
the National Security Special Events designation.
--USSS arrested 30 individuals involved in global cyber organized
crime, domestically and internationally. Industry experts
estimate that $1 billion in total fraud loss was prevented.
--The Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate has implemented
initiatives in chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and
explosive (CBRNE) countermeasures, cargo security, border and
transportation security, interoperability, standards for
emergency responders, and cyber security. These initiatives
have resulted in improved security of U.S. borders,
transportation systems and critical infrastructure, and
resulted in the greater preparedness of our Nation. To date,
Department officials have visited more than 200 chemical,
petrochemical, water, energy, (i.e. electricity, oil, liquefied
natural gas, pipelines, storage, etc.) agriculture, commercial
assets, national icons, soft targets, and mass transportation
centers.
--The Department established the National Cyber Response Coordination
Group (NCRCG) in partnership with the Department of Justice and
the Department of Defense, as a forum of 13 principal agencies
that coordinate intra-governmental and public/private
preparedness operations to respond to and recover from
largescale cyber attacks.
--The Department co-sponsored Blue Cascades II and Purple Crescent
II, two regional tabletop cyber exercises in Seattle, WA and
New Orleans, LA. Each exercise brought together more than 200
government and private sector officials to examine cyber
security readiness and response procedures, highlight the
importance of cyber security in critical infrastructure
protection, and discuss solutions for integrating physical
security and cyber security. Region-specific coordination and
communication plans between first responders, the Federal
Government, and critical infrastructure owners/operators were
exercised.
--The Department established the US-CERT Control Systems Center to
bring together government, industry, and academia to reduce
vulnerabilities, respond to threats, and foster public/private
collaboration to improve the security of the data and process
control systems that operate our Nation's critical
infrastructures.
--The Department established the Control Systems Security and Test
Center (CSSTC) in conjunction with Idaho National Environmental
and Engineering Laboratory, to provide an opportunity for
government and industry to collaborate on cyber vulnerability
enumeration and reduction activities for control systems
currently in use across critical infrastructure sectors. The
CSSTC models map the cause and effect relationships of cyber
attacks on control systems, assess the outcomes of actual
events in a simulated environment, and provide the US-CERT with
response and mitigation actions to share with partners in the
control systems community.
--DHS and the Germany Ministry of the Interior jointly hosted a
Multilateral Cyber Security Conference in Berlin, Germany. The
conference brought together cyber security policymakers,
managers from computer security incident response teams with
national responsibility, and law enforcement representatives
responsible for cyber crime from 15 countries. The conference
program included a facilitated tabletop exercise and
interactive discussions on how to develop an international
framework--as well as near term actionable steps--for watch,
warning, and incident response.
--The Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP)
Directorate has developed and disseminated warning products
(i.e. warning messages) to Federal, State, territorial, tribal,
local, private sector, and international partners to protect
citizens, governments, critical infrastructure, and key assets.
--IAIP has produced more than 70 ``Common Vulnerability'' reports
executed over 250 Site Assistance Visits, nearly 600 Buffer
Zone Protection Plans, and is continuing to build the National
Asset Database. As of today, more than 80,000 ``assets'' have
been compiled.
--Uninterrupted communications are critical for national security and
emergency preparedness personnel in responding to a crisis. The
National Communications System (NCS) issued an additional
17,000 calling cards, further enabling priority wire line phone
communications and an additional 8,000 cell phones for priority
wireless communications. In past disasters and crises, these
capabilities have proved crucial.
--Pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7, IAIP is
coordinating the overall national effort to enhance the
protection of the critical infrastructure and key resources of
the United States and has distributed the Interim National
Infrastructure Protection Plan (Interim NIPP) to other Federal
departments and agencies, the State Homeland Security Advisors,
and the private sector stakeholder groups (e.g., the Homeland
Security Advisory Council, Sector Coordinating Council, ISAC
Councils, National Infrastructure Advisory Council, the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, etc.) The Interim NIPP provides a risk
management framework for integrating and coordinating the
Nation's infrastructure protection activities that takes into
account threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences to manage a
broad range of risks across the Nation's 17 critical
infrastructure sectors.
--These important DHS activities were analyzed where appropriate for
their impacts on personal privacy and civil liberties.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 BUDGET REQUEST
The Department's fiscal year 2006 Budget request revolves around
five major themes: Revolutionizing the Borders; Strengthening Law
Enforcement; Improving National Preparedness and Response; Leveraging
Technology; and Creating a 21st Century Department.
REVOLUTIONIZING THE BORDERS
September 11, 2001 demonstrated the sobering reality that the
United States is no longer immune from catastrophic attack. No longer
do vast oceans and friendly neighbors provide the buffer against
aggressive adversaries. In order to maximize the security of our Nation
against persons determined to undermine the economy of the United
States, our way of life and the freedoms we enjoy, the Department is
determined to deter, thwart, and remove any threat to the Nation long
before it reaches our borders. During fiscal year 2005, we will
continue to strengthen our border security. For fiscal year 2006, the
President's Budget includes several initiatives aimed at
revolutionizing the Borders.
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Detection Technology is an
integral part of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) that
includes a comprehensive strategy to address the threat of nuclear and
radiological terrorism. The Budget includes $125 million to purchase
additional Radiation Portal Monitors (RPMs) and pilot advanced next
generation RPMs to detect both gamma and neutron radiation at our
borders. In addition, the Container Security Initiative (CSI), which
focuses on pre-screening cargo before it reaches our shores, will have
a preventative and deterrent effect on the use of global containerized
shipping of WMD and other terrorist equipment. Egypt, Chile, India, the
Philippines, Venezuela, the Bahamas and Honduras have been identified
as expansion locations for this initiative in fiscal year 2006. An
increase of $5.4 million over fiscal year 2005 is included in Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) budget for CSI. The total amount in the
President's Budget for CSI is $138.8 million.
CBP's America's Shield Initiative (ASI) enhances electronic
surveillance capabilities along the Northern and Southern land borders
of the United States by improving the sensor and video surveillance
equipment deployed to guard against the entry of illegal aliens,
terrorists, WMDs and contraband into the United States. The Budget
includes $51.1 million for ASI, an increase of $19.8 million. With
additional technology investments, the President's Budget proposes to
increase Border Patrol staffing over current levels to backfill staff
vacated along the Southwest border, as well as increase staffing levels
assigned to coastal areas. Since September 11, 2001, some Border Patrol
agents were shifted to the Northern border in order to increase the
number of agents assigned there. An increase of 210 positions and $36.9
million is included in the Budget for the Border Patrol. This increases
the number of Border Patrol Agents to 10,949.
The Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), which
began in November 2001, is another essential cargo security effort. C-
TPAT focuses on partnerships along the entire supply chain, from the
factory floor to foreign vendors to land borders and seaports. The
President's Budget includes an increase of $8.2 million for this
effort, bringing total funding for C-TPAT to $54.3 million. These funds
will be used to enhance our ability to conduct additional supply chain
security validations.
In addition to enhancing secure trade programs, the President's
Budget also seeks to support additional investments in CBP's National
Targeting System. CBP Targeting Systems aid in identifying high-risk
cargo and passengers. The Budget includes a total of $28.3 million for
these system initiatives, of which $5.4 million is an increase over the
fiscal year 2005 level. Further, US VISIT, which will be consolidated
within the Screening Coordination Office, will increase from $340
million to $390 million in the Budget. The increase will provide for
the accelerated deployment of US VISIT at the land border and enhanced
access for border personnel to immigration, criminal and terrorist
information.
The President's 2006 Budget includes $966 million for the
Integrated Deepwater System (IDS) to help address the Coast Guard's
declining readiness trends and to transform the Coast Guard with
enhanced capabilities to meet current and future mandates through
system-wide recapitalization and modernization of Coast Guard cutters,
aircraft, and associated sub-systems. Among other things, the IDS
request funds production of the third Maritime Security Cutter-Large
and continues HH-65 helicopter re-engineering to eliminate safety and
reliability issues in the Coast Guard's operational fleet of short
range helicopters.
Finally, within CBP, Long Range Radar technology is used by the
Office of Air and Marine Operations to detect and intercept aircraft
attempting to avoid detection while entering the U.S. CBP and the
Department of Defense will assume responsibility for operating and
maintaining these systems from the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) beginning in fiscal year 2006. CBP's share is $44.2 million in
the Budget.
STRENGTHENING LAW ENFORCEMENT
Law enforcement is a critical element in preventing terrorism
across the Nation. Whether at the Federal, State, or local level, law
enforcement agencies perform this vigilant task. As we know from
unfortunate first hand experience, the known threats are creative,
clever, and sophisticated. The Department's law enforcement agencies
need to stay ahead of the threat. To achieve this, the Budget includes
funding for numerous key initiatives to maintain and strengthen current
law enforcement initiatives both within and beyond our borders.
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the Nation's leading
maritime law enforcement agency. The President's Budget seeks
additional investment in USCG assets to enhance its ability to carry
out its mission. The President's budget provides $11 million to
increase port presence and Liquefied Petroleum Natural Gas (LNG)
transport security, funding additional Response Boat-Smalls and
associated crews to increase presence for patrolling critical
infrastructure, enforce security zones, and perform high interest
vessel escorts in strategic ports throughout the Nation. This
initiative also provides additional boat crews and screening personnel
at key LNG hubs such as Baltimore, MD and Providence, RI to enhance LNG
tanker and waterside security.
In addition, in the President's Budget, the Armed Helicopter for
Homeland Security Project increases by $17.4 million. These funds will
provide equipment and aircraft modifications to establish armed
helicopter capability at five USCG Air Stations. This will provide the
USCG and DHS with the tools needed to respond quickly and forcefully to
emergency maritime threats. A total of $19.9 million is included in the
Budget for this project. Finally, the Response Boat-Medium Project
increases by $10 million the effort to replace the USCG's 41-foot
utility boats and other large non-standard boats with assets more
capable of meeting all of the USCG's multi-mission operational
requirements. A total of $22 million is proposed in the Budget for this
effort.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest
investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is
responsible for identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities in the
Nation's border, economic, transportation and infrastructure security.
The President's Budget seeks a 13.5 percent budget increase for ICE,
including increasing the Detention and Removal program by $176 million.
For the Temporary Worker program, the Budget seeks to more than double
the resources available for worksite enforcement including employer
audits, investigations of possible violations and criminal case
presentations. An increase of $18 million is proposed in the Budget for
this effort. The President's Budget seeks a total of $688.9 million for
ICE's Federal Air Marshal Service. This funding will allow ICE to
protect air security and promote public confidence in our Nation's
civil aviation system.
The Department's fiscal year 2006 Budget includes several other
funding enhancements for law enforcement, including:
--The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's (FLETC) budget
increases by $2.7 million for Simulator Training Technology to
teach officers and agents how to avoid collisions and reduce
the dangers associated with pursuit driving.
--Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDO)/Crew Member Self-Defense (CMSD)
Training is increased by $11 million in fiscal year 2006. This
allows for the expansion of the semi-annual firearm re-
qualification program for FFDO personnel and to fund the first
full year of the CMSD training program. A total of $36.3
million is included for FFDO/CMSD in the Budget.
--Enhancing law enforcement training through co-location of the Coast
Guard's Maritime Law Enforcement Training program with the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, increasing maritime
law enforcement training throughput and promoting better
coordination among field activities with other Federal, State,
and local agencies.
IMPROVING NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
Though the primary mission is to protect the Nation from terrorism,
the Department's responsibilities are diverse. No DHS effort has a
greater scope, reach and impact upon the citizens across the United
States than our efforts to prepare the Nation to respond to major acts
of terror or natural disaster. This Budget continues to support the
President's homeland security directives that establish the methods and
means by which our Nation prepares for and responds to critical
incidents. Since its establishment, the Department has, and continues
to provide, an unprecedented level of financial support to the State,
local, and tribal governments and to certain private sector entities.
The Budget builds on these efforts and proposes significant resources
to provide direct financial assistance to our Nation's first
responders, emergency managers, and citizen volunteers. There are
several initiatives in the Budget geared towards improving national
preparedness and response.
The fiscal year 2006 budget continues to support the Nation's first
responders and seeks a total of $3.6 billion to support first-responder
terrorism preparedness grants, administered by the Office of State and
Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, with better targeting
to high-threat areas facing the greatest risk and vulnerability. This
funding will support State and local agencies as they equip, train,
exercise, and assess preparedness for major emergencies, especially
acts of terrorism. While there may be gaps in State and local
capabilities, we believe special emphasis must be given to
communications interoperability, catastrophic planning, WMD awareness,
critical infrastructure protection, and cross-jurisdictional/regional
cooperation and interaction.
For fiscal year 2006, the President's Budget proposes $20 million
for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) enhanced
catastrophic disaster planning. This funding will support catastrophic
incident response and recovery planning and exercises. FEMA will work
with States and localities, as well as other Federal agencies to
develop and implement plans that will improve the ability of Federal,
State, or local governments to respond to and to recover from
catastrophic disasters quickly and effectively. FEMA will address the
unique challenges a catastrophic disaster situation poses, including
food and shelter, transportation, decontamination and long term housing
needs.
On October 1, 2004, the Department of Homeland Security launched
the Office of Interoperability and Compatibility designed to help State
and local public safety practitioners improve communications
interoperability. The Office of Interoperability and Compatibility
(OIC), part of the Science & Technology directorate, oversees the wide
range of public safety interoperability programs and efforts currently
spread across Homeland Security. These programs address critical
interoperability issues relating to public safety and emergency
response, including communications, equipment, training, and other
areas as needs are identified. The OIC allows the Department to expand
its leadership role in interoperable communications that could be used
by every first responder agency in the country. The OIC has currently
identified three program areas: Communications, Equipment, and
Training. With $20.5 million in fiscal year 2006, the OIC will plan and
begin to establish the training and equipment programs, as well as
continue existing communication interoperability efforts through the
SAFECOM Program.
The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget for the Department proposes
other enhancements to improve our national preparedness and response,
including:
--Replacement of the USCG's High Frequency (HF) Communications
System. Funded at $10 million in the Budget, this system will
replace unserviceable, shore-side, high power high frequency
transmitters, significantly improving longrange maritime safety
and security communications.
--The Budget increases Cyber Security to enhance the U.S. Computer
Emergency Preparedness Team (US-CERT), a 24/7 cyber threat
watch, warning, and response capability that would identify
emerging threats and vulnerabilities and coordinate responses
to major cyber security incidents. An increase of $5 million is
proposed, bringing the program total to $73.3 million.
--The Rescue 21 project is funded at $101 million in the Budget to
continue recapitalizing the Coast Guard's coastal zone
communications network. This funding will complete system
infrastructure and network installations in 11 regions and
begin development of regional designs for the remaining 14
regions.
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY
Rapid advances in technological capability are allowing the
Department personnel to protect the homeland more efficiently and
effectively across many components. To prepare the Nation to counter
any WMD threat--threats from CBRNE substances--this Budget includes an
increase for new initiatives that support research and development to
counter these weapons and their potentially devastating effects.
First, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) is being
established as a joint national office to protect the Nation from
radiological and nuclear threats. This office will consolidate
functions within DHS and establish strong interagency linkages for the
deployment of a national domestic nuclear detection architecture, the
conduct of transformational research and development (R&D), and the
establishment of protocols and training for the end users of equipment
developed and deployed through the new office. The DNDO will integrate
domestic nuclear detection efforts undertaken by individual Federal
agencies, State and local governments, and the private sector and be
closely linked with international nuclear detection efforts. A total of
$227.3 million is requested for this effort in fiscal year 2006.
Second, TSA's emerging checkpoint technology is enhanced by $43.7
million in fiscal year 2006 to direct additional resources to improve
checkpoint explosives screening. This request responds to the 9/11
Commission Report's finding that investments in technology may be the
most powerful way to improve screening effectiveness and priority
should be given to explosive detection at airport checkpoints for
higher risk passengers immediately. This new equipment assures that TSA
is on the cutting edge, ahead of the development of increasingly well-
disguised prohibited items. This proposed increase will result in
investing more than $100 million in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year
2006 for new technology to ensure improved screening of all higher risk
passengers.
In addition, to improve TSA's information technology network, the
President's Budget includes $174 million to complete installation of
High Speed Operational Connectivity (Hi-SOC) to passenger and baggage
screening checkpoints to improve management of screening system
performance. Within the Screening and Coordination Office, funding is
sought for the Secure Flight and Crew Vetting programs--an increase of
$49 million to field the system developed and tested in fiscal year
2005. The funds will support testing information systems, connectivity
to airlines and screen systems and daily operations. This also includes
an increase of $3.3 million for crew vetting.
Third, the President's Budget also proposes additional funding for
two critical Department programs--the Homeland Secure Data Network
(HSDN) and the Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC). For fiscal
year 2006, the Budget includes $37 million for HSDN. This funding will
streamline and modernize the classified data capabilities in order to
facilitate high quality and high value classified data communication
and collaboration. Funding for the HSOC is increased by $26.3 million,
bringing its fiscal year 2006 funded level to $61.1 million. This
includes an increase of $13.4 million for the Homeland Security
Information Network (HSIN) and an increase of $12.9 million to enhance
HSOC systems and operations. The funding will provide the HSOC with
critical tools for sharing both classified and unclassified information
and situational awareness with Federal, State, local and tribal
governments.
Fourth, a key element of the Department's Maritime Security
Strategy is to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), leveraging
technology to improve sharing of accurate information, intelligence,
and knowledge of vessels, cargo, crews and passengers, mitigating
threats to the security, safety, economy, or environment of the United
States. The fiscal year 2006 budget funds several key MDA initiatives,
including $29.1 million for the nationwide Automatic Identification
System (AIS) and $16.5 million to provide additional maritime patrol
aircraft flight hours in support of detection, surveillance and
tracking activities.
Finally, the Department is seeking additional technology
investments in other critical areas, such as:
--$20 million for developing a Low Volatility Agent Warning. This
system will serve as the basis for a warning and identification
capability against a set of chemical agents whose vapor
pressure is too low to be detected by conventional measures;
--Increasing Counter-Man Portable Air Defense Systems funding by $49
million to a total of $110 million in the Budget. This program
will continue to promote the viability of technical
countermeasures for commercial aircraft against the threat of
shoulder-fired missiles by improving reliability and
affordability.
CREATING A 21ST CENTURY DEPARTMENT
The Department has made significant progress in strengthening the
management of its business processes from inception to implementation.
The Office of the Under Secretary for Management focuses its efforts on
the oversight, integration and optimization of the Department's human
capital, information technology, financial management, procurement and
administrative operations. Over the past year, this office has made
strides in designing, planning, and supporting new standards for
business processes and resource allocation in order to achieve a
cohesive organization while ensuring maximum return on investment. This
organization is focused on establishing the overall framework,
developing management methods, and monitoring the progress of each
management function.
Examples of major enterprise initiatives included in the Budget
that contribute to Creating A 21st Century Department include the
following:
--The program for electronically managing enterprise resources for
government effectiveness and efficiency--or eMerge2--to
continue implementation of a DHS-wide solution that delivers
accurate, relevant and timely resource management information
to decision makers. The Budget includes $30 million for this
program. By delivering access to critical information across
all components, the Department will be able to better support
its many front-line activities. It focuses on the areas of
accounting and reporting, acquisition and grants management,
cost and revenue performance management, asset management and
budget that will be integrated with MAX HR.
--MAX HR funding of $53 million involves designing and deploying a
new human resources system. The $53 million is requested to
support the development and deployment of the new HR personnel
system as published in the Federal Register on February 1,
2005. These funds will be used to fund the detailed system
design for our labor relations and pay-for-performance
programs, provide appropriate training and communication for
our managers and employees and to provide proper program
evaluation and oversight. In this effort, our goal is to create
a 21st Century personnel system that is flexible and
contemporary while preserving basic civil service principles
and the merit system.
--The Information Sharing and Collaboration (ISC) program will affect
the policy, procedures, technical, business processes,
cultural, and organizational aspects of information sharing and
collaboration, including coordinating ISC policy with other
Federal agencies, drafting technical and operational needs
statements, performing policy assessments, and analyzing new
requirements. The total funding for fiscal year 2006 will be
$16.482 million.
These initiatives will help move the Department toward an efficient
and effective shared services environment, avoiding duplication of
effort across the program areas.
CONCLUSION
Two years ago, Congress and the President took on the enormous
undertaking of creating a new Department whose central mission would be
to secure the homeland. Under Secretary Ridge's leadership, the
entities that now comprise the Department of Homeland Security unified
under this overarching goal. As I have become acquainted with the many
talented people of the Department, I am impressed by all that they have
accomplished thus far. But there is no time to pat ourselves on the
back.
As the Department initiates our second stage review, organizes
around missions, eliminates duplications, and adopts a risk-based
approach, we must identify our crosscutting functions and ensure that
we are thinking innovatively how to best exploit our intelligence
capabilities, develop policy functions, execute our operational tasks,
and implement our long-range preparedness planning.
I thank the Congress for its support, which has been critical in
bringing us to this point. I am grateful to be here today to talk about
the work we are doing to make America a safer home for us, for our
children and generations to come. Thank you for inviting me to appear
before you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
NUMBER OF BORDER PATROL AGENTS NEEDED
Senator Gregg. It is hard to know exactly where to begin,
because there are a lot of issues here. But let me begin with
some of the higher priority items as I see them. And I
congratulate you on the risk management approach. I think
threat is the issue to finding threat and then responding to
it.
Clearly, one of the priority issues from the standpoint of
threat is who is coming into the country and where they are
when they get here, and who they are when they come across.
There have been a whole lot of amendments floated this week on
expanding the number of border patrol agents. I actually asked
the folks down at border patrol if they had an assessment as to
how many agents they needed and where they needed them, and I
was told that, no, they did not.
I found that to be a startling fact, in the sense that I
would have presumed that there has been a study done within the
last 2 years as to where the agents are needed and to what
numbers are needed. Obviously, there has been a significant
movement of agents to the northern border.
I guess my question is: How many border patrol agents do we
need and where do we need them----
Secretary Chertoff. Well, again----
Senator Gregg [continuing]. In comparison to where we are
today? Congress has, as you know, required an increase of
agents by 2,000 each year for a 5-year period.
Secretary Chertoff. I know that in the Intelligence Reform
Act authorizations were put in place for 2,000, going forward.
The President's 2006 budget looks for an increase of slightly
more than 200.
I can tell you, because I have sat with Border Patrol, that
we do have a comprehensive picture of where we need to deploy
our resources. We had an Arizona Border Control Initiative last
year, which was successful. This year, I guess about a month
ago, we rolled out a follow-up to that initiative, and in
talking with Commissioner Bonner and the other leaders of the
Border Patrol about how to do that, they took a very unified
approach to figuring out where the sectors of the border where
we are now seeing the greatest penetration.
How do we deploy not only Border Patrol at the front line,
but technology, and also a capability to transport people that
we apprehend and bring them back in a way that does not pull
people off the line in order to drive them several hours back
to Tucson.
How do we use checkpoints? How do we use investigative
resources to target organizations? And also, frankly, how do we
work with the Mexicans on their side of the border to see that
they are doing things to attack these human trafficking
organizations.
So I do think that we have a comprehensive plan about
dealing with the issue of deploying resources in a unified----
TRAINING OF BORDER PATROL AGENTS
Senator Gregg. But is 2,000 the right number, a year? And
can you train--how many people can you train--let us say we
actually funded 2,000, which clearly we are not going to do,
but we are going to significantly increase the funding. In
fact, Senator Byrd has a proposal to do that, which I presume
he is going to offer within the next day or so, and increase
border patrol agents.
STATUS OF TECHNOLOGY IN USE ON THE BORDERS AND DETENTION SPACE
How many agents can you train? And two, what's the status
of the unmanned vehicle program and did it work? And if it did
work, why is the line basically being shut down? And three,
what's the status of the electronic surveillance in the
cameras? And four, how many detention beds do we need? We hear
about a lot of people being sent home who are criminals and who
should probably be detained permanently here to make sure they
do not come back to commit further criminal acts? How short are
we on the detention bed area?
Secretary Chertoff. I might forget all this, so if I do, I
mean to come back. I'll give you the answer. With respect to
training, obviously, the President's budget talks about 210. We
can certainly train and assimilate that. I do not know that
this is the limiting number in training, but I would also be
inclined to agree, I doubt we could train 2,000 even if one had
2,000.
Certainly, we can train and deploy the 210 that we have
asked for on top of whatever we are replacing in terms of
attrition.
The UAV program, as I understand, did work well. We are
currently working now to begin the process of procuring UAVs.
We would like to get that done in a matter of months and start
to put UAVs up and have them flying over the border.
Now I don't think we can rely exclusively on UAVs. I think
that sometimes you need manned vehicles and you need
helicopters. But I think it was generally viewed as a positive
program, and we are in the process of getting the RFIs and RFPs
out in order to make sure that that gets done.
As far as detention beds are concerned, again, the budget
contemplates adding some additional beds. I do want, I guess,
to address an issue which seems to come up a lot when we talk
about releasing people. The fact of the matter is, we do not
detain every single illegal person that we apprehend. And
frankly, I have to say, as a graduate of the criminal justice
system, neither does the criminal justice system.
Most people who are arrested in States all over the country
get released on bond. What everybody does, whether they are
criminal justice people or people in the immigration areas, is
prioritize. And I do think we are working very hard to make
sure that the people who are mandatory detainees are being
detained and that we have adequate beds to do that.
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
Senator Gregg. And the camera situation that allows
electronic surveillance on the borders?
Secretary Chertoff. I beg your pardon?
Senator Gregg. The camera situation relative to electronic
surveillance. I mean there was a contract let that appears did
not work and now I guess they are trying again. What is the
status on it?
Secretary Chertoff. I gather, and I think this is under
investigation, there was a contract let and there were some
problems with the procurement process. This goes back a number
of years. The procurement phase of that contract is over.
Obviously, we are maintaining.
My understanding is that as a general rule the surveillance
stuff does work well. Obviously, we have maintenance issues. We
are now going to begin the second stage of that, which is the
America Shield Initiative, where we are sending out RFIs and
RFPs to begin the process of acquiring technology.
Obviously, we are going to learn something from the
procurement problems in the last round that go back several
years, but again, it is a very good technology. I mean the idea
of using cameras and remote sensors does work. As long as we
get, you know, the right contractor and the right equipment,
and it is handled in a cost-effective manner, I think that is a
very promising way to go about handling it.
Senator Gregg. Well, maybe you could have your staff tell
us whether or not--we know we had the wrong contract. We spent
a lot of money.
Secretary Chertoff. Right.
Senator Gregg. We bought cameras that did not work.
Supposedly, this has been corrected. We would like to get some
specifics on that.
Secretary Chertoff. We will get back to you on it.
[The information follows:]
Background on GSA Basic Purchasing Agreement With IMC
The Remote Video Surveillance project was formed in 1998 to install
camera systems mounted on poles or towers near the U.S. Border. These
cameras would transmit video images back to a control room where a Law
Enforcement Control Agent (LECA) could view the images and dispatch
Border Patrol agents as necessary.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service's Office of Information
Resource Management (OIRM) managed the RVS program. From its beginning,
the OIRM faced tremendous pressure to get RVS poles installed or face
losing their funding. At first, the OIRM administered the RVS Project
through a series of individual purchase orders with various
contractors. OIRM would give bills of material (BOMB) to NTMI, a GSA
FAST contractor, for the equipment needed for the installations. NTMI
would procure the equipment and store it until needed for an
installation. Chugash was the contractor used to install the poles,
cameras and monitors. IMC was the contractor used to install the
microwave transmission equipment.
A competition was conducted in 1999 in order to increase
accountability for the installations and to obtain volume discounts for
the equipment involved. GSA considered four companies for this award:
the three listed above and Hazmed, a contractor that has assisted OIRM
in managing the purchase orders for the other three contractors and
that had core competencies in the area of installing electronics
systems. IMC was selected as the contractor in March 1999 and given an
initial task valued at $2 Million.
In November of 2000, in an effort to optimize procurement
procedures, OIRM and GSA agreed to convert the GSA schedule award to a
Blanket Purchasing Agreement (BPA). The rationale for the BPA was that
it would ``further decrease costs, reduce paperwork, and save time by
eliminating the need for repetitive individual purchases from the
Schedule contract.'' \1\ The end result was to ``create a purchasing
mechanism for the Government that works better and costs less.'' \2\
The hope was that the reduction of costs would allow for funds to
accelerate deployment of additional RVS systems.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The Immigration and Naturalization Service Integrated
Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS) Equipment and Services Blanket
Purchase Agreement (BPA) between GSA Federal Technology Service (FTS/
FAST) Region 5 and the International Microwave Corporation Team,
GS05KR01BMC0001, dated November 8, 2000, page 2 of 12.
\2\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation of RVS sites was completed in three phases. The first
phase involved administrative preparation (i.e., environmental
assessments, rights of entry (ROE), real estate issues, permits, and
survey activities). Phase I activities generally required between 16
and 18 months to complete. However, there were often issues with access
to the land desired for the surveillance site, or environmental
assessments, which caused greater delays.
The second phase of the installation involved groundbreaking
activities such as installing foundations and poles, assembling and
populating platforms, installing power, aligning equipment and radios,
and installing equipment shelters. This phase took between 3 and 6
months.
The third and final phase lasted approximately 1 month. It involved
installation of the cameras, transmission lines, consoles, other
related electronics and the build out of control rooms. Finally, after
completing build out of the control room and successful integration
testing, the Border Patrol agents would begin using the RVS system. The
timeframe for an average RVS installation varied between 20 and 25
months. $239 Million was allocated to GSA for the RVS BPA.
Approximately $220 Million was expended by the contractor during its
term, which ended on September 30, 2004. At that time there were 248
completed RVS sites. Since that time, six more sites have become
operational for a total of 254 sites. The Border Patrol is working with
GSA and the contractor to finalize the credits due back to the
government for incomplete installations.
Currently the Headquarters Office of Border Patrol's Integrated
Project Team is seeking contractor support to complete the installation
of 21 Phase III RVS sites partially installed by L-3 Communications
Corporation. Government furnished equipment bought under the terms of
the BPA will be used to complete the 21 sites. The Headquarters Office
of Border Patrol projects these 21 sites will be completed by the end
of calendar year 2005.
Senator Gregg. I think I have certainly used up my time,
although this clock does not seem to be working correctly.
But in any event, Senator Byrd, did you want to make an
opening statement or pursue questions? It is--obviously, the
floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD
Senator Byrd. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, you and the
179,000 employees in your Department are to be commended for
your efforts to preserve our freedoms and secure our homeland.
I applaud Chairman Judd Gregg for taking on the challenge of
chairing this subcommittee.
His predecessor, Senator Thad Cochran, did a superlative
job as chairman. Under Chairman Cochran, this subcommittee
worked on a bipartisan basis to provide the Department of
Homeland Security with resources to fill critical gaps in our
security. Of course, you should know, and I am sure you do
know, Mr. Secretary, that Chairman Gregg brings excellent
credentials to this task.
As a former governor, he understands that simply setting a
policy in Washington does not automatically make that policy a
success. We have to work effectively with State and local
governments and with the private sector to protect the
homeland.
Years before the tragic events of September 11, Chairman
Gregg led the way by funding State and local antiterrorism
programs. He authored provisions for training and equipping
first responders for chemical and biological attacks.
In fact, if you want to meet the father of the Office of
Domestic Preparedness, the predecessor to your office of State
and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, I am
sitting right next to him, on my left, today.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to our partnership on this
subcommittee, and I thank you for taking on this assignment.
I thank you, Mr. Secretary, also. As the Secretary of
Homeland Security, you are responsible for a critical balancing
act. We are a Nation that thrives on liberty, but 9/11 taught
us that we also must invest in our security. I hope that you
will work with the Congress to make sure as much as possible
that your Department promotes our security without sacrificing
our liberty.
I wrote to you on March 2 to express my dismay that the
President's budget fails to fund the border security
investments authorized by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 which he signed into law on December 17
of last year.
That Act authorizes the hiring of 2,000 new border patrol
agents per year for 5 years, the hiring of an additional 800
immigration investigators per year for 5 years to enforce our
immigration laws, and the funding of 8,000 new detention beds
for the holding of illegal aliens.
BUDGET AMENDMENT
I urged you to work with the White House to propose a
budget amendment seeking resources to increase security on our
borders and to enforce our immigration laws. Despite the
statements by Secretary of State Rice and former Homeland
Security Deputy Secretary Loy that al Qaeda is a threat on our
porous borders, there is virtually nothing in the President's
budget to provide these additional resources for border
security.
According to Former Deputy DHS Secretary James M. Loy, when
testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
about threats to the United States, ``Current intelligence
strongly suggest that al Qaeda has considered using the
southwest border to infiltrate the United States.'' According
to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ``we are all concerned
about terrorists and how they might use our very long and
porous borders. The terrorists are going to keep trying.
They're going to keep trying on our southern border. They're
going to keep trying on our northern border.''
So, I could not help but be disappointed to read your
response to my letter yesterday that no budget amendment would
be forthcoming.
The threat to our security is clear. The holes in our
borders are well known. I look forward to hearing from you on
this and other issues today. I thank you, and I thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I thank all the Senators.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Senator Byrd, and thank you for
your generous comments. Did you wish to proceed with questions
at this time?
Senator Byrd. Would you please have someone else go and
then call on me at your leisure.
Senator Gregg. All right.
Well, then I think I would turn to Senator Feinstein, I
believe, was the first member of your party here.
Senator Byrd. Very Well.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to say, Judge Chertoff, that at least for this
Senator you are so far a breath of fresh air, and I am
delighted to say that. I just want to publicly thank you for
your response of April 6 in the use of fraudulent passports,
stolen or lost passports, which is a big problem.
I know that from the intelligence committee. And your
letter was no-nonsense, and it set forward very directly what
the Department is prepared to do. I, for one, will certainly
hold you to it.
And I am very pleased that you share my concerns about the
visa waiver program, and indicated, you know, that you share
the findings of the critical reports that have been done, and
that you have established a visa waiver program oversight unit.
So I look forward to--my understanding is that you are probably
going to come in asking for another extension on the visa
waiver program.
My vote, as you know, is conditioned on getting the
management act together in that unit, which critical reports
have said has been in disrepair for some time. So I just wanted
to say that.
BORDER PATROL
I want to follow up on what the chairman said on the border
patrol. The expansion of the border patrol is not really just
the recommendation of the 9/11 committee. Those of us on the
judiciary committee have recommended this for a long, long
time, and specifically, the border reform and visa entry law
recommended an enhanced border.
As you know, 600 agents have retired this past year. So on
a four-to-one basis, whether the 210 additional agents is
actually going to provide you with a net gain or not, I think,
is somewhat dubious, and I am really concerned about it. The
position of the border patrol on 2,000 agents, going back 6
years, has always been they do not need them, they do not have
the room to train them. I mean this goes on year after year
after year. The time has come to fish or cut bait. That is no
longer, I think, a justifiable response.
Bills have called for this. The President says he calls for
it. Although, only 210 will not do it. I would like to get your
real answer to this, because on the southwest border, other
than Mexican intrusions have gone from 22,000 in 2002 to 88,000
in 2004. This clearly indicates that the southwest border is
being utilized as a point of major penetration into this
country by other than Mexicans. If you look at the list of
apprehensions made from countries that are terrorist States,
there are numbers there as well.
So I have a hard time, in view of the Minutemen coming on
the Arizona border, the remonstratives made by this Congress
over and over and over again as to why there cannot be a net
large increase in border control. This is something I think we
are willing to pay for. This is something that I think we would
be willing to add. And yet, year after year it is the same kind
of 200, which does not make even for retirements. Could you
respond, please?
VISA WAIVER
Secretary Chertoff. Well, first let me begin by just, if I
can, for a moment go back to your visa waiver point. I mean as
I think you indicated, Senator, I share your concern. We have
to look at the border as a whole and make sure we are
addressing every possible point of entry. And I certainly
intend to hold the Department to what I have indicated to in
the letter we need to do to make sure----
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Secretary Chertoff [continuing]. Our end is up. And I have
spoken to our foreign partners and talked about the importance
and I have spoken personally to them about the importance of
making sure they have their house in order in terms of tracking
and getting us information on this, and ultimately moving to a
biometric passport that is resistant to the kind of alteration
or counterfeiting, which is obviously a vulnerability.
SOUTHWEST BORDER CONTROL
The southwest border, obviously, is a concern as well. As I
understand it, what we are proposing to do in the budget is a
net increase of 210 border patrol agents, which would fill
those that are leaving and fund an additional 210.
Senator Feinstein. So if I may, that means 810 new border
agents?
Secretary Chertoff. I do not----
Senator Feinstein. Six hundred have retired.
Secretary Chertoff. I think new. As I understand it, new
means over and above what we currently have, the funding level
we have. So that we will wind up at the end of the day with--
and I cannot do the math in my head, but I guess there is
approximately 10,800 currently. We would be adding about 200.
That should include backfilling for positions that are becoming
vacant. I mean that is keeping the funding level steady and
then adding 210.
So that is what we contemplate, in addition to which we
want to be able to bear the UAVs. As I told Chairman Gregg, we
want to acquire those and start to put those up. I think that
was a successful pilot program, no pun intended. And we do want
to do more with sensors, which, again, notwithstanding the
contracting issues, apparently, several years ago, we think the
idea of the sensors and the usefulness of sensors is proven. So
we have an America Shield initiative and we are in the process
of setting out RFIs in order to start acquiring that technology
and deploying it.
This is obviously an issue that we have to constantly look
at. I am going to go down to the border at some point in the
next month or two. I want to see for myself how we are doing
down there, and what additional things we can do. We have
redeployed agents down to the Arizona border to deal with the
issue of a surge of people coming across.
I totally agree with the principle that this is a paramount
responsibility of ours, and I am going to be spending a lot of
personal time focused on it.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you.
Senator Gregg. Senator Craig.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR LARRY CRAIG
Senator Craig. Mr. Secretary, like all of us, let me
welcome you to the committee, and let me also speak, as others
have, about our belief that you are the person who can get the
job done.
At the same time, let me not sound like a broken record,
but let me repeat what has been said here by both our chairman,
our ranking member, and certainly the Senator from California.
I am going to focus on our southwestern border again.
Because I have been a bit outspoken about immigration
policy and changes in it, and I actually led the Senate in
debate for the last 2 days on it, I have also been given a lot
of attention by those who might criticize any form of policy
change, but most importantly, it has led to a lot of
conversations about border. And it has allowed me to focus more
intently on border. Because I will tell you, if we cannot
control our border, we will never be able to write immigration
policy that works. We will always be playing catch-up to an
ever increasing number of illegals in our country.
The Senator from California and I have discussed this at
length. Probably every one on this committee today has a
slightly different opinion about how we handle the problem, but
I think we are all in concert about how we handle the border.
So my folks in Idaho say build a fence high and build it
strong, and spare no cost. Now there are a variety of ways to
build the fence, and you're exploring all of them, but there
are also not just the physicalnesses of it and all of the tools
that we are going to acquire and should acquire to control that
border.
There are other issues as to who is there and how they
handle process and movement. We have got this interesting
situation. Yuma, Arizona. A lot of folks live on the other side
of the border, but work across in Yuma. They harvest lettuce.
Your folks were out there a few weeks ago rounding them all up
early in the morning to come back across the border, because
many of them were undocumented illegals. But by 2 o'clock in
the afternoon they were back in the fields harvesting the
lettuce.
The crisis of the harvest was over, but the reality was
that a great deal of border movement occurred during that day.
And in that movement, there could have been someone that meant
to do this country harm, not just to pluck lettuce from the
fields of Yuma, Arizona. And that is something we have to get
under control, both sides of that issue.
So let me give you a dialogue that I had with a young man
who sought me out because of my position on this committee last
year, a very frustrated member of the intelligence community.
He and his group were prevented from apprehending suspects at
the border because of strict guidelines and the chain of
command, even though it was his group's responsibility to
collect the intelligence.
His group had gathered immediate intelligence regarding
certain aspects and actions needed to take immediate action.
However, because of the chain of command and the hamstringing
that resulted, certain intelligence agents, this intelligence
officer had to sit and watch while suspects possibly crossed
the border.
These were not Hispanics. These, by all appearances, were
people of Arabic descent. They were believed to be terrorists.
And yet the outcome still today is who is on first and who is
second and who is in control. And in that fight, people are
crossing our borders at an unprecedented rate.
And while we can talk about the money we have spent, and I
did on the floor yesterday, billions of dollars, with a ``B,''
and we apprehended a 1,750,000 or 1.2 million last year, or
something like that. Big numbers. It demonstrates one thing
when we are apprehending them, that they got across.
And I cannot imagine that when someone is illegal, by
definition, and they are apprehended, that they are turned
loose. At least take them to the border and shove them across.
Do not say, ``Well, they will come back.'' They do not come
back.
All of us are going to be able to control this process, and
I am going to keep pushing for changes in the law that are
realistic and that work. But all of a sudden the Senator from
California and I are engaged in conversation, and I say my
proposal will affect 500,000 or 600,000 or 700,000, and she
says, ``No, it will not. It is millions.''
I do not know whether she is right or I am right. We may
both be right in some ways. But we do know there is a huge
problem. Enough said.
I guess my question is: Go to the border. Look it over. Get
to understand it. It is unique in a variety of ways. And
lastly, I was in Houston, Texas, over the weekend. I was
visiting with a former State judge, who said to me very
directly, there is a clear understanding in Texas that the laws
are not going to be enforced because they are unenforceable.
And I am talking about border laws.
BORDER PROBLEMS
Now if that is the name of the game along the border, we
have got a huge problem that you must get your hands around and
get it under control. I agree with the Senator from West
Virginia. I am a co-sponsor of his amendment to pull money in
this emergency supplemental to give you more. Either build the
fence or we do something that causes that border crossing to
stop. How do we do it?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, first of all, Senator, there are
a number of things you raise, and I hope I keep them in mind so
I can address them all. I think it is important, as you say, to
look at this as a comprehensive issue, not an issue you can
deal with in terms of individual slices of policy.
TEMPORARY WORKER PROGRAM
Clearly, one piece of this is the issue of what the
President has advocated addressing through a temporary worker
program, finding a way to bring some portion of the people who
come across the border not to do us harm, but to work, to bring
them within the system.
Senator Craig. Very important.
STEPPED UP ENFORCEMENT ALONG THE BORDER
Secretary Chertoff [continuing]. So that we have some
control over them, and also we then reduce the pressure and we
reduce the demand which gives the trafficking organizations the
kind of resources they need to bring bad people across the
border. Now that is one piece of a comprehensive package.
Another piece has to be stepped up, enforcement along the
border, including better deployment and more efficient
deployment of border patrol, use of technology to give us a
better span of control over who is coming across the border.
Absolutely, the idea that there are laws that are tacitly
not going to be enforced is dead wrong, and something certainly
I do not endorse.
When you talk about chain of command issues interfering
with somebody apprehending persons coming across illegally, I
have to say, I mean if there are bureaucratic obstacles to
enforce in the law, I want to get rid of those. I have spoken
to Border Patrol and to Commissioner Bonner about, in fact,
breaking down the stove pipes that I think used to be. We used
to have very regionally controlled, border sector controlled
deployment of resources so that you had seams between the
regions. Everybody took the view that, hey, I am going to worry
about my region and that is all I am going to worry about.
We have now moved away from that. Commissioner Bonner has
put together a much more nimble program for deploying
resources, which I think, again, is trying to break down those
stove pipes. When I hear about these kinds of bureaucratic
things, I do want to go out and see what the problem is and try
to fix it.
This problem has been around for a long time. When I was
U.S. attorney back in the early Nineties we were talking about
this. So I know it is not a new problem. I know there is a new
urgency. And I think although there is a lot to discuss in
terms of detail, I think there is a general view we have to
take a comprehensive approach. And I really look forward to
working with you and with everybody who is interested in this
in putting together a comprehensive policy.
Senator Craig. Thank you.
Senator Gregg. Thank you. Senator Murray.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATTY MURRAY
Senator Murray. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here today. You
have been handed a very, very difficult job, and I commend
Senator Gregg for his opening statement and agree we need an
honest assessment from you of what resources we need for all of
these difficult challenges.
PORT SECURITY
I think everybody here shares the same goal of doing
everything we can to make sure our country is secure and it is
always difficult when we feel like we are not getting what we
really need. We have heard a lot about border security. I
obviously am concerned about the northern border. I know all
200 of those, plus, are going to the southern border. We know
that the northern border is a problem, but let me set that
aside, because I want to focus on port security and cargo
security, which you and I have had some time to talk about.
I am very concerned. The Coast Guard commandant testified
before us that it would take more than $7 billion to implement
the Maritime Transportation Security Act. So far, Congress has
provided a little over $500 million of that. I do not think any
of that was requested by the Administration. That was Congress
adding those dollars in.
Now for the past 2 years, about a billion dollars in port
security grants have come in to your agency, and the American
Association of Ports Authorities say they need at least $400
million to help secure port facilities this year.
From our discussions I know port security is an important
issue for you. You understand it is not only human life. It is
economic disaster if we do not secure our ports. But it is
disconcerting to me that the Administration does not ask for
the dollars for these port security grants.
Does the Agency just discount all the intelligence reports
that tell us our ports are a significant risk, or what can we
expect on this?
Secretary Chertoff. No. I mean I do think ports are a very
significant part of the infrastructure we have to work to
protect. One thing I want to emphasize: You know, as we go
through this process of reviewing the entire operation of the
Department over the next couple of months, I try to look at the
issue, whether it be ports or rail or aviation, in terms of an
outcome or an approach.
In other words, I don't want to know what each agency is
doing. I want to know what we are doing in combination to deal
with the issue of ports or rail or aviation, because that gives
us our total sense of how good we are doing or how well we are
doing in protecting ourselves.
There are a number of dimensions to this. First of all,
there is container security. We have begun a container security
initiative, which pushes our screening and inspection process
overseas. That is a very positive----
Senator Murray. Well, I want to ask you about that
separately in just a minute. What I want to ask you about first
of all, is the port security--under the Maritime Transportation
Security Act, our ports have to harden the ports, and they are
just not getting the resources to do that.
Secretary Chertoff. We want to make sure they get adequate
resources, bearing in mind, again, with the philosophy of risk
management, that we have to prioritize.
Senator Murray. But the Administration is not requesting
any money to do that, despite the fact that the commandant of
the Coast Guard told us we needed $7 billion to do that.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I do think we have money in
various grant programs that are requested in the budget that
are available to be used for purposes of strengthening ports.
We have infrastructure, proposing an infrastructure protection
program. We have State grants. We have urban assisted--UASI
grants.
We have a lot of different kinds of types of grants, but I
also have to say I think that the issue of how we protect the
ports has to be looked at comprehensively. Coast Guard plays a
role in that. Private parties play a role in that, and have----
Senator Murray. I understand that----
Secretary Chertoff [continuing]. Private obligations.
Senator Murray [continuing]. But under the Maritime
Security Act we directed all of these ports to give us a plan
of how they were going to protect their ports, which they did.
And they now have to implement it. They are not getting any
money to do it. And we need a direct targeted program, the Port
Security Grant program, to do that.
So I want to work with you on that. I am just disappointed
every time when the budget comes over with no money for that,
because as you and I both know, a disaster at one of our ports
is going to dramatically hurt not only human life, but the
economy of this country, whether you are in a port city or not.
CARGO SECURITY
But the other part of that is cargo security. And as you
know, I have been really pushing to get some kind of
coordinated port security regime in place. Everyone out there
is trying their best to move those ports out, to follow our
cargo from where they are loaded, into our ports here, and
there is no coordinated approach to that.
In the committee report from last year, we directed the
Undersecretary of Border and Transportation Security to help us
develop a plan for that coordinated approach. It was due
February 8. We still have not gotten that yet. And I just feel
like--we need the Administration--I have talked with you about
this. I have talked with Commissioner Bonner. I have talked
with a number of folks about it. And all we get is, ``We're
going to study this.'' I know that you and I agree this is an
important issue.
How can we help you come up with a coordinated approach to
secure our ports, all the cargo that moves through them, and
the people who work and live there?
Secretary Chertoff. Of course, I am very sensitive to
being--you know, not saying we are studying something. So let
me be a little bit more concrete.
Senator Murray. Thank you.
Secretary Chertoff. We need to take the issue of cargo and
container security to whatever is considered to be the next
level of systems sophistication. There are people in the
private world who are very, very good at tracking everything,
from point of departure to point of arrival. And there are
processes and technologies that allow us to do that. And that
is the kind of system we ought to be looking to moving toward
in our container security initiative.
CSI is part way towards that. The principle of moving this
overseas is a good step in that direction. We have been meeting
with, for example, the private sector, and shipping companies,
to talk about ways we might, with greater specificity, track
cargo from the time that it departs the manufacturer to the
time it gets to the point of arrival, working with the private
sector to have them build a security envelope.
And again, through the C-TPAT program, we have got that
process as a precedent. We do use that kind of process, so that
eventually what we can do is put as much of the cargo through a
security envelope from point of departure to point of arrival
as possible, track it, screen it, have private sector take a
lot of responsibility within that envelope for maintaining
security, use technology to make sure we are not getting
penetrations, and then, again, you are always going to have
some cargo that does not fit within that envelope.
We are deploying technologies like VACAS radiation portal
and our National Targeting Center to focus on that subset of
cargo that really needs a much tougher regime of screening and
inspection. So that, I think, this is the way forward. And I do
think we are working with a lot of diligence and a lot of
urgency to move into that next level.
PREPARED STATEMENT
Senator Murray. Well, I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, it
is a very complex problem. There are a lot of players in it,
and what I think is most disconcerting to me is that we do not
have a coordinated approach. Mr. Secretary, I hope we can get
that report from you that was due February 8 so that we can
really start moving forward to get that accomplished.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Patty Murray
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to join you, Senator Byrd, and the
rest of our colleagues in welcoming Secretary Chertoff to the
Committee.
Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with
me prior to your confirmation. We had a good discussion about many of
the issues we are going to talk about today.
I know that you are still new to the job and understand that this
budget request was formulated before you were nominated.
I also understand that you have been handed a tough task in a very
difficult time. But from our private conversations, I know that you are
committed to keeping our country safe--and I look forward to working
with you.
That being said, I fear this Administration--through this budget
request--is failing in this most important responsibility.
Mr. Secretary, as you are well aware, the Department you now lead
faces enormous challenges.
Concerns that DHS is not meeting the Nation's security challenges
are growing--in the Congress, and among the American public.
Don't get me wrong, in fact, I believe Secretary Ridge and Admiral
Loy did the best they could with the hand they were dealt.
Merging so many complex entities into one organization was a
monumental challenge. We all knew success wouldn't come overnight.
But many of DHS' problems were created by this Administration
because it didn't request adequate funding.
Mr. Secretary, the Administration has many priorities--we all do.
The bottom line is that current White House fiscal policy isn't
consistent with providing the resources DHS needs to provide the level
of security the American people deserve.
To compound this problem, DHS has spent what funding has been
available in a scattershot way. There appears to be very little rhyme
or reason to how funding is allocated compared with actual threats.
And, we are hearing about it on a daily basis.
Just this morning, we're reading newspaper reports about financial
mismanagement at TSA. I don't want to get into that now because I know
you'll have an opportunity to respond this morning.
But please know that it just makes it harder for us in Congress to
help DHS succeed.
Mr. Secretary, I want to work with you to ensure our budget will
actually deliver the security we both seek for our country.
But if we are going to work together, we need to be honest about
what resources are necessary to do your job and let the Congress worry
about budget priorities.
For example, adding to what I believe is already an insufficient
budget request, the Administration assumes user fees that we all
recognize are not going to be approved.
In fact--$2 billion of the $2.5 billion increase in the
Administration's request would come from a 60 percent increase in
airline passenger fees.
Fees placed on the back of an industry that we all know is having
significant financial difficulty.
Mr. Secretary, these ``proposals''--if not accepted by the
Committee--only make the funding problem worse.
As I'm sure you are aware, the Senate has included $276 million for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations bill.
This is funding that we all agree your agency desperately needs. In
fact, many of us have known about this issue for quite some time.
Last year, I asked Commissioner Bonner and ICE Assistant Secretary
Garcia about a news report highlighting a budget shortfall that would
result in a hiring freeze at ICE.
At that time, I was told the problem was an accounting error
resulting from combining budgets from legacy agencies.
Now it's clear that it was a real budget shortfall and the Senate
was forced to include this as new money--designated as an emergency--to
enable ICE to lift its hiring freeze.
Curiously, this money was not part of the Administration's
supplemental funding request.
Mr. Secretary, the Senate's action speaks volumes about how much we
want this agency to succeed, but we need the Administration's help.
We need realistic annual budget proposals--not reprogramming
requests and not emergency supplemental requests.
Mr. Chairman, I don't say this to denigrate the performance of any
of the hard working men and women who serve us so ably on the front
line. Like Secretary Chertoff's predecessor, they are doing a
tremendous job with the tools they are provided.
But, this Committee--and the Congress--must do a better job of
providing oversight to this agency because right now we are failing the
American public.
Mr. Secretary, I know that you, Chairman Gregg, Senator Byrd and
the rest of our colleagues care about these issues as much as I do.
And, I don't want to dwell on this too much--but I think it is
important context for the other specific issues that I'd like to
discuss here today.
I'm quite concerned that good intentions are not going to help us:
--Establish a rigorous port and cargo security regime,
--Protect our borders, or
--Train our personnel correctly
Mr. Secretary, I look forward to your testimony, working with you
to address these issues, and ensuring our budget will actually deliver
the security we both seek for our country.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Allard.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD
Senator Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I also would like to join my colleagues and welcome
Secretary Chertoff here this morning. I am also new to the
committee here, Mr. Secretary, and I am looking forward to
serving under the able chairmanship of Senator Gray.
I wonder sometimes if maybe we are not looking too much to
a Federal solution and perhaps should not think a little bit
more about what the local law enforcement along the borders.
That is the counties along the borders. It is the States along
the borders.
This is homeland security. Everybody is talking about more
money for Customs and more agents and whatnot, but I happen to
believe that those people down along the border that form the
Minutemen organization have some real concerns. I think they
are really concerned about their property. I think they are
really concerned about the safety of their families.
I do not know whether any thought has been in trying to do
more to support our local law enforcement along the borders.
They are local elected officials. They know about those things.
They understand the problems of their community. I wonder if we
should not do the same thing with the State. The governor is
elected by that State.
I wonder if we should not consider targeting those
counties, share with them more of the technology that we have
developed at the Federal level, and take citizen groups,
incorporate them. Deputize them. Have the local sheriff
deputize them or whatever, or have your National Guard or
whatever, bringing some responsibility.
I am not implying that they have not been responsible at
this particular point in time, but at least bring them under
some organized law enforcement thing that traditionally has
relied on citizens. That is why we have deputization process.
That is why we have the National Guard.
I wonder how much thought you have given to that, because
all I am hearing from this committee and all I am hearing so
far in this discussion is a Federal solution. I think we will
get a better bang for the buck. I mean they are worth a lower
salary level. They have more of a commitment in that safety
because they live there. I wonder if you would comment on that.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, we do work, actually, in the
Arizona border control initiative, we are working. We have had
a great working relationship with State and local law
enforcement officials now.
I guess depending on what community you are in, some law
enforcement officials want to be involved and engaged in the
process of enforcing the laws against illegal immigration. Some
do not. I do not think we can make them do it.
Clearly, though, we want to work cooperatively, because
they are a force multiplier. And when we get well trained and
we share information, and we get well-trained State and local
enforcement officials, they are a welcome addition to the
process of extending our ability to deal with the issue of
illegal migration across the border.
Senator Allard. Well, obviously, you have been in
conversation with local elected officials. I just think we can
do more. And I think I will be a voice on this committee, at
least, for pushing you towards more of a local solution than
something run out of Washington. I do not think we have all the
answers necessarily here in Washington.
VISIT TO ONE OF THE PORTS
The other thing that I would like to say in a positive way
is there has been a few million years since we have had a
coastline in the State of Colorado. So I made a personal
concerted effort to visit one of our ports. I visited the port
of Miami. And I will have to tell you, I was pretty impressed.
And this is the very thing that you talked about in your
previous testimony, I saw happening there. I saw technology
developed at the Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico being used
at that port. And I have to tell you that I feel much better
about our port security.
And I think sometimes we are looking at a 100 percent
solution. I do not think the citizens of this country can
afford a 100 percent solution. But I think we have to come up
with some reasonable solutions that work. And I think what I
saw there at the port, it was efficient, where they could
handle a fair amount. I saw a lot of dedication there, and I
was really pleased. I just have to tell you that.
AIRPORT SECURITY
I think sometimes what we see happening in our airports, I
wonder if maybe we have not gotten off track a little bit and
expecting too much on security in airports. I think the most
important thing we did and probably the most cost-effective
thing is we put a door that was secure between the pilot and
the passengers. But I do think that we need to take a hard look
at what is happening at our airports to see if we cannot come
up with some more common-sense solutions to what I see
happening. So I think there are some good things happening
there.
RUDENESS OF CUSTOMS EMPLOYEES
On the other hand, I have also seen, as I have walked
through Customs, and particularly in the State of Colorado, and
I have been appalled at the rudeness of the employees there. I
come from a State where I want to welcome people to my State as
tourists. And I have been sort of appalled at some of the
rudeness that I saw at Customs.
So hopefully we can kind of improve our bedside manner a
little bit. Remember that we have visitors coming to our
country. We have visitors coming to our States.
Secretary Chertoff. And they are not all criminals.
Senator Allard. And if that--yes. And they are not all
criminals. If the Federal employee does not treat them
respectfully and with a welcome attitude, it hurts our tourism
in our State. So I just want to call that to your attention.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Senator Byrd.
STATUS QUO BUDGET REQUEST
Senator Byrd. In fiscal year 2004, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) removed a record 150,000 illegal aliens from
this country. However, we know that more than 10 million
illegal aliens reside in this country. Two and a half million
illegal aliens have overstayed their tourist or work visas.
There are over 370,000 illegal aliens who have knowingly
disobeyed orders to leave the country.
ICE teams, Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams,
deported 11,000 of them in 2004, but more than 35,000 others
were added to the list. The system is not working, and this
budget request does almost nothing to fix it.
I have a border security amendment pending to the Iraq war
supplemental, which is currently being debated on the floor of
the Senate. My amendment is offset, responds to known security
shortfalls on our borders, and responds to the concerns of many
Americans, including the self-styled Minutemen who are
performing a major community watch effort on the Arizona
border.
While there are, indeed, slight increases proposed for next
year, the fact remains that both the Border Patrol and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement are experiencing
significant attrition this year. According to your agencies,
137 Border Patrol agents have left the service since the
beginning of the fiscal year. By the end of January, ICE had
experienced a net loss of 299 positions.
On average, you are filling 2,000 fewer detention beds a
week than the level for which the Congress provided funds. The
proposed increases for next year merely backfill the losses you
are experiencing this year. In short, this is a status quo
budget request.
The crisis we are experiencing today on our borders
deserves more than a status quo budget. Why should we be
satisfied with a status quo budget, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, Senator, first of all, my
understanding, again, of what we are proposing to do is that we
are going to--when we talk about increases, we are talking
about net increases. In other words, we are going to fund over
200 additional Border Patrol Agents, 140 additional ICE
investigators, almost 2,000 additional beds over and above the
current level.
Obviously, when people leave, we always backfill those
positions, so that I think you have to add those numbers
together. And we are talking about funding that would get us a
net up-kick in all those categories.
In fact, in terms of 2005, we have submitted a
reprogramming to get more money to ICE so that even this year
we can begin the process of starting to do some hiring to move
them to the level they need to be.
There is no question there is a serious issue, this whole
issue of managing illegal immigration. What we have to do is
use a comprehensive approach. We have to be able to have more
people at the border, better technology at the border, all of
which we are now pushing forward. Better investigative
capability. Better and more available use of detention beds.
And we are doing some additional things as well to free up
beds.
REPATRIATION PROGRAM WITH MEXICANS
For example, we are working with the Mexicans to begin the
internal repatriation program in the next couple of weeks,
whereby we transport Mexicans who come in back to interior
locations so that they do not simply go back across the border,
connect up with the same trafficking organizations, and then
come back a couple of days later.
EXPEDITED REMOVAL
We are using other kinds of techniques in terms of
expedited removal to try to expedite the process of getting
people that we do apprehend, moving them, again, across the
border back to Mexico.
ABSCONDERS AND VIOLATORS OF RELEASE ORDERS AND RETURN ORDERS
We are now targeting for the first time enforcement of
people who are absconders or who are violating release orders
and return orders to make sure we are apprehending them, and we
are, again, getting them and sending them back across the
border. And we have to also be vigorous in enforcing the laws
against people who are removed and then in violation of the law
come back across the border again. We have not always succeeded
in getting the kinds of sentences we need from judges in
keeping those people who are violators, repeat violators in
prison.
So we are very concerned about it. We are taking steps to
move forward on this. I am going to look at this issue. As I
said previously to Senator Feinstein, I am going to go down to
the border, I think, within the next 2 months and talk myself
personally to the local people and our Border Patrol folks down
there to keep moving forward on this issue.
SATISFACTION WITH STATUS QUO BUDGET
Senator Byrd. Well, are you satisfied with the status quo
budget?
Secretary Chertoff. I am not satisfied with the status quo.
We need to move forward. We need to be better about keeping our
borders policed. We need to be better about tracking
absconders. We need to be better about getting people removed
efficiently. And I think as we look at the whole issue
comprehensively, there are a lot of things we can do to get a
better outcome.
Senator Byrd. Mr. Secretary, you did not answer my
question.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I think what I----
Senator Byrd. Are you satisfied with the status quo budget?
Secretary Chertoff. I think what I am saying, Senator, is I
think our budget is not a status quo budget. I think it looks
to net increases, and, therefore, I will tell you, I would not
be satisfied with a status quo budget or a status quo
situation.
Senator Byrd. Finally, Mr. Chairman, we would look forward
to your comprehensive approach. My amendment will provide you
with real resources to implement your comprehensive approach.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Senator Domenici.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETE V. DOMENICI
Senator Domenici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Byrd, I will follow up on your questions and give
my own observation after first saying thank you for the job you
are doing. I look forward to visiting the border with you and
some of the facilities that we have in our State, such as the
DOE laboratories, to make sure you understand the competence in
other departments of the government to help you do your work.
Senator Byrd, I would say I laud your concern about doing
more than we are doing, which is an answer to a status quo. We
cannot stand the status quo. I do not know about a status quo
budget. But we also cannot stand a status quo with reference to
our current laws on migration and immigration.
I mean they are adding to the problem, because it is a mix-
up and a mumble-jumble of things and agents do not know what
they are supposed to do. I mean when we catch illegal aliens on
this side and send them home, what are agents supposed to do
when they come right back? I mean we did then look at it and
say they are not doing their job.
Senator Byrd. I am with you.
Senator Domenici. It is embarrassing to see that we do not
have a bill yet on the floor of the Senate on immigration. This
is not a way to deal with immigration on a supplemental
appropriation bill. I think you would agree with me. We need to
debate this issue thoroughly, and it makes them do their job
better and adds to the propriety of the United States.
Senator Byrd. I have been singing that song for many years
now.
Senator Domenici. It is time. I am telling you, many of us
agree with you, finally.
Senator Byrd. Thank you.
OBSERVATIONS REGARDING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Senator Domenci. Now having said that, first, let me say to
you, people wondered when you got this job what somebody with
your background was doing. I was at your side all the way,
because I know what you are capable of doing. I want to laud
you so far with the job you are doing. I want to give you a
couple of my observations.
First of all, you inherited a Department that was put
together hurriedly. It is consequently a very hodgepodge
Department. The sooner you yourself find out what was done that
is not done right, what was done that might even be wrong, you
ought to be the one finding out about those problems and fixing
them, because they are going to be determined sooner or later.
There are many of them up and down the chain of command of your
Department, and you know that. I do not know how soon you can
fix them, but I urge that you do so.
My second observation is: Since we put the Department
together this way, there is a multiplicity of activities that
are, even though we thought we are putting them all together,
that they are not all together, because there are many other
facilities that do work of the type you need.
I really urge that even though you have set up in the
statute a function and thus a piece of your Department, that
you resist your Department creating a total group of experts in
every one of those niches. Because many of those experts
already exist in the government, and you ought to use them. You
are using them. I think you should just make that a policy.
Somebody said, this distinguished Senator from Colorado,
who shames me, he has been to see Miami, and I have not been to
the border in 6 months, which is my own State. He has been way
over there in the port of Miami. I ought to go see what is
happening on my border.
The problem is that in enforcing our laws, there exists
terrific capacity in our national laboratories, in our Defense
Department, and those who are studying unmanned aerial
vehicles. You do not have to begin every program within your
Department. Do I make sense?
Secretary Chertoff. Yes. Absolutely, Senator. I mean I
really do not want to rediscover the wheel, particularly if we
have the wheel discovered elsewhere in the Federal Government
or the State government, and the private sector. I mean we do
not have the time to do everything ourselves.
One of the observations I had when I came into the
Department, two observations. One is completely consistent with
your advice, that we really need to comprehensively review what
we are doing. I give a lot of credit to Governor Ridge, and
Admiral Loy and everybody who stood up in the Department, which
was an enormous challenge. They did a lot in 2 years. It took
the Defense Department decades to get to where it is now. And
we do not have that time. So we should be willing to examine
where we can adjust and make those adjustments.
With your second point, Senator, a lot of what we bring to
the table is a network. Nowadays in business, people talk about
networking. We do not have to own or employ everybody in
Homeland Security. We do not and we cannot. What we have to do
is network with what is out there in our other Federal
agencies, State and local partners, and figure out a way to
make everybody work together and to coordinate those things.
So even in my brief 2 months at the Department I have been
very clear about saying that we ought to pay as much attention,
if not more, to that networking function as we do to the actual
physical assets that we own and the people that we have in our
Department.
IMPACT OF NETWORKING
Senator Domenici. Well, my time is running out. I am going
to make one last observation. I will put it two in one.
First, it seems to me, without question, that what you are
doing out there in terms of networking is already having a big
impact. I am not one who continues to carp on the fact that we
do not have good homeland security, because I contend that
nothing has happened since 9/11. And that is not an accident.
I think we are doing a much better job at making it hard
for terrorists than we give ourselves credit for. Now I do not
need you to answer that, but if you can, you should. I mean
everybody is just saying we are not doing anything, but why are
the terrorists doing nothing? They keep saying they want to get
America. They have not done anything yet. Thank God. Maybe
tomorrow they will do it, and Domenici will be crazy. But that
is one observation.
And the second one is that it seems to be obvious that even
though we want to address risks, we nonetheless want money to
go to the States. And the new bill will do what you suggest,
and put more money in risks and less in pork projects,
allegedly. But I submit that this does not mean that all the
heavily populated States are the harbors of all the risks.
I mean in my State you have two national laboratories
filled with nuclear activity, the center of nuclear weaponry.
That is all I will say. You know what that means. Now you
cannot expect New Mexico with .005 tenths of a percent of the
money to assume the risk of the extraordinary activities.
I would hope that if we give you a law that does what I
have just said, that you have somebody looking at West Virginia
and New Hampshire and New Mexico to say what else is there that
is essential to our country and dangerous. I do not mean a
football field. That is what people are saying. Every gym and
football field, because people will assemble, ought to be
protected. I do not know about that. You decide that.
But I do know the place where nuclear weapons of the United
States are in abundance shall not say, ``Well, that's old New
Mexico. It's a rural State.'' Do you understand what I am
saying?
Secretary Chertoff. I absolutely do. As you have said, I
think risk management is not about size of State or population
or things of that. It is about individual pieces of
infrastructure, individual networks of transportation. I mean
population clearly is an element to be considered, but we have
to have a much more sophisticated approach. And I think that is
exactly what we want to drive to, is our risk management
philosophy.
Senator Domenici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you. Senator Kohl, I appreciate your
patience. Please take as much time as you think you need.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR HERB KOHL
Senator Kohl. Thank you, Senator Gregg and Secretary
Chertoff.
I would like to talk about airport screening. For those of
us, and it includes I assume most of the people here in this
room, we are going through, as you know, a lot more intensive
airport screening today than we were prior to 9/11. And yet a
report came out this week which indicates that investigators
have determined that things like knives, guns, and even fake
bombs are still being processed through the screeners without
detection.
It is almost incomprehensible. I am trying to figure how
that can be after all of the money and the effort that we have
put in to trying to improve airport security for travelers.
They talk about the need for new technology, additional
technology, which we apparently do not have or have not yet
been able to spend the money on.
Can you tell us whether or not it is true that airport
screening today is about at the level that it was before 9/11,
and how soon it is that we are going to be able to improve it.
Secretary Chertoff. I read the IG's report and I just spoke
with the IG about it, because obviously I was very concerned
about that. I do not have an independent way of verifying it,
but I am not going to dispute it either.
I was very concerned about the question of how do we move
to the next level. Clearly, there are issues involving training
and things of that sort, which are important, but I agree with
the IG that technology is really ultimately what we have to use
in order to get to the next level.
We do have some good pilot projects and we do have some
good technology. We are continuing to fund that, and I think
that is a very promising development. I have to be completely
forthright in saying we also have to make some difficult
decisions about policy in order to decide if we are going to
capitalize on that technology.
BACKSCATTER TECHNOLOGY
For example, one form of technology that makes it easier to
detect these kinds of threats is backscatter technology. That
has certain implications for privacy, because it does
essentially, in some form, allow you to look to see what
someone is carrying on them that they may be concealing. And so
there is sometimes resistance to that.
I think we have to be prepared to say that we need to start
to deploy these kinds of technologies and make appropriate
adjustments for privacy if we are going to get to that next
level. The technology is out there and it is being used. It is
a question of the decision to deploy it and to try to balance
that with legitimate privacy concerns, but not get so caught up
in an endless debate about it that in 5 years we are still
sitting there with the technology available and useful and
helpful, but we have not put it out yet because people are
still hand wringing about it.
So I very much want to start to take the step of moving
that technology out and continuing to press forward on the
research and development side, but also not letting the perfect
be the enemy of the good. If we can make things better, let us
get them better rather than wait for the magic bullet that is
going to solve everything.
IMPROVING AIRPORT SECURITY
Senator Kohl. Yes, it is very surprising to me and I think
to every traveler to think that in spite of all the money that
we spent and the delays that we now go through at airports that
we did not go through prior to 9/11, some people in the
position to know are saying that airport security is about at
the same point that it was then. This, I am sure, is a matter
of great concern to you, and I hope that we can effect some
improvements.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I intend to do so. It is
troubling. I think we do have good capabilities in technology,
and I think we have to now start to move the process forward.
And I am very interested in seeing that we do that.
FOREIGN STUDENT VISAS
Senator Kohl. Okay. I would like to talk about foreign
student visas for a minute. As you probably know, there has
been a significant increase in the time that it takes for
foreign students to get their visas to enter this country to
attend school. And as a result, the number of applications has
gone down, the number of foreign students who are enrolling
post-graduate has gone down. And universities all across the
country are quite concerned about this.
In 2003, it was indicated that 40 leading research
universities reported that 621 students missed the start of
classes because of visa delays. Now certainly we need to do the
job of checking out, keep out those students who should not be
here for security reasons, but is there not something we can do
to increase our level of ability to move people through the
process and allow them to get enrolled in universities?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, we should. I have talked to
Secretary Rice about this. We have already taken some steps in
terms of lengthening the period of time a visa is applicable so
that at least once we have passed someone through the screen
they have an ability to spend more time without rechanneling
themselves through the process. That is a positive development.
Obviously, we need to do more in terms of our ability to
vet people in advance, to do it more quickly. And we need to
also, frankly, send the message out that we want to be
hospitable in doing those things. So I think we are all
committed in moving that forward.
Again, I want to be fair and like I said be blunt in saying
the schools also have to help, too, because we do encounter
situations where people come in for schools and they do not
show up or they leave the program. And, of course, we should
know about that. The school should report that to us. And
certain schools get a reputation as being easy marks for people
who want to come and maybe not to study, but to do something
else.
If the schools do not cooperate with us, they make it very
hard to run the program in a way that helps the entire spectrum
of universities. So part of what we need to do is make it more
efficient for people to get their visas, give them longer
visas, but also make sure the schools live up to their
obligation to let us know if people are abusing the system. And
that is part of the tradeoff in order to make this work for the
best interest of everybody.
Senator Kohl. I thank you very much and I thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Cochran was not able to join us today, but has
submitted a statement for the record.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Thad Cochran
Mr. Chairman, thank you for accepting the job of chairing this
important Subcommittee. You have some big shoes to fill, but I know you
can do it.
Mr. Secretary, you are off to a great start. We appreciate your
visit to my State and the way you have moved quickly to identify the
challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security.
We need strong leadership in this important job and I know you are
well-qualified to provide it. The main challenge is to coordinate the
Nation's resources in this effort. Our greatest strength is the
ingenuity of our public servants and citizens. With the proper
leadership, we will meet these challenges.
Our role on this Subcommittee is to provide you and your Department
with the resources needed to carry out your responsibilities and we
will work with you to identify the priorities.
TSA
Senator Gregg. Let me pick up on your question, because the
TSA is an issue that I think just every American is a little
frustrated with sometimes. And I guess my question is this, and
it is a philosophical one.
Once we hardened the doors and took away the capacity to
use airplanes as missiles, private passenger airplanes as
missiles, we changed the dynamic of the threat fundamentally.
And yet we have created an agency which has what, 45,000
people? And here we are on a border where we have 10,000
agents, and we probably need 20,000 agents to do it right, have
to be well trained, obviously, and there has to be an
infrastructure to support them, and all that.
Are we basically reacting to yesterday's threat? We have
port security issues. We have border crossing issues. And yet
we put a huge amount of resources into airport security
without, it appears, any significant improvement in security
relative to the ability to get weapons through security, and
having addressed the fundamental threat, which is an airplane
used as a missile.
Secretary Chertoff. I asked myself that question coming
into this job as well, and if I can just take a minute to break
it into several different issues.
AVIATION SECURITY
First of all, there is the issue of aviation security in
itself. Are we optimally focused on what the real threat is?
And I think you have put your finger on it, Mr. Chairman, when
you indicated the first thing we have to be really pretty tough
about is recognizing that there are degrees of consequence that
we are worried about.
The aircraft as a missile is the worst consequence. It is
bad to have an aircraft blown up in midair, too, that may be a
somewhat less significant consequence. It would certainly have
tremendous ramifications across the airline system, and then
there are yet other possible actions. So we have to frame the
issue that way.
We do have hardening of cockpit doors. There are other
steps we can and should take to prevent the aircraft used as a
missile. That might very well counsel to change or moderate or
adjust our current levels for screening with respect to certain
types of items, and increase our screening for other types of
items.
Maybe to use the proverbial example of nail clippers, which
I do not think are being screened for now anyway, but maybe we
need to be a little less worried about metal cutlery and a
little more worried about explosives. So that is within the
issue of aviation, and that is something we are actively
looking at now.
EMERGING ISSUES
The second issue is making sure our attention is not
distracted away from emerging issues. We are looking heavily at
the issue of rail security. We are looking at the issue of
cargo. We have deployed non-intrusive inspection technologies.
Those are very good. I have seen them work myself. You may very
well have it as well. That is a positive step we are paying
attention to.
And as I said to Senator Murray, we are looking at this
whole issue of cargo movement to see how we can use the modern
supply chain, techniques, and technology to really make sure we
are doing what we need to do to protect against bad cargo. So I
am completely on board with the idea of making sure we are not
distracted by the thing we have already done, spending a lot of
time on that because we know how to do it and it is
comfortable, rather than looking at the stuff we have not done
as well that we need to elevate up.
MOVEMENT OF RESOURCES
Senator Gregg. Yes. I agree. And I am glad you are looking
at it that way. But I am asking, are we taking it to the next
step, which is, you know, we are spending, I think, I have
forgotten the numbers, $3.5 billion, some outrageous number, on
TSA. But should we be moving that number to border patrol?
Should we be taking a large percentage of that employee base
and moving them over, if not as a direct personnel shift, as at
least a resource shift, reducing the number of personnel at TSA
and moving people to border patrol where we know we have a
bigger risk right now relative to the potential threat.
Secretary Chertoff. Well, I do not know, Senator, that I
would do that, because I do not know that I would say that
there is a bigger risk. I mean I do not want to go to the other
end and minimize the aviation risk too much. I mean the reality
is, even putting aside the aircraft as a weapon, if we were to
have a series of explosions on airlines, or something
comparable, that would have a humongous effect on the national
economy and a humongous effect on our ability to move around.
We want to have a smarter deployment of resources in the
aviation security area, but we want to have the outcome be
very, very good security in terms of things we are worried
about. I do not know that, for a whole host of reasons,
including training and skill sets, that we could simply move
TSA people into----
Senator Gregg. I do not think you could----
Secretary Chertoff. Yes.
Senator Gregg [continuing]. Move people, but I am talking
about the dollars to support those people. I mean the threat to
the aircraft now is, as you mentioned, an explosive probably
more than a weapon, because you cannot take control of an
aircraft with a weapon, theoretically. I mean maybe it is
possible if you have a big enough weapon on board. But if an
explosive is the threat, is it not really a technology response
to that rather than a people response?
Secretary Chertoff. I think that is right. I think
ultimately the way to move to the level we need to get is
technology, because I think there is an inherent limitation.
People are limited by the technology. I mean you can be the
best trained and the most well-intentioned person in the world.
If your detection device does not let you get sufficient
granularity or make distinctions between types of things,
between the dangerous and not dangerous, that is limitation. So
we need to get the technology to where it needs to do.
That might ultimately allow us to reduce workforce,
although I do not want to make a prediction that it is going to
happen in the short term, because I still think there is an
element of human judgment that you bring to bear that is still
very important. But there is no question that we have to both
invest in the technology, but also, as I said, roll out the
technology we have and start to use it, rather than continuing
to fuss around, you know, everybody having--I do not want to
minimize privacy concerns. I have them as well. But we need to
come to grips with them, we need to adjust for them, we need to
reach a decision about how to accommodate them, and then we
need to start to move forward.
THEFTS OF LUGGAGE OF PASSENGERS
Senator Gregg. The problem I see coming here--well, this is
just one element of the issue, but relative to TSA--is that
with a report of literally thousands of thefts occurring in
luggage of travelers, and it appears that a high percentage of
those thefts are the responsibility or the actions of Federal
employees of TSA, that we are probably going to have to
institute a major camera program or something to monitor the
search of luggage by employees. And so we are going to end up
spending significant resources to protect ourselves from the
employees who are supposed to be protecting us from damage on
the planes. As a taxpayer I find that uniquely frustrating. And
as a policymaker, I find it to be a terrible waste of
resources.
Secretary Chertoff. I agree. I mean, obviously, pilferage
is completely unacceptable. And it is a bad State of affairs if
we have to spend money protecting ourselves from people who are
protecting us.
I am convinced, of course, the majority of screeners are
terrific and ethical and----
Senator Gregg. I am sure that is true.
Secretary Chertoff [continuing]. Things like that. But you
are right.
Senator Gregg. The track record, unfortunately, is that
there is a large amount of--there is a big problem here.
Secretary Chertoff. And that is why--I agree with you. The
technology is really the way forward in terms of getting
ourselves to where we need to go.
DHS INTELLIGENCE ROLE
Senator Gregg. In the area of intelligence, I am not sure I
understand, and I am new to this. Since the issue was moved out
of CJS, and I am new to this committee, I am not sure I
understand what the Department sees as its role in intelligence
right now. It is clear that there was a conscious decision to
give up the actual collection and analytical effort to other
Federal agencies. You got IAIP, which I guess is stood up, but
it seems to continually to be raided for its revenues.
What do you see as the intelligence function of Homeland
Security, of the Agency, in relationship to these other
agencies and internally?
Secretary Chertoff. Well, first of all, I think we are
definitely in the business of collection. Let me explain what I
mean by collection. We have thousands of interactions every day
at the border and investigations with ICE agents at the
airport. And many of those yield information which I would
consider to be of intelligence value.
We are in the process now of increasing our use of that
intelligence and our collection of that intelligence, doing a
number of different things. For the first time, we are putting
reports officers into the operational units, meaning people who
will look at the operational flow of information and say, wait
a second, this is not just a trivial interaction. This is a
piece of information that is useful from an intelligence
standpoint. Let us make sure we capture it and send it up to
our information analysis section so it can be fused and
collected and then ultimately transmitted to the community.
We have started to do that. I have seen the results. The
Federal Air Marshals actually use modern technology to in real-
time report things they see on airplanes that could have
intelligence value in terms of suspicious behavior, so we get
identification of people that we need to be on the lookout for
and we can then put that into a system that all of law
enforcement can have access to. So we have a tremendous
potential to be collectors, which I want to make sure we are
fully exercising.
The second piece of that is, once we get ourselves to where
we need to be in collection and we continue this process, we
can contribute to the whole community by putting that into the
NCTC, which is the counter-terrorism center. And that was set
up by Congress in the Intel Reform bill as the kind of fusion
point for counter-terrorism intelligence.
By putting that information in there, we are sharing with
the community. We are also contributing. And my experience is
that when you contribute as a partner, you then get full
partnership. So I view that as a very critical piece of what we
need to do to make sure we are sitting at the table with
respect to everything else that comes in from the other parts
of the intel community--overseas stuff, signals intelligence,
human intelligence in other countries.
The third piece is, as partners at the table, we need to be
able to look at all that stuff and operationalize it. And right
now in the Department we are talking about how we want to
enhance the ability of IA, of information analysis, to collect
all this from the central pool that we have at the NCTC, to
translate into operational mandates to make sure we make
adjustments at the border and other adjustments so that we
actually make use of this intelligence.
So that is my vision of where we are going. I have met with
the acting head of NCTC. I have met with other main players in
the community, and I have expressed my very strong personal
interest in seeing that we get this done.
USE OF IDENT, IAFIS AND US VISIT
Senator Gregg. Where do you see the technology situation
relative to IDENT, IAFIS, and also relevant to US VISIT.
Secretary Chertoff. As you know, Senator, IDENT was, I
guess, the system that was stood up under the old INS, pre-9/
11. IAFIS is a system the FBI set up. Right now, as I
understand it, we have the ability at ports of entry, at
Customs and border-patrolled posts, to access both of those
databases at the same time. They are separate databases, but we
can run prints against both of those databases.
Now IAFIS is a ten-print database. So ultimately there is a
decision which we need to reach about implementing a way to get
to making effective use of a ten-print database. And I think
there is a technological challenge there and there are some
policy decisions that we are in the process of making.
I think we made a lot of progress in making both databases
accessible at a single point at the border and at our border
and customs stations. We have not fully exploited the
technology. We need to continue the process of building an
architecture that lets us get the maximum use out of our
biometric data that we capture and run it against the maximum
number of databases.
Senator Gregg. US VISIT.
Secretary Chertoff. We have deployed it at our airports. We
have deployed it at seaports. We have deployed it at our 50
most significant land border entry points. We are starting to
pilot it at the exit points.
It has been very successful. I have seen it operate. It is
fast. We have captured people on it that we should not be
letting in the country and we have been able to turn them away.
You know, it can be improved, and we can make better use of
it. But it is, I think, the key to the next generation of
keeping our borders secure.
PREPARATION FOR BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
Senator Gregg. What do you see your success relative to
preparation for an attack that might be biological?
Secretary Chertoff. As you know, Mr. Chairman, we just
finished TOPOFF III, which was a massive exercise done
internationally and in two States, which had a hypothetical
biological attack. I have met with Secretary Levitt. We have
talked about some preliminary lessons learned. We are doing a
very comprehensive review of that to make sure that we have the
following things in place.
First of all, we have an adequate stockpile of the kinds of
antidote where we have them or vaccinations where we can have
them against the likely agents; that we have very particular
plans in place for distributing that type of vaccine or that
type of antidote, if we should have an attack; and that we are
fully integrated across the board in terms of our standards for
reporting biological incidents.
You know, we had that anthrax false scare about a month
ago. We did a very vigorous review of that. We have made some
changes now with the Defense Department as well as with our
Department in making sure we are operating with the same set of
standards. And we are now working across the Federal Government
to test to make sure everybody has got the same template for
what we are sensing, what constitutes a positive finding, when
do we get to the point that we need to take steps to get people
inoculation or antidote.
Again, we have got progress to make. I think we have
learned a lot of lessons, both recently and going back, and I
think we have a program in place to start to move ourselves to
a position of readiness for what, I agree with you, is one of
the two or three worst-case scenarios that we have to be
prepared for.
TOPOFF EXERCISE
Senator Gregg. It is interesting. When I was on the
Commerce and Justice Committee, when I was chairman of that, we
began the TOPOFF exercise program over the strong resistance,
ironically, of almost every Federal agency. We simply insisted
we do it. It has now turned into a very successful program.
But I was interested when I was at the TOPOFF exercise this
year that neither New York City nor Los Angeles were--I guess
Washington, marginally, participated in the major TOPOFF
exercises there. I guess that is because they have not been
asked to do it, or agreed to do it.
It would seem since they are priority areas, that we would
want in our TOPOFF exercises to go to places where the actions
may actually most likely occur.
Secretary Chertoff. I was not involved in, I guess, the
selection for 2003 and I guess the selection for the next one
was made before I came on. I know people do apply and then a
decision is made.
I know Chicago did the last one, I think, TOPOFF II.
Northern New Jersey and Connecticut are part of the New York
metropolitan area, so we did exercise some pieces of this.
I agree, at the end of the day--by the way, we should be
doing tabletop exercises, meaning not maybe the full TOPOFF,
but something all across the board. I wondered myself how
valuable it was, and I have to say I was convinced that it was
of tremendous value.
I learned a lot and I think a lot of people learned a lot
by testing the system. So I am in favor of doing at least some
kind of exercise as an important part of our preparedness.
Senator Gregg. Well, I would hope that the Department would
take a look at whether or not we should not do them to some
degree based on the threat criteria versus just the willingness
of a governor to participate or a State to participate.
Well, I appreciate your time. I have two last questions.
STABILIZATION OF SENIOR MANAGEMENT
There is a large amount of open slots and acting slots.
What do you see relative to senior management getting it up and
stable?
Secretary Chertoff. I am concerned, obviously, as a
secretary who does not want to have to do every job himself, to
make sure we have very good people. I am pleased to say we have
filled some of those spots. We have got others where we have
nominations pending before the Senate. Obviously, the more
quickly we can fill those spots the better.
We want to get the right people. We want to get people who
have the energy and the creativity to make the Department what
I think it can be, going to the next level. And part of what we
are trying to do, frankly, is to recruit and bring people in to
top slots that bring a variety of different perspectives.
I think it is good to have people with military
backgrounds, people with law enforcement backgrounds, people
with business backgrounds, people with first responder
backgrounds, because ultimately our success involves merging
functions, and that means merging skills.
So we are actively out there finding the right people. The
President has got some nominations in and has made some
appointments already. And I am, for personal as well as
professional reasons, very eager to get this process done as
quickly as possible.
NEED FOR ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE FROM THE SUBCOMMITTEE
Senator Gregg. And lastly, beyond approving your budget,
which I suspect we will do and actually probably do more than
your request, is there anything this committee can do to be
helpful in the legislative or other areas?
Secretary Chertoff. There may well be as we complete this
process of second-stage review that we will have some
recommendations to make for some legislative action that would
align us better in terms of what we need to be able to generate
for outcomes. And I will look forward to when we get to a point
that we can, I think, have some recommendations sitting down
with you and the other members of the subcommittee and talking
about those, and trying to adjust as much as possible.
One thing I do want to thank you for is the subcommittee's
commitment to make sure that we get real discretion in terms of
using risk management as a way of handling issues like funding
and all of our functions, as opposed to--I know from what I
read in the paper that the lobbyists continue to view DHS as a
wonderful--I think one used in a newspaper article the term
``pots of money'' for the clients.
I do not view us as pots of money. I view us as having an
obligation, both as stewards of the public money and as
stewards of the public safety to make sure that what we do with
our money that Congress appropriates for us is based on sound
judgment and risk management, not based on lobbyists trying to
get their clients into the pots of money.
Senator Gregg. Well, I agree with you. In this issue, first
off, funds should be distributed on the basis of threat; and,
secondly, earmarks should be used only in the extreme situation
where Congress has a very legitimate policy reason that feels
that the Administration is not pursuing. So I presume that will
continue to be this committee's approach.
Secretary Chertoff. Right. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for all your time.
I appreciate your courtesy.
Secretary Chertoff. Thank you.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Gregg. There may be members who wish to submit
questions to the Department. As is typical, we presume they
will be answered in a prompt way.
Secretary Chertoff. Absolutely.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Judd Gregg
COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF THE DEPARTMENT
Question. Secretary Chertoff, in your first speech after being
confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security; you announced that you had
initiated a 60 to 90 day comprehensive review of the organization,
operations and policies of the Department as a whole. You discuss that
review more fully in the prepared statement which you have submitted to
the Committee.
You are now some 30 days into that review. Can you share any of
your preliminary findings with us at this point, including any
preliminary conclusions you may reach on what's working and what is
not?
Answer. The comprehensive review of the Department is complete. I
gave a speech on this topic on July 13 where I outlined our preliminary
conclusions, the text of which can be found at the following website:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4597.
Question. You indicate that the Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson is
overseeing this review and has selected a team of Department officials
to look at cross-cutting issues and determine how departmental
resources and programs can be effectively used to achieve our security
goals. Do you intend to involve others outside of the Department in
this review?
Answer. Other Federal agencies were included in this effort where
appropriate. Moreover, while the committee was comprised exclusively of
DHS employees, we considered recommendations from our state, local,
tribal, and private sector partners, among others.
Question. What cross-cutting issues are you looking at? How were
those determined?
Answer. We looked at all areas to examine the mission and work of
all DHS elements to ensure that we have the best organization,
operations, and policies possible to most effectively protect and
safeguard this Nation. Notable examples of areas in need of greater
cross-cutting included maritime cargo security, information sharing,
and immigration policy. As a matter of process, the senior leadership
of the Department was asked to identify the key issues that should be
evaluated as part of the comprehensive review. The issues were then
reviewed by me and the Deputy Secretary to identify further and refine
cross-cutting topics that encompassed the key issues identified by the
senior leadership.
Question. As you are aware, we are fast-approaching the time when
the Committee will make decisions on the Department's appropriations
for fiscal year 2006. The budget request now before us is based on the
Department's current structure and operations. Therefore, we are very
interested in staying abreast of what changes are being contemplated
and recommended.
What is your time frame for concluding the review and for making
any changes you determine are necessary, including those that might be
done through your reorganization authority or require the submission of
a legislative proposal or fiscal year 2006 budget amendment to the
Congress for consideration?
Answer. The comprehensive review of the Department is complete. I
gave a speech on this topic on July 13 where I outlined our preliminary
conclusions, the text of which can be found at the following website:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4597.
We have also outlined our reorganization plan in detail in our
Homeland Security Act Section 872 report, which was submitted to
Congress after we completed the Second Stage Review (2SR). Further, a
few of our recommendations will require congressional action. We have
submitted legislation accompanying the 2SR Report that, once passed,
will effectuate the reorganization changes we believe are necessary for
the Department's success. It is important that our draft legislation be
passed in its current form.
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS
Question. How will the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North
America announced last month promote and foster a mutually beneficial,
common security system along our borders?
Answer. On June 27, in Ottawa, Canada, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff and Department of Commerce
Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and their government counterparts in Mexico
and Canada released the first report of the Security and Prosperity
Partnership (SPP) of North America that identifies initial results, key
themes and initiatives, and work plans that further promote the
security and prosperity of North America. The SPP countries agreed to
these, and other, North American security goals:
--North American Trusted Traveler Program.--All three countries have
agreed to create a single, integrated program for North
American trusted travelers by 2008. Individuals applying for
trusted traveler status would be able to apply for the program
and pay relevant fees in one transaction. Enrolled participants
would have access to all established trusted travel lanes at
land crossings, airports and marine programs. A single North
American Trusted Traveler Program embodies the intent of the
SPP to establish optimum security goals while accelerating
legitimate cross-border trade and travel. The United States
will also be working cooperatively to identify Western
Hemisphere travel document standards required under the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
(IRTPA).
--Preparedness and Incident Management Systems Integration.--The
United States, Canada and Mexico have agreed to transform North
American preparedness for response to large-scale incidents by
establishing protocols for incident management that impact
border operations within 12 months. Protocols will also address
maritime incidents, cross-border public health emergencies and
cross-border law enforcement response. The SPP countries have
also committed to ensure interoperable communications systems
and to participate in preparedness exercises that will
strenuously test these protocols. In addition, the three
countries will participate in a preparedness exercise in
anticipation of the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Winter Olympics.
--Border Enforcement.--The United States and Mexico will form joint
intelligence-sharing task forces along the U.S.-Mexico border
to target criminal gang and trafficking organizations and
reduce violence along the border. The United States and Canada
will coordinate maritime enforcement programs to address the
huge volume of boat traffic in our shared waterways.
--Facilitated Flow of Legitimate Cargo and Travel Across Land
Borders.--The United States, Canada and Mexico have agreed to
review our transportation and border facility needs, in
partnership with stakeholders, and develop a plan to prioritize
future port-of-entry-related infrastructure investments. All
three countries are considering programs to reduce transit
times and border congestion by expanding trusted traveler
programs to additional ports of entry and partnering with
public and private sector stakeholders to establish ``low-
risk'' ports of entry for the exclusive use of those enrolled
in our trusted trade and traveler programs. The United States
and Canada, along with local stakeholders, are working to
reduce the transit times by 25 percent at the Detroit-Windsor
gateway within 6 months, and all three countries are exploring
ways to expand this innovative 25 Percent Challenge to other
North American land border crossings within the next 18 months.
By December of this year, the United States and Canada
governments expect to complete an agreement on a pre-clearance
pilot program at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, NY, contingent on
Canadian legislative amendments. Within 6 months, both
countries will also develop a plan to expand the Vancouver
NEXUS-Air pilot program to other United States air pre-
clearance sites in Canada and examine the feasibility of
expanding the eligibility for NEXUS-Air to include Mexican
nationals.
--Shared Watchlists and Integrated Traveler Screening Procedures.--
The United States, Canada and Mexico have agreed to strengthen
information sharing related to terrorists and criminals.
Effective information exchange among North American countries
is essential to strengthening our capability to prevent acts of
terror within and outside North America. The United States,
Canada and Mexico have also agreed to establish compatible
screening standards for land, sea and air travel to identify
and prevent high risk travelers and cargo before they depart
for North America. Additionally, recommendations will be made
on the enhanced use of biometrics in screening travelers
destined to North America. On an ongoing basis, the SPP will
enable all three countries to address and resolve gaps in
cross-border information sharing. Ultimately, all travelers
arriving in North America will experience a comparable level of
screening.
--Maritime and Aviation Security.--The SPP countries will also be
working toward comparable standards for hold baggage and
passenger screening, implementing no-fly programs throughout
North America, and developing new protocols for air cargo
inspection. Likewise, we will also be working to develop
compatible maritime regulatory regimes and to strengthen
information sharing and coordinated operations in the maritime
domain.
Question. What role will the Department have in this initiative?
Answer. The Department is taking a lead role in implementing the
SPP's Security Agenda, in cooperation with other Federal agencies. The
Department has been tasked with convening working groups with Canada
and Mexico to develop and implement concrete work plans and specific
timetables to meet the broader goals associated with the SPP's Security
Agenda. Additionally, the Department is continuing to work with the
Department of Commerce, which is taking a lead role in the development
and negotiation of a complementary Prosperity Agenda, and the State
Department, who is taking a coordinating role to best align efforts.
Question. Under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative recently
proposed, how will the Department ensure that NEXUS is universally
available on the Northern Border by the time the new document
requirements are imposed at land ports of entry?
Answer. To keep pace with the potential impact of the WHTI, DHS
plans to expand the enrollment process as well as potentially opening
additional ports of entry with regards to NEXUS program along the
Northern Border. Concurrently, we are also examining potential resource
needs to accommodate additional demands of these programs as a result
of the WHTI. As part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
(WHTI), DHS will be issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
(ANPRM) to solicit comments from the public and affected entities
regarding the requirements and alternative documents that may be
designated by the Secretary to demonstrate citizenship and identity for
entry. As required by the President, we are and will continue to
examine, in response to comments on the ANPRM, other potential
documents that may be designated for the land border environment in
advance of the January 1, 2008, deadline.
Question. How is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative going to
work with US VISIT, since US VISIT is implementing the tracking of
entries and exits across our borders?
Answer. The Department will coordinate the implementation of the
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative with US VISIT enrollment to
facilitate travel and to ensure security at our Nation's borders.
Question. Will US VISIT manage this initiative?
Answer. US VISIT is playing an active role in this initiative.
MANAGEMENT AND STAFFING
Question. Executive agencies need to rely on a stable bureaucracy
to keep things running during leadership transitions. The Department
has significant vacancies in top leadership positions and significant
turnover in senior- and mid-level managers.
Mr. Secretary, what is your time frame for putting your management
team together?
Answer. I agree that we do not want any unnecessary delays in
filling these vacancies. At the same time, however, we want to make
sure we get the right people to fill these positions. We want to bring
people on board who have the energy, creativity, and a variety of
perspectives to further the Department's mission and enable us to move
to a next level of achievement. The President has forwarded several
nominations to the Senate for consideration, and we will move as
quickly as possible to fill remaining vacancies.
Question. What disruptions are the current vacancies in confirmed
leadership positions having on the Department?
Answer. For every vacancy in a leadership position, an employee has
been identified to serve in an Acting capacity until a person is
confirmed to fill the position. While we are striving to fill vacancies
as quickly as possible, these dedicated employees have risen to the
challenge of fulfilling the requirements and obligations of these
leadership positions and have maintained the Department's activities
and efforts.
Question. What is your assessment of the difficulties the
Department has experienced attracting, hiring or keeping qualified
personnel and what is being done to correct this situation?
Answer. DHS faces many of the same problems with recruitment and
retention that plague most Federal agencies--cumbersome recruitment and
hiring processes, lack of competitive salaries, and poor performance
management and recognition programs. Fortunately, our mission is
inspiring to many, and we usually are able to attract well-qualified
candidates in spite of these impediments. However, we need to continue
to improve to stay competitive for the very best candidates.
DHS has a Human Capital Strategic Plan that aggressively addresses
effective recruitment, development, compensation, succession
management, and leadership issues. A major priority in this Plan has
been streamlining the DHS hiring processes to meet the Federal standard
of 45 days. A common DHS recruitment brand with state-of-the-art
recruitment materials has been established to ensure effective and
consistent external representation of DHS in the hiring process. These
initiatives will enable DHS to maintain viable recruitment networks,
particularly in mission critical occupations.
A consolidated DHS Workforce Plan was completed in March 2005 that
establishes a baseline for workforce trend analysis for mission
critical occupations. This Plan also enables component organizations to
plan well in advance for upcoming recruitment needs. Where potential
occupational gaps exist, human capital strategies will be identified
and implemented.
MAX, the new human resource system for DHS, will have both market-
sensitive pay and a robust performance management process, which will
enable DHS to be more competitive in its recruitment process and more
effective in retaining and motivating employees.
DEPARTMENTAL REORGANIZATION
Question. Reorganizing seems to be a sport within the Department
these days. At what point does continued reorganization impede the
ability of the Department to get its job done?
Answer. The Department's reorganization plan will significantly
enhance, not impede, our ability to meet our current and future
objectives. The Department recently passed its 2 year anniversary mark.
In that short time, 22 separate agencies were brought together, and the
work of integrating those agencies into a working structure began. We
are now taking advantage of 2 years of experience, an opportunity
unavailable to our predecessors, to implement a reorganization plan
that takes the Department to the next level, best positions us to
manage our current and future responsibilities, and helps us better
adapt to current and future threats and disasters.
Question. On the other side of this issue is the continued
viability of the current organization of the border management
agencies. DHS has moved organizations into ICE; it has moved
organizations out of ICE. We have poured almost $800 million in
additional resources into ICE over the last 2 years, including $276
million in the Senate-reported fiscal year 2005 emergency supplemental.
Is ICE a viable stand-alone organization or should it be broken up and
have its responsibilities merged into other parts of the Department of
Homeland of Security such as CBP?
Answer. As you know, the Department looked at a variety of
organizational issues as part of the second-stage review process, which
helped clarify where the Department needs to be organizationally to
ensure effective implementation of our critical missions. We considered
whether ICE should remain a stand-alone entity, and decided that it
should. We believe it's in the Department's best near and long-term
interest that ICE not be merged with another component, CBP in
particular. To reach this decision, we focused on the operational
mission needs of both CBP and ICE, not on the near-term management
challenges. I take seriously the challenges the Department has faced
concerning ICE and appreciate the difficult but necessary choices
Congress has made in providing new funding to address its needs. I am
confident, however, that ICE has made substantial improvements in
financial management this year. Not only have substantial new resources
been provided, but a new management team is taking shape.
HOMELAND SECURE DATA NETWORK
Question. The fiscal year 2006 President's budget contains the
first request to the Appropriations Committees regarding the Homeland
Secure Data Network (HSDN). Why should funds be appropriated for HSDN
now when the Department has seen fit to absorb $79 million in the past
2 years and not seek proper appropriated dollars for this purpose?
Answer. Anticipating the need to share intelligence and other
information securely to fulfill its homeland security mission and to
ensure efficient and effective use of scarce funds, the DHS CIO
streamlined and merged disparate classified SECRET network initiatives
within the Department into a single secure network called the Homeland
Secure Data Network (HSDN). Existing agency funds for these initiatives
were used to stand up this critical infrastructure. However, the fiscal
year 2006 funding request is needed to use the additional funds to
expand HSDN into a major, secure information thoroughfare joining
together intelligence agencies, law enforcement, disaster management,
and front-line disaster response organizations in the common goal of
protecting our Nation and its citizens. An expanded HSDN will provide
Secret connectivity and the required efficient information sharing
capability to the non-DOD government community.
Question. Does DHS have the ability to share classified information
today? If yes, why does a stand-alone system need to be built for DHS?
Answer. Today only a few Homeland Security components have the
ability to share classified information over the DOD's SIPRNet. The
present HSDN capabilities currently support over 30 DHS sites and will
expand classified connectivity to 60 DHS sites in the next 2 months.
DHS, and the non-DOD, government sector (including other Federal,
State, local and tribal government) require the infrastructure and the
processes and procedures to share classified information wholly
effectively. The HSDN is an essential step that will allow the
efficient sharing of classified information required for the mission of
protecting the homeland. DOD policy in the wake of September 11, 2001,
has been to migrate non-Defense, homeland security classified
communications off SIPRNet and onto the HSDN. The DOD policy is based
on the desire to ensure the SIPRNet can effectively support the war-
fighting mission. DOD and DHS have established a joint, controlled
interface between SIPRNet and DHS to provide for several levels on
connection between HSDN and SIPRNet based on policy.
Question. Why isn't the budget for this project consolidated? Why
is it being funded by specific organizations of the Department?
Answer. HSDN has rapidly evolved from an initially conceived agency
specific network to a presently deploying DHS-wide network based on
mission needs. HSDN is funded by charging each agency based upon the
HSDN usage by that agency during a yearly time period. The working
capital fund has served as a method to consolidate organizational
element funding to support a single HSDN capability. The specific
organization funding level will be adjusted as the usage requirements
of each agency change over time.
Question. What is the rationale for how much each agency is being
charged for HSDN?
Answer. The HSDN rationale for charging each agency is based upon
the HSDN usage by each agency during a yearly time period. Presently, a
formula has been developed that charges an agency based on its HSDN
participation. Basically, this formula develops a percentage by agency
based on the number of locations (sites) and the number of terminals
(workstations) installed. The number of sites (large, medium and small)
and seats is a usage-based cost model. Site size is an industry
standard such applied by an internet service provider who charges are
based on the size of your site (bandwidth of the connection). The usage
is also determined by the number of seats. While some sites will allow
multiple users for a single workstation, the number of seats sets the
usage level at the site.
Question. The Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
Directorate has in its budget the Information Sharing and Collaboration
program. One of its responsibilities is ``fostering collaboration among
various levels of government and the private sector through the
creation of a secure information sharing environment capitalizing on
existing opportunities''. How does this project relate to HSDN? Are
these duplicative or complementary efforts?
Answer. These are complementary efforts. In May 2004, my
predecessor, Secretary Ridge, created the Information Sharing and
Collaboration (ISC) initiative to coordinate and facilitate efforts
throughout the Department and with our customers and partners,
particularly the Federal, State, tribal and local governments, and the
private and international sectors, to affect change and improve
information sharing and collaboration to secure the homeland. Since
then, the importance of information sharing has been made more evident
through the publication of numerous reports (such as the 9/11
Commission Report, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of
the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, and GAO
studies), the issuance of new Executive Orders (for example, E.O.
13356), and a new public law, Public Law 108-458, the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Section 1016 calls for the
creation of an Information Sharing Environment, which will require the
sharing of information at levels including unclassified, sensitive but
unclassified, SECRET, and perhaps higher.
Anticipating this need to share intelligence and other information
securely to fulfill its homeland security mission, DHS is streamlining
and merging disparate classified SECRET networks into a single,
integrated network called HSDN. We envision that HSDN will become a
major, secure information thoroughfare joining together intelligence
agencies, law enforcement, disaster management, and front-line disaster
response organizations in the common goal of protecting our Nation and
its citizens. The ISC does not build systems or operate networks, such
as the HSDN. The ISC initiative ensures system and network investments
support DHS' information sharing mission.
OFFICE OF SCREENING COORDINATION AND OPERATIONS
Question. The President's budget proposes to create the Office of
Screening Coordination and Operations, or SCO, within the Border and
Transportation Security Directorate. How do you see this new office
contributing to the Department's ability to implement the 9/11
Commission recommendation regarding a comprehensive screening system
with system-wide goals?
Answer. I support the concept of a Screening Coordination and
Operations (SCO) Office, and developed plans through the 2SR process to
meet the goals of the office. Consistent with the 9/11 Commission
recommendations, HSPD-11 and HSPD-12, the SCO office will develop a
more unified, comprehensive and efficient system for the screening,
credentialing, and redress for passengers and leverage current
investments in screening systems and tools. The SCO will harmonize IT
architecture, uniform redress policies, and provide coordinated or
shared services such as card production, biometric/biographic
databases, as well as set DHS standards for information technology
enterprise architecture and global enrollment systems/processes. The
SCO office will develop a consistent approach for outreach in the areas
of privacy, civil rights, and will coordinate R&D efforts. DHS will set
up the SCO office in fiscal year 2006, as reflected in the Department's
revised fiscal year 2006 request.
Question. Should the SCO have actual operational authority for
various screening programs as proposed, or should it focus on the
integration and coordination function, for example the development of
the Department-wide credentialing standards necessary across so many
programs involved in this activity?
Answer. I support the concept of a SCO Office, and developed plans,
through the 2SR process, to meet the goals of the office. Consistent
with the 9/11 Commission recommendations, HSPD-11 and HSPD-12, the SCO
office will develop a more unified, comprehensive and efficient system
for the screening, credentialing, and redress for passengers, while
leveraging investments in screening systems and tools. The SCO will
harmonize IT architecture, establish uniform redress procedures, and
provide coordinated or shared services such as card production,
biometric/biographic databases, common DHS standards for information
technology architecture, and global enrollment systems/processes. The
SCO office will develop a consistent approach for outreach in the areas
of privacy, civil rights, and helping to ensure coordinated R&D
efforts. DHS plans to set up the SCO office in fiscal year 2006.
Question. At the same time that significant programs are being
proposed to be moved from Customs and Border Protection and the
Transportation Security Administration, the President's budget does not
propose moving the operational responsibility for any of the programs
that incorporate screening of applicants out of U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (CIS). In order to ensure that there is the
closest possible coordination across screening programs, should CIS
screening programs also be moved to the SCO? Why wasn't CIS included?
Answer. I support the concept of a SCO Office, and developed plans
through the 2SR process to meet the goals of the office. Consistent
with the 9/11 Commission recommendations, HSPD-11 and HSPD-12, the SCO
office will develop a more unified, comprehensive and efficient system
for the screening, credentialing, and redress for passengers and
leverage current investments in screening systems and tools. The SCO
will harmonize IT architecture, uniform redress policies, and provide
coordinated or shared services such as card production, biometric/
biographic databases, as well as set DHS standards for information
technology enterprise architecture and global enrollment systems/
processes. The SCO office will develop a consistent approach for
outreach in the areas of privacy, civil rights, and will coordinate R&D
efforts. DHS will set up the SCO office in fiscal year 2006, as
reflected in the Department's revised fiscal year 2006 request.
US VISIT
Question. How do you plan on addressing the issue of integration of
the two fingerprint systems--IDENT at the Department of Homeland
Security and IAFIS at the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Answer. The US VISIT Program, working closely with CBP and ICE, and
the Departments of Justice and State, leads the IDENT/IAFIS integration
efforts. DHS' systems receive daily updates from the FBI with
information from a variety of criminal and threat-related databases.
There are several different ongoing efforts to bring about
interoperability between the IDENT and IAFIS.
--DHS (US VISIT) established an integrated project team (IPT) with
the FBI (Criminal Justice Information Services or CJIS) to
address the policy, business requirements, and technical
aspects of integrating IDENT and IAFIS. This IPT has made
significant progress in resolving many of the long-standing
issues in the DOJ Office of the Inspector General's report. A
report, describing plans for interoperability, was submitted to
Congress on August 18, 2005.
--Integrated IDENT/IAFIS workstations will be deployed to sites that
will have US VISIT--115 airports, 15 seaports, and 165 land
border ports of entry--as well as to specific ICE field office
locations, by the end of calendar year 2005.
--DHS and DOJ have completed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to
resolve data access and privacy issues concerning FBI usage of
US VISIT data.
Question. Are there any DHS/FBI jurisdiction issues hampering the
integration effort?
Answer. DHS and DOJ/FBI have achieved an effective working
relationship on integration. As noted above, DHS (US VISIT) and FBI
(Criminal Justice Information Services or CJIS) have established an
integrated project team (IPT) to address the policy, business
requirements, and technical aspects of integrating IDENT and IAFIS.
This IPT has made significant progress in resolving many of the long-
standing issues originally referenced by the DOJ Office of the
Inspector General. A report, describing plans for interoperability, was
submitted to Congress on August 18, 2005.
GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN SECURITY
Question. Mr. Secretary, in your written testimony you used cargo
container security as an example of an area where the Department could
do a better job coordinating across all departmental efforts. What
impact have the various programs the Department is running had on cargo
container security so far? What can be done better?
Answer. Since September 11, 2001, the various cargo security
programs now operated by the Department have made great strides in
moving us towards a system of security that prevents the use of the
supply chain in a terrorist attack while enhancing supply chain
efficiency and reliability. Before September 11, most cargo security
efforts were centered at the port and based on local perceptions of
risk. Today we have improved data reporting through the 24 Hour Rule
supported by centralized targeting at National Targeting Center. This
capability coupled with the Container Security Initiative has allowed
us to revolutionize the customs function by allowing us to interdict
threats before they leave for the United States.
Our current programs and capabilities have laid the foundation for
a truly 21st century international trade system, one that will support
growth in international trade and our security interests. Other
efforts, such as Operation Safe Commerce, the Advanced Container
Security Device program and the Advance Trade Data Initiative, will
provide us with the knowledge and tools to help us get there. To that
end, I am reviewing the status of DHS's cargo security efforts, how
they can be further strengthened and how we can further transform the
system to ensure the United States security and economic needs are met.
Question. What is the status of the final report on Operation Safe
Commerce, and when will it be submitted to this Committee?
Answer. The report on Operation Safe Commerce (OSC) requires
submission of program information from OSC's three participating load
centers. One participant's input was behind schedule but has recently
been received. This information will be integrated into a report and
distributed for review by relevant experts. We expect the report to be
issued by the end of December 2005.
Question. What more should be done in this area?
Answer. I am reviewing the status of DHS's cargo security efforts,
how they can be further strengthened and how we can further transform
the system to ensure the United States security and economic needs are
met.
AGRICULTURAL INSPECTIONS
Question. The April 14, 2005, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Office of Inspector General Report regarding coordination between the
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Agriculture
indicates that coordination has been less than adequate for the last 2
years. Specifically, the report mentions APHIS personnel being denied
entry to ports-of-entry to conduct its required regulatory reviews.
What are you doing to change this situation?
Answer. CBP and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) signed in February 2005
Appendix 8 to Article 8 of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between
DHS and the USDA. The MOA establishes and enhances coordinated actions
and operations between the two agencies and responds to many of the
issues raised in the Office of Inspector General (OIG) report.
CBP and USDA APHIS have forged a new working relationship and
resolved many of the earlier port access issues. CBP, in conjunction
with APHIS, has entered into several programs, such as the targeted
program for imported cut flowers to apply inspection resources on a
risk managed basis (i.e., focus on commodities that pose a higher risk
to American Agriculture). Also, CBP and APHIS have worked together in
numerous ways to synchronize and verify information and data collected
about inspections such as the Joint Quality Assurance Program, which
provides a quality assurance team to conduct port reviews. CBP and USDA
employees are working together cooperatively and sharing information.
CBP has worked with USDA to achieve the appropriate level of access to
the ports of entry for APHIS personnel. As Congress has provided, the
inspectional functions were transferred from USDA to CBP. CBP has set
forth procedures that have facilitated USDA access to the ports to
perform their functions.
Question. The OIG report includes information of the lengthy time
that was required to negotiate and sign official agreements between
APHIS and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Several of these have
taken more than 12 months. Additionally, APHIS reported that attempting
to elevate issues within the Department of Homeland Security was not
productive due to high turnover in the policy-making levels of DHS. The
Homeland Security Act of 2002 split the agriculture responsibilities
between these two agencies. If this is not working, should this
situation be reevaluated?
Answer. Section 421 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (the Act)
transferred to DHS the inspectional functions of APHIS relating to
agricultural import and entry inspection. By the provisions of the Act,
the Secretary of USDA and the Secretary of DHS were required to execute
a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cover this transfer in more
detail. The MOU was signed on February 28, 2003.
Under the provisions of the MOU, the two agencies would work out
further details of this relationship by the means of appendices to
particular articles in order to allow for the development of procedures
that would work for both agencies. To date CBP and APHIS have signed
appendices to all the articles except for Article 4 that involves
training in order to allow for the development of procedures that would
work for both agencies. The time spent in developing the correct
procedures has been well worth the delay as the training functions
between the two agencies are working effectively. A completed Appendix
for Article 4 is expected to be signed in early summer 2005.
We have also developed procedures and mechanisms to work through
issues as they arise in the future. The time taken to draft, negotiate
and finalize these appendices has been a necessary part of a growing
partnership between these two agencies. The organizational and
functional task allocations are working. The agricultural program is
being strengthened through training and cross training.
NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS GOAL
Question. The Administration released the Interim National
Preparedness Goal (the Goal) on March 31, 2005. States are required to
update their State Homeland Security Strategies, by October 1, 2005,
with an assessment of what gaps remain in each state's ability to meet
the tasks and capabilities laid out in the Goal. The proposal put forth
by the fiscal year 2006 President's budget would prioritize Federal
funding received by State and local governments for first responders
not just by threat and vulnerability, but also by ``essential
capabilities'' as defined in the Goal. Each State is required to file
an addendum by October 1, 2005, to its State Homeland Security Strategy
to reflect how it will address the seven national priorities. Is this
enough time for the States to do a thorough evaluation of what
capabilities each has now?
Answer. Yes, DHS believes that there is enough time for the States
to complete a thorough evaluation of their current capabilities.
Specifically, in fiscal year 2005, during year 1 of the implementation
of Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 8, States and urban
areas are required to update their existing homeland security
strategies. To meet this requirement, the Department is asking States
and urban areas to review their existing strategic goals and objectives
and bring them into alignment with the seven National Priorities
outlined in the National Preparedness Goal by September 30, 2005. (The
seven National Priorities are: (1) Implement the National Incident
Management System and National Response Plan; (2) Expand Regional
Collaboration; (3) Implement the Interim National Infrastructure
Protection Plan; (4) Strengthen Information Sharing and Collaboration
Capabilities; (5) Strengthen Interoperable Communications Capabilities;
(6) Strengthen CBRNE Detection, Response, and Decontamination
Capabilities; and (7) Strengthen Medical Surge and Mass Prophylaxis
Capabilities.) This first step in HSPD-8 implementation will not
require States or urban areas to conduct a wholesale rewrite of their
strategies, nor will they have to complete another risk and
capabilities assessment as they did in fiscal year 2003. DHS completed
guidance on completing this strategy in June 2005. More detailed
information on this requirement was presented to State and urban area
representatives at three National Preparedness Goal rollout conferences
throughout April and May 2005. Additional details are also available to
State and urban area representatives through their designated
Preparedness Officers within the Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP)
in the DHS Office of State and Local Government Coordination and
Preparedness (OSLGCP).
Question. An important aspect of the National Preparedness Goal has
not been defined, the levels of capabilities for differently sized
jurisdictions. How are Manchester, NH, and New York, NY, supposed to
know what different types of capabilities that each should have for a
chemical incident?
Answer. The Interim National Preparedness Goal establishes the
national vision and priorities that will guide DHS' efforts, in
conjunction with appropriate stakeholders, to set measurable readiness
benchmarks and targets to strengthen the Nation's preparedness. The
Target Capabilities List is a set of 36 essential capabilities that
should be developed and maintained, in whole or in part, by various
levels of government to prevent, protect against, respond to, and
recover from terrorist attacks and major disasters. DHS, working with
stakeholders, is currently developing national target levels for the
capabilities and the role of Federal agencies, states, local
jurisdictions, the private sector and non-governmental organizations in
building and maintaining the network of capabilities across the country
required for large-scale incidents. Local jurisdictions will be
expected to build and maintain levels of capability appropriate to
their risk. DHS has invited Federal agencies, State representatives,
and national associations to participate in a series of workshops to
set the target levels.
Question. How will you encourage States to be thorough in their
assessment of their capabilities?
Answer. In out-year implementation of HSPD-8, States will be
required to assess their current capabilities against target levels of
capability that will be defined in the Target Capabilities List.
However, in fiscal year 2005, the capability assessment will be
conducted through a representative sampling of States and/or sub-state
regions to test and validate the assessment process prior to nationwide
implementation. As part of this representative sampling of
capabilities, DHS will develop user-friendly tools based on the Target
Capabilities List to ensure that both States and multi-disciplinary
subject-matter expert teams conducting the assessments are thorough in
their evaluation of capabilities. In addition, DHS will provide
customized reports to States that link their existing capabilities and
grant expenditure data to the National Priorities outlined in the
National Preparedness Goal in order to assist States as they begin to
implement HSPD-8.
Question. What is the incentive for a State to close a gap if doing
so results in less funding for that State?
Answer. The Department believes there are sufficient incentives for
States to build both regional and statewide capabilities and close
identified gaps in overall preparedness. Enhanced preparedness to
protect against, respond to, and recover from incidents of a national
emergency, including terrorism, will ultimately result in minimizing
the adverse impact on lives, property, and the economy that are
inherent to a catastrophic event. The protection of citizens, critical
infrastructure, businesses, and communities is a shared goal, requiring
Federal, State, local, international, and private sector partnerships.
Throughout the Nation, States are embracing this goal as the ultimate
incentive, as they work to implement the National Preparedness Goal.
Finally, the extent of ``unmet gaps'' will not be the sole determinant
of DHS grant allocations.
Question. How exactly does the Administration envision this
working?
Answer. The Interim National Preparedness Goal includes a vision,
which is ``to engage Federal, State, local, and tribal entities, their
private and non-governmental partners, and the general public to
achieve and sustain risk-based target levels of capability to prevent,
protect against, respond to, and recover from major events in order to
minimize the impact on lives, property, and the economy.''
The Interim National Preparedness Goal and companion National
Preparedness Guidance outline how the Nation will achieve this vision.
The Guidance outlines a 10-step national process for Capabilities-Based
Planning that will be used to identify target levels of capability,
achieve them, and assess preparedness from the local to the national
level. The Goal and Guidance establish seven National Priorities
focused on developing some of the more critical capabilities from the
Target Capabilities List for which the Nation is currently the least
prepared (Information Sharing and Collaboration; Interoperable
Communications; Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and
Explosive (CBRNE) Detection, Response, and Decontamination; and Medical
Surge and Mass Prophylaxis) and overarching initiatives (to implement
the National Incident Management System, National Response Plan,
Interim National Infrastructure Protection Plan, and expand regional
collaboration) that will facilitate those efforts. The Guidance
highlights existing Federal program efforts that support the seven
National Priorities and describes a schedule of activities for States
and urban areas to update assessments and strategies with Federal
assistance.
The process is collaborative, iterative, and risk-based. Homeland
security is a shared responsibility and depends upon shared efforts.
This approach will be implemented through multi-agency and multi-
discipline working groups at the national and regional (or multi-
jurisdiction) level. Federal preparedness assistance will explore ways
to offer incentives and rewards for collaboration. This approach
involves a continuous cycle of activity to refine our assumptions and
planning tools and share best practices and lessons learned. This
approach recognizes that while all jurisdictions are subject to some
degree of risk, the capabilities and levels of capability that are
needed to manage risk vary considerably across the Nation. Annual
status reports will provide a more meaningful assessment of national
preparedness. Data collection will simplify over time as tools are
refined and consolidated. This approach will provide a sound basis for
decisions at all levels of government to allocate resources based upon
risk and need.
Question. Will ``essential capabilities'' as defined by the
National Preparedness Goal be considered equal to threat information,
population density, or other factors?
Answer. The development of the target capabilities, or ``essential
capabilities,'' by Federal, State, local, and tribal entities and the
private sector will be driven by relevant threat information,
population size and density, critical infrastructure, and other
factors. DHS is working with Federal, State, local, tribal, private
sector, and non-governmental stakeholders to refine the Target
Capabilities List (TCL) for re-issuance on October 1, 2005. This new
version of the TCL will assign the capabilities by level of government
and tiers (groupings of local jurisdictions). The primary purpose of
the tiers is to account for reasonable differences in target levels of
capability (or system-specific elements of capability) among groups of
jurisdictions based on differences in risk factors such as total
population, population density, and critical infrastructure.
Question. Once a State obtains certain capabilities, how do we
sustain that effort? Should the States be responsible for sustainment
costs?
Answer. As we have barely begun to assess current capabilities, it
is premature to speculate about future funding requirements once the
most significant gaps are closed. While maintenance of effort will
largely be State and local responsibility, DHS will continue to assist
States in building and sustaining the target capabilities.
Additionally, every State and locality will have a role in achieving
and sustaining the 36 capability target levels. However, the target
capabilities are a planning tool, not a funding formula. Implementing
Capabilities-Based Planning is a long-term effort that will help the
Nation to achieve the capacity to perform all 36 target capabilities at
the levels needed to effectively prevent, protect against, respond to,
and recover from major events, especially terrorism. Not until States
and urban areas have assessed and realigned their homeland security
strategies and plans will DHS be able to fully determine which of the
36 target capabilities will require additional funding.
FUNDING FOR FIRST RESPONDERS
Question. Just in the last few weeks national news reports have
questioned the use of first responder grants in relation to homeland
security. In January of 2005, the Department of Homeland Security
Office of Inspector General issued a report questioning how the
Department prioritized port security grants.
Given all of this, how confident are you that every dollar that has
been allocated for homeland security grants has been well spent?
Answer. In general, homeland security port security grants have
been well spent. Recognizing that issues emerged with some projects,
the Department disagreed and non-concurred with the IG's finding that
projects received funding despite ranking ``average to worse'' during
the evaluation process. Following TSA's second round of grant awards in
2003, ODP made $75 million available for port security grants under the
Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI). ODP, in consultation with TSA
and SLGCP, utilized a risk-based approach, which differed from the
program's original competitive process to select 14 eligible port areas
and the corresponding funding amounts for each area. TSA then provided
unfunded applications from its second round to ODP, which in turn,
funded 86 projects. TSA provided what they considered to be the next
projects that had been evaluated from the previous round that deserved
funding. All of the 86 projects were funded based on TSA's
recommendations.
The Department has made significant efforts to improve the Port
Security Grant Program in light of the Inspector General's (IG) report.
The report recommended that the Department accelerate the acquisition
of more information from applicants about the scope of their projects
in an effort to expedite the spending of grant awards. We concur with
this recommendation and will ensure that appropriate guidance on the
submission of relevant information within specified timeframes is
included in the application kit for the forthcoming fiscal year 2005
Port Security Grant Program. Additionally, the IG report recommended
that the Department ensure that the program has sufficient operational
expertise to administer the program after the award is made. We concur
with this recommendation as well, and have established a Transportation
Infrastructure Security Division (TISD) within SLGCP to administer the
fiscal year 2005 Port Security Grant Program. Given the reforms in
response to the IG report, DHS port security grants will be managed
even more effectively under the fiscal year 2005 Port Security Grant
Program. Additionally, SLGCP has developed mechanisms intended to
increase accountability of all grant programs, an effort recognized in
a recent GAO Report entitled, ``Management of First Responder Grants
Has Improved, but Challenges Remain'' (#05-121).
Question. The Senate and the House Appropriations Committees asked
for a report on homeland security grant spending. This report is to
include information on what has been purchased with all of the grant
dollars from fiscal years 2002 through 2004, whether these purchases
complied with the State Homeland Security Strategies, and an
explanation as to how this spending has enhanced the Nation's security.
That report was due March 31, 2005, but it has not yet been submitted.
When can we expect it?
Answer. The congressional report on ``State and Local Government
Preparedness and Funding for Fiscal Year 2002-Fiscal Year 2004'' was
delivered to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on May 6,
2005.
Question. If the Department goes to a completely threat-based
formula, are you comfortable with how threats are determined now? I
know we can't talk in detail in an open forum--but what, if anything,
would you change?
Answer. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget proposes a risk-
based homeland security funding process, of which threat is one
component along with consequence and vulnerabilities. DHS will consider
risk factors such as threat, presence of critical infrastructure,
vulnerability, population and population density, international
borders, and ports of entry in making final award determinations. This
process will be modeled on the fiscal year 2005 UASI program, which
combined five variables designed to objectively prioritize funding for
high-threat, high density urban areas. A threat estimate index
developed from an estimate of credible threats and incidents as well as
an index that considered law enforcement investigative activity and
enforcement will be used. The difficulty of determining which States
and urban areas most are at risk is subjective to some degree because
of the nature of most intelligence information and the scarcity of data
specifically identifying targeted states, cities and infrastructure.
Therefore, the current allocation methodologies that consider threat
information represent the best available combination of data, current
understanding of threats, and expert judgment.
Question. What restrictions are placed on the use of these grant
funds?
Answer. DHS released detailed guidance for the use of grant funds
contained in the fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security Grant Program
(HSGP). Specific guidelines on intended purpose and the allowance of
certain types of expenditures vary between the six different programs
contained in the HSGP. HSGP allowable costs are divided into planning,
organization, equipment, training, and exercise categories. Management
and administrative and certain operational costs are also allowed under
certain programs. Allowable equipment categories for the fiscal year
2005 HSGP are listed on a web-based Authorized Equipment List on the
Responder Knowledge Base, which is sponsored by ODP and the Oklahoma
City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism at
http://www.rkb.mipt.org.
The fiscal year 2005 HSGP guidance also details certain
restrictions placed on the use of grant funds, which vary by program.
For example, funding in the UASI and Law Enforcement Terrorism
Prevention Program programs may not be used for overtime to supplant
ongoing, routine public safety activities of State and local emergency
responders, and may not be used to hire staff for operational
activities or backfill. However, these programs do allow up to 25
percent of the awards to be used for operational expenses and overtime
for periods of heightened alert, for personnel to participate in
information, investigative and intelligence sharing activities related
to homeland security, and finally, in the hiring of contractors/
consultants for participation in information/intelligence sharing
groups. Another example of restriction on funds involves construction
and renovation. Use of HSGP funds for construction is generally
prohibited and is allowable only when it is a necessary component of
(1) a security system at critical infrastructure facilities or (2) an
emergency operations center (EOC). Details on other restrictions for
certain types of equipment, training, and exercises are provided in the
fiscal year 2005 HSGP guidance.
Question. What audits have been done, or are underway, to ensure
that these grant funds are used appropriately? What other controls does
the Department have at its disposal to oversee the use of grant funds?
Answer. During calendar year 2004, SLGCP was a part of over 14
governmental audits, ranging from the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) to the DHS Inspector General to the House Appropriations Survey &
Investigations Staff (S&I). Many of these audits looked at the
expenditure of grant funds by the States and territories. Some of these
audits have provided final reports, and most of those reports reflect
SLGCP's ability to efficiently process the grant, as well as provide
programmatic assistance and oversight to the states. A recent GAO
Report entitled, ``Management of First Responder Grants Has Improved,
but Challenges Remain'' (#05-121) credits SLGCP with developing
requirements intended to hold States and localities accountable for how
grant expenditures were planned, justified, expended, and tracked.
In order to assure fiscal and programmatic oversight, ODP
Preparedness Officers have robust monitoring and reporting tools
through which they can monitor expenditures by grantees. The Initial
Strategy Implementation Plan and the Biannual Strategy Implementation
Report provide detailed expenditure information by discipline, solution
area (such as equipment or training) and project area. These reports
require grantees to tie any expenditure of homeland security funds to
goals and objectives outlined in their State or Urban Area Homeland
Security Strategy. They also provide important data on what projects
are being accomplished by States and localities. In addition to the
almost daily contact with grantees, Preparedness Officers also perform
a formal on-site monitoring visit to their States at least once a year,
in accordance with program office protocols. This visit allows for both
programmatic and financial compliance monitoring. The Department of
Justice's Office of the Comptroller (OC) also performs random, risk-
based financial audits of SLGCP grantees. Each State Administrative
Agency (SAA) also is subject to its own State audits. The combination
of these external and internal inspections provides the required
oversight over the use of SLGCP grant funds.
INTEROPERABLE COMMUNICATIONS
Question. The Federal Government has been working for many years to
crack the nut of moving more quickly towards true interoperability. Do
you see the creation of the Office of Interoperability and
Compatibility as helping move towards that goal? Is this just another
Office that will put forth a lot of effort and get very little
advancement?
Answer. The Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate's Office for
Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC) has made significant
achievements in helping the Federal Government move more quickly
towards interoperability. The OIC was created to address critical
interoperability issues relating to public safety and emergency
response, including communications (the SAFECOM Program), equipment,
training and other areas as needs are identified.
Since its inception OIC has:
--Released Version 1.0 of the first ever comprehensive Public Safety
Statement of Requirements (SoR) for Communications and
Interoperability (SoR), which defines the functional
requirements for public safety practitioners to communicate and
share information when needed, where needed, and when
authorized.
--Developed the Interoperability Continuum, a tool designed to help
the public safety community and local, tribal, State, and
Federal policy makers address critical elements for success as
they plan and implement interoperability solutions. The
critical elements include governance, standard operating
procedures, technology, training/exercises, and usage of
interoperable communications.
--Created the Statewide Communications Interoperability Planning
(SCIP) Methodology, based on lessons learned from assisting the
Commonwealth of Virginia in developing a strategic plan for
improving statewide communications interoperability. The SCIP
Methodology serves as a guide for States to consider as they
initiate statewide communications planning efforts.
--Developed coordinated grant guidance which provides the public
safety community with consistent guidance, coordinated
application processes, similar requirements across grant
programs, and general guidelines for implementing a successful
wireless communications system. This guidance was incorporated
in the fiscal year 2003 FEMA and fiscal year 2003/fiscal year
2004 Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant awards,
as well as ODP grant packages in fiscal year 2004.
--Drafted a report as required by the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act that discusses DHS plans for
accelerating voluntary consensus standards for interoperable
communications.
--Managed the RapidCom initiative, in which the Office worked with
ten urban areas to provide requested assistance to help improve
incident level interoperability capabilities and developed a
methodology for a communications table top exercise that is
replicable across urban areas.
--Awarded a contract to develop and execute the nationwide
interoperability baseline study in January 2005. The purpose of
the study is to quantify the extent to which the Nation's
public safety first responders are interoperable technically
and operationally.
With respect to other critical interoperability issues, the OIC has
done the following:
--Created the Risk Assessment Policy Group (RAP) from representatives
within DHS to address and resolve discrepancies in risk
assessment criteria and methodologies. RAP hosted a workshop
with stakeholders from the Department to clearly define the
scope of the risk assessment problem and to develop a strategy
for addressing the problem.
--Created the Joint Evaluation and Testing Program (JET) to
coordinate Federal programs that conduct testing and evaluation
of public safety technologies. JET hosted a planning meeting
with representatives from DHS, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, and the Department of Justice to
define the scope of the JET program.
Question. The Office of State and Local Government Coordination and
Preparedness reports that in fiscal year 2004 more than $890 million of
the grants given to States and locals were used in some way for
interoperable communications, equipment, studies, etc. What is being
done to help States and locals today to make better decision about
investments in interoperable communications?
Answer. SLGCP has leveraged the S&T Directorate's SAFECOM program's
development of standards and grant guidance to help create the
Interoperable Communication Technical Assistance Program (ICTAP). ICTAP
is a technical assistance program designed to enhance interoperable
communications between local, State, and Federal emergency responders
and public safety officials. The goal of the ICTAP program is to enable
local public safety agencies to communicate as they prevent or respond
to a WMD attack. The ICTAP program provides free, on-site support using
a systems engineering approach. The ICTAP technical assistance team
works closely with the UASI site's Urban Area Working Group to assess
the current communications infrastructure for gaps and to translate
operational requirements into technical requirements that can be used
to design an interoperable communications system.
AIR CARGO SECURITY
Question. Does the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
have any cost estimates for screening 100 percent of the baggage and
cargo on passenger planes?
Answer. The total amount of cargo transported on passenger aircraft
represents less than 25 percent of the total air cargo volume
transported in the United States. TSA completed a study in 2002, ``The
Air Cargo Security Scenario Analysis Report,'' that indicated that the
cost of screening 100 percent of the cargo transported on passenger
aircraft at the top 42 airports, which handle 95 percent of the total
volume of air cargo transported in the United States, would cost $500
million in the first year and $3.8 billion over 10 years.
Question. Though you cannot deter every threat, do you believe 100
percent screening of high-threat of bags and cargo is the best use of
our Federal resources?
Answer. TSA has taken a threat-based, risk-managed approach to air
cargo screening. This approach helps the agency appropriately target
screening efforts with the resources available. TSA believes that all
cargo should be pre-screened for risk through the Known Shipper Program
or the Indirect Air Carrier Program, and that 100 percent of cargo that
is identified as elevated-risk should be screened using appropriate
technology and methods. Random inspections play an important,
complementary role in the layered systems approach by managing risk
without unduly impeding the flow of commerce.
Currently all cargo that will be transported on passenger aircraft
is pre-screened for risk through the Known Shipper Program. Passenger
air carriers, Indirect Air Carriers (IACs, or freight forwarders), and
all-cargo carriers who transfer cargo to passenger planes all use the
Known Shipper Program. TSA's Known Shipper Database has centralized the
collection of data on about 450,000 known shippers and enabled vetting
against government databases. To supplement the Known Shipper pre-
screening, air carriers are also required to conduct random screening
of a certain percentage of air cargo.
In 2005, TSA has developed an Air Cargo Security Roadmap that
integrates many policy, operations, system, and regulatory enhancements
to air cargo security. The cornerstone of this effort is the Freight
Assessment System (FAS), which would enable TSA to better and more
efficiently identify elevated-risk cargo for inspection. FAS will
employ a sophisticated risk assessment engine to identify elevated-risk
air cargo for inspection.
Additionally, TSA has published a robust Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (NPRM) for air cargo security. This NPRM is currently being
developed into a final rule, which implements major security
enhancements for indirect air carriers (IACs), all cargo carriers,
passenger carriers, and airports.
Finally, TSA oversees compliance with security requirements through
a robust regulatory compliance program, which includes more than 900
aviation security inspectors located throughout the United States.
Question. How can we better tackle the issue of cargo security?
Answer. TSA continues to make incremental and measured progress in
the air cargo arena, among other things by prohibiting cargo from
unknown shippers, significantly increasing the number of physical
inspections of air cargo on passenger and all cargo aircraft,
increasing its air cargo inspections workforce, strengthening the
criteria for consideration as a known shipper, automating the
validation of known shippers and indirect air carriers, and expediting
research and development efforts to identify potential new
technological solutions for the inspection of air cargo on passenger
aircraft. TSA is also working closely with CBP to develop a targeting
tool which will permit effective identification of elevated risk cargo
with the ultimate goal of requiring the inspection of all such elevated
risk cargo.
Question. What is the right mix of screeners and technology when
dealing with air cargo and how does the Department determine which
resources to apply?
Answer. TSA has taken a threat-based, risk-managed approach to air
cargo screening. This approach helps the agency appropriately target
screening efforts with the resources available. TSA believes that all
cargo should be pre-screened for risk through the Known Shipper Program
or the Indirect Air Carrier Program, and that 100 percent of cargo that
is identified as elevated-risk should be screened using appropriate
technology and methods. Random inspections play an important,
complementary role in the layered systems approach by managing risk
without unduly impeding the flow of commerce.
TSA employees do not conduct the screening of air cargo. Rather,
the screening is performed by air carriers and overseen by TSA. TSA
issues regulatory requirements to air carriers in this area, and TSA's
inspectors provide oversight and work to ensure that carriers are
meeting their regulatory requirements.
Question. What other means is TSA using to achieve more secure
cargo-holds in passenger carriers?
Answer. TSA is continuing efforts to design blast resistant cabin
and cargo liners, as well as overhead bin mitigation technological
solutions. The agency has completed initial feasibility studies for
both passenger cabin and cargo hold liners. The results of the studies
are promising. The agency is working on preliminary designs, and a
prototype is expected by the end of calendar year 2005. TSA is also
partnering with the FAA and aircraft manufacturers to determine which
solutions are best suited for retrofitting existing aircraft with this
new technology.
Additionally, TSA is conducting a pilot program to evaluate the use
of blast-resistant containers for cargo and baggage on passenger
aircraft to fulfill the requirements of Section 4051 of Public Law 108-
458, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. The
objective of the hardened unit load device (HULD) pilot program is to
determine the feasibility, including operational impact, durability,
cost, maintenance, training, blast containment, and logistics, of an
HULD solution. The pilot program began in June 2005, and the data
collection will last approximately 18 months from the start date.
Question. How difficult is it for TSA to secure the air cargo
processing ``footprint'' at the airports from the time of entry into
the system maintaining a chain of custody until the moment of its
loading onto a plane?
Answer. Regulated airports already secure their air cargo
processing ``footprint'' through security measures specified within
their airport security program which identifies a portion of the
airport as Secured Area, Security Identification Display Area, and
Sterile Area. These security procedures are designed to prevent
unauthorized entry, presence, and movement of individuals and ground
vehicles within the air operations area. Current procedures require a
personnel identification system which allows different levels of
access, subjects individuals to employment history verification checks,
and provides individual training.
Question. What are other countries doing to address this issue?
Answer. The United Nations' International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) establishes International Standards, Recommended
Practices and Procedures covering the technical fields of aviation,
including air cargo security.
Countries or States, as commonly referred to by ICAO, are afforded
a great deal of discretion to establish and implement measures to
comply with standards directly related to air cargo security. The
substance of ICAO's air cargo standards are as follows:
--States shall ensure the implementation of measures at airports
serving international civil aviation to protect cargo and
baggage moved within an airport and intended for carriage on an
aircraft to safeguard such aircraft against an act of unlawful
interference.
--States shall establish measures to ensure that cargo intended for
carriage on passenger flights are subjected to appropriate
security controls.
--States shall establish measures to ensure that operators do not
accept consignment of cargo for carriage on passenger flights
unless the security of such consignments is accounted for by a
regulated agent or such consignments are subjected to other
security controls.
The ICAO Security Manual provides guidance on how an ICAO Member
State might comply with the standards. The methods of compliance
provided in the guidance material are based on generally recognized
practices and procedures common within the international civil aviation
industry, but they are not the only means of compliance. ICAO
recognizes that other methods of compliance may be equally appropriate.
TSA PASSENGER FEES
Question. The President's budget request proposes increasing the
passenger security fee by $3.00 from $2.50 to $5.50 for the first leg
of an airline trip. Has TSA or the Department conducted any studies to
determine what the flying public would pay in exchange for better
aviation security?
Answer. Yes. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA),
enacted in November 2001, anticipated that the aviation industry, not
the general taxpayer, would pay for airline security costs. To estimate
the passengers' willingness to pay the additional cost of air
transportation, TSA conducted an analysis that included comparing year-
to-year revenue collections, reviewing Department of Transportation
data reported by the airlines themselves to estimate industry growth,
utilizing the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) aviation industry
forecast, and accessing major research studies that outline issues from
airline fare structure to passenger demand and willingness to pay.
TSA also conducted a review of current research on air passengers'
willingness to pay for aviation security. Of particular interest to TSA
was a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Corporation in
August 2002 of airline passengers for the American Automobile
Association (AAA). In that survey, approximately nine out of ten
respondents indicated that they were willing to pay something more than
the current passenger security fees. AAA's conclusion is as follows:
``Americans remain committed to aviation security. It's one thing to
demand increased security and to be unwilling to pay for it. No one
likes to pay more for the goods or services we buy. But what this
survey seems to say is that Americans not only want to feel secure when
they fly, they are willing to pick up some of the cost, if necessary.''
Question. What is the impact to the industry?
Answer. TSA believes that the modest fee increases of this proposed
budget should not undermine passenger traffic nor worsen the industry's
health. U.S. air traffic reported for 2004 by the Department of
Transportation (DOT) is near or above the year 2000 levels. Despite the
re-imposition of fees after a 4 month suspension under the Emergency
Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2003 (Public Law 108-11), the
DOT domestic passenger traffic statistics showed an increase from a
total of 588 million in 2003 to 630 million in 2004--a 7.2 percent
increase.
TSA researched the impact the fee increase might have on airline
profitability. TSA was unable to locate any study that conclusively
linked a passenger fee increase, applicable to all airlines, with a
measurable decline in airline profitability. The September 11 Security
Fee is a uniform fee imposed on the passengers of all similar air
carrier operations and flights. Consequently, the fee should not put
individual airlines in a competitive disadvantage with one another. In
fact, the security and other aviation fees comprise a larger percentage
of the ticket price for low cost carriers, yet the low cost carriers
are currently the most profitable among the domestic airlines.
TSA regularly monitors the state of the aviation industry,
including the level of operations and the financial status of the
airlines. Here are two examples of informational sources TSA uses in
order to accomplish this goal:
--Various publications of the DOT Airline Fares Consumer Report were
analyzed, and it was found that the answer depends upon various
factors such as market size, number of carriers, and market
structure. The data shows that competition within the aviation
industry has a stronger influence on base fares than security
fees.
--Canada has extensively researched the economic impact of its
passenger security fee called Air Travelers Security Charge.
Using both Canadian and U.S. data, the researchers concluded
that markets with traffic levels over 100,000 passengers are
relatively price inelastic (an increase in price results in
either no or virtually no reduction in demand.). The research
results did not find that the September 11 Security Fee impacts
airline profitability.
Question. Does the passenger fee proposal require legislation or
are there other options?
Answer. The passenger security service fees were authorized by the
Aviation and Transportation Security Act and codified at 49 U.S.C.
44940. Currently, 49 U.S.C. 44940(c) limits the passenger fee to $2.50
per enplanement, not to exceed $5 per one-way trip. The proposal to
increase the passenger fee would require 49 U.S.C. 44940(c) to be
modified to set the new fee level at $5.50 per enplanement, not to
exceed $8 per one-way trip.
Question. The budget requests that this fee change be legislated on
an appropriations bill. However, this should properly be submitted to
the authorizing committees of jurisdiction. Has the President
transmitted the proposed legislation to Congress for consideration and
if not, why?
Answer. The President provided a legislative proposal to modify
this fee authority in the fiscal year 2006 budget. In Title V--General
Provisions of the Appendix (page 526), the proposal states: ``SEC. 517.
In Chapter 449 of title 49, United States Code, section 44940(c) is
amended by striking `$2.50' and replacing it with `$5.50', and striking
`$5.00' and replacing it with `$8.00'.'' This modification to the fee
authority would allow TSA to implement the fee increases sought in the
President's fiscal year 2006 Budget.
Question. What will be the impact on DHS' programs and activities
if this legislative proposal is not enacted as a general provision of
the Appropriations Act or by the appropriate authorizing committee?
Answer. The sharing of aviation screening costs between industry,
passengers, and Government is essential to ensure that there is
sufficient funding for existing and emerging threats to the integrity
of the aviation security infrastructure. The proposed increase is
intended to shift the burden of paying aviation screening services from
the general taxpayer to the airline passenger. The Department will work
with Congress to ensure that security priorities are met.
Question. When would such a fee request have to be enacted to fund
fiscal year 2006 activities?
Answer. TSA estimates that if the fee were to be enacted in time to
be effective at the beginning of fiscal year 2006, the agency will be
able to raise as much as $1.879 billion in additional fees. If the
proposal is enacted after October 1, the delay involved in providing
the necessary updates in fees and guidance to the industry could result
in reduced collections.
Question. What new aviation security measures would you put in
place utilizing the increased revenues or will these resources be used
throughout the Department?
Answer. The purpose of the fee increase is not to fund new
activities. Rather, it is to offset funding from the general fund with
fee revenue. Compared to the past and current level of 50 percent or
less, the fee would contribute to offsetting nearly the full amount of
TSA screening costs.
These costs represent the vast majority of TSA's aviation security
screening costs. TSA does not have the authority to offset any other
costs with the aviation security fee collections. The increased fees on
passengers, the users of the security screening, will ensure fee levels
approaching near full recovery of the Federal cost to operate the
system.
TSA AIR CARRIER SECURITY FEES
Question. At the direction of the Committee, GAO has completed a
review in order to validate the air carrier's estimates of their
security costs in 2000. GAO found that the estimates, currently the
foundation for the fees paid to the Department by the airlines, are
$127 million too low. Due to these findings, Mr. Secretary, will you
take action to collect the additional fees from the airlines?
Answer. In the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005, (Public
Law 108-334) Congress directed the GAO to determine how much air
carriers spent on security screening in 2000--the basis for the fee
imposed on airlines. GAO completed its review and issued a report on
April 18, 2005. The report concludes that the amount of the industry-
wide passenger and property screening costs was between $425 million
and $471 million, with a midpoint estimate of $448 million. The
midpoint difference between what is collected now and what GAO
indicates should be collected is $129 million. However, GAO's estimate
did not include certain cost categories (e.g.; real estate, CAPPS, and
positive bag match) due to the unavailability of information within the
timeframe provided. The cost of these items could be significant. TSA
is currently reviewing all the findings of the. Once TSA completes its
review, the agency will proceed as quickly as practicable to address
the issue.
Question. Will TSA require legislation to change the air carriers'
charges or can this be done through regulation?
Answer. No legislation is required. The fiscal year 2005 Homeland
Security Appropriations Act and the Aviation and Transportation
Security Act, as codified at 49 U.S.C. 44940, provide sufficient
authority for TSA to collect additional amounts from the air carriers.
However, changes to the air carriers' fees would require changes to
regulations currently in effect at 49 CFR Part 1511.
Question. When must the regulation be in place in order to generate
enough revenues to cover your costs in fiscal year 2006?
Answer. To collect the air carrier fee at the current level of
approximately $315 million in fiscal year 2006, no new or changes in
the regulation would be required. The $350 million estimated in the
President's budget captures costs that are currently disputed or not
reported altogether by air carriers due to bankruptcies. TSA is in the
process of pursuing the amounts under dispute. The unreported and
disputed costs will be determined and charged when TSA implements the
new structure for the air carrier fee, for which rulemaking is
currently in progress. Additionally, TSA is currently reviewing GAO's
findings that the aviation security costs self-reported by the air
carriers should be $448 million, $129 million more than originally
reported by the industry.
Question. Will your regulatory proposal focus on changing the basic
structure of how airlines are charged for security costs or is it
intended to focus on the difference between the actual revenue
generated, $350 million, and TSA's target last year of $750 million?
Answer. TSA is evaluating the current regulatory approach to
determining if change is needed.
Question. For fiscal year 2005, there are some that estimate the
air carrier fee will generate only $315 million, not $350 million. What
are you planning to do to address any shortfall?
Answer. The $315 million represents a total rounded year 2000 cost
figure reported by all carriers to TSA. The $350 million estimate
captures costs that are currently disputed or not reported altogether
by air carriers due to bankruptcies. TSA is in the process of pursuing
the amounts under dispute. The unreported and disputed costs will be
determined and charged when TSA implements the structure for the air
carrier fee, for which rulemaking is currently in progress.
Question. What activities will go unfunded or deferred as a result
of the funding gap?
Answer. The sharing of aviation screening costs between industry,
passengers, and Government is essential to ensure that there is
sufficient funding for existing and emerging threats to the integrity
of the aviation security infrastructure. The proposed increase is
intended to shift the burden of paying aviation screening services from
the general taxpayer to the airline passenger. The Department will work
with Congress to ensure that security priorities are met.
TSA CONTRACT SCREENERS
Question. What analysis has the Department done to determine
whether contracting for private screeners is cost-effective and equally
or more effective in terms of security than a federalized force?
Answer. TSA commissioned an independent evaluation of the five
pilot airport passenger screening programs that was completed in April
2004. The evaluation utilized a methodology that included the
following:
Evaluation Categories:
--Security effectiveness: covert test results, Threat Image
Protection (TIP), and re-certification scores;
--Customer/stakeholder satisfaction: customer surveys, stakeholder
surveys, and customer complaints; and
--Cost: total cost the contractor charged for screening services
(including only contract payments and costs borne by TSA)
compared to estimates on how much would have been spent by TSA
had the agency conducted the screening operations at those
airports.
The evaluation concluded that there was no statistical difference
in any of the three evaluation categories between private and Federal
screeners. In addition, as more airports transition to the Screener
Partnership Program (SPP), TSA plans to continue to measure costs of
Federal screening operations compared to private screening companies.
TSA also commissioned an activity-based cost (ABC) study to provide
improved visibility into the costs of specific business processes and
activities, and the associated resources (e.g., people, technology)
consumed by those processes and activities (i.e., cost per bag or
person screened). The ABC study included ten randomly selected airports
that utilize TSA screeners and the five pilot airports. The study will
better enable TSA to identify and collect the cost and performance
metrics needed to establish a successful, ongoing cost and performance
management framework at TSA. The results of the ABC study will provide
another means for TSA management to assess screening operations by
airport.
Question. Is TSA establishing a cost benchmark and collecting the
right kind of information in order to evaluate the costs of providing
Federal screeners vs. the costs of having contract screeners?
Answer. TSA plans to develop a cost baseline for each airport that
applies to participate in the SPP. This cost baseline will be used to
evaluate cost proposals from private screening companies. The results
of the TSA activity-based cost study will also support development of
these baselines.
Question. In what ways is it more effective for the government to
use contract screeners?
Answer. An independent evaluation concluded that there was no
statistical difference between private and Federal screeners. TSA
believes that the independent evaluation, along with the activity-based
cost study, confirms that TSA has been successful in administering an
effective private screening program that is capable of providing
security screening services at levels required by the ATSA.
Question. What incentives do you have in place and what are you
doing to address the private sector's concerns about security liability
related to the private screener workforce?
Answer. In directing TSA to establish a contract screening pilot
program (PP5), the ATSA required that the level of screening services
and protection provided at the PP5 airports be equal to or greater than
the level provided at an airport with Federal screeners. Consequently,
as airports consider whether to continue with Federal screening or to
apply to the SPP, their decisions can be based on their own preferences
and criteria rather than considerations of security, resources, or
level of service.
ATSA states that TSA shall allow an airport operator to submit an
application to have screening carried out by the screening personnel of
a qualified private screening company. TSA is committed to developing a
fair, balanced program that does the following:
--Meets ATSA standards
--Ensures security
--Seeks to establish a strong public/private partnership
--Provides significant opportunity for innovation, efficiency, and
cost savings to the taxpayer
--Provides decentralized management
--Incorporates best practices and lessons learned from recent studies
of the Pilot program, and continues to evaluate and learn on an
on-going basis
--Is performance-based
--Does not restrict airport participation
--Respects Federal and private sector workforces
Under ATSA, the decision to apply for private screening services
lies with individual airport operators. However, should TSA approve the
application, TSA will continue to oversee airport security, whether an
airport has private contract screeners or Federal screeners.
TSA does not provide specific liability limitations for private
passenger and baggage screening services. However, vendors can apply
for protections under the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective
Technologies Act of 2002 (SAFETY Act). Enacted as part of the Homeland
Security Act of 2002, the SAFETY Act provides incentives for the
development and deployment of anti-terrorism technologies by creating a
system of risk and liability management. The purpose of the Act is to
ensure that the threat of liability does not deter potential
manufacturers/sellers from making anti-terrorism technologies
available. The Act provides two types of benefits: (1) Designation as a
Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology (``QATT''), which among other
benefits limits the seller's liability to the amount of available
insurance, and (2) Certification as an Approved Product for Homeland
Security, which allows the seller to assert the Government Contractor
Defense. Sellers must apply for SAFETY Act protections and are
evaluated in accordance with the statutory criteria. Protections under
the SAFETY Act only apply when a QATT has been deployed in defense
against, response to, or recovery from an act of terrorism. The Act
contains a very broad definition of technology, which includes both
tangible products and services as long as they designed, developed,
modified, or procured for the specific purpose of preventing,
detecting, identifying, or deterring act of terrorism.
TSA is working with the S&T Directorate, which is charged with
making determinations regarding the SAFETY Act. TSA understands that
two of the private contract screening companies under the PP5 program
have been granted designation under the SAFETY Act. TSA will also
continue to work closely with DHS and the S&T Directorate regarding any
decision DHS makes concerning the potential legal exposure of all
entities participating in the Screening Partnership Program.
Question. How well have the privatized screeners at the 5 pilot
airports worked?
Answer. TSA believes that private screeners and Federal screeners
perform equally as well in screening passengers.
Question. A recent article in Government Security News reports that
the traveling public is more satisfied with the private screeners than
the Federal screeners. Is this an accurate statement?
Answer. This is not an accurate statement. TSA's annual customer
service survey showed that for the second year in a row there was very
little difference in the high degree of confidence and satisfaction air
travelers have in TSA-trained screeners--Federal or private. For the
second year in a row, air travelers gave consistently high marks to
TSA's security screeners. Between 80 and 95 percent of passengers gave
positive responses when asked about seven aspects of the Federal
security screening process, which included thoroughness and courtesy of
screeners as well as confidence in TSA's ability to keep air travel
secure. In addition, TSA is meeting or exceeding passenger expectations
for security line wait times.
Question. This past November TSA opened the Program Management
Office to assist airports in privatizing their screener workforce. How
many applications for private screeners has this office received?
Answer. As of May 2005, TSA has received seven applications from
airport operators seeking to participate in the SPP. All five of the
airports that participated in the private screening pilot program (PP5)
have applied (San Francisco, Kansas City, Rochester, Jackson Hole, and
Tupelo), along with two new airports (Elko, Nevada and Sioux Falls,
South Dakota).
Question. How many applications for private screeners at airports
do you anticipate receiving?
Answer. The decision on whether to apply to the SPP rests solely
with the airport. Therefore, although several airports have expressed
interest in participating in the program, TSA cannot speculate on how
many will actually apply.
Question. How did you determine the level of screening service to
be provided at these 5 airports?
Answer. The ATSA requires that the level of screening services and
protection provided at the PP5 airports be equal to or greater than the
level provided at an airport with Federal screeners. TSA will continue
to set one standard for security for the entire commercial aviation
system, whether an airport has Federal screeners or private screeners.
TSA will ensure that standards are met through TSA security protocols,
extensive contract oversight, conducting covert testing, and continuous
oversight by Federal Security Directors and their staff in both Federal
and SPP airports.
Per ATSA, TSA is also required to supervise private screening
services at each SPP airport. Private screeners must perform at the
same or better level as Federal screeners and comply with Federal
passenger and baggage screening standard operating procedures.
ATSA also gives TSA the ability to terminate a contract with a
private screening firm for repeatedly failing to perform. TSA will not
hesitate to take action against airports using contract screeners if
they fall below Federal security standards, and TSA will vigorously
enforce the contract requirements.
Question. Are the screening standards for the privatized airports
negotiated or does TSA establish them?
Answer. TSA applies the same rigorous security standards, referred
to officially as Standard Operating Procedures, to private screeners as
it does to the Federal screeners. Passenger and baggage security
screening standards are non-negotiable.
Question. Does the contract include paying for the annual
recertification of screeners by the contractor as well as compensation
and benefits?
Answer. Yes. Screener annual re-certification training is conducted
by and paid for by TSA. Private screener compensation and benefits are
also funded by TSA up to the point required by the ATSA which mandates
that private screeners receive compensation and benefits are not less
than the compensation and benefits for Federal screeners.
Question. Does the private screener workforce have access to
Federal benefits or is this just strictly a contract for services
provided?
Answer. No, private screener workforce employees do not have access
to Federal benefits. While the ATSA mandates that private screeners
receive compensation and benefits that are not less than the
compensation and benefits for Federal screeners, those benefits are not
provided by the Federal Government. Screeners employed by private
screening companies do receive benefits, and TSA monitors the overall
pay and benefits package provided by private screening companies to
ensure that the ATSA-mandated minimum is attained.
Question. What changes would you recommend to the contract screener
program?
Answer. At the present time, TSA is not seeking changes to the ATSA
regarding provisions to this program. TSA is open to and welcomes
dialogue with airports and Congress on any improvements that could be
made to the SPP. Some of the changes airports have indicated that they
would like to see include the following:
--Change ATSA's requirement that private screening compensation and
benefits be equal to or greater than Federal compensation and
benefits
--Allow airports to share in any savings realized. For example, cost
savings realized at an airport with private screeners would be
used to enhance security screening at that airport
--Investigate pooling worker's compensation insurance to reduce costs
through economies of scale
--Investigate broadening the private screening contractor's scope of
responsibility to include other non-screening functions that
impact security screening (e.g., document checkers, baggage
handlers, bin runners, equipment maintenance, etc.)
TSA SCREENER TRAINING
Question. How many hours of training does the average screener
receive?
Answer. The ATSA requires that all screeners complete a minimum of
40 hours of classroom training and 60 hours of On-the-Job (OJT)
training. In addition to this basic training requirement, TSA Federal
Security Directors (FSD) also use a standard of 3 hours per week
(measured on average over a calendar quarter) of scheduled duty time,
per screener, to accomplish recurrent, administrative, and professional
development training. The FSD must create a training schedule that
meets the goal of the 3 hours per week standard as well as the specific
performance and developmental needs of each individual screener. In
addition, TSA provides screeners with additional skills directly
related to specific screener duties. An example is the On-screen Alarm
Resolution Protocol (OSARP) Training. OSARP allows screeners to
evaluate items causing an alarm and to potentially clear those items
without subjecting the bag to a secondary search. The training for
OSARP totals 19.5 hours and includes classroom training, small group
simulator training, hands-on individual simulator training, and OJT
training.
Question. Who conducts the training?
Answer. Basic screener training is overseen by TSA's Office of
Workforce Performance and Training (WPT). The training is provided by
instructors under contract with TSA or by local TSA Approved
Instructors (TAIs) when possible. On-the-Job, cross-over, recurrent,
and specialized training is conducted by local TSA personnel (i.e.,
TAIs, Training Coordinators, Screener Supervisors) and via the Online
Learning Center. Advanced training is initially provided by WPT
contractors and then sustained by TAIs.
Question. Does this training include anything regarding ethics and
baggage theft?
Answer. During the initial 100 hours of basic training, TSA
requires all screeners to review and sign a Code of Conduct. This Code
of Conduct emphasizes such issues as public trust and honesty. Once
initially trained, screeners continually receive recurrent professional
ethics training including the ``Customer Service Web-Based Training,''
which reinforces TSA's customer service principles and gives the
screener training in various scenarios requiring effective customer
service responses. Screeners are also provided the ``TSA Pledge to
Travelers,'' which emphasizes TSA's dual mission of providing World
Class Security and World Class Customer Service, assures the traveling
public that they are entitled to a security screening experience that
is professional and courteous, and that any experience to the contrary
should be reported back to TSA. In addition, TSA has sent several
communications to all employees (not just screeners) of their
responsibilities on ethical conduct, including the restrictions under
the Hatch Act related to the acceptance of gifts by Federal employees.
All employees also receive a copy of and are required to sign TSA HRM
Letter No. 735-1, Interim Policy on Employee Responsibilities and
Conduct, which contains many of the Standards of Conduct provisions.
Finally, to remind screeners of the consequences of unethical behavior,
TSA has disseminated Management Directive 1100.75-3 informing screeners
of the policies and procedures for disciplinary actions that could be
taken against them.
TSA is committed to providing comprehensive ethics training and is
currently developing a general ethics course that is expected to be
available via the Online Learning Center by the end of the third
quarter of fiscal year 2005. This course will cover topics such as
principles, misuse of position, gifts, and outside activities.
Question. What is your response to the OIG's report regarding
baggage theft by screeners?
Answer. TSA's responses to the specific recommendations in the
Inspector General's report are as follows:
Recommendation 1.--Evaluate the adequacy of supervision, the
physical layout of inspection stations, and the feasibility of
installing electronic surveillance techniques near inspection stations.
TSA continuously reviews procedures related to the screening of
baggage including supervision of personnel, physical layout, and
electronic surveillance techniques. The agency will continue to do so
by implementing the congressional requirements of the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act concerning checked baggage
screening area monitoring, which requires the Under Secretary for
Border and Transportation Security to provide assistance, subject to
the availability of funds, to public airports that have baggage
handling areas that are not open to public view in the acquisition and
installment of security monitoring cameras for surveillance of such
areas in order to detect theft from checked baggage and to aid in the
speedy resolution of liability claims against TSA.
TSA's Office of Aviation Security Programs is working closely with
the Office of the Chief Information Officer to plan and execute a
program for the installation of electronic surveillance systems (ESS)
to deter and detect incidents of baggage pilferage and claims arising
from such incidents. $14 million has been made available for ESS
systems in fiscal year 2005 and plans are being developed to either
install ESS where none existed before or make use of or supplement
existing airport systems to leverage available resources. TSA is
working in partnership with airports to find the most cost effective
means to install and maintain current and future ESS systems.
Searching checked baggage in view of the passenger obviously
mitigates incidents of pilferage, but as inspection stations move away
from lobbies and into airport baggage handling areas, ESS will rise in
importance as will emphasis on proper supervision of such areas.
Recommendation 2.--Include a module on professional ethics in its
screening training curriculum.
A general ethics course is under development and should be
available on the Online Learning Center in the next 4-6 weeks. This
course will be mandatory for all TSA employees, with a second component
required for all supervisors available during the same timeframe. New
employees will have 90 days to complete this course. For existing
employees, the training will be required within 6 months.
On pages six and seven of the draft report, there is discussion of
previous cases of prosecution against TSA screeners based on ``sting''
or surveillance evidence. The Office of Workforce Performance and
Training will incorporate the occurrence of such incidents into an
existing lesson that is currently taught in all three of the basic
screener training courses (Dual Function Screener, Passenger, and
Baggage).
Currently, TSA screeners do receive some ethics training though
they are not required to receive annual ethics training because they do
not file financial disclosure reports. The field attorneys at the
Office of Chief Counsel often make annual ethics training sessions for
financial disclosure filers at their airports available to the screener
workforce as well. TSA screeners received the TSA Guide to Major Ethics
Rules as new employees. Also, all employees must sign the TSA HRM
Letter No. 735-1, Interim Policy on Employee Responsibilities and
Conduct, which contains many of the Standards of Ethical Conduct
provisions. Field attorneys have also displayed ethics posters in TSA
offices and breakrooms.
Additionally, in 2003 and 2004, several articles in The Sentinel
were published on ethics issues, including the 14 Principles of Ethical
Conduct, gifts, buddy passes, and the Hatch Act. The Sentinel is a
newsletter distributed to the entire TSA workforce.
Recommendation 3.--Resume negotiating an agreement with the airline
industry on shared liability for lost or stolen baggage claims.
TSA recently resumed discussions with the airline industry based on
the following set of objectives: (1) improve customer service,
including communication to the passengers about where to file claims;
(2) enhance detection of fraud, including duplicative claims; (3)
facilitate cooperation in resolving exceptional claims when necessary;
and (4) develop open channels of communication between the Claims
Management Office and airline claims offices.
At a meeting on January 11, 2005, the airlines were receptive to
these proposed goals, and TSA provided a white paper to the airline
community describing our proposed goals in June 2005. The airline
associations will then share this paper with their members and provide
feedback to TSA. The goal is to have a memorandum of cooperation that
all domestic airlines are able to sign by late summer 2005.
General Comment to the Report.--The topic of property inadvertently
left out of bags is discussed on page 7 of the OIG report. TSA
recognizes that this is a problem and has advised that this property be
handled as lost and unclaimed property. Under lost and unclaimed
procedures, property recovered after checked baggage has been screened
will be inventoried and held for at least 30 days to provide the owner
an opportunity to reclaim the property. Should it be unfeasible or
impractical for the owner to reclaim the property in a timely fashion,
and he or she has evidence that TSA opened his or her baggage through
such means as a Notice of Inspection, the passenger may submit a claim
for the missing property.
Question. How do you track a screener's progress in terms of
consistently utilizing the skills and delivering the appropriate and
acceptable service and security they've been trained to deliver?
Answer. As mandated in a February 2004 TSA Management Directive,
all training accomplishments must be documented in TSA's centralized
Online Learning Center (OLC). TSA management routinely monitors
compliance with mandatory training requirements and recurrent training
guidelines. Federal Security Directors (FSD) are responsible for
ensuring compliance locally on an individual basis.
The aforementioned management directive has been updated as part of
the routine annual review cycle and was circulated for comment within
TSA in May 2005. This update includes clear language on the
responsibility of the training administrator to document all required
training within 30 days (7 days for screener basic training), the
supervisor's responsibility to ensure their employees have completed
all required training, and the role of the course sponsor to monitor
national compliance with program requirements. TSA intends to ensure
that all employees complete the required amount of training by
incorporating this requirement into the fiscal year 2006 Performance
Agreements of all TSA supervisors.
In May 2005, the OLC was enhanced to include a much more robust
reporting engine that will provide Training Administrators and Course
Sponsors with detailed accountability reports.
Additionally, screeners must undergo re-certification each year.
The re-certification program for 2004-2005 includes three separate
paths: passenger, dual function, and baggage. Passenger screeners must
pass three modules. Module 1 is a job knowledge, Standard Operating
Procedures (SOP)-specific test. Module 2 is an image test. Module 3
contains practical skills demonstrations. Dual function screeners take
both job knowledge tests for passenger and baggage screeners, an image
test, and practical skills demonstrations. Baggage screeners must pass
two modules, a job knowledge, SOP-specific test and practical skills
demonstrations.
To be re-certified, screeners have to pass all applicable modules
of the Knowledge and Skills Assessment Program and achieve a rating of
meets or exceeds' standards on their annual Personal Performance
Assessment. Screeners are afforded one opportunity for remediation and
retest. Following a retest, those screeners who fail to re-certify are
terminated.
Question. How do you hold the screeners accountable for
inappropriate behavior?
Answer. The responsibility and accountability for employee conduct
issues rests with the Federal Security Directors at airports. TSA has
implemented a leadership model that requires managers to address
behaviors that fail to support the TSA mission and to work with
employees to engage in appropriate behaviors or face consequences for
continued patterns of misconduct. TSA has also implemented policies to
implement single step termination procedures for high-risk offenses
such as illegal drug use, alcohol on duty, and theft. TSA regards the
commission of such offenses as posing a potential security risk. TSA is
always mindful of ensuring that due process protections for employees
are maintained and has appropriate appeal mechanisms for conduct
matters to include the Disciplinary Review Board, the Agency Grievance
process and appeals to the Office of Civil Rights. In addition, TSA has
a Professional Review Board at headquarters to review and take
appropriate action for misconduct involving senior level employees.
Question. What are the penalties for poor performance?
Answer. The penalties for poor performance range from counseling to
removal depending upon the nature, cause, and severity of the
performance deficiency. Additionally, screeners must undergo re-
certification each year. Failure to re-certify may result in
termination or, in special cases, retraining.
Question. In the worst case what is the threshold for removal from
work?
Answer. TSA has established mandatory termination procedures for
offenses such as illegal drug use, alcohol on duty, and theft. TSA
regards the commission of such offenses as posing a potential security
risk. In addition, TSA has established policies for first offense
terminations for matters affecting integrity and security at the
airport such as sleeping on duty, violations of Standard Operating
Procedures, security breaches, and criminal conduct.
Question. With such a high workmen's compensation number--one of
the highest of the Federal workforce--is there specialized training in
place to address this?
Answer. In early fiscal year 2003, TSA met Congressional deadlines
to hire Federal airport passenger screeners and achieve checked baggage
screening using Explosive Detection Systems. As the TSA screening
workforce was deployed, it became apparent that injuries caused by
lifting and quickly moving baggage were a serious problem. TSA
initiated a safety program in the second quarter of fiscal year 2003 to
address the high rate of injuries.
Fiscal year 2004's rate increase from fiscal year 2003 is
attributed, in part, to the processing of backlogged claims from
incidents that actually occurred in fiscal year 2003. In fiscal year
2004, TSA began implementation of an Occupational Safety and Health
program aimed at lowering TSA's injury and illness rate. By the
midpoint of fiscal year 2004, a decrease in the number of claims could
be seen, and the decrease appears to be continuing into fiscal year
2005. Training, guidance, a nurse intervention program, and the
availability of field safety support have contributed significantly to
the decrease. For example, in the first 15 weeks of operation, the
nurse intervention program at 21 pilot airports yielded savings of over
$2.2 million.
It is important to emphasize that airline baggage handling is among
the most injury prone occupations in the private sector. TSA is
committed to the well-being of its employees and is taking the steps
necessary to reduce screener injuries by improving working conditions
and appropriately managing the claims process.
TSA has also distributed a safety awareness Web-Based Training
(WBT) course both as a CD and via the Online Learning Center. This
safety awareness WBT course covers such topics as proper lifting
techniques, heat injury prevention, and checkpoint and checked baggage
safety. In addition, training on radiation safety awareness is being
developed.
TSA ``NO FLY'' LISTS/SECURE FLIGHT
Question. How does one get on the ``no fly list'', and more
importantly, how does someone get off the list?
Answer. U.S. Government intelligence and law enforcement agencies
collect, analyze, and evaluate data used to nominate subjects to the
No-Fly List. Intelligence analysts and law enforcement officers within
these organizations carefully review nominations based on the No-Fly
List criteria and thoroughly evaluate the information during each step
of the process. Watch List nominations often contain classified and/or
sensitive law enforcement investigative information. Nominations that
meet the established criteria are forwarded to the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the Terrorist Screening Center for
inclusion in the TSC Data Base (TSDB) and for addition to the No-Fly
List. Time sensitive nominations may be routed directly to the TSC if
required.
If it is determined that a person on the No-Fly List should no
longer be identified as a No-Fly subject, they will be removed from the
list. If additional intelligence data is developed or a subject has
been interviewed by U.S. Government officials and deemed no longer a
threat, an official request for removal must be submitted to the agency
that placed the individual on the list. The original nominating agency
will evaluate the data and determine whether the person stays on or is
removed from the No-Fly List. The nominating agency will then make a
formal request through the nomination chain requesting that the person
be removed from the No-Fly List. In some cases, a review of the
derogatory information associated with a No-Fly nomination may result
in the subject being downgraded to the TSA Selectee List.
The TSA Office of Transportation Security Redress is currently
developing a redress process for addressing any situation where
passengers believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly singled out
for additional screening under the future Secure Flight program. This
process will also allow passengers who feel they have been erroneously
placed on the watch lists to undergo a case review. TSA will work with
the nominating agency to review the derogatory information. The redress
process will be coordinated with other DHS redress processes as
appropriate.
TSA has developed and implemented a clearance protocol for persons
who are flagged for additional screening due to the similarity of their
names to those of individuals who are appropriately on the watch lists.
A passenger may initiate the clearance protocol by submitting a
completed Passenger Identity Verification Form to TSA headquarters. TSA
will review the submission and reach a determination of whether these
procedures may aid in expediting a passenger's check-in process for a
boarding pass. The Passenger Identify Verification Form, as well as
other information, has been posted on TSA's public website at the
following web address: http://www.tsa.gov/public/
display?theme=157&content=09000519800fb8af
However, this clearance process will not remove a name from the
watch lists. Instead, this process distinguishes legitimate passengers
from persons who are on the watch lists by placing their names and
identifying information in a cleared portion of the lists. This
information is transmitted to the airlines. Following TSA-required
identity verification procedures, airline personnel can then quickly
determine that these passengers are not the person of interest whose
name is actually on the watch lists.
In addition, an individual may seek to challenge his or her
inclusion on a watch list in a court of competent jurisdiction after
the redress and appeals process within TSA has been exhausted.
Question. What is TSA doing to address the fact that people are
erroneously placed on the list or have mistaken identities?
Answer. TSA has developed and implemented a clearance protocol for
persons who are flagged for additional screening due to the similarity
of their names to those of individuals who are appropriately on the
watch lists. A passenger may initiate the clearance protocol by
submitting a completed Passenger Identity Verification Form to TSA
headquarters. TSA will review the submission and reach a determination
of whether these procedures may aid in expediting a passenger's check-
in process for a boarding pass. The Passenger Identify Verification
Form, as well as other information, has been posted on TSA's public
website at the following web address: http://www.tsa.gov/public/
display?theme=157&content=09000519800fb8af
However, this clearance process will not remove a name from the
watch lists. Instead, this process distinguishes legitimate passengers
from persons who are on the watch lists by placing their names and
identifying information in a cleared portion of the lists. This
information is transmitted to the airlines. Following TSA-required
identity verification procedures, airline personnel can then quickly
determine that these passengers are not the person of interest whose
name is actually on the watch lists.
In addition, an individual may seek to challenge his or her
inclusion on a watch list in a court of competent jurisdiction after
the redress and appeals process within TSA has been exhausted.
The TSA Office of Transportation Security Redress is currently
developing a redress process for addressing any situation where
passengers believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly singled out
for additional screening under the future Secure Flight program. This
process will also allow passengers who feel they have erroneously been
placed on the watch lists to undergo a case review. TSA will work with
the nominating agency to review the derogatory information.
Question. What's the appeal process for these people? Is it within
or outside TSA?
Answer. TSA has developed and implemented a clearance protocol for
persons who are flagged for additional screening due to the similarity
of their names to those of individuals who are appropriately on the
watch lists. A passenger may initiate the clearance protocol by
submitting a completed Passenger Identity Verification Form to TSA
headquarters. TSA will review the submission and reach a determination
of whether these procedures may aid in expediting a passenger's check-
in process for a boarding pass. The Passenger Identify Verification
Form, as well as other information, has been posted on TSA's public
website at the following web address: http://www.tsa.gov/public/
display?theme=157&content=09000519800fb8af
However, this clearance process will not remove a name from the
watch lists. Instead, this process distinguishes legitimate passengers
from persons who are on the watch lists by placing their names and
identifying information in a cleared portion of the lists. This
information is transmitted to the airlines. Following TSA-required
identity verification procedures, airline personnel can then quickly
determine that these passengers are not the person of interest whose
name is actually on the watch lists.
In addition, an individual may seek to challenge his or her
inclusion on a watch list in a court of competent jurisdiction after
the redress and appeals process within TSA has been exhausted.
Question. Is there legal recourse for those mistakenly put on the
list?
Answer. The TSA Office of Transportation Security Redress is
currently developing a redress process for addressing any situation
where passengers believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly singled
out for additional screening under the future Secure Flight program.
This process will also allow passengers who feel they have erroneously
been placed on the watch lists to undergo a case review. TSA will work
with the nominating agency to review the derogatory information.
Question. What is the Department doing to address the serious
concerns about privacy and the use of personal passenger information?
Answer. To protect passengers' personal information and civil
liberties, TSA and the Secure Flight program will:
--Limit the collection of personal information to only what conforms
to the relevant and necessary standard according to The Privacy
Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552 (a));
--Limit access to the information to only those TSA employees and
contractors who have a ``need to know'' clearance in order to
perform their duties associated with Secure Flight operations;
--Ensure that each employee and contractor associated with the Secure
Flight program has completed the TSA mandatory privacy training
prior to beginning work on the program;
--Limit sharing of personal information to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and intelligence agencies that need the
information for investigatory purposes related to aviation
security, in accordance with TSA's Privacy Act System of
Records Notice published for the program;
--Include a built-in auditing mechanism to detect unauthorized access
to the personal information stored for the program;
--Limit the retention of the data. TSA has requested that the
National Archives and Records Administration approve a 72-hour
retention period for the information collected and used for the
Secure Flight program unless a longer retention period is
requested by the passenger for redress; and
--Include robust redress mechanisms to enable passengers to work with
TSA to resolve instances in which they think they are being
inappropriately selected for secondary screening or they are
having a difficult time obtaining boarding passes.
Question. TSA has a program under development, called Secure Flight
which takes personal passenger information and compares it to the ``no
fly list'' in an effort to identify suspected terrorists traveling by
air. How do you respond to concerns raised by both the DHS OIG and the
GAO about the Department's handling and use of the personal passenger
information related to Secure Flight? What are you doing to remedy the
situation?
Answer. To protect passengers' personal information and civil
liberties, TSA and the Secure Flight program will:
--Limit the collection of personal information to only what conforms
to the relevant and necessary standard according to The Privacy
Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552 (a));
--Limit access to the information to only those TSA employees and
contractors who have a ``need to know'' clearance in order to
perform their duties associated with Secure Flight operations;
--Ensure that each employee and contractor associated with the Secure
Flight program has completed the TSA mandatory privacy training
prior to beginning work on the program;
--Limit sharing of personal information to the FBI and intelligence
agencies that need the information for investigatory purposes
related to aviation security, in accordance with TSA's Privacy
Act System of Records Notice published for the program;
--Include a built-in auditing mechanism to detect unauthorized access
to the personal information stored for the program;
--Limit the retention of the data. TSA has requested that the
National Archives and Records Administration approve a 72-hour
retention period for the information collected and used for the
Secure Flight program unless a longer retention period is
requested by the passenger for redress; and
--Include robust redress mechanisms to enable passengers to work with
TSA to resolve instances in which they think they are being
inappropriately selected for secondary screening or they are
having a difficult time obtaining boarding passes.
Question. Why did you discontinue development of Secure Flight's
predecessor CAPPS II?
Answer. On September 24, 2004, DHS announced its intent to
implement a next generation aviation passenger pre-screening program
called Secure Flight. Unlike CAPPS II, Secure Flight will focus only on
identifying potential terrorist threats (those people on watch lists)
and, if a decision is made to use commercial data, it will be utilized
in a focused and limited manner. Under Secure Flight, TSA will take
over from the air carriers responsibility for the comparison of
domestic airline Passenger Name Record (PNR) information against
terrorist watch lists. Secure Flight will meet DHS' goals of improving
the security and safety of travelers on domestic flights, reducing
passenger airport screening time, and protecting privacy and civil
liberties. Consistent with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), TSA will begin implementing Secure
Flight in August 2005.
TSA recently concluded initial system effectiveness testing for
Secure Flight. The commercial data testing began on March 18, 2005, and
preliminary test results for the commercial data testing are expected
later in 2005.
Secure Flight is designed to improve the efficiency of the
prescreening process and reduce the number of people selected for
secondary screening. TSA will compare domestic flight PNR information
against records contained in the consolidated watch lists contained in
the Terrorist Screening Data Base (TSDB), including the expanded No Fly
and Selectee lists. Consolidating these checks within the Federal
Government will allow TSA to automate most watch list comparisons and
apply more consistent, internal analytical procedures when automated
resolution of initial ``hits'' is not possible. Secure Flight will help
eliminate false positive watch list matches, improve passengers'
experience under the existing system by helping move passengers through
airport screening more quickly, reduce the number of individuals
selected for secondary screening, and allow for more consistent
response procedures at airports for those passengers identified as
potential matches. Consequently, TSA will be able to concentrate its
screening resources more efficiently.
Finally, Secure Flight will only pre-screen travelers on domestic
flights, while CBP will continue to vet passengers on international
flights.
AIR TRAVELER SATISFACTION
Question. TSA is one of DHS' most visible agencies since they
interact with the air traveling public on a daily basis. What is the
most common complaint TSA receives?
Answer. TSA captures complaints reported at airports using TSA's
web-based Performance Measurement Information System (PMIS). In April
2005, the most common complaint recorded by TSA's PMIS was the addition
of butane lighters to TSA's Prohibited Items List, which was required
by IRTPA (Public Law 108-458), Section 4025.
The most common complaint currently received by the TSA Contact
Center (TCC) and recorded in the Inquiry Management System (IMS)
involves the delays passengers experience during the airport check-in
process as a result of having a name similar to, or the same as,
individuals who are on a Federal watch list.
Question. Recently, TSA completed a customer satisfaction survey,
what did it find?
Answer. The TSA developed the Customer Satisfaction Index for
Aviation (CSI-A), which is a performance measure of our aviation
screening program. The CSI-A score represents the customer satisfaction
response based on a scale of zero to 100 percent where zero represents
``very dissatisfied'' and 100 percent represents ``very satisfied''.
The CSI-A provides customer service and maintains public confidence
while maintaining a high level of security. There are three components
of the CSI-A: passenger surveys conducted at airports, national poll
results conducted by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), and
complaints and compliments received by TSA.
The CSI-A score for fiscal year 2005 is 79 percent. The following
scores reflect the breakout of each component:
--Passenger surveys conducted at airports=79 percent
--National poll results=75 percent
--Trend of complaints and compliments received by TSA=no significant
change in trends
--The change in trends indicate the changes in feedback (complaint
and compliments) received by TSA via the Performance
Measurement Information System and the TSA Call Center. The
aforementioned trend indicated the changes in feedback against
time for fiscal year 2004.
Highlights of the 2005 passenger satisfaction survey are as
follows:
--91 percent of passengers were satisfied with their overall
experience at the passenger checkpoint;
--89 percent of passengers thought security was adequate, as opposed
to excessive; and
--82 percent of passengers have confidence in TSA's ability to keep
air travel secure.
Question. What other means are you using to validate the customer
feedback findings of the survey?
Answer. TSA collects customer feedback on a daily basis. Customers
have two means through which to provide feedback on their experience--
providing the feedback while at the airport or contacting the TCC.
Feedback received at airports is recorded using the web-based system
known as the PMIS. PMIS enables TSA personnel at airports to record the
feedback received from customers on a daily basis. In addition, PMIS
offers airports the ability to record the number of compliments and
complaints received according to a variety of categories. The
categories are the same as those used by the TCC. Examples of
categories include, but are not limited to: discourteous treatment,
slow processing, and improper handling of property. This data in
addition to the data from the TCC contributes to one of the three
components of the Customer Satisfaction Index for Aviation.
Question. What role does the TSA Contact Center play regarding
customer service?
Answer. The TCC serves as TSA's central customer service point of
contact for all non-media public inquiries. These inquiries can be made
to the TCC via telephone, facsimile, correspondence, and e-mail. The
inquiries usually take the form of compliments, complaints, or requests
for information on a particular issue or problem. For example, an
individual may have a question regarding whether a particular item is
prohibited in either checked or carry-on luggage and the Customer
Service Representative (CSR) or agent will respond accordingly. If an
individual has a complaint, the CSR will either attempt to resolve the
matter or, if appropriate, refer the matter to a Customer Support and
Quality Improvement Manager at the airport for appropriate action and
follow-up with that individual. In addition, given the nature of the
contact, a matter may need to be elevated to TCC management and/or
referred to a program office within TSA for assistance. Furthermore,
based on investigation or analysis of complaints and inquiries made to
the TCC, recommendations are made to improve agency policies,
procedures and practices.
The TCC also performs a security role in protecting the Nation's
transportation systems. For example, the TCC forwards to TSA's
Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC) any communications or
contacts mentioning, referencing, or alleging threats or security
vulnerabilities. The TSOC will then take appropriate action to resolve
the issue.
Question. What progress and improvements has TSA made using both
the survey and the Center's feedback?
Answer. All feedback received by the passengers is used to make
management decisions. Trend analyses, such as review of the top three
complaints, are provided and reviewed by senior leadership on a monthly
basis. Specific issues that are the result of recent policy changes are
also addressed, such as recent complaints on pat-down searches and the
amended Prohibited Items List. TSA headquarters is also rolling out a
pilot program at ten airports to test a standardized customer comment
card. The card is designed to provide a means for convenient and quick
feedback at the airport level.
Question. How do you respond to the recent Government Security News
article that passengers prefer private screeners' treatment of the
passengers being screened?
Answer. The TSA annual customer service survey showed that for the
second year in a row there was very little difference in the high
degree of confidence and satisfaction air travelers have in TSA-trained
screeners--Federal or private. For the second year in a row, air
travelers gave consistently high marks to TSA's security screeners.
Between 80 and 95 percent of passengers gave positive responses when
asked about seven aspects of the Federal security screening process,
which included thoroughness and courtesy of screeners as well as
confidence in TSA's ability to keep air travel secure. In addition, on
average TSA is meeting or exceeding passenger expectations for security
line wait times.
Question. How are your wait times and your wait time web page
working for TSA?
Answer. TSA continually seeks to evaluate and understand factors
that increase wait times and how our service and staffing models can
decrease wait times and improve the screening process for passengers.
All airports collect and report wait time data each hour of each day
and on the half hour during peak hours of the day. This allows TSA to
monitor the customer experience in order to ensure the traveling public
is not overburdened with lengthy wait times while not compromising
security. The wait time data is used to make improvements to checkpoint
configurations and appropriate staffing levels.
Since collection of wait time data, the national average wait time
has decreased to less than three minutes. Similarly, the average wait
time during peak periods has decreased by almost four minutes since
January 2004.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nationwide Nationwide
Month average wait average peak
time wait time
------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 2004............................ 3.35 minutes 14.0 minutes
April 2005.............................. 2.95 minutes 10.1 minutes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to using wait time internally to assist in identifying
areas for improvement, TSA posts the wait time data on a public
internet site available to travelers and the media. The URL can be
found at http://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov/index.html. The web site provides
the traveling public rolling average wait time by hour, by airport
checkpoint, and by day of the week.
Question. What recourse do complainants have?
Answer. The recourse for complainants varies depending on the
nature of the complaint. In the majority of cases, the matter is
resolved by the Customer Service Representative (CSR) or agent who
initially handles the inquiry by providing the individual with
information as to why a particular action was taken or about processes
currently in place. For example, in some cases, a TSA representative
explains the redress process, usually used with claims or watch list
issues, and provides the necessary forms. Unusual or less common
complaints may need to be elevated to management and/or referred to the
appropriate program office. This process ensures that TSA responds in a
timely manner to inquiries received, while at the same time giving
proper attention to any new trends or issues concerning TSA services.
When an issue involves a particular airport, TSA refers the issue to a
Customer Support and Quality Improvement Manager at the airport for
appropriate action and follow-up with the complainant. The TSA Contact
Center (TCC) is another vital tool and serves as TSA's central customer
service point of contact for all non-media public inquiries. TSA
headquarters is rolling out a pilot program at ten airports to test a
standardized customer comment card. The card is designed to provide a
means for convenient and quick feedback at the airport level.
Additionally, TSA leadership contact information is on the website for
program-related issues.
Question. How many complaints does TSA receive and what's the
average time for complaints to be resolved?
Answer. At present, there is no single mechanism that captures all
customer complaints, compliments, and inquiries. Currently, the system
is not structured in a manner that separately breaks out numbers of
compliments, complaints, and requests for information within any given
subject matter category.
The TCC handles approximately 40,000 non-media inquiries or
contacts from the traveling public, including complaints, on a monthly
basis. In addition, TSA receives complaints, as well as other types of
contacts, through other channels. For example, the Claims Management
Office (CMO) receives approximately 2,400 claims on a monthly basis.
Customer comments also come into TSA through Customer Support and
Quality Improvement Managers at airports. At this time, there is no
system that centrally tracks the complaints received by TSA through its
various channels.
The time it takes to resolve any particular complaint varies
depending on the nature of the complaint. In the majority of cases, the
matter is resolved by the CSR or agent who initially handles the
inquiry by providing the individual with information as to why a
particular action was taken or about processes currently in place and
the average talk time for these calls is approximately four minutes.
The TCC does not currently track how long it takes to resolve a matter
when an agent needs to elevate a call to a particular program office or
the field for resolution.
Question. Is there a customer service function in TSA to take
complaints at each airport and if so what types of training do these
employees receive?
Answer. Many airports have a staff person assigned to manage the
customer service function. The staff position is called Customer
Support and Quality Improvement Manager (CSQIM). The CSQIM works
closely with TCC to receive and respond to complaints and inquiries at
the airport level.
Some airports have forms available for customer comments at the
checkpoints. TSA headquarters is rolling out a pilot program at ten
airports to test a standardized customer comment card. The card is
designed to provide a means for convenient and quick feedback at the
airport level.
Customer service courses are offered to CSQIM employees via the TSA
online training center. Five customer service courses are now available
(see descriptions below). An in-service training program, designed
specifically for CSQIM employees, is being researched for future
implementation.
Excellence in Service.--Fundamentals for Managers will help you
develop the skills needed to effectively relate to customers, fulfill
their basic needs, and exceed their expectations. You will be provided
with opportunities to differentiate between internal and external
customers, take ownership for customers' needs, and make sure your
customers are completely satisfied.
In ``Excellence in Service.--Working with Upset Customers,'' you
will learn how to successfully serve upset customers, calm upset
customers, and deal with abusive customers. In addition, you will learn
how to control your own emotions and reduce your level of stress.
In ``Excellence in Service.--Communicating with Your Customers,''
you will learn how to build rapport with your customers, and discover
how non-verbal communication is interpreted by customers. In addition,
you will learn telephone skills, including how to project
professionalism and how to provide quality customer service over the
telephone. Finally, you will learn how to communicate effectively with
your customers through e-mail.
In ``Excellence in Service.--Providing Superior Customer Service,''
you will learn how to develop and maintain a positive attitude, show
extra attentiveness to your customers, and use customer-friendly
language. In addition, you will learn how to effectively solve
customers' problems and benefit from their complaints.
In ``Excellence in Service.--Establishing Service Standards,'' you
will learn what customers really want from your organization and how
they evaluate your service, as well as how to create and implement
effective service standards. In addition, you will learn how to monitor
your service standards and how to correct problems that cause service
to fall below the standards.
Question. Do you find that the complaints are related to TSA's
security measures and the navigation through the airports or is it
related to interactions with the airlines?
Answer. The TCC is responsible for handling all non-media inquiries
from the traveling public. Each contact is assigned a subject category
based upon the nature of the call. Among the available subject
categories, one captures ``Airline Issues'' and another captures
``Airport Issues.'' Airline issues generally involve matters related to
proper identification, gate and boarding passes, baggage match and
weight/size allowance, airline employee/service complaints, and refunds
(airline tickets, lodging). Airport issues generally involve matters
related to airport grounds, parking, checkpoint, configuration and
limitations. Other categories capture a variety of TSA-related topics.
In March 2005, the TCC handled 2,245 contacts involving airline issues,
which represents approximately 5 percent of the total contacts handled.
With respect to airport issues, 179 contacts were handled in March
2005, less than 1 percent of the total contacts. In addition to airline
issues and airport issues, the TCC handled 9,106 contacts involving the
No Fly list during March 2005.
R&D CONSOLIDATION
Question. The fiscal year 2006 budget proposes to consolidate all
research and development of the Department of Homeland Security into
Science and Technology, with the exception of the Domestic Nuclear
Detection Office (DNDO). Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what the
driving force is behind this consolidation?
Answer. Through the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and subsequent
legislation, the Under Secretary for Science and Technology has been
tasked with coordinating and integrating all research, development,
demonstration, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) activities of DHS and
also to consolidate all Departmental research and development funding
within the science and technology programs. The coordination and
integration of RDT&E will: maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of
the Department's RDT&E capacity; develop and expand synergistic RDT&E
programs that cut across the Department's activities; create a world-
class RDT&E capability; allow the other Directorates and organizational
elements to eliminate within them the specialized management
infrastructure required to manage organic RDT&E; and allow the other
Directorates and organizational elements within DHS to focus on their
operational missions.
Question. What savings do you hope to realize as a result of the
consolidation?
Answer. This consolidation will bring under a single accountable
authority the scientific and engineering personnel and other RDT&E
resources of the Department. Coordination and integration of RDT&E will
contribute to a synergistic environment wherein knowledge,
capabilities, and initiatives can be leveraged and effectiveness and
efficiencies can be enhanced.
Question. How will the consolidation change the way in which
research and development is carried out within the Department today?
Answer. Consolidation will contribute to: maximize the efficiency
and effectiveness of the Department's RDT&E capacity; develop and
expand synergistic RDT&E programs that cut across the Department's
activities; create a world-class RDT&E capability; allow the other
Directorates and organizational elements to eliminate within them the
specialized management infrastructure required to manage organic RDT&E;
and allow the other Directorates and organizational elements within DHS
to focus on their operational missions.
Question. What assurances can the Department provide to the
Committee that the traditional mission of the Coast Guard will continue
to flourish in the new consolidated research and development structure?
Answer. Authorities for the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) RDT&E will rest
within USCG, but the USCG RDT&E program will be coordinated with the
overall departmental RDT&E program to maximize efficiency and minimize
duplication of effort. There are significant efficiencies to be gained
with an integrated RATE effort for the Department under a single
accountable authority. The S&T Directorate is committed to and
responsible for supporting the research, development, testing, and
evaluation requirements to ehnance the USCG homeland and non-homeland
security mission performance.
Question. Why isn't the DNDO research and development included in
this consolidation, would it not benefit as well?
Answer. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) serves as a
unique entity within the Department to consolidate all nuclear-
detection related activities, allowing for the development of an
integrated office that will be responsible not only for research and
development, but also for developing a global nuclear detection
architecture and developing and implementing a domestic detection
system, to include acquisition programs for detection assets and
operational support functions. This integration, as well as
coordination with nuclear detection programs in other departments, will
allow for the development of a single, global nuclear detection
architecture to protect the Nation from attempts to import or transport
a nuclear device or fissile or radiological material intended for
illicit use.
DNDO will continue to closely interface with the S&T Directorate on
joint projects, as appropriate, for the development of technologies
that may provide countermeasures against multiple threat types. The
separation of the DNDO nuclear detection RDT&E from the RDT&E conducted
within the S&T Directorate will be conducted so as to not have any
detrimental effect on potential collaborative efforts that would be
gained through the S&T consolidation effort. The goal is to make sure
that this Nation maintains a preeminent research and development
program to address the technical challenges in radiation detection
science and technology, while at the same time capitalizing on the
benefits of integrating this program with larger acquisition and
operational support efforts.
DOMESTIC NUCLEAR DETECTION OFFICE
Question. Mr. Secretary, I understand from recent news reports that
you established the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office 2 days after your
arrival at the Department. Further, I understand this office was
operational prior to your reorganization notification pursuant to the
Homeland Security Act establishing this office directly under the
Office of the Secretary. The Committee has also just received a
reprogramming request to provide fiscal year 2005 resources to support
this office. Where did you get the initial resources and staff to stand
up this office?
Answer. The DNDO is a part of a natural evolution of the DHS S&T
Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures portfolio, which was
appropriated $122.6 million in fiscal year 2005. Of this appropriation,
$92.5 million was to be used to manage programs that directly fall
within the mission space of the DNDO, as currently envisioned. The
programs that currently are managed through this appropriation, along
with the associated staff, will ultimately fall under the management of
DNDO. Additionally, a number of other departments and DHS components
have provided staff, on a non-reimbursable basis, to the DNDO
transition team, which will eventually form the initial staff for the
office.
The defense of this Nation against a terrorist nuclear attack is
one of the top priorities of the Department, and the attention that I
gave this matter immediately upon my arrival should be indicative of
that. I sent out a memo to the Department on March 16, outlining my
intention to establish the DNDO, and directing senior members of the
Department to support the transition and establishment of the office.
This is a process that is still underway, rather than one that has been
concluded. As part of this process, the Committee was notified, on
April 13, of a single funding reprogramming to use existing DHS S&T
funds, as appropriated, to cover operating costs of the new office for
the remainder of fiscal year 2005. Simultaneously, I submitted, in
accord with Sec. 872 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law
107-296), notification to Congress of the intent to establish the DNDO
within the Department. On April 15, the President issued National
Security Presidential Directive-43/Homeland Security Presidential
Directive-14, ``Domestic Nuclear Detection,'' directing the
establishment of DNDO within the Department.
Question. The Department is required to come before the Committee
and receive advance approval for new initiatives, why wasn't the
Committee notified in advance of the Office's establishment?
Answer. On April 13, DHS submitted both an 872 notice and an fiscal
year 2005 Reprogramming Report to appropriate Authorization and
Appropriations Committee members. In anticipation of the notification
to Congress, I previously announced to the Department my intent to
create the office and established an acting director with authority to
begin staffing the office from DHS and the other agencies involved, and
to take necessary steps to be functional as soon as possible.
Question. Can you tell the Subcommittee what has changed in the
last year to warrant the creation of this office immediately; is it new
intelligence, new authorities granted to Homeland, or new
vulnerabilities uncovered?
Answer. While there is currently no specific intelligence
indicating when or where a nuclear attack might occur, it is expected
to take several years to continue to develop and test effective,
sustainable countermeasures and deploy and operate systems to interdict
an attempted attack by our adversaries. With this in mind, it is
important to take steps proactively to strengthen and consolidate
efforts to be prepared if and when an attempt should come.
Accordingly, acting now provides the Department with an opportunity
to consolidate all nuclear-detection related activities and proceed
with a fully integrated approach that will include not only research
and development, but also the development of a global nuclear detection
architecture and development and implementation of a domestic detection
system, including acquisition programs for detection assets and
operational support functions. This integration, as well as
coordination with nuclear detection programs in other departments, will
allow for the development of a single, global nuclear detection
architecture to protect the Nation from attempts to import or transport
a nuclear device or fissile or radiological material intended for
illicit use.
Question. The Department is taking great pains to consolidate the
research and development of the Department under the Science and
Technology Directorate. Would you explain the rationale behind why
DNDO's research and development should remain separate?
Answer. The DNDO serves as a unique entity within the Department to
consolidate all nuclear-detection related activities, allowing for the
development of an integrated office that will be responsible not only
for research and development, but also for developing a global nuclear
detection architecture and developing and implementing a domestic
detection system, to include acquisition programs for detection assets
and operational support functions. This integration, as well as
coordination with nuclear detection programs in other departments, will
allow for the development of a single, global nuclear detection
architecture to protect the Nation from attempts to import or transport
a nuclear device or fissile or radiological material intended for
illicit use.
DNDO will continue to closely interface with the S&T Directorate on
joint projects, as appropriate, for the development of technologies
that may provide countermeasures against multiple threat types. The
separation of the DNDO RDT&E from the RDT&E conducted within the S&T
Directorate will be conducted so as to not have any detrimental effect
on potential collaborative efforts that would be gained through the S&T
consolidation effort. The goal is to make sure that this Nation
maintains a preeminent research and development program to address the
technical challenges in radiation detection science and technology,
while at the same time capitalizing on the benefits of integrating this
program with larger acquisition and operational support efforts.
ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE
Question. As you step into the role of Secretary, Mr. Chertoff, how
well do you think S&T is carrying out its strategic mission?
Answer. Over these last few months I have closely reviewed the work
of the S&T Directorate and believe it is doing very well in carrying
out its mission. The most important mission for the S&T Directorate is
to develop and deploy cutting-edge technologies and new capabilities so
that the dedicated men and women who serve to protect and secure our
homeland can perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently. The
S&T Directorate uses a risk-based approach to prioritizing and
planning, and identifies critical capability gaps before attempting to
identify or develop technology solutions. The S&T Directorate then
addresses the highest priorities that address the broad threat spectrum
as well as supporting the needs of the Department's organizational
elements.
Question. During your short tenure, what are the areas of greatest
concern to you?
Answer. As I emphasized in my recent 2SR speech, the Department's
success in meeting its strategic objectives requires a coordinated
risk-based approach to planning and prioritizing its activities, and
this approach is being implemented across the Department. Thus, the
development and implementation of effective and efficient counter-
measures to biological, chemical and explosive threats continues to be
an area of emphasis for the Department. Within the Department, the S&T
Directorate has the lead in developing effective countermeasures for
biological, chemical, radiological/nuclear, and explosives threat
agents as well as providing support to the Department's organizational
elements. The DNDO has the lead role in radiological/nuclear detection
capabilities. Both the S&T Directorate and DNDO are committed to
ensuring that the Nation is safer from these threat areas.
Additionally, the S&T Directorate remains committed to providing the
nation's emergency responders, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and other
members of the responder community with innovative, affordable
technologies.
Question. How do we have any confidence that the Department, and
S&T specifically, is heading in the right direction? Recent reports
indicate that S&T has made little if any progress in actually
increasing our security through research and strategic management of
our limited research dollars.
Answer. Clearly, the S&T Directorate works to ensure that the
nation's Federal, State and local operational end-users have the
necessary technological tools to protect and secure our homeland. The
S&T Directorate acknowledges and accepts that technology research and
development is not a 6 month process but rather a long-term investment
of 18 months to 4 years for the technology to mature. The Directorate
tends to aim further down the road to ensure that the research and
development being conducted today is capable of dealing with emerging
threats in the future. All of the S&T Directorate's programs began at
the same time, March 2003 or soon thereafter, therefore the S&T
Directorate has not yet reached full maturity in many of its critical
ongoing efforts.
The S&T Directorate also recognizes the need for technology
solutions in the near term. The S&T Directorate's efforts to date have
resulted in numerous products that are increasing our security.
Included in these are:
--BioWatch, a biological agent detection system, which protects the
nation's major population centers from the threat and
ramifications of a bioterrorist attack. BioWatch also provided
support during the G8, Democratic National Convention and
Republican National Convention;
--Developed and transitioned PROTECT, a chemical detection system, to
the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for use in
the Washington subway system. PROTECT was also deployed to
Boston and New York for the Democratic and Republican National
Conventions and remains in the New York subway system;
--Delivered the Threat Vulnerability Integration System (TVIS) and
the Threat-Vulnerability Mapper (TVM), to the Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) Directorate;
--Developed the BTS Technology Vision which include Border Watch,
Transportation Watch and Border Net which significantly
improves our ability to provide the information necessary to
secure our borders;
--Selected four urban areas for the pilot of the Regional Technology
Integration (RTI) Initiative;
--Developed a joint port and coastal surveillance prototype
designated HAWKEYE with the United States Coast Guard; and
--Developed a Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Decision
Support System (DSS) focused on prioritizing investment,
protection, mitigation, response, and recovery strategies
related to Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Question. How is S&T assisting in the protection of our critical
infrastructure and what relation does that have to the Department's
efforts of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
office?
Answer. The S&T Directorate supports the Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) Directorate in the technical aspects
of assessing threats to the nation's critical infrastructure. Through
RDT&E, the S&T Directorate is providing specialized technical tools for
intelligence analysis and knowledge synthesis. Analytical tools include
software algorithms for data extraction, pattern discovery, semantic
graph representation, visualization, and modeling and simulation. To
support these tools, the S&T Directorate also provides tools to the
IAIP Directorate, such as the Threat Vulnerability Integration System.
Terrorist capability assessments, which are being performed by the
national laboratories, also provide expert scientific data and
background information analyses to the IAIP Directorate. The specially
developed tools greatly extend the capabilities of the commercially
available analytical products that are used by the IAIP Directorate.
They are designed to work on massive, multimodal, and distributed data
sets and to provide real-time, higher accuracy visualization and
modeling capabilities.
The S&T Directorate is also developing scientifically based,
rational approaches for prioritizing critical infrastructure protection
strategies, protection requirements, and resource allocations using
modeling, simulation, and analyses to assess vulnerabilities,
consequences, and risks; developing and evaluating protection,
mitigation, response, and recovery strategies and technologies; and
providing real-time support to decision makers during crises and
emergencies.
There are several significant examples of this partnership.
For example, the S&T Directorate provides assistance to IAIP in
evaluating the scientific and technical capabilities of terrorist
groups and organizations to develop and deploy all WMD agents. This is
an excellent example of a reciprocal supporting relationship, in that
the IAIP Directorate needs S&T Directorate insight into technical
issues, while the S&T Directorate needs IAIP Directorate insight into
emerging threats. This ``swap'' of insight allows the S&T Directorate
to meet its responsibility for the coordination of RDT&E needed to
address those emergent threats.
In addition, countermeasures for WMD (such as chemical, biological,
radiological and nuclear threats) are addressed within the S&T
Directorate--however this work supports and is developed in
coordination with all of the operational elements of DHS including the
IAIP Directorate.
Furthermore, the S&T Directorate is developing the Critical
Infrastructure Protection Decision Support System (CIP-DSS) in
collaboration with several units of the IAIP Directorate and working
with the IAIP Directorate's National Infrastructure Simulation and
Analysis Center (NISAC) to validate and mature the model.
The S&T Directorate has also developed the annual National Critical
Infrastructure Protection (NCIP) R&D Plan in close coordination with
the IAIP Directorate. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan
(NIPP), developed by the IAIP Directorate, and the NCIP R&D Plan are
complementary documents, mutually supportive and coordinated.
Finally, the S&T Directorate, in coordination the IAIP Directorate,
is leading RDT&E efforts that will improve the security of the existing
cyber infrastructure and provide a foundation for a more secure
infrastructure. To protect these infrastructures, we must improve the
security of the protocols that underlie Internet communications.
Technological advances are necessary to protect against, detect, and
respond to attacks on the nation's information infrastructure.
The S&T Directorate has a number of cooperative programs with the
IAIP Directorate linking cyber security research to critical
infrastructure protection:
--Process Control System Forum (PCSF).--This forum was established to
accelerate the development of technology that will enhance the
security, safety and reliability of process control system
(PCS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)
systems.
--Control System Security Test Center (CSSTC).--In collaboration with
the Department of Energy and its resources and testing
facilities, this program focuses on developing procedures for
enumerating the vulnerability of process control systems to
cyber attack and finding solutions to correct these weaknesses.
--Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Awards.--In fiscal year
2004, 13 Phase I SBIR projects were awarded in the area of
process control system security. In fiscal year 2005, Phase II
SBIRs were awarded to a subset of the Phase I performers, on
the following topics: Advanced Security for SCADA Systems,
Protection of SCADA Systems Using Physics Based Authentication
and Location Awareness, Improved Security Information
Management for SCADA Systems, A Robust Secure Management System
for SCADA/EMS Operations, and A Toolkit for Next Generation
Electric Power SCADA Security Protection and Research.
The Science and Technology Requirements Council is one process by
which the IAIP Directorate and the other component units in DHS convey
their RDT&E requirements to the S&T Directorate. Representatives from
the IAIP Directorate also are members of the S&T Directorate's
Integrated Product Teams, a key mechanism for coordination and planning
of DHS RDT&E efforts.
Question. What is on the horizon in terms of the newest threats and
related countermeasures under development?
Answer. The Department is working in close collaboration with the
DOD, the FBI, members of the Intelligence Community and others to
identify potential new threats, assess the nations vulnerabilities to
these potential new threats, and the consequences if these potential
new threats were successfully used against us. The S&T has the
responsibility within the Department to incorporate the risk of these
potential new threats into our overall RDT&E process and the
development of appropriate countermeasures. Although details can not be
provided herein, the S&T Directorate is addressing, for example,
potential threats from genetically modified biological organisms and
certain types of non-traditional chemical warfare agents to develop
appropriate countermeasures.
Question. Can you tell us how S&T has had a direct role in
improving the security of the country?
Answer. The nation's advantage in science and technology is a key
element in securing the homeland. The most important mission for the
S&T Directorate is to develop and deploy cutting-edge technologies and
new capabilities so that the dedicated men and women who serve to
protect and secure our homeland can perform their jobs more effectively
and efficiently. However, the threats to our homeland remain diverse
and daunting. The S&T Directorate constantly monitors current and
emerging threats and assesses our vulnerabilities to them, develops new
and improved capabilities to counter them and mitigate the effects of
terrorist attacks should they occur. The S&T Directorate also enhances
the conventional missions of the Department to protect and provide
assistance to civilians in response to natural disasters, law
enforcement needs, and other activities such as maritime search and
rescue. Basically the S&T Directorate assists in making DHS operations
science-based, intelligence-informed and technology-enabled.
Question. Mr. Secretary, in the President's fiscal year 2006
request is $110 million for the counter man-portable air defense
systems, or Counter MANPADS. Can you give us an update on the status of
this program?
Answer. DHS is still on schedule to complete Phase II of the
Counter MANPADS program and to provide its report to Congress and the
Administration at the end of January 2006. This report will include a
Concept of Operations, a maintenance approach, data on system
effectiveness and reliability, options on how the system may be
deployed, restrictions or regulatory changes required to comply with
International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), and Life Cycle and
Total Ownership cost estimates. BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman are
scheduled to complete their system designs, including Critical Design
Reviews in early summer of 2005. Following the review, the contractors
will fabricate, install, and test their prototypes on commercial
aircraft (late summer and fall of 2005).
By the end of January 2006, each contractor will have delivered two
complete units and demonstrated system performance, including the
results of studies emphasizing the operational suitability and cost of
its systems. They also will have integrated their equipment onto
aircraft, and obtained FAA Supplemental Type Certifications for
aircraft airworthiness with the countermeasure system installed.
In addition, the requested $110 million provides for a Phase III
program to improve operational, affordability, and maintainability
issues. Based on interaction with airline stakeholders, an objective
was established for system reliability that fits within the commercial
airline heavy maintenance or major overhaul schedule of approximately
3,000 flight hours (depending on commercial airplane types).
A primary objective of the Phase III effort is to increase the
reliability of the current countermeasure equipment by fielding a
number of operational units and conducting laboratory reliability
growth testing. DHS S&T estimates that the Phase III efforts will
double current countermeasure equipment reliability to achieve the
3,000 hour threshold across airplane types. Additionally, operational
and maintenance concepts have been developed, including reducing the
requirements of Minimal Equipment List (MEL) and commercial supply
chain management practices, that will be evaluated during Phase III.
Based on the results of Phase III operational fielding, reliability
testing, and evaluation of operational and maintenance procedures,
system design alterations will be developed with ITAR considerations in
mind that will make fleet-wide fielding much more affordable and
commercially viable.
Question. Are there areas within S&T where the strategic placement
of dollars would be most efficiently used?
Answer. The S&T Directorate uses a risked-based approach to
prioritizing and planning and identifies critical capability gaps
before attempting to identify or develop technology solutions. The S&T
Directorate then addresses the highest priorities across the broad
threat spectrum as well as supporting the needs of the Department's
organizational elements. The Directorate's R&D activities reflect the
prioritization of efforts among the many possible threat agents and
targets as well as technology development for supporting the
organizational elements of the Department and the emergency responder
community.
S&T UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM
Question. How does the University partnership effort improve DHS'
ability to carry out its mission?
Answer. The Homeland Security Act of 2002, as amended, looks to the
university community to stimulate, coordinate, leverage and utilize its
unique intellectual capital to address current and future homeland
security challenges. To maximize the benefits of engaging the multi-
disciplinary research capacity of universities and to access current
and future generations of researchers and practitioners, a number of
focused activities have been established. These include multi-
institutional Centers of Excellence built around mission-critical
homeland security areas; cooperative research activities with other
Federal agencies with homeland security responsibilities; support of
undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students to develop a cadre of
talent committed to homeland security programs; and outreach to the
broader education community. These activities will help ensure that DHS
will have the scientific knowledge and talent to successfully address
homeland security challenges.
Question. Mr. Secretary, what unique role does S&T play with regard
to university research and why is it important?
Answer. The S&T Directorate continues to identify knowledge and
capability gap areas that need to be addressed to deal with current and
future homeland security threats and the development of countermeasures
to those threats. Many of these areas are well suited to university
research, development and educational capabilities. Universities
provide state-of-the-art research experts experienced and successful in
cross- disciplinary programs, access to national and local talent pools
and a neutral setting to consider important policy issues. These
capabilities and ensuing cross fertilization directly benefit the
operational responsibilities of the S&T Directorate.
Question. Are these projects that receive funding chosen by peer
review and what does the Department gain by having funded a specific
project?
Answer. All projects funded within University Programs are the
result of a rigorous and competitive peer and relevancy review process.
This includes all research and educational programs. With regard to the
Centers of Excellence, in selecting research areas, the S&T Directorate
seeks input from a variety of sources. These sources include the
Homeland Security Act of 2002, as amended; the National Research
Council (NRC); the Homeland Security Presidential Directives (HSPDs);
other DHS directorates; and subject matter experts. DHS personnel
interact extensively with the funded Centers of Excellence by serving
on their review committees, attending workshops and exploring joint
research initiatives. In this manner, DHS stays aware of their mission-
critical research.
Question. Mr. Secretary, contained in the President's fiscal year
2006 budget request is $22.9 million for the National Bio and
Agrodefense Facility. What is the mission of this facility and why
isn't it in the Center for Disease Control's or U.S. Department of
Agriculture's budget request?
Answer. HSPD-9 (``Defense of United States Agriculture and Food'',
paragraph 24) states: ``The Secretaries of Agriculture and Homeland
Security will develop a plan to provide safe, secure, and state-of-the-
art agriculture bio-containment laboratories that research and develop
diagnostic capabilities for foreign animal and zoonotic diseases.'' The
S&T Directorate currently has responsibility for one such facility, as
the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred the ``assets and
liabilities'' of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) from
USDA to DHS as of March 1, 2003. PIADC is currently the nation's only
Bio-Safety Level 3 facility (BSL-3Ag) for research and diagnostic
programs on foreign animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease
(FMD). The bio-containment laboratories and animal facilities at PIADC
are aged well beyond their originally designed life expectancy, and are
in immediate need of re-capitalization or replacement. There is no BSL-
4 livestock capable laboratory at PIADC or elsewhere in the United
States to work on high consequence zoonotic diseases in host livestock
species. Therefore, planning for the National Biological and
Agriculture Facility is the top S&T Directorate priority for bio-
containment facilities, and impacts ongoing and planned programs for
biological countermeasures for foreign animal diseases (including
assays and diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, and forensics).
Recognizing the needs described above, the President requested $23
million in fiscal year 2006 for the design and initiation of a National
Bio and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF). In preparation for this, we have
undertaken a conceptual design study to better characterize the key
programmatic requirements driving the NBAF design and to explore the
cost benefit tradeoffs associated with each of these drivers. This
conceptual design will explore three major NBAF options of increasing
capability:
--Keeps the scope the same as the current PIADC mission but builds
the facilities required to meet the needs of the first half of
the 21st century;
--Expands the scope to include additional agriculture biocontainment
laboratories for foreign animal and zoonotic diseases as called
for in HSPD-9 above; and
--Adds expanded test and evaluation facilities to support clinical
testing of medical countermeasures by the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS).
--DHS is committed to working with Congress, stakeholders, and
partner Federal Departments and agencies (e.g. USDA and HHS) in
the development of this new facility.
DHS INTELLIGENCE MISSION
Question. Mr. Secretary, your written testimony states that you
will work closely with the intelligence community and the Director for
National Intelligence. Given that, what is Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) Directorate's role in the intelligence
world since the enactment of the Intelligence Reform Act?
Answer. This role is evolving. The Department makes many
contributions to the Intelligence Community and we will continue to
enhance those contributions. Systematic intelligence lies at the heart
of everything that the Department does. Understanding the enemy's
intent and capabilities affects how we operate at our borders, how we
assess risk in protecting infrastructure, how we discern the kind of
threats for which we must be prepared to respond. We are enhancing our
ability to fuse that information and combine it with information from
other members of the Intelligence Community, as well as information
from our State and local and international partners.
As I announced on July 13, 2005, I have proposed that the Assistant
Secretary of Information Analysis become the Chief Intelligence Officer
for the Department. My proposal is for the Chief Intelligence Officer
to head a strengthened Intelligence and Analysis division that will
report directly to me. This office will ensure that intelligence is
effectively coordinated, fused and analyzed within the Department so
that we have a common operational picture. It will also provide a
primary connection between DHS and the Intelligence Community as a
whole, and a primary source of information for state, local and private
sector partners. The Department's unique access to information from our
components, as well as our robust relationship with State, local, and
tribal governments, as well as with the private sector, makes our
enhanced contribution to the IC critical as we move forward.
In addition, since the creation of the Director of National
Intelligence, IAIP, through the Office of Information Analysis, has
collaborated with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI) on a number of initiatives. IA works closely with the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Among other things, we have provided IA
intelligence analyst detailees to the NCTC, who are in a unique
position to understand both intelligence information derived from our
components and its impact on State and local governments, as well as
the private sector. We also work closely with the NCTC to provide data
and fuse critical information. We also participate in the WMD Working
Group, (an outgrowth of the WMD Commission), the National Framework for
Analytical Production working group, which is responsible for
developing a national production framework for the IC, and on work
dealing with human resource issues. IA will continue to develop a close
working relationship with the ODNI as it strives to improve existing
programs and put in place new initiatives that will further strengthen
and protect our homeland.
Question. Is it the opinion of the Department that IAIP's functions
are enhanced or minimized by the Act?
Answer. Greater integration of the Intelligence Community and a
heightened emphasis on information sharing as a result of Public Law
108-458, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
(IRTPA), will strengthen the ability of DHS's Office of Information
Analysis to carry out its mission. We are optimistic that these reforms
will lead to greater collaboration in analysis and greater ease of
exchanging information across all levels. The continued emphasis on
information sharing directed by IRTPA, for example, will improve DHS
IA's ability to carry out its mission to fuse and lead the Department's
intelligence activities and to share and receive critical threat
information with and from state, local, territorial, and tribal
governments and the private sector.
Question. Can you tell the Subcommittee how the Homeland Security
Operations Center's (HSOC) daily activities are changed by the
Intelligence Reform Act?
Answer. The daily activities of the HSOC are not changed by the
Intelligence Reform Act. The HSOC will continue to provide general
domestic situational awareness, a common operational picture, and
support to the Interagency Incident Management Group (IIMG) and DHS
Leadership, as well as act as the primary conduit for the White House
Situation Room and IIMG for domestic situational awareness. HSOC
collects domestic related suspicious activity reports throughout the
United States and shares that information with DHS stakeholders.
Question. How will the HSOC perform its mission in light of this
new Act?
Answer. HSOC will continue to perform its core missions as it has
in the past.
Question. How has the Homeland Security Operations Center
interfaced with the Terrorist Tracking Information Center which has
been absorbed into the National Counterterroism Intelligence Center?
Answer. The HSOC provides general domestic situational awareness, a
common operational picture, and support to the IIMG and DHS Leadership,
as well as acting as the primary conduit for the White House Situation
Room and IIMG for domestic situational awareness. The HSOC will
continue to collect domestic related suspicious activity reports, look
at domestic terror threats and natural disasters, focusing efforts
domestically. HSOC is the lead conduit to State and local agencies.
HSOC anticipates being the primary conduit to NCTC for domestic
situational awareness.
Question. How will the Homeland Security Operations Center fit into
the new intelligence community structure?
Answer. The advent of the new intelligence community structure does
not significantly change the daily activities of the HSOC. The HSOC
acts as the ``ingest'' point for threat traffic and suspicious activity
reporting to DHS, so it is integral that the information captured and
exploited by the Office of Information Analysis (IA) staff in the HSOC
is shared with the Federal Intelligence Community. This occurs on a
constant basis through video teleconference (0100 Production Meeting
hosted by NCTC, the 0800 and 1500 SVTC), telephone, JWICS email and
fax. The IA staff in the HSOC works closely with the NCTC Operations
Center/FBI Counterterrorism Watch to develop emergent traffic
containing a domestic nexus. Additionally, the IA staff in the HSOC is
prepared to provide situational awareness to the DNI Operations Center
when it is operational.
Question. Do you think the Department should have an Under
Secretary of Intelligence to elevate its role within the intelligence
community?
Answer. As I announced on July 12, 2005, after conducting 2SR, I
believe that the current Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis
should become the Chief Intelligence Officer for the Department, and
that this component should report directly to me. I am confident that
these changes will ensure an enhanced role for the Department's
intelligence functions within the Intelligence Community.
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION
Question. The Department recently released an interim report on the
Nation's critical infrastructure, the purpose of which is to provide an
outline for integrating critical infrastructure protection at the
national level. How does this interim report lead to better protection
of the Nation's critical infrastructure?
Answer. DHS is coordinating, for the first time, the overall
national effort to protect critical infrastructure. The Interim
National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) describes a risk
management framework that takes into account threats, vulnerabilities,
and consequences to prioritize the nation's critical infrastructure and
key resources (CI/KR). The NIPP delineates roles and responsibilities
among Federal agencies; state, local, and tribal entities; as well as
private sector stakeholders in carrying out infrastructure protection
activities within and across the 17 CI/KR sectors established by HSPD-
7. The Interim NIPP is intended to foster sector-specific protective
strategies and provides a mechanism for coordinating protective actions
across sectors. It builds on the nation's existing critical
infrastructure protection knowledge base while acknowledging the need
to expand dialogue and partnerships with key public and private sector
stakeholders to create an integrated, national critical infrastructure
protection program.
Question. My concern is that although the exercise is useful in
developing a framework, when it gets down to the details, the momentum
is lost and there never seems to be any achievements. How do you intend
to use the interim report to translate into actual outcomes?
Answer. The interim NIPP outlines the foundation, processes, and
methodologies of the risk management framework. The interim NIPP will
be replaced by the final version of the NIPP, which will include
sector-specific plans with performance measures.
Question. Did you seek the advice of States, locals and the private
sector in the writing of this report?
Answer. Yes, as part of the comment period during July and August
of 2004, the preliminary draft NIPP was shared with State and
Territorial Homeland Security Advisors and individual members of the
private sector for review and comment. The comments from the review
were taken into consideration during the development of the Interim
NIPP. The period of time dedicated to reviewing the Interim Plan will
include additional private sector and stakeholder engagement.
Question. How does this report enable the Department to better
identify which infrastructure is critical and what are the criteria for
that determination?
Answer. The NIPP risk management framework sets over arching
security goals. Once security goals are set, the next step in the
framework is to develop and maintain an inventory of the nation's
assets. After an asset is identified and basic information on it is
collected, DHS employs an initial screening methodology to determine
whether or not it is of national consequence. Priority is given to
those assets that, if attacked, could have a nationally significant
effect.
Question. How do you plan to get this report out to the public? Are
you planning on doing town hall meetings, news articles or another
forum?
Answer. The success of the national infrastructure protection
program, as framed and articulated in the Interim NIPP, is highly
dependent on obtaining buy-in and participation from all audiences. DHS
is responsible for leading and coordinating the national infrastructure
protection program, while the responsibility for carrying out the
protective activities is shared among Sector-Specific Agencies, asset
owners/operators, and state, local, and tribal governments.
State, local, and tribal entities and private sector stakeholders
have an important role to play in protecting the nation's CI/KR. To
ensure that assets within these areas are covered within the engagement
and outreach process, these stakeholders must be aware of, and
participate in, the implementation and the refinement of the Interim
NIPP. The initial approach to engage state, local, and tribal entities
and private sector stakeholders will be carried out by DHS, in
coordination with the Sector Specific Agencies.
Stakeholder outreach and engagement tactics differ greatly by
audience and focus on each stakeholder's interests and role in the
implementation of a national infrastructure protection program.
Accordingly, the Interim NIPP engagement process is organized by
audience group, specifically: intra-Federal stakeholders; state, local,
and tribal stakeholders; private sector stakeholders; and the media and
public.
IAIP HIRING DIFFICULITIES
Question. Of concern to me is the amount of time it takes IAIP to
hire and put in place new personnel. These are people who are charged
with the intelligence and infrastructure protection functions of the
Department. Why is it taking so long, and what can the Subcommittee do
to help improve this situation?
Answer. As a result of the competitive market for the cleared
community and the unique skills and abilities needed in IAIP, an
aggressive recruitment of these talented candidates has been necessary
to drive toward our hiring goals. As noted, these candidates are
filling important intelligence and infrastructure protection functions.
The process of recruiting, selecting, and hiring candidates to meet the
Directorate's needs is lengthy because of the multiple steps involved
in this process to ensure a complete and thorough evaluation of
candidates. However, over the past year IAIP has been successful in
implementing improvements to shorten this process.
Working closely with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM),
improvements include the development of position descriptions and
vacancy announcements that define the minimum requirements for each
position. Once the position is posted and an applicant pool is created,
a list of qualified candidates is then forwarded by OPM to hiring
managers for comprehensive interviews and assessments. Once a selection
has been made, a tentative offer is extended to the candidate
contingent upon the successful completion of a security investigation.
IAIP hiring managers take the time necessary in the selection
process in order to ensure the specialized needs of the Directorate are
met, particularly since many of the vacancies are highly sensitive
positions.
Even faced with the competitive market for qualified candidates and
the time it takes to on-board candidates, IAIP has been successful in
hiring 517 of the 803 FTE allotments to date and will continue to
aggressively recruit to meet its hiring target.
The Subcommittee has been very supportive in working with IAIP to
understand the implications and expectations required to staff a highly
qualified team. The approval to allow direct hiring authority has been
instrumental in allowing us to aggressively identify, assess, and hire
key staff. The continued active support of the Subcommittee is
appreciated as IAIP works to achieve this target hiring goal.
Question. Is the hiring time dependent on another agency to process
background checks and clearances?
Answer. Historically, DHS contracted collateral (SECRET and TOP
SECRET) as well as TS/SCI security investigations through traditional
venues such as Office of Personnel Management and Defense Security
Systems (DSS). These venues also provide support to Federal, military
and intelligence agencies. Due to high demand, they have continuously
experienced severe backlogs, adversely impacting the timely processing
of DHS requests.
However, DHS has recently acquired a new venue for security
investigations through CBP. CBP now processes TS/SCI clearances for DHS
and, due to a smaller workload, has cut down the average time for a
security background investigation (with no previous clearance) from 12-
18 months to as little as 6-8 weeks. This timeframe is competitive or,
in many cases, faster than industry averages within the cleared
community.
Under the current projected timeline of the hiring process, the
security clearance process accounts for 25 percent of the total hiring
process cycle time on average. This is a significant reduction from
previous projections (50-60 percent), and is attributed to recent
changes in the sourcing of investigations to a new contractor agency.
Question. Is the Department doing anything to help IAIP recruit
qualified candidates for such a crucial role?
Answer. DHS has been fully supportive of IAIP recruitment efforts
and has included the Directorate in a variety of Department-wide
recruitment events to attract qualified candidates. For example, the
Department was successful in obtaining direct-hire authority for IAIP's
hard to fill positions and the Equal Opportunity Office has partnered
with IAIP to attend a Disability Career Fair and Asian Pacific American
Federal Career Advancement Summit. IAIP also participated in a DHS-wide
career fair at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to recruit disabled
veterans in conjunction with the Department of Defense, as well as a
DHS-wide Presidential Management Fellows job fair at the Washington
Convention Center during the last week in March of this year.
Question. Can you please submit your strategy to the Subcommittee
on how you intend to address this problem?
Answer. IAIP is working to implement new ways to improve the
candidate selection process to support surge hiring efforts. These
include:
--Posting All Remaining Vacancies.--Work with hiring managers to
expedite the posting of all vacancies on the USAJOBS website;
--Making Multiple Selections.--Encourage the practice of making
multiple selections from Cert Lists whenever possible;
--Sharing Cert Lists.--Facilitate the sharing of Cert Lists are
shared among managers with similar hiring needs;
--Supporting the Recruitment Campaign.--Encourage managers to attend
recruitment events; and
--Conducting Panel Interviewing.--Identify Subject Matter Experts to
screen qualified candidates for hiring manager review and
selection.
Through these efforts, IAIP will institute a systematic process for
identifying volume hiring needs, matching those needs with available
candidates, and mobilizing hiring managers to make multiple selections
in a timely manner. In support of this strategy, IAIP is continuing
efforts to broaden the candidate pool through an active recruiting
campaign targeting specific hiring needs and an aggressive advertising
campaign to publicize opportunities at IAIP.
Question. Is the housing of IAIP personnel still an issue today?
Answer. Yes, housing remains an issue for IAIP, but we are working
to overcome them. Among the challenges faced by IAIP is the lack of
permanent space. On any given day, there are more than 90 IA employees
without a dedicated seat. Staff have been doubling, tripling, and
quadrupling up in seats, working shifts and staggered hours to
compensate for the deficit of Sensitive Compartmented Information
Facility (SCIF) seating.
To address its facilities situation, IAIP has developed a plan
through fiscal year 2006 to place staff in swing and permanent seats on
the NAC, and five floors of leased space at an office building in
Arlington, VA. The Arlington location is currently partially occupied
as swing space while floors are permanently constructed in a planned
series. Two floors are nearing completion of permanent construction,
with furniture and IT installation to follow. The entire project is
scheduled for completion at the end of 2005. The location will
eventually have 440 seats, and will house primarily the Office of
Infrastructure Protection (IP).
On the NAC, IAIP will occupy part of Building, all of Building 19,
and the first and second floors of Building 17. Ultimately, all of
Building 19 will be SCIF and will house IA (to include seating for the
positions requested in 2006) and the Office of the Under Secretary.
Floors one and two of Building 19 are under demolition/power upgrade
prior to renovation, which is currently scheduled to be completed in
Winter of 2005, with the renovation beginning in the Summer of 2005 and
continuing into the Spring of 2006.
IAIP's total SCIF requirement will be met once the Building 19
renovation is completed.
IAIP COORDINATION OF PROTECTION
Question. How does the Department plan to get the necessary support
of State and local governments and private sector to protect our
critical infrastructure when dollars are tight?
Answer. DHS relies on strong and cooperative relationships with
State and local governments and private sector partners to advance
overall National protective strategies. The Department understands that
local law enforcement, first responders, and the overall readiness and
response community have the day-to-day responsibility to protect our
citizens and infrastructures. The Federal Government must continue to
partner with State and local officials and key leaders in the private
sector to ensure available funding is appropriately allocated and
correct policies and procedures are in place.
The Department will continue to cultivate and expand its outreach
and information sharing components to enhance its relationships with
state/local and private sector partners. By continuing to build upon
these vital relationships, the Department plans to continually provide
the information, policy guidance and risk assessment methodologies
necessary to help owners and operators bolster physical and cyber
security plans.
Question. How does the Department coordinate with all other efforts
by the Federal Government and State and locals, including
municipalities to ensure that each entity is putting in place the most
effective security measures for a specific piece of infrastructure?
Answer. As part of an ongoing, government-wide effort to protect
national infrastructure, DHS is working on several initiatives with
other Federal departments, state, local, and tribal governments, and
the private sector. These initiatives are designed to protect against
known and potential threats; reduce critical infrastructure
vulnerabilities in a comprehensive and integrated manner; maximize
efficient use of resources for infrastructure protection; build
partnerships among Federal, state, local, tribal, private sector, and
international stakeholders; and continuously track and improve national
infrastructure protection.
In the first of these initiatives, the Department is providing the
private sector, law enforcement entities, and State homeland security
personnel with technical and material assistance to develop and
implement Buffer Zone Protection Plans (BZPPs) around critical
infrastructure and key assets. To formulate these plans, owners and
operators and local law enforcement work together to identify asset
vulnerabilities, gaps in protection, and means of mitigating these
vulnerabilities.
The Department is also in the process of deploying all 68
Protective Security Advisors (PSAs) to 60 metropolitan areas throughout
the United States. These security specialists serve as DHS
representatives permanently assigned in the field. The mission of the
PSA is to represent the Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) in
local communities throughout the United States, serving as a liaison
between DHS, the private sector, and Federal, state, local, and tribal
entities; acting as IP's on-site critical infrastructure and
vulnerability assessment specialist; providing expertise and support to
the Principal Federal Official(s) responsible for National Special
Security Events; and providing real-time information on facility
significance and protective measures. PSAs continue to assist local
entities in putting in place the most effective security measures for
specific pieces of infrastructure.
DHS is also providing terrorism prevention training to private
sector, law enforcement entities, and State homeland security
personnel. To date, over 5,600 security personnel have participated in
the training courses. Courses relate terrorist threats and tactics to
one of several different topics including buffer zone protection plans,
soft targets, bombs, underwater hazardous devices, police S.W.A.T. team
response, and counter surveillance and emerging threats. This training
program provides baseline knowledge for a law enforcement protecting
critical infrastructure.
Finally, Government Coordinating Councils (GCCs) are groups being
established for each sector that consist of Federal representation
involved in the security of all 17 sectors defined by the National
Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). The GCCs will serve as a
counterpart to industry-sponsored Sector Coordinating Councils (SCC).
GCCs, which include a number of agencies with sector infrastructure
protection responsibilities, will coordinate with the SCC and work to
ensure the implementation of effective sector strategies and
initiatives to support the nation's homeland security mission.
Question. What are IAIP and the Department doing about
cybersecurity, particularly when it is not governed by any one actor
but affects everyone?
Answer. The National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) of IAIP's
Office of Infrastructure Protection was created to address cyber
security issues and the priorities laid out in the National Strategy to
Secure Cyberspace. In addition, HSPD-7 called upon the Department to
establish a national focal point for cyber security, which is the
mission of NCSD. Both the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and
HSPD-7 recognize that cyber security is not just one entity's concern
or jurisdiction, and both call upon DHS to be a focal point and work
with partners in other Federal agencies, academic institutions, the law
enforcement and intelligence communities, the private sector, and the
general public to improve our cyber security posture.
NCSD's mission, in cooperation with public, private, and
international entities, is to secure cyberspace and America's cyber
assets. In order to fulfill that mission, NCSD has laid out goals that
reflect and guide its priorities and programs, as follow:
--Goal 1.--Establish a National Cyber Security Response System to
prevent, predict, detect, respond to, and reconstitute rapidly
after cyber incidents.
--Goal 2.--Work with public and private sectors to reduce
vulnerabilities and minimize the severity of cyber attacks.
--Goal 3.--Promote a comprehensive national awareness program
empowering all Americans to secure cyberspace.
--Goal 4.--Foster adequate training and education programs to support
the nation's cyber security needs.
--Goal 5.--Coordinate with the intelligence and law enforcement
communities to identify and reduce threats to cyberspace.
In addition to the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, Homeland
Security Presidential Directives, National Security Presidential
Directives, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)
provides a comprehensive framework for ensuring the effectiveness of
information security controls over information resources that support
Federal operations and assets; recognizes the highly networked nature
of the current Federal computing environment and provides effective
government wide management and oversight of the related information
security risks, including coordination of information security efforts
throughout the civilian, national security, and law enforcement
communities; provides for development and maintenance of minimum
controls required to protect Federal information and information
systems; provides a mechanism for improved oversight of Federal agency
information security programs; acknowledges that commercially developed
information security products offer advanced, dynamic, robust, and
effective information security solutions, reflecting market solutions
for the protection of critical information infrastructures important to
the national defense and economic security of the Nation that are
designed, built, and operated by the private sector; and recognizes
that the selection of specific technical hardware and software
information security solutions should be left to individual agencies
from among commercially developed products. Each agency operating or
exercising control of a national security system shall share
information about information security incidents, threats, and
vulnerabilities with the Federal information security incident center
US-CERT to the extent consistent with standards and guidelines for
national security systems, issued in accordance with law and as
directed by the President.
FISMA, Section 3546 states that the Federal information security
incident center, US-CERT, will perform the following functions:
--Provide timely technical assistance to operators of agency
information systems regarding security incidents, including
guidance on detecting and handling information security
incidents;
--Compile and analyze information about incidents that threaten
information security;
--Inform operators of agency information systems about current and
potential information security threats and vulnerabilities; and
--Consult with the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
agencies or offices operating or exercising control of national
security systems (including the National Security Agency), and
such other agencies or offices in accordance with law and as
directed by the President regarding information security
incidents and related matters. In accordance with DOD Directive
O-8530-1, all DOD services and agencies are to report incidents
to the Joint Task Force Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO),
which will, in turn, coordinate directly with the US-CERT.
The DHS approach to cybersecurity is one of coordination and
collaboration. Therefore, in each of its cybersecurity efforts, DHS
works with key stakeholders and subject matter experts, both within the
Department and with external constituencies on a Federal, State, local,
and international level.
OFFICE OF SECURITY
Question. What is the Department doing to streamline the process of
security clearances to prevent a backlog?
Answer. The Department grants access to classified information in a
timely manner. There is no adjudicative backlog in the granting of
security clearances at the present time.
The Department is continually working to improve the process of
conducting and adjudicating background investigations and granting
security clearances. DHS is coordinating with other departments and
agencies in the personnel security community to accomplish this goal.
Reciprocity.--DHS, like other Executive Branch Departments and
agencies, complies with the requirements of Executive Order 12968,
which establishes a uniform Federal personnel security program for
employees who require access to classified information. The
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act and Executive Order
12968 require that background investigations and eligibility
determinations should be mutually and reciprocally accepted by Federal
agencies. Since its inception, DHS has conformed to this reciprocity
requirement.
Interim Secret Security Clearances.--The Department grants interim
access to certain classified information following favorable completion
of a preliminary investigation. This interim Secret clearance permits
DHS employees to begin their service expeditiously. In addition, the
Department is working diligently with the Office of Personnel
Management to accelerate the investigative process for Top Secret
security clearances by obtaining delegations of authority and
prioritizing cases.
Certain Investigative Authority.--DHS has obtained certain
investigative authority that expedites background investigations and
re-investigations for Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented
Information (SCI) security clearances. The Department has utilized the
personnel security services of CBP in the Border and Transportation
Security Directorate to conduct these background investigations for DHS
Headquarters applicants. In this way, DHS has been able to avail itself
of process improvements, technological advances, and other management
efficiencies.
Additional Adjudicators.--The DHS Office of Security (OS) is hiring
additional Federal employees as security clearance adjudicators to meet
the Department's growing needs.
Streamlining the Process.--In addition, DHS has taken the following
steps to streamline and improve the quality of the security clearance
process:
--The Department is focusing its background investigations on the
areas most relevant to the current threats facing the country
and the Department;
--The Department is applying resources in the early phases of the
investigation to maximize limited investigative resources and
minimize wasteful expenditure on candidates unlikely to be
favorably adjudicated;
--The Department is strategically placing employees to assist other
Federal agencies at key points of the investigative process;
--The Department is automating many aspects of the personnel security
process, including the deployment of Electronic Questionnaires
for Investigations Processing (EQIP), an automated tool that
allows applicants to complete the form online, thus reducing
the processing time and minimizing the error rate; and
--A team of human capital and personnel security experts are working
to increase efficiency by educating managers and prospective
employees about the requirements of the security clearance
process.
Question. A pending fiscal year 2005 reprogramming request proposes
to transfer $6.6 million from the Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection Directorate to the Office of Security. Will
the fiscal year 2006 request of $39.4 million for the Office of
Security fully fund the Office of Security so that it does not require
transfers from other DHS components to carryout its important
operations?
Answer. It is projected that the increase of $39.445 million for
fiscal year 2006 will be sufficient for the currently-anticipated
requirements of the Office of Security. It should be noted, however,
that the proposed House version of the fiscal year 2006 Homeland
Security Appropriations Bill cut of $10 million would have a drastic
effect on important operations. If this occurs, the Office of Security
will again require a transfer of funds from other components or be
forced to cut services.
Question. How will the Office of Security assist with the
Department's efforts to improve information sharing with State and
local governments and private industry?
Answer. The Office of Security (OS) aims to facilitate the sharing
process, while ensuring that the dissemination of information is
conducted through secure processes and channels to trustworthy
individuals. OS continues to play an integral role in the Department's
efforts to improve information sharing at all levels through a number
of initiatives.
OS has assisted in the following ways:
--Security Clearances.--OS has established and implemented processes
to facilitate the issuance of security clearances to state,
local and private sector personnel, in coordination with the
SLGCP and the Infrastructure Coordination Division of the IAIP
Directorate.
--Communications Security.--OS has developed standards and a process
for the deployment of secure communications equipment, in
coordination with SLGCP and the DHS Chief Information Officer;
--Computer Security Standards.--OS has developed and implemented
standards that support the deployment of computer equipment for
classified information disseminated to selected State and local
government locations;
--Security Policy Guidance.--OS has issued policy and procedural
guidance to support the sharing of information and encourage
secure dissemination to the intended audience; and
--Security Training.--OS has prepared and distributed educational and
awareness products to designated State and local government
personnel and private-sector officials.
OS has played a significant role in the creation of proposed
national standards for the sharing and safeguarding of homeland
security information.
Question. What coordination will take place between the Office of
Security, the Chief Information Officer, and the Information Analysis
and Infrastructure Protection Directorate to ensure that sensitive
security materials do not fall into the wrong hands?
Answer. The Office of Security (OS) continues to coordinate with
the DHS Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the IAIP Directorate to
ensure that information shared with state, local and private sector
partners is afforded the appropriate protections commensurate with the
level of sensitivity.
In addition to the five areas listed in the previous response, OS
has: (1) contributed to the development of policies and procedures for
the deployment of the HSDN and is an active participant in the Homeland
Security Accreditation Working Group, developing guidelines regarding
appropriate physical security standards, security clearance
verifications, and security training for the HSDN program; (2) provided
guidance regarding the ``Need to Know'' requirements for the network.
In addition, OS has contributed to the creation of a Homeland Security
Information Network-Secret (HSIN-S) Users Manual to ensure proper
security standards for information disseminated through the system; (3)
involved in a comprehensive review of information sharing laws,
Executive Orders, regulations and guidance, and it has participated in
the creation of national standards for the protection of sensitive and
classified homeland security information; and (4) participated in
weekly meetings with the IAIP Information Sharing and Collaboration
Office, a program established to coordinate and facilitate information
sharing throughout DHS and with its partners.
REGIONS INITIATIVE
Question. Why has the report required by section 706 of the
Homeland Security Act of 2002 not been submitted to Congress?
Answer. The report required by section 706 of the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 was submitted in February 2004 as requested.
Question. The fiscal year 2006 budget justification proposes a
traveling cadre from the Office of Security that will provide security-
related support to regional offices. However, there is no funding
identified for this activity. How will the Office of Security provide
assistance to these offices without funding?
Answer. The Office of Security is requesting a total of $168,131
for travel in the line item fiscal year 2006 budget. This money will be
used by Office of Security personnel to support all travel requirements
within the office.
I-STAFF
Question. The Operational Integration Staff and the proposed Office
of Policy, Planning, and International Affairs appear to be working
toward the same goal of developing cohesiveness among DHS components.
How are the roles of the integration staff distinguished from those of
the proposed Office of Policy, Planning, and International Affairs?
Answer. The new Office of Policy will lead the Department in both
strategic policy development and oversight of all program policy
efforts, while consolidating programs with significant policy
responsibilities into one cohesive office. The new Office of Operations
will provide the Department with a coordinated cross-cutting operation
function. The Operation Integration Staff, consequently, will no longer
be needed, and most of its current employees will be merged into the
Offices of Policy or Operations
Question. The Department has placed the Operational Integration
Staff in charge of coordinating the security plans for homeland
security events that are not designated National Special Security
Events (NSSEs). Please provide an overview of the plan for operational
command and control for such events?
Answer. Special Event security is the responsibility of law
enforcement agencies with jurisdiction at the event location. The lead
agency will normally be the local law enforcement agency. However, a
Federal agency may assume the lead role, as with an event at a national
park. Generally, because multiple agencies and jurisdictions are
involved, a coordinated and integrated approach to event security is
involved. As directed by both the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and
HSPD-5--``Management of Domestic Incidents,'' the Department of
Homeland Security promulgated the National Incident Management System
(NIMS). The NIMS provides a command and control framework within which
government and private entities at all levels can work together across
each phase of incident management: prevention, preparedness, response,
recovery, and mitigation. Specifically, the NIMS requires the formation
of a Unified Command to facilitate coordination for incidents and
potential incidents involving multiple agencies with independent
jurisdictional authority. The Unified Command allows agencies with
different legal and functional authorities and responsibilities to work
together in an integrated fashion without affecting individual agency
authority, responsibility, or accountability. For Special Events below
the NSSE threshold, the responsibility for security planning resides
entirely within this Unified Command.
The NIMS also recognizes the need for support and coordination for
an event and establishes a multi-agency coordination system comprised
of local and State Emergency Operations Centers and coordination
entities. Under normal circumstances, there is no similar standing
Federal coordination entity at the local level, but certain special
events below the NSSE threshold create a significant need for Federal
interagency coordination. In such cases, the Secretary of Homeland
Security appoints a Federal Coordinator to serve as the principal
Federal point of coordination. As requests for Federal assistance are
answered and as Federal agencies adapt their independent authorities,
the Federal Coordinator captures this integrated strategy in the form
of a Special Event Integrated Federal Support Plan. The Federal
Coordinator then coordinates support and information sharing at the
special event and responds to unforeseen support needs and events.
The NIMS protocol does not change the existing command and control
architecture at the Unified Command level for agencies supporting the
Unified Command, or for agencies forced to adapt their independent
operations as a result of an event.
Question. What role (if any) will the Secret Service have in non-
NSSE events?
Answer. For non-NSSE events, i.e., DHS-established levels of
Special Events Homeland Security (SEHS), the role of the Secret Service
will vary dependent upon the circumstances surrounding the particular
event. For events that receive a designation of Level I or Level II and
have a traditional protectee of the Secret Service in attendance, the
Secret Service will implement appropriate protective protocols and may
serve as the Federal Coordinator. For events that receive a designation
of Level I or II that do not have a traditional Secret Service
protectee in attendance, the Secret Service may offer available
protective assets, as appropriate.
When the event receives a lower designation and a protectee will
attend, the Secret Service will implement appropriate protective
protocols; in those instances when no protectee will attend, the Secret
Service may offer protective event management training, as appropriate.
Question. What is the budget for the Operational Integration Staff
for fiscal year 2005? Where are those funds coming from?
Answer. As directed by the language in the Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami
Relief Act, 2005, further funding is not available for the Operational
Integration Staff in fiscal year 2005 unless funds are reprogrammed.
Travel and incidental costs were borne by the components of those on
detail to these efforts.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Question. In developing a human resources system that is mission-
centered and performance-focused, how will the creation of open pay
ranges and performance pay pools assist the Department in meeting its
operational needs?
Answer. A major objective of open pay ranges is to provide DHS
management with the flexibility to compete with other employers
(private, Federal, State and local), and to attract, hire, and retain
the best candidates for positions within the Department. DHS management
will have increased flexibility in negotiating employee salaries. Under
a pay-for-performance system, the objective is to truly compensate
those employees who have made significant contributions to
accomplishing the agency's mission. Employees will play a major role in
determining their eligibility for performance adjustments based upon
their work performance. The intent is to motivate employees to perform
their very best; as a result, this incentive should assist
significantly in enhancing agency effectiveness and employee retention.
Question. A total of $53 million is included for Max HR in the
fiscal year 2006 budget request. What is the total projected cost of
the Max HR system?
Answer. The total anticipated cost for the period fiscal year 2005-
2008 is $250 million. This amount is broken down as follows:
The total funding includes $43 million for training 100,000
employees, which is essential to ensure that the new HR flexibilities
achieve the desired results. This funding will train all Department
executives, managers, supervisors, and employees on all aspects of the
new system and their responsibilities as leaders in the DHS
environment, and to provide the framework for all of the components to
work together as one Department of Homeland Security. Comprehensive
training also will be provided for HR professionals throughout DHS
whose roles and responsibilities are impacted by implementation of the
new HR provisions.
Additionally, $56 million in funding will be used for detailed
systems design and implementation support and to provide access to
experts who are assisting in designing the new DHS performance
management system, job evaluation system (including the creation of job
clusters), compensation system (including new pay ranges and market pay
processes), and linkages for pay and performance. This in-depth
expertise is required to ensure DHS creates a program that
appropriately links pay, competencies, performance, and labor market,
and through this linkage, improves DHS' mission performance and
accountability.
$100 million will be required to fund the initial conversion of
over 90,000 employees from the General Schedule pay system to newly
created market-based pay ranges. This amount will cover one-time
conversion costs for employees included in three implementation phases.
Phase 1 of the DHS pay conversion, which is scheduled for January 2006,
covers employees in DHS HQTRS, S&T, IAIP, OS, U/S MGMT, U/S BTS, FLETC,
and EP&R, and is estimated to cost $10 million. Phase 2, which will
occur in January 2007, will include U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Coast
Guard (civilians). Phase 3, the largest phase covering CIS, CBP, and
ICE, will occur in fiscal year 2008.
A total of $9 million is required to fund the new Homeland Security
Labor Relations Board (HSLRB) in fiscal year 2005 and 2006. The Board
has been established in fiscal year 2005 as an independent entity that
will report to the Office of the Secretary. The HSLRB resolves labor-
management disputes and is integral to the deployment of the labor
relations section of the regulations. $42 million for program
management funding is required for program evaluation and to manage
appropriate cost, schedule, and control activities at the Departmental
level, ensuring that the system investment is managed appropriately and
at a good value. Program management funding will provide for earned
value management assessments and risk management. This funding will
also ensure the development of a robust metrics and program management
evaluation framework that will be used to gauge overall program
success. In addition, department-wide communications about MAXHR will
be funded from the program management account.
Question. The budget request for fiscal year 2006 includes $10
million to fund the initial conversion of some Homeland Security
employees from the General Schedule to newly created market-based pay
ranges. Does the Department expect any delays in this conversion to the
new system?
Answer. We expect to be on schedule in converting to the new
system. DHS employees will be converted to the new pay system in three
phases. Phase 1 occurs in January 2006; Phase 2 occurs in January 2007
and Phase 3 occurs in January 2008.
NAC
Question. The budget request provides $26.1 million to continue
expansion of the Department's presence at the Nebraska Avenue Complex.
What is the Department's estimated timeline for standing up a fully
operational Nebraska Avenue Complex?
Answer. We expect to be 70 percent to 80 percent occupied at the
NAC within 6 to 9 months of the U.S. Navy vacating the site based on
minor renovations to the site as planned and barring any significant
infrastructure changes as found during earlier moves within the NAC.
The U.S. Navy is expected to vacate the site by December 31, 2005, so
we would expect to be 70 percent to 80 percent occupied between May
2006 and August 2006.
We expect to be 100 percent occupied at the NAC within 18 to 24
months (May 2007-October 2007) of the U.S. Navy vacating the site based
on the planned major renovations of several buildings at the NAC.
Question. Is there a timeline for the United States Navy to be
completely relocated to another facility?
Answer. Yes, December 31, 2005.
Question. Are there projected cost estimates on what the Department
will be required to pay for relocation of Navy activities?
Answer. Yes, the original U.S. Navy relocation cost estimates were
established between GSA, U.S. Navy, and DHS with OMB review. DHS' share
to relocate the U.S. Navy was estimated to be approximately
$30,800,000. Of this amount, $12,500,000 was obligated for this purpose
in fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004. DHS obligated $12,000,000
year to date in fiscal year 2005 and expects to obligate the remaining
$6,300,000 in fiscal year 2005 for a total obligation of 18,300,000 in
fiscal year 2005.
FINANCIAL AND PROCUREMENT CONTROLS
Question. What is included in the fiscal year 2006 budget request
to improve the CFO's oversight and controls of the Department's
bureaus?
Answer. The Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) fiscal
year 2006 budget request includes substantial increases that will
enable OCFO to increase its level of oversight and control of the DHS
components. OCFO has requested two additional FTEs and $305,000 to
increase budget execution oversight of the components. Whereas OCFO
conducted mid-year budget execution reviews of the components in fiscal
year 2005, the additional staff will allow us to conduct quarterly
reviews in fiscal year 2006 and beyond. More staff in the OCFO budget
division will allow a redistribution of desk officer portfolios;
reduced portfolio sizes will allow all OCFO budget desk officers to
work more closely with component budget personnel and to intensify
oversight of the components' budget execution. This will allow for more
timely identification and resolution of problems in components that
require additional oversight. One additional FTE and $152,000 will
augment the OCFO's appropriations liaison staff and ensure timelier
fulfillment of the appropriations committees' requests.
The request for OCFO also includes five additional FTE and
$763,000, and $4,000,000 for technical assistance to implement the DHS
Financial Accountability Act. In order to implement the Act, the DHS
OCFO will design and implement DHS-wide policy, procedures, and
internal controls. The goals of the Act imply that DHS must accelerate
consolidation of financial operations. Additional FTE and funding will
enable the OCFO to increase financial policy guidance and for OCFO
financial analysts and contractors to work closely with the components'
financial operations on internal control and standardization projects.
Increased interaction will lead to more consistent and better financial
performance at DHS.
Question. The budget request proposes funding of $9 million, an
increase of $1 million, for the Chief Procurement Officer. As the
majority of the funds for this office have been proposed through the
Working Capital Fund, are there sufficient funds for the Procurement
Office in the fiscal year 2006 budget request?
Answer. Yes, the fiscal year 2006 increase of $1 million for the
Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) is sufficient. The OCPO
provides acquisition policy, oversight, strategic sourcing, competitive
sourcing, integrated systems, and grants policy support for the entire
Department. The Office of Procurement Operations, a direct report to
the OCPO, is funded separately through the working capital fund and
provides operational contracting support to 35 major organizational
components including S&T, IAIP, the Offices of the Secretary and Deputy
Secretary, and the Under Secretary for Management.
Question. The Department's organizational structure places the
Chief Procurement Officer under the Office of the Under Secretary for
Management, while other offices like the Chief Financial Officer are
funded separately. Would altering this structure to make the Chief
Procurement Officer a direct report to the Secretary of Homeland
Security help to improve this office's ability to provide oversight to
all Department procurements?
Answer. To ensure the administrative functions of the Department
are properly integrated, the OCPO should continue to report directly to
the Under Secretary of Management and the OCPO's budget should remain a
part of the USM budget. Changing the OCPO's reporting structure and/or
segregating the OCPO's budget would have no material impact on the
Department's ability to provide oversight of the procurement program.
DEEPWATER
Question. Mr. Secretary, the Coast Guard has submitted to Congress
a revised baseline of its Deepwater acquisition plan. How confident are
you that the Coast Guard has accurately reestimated the use of its
assets in this post 9/11 environment?
Answer. The original Deepwater System contracted in 2002 was based
on the Coast Guard's 1998 mission demand. I am confident that the
revised Deepwater implementation plan reflects the changed requirements
of the Deepwater system needed in the post-September 11 environment.
We revised the Deepwater implementation plan based on a
comprehensive performance gap analysis that identified new capabilities
that the Coast Guard needed to carry out its responsibilities under the
DHS Strategic Plan. The original, pre-September 11 Deepwater Program
was then modified to incorporate these improved post-September 11
capabilities. The revised plan includes retaining, upgrading, and
converting aviation legacy assets as part of the final asset mix and
adjusting the program's overall asset delivery schedule to align with
operational priorities. The revised plan also includes those
capabilities necessary to provide maritime domain awareness and operate
successfully in the post-September 11 threat environment. To help
ensure the new plan meets broader national and departmental maritime
homeland security and interoperability requirements, my staff carefully
reviewed and analyzed the revised baseline prior to its approval by the
DHS Investment Review Board (IRB). The Department's Joint Requirements
Council and IRB also reviewed and approved the plan. The level of
analysis and critical thinking that is reflected in the revised
Deepwater plan exceeds that of any project that the Department has ever
undertaken. For these reasons, I am confident that it will deliver the
post-September 11 capabilities needed.
Question. Do you believe there will be further revisions to this
plan? If so, why?
Answer. The revised implementation plan provides us with the right
mix of assets to ensure its readiness to address current threats.
However, the implementation schedule and the planned acquisitions will
necessarily adapt to changes in annual appropriation levels and changes
in other variables, such as technology upgrades and legacy asset
conditions. The revised capabilities and capacities presented within
the revised implementation plan are the result of nearly 2 years of
analysis, gap assessment, and third party validation after September
11, 2001.
Question. A review of the fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2006
budgets indicates that the percent of Deepwater funds spent to sustain
legacy ships, aircraft and communications systems climbed each year
from 7 percent in the fiscal year 2003 budget to 25 percent in the
fiscal year 2006 budget. This is very troubling given that the
objective of the program is to reduce the cost of maintaining legacy
assets within the Deepwater system. What can be done to reverse this
trend and bring new ships and aircraft into the fleet sooner?
Answer. Full support of the President's fiscal year 2006 Deepwater
budget request is critical to ensuring urgent legacy asset projects,
such as HH-65 re-engining, are funded to immediately correct existing
deficiencies while providing significant recapitalization funding for
procurement of assets to replace those that are rapidly declining.
The Department is taking steps to mitigate legacy asset costs
through advancing recapitalization of certain asset classes within the
Deepwater program. For example, the fiscal year 2006 Deepwater request
includes $108 million to advance acquisition of the Offshore Patrol
Cutter by completing the design and purchase of long lead materials for
the first cutter. The revised Deepwater plan also advances the
acquisition of the Fast Response Cutter.
In addressing legacy asset maintenance issues, the Department has
to balance four factors: operational needs, legacy fleet status,
current Deepwater acquisition priorities, and available funds. Through
sound resource planning and performance assessments we will invest the
necessary resources to sustain operational assets until they can be
replaced/recapitalized through the Deepwater project.
Question. Is it true that the Coast Guard's major cutters and much
of your aircraft fleet are simply beyond their reasonable service life?
Answer. Many Coast Guard legacy assets are aging, technologically
obsolete, and require replacement and modernization. The majority of
these assets will reach the end of their planned service life by 2010.
Coast Guard cutters and aircraft are failing at an alarming rate.
However, with proper maintenance and sustainment support, the Coast
Guard plans to sustain legacy assets at a level that will allow them to
capably perform their missions until they are replaced by their
Deepwater counterparts.
The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget requests $966 million for
the Deepwater program, which includes critical funding necessary to
address immediate legacy asset sustainment issues that threaten the
performance of Coast Guard missions, including HH-65 re-engining and
the Medium Endurance Cutter Mission Effectiveness Project (MEP). Full
support of the President's Budget is critical to sustaining Coast Guard
operational performance.
Question. Two years ago, at Congress' request, the Department
provided an assessment of the feasibility of accelerating the Deepwater
program. At the proposed fiscal year 2006 funding level of $966 million
can we expect to accelerate the program?
Answer. The President's fiscal year 2006 Deepwater budget request
of $966 million represents a 33 percent increase over the fiscal year
2005 enacted funding level of $724 million. It advances the delivery of
the Fast Response Cutter by 10 years and the Offshore Patrol Cutter by
5 years, while beginning the conversion of legacy assets to meet post-
September 11 mission requirements. Because of the additional
capabilities and revised asset mix included in the revised Deepwater
implementation plan, the total program is planned for completion
completed in 25 years.
Question. What funding level would be required in fiscal year 2006
and future years to complete the plan within 10 years?
Answer. The President's Budget and the Department support the
revised Deepwater implementation plan and the funding stream that
acquires it in 25 years at $24 billion. To complete the plan within the
next 10 years would require an annual funding stream between $1.7
billion to $2.2 billion per year.
Question. What, if any, improvements in operational effectiveness
do you expect once Deepwater is fully implemented?
Answer. The post-September 11 Deepwater system will significantly
enhance the Coast Guard's operational effectiveness. The initial
Deepwater implementation plan was designed to meet the Coast Guard's
missions in 1998. The post-September 11 asset capabilities included in
the revised Deepwater implementation plan not only ensure the Coast
Guard can meet its new maritime homeland security missions, but also
enhance the Coast Guard's ability to meet its traditional mission
requirements. Specific operational enhancements contained in the
revised Deepwater plan include:
--Improved maritime security capabilities on selected Deepwater
cutters, including greater speed, larger flight deck, and
automated weapons systems to reduce maritime risk and enhance
response to terrorist threats;
--Network-centric command, control, computer, intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems to improve
maritime domain awareness and interoperability;
--Helicopter airborne use of force and vertical insertion
capabilities to provide warning and or disabling fire at sea
and in ports, waterways, and coastal regions and to enable the
delivery of boarding teams to board and take control of non-
compliant vessels;
--Improved long-range surveillance capability to support maritime
domain awareness and reduce the maritime patrol aircraft flight
hour gap;
--Enhanced all-weather self-defense capabilities on select assets;
and
--Improved Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear/Explosive
threat response on select Deepwater assets.
HH-65 HELICOPTER RE-ENGINING
Question. What is the status of the HH-65 re-engining project? Be
specific in terms of how many engines have been replaced.
Answer. In August 2004, the first re-engined HH-65 was delivered to
the Coast Guard at Aviation Training Center Mobile, AL, for operational
testing and evaluation. As of the September 1, 2005, 10 re-engined HH-
65Cs had been delivered for full operational status to Air Station
Atlantic City, NJ, (5), Aviation Training Center Mobile, AL, (1), and
Air Station Savannah, GA, (4). To accelerate the HH-65 re-engining
project the Coast Guard and its contractor, Integrated Coast Guard
Systems (ICGS), have examined the quality and suitability of a second
re-engining facility located in Columbus, MS. In August 2005, this
facility delivered its first re-engined aircraft to the Coast Guard.
This aircraft was determined to meet needed quality and suitability
parameters and the Coast Guard contracted with ICGS to re-engine an
additional 11 aircraft at the Columbus facility. The Coast Guard plans
to have all 84 operational aircraft re-engined in early 2007.
Question. Can all the engines be recapitalized within the specified
timeframe given the current capacity at Elizabeth City, NC?
Answer. Given the current capacity at Elizabeth City, NC, the re-
engining project cannot be completed within the specified timeframe. In
order to complete re-engining the operational fleet of 84 helicopters
by February 2007, the Coast Guard's Deepwater contractor, Integrated
Coast Guard Systems, will rely upon a second re-engining facility at
Columbus, MS.
Question. What will have to be done by the Coast Guard to meet the
Congressional direction to re-engine the entire fleet within that
required 24 month time period?
Answer. Provided the President's request of $133.1 million for HH-
65 re-engining in the fiscal year 2006 budget is fully funded, the
Coast Guard plans to complete re-engining of the operational fleet of
84 aircraft by February 2007. This is the fastest possible timeline
based on the availability of engine kits and parts, increased
production at the Coast Guard's Aviation Repair and Supply Center, and
additional production capacity at a second facility. ICGS is assessing
the quality and suitability of a second facility in Columbus, MS. That
facility is now re-engining a single aircraft that is scheduled to be
completed in September 2005.
Question. Will a second line be required?
Answer. In order to finish re-engining as quickly as possible and
to meet the February 2007 timeline, a second line will be required.
Question. What lessons have been learned from the test helicopter
currently being re-engined at the second line which the subcontractor
has established at its site?
Answer. It is too early in the process to assess lessons learned.
To accelerate the HH-65 re-engining project, the Coast Guard and its
contractor, ICGS, are examining the quality and suitability of a second
re-engining facility located in Columbus, MS. This facility is expected
to deliver its first re-engined aircraft to the Coast Guard in
September, 2005. Before making a final determination on the suitability
of the facility the Coast Guard is evaluating the second facility's
capabilities to control cost, meet schedule requirements, and employ
standardized industrial processes.
Question. What value do you see in having a second line outside the
Coast Guard's depot-level maintenance facility?
Answer. Using a second production facility will allow completion of
the re-engining of all 84 operational HH-65s by February 2007.
Question. What are the challenges of a second line?
Answer. The second facility has not yet been certified as providing
a quality product at a reasonable price. Also, as in any lead asset
production, there is a substantial learning curve. Other challenges
include:
--Validation of capability;
--Cost control;
--Avoidance of schedule delays;
--Parts availability; and
--Standardized industrial process.
COAST GUARD/C-130
Question. In the past, the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee
funded the acquisition of 6 new C130Js, which are the next generation
beyond the C-130Hs, and began funding to missionize these planes in
fiscal year 2005. The President's budget proposes missionization costs
to be borne by the Coast Guard in fiscal year 2006. The cost of these
planes has been outside the original Deepwater plan, but now the
associated missionization costs are included in the revised Deepwater
plan.
What legacy sustainment issues are you experiencing with the C-130H
fleet?
Answer. On April 20, 2005, the Coast Guard submitted a legacy asset
report to Congress, as directed in the Conference Report accompanying
the fiscal year 2005 DHS Appropriations Bill. This report includes the
HC-130H AC&I projects that the Coast Guard has included in the fiscal
year 2006 budget request and anticipates requesting in future budget
submissions. The primary HC-130H sustainment issues are as follows:
APS 137 Surface Search Radar ($75M, cost reflects conversion on 27
aircraft). The Coast Guard's fiscal year 2005 Deepwater budget includes
$9 million to start the replacement effort for the HC-130H's APS 137
search radar
Avionics Modernization and Rewiring ($144M, cost reflects 16
aircraft). The HC-130H requires a modernized and supportable cockpit.
This cockpit modernization will prepare the aircraft for the inevitable
U.S. Airspace restrictions due to increased traffic and the Open Skies
policy of route traffic control. Logistically, the aircraft's current
cockpit instrumentation will become unsupportable within this decade.
With plans for the HC-130H to operate until 2033, this will be a
necessary upgrade. Over 500 other DOD aircraft are conducting the same
modification. DOD modernization plans will significantly reduce the
availability and or support of older parts, resulting in increased
repair costs of the existing system.
Center Wing Box Structural Issues. In March 2005, the C-130
manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Aero (LMA), changed the inspection
guidelines for C-130 wing boxes based on cracking found in Air Force C-
130s of about the same age as some of the Coast Guard HC-130Hs. The
wing box problem is not unique to the Coast Guard, but applies to all
C-130's world wide. As a result of flight hour limitations and or
restrictions identified in LMA Service Bulletin (SB1), the five Coast
Guard 1500 series airframes are limited to restricted operations until
they are properly inspected over the next 6 months. A second service
bulletin is due this month from LMA that will provide the inspection
criteria. The estimated cost of completing the 1500 series inspections
is $2 million total. The remaining 22 aircraft are newer and will be
due for inspections over the next 2 years.
Question. Now that the missionization of the Coast Guard's C-130
fleet is included in the Deepwater plan, what are the future costs to
complete this undertaking?
Answer. The Coast Guard plans to have all six C-130J aircraft
missionized and available for maritime patrol aircraft work by the end
of 2008 at a cost not to exceed $120 million. Funds to complete this
missionization were previously provided outside of Deepwater.
Additional missionization costs within Deepwater are not currently
anticipated. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget request also
includes $5 million to fund the Aircraft Project Office, which manages
the C-130J pilot and air crew training, logistics use, and
missionization oversight while the aircraft are transitioning to full
operational use. As indicated in the fiscal year 2006-2010 Capital
Investment Plan (page 116 of the Coast Guard's fiscal year 2006
Congressional Justifications), this cost will recur at $5 million per
year through project completion in fiscal year 2008.
Question. Why were these costs omitted in the original Deepwater
plan?
Answer. The Congressional Conference Report (H. Rept. 106-710) of
June 2000 stated ``That the procurement of maritime patrol aircraft (C-
130J funded under this heading) shall not, in any way, influence the
procurement strategy, program requirements, or down-select decision
pertaining to the Coast Guard's Deepwater Capability Replacement
Project.'' Based on this direction the Coast Guard did not include the
C-130J in the original Deepwater plan.
Question. Since the acquisition and initial missionization costs of
the C-130Js were incurred by the Department of Defense, do you believe
that any future costs should also be borne by that Department?
Answer. Department of Defense funding already received in past
years is sufficient to complete missionization of the C-130J aircraft.
The President's 2006 budget includes a request for $5 million for the
Coast Guard to fund the Coast Guard Aircraft Project Office, which will
manage the C-130J pilot and crew training, logistics use, and
missionization oversight while the aircraft are transitioning to full
operational use.
Question. Why shouldn't the Department of Defense continue to
complete this effort?
Answer. Funding to acquire and fully missionize the Coast Guard's
six C-130J aircraft has already been provided through Department of
Defense appropriations. The remaining funds required to complete the
project, as outlined on page 116 of the Coast Guard's fiscal year 2006
Congressional Justifications, should be borne by DHS appropriations
since they will be used to train Coast Guard C-130J pilots and crews,
fund Coast Guard logistics support, and transition the aircraft to
operational use for Coast Guard missions.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Question. Has the Coast Guard R&D program been able to successfully
support the Coast Guard's traditional mission areas since the Coast
Guard is now an entity under the Department of Homeland Security?
Answer. Yes, the Coast Guard Research and Development program has
been able to continue research in non-homeland security (traditional)
mission areas. Presently, the Coast Guard is concentrating much of the
traditional mission R&D effort on aquatic nuisance species remediation.
The Coast Guard is also continuing research and development in other
non-homeland security mission areas such as Aids to Navigation, Search
and Rescue, Maritime Safety, and Marine Environmental Protection.
Question. How successful has the Coast Guard R&D program been in
competing for DHS Science and Technology funding in addition to its own
R&D budget?
Answer. The Coast Guard has been successful in competing for DHS
S&T funding for homeland security-related projects. In accordance with
established S&T protocols, the Coast Guard Portfolio Manager at S&T
submits the Coast Guard Maritime Security requirements to the DHS S&T
Executive Review Team for evaluation and funding. To date, the Coast
Guard has received over $6.5 million of funding from the S&T
Directorate in fiscal year 2005.
Question. Do you have any concerns about having this program
transferred to the Science and Technology Directorate?
Answer. No, a collaborative relationship between the Coast Guard
and the S&T Directorate is both viable and valuable. Integration of
funding and research requirements will maximize the effectiveness of
both homeland and non-homeland security research.
Question. How can you ensure those Members with concerns about
traditional mission research that the Science and Technology
Directorate (S&T) will place the same level of consideration on those
areas of research as the Coast Guard does?
Answer. Retaining the Coast Guard's capabilities in both homeland
and non-homeland security mission areas is of critical importance to
DHS. Equally important is the retention of the Coast Guard's research
and development capability in both homeland and non-homeland security
(traditional) missions. The S&T Directorate is committed to and
responsible for supporting the research, development, testing, and
evaluation requirements for the entire Department, which includes
enhancing the Coast Guard's homeland and non-homeland security mission
performance. For example, to date the S&T Directorate has provided
$7.56 million toward Project Hawkeye, an initiative that will enhance
performance across the entire spectrum of Coast Guard missions by
improving Maritime Domain Awareness.
Question. If Coast Guard R&D is transferred into S&T, what role
does the Department plan for the Coast Guard Research and Development
Center in Connecticut to continue to play in the future?
Answer. The Coast Guard R&D Center is the sole Government entity
performing research and development in the area of Aids to Navigation,
Search and Rescue, Maritime Safety, and Marine Environmental
Protection. The Coast Guard R&D Center will continue to be the critical
link to ensure the Coast Guard has the essential research, development,
testing, and evaluation requirements to succeed in both its homeland
and non-homeland security mission areas.
Question. What follow-on actions is the Coast Guard taking in
response to the Congressionally-mandated study of Coast Guard R&D?
Answer. The Coast Guard is taking several of the study's
recommendations for action. Key items include: the development and
implementation of an overarching Research and Development strategy;
continued outreach to other government agencies, industry and academia
to establish partnerships; and improved alignment with the Coast Guard
Acquisition Program.
COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS
Question. Why has Rescue 21 been delayed so significantly? The GAO
has been very critical of the Coast Guard's acquisition management team
known as Deepwater. Isn't this just another example of the Coast Guard
not being able to manage large acquisitions?
Answer. Rescue 21's delay in achieving initial operating capability
(IOC) is due to problems experienced by General Dynamics C4 System
(GDC4S). Those problems have been twofold in: (a) completing software
development needed to integrate the multiple commercial items into a
consolidated control interface and (b) resolving performance issues
stemming from System Integration Testing (SIT). Software integration
and SIT issues have been resolved and the project is ready to enter
full rate production upon approval.
The Coast Guard does not consider this delay a result of
mismanagement as it has closely followed Coast Guard and DHS
acquisition processes, as highlighted by the GAO Report 03-1111 Coast
Guard's Rescue 21 Faces Challenges. GAO noted that the Coast Guard has
developed key documentation used for managing system requirements and
that the Coast Guard has a system in place for identifying,
prioritizing, and minimizing risks.
The Coast Guard has successfully managed and executed several
comparable acquisitions in the past. Recent projects such as Seagoing
Buoy Tenders ($618 million), Coastal Patrol Boats ($327 million), and
the Great Lakes Icebreaker ($140 million) were each remarkably
successful. The Coast Guard will continue to seek out process
improvements and apply past lessons learned to manage the Rescue 21
acquisition.
Question. Please provide an update on achieving full operating
capability. What capabilities will Rescue 21 have at the end of fiscal
year 2006?
Answer. Provided Rescue 21 is funded consistent with the Coast
Guard's Capital Investment Plan outlined on page 116 of the Coast
Guard's fiscal year 2006 Congressional Budget Justification, the Coast
Guard expects Rescue 21 to reach full operating capability in fiscal
year 2007. At the end of fiscal year 2006, deployment of Rescue 21 to
all continental U.S. coastal regions will be complete.
Question. When will Rescue 21 transition to replace the National
Response Distress System (NRDS), which is being supplanted by Rescue
21?
Answer. The Rescue 21 system will be deployed incrementally in all
Coast Guard Sector/Group Regions. Following deployment and testing
within each Coast Guard Sector/Group Region, the legacy NDRS in the
affected region, will be removed and the Rescue 21 system will become
operational. Nationwide deployment is expected to be complete in fiscal
year 2007.
Question. When is NRDS expected to come offline?
Answer. The Rescue 21 system will be deployed incrementally in all
Coast Guard Sector/Group Regions. Following deployment and testing
within each Coast Guard Sector/Group Region, the legacy NDRS, in the
affected region, will be removed and the Rescue 21 system will become
operational. Nationwide deployment is expected to be complete in fiscal
year 2007.
Question. Please provide an update of your planned Vessel Tracking
System installation recapitalization schedule. When will the project be
completed?
Answer. The Ports and Waterways Safety System (PAWSS) installation/
recapitalization has been completed in five ports with two additional
ports to be completed in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2005,
pending completion of remote site leases. Project closeout and
transition of all systems to long-term operations and support will
occur by the end of fiscal year 2006. Automatic Identification System
(AIS) capability, which is an integral part of PAWSS, has been
installed in all nine scheduled Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) ports.
Question. How will funding interruptions affect the project
schedule, for instance, if funding is not provided in fiscal year 2006
what will not get done?
Answer. VTS systems in Puget Sound and San Francisco will not be
recapitalized with funding provided to date. The Coast Guard's fiscal
year 2006 Unfunded Priorities List includes $17 million for the PAWSS,
the funding required to complete VTS recapitalization in these ports.
Question. Please provide an update on the progress/status of
implementation of the nationwide Automated Identification System (AIS),
especially as it relates to the maintenance of the Coast Guard's common
operating picture.
Answer. The Nationwide AIS project has been approved and chartered
by the DHS. The project is in the requirements and planning phase of
the acquisition process.
Concurrently, numerous initiatives are underway to provide
prototype and interim AIS capability to provide AIS data to the
National Maritime Common Operational Picture (COP). The progress to
date includes:
--Installation of AIS capability at all Vessel Traffic Services (9
sites).
--Deployment of receive-only AIS sites in key locations in Alaska (8
of 11 AIS sites).
--Deployment of 4 prototype AIS receivers on National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration weather buoys to provide AIS
tracking of vessels offshore of the United States.
--AIS receiver installations for research & development purposes:
--On Oahu that provides extensive coverage of the major Hawaiian
Islands;
--In San Francisco Bay, CA;
--In Miami, Port Everglades and Key West, FL; and
--In Long Island Sound, Cape May NJ, and the Cape Cod Canal.
--Installation of AIS sites on offshore platforms in the Gulf of
Mexico to monitor traffic inbound to Gulf ports (3 of 4 planned
AIS sites installed).
--Deployment of AIS receiver as part of a concept validation on a low
earth orbit satellite for long-range AIS vessel tracking to be
launched in the second and third quarter fiscal year 2006.
Question. How does AIS implementation fit with Ports and Waterways
Safety System (PAWSS) and Rescue 21?
Answer. The Coast Guard, thru the PAWSS project, has deployed AIS
capability in all nine VTS areas. Rescue 21 replaces the Coast Guard's
antiquated short range command and control communications systems and
it does not include AIS. The Nationwide AIS project will share
infrastructure with Rescue 21 wherever site and technical compatibility
will allow, e.g., towers.
Question. How is it different from PAWSS?
Answer. The AIS is a cooperative vessel tracking system whereby
vessels transmit their position, identification, speed, course, cargo,
and other information to vessels in their area and shoreside receivers
within range of the system. The Maritime Transportation Security Act of
2002 specifies AIS carriage requirements for certain vessels navigating
U.S. waters. The Nationwide AIS project will implement necessary
infrastructure to receive AIS transmissions from shipboard systems and
distribute this data to the Coast Guard's Common Operational Picture to
enhance maritime domain awareness.
The PAWSS project was established to build new Coast Guard Vessel
Traffic Service (VTS) systems and to modernize and recapitalize
existing ones. The Coast Guard operates VTS in nine U.S. ports to
provide traffic information, traffic organization, and navigation
assistance services necessary to fulfill the Coast Guard's statutory
maritime safety and environmental protection responsibilities under the
Ports and Waterways Safety Act of 1972. PAWSS/VTS employ AIS, among
other surveillance systems to monitor and access information on vessel
movements within a VTS area.
A table highlighting the basic tenants of each project is provided
below:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compare/Contrast Nationwide AIS PAWSS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACRONYM......................... Automatic Ports and
Identification Waterways Safety
System. System
Primary User.................... U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard,
Commercial Commercial
vessels. vessels
Focus........................... Pre-9/11--Safety: Pre-9/11--Safety
for ship to ship Post-9/11--Safety
to communicate and Security
rules of the road. (Maritime Domain
Post-9/11--Safety Awareness)
and Security--
Maritime Domain
Awareness (MDA).
Purpose......................... Track vessels Manage vessel
approaching, traffic in nine
entering, and U.S. ports
transiting U.S.
navigable waters.
Project......................... Enhance the Provide Vessel
nation's maritime Traffic Service
domain awareness,
safety, and
security.
Line of Sight Transmissions..... Send and receive: Send and Receive
Data, ship-to- (& share): Voice
ship, ship-to- & Data, AIS-
shore, shore-to- based; radar &
ship. cameras
Location........................ Ports, waterways 9 U.S. ports: one
and coastal areas each in AK, NY,
out to 2000 MI, CA, WA; two
nautical miles each in LA and TX
via towers,
buoys, off-shore
platforms, e.g.,
oil rigs, &
satellite(s).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Is PAWSS still needed or is it being phased out?
Answer. The PAWSS, as an acquisition project, is being phased out.
The Coast Guard established PAWSS as an acquisition project to build
new Coast Guard VTS and modernize existing systems. The PAWSS project
resulted in two new VTS's, recapitalized five of the existing VTS's
completely, and partially modernized two others (Puget Sound, WA and
San Francisco, CA).
While there will be no more acquisitions completed through the
PAWSS project, the Coast Guard VTS will still operate, providing
navigation services and ensuring safety and environmental protection of
U.S. waters as required by the Ports and Waterways Safety Act of 1972.
Question. How is AIS different from Rescue 21?
Answer. The AIS is a cooperative vessel tracking system whereby
vessels transmit their position, identification, speed, course, cargo,
and other information to vessels in their area and shoreside receivers
within range of the system. The Maritime Transportation Security Act of
2002 specifies AIS carriage requirements for certain vessels navigating
U.S. waters. The Nationwide AIS project will implement necessary
infrastructure to receive AIS transmissions from shipboard systems and
distribute this data to the Coast Guard's Common Operational Picture to
enhance maritime domain awareness.
The Rescue 21 project will replace the existing and obsolete
National Distress and Response System (the system used by the boating
public to hail the Coast Guard when in distress) and provide the Coast
Guard with a modern coastal command, control, and communications
system. Rescue 21 will be capable of monitoring the international VHF-
FM distress frequency to improve search and rescue response operations
and communications with Coast Guard and other Federal, state, and local
first responders and commercial recreational boats.
A table highlighting the basic tenants of each project is provided
below:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compare/Contrast Nationwide AIS Rescue 21
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACRONYM......................... Automatic Formerly: National
Identification Distress and
System. Response System
(NDRS)
Primary User.................... U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard,
Commercial commercial,
vessels. boating public
Focus........................... Pre-9/11--Safety: Pre-9/11--Primary--
for ship to ship Safety
to communicate Secondary--support
rules of the road. all other CG/DHS
Post-9/11--Safety missions
and Security-- post-9/11--same
Maritime Domain
Awareness (MDA).
Purpose......................... Track vessels Command, control,
approaching, and communication
entering, and system to allow
transiting U.S. USCG to hear and
navigable waters. locate mariners
in distress
Project......................... Enhance the Modernize the
nation's maritime USCG's legacy
domain awareness, NDRS
safety, and
security.
Line of Sight Transmissions..... Send & receive: Send and receive:
Data, ship-to- Voice and Data
ship, ship-to-
shore, shore-to-
ship.
Location........................ Ports, waterways Towers and vessels
and coastal areas in 46 regions
out to 2000 throughout the
nautical miles United States,
via towers, including Guam
buoys, off-shore and Puerto Rico
platforms, e.g.,
oil rigs, &
satellite(s).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINING CENTER (FLETC)
Question. Mr. Secretary, as you complete your top to bottom review
of the Department, what emphasis will you place on the need to provide
basic and advanced training to law enforcement personnel at the Federal
Law Enforcement Training Center?
Answer. Standardized, high quality training is an exceptionally
critical component in the success of the DHS responsibilities. The
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) is the government's
principal provider of interagency law enforcement training and is DHS's
primary source for intradepartmental law enforcement training. FLETC
already has accelerated the number and types of training programs being
offered in concert with its Partner Organizations since the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks. While basic training continues to be the
first scheduling priority for FLETC, there has been a greater emphasis
placed upon relevant advanced training to meet the post-September 11
focus on security of the homeland. FLETC has undertaken an initiative
for Counterterrorism and Practical Applications Training, which
provides hands-on experience for trainees at all levels to handle first
responder situations, prevention and appropriate follow-up
investigative measures. Further, FLETC has a major role in
international, State and local training with an emphasis on
strengthening coordination with Federal law enforcement entities, to
include intelligence sharing training. Under DHS's auspices, the
Department anticipates relying heavily upon the enhanced and innovative
training and increased physical plant capacities now available at the
four FLETC sites in Charleston, SC; Cheltenham, MD; Artesia, NM and
Glynco, GA.
Question. Do you anticipate opportunities for cross-training of law
enforcement personnel?
Answer. One of the principal reasons for the creation of DHS is to
continuously improve the overall cooperation, coordination information
sharing and interoperability of law enforcement components at all
levels related to security for the United States. To help bring about
this improvement, DHS is encouraging greater measures that are intended
to breakdown traditional organizational and cultural barriers. Cross-
training and shared training experiences of multiple agencies is
becoming more the norm. FLETC's approach to consolidated training,
which emphasizes common understanding and cooperation through mixed
class association, affords agencies the opportunity to benefit from
mutual experiences. Many of FLETC's basic and virtually all of its
advanced programs are scheduled to accommodate multiple training
organizations. In the area of counterterrorism training, subjects such
as weapons of mass destruction, critical infrastructure, crisis
management and land and seaport security are open to all agencies with
those needs. These include DHS, Department of Justice, Department of
Defense and many others across the spectrum of law enforcement. DHS
expects to expand and enhance training that is relevant and
contemporary to the evolving needs of all agencies that are involved
with the homeland security.
Question. Mr. Secretary, will your assessment examine the various
training facilities owned or used by Departmental entities to ensure
that they are being fully utilized and not duplicative of each other?
Answer. Training facilities, per se, were not themselves a specific
focus of the review. Training has several different elements in DHS,
from the general training of our employees, to our law enforcement
academy, and to our training centers for first responders. Our plan
brings together DHS' key preparedness programs, including first
responder training programs. The U.S. Fire Administration and the Noble
Training Center are moved into a new Preparedness Directorate, along
with the training programs such as those at Ft. McClellan. The purpose
for creating this Directorate, and for pulling these programs together,
is to give our existing preparedness efforts--including training and
exercises--a focused direction. With these programs in one Directorate,
DHS will be in a better position to ensure that they are being fully
utilized without being duplicative.
Question. Mr. Secretary, the war on terror requires a new approach
to training law enforcement personnel. Do you foresee the need to
provide new types of training infrastructure or counterterrorism
training facilities that mirror our existing vulnerabilities?
Answer. Yes, the future operating environment of DHS will include
continuing and increasingly sophisticated terrorist threats to our
nation. Post-September 11, the FLETC, the primary law enforcement
training organization for the DHS, began vigorously reviewing its
training programs and developing and/or revising programs and
facilities as appropriate to better prepare agents and officers in
executing their duties in the Global War on Terrorism. The FLETC
developed a plan and is currently in the planning design and execution
construction phase for this type of infrastructure. The practical
application counterterrorism training facility design is based on the
FLETC and its Partner Organizations expertise on anti/counterterrorism
operations and related training requirements to defeat terrorism. The
FLETC offers the most current law enforcement training curricula
available anywhere and has the instructional experience and expertise
to meet the challenges set forth by our adversaries. However, to
accentuate our training and meet these challenges, we continually
upgrade our tactical facilities and construct training facilities that
are responsive to the stated needs of the agencies engaged in the war
on terrorism. The FLETC trains officers and agents from 81 Partner
Organizations. It is imperative that we attempt to replicate the types
of environments that our officers will surely encounter, to enhance
their probability of survival and the success of guarding our homeland.
Consolidated training, the concept on which the FLETC was
established, allows agencies with divergent missions to train together,
in a consistent manner. This proposed training facility will meet the
Department's primary goals to prevent terrorist attacks, reduce
America's vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and
recover from attacks that do occur. This initiative represents the
proactive ``imagination,'' cited in the 9/11 Commission's report,
needed to combat terrorism effectively.
The FLETC and DHS have been called upon by the Military to provide
up-to-date Counterterrorism training. As the Military's mission
changes, they have been expected to perform more like a Law Enforcement
Officer rather than a soldier. The urban environments and circumstances
that our soldiers face replicate the Use of Force decisions that our
police officers face everyday. This mission change has forced the
necessity for greater interaction between Law Enforcement and the
Military. The FLETC has and continues to be a willing partner in
meeting these challenges.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Thad Cochran
AVIATION SECURITY
Question. The Department's inspector general released a report
yesterday stating that there has been a lack of improvement over the
last year in detecting dangerous items--including guns, knives,
explosives--at airport security checkpoints. What role will next
generation detection systems play in improving airport security?
Answer. TSA has designed its passenger checkpoint technology
portfolio to incorporate solutions that will help improve explosives
and weapons detection at its checkpoints. The next generation of
checkpoint technology will automate the detection of explosives that
might be concealed on an individual's body, as well as within the
carry-on baggage/items they are carrying. Additionally, TSA is
exploring body imaging technologies that will allow screeners to detect
weapons (metallic and non-metallic) and explosives that an individual
might attempt to hide on their person.
Question. Pilot programs at our airports play a critical role in
moving technology from the research stage to practical deployment. What
is the status of pilot programs for aviation security checkpoint
detection technology, and when will these pilot programs begin?
Answer. TSA has initiated a number of operational testing and
evaluation pilot projects involving the next generation of checkpoint
technologies to expand TSA's explosives detection capabilities.
Highlights from ongoing pilot programs are as follows:
Explosive Trace Portals (ETP).--TSA has deployed 15 ETPs to 14
airports nationwide to evaluate their operational efficiency and
effectiveness for screening passengers for explosives. These pilots
have been initiated at the following airports and are scheduled to
continue through summer 2005: Rochester, NY; JFK, NY; Gulfport, MS;
Baltimore, MD; Jacksonville, FL; Phoenix, AZ ; Miami, FL; Providence,
RI; Las Vegas, NV (2 units); Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA;
Boston, MA; Tampa, FL; and San Diego, CA. TSA has allocated $28.3
million for the purchase and installation of additional trace portals
in fiscal year 2005.
Explosive Trace Detection Document Scanners.--TSA is operationally
testing and evaluating an explosives detection document scanner at 4
airports: Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA), Los Angeles
International (LAX), John F. Kennedy International (JFK), and Chicago
O'Hare International (ORD). The current technology requires that the
screener manually handle the travel document to obtain the sample
needed for analysis to determine if traces of explosives are present.
Based on the preliminary results of the pilot at the four airports, TSA
has determined that an automated solution better suits operational and
security needs. Consequently, the project has been refocused to develop
a technology solution that will meet those needs. A pilot project for
the automated prototype will be scheduled as soon as that product is
determined ready for an operational test and evaluation.
Question. There is a critical need to identify new and emerging
technology, in addition to explosive detection systems, to provide
enhanced security protections at our nation's airports. Could you tell
us what other progress the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
has made in identifying appropriate technology to improve the security
and efficiency of the current airport passenger screening process?
Answer. In addition to the operational test and evaluation pilots
underway using explosives detection trace portals and explosives
detection document scanners, TSA has a number of R&D projects underway
to expand both weapons and explosives detection capabilities. These
projects include, but are not limited to:
--Whole Body Imaging Technology.--TSA continues to examine the
feasibility of using a whole body imaging technology to improve
the detection of explosives and prohibited items on persons.
Ongoing efforts with two vendors has led to the development of
a device that is capable of producing a generic body image that
effectively highlights security threats on persons while not
unduly infringing on their privacy. TSA is currently working on
the details for the pilot phase, including vendor capabilities
to support a timetable, selection of the pilot locations, and
the operating policy for screening with this technology.
--Explosives Detection System (EDS) for carry-on baggage.--TSA has
conducted preliminary evaluations of an automated EDS for
carry-on baggage and is currently collecting engineering data
with the unit to promote further development. This technology
will automate the detection of explosives in carry-on baggage,
similar to the capabilities TSA has achieved for checked
baggage screening. Simultaneously, we have a robust ongoing R&D
project to develop a technology that will automate the search
not only for explosives in carry-on baggage, but for weapons as
well.
--Cast and Prosthetic Device Scanner.--TSA is working to develop a
technology solution to more effectively screen cast and
prosthetic devices for weapons and prohibited items. TSA
expects to pilot the technology in the first quarter of fiscal
year 2006.
--Explosives Detection Bottle Scanners.--TSA is working with industry
to evaluate the effectiveness of bottle scanners to screen for
liquid explosives. TSA has issued a solicitation to industry to
submit products for lab evaluation.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR CRITICAL INFORMATION PROCESSING AND STORAGE
Question. The National Center for Critical Information Processing
and Storage at Stennis Space Center performs the important function of
providing a secure and reliable system to process, manage, and secure
data for the Federal Government. Could you update us on the status of
that project?
Answer. Construction of the DHS data center at Stennis Space Center
has been delayed. The Naval Oceanographic Office had been experiencing
difficulties issuing a construction contract prior to Hurricane
Katrina. The Naval Oceanographic Office now reports that, due to
Hurricane Katrina, work crews are not available for the limited
construction effort that is under contract (demolition and roofing).
The delay to the project is not yet fully quantifiable. The DHS
construction effort must now compete for resources with regional
reconstruction efforts.
Question. Specifically, when will the additional $30 million of
fiscal year 2005 be available for build-out and construction at
Stennis?
Answer. The Stennis Procurement Package was released by DHS on May
13, 2005.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Ted Stevens
TRANSPORTATION OF BUTANT STOVES (WITHOUT BUTANE) ON AIRPLANES
Question. Constituents have contacted me to complain about TSA.
Alaskans have attempted to carry on butane stoves onto airplanes within
their luggage. The stoves, although no butane was present, were
confiscated by TSA. These stoves are used for camping and general use
in rural Alaska; the stoves do not pose a threat to anyone on a plane.
Why is TSA disallowing passengers from carrying butane stoves,
without butane, in their luggage?
Answer. Under regulations issued by the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA), there are restrictions in place on the transport
of hazardous materials on board any aircraft. With regard to the
transportation of butane stoves as checked baggage, in accordance with
the baggage screening standard operating procedure (SOP), if a TSA
screener finds a stove that potentially has fuel inside, an airline
employee is notified so that a determination may be made regarding the
contents of the stove. Typically, the airline employee removes the fuel
bottle(s) from the stove, after which the stove can be transported in
checked baggage. If the fuel bottle cannot be removed, in general, it
will not be allowed to be transported. In some small locations in
Alaska where the transport of camp stoves is prevalent and it is
relatively easy to contact the passenger, the airline employee will
contact the passenger and give that person the option to empty and
clean the bottle before accepting the stove for transport. However, an
unused camp stove still in the box with no fuel or emanating fumes
should not be refused transport.
FISHERIES ENFORCEMENT
Question. I'm informed the Coast Guard plans to deploy C-130s to
Shemya or Galena to increase surveillance and enforcement of fisheries
laws inside the Maritime Boundary Line. A report issued in 2004
indicated the Coast Guard could not render its deployment throughout
the high threat season because of the lack of facilities in the
Aleutians. Last year, I included language in the Homeland bill to
direct the Coast Guard to include in its budget submission the funds
necessary to provide support facilities for Shemya, Galena, Cold Bay
and other western Aleutian Islands. The Coast Guard was not able to
follow Congressional direction and the costs were not included in the
budget submission.
What are the costs estimates associated with this problem?
Answer. Increased regulation and management on the Russian side of
the Maritime Boundary Line (MBL) have significantly decreased the need
to forward deploy C-130 aircraft for MBL patrols. MBL enforcement
flights originating from Air Station Kodiak are proving effective. At
the same time, the need for forward-deployed HH-60's appears to be
increasing to meet search and rescue and fisheries enforcement mission
needs in Western Alaska waters.
HH-60 forward deployments often occur from locations such as Dutch
Harbor, Cold Bay and St. Paul Island. Although highly effective, these
forward deployments often present our crews with challenging conditions
because of sub-standard facilities--and inadequate commercial
infrastructure to properly support these deployments. Addressing these
deficiencies is a Coast Guard priority.
The Coast Guard recently initiated a formal planning effort to
develop alternatives and identify resources needed to respond to these
changing mission needs. Most of these facilities are not Coast Guard-
owned, so innovative public-private partnerships may be necessary to
allow infrastructure improvements. The Coast Guard will keep the
Committee advised of progress on this planning effort. The Coast Guard
can not accurately predict costs at this early stage in the planning
process.
UAVS
Question. What are the Coast Guard's plans for using Predator
medium endurance unmanned aerial vehicles for fisheries enforcement and
search and rescue activities in Alaska?
Answer. The Coast Guard has no immediate plans to use Predator
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for operational service in Alaska. The
recent proof of concept exercise demonstrated promise for a maritime-
configured UAV, but identified shortcomings must be addressed to make
this a Coast Guard mission capable asset. Among the technical
challenges that still must be resolved are reliable communications and
aircraft control at high latitudes, integration of on-board sensors,
limited all-weather operations (including icing and crosswind limits),
and compliance with Federal Aviation Administration air control
requirements.
UAVs remain a critical future element of the Coast Guard's
Deepwater program. The Coast Guard is partnering with other DHS and DOD
agencies to carry out further evaluation programs and take advantage of
technology improvements that will ultimate make UAVs suitable for use
in the maritime environment.
Question. Does the Department plan to utilize the two previous
Alaskan UAV demonstrations for further testing in Alaska or Hawaii?
Answer. DHS is working with the DOD to plan additional UAV testing
in all operational environments to demonstrate the UAV concept to
support a variety of missions. A cooperative effort between the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Coast
Guard to test UAV use in Hawaii, combining scientific research with
maritime sensor validation, was recently cancelled due to lack of NOAA
funding. The Coast Guard will continue to establish partnerships that
may yield opportunities for future Hawaii-based testing.
Further demonstrations in Alaska can be planned when UAV technology
matures to resolve the key issues of reliable communications and
aircraft control at high latitudes and all-weather operations
(including icing and crosswind limits). Prior Coast Guard UAV testing
in Alaska has demonstrated that these limitations restrict UAV
operations in Alaska.
Question. Does the Department have any plans to use UAV's to help
TSA provide surveillance to non-aviation modes of transportation such
as the Trans Alaska Pipeline System?
Answer. UAVs offer a range of capabilities that are suitable
throughout DHS. The UAV capability for 24-hour, all weather
surveillance is particularly useful in border security applications,
critical infrastructure protection, transportation security, or in
support of U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) maritime domain awareness missions.
In April 2004, the DHS/UAV working group submitted a report to Congress
addressing the applicability of UAVs in various homeland security
applications.
As part of a USCG Predator 2 UAV demonstration in July 2004, TSA
coordinated with the USCG to fly over designated sites on the Trans
Alaska Pipeline (TAPS). The purpose of the TAPS demonstration was to
evaluate the effectiveness and practicality of the UAV and associated
sensors for pipeline surveillance. This effort provided additional
evidence of the utility of UAVs as part of a layered surveillance
effort. TSA will continue to evaluate the use of UAVs with regard to
pipeline surveillance and looks forward to working with Congress on the
issue.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Pete V. Domenici
BORDER NEEDS--SECURITY UPDGRADES AT PORTS
Question. America has 197 land ports of entry, and it has been
almost 20 years since we launched a major effort to upgrade
infrastructure at those ports. That last effort occurred in 1986, when
former Senator DeConcini and I developed the Southwest Border
Improvement Program to improve border infrastructure so that States
could better take advantage of commerce and trade opportunities with
Mexico. That was almost 15 years prior September 11, 2001.
Since September 11, we have placed increasing emphasis on upgrading
security for our airports, seaports, and critical infrastructure. It is
imperative that we also improve land port security. To that end, I will
introduce a bill authorizing additional funds for investment in our
nation's border crossings.
Have you considered what kinds of improvements are necessary at our
land ports of entry and how much these upgrades might cost?
Answer. DHS is in the midst of a systems-level review of its border
control architecture to identify the right mix of personnel, technology
and infrastructure to help achieve effective control of the border. DHS
will identify a program manager to oversee the development of a
specific set of border security plans. The Department will be in a
better position to comment on this question following the conclusion of
this review.
Question. Specific improvements are needed at the Columbus port of
entry in New Mexico, and the General Services Administration (GSA) has
proposed construction on the Columbus project to begin in 2007 or 2008.
Do you support GSA's recommendation and will you make every effort to
keep the project on track for construction?
Answer. As noted above, DHS is in the midst of a systems-level
review of its border control architecture. This review is intended to
help the Department identify the right mix of personnel, technology and
infrastructure to help achieve effective control of the border. The
Department will be in a better position to comment on this question
following the conclusion of this review.
BORDER NEEDS--UAV TECHNOLOGY
Question. In last year's intelligence reform bill, I called for the
Department of Homeland Security to develop a plan for using Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (``UAVs'') on America's southwest border.
In New Mexico, we have some experience with UAVs because our
university near the southwestern U.S. border operates a UAV validation
and test facility sponsored by the Department of Defense. Because of
the established presence of UAVs at New Mexico State University, and
because of our location as a border state, I believe New Mexico would
be an asset in the use of UAVs for surveillance.
What are your views concerning the use of UAVs for securing remote
areas of our borders?
Answer. As noted above, DHS is in the midst of a systems-level
review of its border control architecture. DHS is also currently
working to begin the process of procuring UAVs. The Department's
objective is to get that done in a matter of months and start to deploy
UAVs and have them flying over the border. That said, DHS cannot rely
exclusively on UAVs, and manned vehicles and helicopters will also play
a role.
Question. How many UAVs does DHS currently own?
Answer. As of August 20, DHS currently does not own any UAVs.
Question. Where are these UAVs stationed?
Answer. As of August 20, DHS currently does not own any UAVs.
Question. Will your staff evaluate evaluate the existing UAV
facility at New Mexico State University and the Las Cruces
International Airport as a potential home for the Department's UAV
program?
Answer. As noted above, DHS is in the midst of a systems-level
review of its border control architecture. The Department will be in a
better position to comment on this question following the conclusion of
this review.
BORDER PERSONNEL--MANPOWER
Question. As you know, adequate staffing at our nation's land ports
of entry is essential for the safety of parties involved in the flow of
traffic across the border and for efficient commerce.
Last year's legislation that reorganized our intelligence community
called for an increase in border patrol agents, and President Bush's
fiscal year 2006 budget requests funds to hire an additional 210
agents.
Have you studied where placing these agents would be most
beneficial?
Answer. Emergency Supplemental Legislation and President Bush's
fiscal year 2006 Budget call for the hiring of an additional 710 agents
by the end of fiscal year 2006, and CBP is taking aggressive steps to
recruit, hire and train candidates to fill these spots. The hiring of
these new agents comes in addition to the standard attrition hires that
supplement the several hundred agents who retire, transfer, or leave
for medical reasons over the course of a year. New agent positions will
be allocated based on risk-based priorities.
Question. When might these new agents be hired and put in place?
Answer. There is currently an open recruiting announcement to
obtain additional potential new employees.
Question. How can we better retain existing border patrol officers
so that as we place these new agents along our borders, we are not
losing agents with experience?
Answer. CBP is currently examining methods that can be used to
retain seasoned agents. The current attrition rate for experienced
agents (GS-9 and higher) is less than 5 percent.
BORDER PERSONNEL--TRAINING AT FLETC
Question. One of the Federal Government's premier training sites
for law enforcement officers is located in New Mexico. Many Federal law
enforcement officers have trained at the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center in Artesia (FLETC-Artesia), including Air Marshals and
Federal Flight Deck Officers.
Additionally, both basic and advanced training for Border Patrol
Agents is now conducted at FLETC-Artesia. I lauded the Department's
decision to consolidate border patrol training in Artesia because it
makes sense to have all training at one facility. Additionally,
training border patrol officers in a border State gives trainees a
first-hand look at the area they are charged with protecting.
What, if anything, does the Department need from FLETC-Artesia?
Answer. FLETC is proceeding to put into place the temporary
structures and staffing directed in the recently enacted fiscal year
2005 Supplemental. As more information and details are developed on
additional training needs we will keep the Congress apprised.
Question. Has DHS considered taking border patrol trainees to the
Mexico border as part of their overall training?
Answer. FLETC uses scenario base training utilizing Spanish
speaking role players in a controlled environment identical to that
seen on the southwest border. This scenario based training affords
trainees the opportunity to correct mistakes and become comfortable
with assigned duties prior to assignment in a U.S. Border Patrol
sector. This system of training is more flexible and less costly than
providing visits during basic training to border sites. The Border
Patrol also employs a system of supervision and on-the-job experience
for newly graduated agents.
Question. If new facilities were constructed at FLETC-Artesia,
would you support legislative language to streamline the design,
engineering and construction of those facilities?
Answer. The Department is always open to considering legislative
methods that streamline and improve our processes while promoting full
and open competition.
NEW MEXICO CAPABILITIES--TRAINING AT PLAYAS
Question. Secretary Chertoff, last fall New Mexico Tech opened the
Playas Training Center. DHS played an integral part in this center by
providing the funding for New Mexico Tech to purchase Playas, a small
town in Southwest New Mexico that was virtually abandoned when the
copper smelting operation in the area was shut down in 1999.
Playas' remote location and open space makes it an ideal place for
New Mexico Tech to develop a wide range of research and training
activities to support homeland security efforts nationwide.
What new training activities could DHS use at Playas?
Answer. It is my understanding that Playas will be jointly
developed by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and the
New Mexico State University. As you are aware, ODP has funded the New
Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology since fiscal year 1998 as
part of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium. As part of the
Consortium, the New Mexico Institute for Mining and Technology supports
ODP's mission of assisting State and local governments plan and prepare
for incidents of domestic terrorism by providing critical training to
the Nation's first responders. The State of New Mexico used State funds
rather than Federal homeland security funds to purchase the Playas
Training Center. Nevertheless, ODP does have a use agreement in place
with New Mexico Tech to use the Playas Training Center over a 5-year
period. As the Playas Training Center is further developed, the
Department's ODP will coordinate with New Mexico Tech officials to
determine the types of training initiatives that could be supported by
the Playas Training Center.
Question. How much is included in the President's fiscal year 2006
budget for training first responders?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 President's Budget request for SLGCP
includes over $83 million for the State and Local Training Program.
Through this funding, SLGCP will continue to develop and deliver state-
of-the-art training programs through its coalition of ``Training
Partners.'' This coalition, comprised of government facilities,
academic institutions and private organizations provide a variety of
specialized training for emergency responders across the country. The
fiscal year 2006 funding request will support SLGCP's Continued and
Emerging Training Program, the Center for Domestic Preparedness, and
the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium. In addition, a portion
of SLGCP grants to States and urban areas are also devoted to training.
FEMA also conducts an extensive array of training for emergency
personnel through the National Fire Academy, the Emergency Management
Institute, and the Noble Training Center with a budget that totals
approximately $15 million. Other DHS components, such as the Federal
Law Enforcement Training Center, also provide training for selected
State and local personnel.
Question. What are your thoughts on providing standardized training
for all first responders, at both the Federal and local level, in a
facility like the one at Playas?
Answer. The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology,
including its training facility at Playas, already supports ODP's
training efforts through the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium.
As such, these facilities will comply with all training standards
required for ODP training.
Standards for training encompass the instructional design of the
training, the quality of training content, the effectiveness of the
instructors, as well as successful knowledge transfer measured through
student evaluation. With respect to development of training programs,
the ODP Training Division has adopted the industry standard
instructional systems design approach of analysis, design, development,
implementation, and evaluation (ADDIE) as detailed in the ODP Strategy
for Blended Learning. The ADDIE approach for instructional design
ensures a valid training need is identified, the most effective
methodology for instruction is identified, and training content is
monitored for accuracy and effectiveness throughout the process.
The development of training content based on effective needs
analysis is also based upon performance standards. DHS efforts in this
area related to training for emergency responders began with the ODP
Training Strategy developed in 2002, which provided guidance on who
should be trained to perform what tasks, using what methodologies to
maximize training efficiencies. The strategy further addressed
effective methods for evaluating competency and performance after
training was completed and what gaps needed to be remedied. This work
led to the ODP-developed Emergency Responder Guidelines, which were
promulgated in August 2002. These are currently undergoing revision to
reflect a broader range of response disciplines and the private sector.
Additionally, as the executive agent for the development and
implementation of HSPD-8, ``National Preparedness,'' SLGCP has
developed and promulgated an Interim National Preparedness Goal (NPG).
The Interim NPG, which was released on March 31, 2005, was developed
using capabilities-based planning. Capabilities are combinations of
resources that provide the means to achieve a measurable outcome
resulting from performance of one or more critical tasks, under
specified conditions and performance standards. The Target Capabilities
List identifies 36 Target Capabilities and is currently available.
ODP's Training Division, along with our training partners, is in
the process of examining the capabilities associated with the national
priorities included in the Interim National Preparedness Goal to align
training curricula to these national priorities and the related
capabilities. It is the Department's goal and expectation to have its
training courses aligned with the national priorities in fiscal year
2006.
Further, with respect to professional standards, ODP requires its
training partners, State Administering Agencies, and Federal partners
to adhere to and incorporate the following professional standards in
training curricula to which they are applicable:
--29 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR)1910.120, Hazardous Waste
Operations and Emergency Response;
--29 CFR 1910.134, Respiratory Protection;
--National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 471, Recommended
Practice for Responding to Hazardous Materials Incidents;
--NFPA 472, Professional Competence of Responders to Hazardous
Materials Incidents;
--NFPA 473, Standard for Competencies for EMS Personnel Responding to
Hazardous Materials Incidents;
--NFPA 1006, Standard for Rescue Technician Professional
Qualifications;
--NFPA 1600, Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business
Continuity Programs 2004, specifically Chapter 5, section 5.12;
and
--NFPA 1670, Standard on Operations and Training for Technical Rescue
and Search Incidents.
Question. Will the Department work to make State homeland security
directors aware of the Playas Training Facility in an effort to help
local first responders receive adequate training?
Answer. ODP is undertaking a web-based information portal
initiative, the First Responder Training portal, that will be the
primary location for information and resources serving the first
responder community in support of the DHS strategic goal of improving
the nation's ability to prevent, prepare, mitigate, respond to, and
recover from emergency situations and events. The portal will create a
functional tool to support the development and delivery of efficient,
effective and consistent first responder training. Registered under the
domain name of firstrespondertraining.gov, the website will provide a
single, authoritative link for the first responder community and will
include collaboration tools and information on training, grants,
equipment, and standards.
This portal will complement FEMA/U.S. Fire Administration's (USFA)
existing on-line training portals, the Emergency Management Institute's
Independent Study website, and the USFA National Emergency Training
Center (NETC) Virtual Campus, which together offer more than 60 courses
for emergency personnel and has registered more than 350,000 course
completions already this fiscal year. The NETC Virtual Campus courses
are intended for Federal, state, and local officials including
emergency management personnel, fire service personnel, police, public
works, health officials and first responders, and also DHS personnel,
and the general public.
The ODP First Responder Training portal and FEMA's on-line training
facilities will provide consistent delivery of training to large
audiences and will be used as a delivery mechanism by our partners to
continue to enhance the capacity of the emergency responder community.
Additionally, this web-based training will: accommodate students with
disabilities by use of assistive technologies; be designed to support
small group work and collaboration; provide multi-purposed training and
resources; have the capability to restrict access to only authorized
users; offer students the opportunity to remediate materials until
proficient or ``opt out'' of content they have already mastered; and be
linked through other initiatives currently underway to track user
activity and accurately provide student transcripts.
The framework and inter-workings of the overall system are nearing
completion. A pilot test, testing functionality and usability for
internal users/developers (training partners) and external users
(students from the first responder communities), will begin in June
2005. Results from the pilot test will be used to make improvements to
the system and to determine the effectiveness of the technology in
support of ODP's National Training Program.
Prior to the development of the First Responder Training portal,
ODP developed a Training Course Catalog, as well as comprehensive
guidelines associated with attending ODP-sponsored training courses.
This information is available to the Nation's first responder community
through a number of different means, including ODP's publicly-available
website (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/odp) as well as through routine
interaction with ODP's State Preparedness Officers and the nation's
first responder community. As New Mexico Tech develops training courses
at Playas Training Center, ODP will make this information available
through its various outreach mechanisms, including the First Responder
Training portal.
New Mexico Capabilities--Dirty Bomb Training
Question. New Mexico Tech has also joined with New Mexico State
University (``NMSU'') to propose an expansion of the anti-terrorism
training program for first responders. This expansion would include a
course about radiological dispersal devices (also known as dirty
bombs).
I believe this proposal has merit because the aftermath of a dirty
bomb attack is one of our gravest anticipated terrorist attacks, and
our first responders need appropriate training to respond to such a
threat. New Mexico Tech and NMSU's Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring
and Research Center have the scientific expertise, radiological
handling capabilities, radioactive material license, and trained staff
to address both the scientific and training aspects of dirty bombs, and
collaboration between these universities and New Mexico's national
nuclear weapons labs could provide ideal training first responders to
counter dirty bomb risks.
What dirty bomb training do Federal first responders currently
receive?
Answer. FEMA/USFA's Emergency Management Institute (EMI), as well
as the National Fire Academy, offers a full range of courses that
prepare state, local, and tribal emergency personnel to deal with the
aftermath of all types of events involving radiological materials. EMI
courses such as ``Radiological Emergency Response Operations'' and
``Advanced Radiological Incident Operations'' and the NFA's Command and
Control of Emergency Incidents provide specific instruction in how to
prepare for such events.
Although there is no specific course dedicated to radiological
dispersal devices, several courses delivered by members of the National
Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC) cover radiological dispersal
devices in their course curriculum. The extent to which radiological
dispersal devices are covered in the various courses ranges from a five
minute overview to a detailed 2.5 hour block of instruction. States,
territories, and urban areas may use SLGCP-certified training to
enhance the capabilities of State and local emergency preparedness and
response personnel as it adheres to the State's Homeland Security
Strategy. The target audience for SLGCP-certified training courses
includes State and local emergency preparedness, prevention and
response personnel; emergency managers; and public/elected officials
within the following disciplines: fire service, law enforcement,
emergency management, emergency medical services, hazardous materials,
public works, public health, health care, public safety communications,
governmental administrative, cyber security, and private security
providers.
Question. Could New Mexico Tech's training facility in Playas, New
Mexico be the ideal place to base such training?
Answer. As you are aware, ODP has funded the New Mexico Institute
of Mining and Technology since fiscal year 1998 as part of the National
Domestic Preparedness Consortium. As part of the Consortium, the New
Mexico Institute for Mining and Technology supports ODP's mission of
assisting State and local governments plan and prepare for incidents of
domestic terrorism by providing critical training to the nation's first
responders. ODP periodically reviews its training requirements and
builds on the strengths of its training partners. Currently, nuclear
and radiological training primarily falls under the Department of
Energy's Nevada Test Site (NTS). However, ODP will review any unique
capabilities the Playas Training Center may offer.
RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY--GENERALLY
Question. The Department of Homeland Security has used many
different resources to implement innovative protective measures across
the country. We have improved security nationwide through the
Department's Science and Technology Directorate, the Advanced Research
Projects Agency, Centers of Excellency, and similar divisions and
initiatives.
The Department's leadership in developing innovative tools and
technologies to protect our Nation is one of the most important roles
the Department plays. However, with so many groups working on
developing new technologies, it may prove difficult to select the best
technology available.
How does DHS intend to most effectively integrate and leverage
existing efforts and capabilities to ensure that the best technologies
available are utilized?
Answer. Last year, the S&T Directorate developed and documented a
robust RDT&E process. The goal of the RDT&E process is to provide a
clearly defined, repeatable method for assessing needs and risk,
planning, allocating resources and executing programs to produce high-
impact, cost-effective and critically needed homeland security
technology solutions.
The S&T Directorate's RDT&E process uses a risked-based approach to
planning and identifies critical capability gaps before attempting to
identify or develop technology solutions. In developing solutions, the
process engages the end-user throughout requirements definition,
development, testing and transition. The process considers the product
life cycle from the outset, including planning and budgeting for
production, deployment, operations and support. It is this process
which allows us to prioritize both within and across fields.
Integration of existing efforts and capabilities occurs in several
key areas. For example, the S&T Directorate collaborates with academia
through the Centers of Excellence program and its associated Integrated
Network of Centers, which is establishing a national network of
affiliated universities. Additionally, the S&T Directorate has a
sizeable number of interactions and programs with individual
universities on specific research topics and needs.
The S&T Directorate also maximizes and leverages the existing
capability base of the national laboratory complex. The Directorate
engages all the national laboratories on a case-by-case basis, to tap
into unique technical expertise that is critical to accomplishing
portfolio objectives and goals. The Directorate also relies on national
laboratory technical experts as needed throughout the RDT&E processes
based on their years of experience applying technologies and processes
to field applications. This technical and practical expertise is used
to accelerate spiral development of technologies for transitioning
capabilities to operational end-users.
The S&T Directorate solicits proposal from industry and uses a full
range of contracting vehicles and its authority under the Homeland
Security Act to engage businesses (large and small), Federally funded
research and development centers, universities, and other entities in
development of advanced technologies for homeland security. The
contracted research and development work now underway is the S&T
Directorate's main form of collaboration with industry and academia.
Question. Under your leadership, how will the Science and
Technology Directorate collaborate with academia, industry and our
national labs?
Answer. The S&T Directorate collaborates with academia through the
Centers of Excellence program and its associated Integrated Network of
Centers, which is establishing a national network of affiliated
universities. Additionally, the S&T Directorate has a sizeable number
of interactions and programs with individual universities on specific
research topics and needs.
The S&T Directorate solicits proposals from industry and uses a
full range of contracting vehicles and its authority under the Homeland
Security Act to engage businesses (large and small), Federally funded
research and development centers, universities, and other entities in
development of advanced technologies for homeland security. The
contracted research and development work now underway is the S&T
Directorate's main form of collaboration with industry and academia.
The S&T Directorate maximizes and leverages the existing capability
base of the national laboratory complex. The Directorate engages all
the national laboratories on a case-by-case basis, to tap into unique
technical expertise that is critical to accomplishing portfolio
objectives and goals. The Directorate also relies on national
laboratory technical experts as needed throughout the RDT&E processes
based on their years of experience applying technologies and processes
to field applications. This technical and practical expertise is used
to accelerate spiral development of technologies for transitioning
capabilities to operational end-users.
The S&T Directorate engages all the national laboratories on a
case-by-case basis, to tap into unique technical expertise that is
critical to accomplishing portfolio objectives and goals. The
Directorate also relies on national laboratory technical experts as
needed throughout the RDT&E processes based on their years of
experience applying technologies and processes to field applications.
This technical and practical expertise is used to accelerate spiral
development of technologies for transitioning capabilities to
operational end-users.
For example, the Countermeasures Test Beds (CMTB) program operates
in close partnership with a number of Federal and national laboratories
to execute its mission of testing and evaluating all threat
countermeasures and systems. The following national labs participate in
all CMTB Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E) efforts and enable
deployments in response to heightened alert conditions as necessary.
Multi-lab teams are encouraged to ensure objectivity and a healthy
interchange of ideas.
As another example, the Office of Interoperability and
Compatibility (OIC) is currently leveraging the resources of Eastern
Kentucky University in developing effective test methodologies for
equipment and to provide technical assistance to States and localities
under the SAFECOM Program. At the same time, OIC has enlisted a
consortium of well over one hundred universities and colleges to
support the annual conference on Technologies for Public Safety in
Critical Incident Response, jointly sponsored by DHS and the DOJ.
Industry associations participate in SAFECOM Program activities,
especially in standards development efforts. OIC has established a
monthly vendor process which allows for constant communication and
collaboration with our industry partners. Additionally, OIC/SAFECOM
will be conducting an industry summit in late fall to allow for ever
greater collaboration.
Additionally, the BioSecurity program currently works closely with
academia, industry and the national labs to fulfill its national
mission.
Question. How will you allocate funding to national laboratories,
universities, and industry in a competitive and transparent manner?
Answer. The S&T Directorate supports seeking the best sources to
accomplish DHS RDT&E goals through full and open competition.
Individual national laboratories have recognized expertise in
specific technical fields built up from years of experience in national
defense technology development. Recognizing those areas of expertise,
integrated technical programs have been formed from multiple
laboratories to solve problem sets related to their expertise. The
laboratories assist in leading the formation of the technical teams
addressing specific problem sets. The S&T Directorate uses a
performance based approach to ensuring quality programs. As such,
annual external reviews are conducted with subject-matter experts and
end-user reviewers to evaluate the performance and outcomes of
individual programs. Results from these reviews are documented and used
to inform decisions on the next fiscal year's program execution plans.
All funds allocated by University Programs to universities and
individuals at universities are the product of a highly competitive
merit-based selection process. A large number of subject matter experts
from government, industry and academia use well-established and
documented peer review selection procedures in making funding
recommendations.
All S&T Directorate Broad Agency Announcements and Small Business
Innovation Research solicitations are public and competitive. All are
published on the official Federal Government procurement website (and
simultaneously on the S&T Directorate's HSARPA websites) and each
contains explicit instructions on how to submit white papers and
proposals. The criteria by which these submissions will be evaluated
for technical merit are published in each solicitation. The source
selection plan which guides the panel of experts who evaluate the
submissions is approved at the same time the solicitation is published
and records of their final decisions are retained. Selections for
funding are typically made on technical merit, relevance to DHS
mission, available funding, and programmatic considerations by a source
selection authority.
Also, the S&T Directorate works to ensure all of its program
offices allocate funding to national and Federal laboratories,
universities, and industry where appropriate, following the competitive
guidelines outlined in the Federal Acquisition Requirements. The S&T
Directorate continually monitors all program aspects to determine best
value and cost effectiveness. As the S&T Directorate works to mature
and transition mature technologies to the user community, a competitive
process is used.
RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY--NISAC
Question. The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis
Center, or NISAC, is funded by DHS to evaluate the effects of
disruptions to America's infrastructure, and much of NISAC's work is
done by New Mexico's two National Laboratories: Sandia and Los Alamos.
I strongly believe in NISAC's efforts and capabilities, but I do
not believe the program is being used by the entire Department of
Homeland Security to its full extent.
What are your plans to coordinate the Department's Directorates so
NISAC is utilized by the entire Department?
Answer. The Department's National Infrastructure Simulation and
Analysis Center (NISAC) is a program in the DHS IAIP Directorate. Since
its inception, NISAC has had the mission to provide comprehensive
modeling and simulation capabilities for the analysis of critical
infrastructures, their interdependencies and complexities, and the
consequences of disturbances. This mission and NISAC's expertise
directly support the modeling, simulation, and analysis initiatives of
DHS. For fiscal year 2005, IAIP will continue to expand NISAC's
operational development of a suite of infrastructure modeling,
simulation and analytic capabilities with an emphasis on
interdependencies and consequences of infrastructure disruptions for
the Nation as a whole.
At present, IAIP is coordinating ongoing NISAC work with the S&T
Directorate, the Coast Guard, FEMA, BTS, and TSA, as well as with the
Departments of Transportation and Energy, on multiple projects that
concern the nation's infrastructure. The NISAC program office will
continue its efforts to broaden the awareness of the NISAC program
throughout DHS to ensure this national resource is properly tasked with
the most urgent and complex problems concerning infrastructure
dependencies and interdependencies. IAIP will continue to fully
utilize, and if warranted expand, the existing capabilities of NISAC
with IAIP acting as the central coordinator for NISAC efforts in
keeping with IAIP's national charter of coordinating and leading
efforts for the understanding and protection of the nation's
infrastructure. Moreover, as the Department's ability to execute risk
assessment continues to mature, NISAC will become more and more
integrated into the full range of Federal risk management programs.
Question. How will you work with the Director of National
Intelligence to make NISAC's capabilities available to the intelligence
community through a formal relationship, as required by last year's
intelligence reform bill?
Answer. IAIP is continually improving the integration between the
organizations that develop the three components of our Strategic Risk
Analysis; which are consequence, vulnerability and threat or
attractiveness. A prime example of this effort is ensuring that the
intelligence component of DHS, the Office of Information Analysis,
currently in IAIP, is aware of NISAC's capabilities and, as a
byproduct, the resident expertise at the national laboratories. As the
NISAC products are more fully developed and matured, this integration
will increase.
As a continuation of this integration, we will engage with the
Director of National Intelligence to make him aware of a variety of
efforts the Department has underway that will benefit from his efforts,
NISAC included. We will seek a formal relationship for information and
capability sharing as warranted, between non-DHS elements of the
intelligence community and the Department, including the NISAC.
Question. What do you need from Congress to fully implement NISAC's
capabilities?
Answer. Congress's continued support for all of the Department's
programs that seek to reduce the risk of terrorism to the Nation are
greatly appreciated. All of these programs are essential, including the
Department's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center.
research and technology--domestic nuclear detection office (dndo)
Question. The Department has a new office tasked with deploying
radiation detection technologies and systems designed to detect
attempts to smuggle nuclear materials or weapons into the United
States. As such, the Domestic Nuclear Detention Office, is likely to
play a critical role in testing and evaluating current and next
generation technologies to assure that DHS agencies have the most
effective and accurate tools.
How does DNDO intend to balance the needs between rapidly deploying
detection systems and developing technologies that can best fulfill its
mission?
Answer. The DNDO will include, as part of its staff, an Office of
Systems Engineering, which will be dedicated to development of the
global systems architecture, as well as a comprehensive systems
engineering capability. This office will be tasked with providing
quantifiable analysis of issues such as this and providing cost-benefit
analysis, when appropriate, to determine the relative advantages gained
by deploying current technologies or developing additional
capabilities.
Additionally, beyond the DNDO office structure, the DNDO will also
utilize the Department's robust, two-tiered validation process for
large-scale programs, consisting of a Joint Requirements Council and an
Investment Review Board, which have final approval to authorize
deployment or development programs.
Question. How do you plan to develop and support the nuclear
facilities and infrastructure needed to test and evaluate evolving
technologies, missions, and operational concepts?
Answer. The DNDO will continue to proceed with the design and
construction of the Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures Test and
Evaluation Complex (RadNucCTEC) at the Nevada Test Site. The
construction of this facility, begun within the DHS S&T Radiological
and Nuclear Countermeasures portfolio, will bridge the gap between
``bench-top testing'' performed by developers and operational field
testing conducted during pilot deployments, providing the unique
capability to test systems in a near real-world environment against
actual special nuclear materials in authentic configurations.
Construction is expected to begin in June 2005 and be completed by the
end of fiscal year 2006.
Additionally, DNDO will continue to utilize the DHS S&T
Countermeasures Test Bed (CMTB) for operational testing and evaluation.
CMTB will provide a critical, objective testing environment to evaluate
technologies and concepts of operation for nuclear and radiological
detection in key operational venues.
Question. With the creation of DNDO, will the efforts to prevent
and respond to radiological dispersion devices be retained in the
Science and Technology Directorate, moved into DNDO, or shared between
these two DHS divisions?
Answer. Many experts consider a nuclear attack to be less likely
than the release of a radiological dispersion device (RDD). However, a
nuclear attack would be many times more devastating than one employing
an RDD, both in terms of economic impact and casualties. While the
primary focus of DNDO is, therefore, to develop and acquire systems and
capabilities for the detection of special nuclear materials (SNM) and
nuclear devices, most nuclear threat detection systems will also detect
radiological threats, because of the similarity in nature of
radioactive signatures of special nuclear materials nuclear devices and
radiological materials usable in an RDD.
As such, the division of responsibilities for prevention and
response for RDDs between DNDO and the S&T Directorate is the same as
that for nuclear devices or materials. DNDO will be responsible for the
development of the detection architecture, as well as the systems to be
deployed, for the prevention of an attack. Additionally, DNDO will be
responsible for the development of training and response protocols in
the event of an alarm. However, DNDO will not be responsible for the
development of incident management or decontamination technologies;
these programs will remain in the S&T Directorate.
Question. What role will national weapons labs play in DNDO?
Answer. DNDO will continue to work with the Office of National
Laboratories in the S&T Directorate to make sure that work is properly
coordinated and that all of the national laboratories, including the
weapons labs, receive clear guidance and direction on efforts they
conduct with DNDO or the S&T Directorate.
DNDO recognizes that the national weapons laboratories have long
been one of this nation's preeminent sources of critical nuclear
expertise. That expertise, along with the expertise found in academia
and industry, will be vital to responding to the threat posed by
nuclear and radiological weapons or materials and in developing
transformational capabilities to significantly enhance the U.S.
capability to protect against this threat.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Robert C. Byrd
drug trafficking
Question. The President has said, ``trafficking in drugs finances
the work of terrorists, sustaining terrorists and that terrorists use
drug profits.'' Given the President's view, I am surprised that he has
included almost no initiatives in your budget to disrupt the drug
trade. Why?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 President's Budget includes $3.455
billion that affects or may affect the counternarcotics activities of
the Department or any of its subdivisions, or that affects the ability
of the Department or any subdivision of the Department to meet its
responsibility to stop the entry of illegal drugs into the United
States.
Within that $3.455 billion total, approximately $2.937 billion has
been identified as National Drug Control Budget Funds--funds for those
Department programs and initiatives that directly support Priority III
of the President's National Drug Control Strategy (Disrupting the
Market: Attacking the Economic Basis of the Drug Trade). This funding
will provide the Department with resources to strengthen and focus its
illegal drug market disruption efforts while, at the same time,
dedicating new resources for emerging threats. In addition to these
funds, approximately $480.5 million has been identified as other
potential expenditures that also may affect the counternarcotics
activities of the Department.
These funds support counternarcotics programs and counternarcotics-
related activities that can build on the Department's many
accomplishments towards stopping the entry of illegal drugs into the
United States.
lobbying rules
Question. On November 23, the Office of Government Ethics, in
response to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) request, relaxed
lobbying prohibitions for former ``senior employees'' of the
Department. Up until November 23 of this year, any former ``senior
employee'' of DHS was barred from lobbying any individual or office in
DHS for 1 year. A senior employee is any individual whose rate of basic
pay is equal or greater than 86.5 percent of the rate for level II of
the Executive Schedule. The 2004 salary for an Executive Level II
employee is $158,100, 86.5 percent of which is $136,756.
The revised rule by the Office of Government Ethics designates
seven distinct and separate components in DHS for purposes of 18 U.S.C.
207(c), which covers conflict of interest restrictions for senior
Federal officials in post-employment. The components designated are:
Transportation Security Administration (TSA); Coast Guard; Secret
Service; Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC); Science &
Technology (S&T) Directorate; Information, Analysis & Infrastructure
Protection (IAIP) Directorate; and Emergency Preparedness & Response
(EP&R).
By designating seven distinct and separate components in DHS, any
former official who worked in one of those seven components is now
permitted to immediately lobby anywhere in DHS except for the component
for which they were employed. It also allows senior officials who
worked for DHS, but not in one of the seven designated components, to
immediately lobby anyone in those components designated as distinct and
separate. For instance, a senior employee who worked in the Office of
the Secretary for Tom Ridge can immediately lobby any of the DHS
organizations cited above. Those seven components alone comprise over
$19 billion and nearly 60 percent of the Department's funding.
Why did DHS request this change to the lobbying rules?
Answer. The recommendations were made to appropriately tailor the
application of the 1-year cooling-off restriction to the circumstances
existing within the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
Section 207 of title 18 of the United States Code is not intended as a
blanket bar to former employees from dealing with the Government after
separation. Rather, it represents a carefully crafted balance between
preventing improper peddling of influence in the government by former
government officials on the one hand, and permitting the continued
availability to the government of the experience and training of former
government officials. In a dynamic, forwarding leaning agency such as
DHS, with a mission to protect the homeland, it is essential that the
agency attract top notch people who are facile and knowledgeable about
innovative technology. The DHS mission requires that these leaders in
the fields populate the whole of DHS Headquarters and its components.
The statute is composite of a series of very fact specific
prohibitions based on conclusions of improper over-reaching as
determined though the lens of that balancing. Congress recognized the
potential subsection 207(c) has to unduly restrict appropriate post-
Government-service interaction by former employees with the government
by carving out exceptions to it, i.e., subsection 207(c)(2)(B)(in the
cases of special government employees), subsection 207(c)(2)(C)(in
cases of difficult-to-fill positions), subsection 207(h)(in cases of
elements of an agency where there exists ``no potential for use of
undue influence or unfair advantage based on past Government
service''), and subsection 207(j)(Exceptions).
The recommendations that DHS made to the Director, Office of
Government Ethics, in December 2003, were based on the following:
--OGE criteria for making such recommendations;
--how the Department was structured and operating;
--how the legacy agencies had treated the organizational elements
previously; and
--how subsection 207(c) is applied generally through the Executive
Branch.
Several features of the Department were clear for the purposes of
these recommendations. United States Secret Service, the United State
Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Agency, and the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center were focused on discrete independent
missions of the Department, most statutorily so, and had extensive
independent administrative structures. The three directorates, Science
and Technology, Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, and
Emergency Preparedness and Response, posed a more nuanced picture, but
presented the same distinct, self-contained mission focuses.
Equally clear in the opposite direction was that the significance
of the missions entrusted to the Border and Transportation Security
Directorate and its subordinate elements and the extensive vertical and
horizontal interaction between them made them so inter-related and
inter-dependent as to foreclose designating them as separate.
Given those conclusions and comparing how other agencies treated
their components, we recommended the designation of those seven
components as separate for the purposes of the 1-year cooling-off
period.
Question. How is this change beneficial to the Department, the U.S.
taxpayers, and our national security?
Answer. The Department's exercise of this statute greatly enhances
national security, benefits the taxpayers of the United States, and is
invaluable in the accomplishment of the Department's mission. Detection
of threats by passage of people and cargo into the United States by
air, sea, or land is dependent upon innovative human and technological
systems that are used by components throughout the Department. These
systems were developed by career and non-career Federal employees
working as a team. The career employees contribute their expertise and
experience in government operations and the non-careerist often
contribute their expertise and experience in technology developed in
the private sector. It is a proven successful synergy, not quite
perfect, but the best in the world.
Our nation's security and the taxpayer will be the ultimate losers
if the country's professionals and leaders are kept from joining
Federal agencies initially or, upon return to the private sector, are
precluded from bringing their skills and experience to bear on these
important issues because of a failure to appropriately tailor the post-
Government-service restriction. The departing leaders take with them an
understanding of the threat, what is needed to combat the threat, and
how the Department is working to counter the threat. The threat is not
stagnant, and it is counterproductive to overly restrict the work of
those who are among the most able to ensure close cooperation and
understanding between the Federal and non Federal entities to make our
country safe.
We believe that the combination of the relaxation of the
restriction imposed by section 207(c) granted by the designation of
separate components and the existence of the additional restriction
applicable to very senior personnel, the inapplicability of separate
component designation to our former employees who were paid pursuant to
the Executive Schedule, and the application of subsection 207(d), we
have achieved the balance that was desired by the drafters of section
207. Of course, we must certify annually to the Director, United States
Office of Government Ethics, that our designations remain appropriate.
dhs headquarters
Question. In addition to the $25 million GSA is requesting to
locate CG headquarters at St. Elizabeth's campus in Anacostia, there is
a $13 million request for ``St. Elizabeths West Campus
Infrastructure''. The West Campus alone has 182 acres and includes 61
buildings. The justification says ``the site is aptly suited to provide
a high security campus for Federal agencies.''
What are the Department's plans for the St. Elizabeth site?
Answer. The Department's plans for the St. Elizabeth site are to
ensure that the Coast Guard headquarters is properly planned and
executed to provide additional expansion capability should the need
arise for additional occupancy.
Question. How are these plans related to the current efforts to
outfit the Nebraska Avenue complex?
Answer. The requirements for adjacency and mission needs being
established at the NAC would be utilized should the opportunity for
expansion be available at the St. Elizabeth site.
avoiding future fund lapses
Question. Why did the Department Management account allow $9.3
million to lapse at the end of fiscal year 2004 and what specific
systems have been put in place to make sure that this does not happen
again?
Answer. The Department did not intentionally allow funding to lapse
in fiscal year 2004. The fiscal year 2004 unobligated balance for the
Departmental Management account was due primarily to slower than
anticipated hiring, resulting in personnel lapse. In fiscal year 2004,
the infrastructure and organization to manage budget execution for
Departmental Management was not fully developed. The transition to a
new accounting system and financial services provider in fiscal year
2004 created additional challenges and complexities, along with a
learning curve, which made it difficult for financial managers to track
spending during the year. In fiscal year 2005, we now have more staff
and contractors onboard to perform budget execution activities for the
Departmental Management account and can provide more useful data to
managers to manage their budgets more efficiently and effectively.
Question. Do you plan to seek authority to reprogram the lapsed
funds?
Answer. The Department submitted a request as part of the ICE
reprogramming package to use the lapse authority under Section 504 to
transfer $2.8 million from fiscal year 2004 lapsed funding from the
Departmental Management account to ICE for its funding shortfall. This
reprogramming request was overtaken by the fiscal year 2005 Emergency
Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on
Terrorism and Tsunami Relief, H.R. 1268 recent Supplemental that was
passed that rescinded a total of $3.8 million from Departmental
Management that was proposed in the ICE programming, including the $2.8
million from the fiscal year 2004 lapsed monies.
classified vs. sensitive information
Question. Late last year there were articles in various papers,
including The Washington Post, regarding how the Department handles
information it determines to be ``sensitive'' versus actually
``classified'' material. It has required Federal Government employees,
including congressional staff with ``Top Secret'' clearances, to sign
confidentiality documents demanding that these previously cleared
personnel not reveal information that, technically, is not
``classified''. Most recently, on December 13, 2004, the Heritage
Foundation released a report entitled, ``DHS 2.0: Rethinking the
Department of Homeland Security''. One of its conclusions calls for the
Department to develop a ``consistent policy and legislation that
encourages the sharing of unclassified but security-relevant
information between the private sector and the government.'' This might
also include the dropping or reconsideration of the documents security
classification known as ``Sensitive Security Information.''
What public law created the classification known as ``Sensitive
Security Information''?
Answer. Following the terrorist attacks on the United States on
September 11, 2001, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation
Security Act (ATSA), Public Law 107-71 (November 19, 2001), which
established the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). ATSA
transferred the responsibility for civil aviation security from the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to TSA. Among the statutory
authorities previously administered by FAA that ATSA transferred to
TSA's purview was the authority in 49 U.S.C. 40119, governing the
protection of certain information related to transportation security.
On February 22, 2002, TSA published a final rule transferring the
bulk of FAA's aviation security regulations to TSA, including FAA's SSI
regulation, which now is codified at 49 CFR Part 1520.
In addition, on November 25, 2002, the President signed into law
the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA), Public Law 107-296, which
transferred TSA to the newly established DHS. In connection with this
transfer, the HSA transferred TSA's SSI authority under 49 U.S.C.
40119 to 49 U.S.C. 114(s), and amended section 40119 to vest similar
SSI authority in the Secretary of DOT. [See Section 1601 of the HSA.]
It should also be noted that Sensitive Security Information (SSI)
is not a classification, and information designated as SSI is not
considered as classified national security information.
Question. Is the Department, as part of your overall review of its
operations, actively considering the Heritage Foundation
recommendations on protecting sensitive information? If not, why not?
Answer. Yes. The Department has carefully reviewed a number of
recommendations and proposals regarding information sharing, and it is
working to develop and establish a consistent prudent strategy on the
subject. The guiding principle must balance the need to share
information with appropriate individuals, while still protecting the
sensitive nature of the underlying information.
contracting out report
Question. The fiscal year 2004 Appropriation Omnibus (H.R. 2673)
Division F--Departments of Transportation and Treasury, and Independent
Agencies, Title VI Section 647(b), contained the following reporting
requirement: ``Not later than 120 days following the enactment of this
Act and not later than December 31 of each year thereafter, the head of
each executive agency shall submit to Congress a report on the
competitive sourcing activities on the list required under the Federal
Activities Inventory Reform Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-270; 31 U.S.C.
501 note) that were performed for such executive agency during the
previous fiscal year by Federal Government sources.
The Committee received this report on February 3, 2005. The report
states that two public-private competitions, which were started in
September of 2004, are scheduled for completion in fiscal year 2005. In
addition, the report states that additional competitions are scheduled
to be held in fiscal year 2005 which will involve up to 1,397 FTE.
Please provide the Committee an updated report containing the most
recent fiscal year 2005 information as well as any plans for public-
private competitions in fiscal year 2006.
Answer. In fiscal year 2005, DHS is currently completing the
competitions involving 357 FTE. This includes competitions being
conducted at the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), CBP, and the FLETC. DHS is
currently reviewing proposals for the completion of competitions in
fiscal year 2006.
The DHS's annual Reports to Congress, as required by Section 647(b)
of Division F of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, fiscal year 2004
(Public Law 108-199) are available on our web-site at: http://
www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=37&content=3933
Question. For fiscal year 2004 (actual), fiscal year 2005
(estimate), and fiscal year 2006 (request), how many positions in the
Department (broken down by agency) were competed and how much did the
competitions cost.
Answer. In fiscal year 2004, DHS completed three public-private
competitions, in accordance with the OMB Circular A-76, involving 144
FTE at the USCG. Two DHS competitions that were scheduled for
completion in fiscal year 2004 were cancelled in fiscal year 2004:
--The USCG's competition of its military travel support function (36
FTE) was cancelled due to the development of E-Travel
technologies that will obviate the current approach to this
service requirement;
--The Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) competition of its
Immigration Information Officer (IIO) function (1,350 FTE) was
cancelled to give more time and resources to the elimination of
immigration service backlogs and, as a matter of law. DHS
announced two ICE competitions for completion in fiscal year
2005. These competitions involved 97 FTE, but were also
cancelled due to funding shortages.
Savings generated by the three completed fiscal year 2004 USCG
competitions are estimated at $12.3 million over a 5 year period. All
three competitions were retained in-house. The incremental cost of
conducting these USCG studies is estimated at $1.3 million and reflects
the costs incurred in gearing up the competition program in the USCG.
In addition, four FTE are associated with DHS' fiscal year 2004 fixed
costs--spread across the agency--and are estimated at $450,000 per
year. The DHS fixed program cost estimate includes dedicated resources
to provide central policy, planning, and implementation oversight, yet
excludes annual FAIR Act inventory costs. The estimated one-time DHS
cost of conducting the fiscal year 2005 competitions involving 356 FTE
is $1.9 million, with expected annual savings in excess of $5 million.
The estimated one-time cost of conducting the fiscal year 2006
competitions is not known, as we have not yet finalized those plans.
Question. How many positions were subsequently contracted out as a
result of the competition?
Answer. While there have been significant efficiency and quality of
service gains on the part of the government as a result of engaging in
the fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005 competitions, to date no
positions have been converted to contract performance.
detailees to the white house
Question. How many DHS employees (including the component agencies)
are currently detailed to the White House (including all Executive
Office of the President agencies)? Provide the committee a list
containing the originating agency; the office they are detailed to;
salary grade/step; length of detail (including beginning and end
dates); purpose of the detail; and indicate if the agency is
reimbursed.
Answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Detail Detail End Reimbursable
Detailed To Originating Agency Grade/Step or Salary Start Date Date Purpose of Detail Y/N
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NSC................................. DHS/IAIP............... GS 12-01 ($62,886)..... 3/20/2004 12/30/2005 Communications and Media N
Relations. Was part of
GSA technology office
that was absorbed by
DHS in early 2003.
NSC................................. DHS/USCG............... MILITARY............... 6/14/2004 6/13/2006 White House Situation N
Room Duty Officer.
NSC................................. DHS/USCG............... MILITARY............... 6/21/2004 6/20/2005 Counternarcotics........ N
NSC................................. DHS/USCG............... MILITARY............... 10/6/2003 6/10/2005 White House Situation N
Room Duty Officer.
NSC................................. USSS................... GS 14-02 ($91,315)..... 4/18/2005 4/17/2006 Combating Terrorism..... N
ONDCP............................... U.S. Coast Guard....... MILITARY............... 7/15/2004 7/15/2005 Office of Supply N
Reduction.
WHO................................. DHS/TSA................ K-00 ($111,038)........ 5/21/2004 9/30/2005 Support the WHO mission. N
WHO................................. DHS.................... ....................... 7/24/2004 1/19/2006 Support the WHO mission. N
WHO................................. DHS/USSS............... GS 14-04 ($97,206)..... 6/22/2004 9/30/2005 Support the WHO mission. N
WHO................................. U.S. Coast Guard....... MILITARY............... 9/22/2004 1/19/2006 Support the WHO mission. N
OVP................................. U.S. Coast Guard....... MILITARY............... 5/17/2005 7/15/2007 Military Aide to the N
Vice President.
OVP................................. U.S. Coast Guard....... MILITARY............... 6/16/2003 7/1/2005 Special Advisor, N
Homeland Security.
OVP................................. U.S. Coast Guard....... MILITARY............... 4/22/2003 6/29/2005 Military Aide to the N
Vice President.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
detailees to the department
Question. How many employees of DHS component agencies are
currently detailed to the Department? Provide the committee a list
containing the originating agency; the office they are detailed to;
salary grade/step; length of detail (including beginning and end
dates); purpose of the detail; and indicate if this agency is
reimbursed.
Answer. The table below provides the requested data, which is a
snapshot of detailees on-board as of March 31, 2005. This data
submission was done in April 2005 and projected end dates that could
have ended by the time this report was submitted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grade/Step Detail Detail End Reimbursable
Detailed To Originating Agency or Salary Start Date Date Purpose of Detail Y/N
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USM/CIO.............................. BTS..................... $117,809 6/1/2004 6/1/2005 DHS Infrastructure trans support.......................................... N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $149,200 7/27/2004 7/27/2005 BTS....................................................................... N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $121,274 9/2/2003 9/2/2005 Cargo/Trade Policy........................................................ N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $117,809 9/7/2004 9/6/2005 Border Patrol Liaison..................................................... N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $117,809 2/23/2003 ( \1\ ) Counternarcotics Projects................................................. N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $100,152 7/27/2004 7/27/2005 CIO Assistant............................................................. N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $94,260 12/6/2004 12/7/2005 Agency Liaison Officer.................................................... N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 10/7/2002 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 5/15/1995 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 9/2/2003 9/2/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 5/1/2004 5/1/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 2/18/1998 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 10/1/2002 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 2/16/1993 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 5/16/2004 5/16/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 11/19/2001 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 8/13/1998 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 10/27/2003 10/27/2008 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 ( \2\ ) ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 11/6/1990 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 ( \2\ ) ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 9/25/2000 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 3/22/2004 3/22/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 12/23/2000 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 6/1/1998 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 9/29/1997 ........... Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 1/25/1993 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 2/24/2004 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 7/30/1997 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 8/27/2001 8/27/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $57,280 4/15/2002 4/15/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 7/14/2003 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $131,671 10/1/2004 ( \1\ ) HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $91,315 1/10/2005 7/10/2005 Terrorist Screening Ctr................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $69,173 11/28/2004 5/17/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $73,364 11/29/2004 5/17/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $75,460 11/29/2004 5/17/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $62,886 11/17/2003 5/31/2005 Support to IAIP Terrorist Screening Center................................ N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $77,274 9/12/2003 ( \1\ ) HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $69,173 12/12/2004 6/14/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $77,274 3/20/2005 3/20/2006 COMSEC.................................................................... N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $52,468 3/21/2005 3/21/2006 Visa Security Program..................................................... N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $124,274 5/5/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $43,724 11/1/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $61,213 10/23/2004 3/31/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $91,315 5/5/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $97,213 5/5/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $91,315 9/20/2004 6/1/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $68,209 11/17/2004 4/29/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $117,809 12/7/2004 TBA Assist ICE HR Officer..................................................... N
OIA.................................. CBP..................... $62,886 1/15/2005 4/30/2005 Border Security Training Team (Jordan).................................... N
OIA.................................. CBP..................... $57,715 1/15/2005 4/30/2005 Border Security Training Team (Jordan).................................... N
OIA.................................. CBP..................... $64,981 1/15/2005 4/30/2005 Border Security Training Team (Jordan).................................... N
OPA.................................. CBP..................... $128,205 1/26/2004 ( \1\ ) Public Affairs............................................................ N
USCG................................. CBP..................... $77,274 8/4/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to USCG........................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. CBP..................... $114,344 1/1/2004 ( \1\ ) OCFO...................................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. CBP..................... $103,947 10/20/2003 10/19/2005 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. CBP..................... $106,044 10/1/2003 10/1/2005 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
USM/CHCO............................. CBP..................... $100,152 4/28/2004 ( \1\ ) New HR system: communications team........................................ N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $100,152 5/1/2004 5/1/2005 Infrastructure Transformation Office...................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $117,344 11/10/2003 6/30/2005 Program manager--HSDN..................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $149,200 10/6/2004 7/31/2005 CIO....................................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $43,365 11/9/2004 9/15/2005 CIO support............................................................... N
S&T.................................. CG...................... $84,751 6/30/2004 6/30/2007 Providing technical expertise to S&T...................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. CIS..................... $89,736 3/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support DHS' Infrastructure Transformation Office......................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CIS..................... ........... ........... ........... .......................................................................... N
S&T.................................. DHS..................... $100,152 2/22/2005 6/21/2005 Providing admin support to HHS............................................ Y
S&T.................................. DHS..................... $59,464 11/1/2004 6/30/2005 Providing admin support to HHS............................................ Y
S&T.................................. DHS..................... $117,809 1/14/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/NAC................. $100,152 1/31/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
NCR.................................. DHS/ODP................. $135,136 Unknown ( \1\ ) Nat Cap Reg mission support............................................... N
OSLGC................................ DHS/ODP................. $84,751 2/7/2005 8/6/2005 Support to OSLGCP......................................................... N
OSLGC................................ DHS/ODP................. $100,152 2/7/2005 8/6/2005 Support to OSLGCP......................................................... N
S&T.................................. DHS/ODP................. $117,809 2/7/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $117,809 1/10/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $100,152 1/10/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $100,600 1/10/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $100,600 3/1/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
FLETC................................ Federal Air Marshal $96,474 2/7/2005 2/7/2006 On the job Training....................................................... N
Service.
FLETC................................ Federal Protective $68,651 10/1/2003 10/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
Service.
FLETC................................ Federal Protective $68,651 10/20/2003 10/20/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
Service.
FLETC................................ Federal Protective $68,651 11/1/2003 11/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
Service.
IAIP................................. FEMA.................... $114,882 ........... ........... Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. FEMA.................... $135,136 ........... ........... Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
OSLGC................................ FEMA.................... 13/3 1/27/2003 TBD Support to State and Local Coordination and Outreach...................... N
USM/CFO.............................. FEMA.................... $100,152 8/1/2004 5/1/2005 Support GAO/IG Liaison Office............................................. N
USM/CHCO............................. FEMA.................... $84,751 5/3/2004 1/31/2005 Design of new DHS Personnel HR management system.......................... N
ODP.................................. FEMA/Region III......... $82,259 7/11/2004 ( \1\ ) Implementation of ODP Program into DHS--move from FEMA Citizen Corp ............
Assistance.
BTS.................................. FLETC................... $100,152 8/1/2003 8/1/2005 FLETC Liaison............................................................. N
USM/CFO.............................. FLETC................... $100,152 2/1/2005 2/1/2006 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 4/12/2004 4/12/2006 Immigration Policy Advisor................................................ N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $117,809 3/10/2003 ( \1\ ) Immigration Policy Advisor................................................ N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $49,145 11/30/2004 ( \1\ ) Protective detail......................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $44,495 10/22/2003 ( \1\ ) Scheduling Support for Under Secretary.................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $69,000 3/14/2005 9/15/2005 FAMS Liaison.............................................................. N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 9/2/2003 ( \1\ ) ICE Liaison............................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $71,269 6/29/2003 ( \1\ ) Advance Work for Under Secretary.......................................... Y
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $49,145 2/27/2005 6/25/2005 Protective detail......................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 8/3/2004 8/3/2005 ICE Liaison............................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $71,269 6/29/2003 ( \1\ ) Advance Work for Under Secretary.......................................... Y
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 7/1/2004 7/1/2005 Setting up office w/detailees from bureaus (Office of Screening and ............
Coordination).
CBP.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2005 ( \1\ ) Liaison to NTC............................................................ N
CBP.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 12/15/2003 ( \1\ ) ICE Liaison............................................................... N
CIS.................................. ICE..................... $59,464 4/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Long-term detail to provide paralegal services............................ N
DHS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 7/1/2004 7/1/2005 DHS/CFO................................................................... N
DHS.................................. ICE..................... $117,809 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Rep to Interpol as Dep Dir for OIA........................................ ............
FEMA................................. ICE..................... $49,145 8/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Protective detail......................................................... N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/19/2004 9/19/2009 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 1/15/2003 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 5/20/1996 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 3/1/1988 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 3/1/2001 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/1/2004 9/1/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 3/10/2002 3/1/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 1/23/2003 12/6/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 11/4/2001 11/4/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/8/2003 9/7/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FTTTF................................ ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Liaison; NSEERS Tracking.................................................. N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 7/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Interpol Liaison.......................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/12/2004 ( \1\ ) Serve as ICE rep and subject matter expert................................ ............
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 11/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $71,269 8/24/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $71,269 8/24/2003 ( \1\ ) ICE/BTS Liaison........................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Interpol Liaison.......................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/11/2004 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $84,751 1/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 6/1/2004 6/1/2006 ICE Liaison............................................................... Y
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 Jan. 2000 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission--DOS Liaison...................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $69,000 7/4/2005 ( \1\ ) Intelligence Sharing HSOC................................................. N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 3/1/2003 3/1/2006 Support to IAIP mission--DHS Liaison to FBI............................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $117,809 2/19/2002 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission--HSOC............................................. Y
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 11/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $84,751 1/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission--HSOC desk officer................................ N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 3/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
ICE.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 3/1/2002 ( \1\ ) ICE Liaison............................................................... N
OLA.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 1/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Leg Affairs liaison to Immigration........................................ N
OPA.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to Public Affairs................................................. N
USCG................................. ICE..................... $100,152 8/1/2004 ( \1\ ) Coast Guard Liaison....................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. ICE..................... ........... 7/12/04 7/8/05 Provide on-site geospatial technical support.............................. N
USM/CIO.............................. ICE..................... $100,152 12/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Program management and acquisition support................................ N
USM/CIO.............................. ICE..................... $117,809 10/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Director, Infrastructure Transformation Office............................ N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $56,600 6/7/2004 6/7/2005 Provides admin support services to the AA at BTS.......................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... SW-02 2/1/2004 ( \1\ ) BTS Deputy Chief of Staff................................................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $69,000 2/17/2004 ( \1\ ) Transportation Security Policy Advisor.................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 12/13/2004 12/13/2005 TSA Liaison............................................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 12/31/2004 12/13/2005 Serves as TSA liaison to BTS.............................................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $69,000 7/26/2004 4/2/2005 Provides legislative policy assistance to AA.............................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $38,900 2/28/2005 10/4/2005 Correspondence Analyst.................................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 8/11/2003 8/11/2006 International Affairs..................................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 3/23/2003 ( \1\ ) National Counter Terrorist Center on SpecialProject....................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $46,400 2/2/2004 ( \1\ ) Speech Writer............................................................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 3/7/2005 ( \1\ ) Special Asst to Under Secretary........................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 9/26/2004 9/26/2005 Establishing the Office of Screening Coordination for DHS/BTS............. N
DHS-OPL.............................. TSA..................... $84,150 2/13/2005 6/13/2005 Serves as a special assistant for senior level officials TOPOFF3 Program.. N
IAIP................................. TSA..................... $84,150 3/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. TSA..................... $69,000 10/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 5/30/2004 5/30/2005 Provide legal support to FAMS at ICE...................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 1/10/2005 4/9/2005 Task force to review ICE budget........................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 5/30/2004 5/30/2005 Provide legal support to FAMS at ICE...................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 5/30/2004 5/30/2005 Provide legal support to FAMS at ICE...................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 1/10/2005 4/9/2005 Assisting with ICE budget audit........................................... N
OGC.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 8/8/2005 8/8/2007 Provide legal advice concerning border and transportation security issues N
especially as they involve TSA.
OPA.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 3/3/2003 ( \1\ ) Public Affairs assisting on special project (requested by Dennis Murphy).. N
Security............................. TSA..................... $100,600 12/12/2004 4/2/2005 Requested for special project on security initiatives at the Chief N
Security Office.
USM.................................. TSA..................... $120,250 12/26/2004 ( \1\ ) Acting Deputy Director Business Transformation office--Selected for DHS N
position, awaiting clearance through security process.
USM.................................. TSA..................... $158,568 8/30/2004 9/30/2005 Acting Dir, Business Transformation Off................................... ............
USM/CFO.............................. TSA..................... $100,152 10/1/2003 10/1/2005 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $149,200 4/3/2005 ( \1\ ) Support Solutions Engineering COE......................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $152,824 7/13/2003 4/1/2005 Acting Deputy CIO......................................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $141,844 7/13/2003 ( \1\ ) DHS/BTS Integration....................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $110,278 4/3/2005 9/30/2005 Information Technology.................................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $145,482 10/27/2004 ( \1\ ) TSA representative to the Information Technology Officer.................. N
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $138,093 4/3/2005 9/30/2005 Information Technology.................................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $141,454 7/13/2003 ( \1\ ) INFRASTRUCTURE program support............................................ Y
IAIP................................. USCG.................... $136,490 9/19/2003 9/19/2005 HSC Watch Augmentation.................................................... N
OGC.................................. USCG.................... $82,937 3/1/2005 3/1/2007 Assist with international issues and with Team Telecom/CFIUS legal issues. N
Security............................. USCG.................... $56,128 12/1/2004 Ongoing State and Local Investigations............................................ Y
Security............................. USCG.................... $82,937 12/1/2004 ( \3\ ) State and Local Investigations............................................ Y
Security............................. USCG.................... $71,269 12/1/2004 ( \3\ ) State and Local Investigations............................................ Y
Security............................. USCG.................... $74,560 12/1/2004 ( \3\ ) State and Local Investigations............................................ Y
USM/CFO.............................. USCG.................... $101,613 8/1/2004 8/1/2005 Support Budget Office..................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. USCG.................... $82,937 1/5/2005 4/1/2005 ICE Tiger Team............................................................ N
USM/CIO.............................. USCG.................... $156,886 ........... ( \1\ ) Support DHS' Infrastructure Transformation Office......................... Y
IAIP................................. USCIS................... $74,782 3/21/2005 5/21/2005 To assist in setting up DHS' Operations Center............................ N
IAIP................................. USCIS................... $74,782 3/21/2005 5/21/2005 To assist in setting up DHS' Information Analysis Section................. N
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $87,244 1/3/2005 ( \1\ ) To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications--detail N
lasts until this case goes to trial.
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $75,460 3/7/2005 5/6/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraudinvestigation).
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $41,361 3/7/2005 5/6/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraud investigation).
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $64,981 3/14/2005 5/6/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraud investigation).
BTS.................................. USSS.................... $97,206 2/21/2004 8/21/2005 Border & Transp. Security................................................. N
DHS/IAIP............................. USSS.................... $91,315 6/1/2004 12/1/2005 Investigations............................................................ N
FEMA................................. USSS.................... $91,315 10/17/2004 4/17/2005 DEST Program.............................................................. N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $68,651 8/1/2003 8/10/2008 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 3/20/2005 3/20/2008 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $68,651 1/1/2003 1/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $58,564 6/1/2000 6/1/2005 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 2/1/2003 2/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $63,040 1/12/2004 1/12/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 2/9/2004 2/9/2009 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 10/6/2002 12/6/2005 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 9/1/2003 9/1/2005 Instructor................................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 10/19/2003 5/29/2005 Nat. CounterTerrorism Ctr................................................. N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... UND--LT 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $77,274 3/13/2005 6/11/2005 HS Operations Center...................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $100,152 1/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $114,344 5/7/2004 7/10/2005 Protective Research (IAIP)................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $40,179 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... UND--Off 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 11/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 5/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $97,206 2/8/2004 8/8/2005 Protective Research (IAIP)................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $103,947 9/1/2004 9/1/2005 Investigations............................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $87,244 2/27/2005 5/28/2005 HS Operations Center...................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $110,878 6/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission--Investigations................................... Y
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $36,157 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 12/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $74,782 3/6/2005 6/4/2005 HS Operations Center...................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $79,766 5/1/2004 5/1/2005 Investigations............................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $100,152 10/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 1/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
OSLGC................................ USSS.................... $88,000 10/3/2004 4/3/2005 Law Enforcement Liaison................................................... N
S&T.................................. USSS.................... $100,152 2/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Providing technical expertise to S&T...................................... N
S&T.................................. USSS.................... $97,206 1/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Providing technical expertise to S&T--Protective Research (INT)........... N
Security............................. USSS.................... $97,206 7/21/2003 7/21/2005 Counter Intelligence...................................................... N
Security............................. USSS.................... $88,000 2/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Provides physical security to DHS facilities.............................. N
Security............................. USSS.................... $94,000 2/23/2003 8/23/2005 Phy. Sec & Access Ctrl.................................................... N
USM/CHCO............................. USSS.................... $91,315 3/10/2004 4/1/2005 New HR system: pay and performance team................................... N
USM/CHCO............................. USSS.................... $82,259 2/1/2005 5/16/2005 Hiring and transition response team....................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. BTS..................... $117,809 6/1/2004 6/1/2005 DHS Infrastructure trans support.......................................... N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $149,200 7/27/2004 7/27/2005 BTS....................................................................... N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $121,274 9/2/2003 9/2/2005 Cargo/Trade Policy........................................................ N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $117,809 9/7/2004 9/6/2005 Border Patrol Liaison..................................................... N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $117,809 2/23/2003 ( \1\ ) Counternarcotics Projects................................................. N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $100,152 7/27/2004 7/27/2005 CIO Assistant............................................................. N
BTS.................................. CBP..................... $94,260 12/6/2004 12/7/2005 Agency Liaison Officer.................................................... N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 10/7/2002 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 5/15/1995 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 9/2/2003 9/2/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 5/1/2004 5/1/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 2/18/1998 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 10/1/2002 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 2/16/1993 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 5/16/2004 5/16/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 11/19/2001 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 8/13/1998 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 10/27/2003 10/27/2008 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 ( \2\ ) ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 11/6/1990 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 ( \2\ ) ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 9/25/2000 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 3/22/2004 3/22/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 12/23/2000 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 6/1/1998 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 9/29/1997 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 1/25/1993 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 2/24/2004 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 7/30/1997 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $81,638 8/27/2001 8/27/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $57,280 4/15/2002 4/15/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ CBP..................... $68,651 7/14/2003 ( \1\ ) Instructor................................................................ N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $131,671 10/1/2004 ( \1\ ) HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $91,315 1/10/2005 7/10/2005 Terrorist Screening Ctr................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $69,173 11/28/2004 5/17/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $73,364 11/29/2004 5/17/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $75,460 11/29/2004 5/17/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $62,886 11/17/2003 5/31/2005 Support to IAIP Terrorist Screening Center................................ N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $77,274 9/12/2003 ( \1\ ) HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $69,173 12/12/2004 6/14/2005 HSOC...................................................................... N
IAIP................................. CBP..................... $77,274 3/20/2005 3/20/2006 COMSEC.................................................................... N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $52,468 3/21/2005 3/21/2006 Visa Security Program..................................................... N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $124,274 5/5/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $43,724 11/1/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $91,315 5/5/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $97,213 5/5/2004 5/5/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $91,315 9/20/2004 6/1/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $68,209 11/17/2004 4/29/2005 Visa Security Unit........................................................ N
ICE.................................. CBP..................... $117,809 12/7/2004 TBD Assist ICE HR Officer..................................................... N
OIA.................................. CBP..................... $62,886 1/15/2005 4/30/2005 Border Security Training Team (Jordan).................................... N
OIA.................................. CBP..................... $57,715 1/15/2005 4/30/2005 Border Security Training Team (Jordan).................................... N
OIA.................................. CBP..................... $64,981 1/15/2005 4/30/2005 Border Security Training Team (Jordan).................................... N
OPA.................................. CBP..................... $128,205 1/26/2004 ( \1\ ) Public Affairs............................................................ N
USCG................................. CBP..................... $77,274 8/4/2003 ( \1\ ) Support to USCG........................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. CBP..................... $114,344 1/1/2004 ( \1\ ) OCFO...................................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. CBP..................... $103,947 10/20/2003 10/19/2005 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. CBP..................... $106,044 10/1/2003 10/1/2005 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
USM/CHCO............................. CBP..................... $100,152 4/28/2004 ( \1\ ) New HR system: communications team........................................ N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $100,152 5/1/2004 5/1/2005 Infrastructure Transformation Office...................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $117,344 11/10/2003 6/30/2005 Program manager--HSDN..................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $149,200 10/6/2004 7/31/2005 CIO....................................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CBP..................... $43,365 11/9/2004 9/15/2005 CIO support............................................................... N
S&T.................................. CG...................... $84,751 6/30/2004 6/30/2007 Providing technical expertise to S&T...................................... Y
OGC.................................. CIS..................... $110,878 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Provide substantive immigration expertise to DHS OGC, focusing on issues N
relating to immigration benefits and related USCIS issues.
USM/CIO.............................. CIS..................... $89,736 3/1/2003 ( \1\ ) Support DHS' Infrastructure Transformation Office......................... N
USM/CIO.............................. CIS..................... ........... ........... ........... .......................................................................... N
S&T.................................. DHS..................... $100,152 2/22/2005 6/21/2005 Providing admin support to HHS............................................ Y
S&T.................................. DHS..................... $59,464 11/1/2004 6/30/2005 Providing admin support to HHS............................................ Y
S&T.................................. DHS..................... $117,809 1/14/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/NAC................. $100,152 1/31/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
OSLGC................................ DHS/ODP................. $84,751 2/7/2005 8/6/2005 Support to OSLGCP......................................................... N
OSLGC................................ DHS/ODP................. $100,152 2/7/2005 8/6/2005 Support to OSLGCP......................................................... N
S&T.................................. DHS/ODP................. $117,809 2/7/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $117,809 1/10/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $100,152 1/10/2005 ( \1\ ) Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $100,600 1/10/2005 Indefinite Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
S&T.................................. DHS/TSA................. $100,600 3/1/2005 Indefinite Support DNDO Transition Team for Stand-up................................. N
FLETC................................ Federal Air Marshal $96,474 2/7/2005 2/7/2006 On the job Training....................................................... N
Service.
FLETC................................ Federal Protective $68,651 10/1/2003 10/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
Service.
FLETC................................ Federal Protective $68,651 10/20/2003 10/20/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
Service.
FLETC................................ Federal Protective $68,651 11/1/2003 11/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
Service.
OSLGC................................ FEMA.................... 13/3 1/27/2003 TBD Support to State and Local Coordination and Outreach...................... N
USM/CFO.............................. FEMA.................... $100,152 8/1/2004 5/1/2005 Support GAO/IG Liaison Office............................................. N
ODP.................................. FEMA/Region III......... $82,259 7/11/2004 Indefinite Implementation of ODP Program into DHS--move from FEMA Citizen Corp N
Assistance.
BTS.................................. FLETC................... $100,152 8/1/2003 8/1/2005 FLETC Liaison............................................................. N
USM/CFO.............................. FLETC................... $100,152 2/1/2005 2/1/2006 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 4/12/2004 4/12/2006 Immigration Policy Advisor................................................ N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $117,809 3/10/2003 Indefinite Immigration Policy Advisor................................................ N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $49,145 11/30/2004 Indefinite Protective detail......................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $44,495 10/22/2003 Indefinite Scheduling Support for Under Secretary.................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $69,000 3/14/2005 9/15/2005 FAMS Liaison.............................................................. N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 9/2/2003 Indefinite ICE Liaison............................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $71,269 6/29/2003 Indefinite Advance Work for Under Secretary.......................................... Y
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $49,145 2/27/2005 6/25/2005 Protective detail......................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 8/3/2004 8/3/2005 ICE Liaison............................................................... N
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $71,269 6/29/2003 Indefinite Advance Work for Under Secretary.......................................... Y
BTS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 7/1/2004 7/1/2005 Setting up office w/ detailees from bureaus (Office of Screening and N
Coordination).
CBP.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2005 Indefinite Liaison to NTC............................................................ N
CBP.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 12/15/2003 Indefinite ICE Liaison............................................................... N
CIS.................................. ICE..................... $59,464 4/1/2004 Indefinite Long-term detail to provide paralegal services............................ N
DHS.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 7/1/2004 7/1/2005 DHS/CFO................................................................... N
DHS.................................. ICE..................... $117,809 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Rep to Interpol as Dep Dir for OIA........................................ N
FEMA................................. ICE..................... $49,145 8/1/2004 Indefinite Protective detail......................................................... N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/19/2004 9/19/2009 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 1/15/2003 Indefinite Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 5/20/1996 Indefinite Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 3/1/1988 Indefinite Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 3/1/2001 Indefinite Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/1/2004 9/1/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 3/10/2002 3/1/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 1/23/2003 12/6/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 11/4/2001 11/4/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ ICE..................... $81,638 9/8/2003 9/7/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 7/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2004 Indefinite Interpol Liaison.......................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/12/2004 Indefinite Serve as ICE rep and subject matter expert................................ N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 11/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $71,269 8/24/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $71,269 8/24/2003 Indefinite ICE/BTS Liaison........................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2004 Indefinite Interpol Liaison.......................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/11/2004 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $84,751 1/1/2004 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 6/1/2004 6/1/2006 ICE Liaison............................................................... Y
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 Jan. 2000 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission--DOS Liaison...................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $69,000 7/4/2005 Indefinite Intelligence Sharing HSOC................................................. N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 3/1/2003 3/1/2006 Support to IAIP mission--DHS Liaison to FBI............................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $117,809 2/19/2002 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission--HSOC............................................. Y
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 11/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $84,751 1/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission--HSOC desk officer................................ N
IAIP................................. ICE..................... $100,152 3/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
ICE.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 3/1/2002 Indefinite ICE Liaison............................................................... N
OLA.................................. ICE..................... $84,751 1/1/2004 Indefinite Leg Affairs liaison to Immigration........................................ N
OPA.................................. ICE..................... $100,152 1/1/2003 Indefinite Support to Public Affairs................................................. N
USCG................................. ICE..................... $100,152 8/1/2004 Indefinite Coast Guard Liaison....................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. ICE..................... ........... 7/12/04 7/8/05 Provide on-site geospatial technical support.............................. N
USM/CIO.............................. ICE..................... $100,152 12/1/2003 Indefinite Program management and acquisition support................................ N
USM/CIO.............................. ICE..................... $117,809 10/1/2003 Indefinite Director, Infrastructure Transformation Office............................ N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $56,600 6/7/2004 6/7/2005 Provides admin support services to the AA at BTS.......................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... SW-02 2/1/2004 Indefinite BTS Deputy Chief of Staff................................................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $69,000 2/17/2004 Indefinite Transportation Security Policy Advisor.................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 12/13/2004 12/13/2005 TSA Liaison............................................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 12/31/2004 12/13/2005 Serves as TSA liaison to BTS.............................................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 7/13/2003 1/22/2005 Operations Executive Assistant............................................ N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $69,000 7/26/2004 4/2/2005 Provides legislative policy assistance to AA.............................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $38,900 2/28/2005 10/4/2005 Correspondence Analyst.................................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 8/11/2003 8/11/2006 International Affairs..................................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 3/23/2003 Indefinite National Counter Terrorist Center on special project...................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $46,400 2/2/2004 Indefinite Speech Writer............................................................. N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 3/7/2005 Indefinite Special Asst to Under Secretary........................................... N
BTS.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 9/26/2004 9/26/2005 Establishing the Office of Screening Coordination for DHS/BTS............. N
DHS-OPL.............................. TSA..................... $84,150 2/13/2005 6/13/2005 Serves as a special assistant for senior level officials TOPOFF3 Program.. N
IAIP................................. TSA..................... $84,150 3/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. TSA..................... $69,000 10/1/2003 Indefinite Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 5/30/2004 5/30/2005 Provide legal support to FAMS at ICE...................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 1/10/2005 4/9/2005 Task force to review ICE budget........................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 5/30/2004 5/30/2005 Provide legal support to FAMS at ICE...................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 5/30/2004 5/30/2005 Provide legal support to FAMS at ICE...................................... N
ICE.................................. TSA..................... $100,600 1/10/2005 4/9/2005 Assisting with ICE budget audit........................................... N
OGC.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 8/8/2005 8/8/2007 Provide legal advice concerning border and transportation security issues N
especially as they involve TSA.
OPA.................................. TSA..................... $84,150 3/3/2003 Indefinite Public Affairs assisting on special project(requested by Dennis Murphy)... N
Security............................. TSA..................... $100,600 12/12/2004 4/2/2005 Requested for special project on security initiatives at the Chief N
Security Office.
USM.................................. TSA..................... $120,250 12/26/2004 Indefinite Acting Deputy Director Business Transformation office--Selected for DHS N
position, awaiting clearance through security process.
USM.................................. TSA..................... $158,568 8/30/2004 9/30/2005 Acting Dir, Business Transformation Off................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. TSA..................... $100,152 10/1/2003 10/1/2005 Support eMerge project.................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $149,200 4/3/2005 Indefinite Support Solutions Engineering COE......................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $152,824 7/13/2003 4/1/2005 Acting Deputy CIO......................................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $141,844 7/13/2003 Indefinite DHS/BTS Integration....................................................... N
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $110,278 4/3/2005 9/30/2005 Information Technology.................................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $145,482 10/27/2004 Indefinite TSA representative to the Information Technology Officer.................. N
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $138,093 4/3/2005 9/30/2005 Information Technology.................................................... Y
USM/CIO.............................. TSA..................... $141,454 7/13/2003 Indefinite INFRASTRUCTURE program support............................................ Y
IAIP................................. USCG.................... $136,490 9/19/2003 9/19/2005 HSC Watch Augmentation.................................................... N
OGC.................................. USCG.................... $82,937 3/1/2005 3/1/2007 Assist with international issues and with Team Telecom/CFIUS legal issues. N
USM/CFO.............................. USCG.................... $101,613 8/1/2004 8/1/2005 Support Budget Office..................................................... N
USM/CFO.............................. USCG.................... $82,937 1/5/2005 4/1/2005 ICE Tiger Team............................................................ N
USM/CIO.............................. USCG.................... $156,886 ........... Indefinite Support DHS' Infrastructure Transformation Office......................... Y
IAIP................................. USCIS................... $74,782 3/21/2005 5/21/2005 To assist in setting up DHS' Operations Center............................ N
IAIP................................. USCIS................... $74,782 3/21/2005 5/21/2005 To assist in setting up DHS' Information Analysis Section................. N
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $87,244 1/3/2005 Indefinite To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications--detail N
lasts until this case goes to trial.
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $75,460 3/7/2005 5/6/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraud investigation).
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $81,747 2/28/2005 3/4/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraud investigation).
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $41,361 3/7/2005 5/6/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraud investigation).
ICE.................................. USCIS................... $64,981 3/14/2005 5/6/2005 To assist ICE in prosecuting Operation Jakarta Asylum Applications (a 2 N
year asylum fraud investigation).
BTS.................................. USSS.................... $97,206 2/21/2004 8/21/2005 Border & Transp. Security................................................. N
DHS/IAIP............................. USSS.................... $91,315 6/1/2004 12/1/2005 Investigations............................................................ N
FEMA................................. USSS.................... $91,315 10/17/2004 4/17/2005 DEST Program.............................................................. N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $68,651 8/1/2003 8/10/2008 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 3/20/2005 3/20/2008 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $68,651 1/1/2003 1/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $58,564 6/1/2000 6/1/2005 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 2/1/2003 2/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $63,040 1/12/2004 1/12/2007 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 2/9/2004 2/9/2009 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 10/6/2002 12/6/2005 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 9/1/2003 9/1/2006 Instructor................................................................ N
FLETC................................ USSS.................... $81,638 9/1/2003 9/1/2005 Instructor................................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 10/19/2003 5/29/2005 Nat. CounterTerrorism Ctr................................................. N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... UND--LT 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $77,274 3/13/2005 6/11/2005 HS Operations Center...................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $100,152 1/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $114,344 5/7/2004 7/10/2005 Protective Research (IAIP)................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $40,179 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... UND--Off 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 11/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 5/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $97,206 2/8/2004 8/8/2005 Protective Research (IAIP)................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $103,947 9/1/2004 9/1/2005 Investigations............................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $87,244 2/27/2005 5/28/2005 HS Operations Center...................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 12/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $110,878 6/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission--Investigations................................... Y
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $36,157 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 12/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $74,782 3/6/2005 6/4/2005 HS Operations Center...................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $79,766 5/1/2004 5/1/2005 Investigations............................................................ N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $100,152 10/1/2002 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $84,751 1/1/2004 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
IAIP................................. USSS.................... $117,809 1/1/2003 ( \3\ ) Support to IAIP mission................................................... N
OSLGC................................ USSS.................... $88,000 10/3/2004 4/3/2005 Law Enforcement Liaison................................................... N
S&T.................................. USSS.................... $100,152 2/1/2003 Indefinite Providing technical expertise to S&T...................................... N
S&T.................................. USSS.................... $97,206 1/1/2003 Indefinite Providing technical expertise to S&T--Protective Research (INT)........... N
Security............................. USSS.................... $97,206 7/21/2003 7/21/2005 Counter Intelligence...................................................... N
Security............................. USSS.................... $88,000 2/1/2003 Indefinite Provides physical security to DHS facilities.............................. N
Security............................. USSS.................... $94,000 2/23/2003 8/23/2005 Phy. Sec & Access Ctrl.................................................... N
USM/CHCO............................. USSS.................... $91,315 3/10/2004 4/1/2005 New HR system: pay and performance team................................... N
USM/CHCO............................. USSS.................... $82,259 2/1/2005 5/16/2005 Hiring and transition response team....................................... N
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Indefinite.
\2\ N/A.
\3\ Ongoing.
hiring journalists
Question. In January 2005, President Bush ordered his Cabinet
secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas. At a news
conference President Bush said, ``All our Cabinet secretaries must
realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda.
Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.''
Are all DHS agencies in compliance with the Administration's policy
and the legal prohibitions on using appropriations for contracting with
journalists to promote legislation or policy?
Answer. Yes, all DHS Agencies are in compliance.
intelligence reform bill authorizations
Question. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
authorized substantial enhancements to a variety of DHS programs,
including immigration enforcement, aviation security, and other
provisions. Identify the funding requested in the President's fiscal
year 2006 budget for each of the following authorizations contained in
the Act. In your response, include a chart which compares the funding
authorized, by section of the bill, to the funding included in the
President's fiscal year 2006 budget.
Immigration Enforcement
--Section 5202 & 5203.--Authorizes, from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal
year 2010 subject to the availability of appropriations, an
increase of 10,000 additional Border Patrol Agents (2,000 per
year) and an increase of 4,000 Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) investigators (800 per year).
--Section 5204.--Authorizes, from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year
2010 subject to the availability of appropriations, an increase
of 40,000 beds (8,000 per year) available for immigration
detention and removal.
--Section 5101 through 5104.--The Secretary of Homeland Security may
carry out a pilot program to improve border security between
ports of entry along the northern border. Required features of
this pilot project include the use of advanced technologies to
improve border security.
--Section 5201.--Within 6 months of enactment of this Act, the
Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a comprehensive
plan for the systematic surveillance of the southwest border of
the United States by remotely piloted aircraft.
--Section 7210 & 7206.--The bill amends the Immigration and
Nationality Act by mandating by January 1, 2008 pre-inspection
stations are established in at least 25 additional foreign
airports and by December 31, 2006 at least 50 airports shall be
selected for assignment of immigration officers to assist air
carriers detect fraudulent documents at foreign airports. $25
million is authorized in fiscal year 2005 and $40 million in
fiscal years 2006 and 2007 respectively for this purpose.
Aviation Security
--Section 4013.--$250 million for research, development, and
installation of detection systems and other devices for the
detection of biological, chemical, radiological, and explosive
material.
--Section 4024.--$100 million for research and development of
improved explosive detection systems.
--Section 4052.--$200 million for each of fiscal years 2005-2007 for
improving aviation security related to the transportation of
cargo on passenger and cargo aircraft.
--Section 4052.--$100 million for each of fiscal years 2005-2007 for
research and development in advancing cargo security
technology. Within these funds, the Secretary shall also
establish a competitive grant program to encourage the
development of advanced air cargo security technology.
--Section 4014.--Up to $150 million for each of fiscal years 2005 and
2006 to set up a pilot program (minimum 5 airports) to deploy
and test advanced airport checkpoint screening devices and
technology as an integrated system.
--Section 4019.--Increases the statutory allocation for expiring and
new Letters of Intent (LOIs) from $250 million to $400 million.
--Section 4011.--$20 million for research and development of advanced
biometric technology applications to aviation security,
including mass identification technology.
--Section 4011.--$1 million for the establishment of a competitive
center of excellence to expedite the use of biometric
identifiers.
--Section 4011.--Directs that a law enforcement officer travel
credential be created that incorporates biometric identifier
technology that is uniform for all law enforcement officials
seeking to carry a weapon on board an aircraft. The bill
authorizes such sums as may be necessary to carry out this
directive.
--Section 4020.--Directs DHS to provide, subject to the availability
of funds, monitoring cameras for surveillance at airports that
have checked baggage screening areas that are not open to
public view in order to deter theft from checked baggage and to
aid in the speedy resolution of liability claims against the
Transportation Security Administration.
--Section 4051.--$2 million for TSA to carry out a pilot program to
evaluate the use of blast-resistant containers for cargo and
baggage on passenger aircraft to minimize the potential effects
of detonation of an explosive device.
--Section 4016.--$83 million for the 3 fiscal-year period beginning
with fiscal year 2005 to increase the number of Federal air
marshals.
--Section 4012.--Directs TSA to begin to assume the function (not
later than 180 days after testing the system is completed) of
comparing passenger information to no fly lists, utilizing all
appropriate records in the consolidated and integrated
terrorist watchlist, including international flights.
Other Provisions
--Section 7303.--Authorizes the Secretary of DHS to provide $22.1
million in fiscal year 2005, $22.8 million in fiscal year 2006,
$23.5 million in fiscal year 2007, $24.2 million in fiscal year
2008, and $24.9 million in fiscal year 2009 to enhance public
safety interoperable communications at all levels of
government. The Secretary may establish an Office for
Interoperability and Compatibility within the Science and
Technology Directorate to carry out these duties.
--Section 7304.--Directs DHS to establish a minimum of 2 pilot
projects in high threat urban areas or regions for the purpose
of developing a regional strategic plan to foster interagency
communication and to coordinate the gathering of all Federal,
State, and local first responders in that area.
--Section 7407.--Amends the Homeland Security Act requirement related
to counternarcotics enforcement. Instead of having one senior
official in the Department coordinating counternarcotics
policy, an ``Office Counternarcotics Enforcement'' is created
with an authorization of $6 million.
--Section 7215.--Directs the Secretary to establish a terrorist
travel program to oversee the analysis, coordination, and
dissemination or terrorist travel intelligence and operation
information.
--Section 4071.--Directs the Secretary to implement a system for
screening the names of cruise ship passengers and crew against
Federal terrorist watch lists.
Answer.
INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT OF 2004 IMPLICATIONS
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorized Funding 2006 Budget Funding
Subject area Level Level
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AVIATION:
Law enforcement officer Directs that a law The fiscal year 2006
uniform biometric enforcement officer Budget does not
travel credential travel credential request any
(Section 4011(a)). be created that dedicated funding
incorporates for this specific
biometric purpose. Necessary
identifier resources would be
technology that is provided with
uniform for all law existing funds or
enforcement through fees.
officials seeking This activity is a
to carry a weapon sub-set of the
on board an Registered Traveler
aircraft. The bill pilot and funds
authorizes such were identified
sums as may be within the
necessary to carry Registered Traveler
out this directive. program in fiscal
year 2005 to begin
the Registered
Armed LEO pilot.
The fiscal year
2005 enacted
appropriations
funded Registered
Armed LEO
activities, and TSA
anticipates using
the results of the
pilot as a platform
for the final LEO
biometric travel
card. Results of
the pilot will be
considered to
evaluate resources,
needs, and funding
options as the
program moves
forward.
Biometric technologies $20 million for The fiscal year 2006
for aviation--R&D research and Budget does not
(Section 4011(b)). development of request any
advanced biometric dedicated funding
technology for this specific
applications to purpose within
aviation security, broader R&D request
including mass levels.
identification
technology.
Biometric Center of $1 million for the The fiscal year 2006
Excellence (Section establishment of a Budget does not
4011(d)). competitive center request any
of excellence to dedicated funding
expedite the use of for a Biometric
biometric Center of
identifiers. Excellence.
Airline Passenger Directs TSA to begin The fiscal year 2006
Screening (Section to assume the Budget requests $81
4012). function (not later million for the
than 180 days after development of the
testing the system Secure Flight
is completed) of prescreening
comparing passenger system.
information to no
fly lists,
utilizing all
appropriate records
in the consolidated
and integrated
terrorist
watchlist,
including
international
flights.
Checkpoint portal $250 million for The fiscal year 2006
detection systems--R&D research, Budget for
and deployment (Section development, and explosives
4013). installation of detection as a
detection systems countermeasure
and other devices against aviation,
for the detection suicide and vehicle
of biological, bombs: $88 million
chemical, of the $124 million
radiological, and (Research and
explosive material. Development (R&D)
consolidation
budget + Science
and Technology
(S&T) Explosives
Countermeasures
portfolio budget),
but nothing
specific for
``checkpoint portal
detection
systems''.
Integrated checkpoint Up to $150 million The President's
screening system pilots for each of fiscal fiscal year 2005
(Section 4014). years 2005 and 2006 Budget included
to set up a pilot $28.3 million for
program (minimum 5 fielding emerging
airports) to deploy technology
and test advanced equipment at
airport checkpoint checkpoints. As a
screening devices result of this
and technology as funding, 147 static
an integrated trace portals
system. (which are
passenger screening
sub-systems using a
whole body portal
to inspect
passengers for
concealed
explosives using an
automated, non-
contact trace
sampling and
processing system)
will be deployed in
fiscal year 2006 at
approximately 40
airports. The
fiscal year 2006
request includes
$43.7 million in
additional funds to
complete the
fielding of this
capability, which
will total $100
million to address
this activity over
the 2-year period.
In-line checked baggage Increases the The fiscal year 2006
screening (Section statutory Budget includes
4019). allocation for $260.5 million to
expiring and new support the eight
Letters of Intent existing Letters of
(LOIs) from $250 Intent (LOI)
million to $400 airports. Of this
million. amount, $240.5
million is for
direct
reimbursements and
$20 million is for
equipment and
installation. The
fiscal year 2006
request proposes to
continue sourcing
LOIs from the $250
million
appropriated from
the Aviation
Security Capital
Fund at a 75
percent Federal
cost share rate.
Additionally, the
request includes
$134 million to
purchase and
install Explosive
Detection Systems
and Electronic
Trace Detection
equipment at non-
LOI airports, for a
total expenditure
of $394 million.
Checked Baggage Directs DHS to The fiscal year 2006
Monitoring Area provide, subject to Budget includes
(Section 4020). the availability of $10.1 million to
funds, monitoring provide assistance
cameras for to airports to
surveillance at install security
airports that have monitoring cameras
checked baggage for surveillance of
screening areas checked baggage
that are not open screening areas
to public view in that are not open
order to deter to public view. The
theft from checked Transportation
baggage and to aid Security
in the speedy Administration
resolution of (TSA), in
liability claims partnership with
against the airports, generally
Transportation provides for
Security purchase and
Administration. The installation of a
bill and current camera system, with
policy provides the partnering
``such sums''. airport agreeing to
maintain the
installed system.
Aviation explosives $100 million for The S&T Directorate
detection equipment R&D research and has an fiscal year
(Section 4024(b)). development of 2006 budget request
improved explosive of $45.9 million
detection systems. for the TSA budget
line for next
generation
explosives
detection systems.
The S&T Directorate
will coordinate
with TSA regarding
the development of
the next generation
of explosives
detection systems.
Blast Resistant Cargo $2 million for TSA The fiscal year 2006
Containers (Section to carry out a Budget requests
4051). pilot program to $4.4 million.
evaluate the use of
blast-resistant
containers for
cargo and baggage
on passenger
aircraft to
minimize the
potential effects
of detonation of an
explosive device.
Air cargo security $200 million for The fiscal year 2006
activities (Section each of fiscal Budget includes $40
4052). years 2005-2007 for million for air
improving aviation cargo security,
security related to which will allow
the transportation the Transportation
of cargo on Security
passenger and cargo Administration
aircraft. (TSA) to continue
$100 million for making incremental
each of fiscal and measured
years 2005-2007 for progress toward our
research and air cargo security
development in goals.
advancing cargo The S&T Directorate
security has an fiscal year
technology. Within 2006 budget request
these funds, the of $29.578 million.
Secretary shall The budget request,
also establish a although not
competitive grant developed by the
program to S&T Directorate,
encourage the was agreed upon by
development of the S&T Directorate
advanced air cargo as the amount
security technology. moving forward for
air cargo RDT&E.
The S&T Directorate
will continue to
award grants under
a competitive
process to further
aviation
consolidated cargo
screening RDT&E.
Federal Air Marshals $83 million for the The President has
(FAMS) staffing 3 fiscal-year requested $9.86
(Section 4016). period beginning million in new
with fiscal year funding in fiscal
2005 to increase year 2006 to enable
the number of the hiring of
Federal air additional Federal
marshals. Subject Air Marshals to
to the availability provide even
of appropriations. greater coverage of
targeted critical
flights and to
otherwise increase
mission
capabilities. The
total budget for
FAMS is $689
million.
Pre-clearance Stations The bill amends the There are currently
and Immigration Immigration and 14 pre-clearance
Security Initiative Nationality Act by stations funded in
(Section 7210 & 7206). mandating by the fiscal year
January 1, 2008 pre- 2006 Budget. The
inspection stations fiscal year 2006
are established in Budget request is
at least 25 $2 million
additional foreign
airports and by
December 31, 2006
at least 50
airports shall be
selected for
assignment of
immigration
officers to assist
air carriers detect
fraudulent
documents at
foreign airports.
$25 million is
authorized in
fiscal year 2005
and $40 million in
fiscal years 2006
and 2007
respectively for
this purpose.
MARITIME:
Vetting of cruise ship Directs the The fiscal year 2006
passengers (Section Secretary to Budget does not
4071). implement a system request any
for screening the dedicated funding
names of cruise for this specific
ship passengers and purpose. Necessary
crew against resources are
Federal terrorist provided with
watch lists. No existing funds.
specific funding On April 7, 2005,
authorization is CBP published the
provided. Advance Passenger
Information System
(APIS) Final Rule
within the Federal
Register (70 FR
17820). The CBP
Final Rule
incorporates
passenger and crew
manifest
requirements from
CBP with the Notice
of Arrival
requirements of the
United States Coast
Guard (USCG). The
CBP Final Rule
requires that sea
carriers
electronically
submit certain data
on all passengers
and crew members
prior to entry to
or departure from
the United States.
The data that must
be provided
includes
biographical data
and vessel
information for
each passenger or
crewmember. Working
with the USCG, CBP
developed the
Electronic Notice
of Arrival/
Departure System
(eNOA/D), an
Internet portal
available on the
National Vessel
Movement Center
(NVMC) web site.
Using this portal,
commercial vessel
owners, operators
or agents can
transmit one
electronic message
and comply with the
CBP APIS
requirement for
passengers and crew
and the USCG Notice
of Arrival
requirements for
vessels. eNOA/D
became operational
and available to
the industry during
February 2005.
CBP's efforts on
the eNOA/D system
have been
accomplished with
existing funds.
BORDER PROTECTION:
Advanced Technology The Secretary of The fiscal year 2006
Northern Border Homeland Security Budget does not
Security Program may carry out a request any
(Section 5101-5104). pilot program to dedicated funding
improve border for a specific
security between pilot. Necessary
ports of entry resources will be
along the northern provided with
border. Required existing funds. The
features of this fiscal year 2006
pilot project Budget requested
include the use of funding for $19.8
advanced million added to
technologies to the base funding of
improve border $31.3 million to
security. There is improve border
authorized to be security using
appropriated ``such advanced
sums as may be technologies on
necessary to carry both the northern
out the pilot and southern land
program''. borders. Also
included in the
fiscal year 2006
CBP budget are $20
million for
aircraft
recapitalization,
$10 million in base
funding for UAVs,
and funding for
technical
infrastructure. The
America's Shield
Initiative (ASI)
program will
evaluate and
determine the
optimal mix of
technology for
meeting security
requirements of
both land borders.
Border surveillance Within 6 months of The fiscal year 2006
(Section 5201). enactment of this Budget requests $10
Act, the Secretary million for
of Homeland unmanned aerial
Security shall vehicles.
submit a
comprehensive plan
for the systematic
surveillance of the
southwest border of
the United States
by remotely piloted
aircraft. The
Secretary of
Homeland Security
shall implement the
plan as a pilot
program as soon as
sufficient funds
are appropriated
and available for
this purpose.
Border Patrol agents Authorizes, from The fiscal year 2006
(Section 5202). fiscal year 2006 to Budget requests 210
fiscal year 2010 new agents and
subject to the $36.9 million.
availability of
appropriations, an
increase of 10,000
additional Border
Patrol Agents
(2,000 per year).
ENFORCEMENT:
Immigration and Customs Authorizes, from The fiscal year 2006
Enforcement fiscal year 2006 to Budget requests 150
investigators (Section fiscal year 2010 agents and $18
5203). subject to the million.
availability of
appropriations, an
increase of 4,000
Immigration and
Customs Enforcement
(ICE) investigators
(800 per year).
Subject to the
availability of
appropriations.
Detention bed space Authorizes, from The fiscal year 2006
(Section 5204). fiscal year 2006 to Budget includes an
fiscal year 2010 increase of $90
subject to the million for
availability of detention beds and
appropriations, an detention and
increase of 40,000 removal officers.
beds (8,000 per This increase will
year) available for fund 1,920 beds.
immigration Overall, the fiscal
detention and year 2006 Budget
removal. Subject to provides $1.5
the availability of billion for
appropriations. detention and
removal activities.
The budget also
includes an
enhancement of $39
million for the
detention and
repatriation costs
of the Arizona
Border Control
Initiative.
OTHER:
Public Safety Authorizes the The fiscal year 2006
Interoperable Secretary of DHS to Budget requests
Communications (Section provide $22.1 $20.5 million for
7303). million in fiscal the S&T
year 2005, $22.8 Directorate's
million in fiscal Office of
year 2006, $23.5 Interoperability
million in fiscal and Compatibility
year 2007, $24.2 (OIC) to enhance
million in fiscal public safety
year 2008, and interoperable
$24.9 million in communications.
fiscal year 2009 to
enhance public
safety
interoperable
communications at
all levels of
government. The
Secretary may
establish an Office
for
Interoperability
and Compatibility
within the Science
and Technology
Directorate to
carry out these
duties.
Regional Strategic Plan Directs DHS to The fiscal year 2006
(Section 7304). establish a minimum Budget requests
of 2 pilot projects $20.5 million for
in high threat the Department of
urban areas or Homeland Security's
regions for the S&T Directorate's
purpose of OIC to enhance
developing a public safety
regional strategic interoperable
plan to foster communications
interagency through SAFECOM, a
communication and program of OIC.
to coordinate the
gathering of all
Federal, State, and
local first
responders in that
area.
Counternarcotics Amends the Homeland The fiscal year 2006
Enforcement (Section Security Act request for the
7407). requirement related Office of
to counternarcotics Counternarcotics
enforcement. Enforcement is
Instead of having $1.86 million.
one senior official
in the Department
coordinating
counternarcotics
policy, an ``Office
Counternarcotics
Enforcement'' is
created with an
authorization of $6
million.
Terrorist Travel Program Directs the The fiscal year 2006
(Section 7215). Secretary to Budget does not
establish a request any
terrorist travel dedicated funding
program to oversee for this specific
the analysis, purpose. Necessary
coordination, and resources would be
dissemination or provided with
terrorist travel existing funds.
intelligence and
operation
information.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MERIT SYSTEM PROTECTION BOARD (MSPB)
Question. The final regulation restricts the ability of the MSPB to
mitigate penalties selected by DHS. The final rule says, ``Our intent
is to explicitly restrict the authority of MSPB to modify those
penalties to situations where there is simply no justification for the
penalty. MSPB may not modify the penalty imposed by the Department
unless such penalty is so disproportionate to the basis for action as
to be wholly without justification.'' This standard is exceptionally
high. Why was such a departure from the current authorities of the MSPB
necessary?
Answer. Under current MSPB case law, penalties can be mitigated
down if they are ``unreasonable.'' Problems with this include that it
is subjective and it may result in many employees returning to the
workplace after the MSPB ``suspension'' instead of being removed as
recommended by management.
DHS believes that management decisions should be given great
deference with regard to discipline, especially with removals, because
an undesirable employee returning to the workforce creates morale
problems at the least; at the worst, a returning employee interferes
with the agency's mission to protect the homeland.
MSPB's ability to mitigate a penalty only if the punishment is ``so
disproportionate as to be wholly without justification'' is a
compromise because it gives greater deference to DHS, still protects
employee due process, and ensures that disciplinary actions are not
initiated irresponsibly.
Question. Is the Department concerned that these extreme measures
will adversely affect employee morale and reduce employee confidence
that they will be treated fairly?
Answer. DHS understands that many employees are wary of the unknown
and is currently in the process of rolling out significant training
efforts aimed at communicating with employees, training managers, and
executives on the new human resource system and the expectations for
those managers regarding the system. Fair treatment is critical to the
success of the new system and is a key component of our implementation
and ongoing evaluation processes.
Question. What evidence is there that the existing MSPB authorities
have adversely affected agency missions?
Answer. The Department's priority homeland security mission
requires that it maintain an exceptionally high degree of order and
discipline in the workplace. This order and discipline is undermined
when disciplinary decisions are mitigated by MSPB judges on the
existing ``reasonableness'' standard. Indeed, the mere threat of such a
low standard for mitigation causes agency managers to second guess
themselves and hesitate to discipline employees even when such
discipline is clearly warranted. The Department has therefore
instituted a higher standard for mitigation of penalties aimed at
providing managers with the confidence to institute disciplinary
actions where required in support of the agency's homeland security
mission. To allow very poor performers to continue in the workplace is
unacceptable and can negatively affect all agency operations.
CONCERNS OF EMPLOYEES
Question. A number of DHS employees have strong concerns about the
final DHS personnel regulations, which were published in the Federal
Register on February 1, because the regulations diminish employees due
process rights and restrict collective bargaining. What is the
Department's opinion on the objections raised by the front line DHS
employees, and what will the Department do to address the concerns
expressed by these Federal employees?
Answer. The new HR system does maintain due process and is
consistent with the Homeland Security Act's promise to preserve
collective bargaining rights. It also is responsive to DHS' unique
mission needs. DHS understands that employees have concerns about the
new human resources systems and has embarked on robust efforts to
inform employees and train managers about the new system, including
through continuing collaboration with DHS labor unions. Through focus
groups, the ``Ask MAX'' question response system and employee surveys,
DHS is keeping a close watch on employee opinions and through the
formal program evaluation process will be measuring the results and
outcomes of the new system. If necessary, the system can be fine-tuned
to make mid-course corrections.
INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING DISPUTES
Question. As part of the new personnel regulations, the
responsibility for deciding collective bargaining disputes will lie
with a three-member internal DHS Labor Relations Board appointed by the
Secretary. Currently, throughout the Federal Government, collective
bargaining disputes are decided by the Federal Labor Relations
Authority (FLRA), an independent body appointed by the President and
confirmed by the Senate. How does DHS/OPM believe that the internal
labor relations board meets the statutory mandate of the Homeland
Security Act that DHS employees may, ``organize, bargain collectively,
and participate through labor organizations of their own choosing in
decisions which affect them'' ?
Answer. The Homeland Security Labor Relations Board (HSLRB) is an
independent Board similar to the FLRA, but appointed by the Secretary
with nominees recommended by the DHS labor organizations. All nominees
must be independent citizens who are known for their integrity and
impartiality in addition to having expertise in labor relations, law
enforcement, or national/homeland or other related security matters.
The HSLRB hears cases involving the duty to bargain and the DHS
homeland security mission, with the FLRA hearing all other cases (for
example, appropriate unit determinations and unfair labor practice
charges involving exercise of employee rights) and reviewing the
HSLRB's substantive decisions. The FLRA review is then subject to
judicial review. These substantive and procedural attributes of the
HSLRB ensure that DHS, DHS employees and DHS labor organizations obtain
an impartial adjudication of labor relations cases while recognizing
the Department's priority homeland security mission.
MANDATORY TERMINATION WITH NO OUTSIDE REVIEW
Question. The final regulations provide the Secretary with
discretion to create a list of Mandatory Removal Offenses (MRO) that
will only be appealable on the merits to an internal DHS Mandatory
Removal Panel (MRP) appointed by the Secretary. In addition, the
regulations provide the Secretary with the sole discretion to mitigate
a removal penalty. How can the agency expect front line employees to
have any confidence in a personnel system where the most serious
matters are charged and adjudicated by the Secretary and his appointed
``Removal Panel''?
Answer. Currently DHS is taking no action to implement MROs. On
August 15, 2005, Judge Collyer of the District Court for the District
of Columbia requested that DHS and OPM delay implementation. On August
12, 2005, Judge Collyer issued an order enjoining one provision within
the appeals subpart of the regulations but permitting DHS to move
forward with the rest of the adverse actions and appeals provisions.
The Department and OPM are currently working to set a revised timeline
for making the adverse actions and appeals subparts operative in light
of the ruling.
TASKING THE FLRA AND MSPB
Question. What particular statutory authority enabled the final
regulations to give the FLRA and the MSPB new duties and rules of
operation? The FLRA and the MSPB are independent agencies.
Answer. The Homeland Security Act provided an amendment to Title 5,
United States Code, that authorized the Secretary of DHS and the
Director of OPM to establish a human resources management system for
DHS that waives or modifies certain provisions of Title 5. Included
among the provisions that can be waived or modified are chapters 71 and
77, which prescribe the operations of the FLRA and MSPB respectively.
After consulting with FLRA and MSPB, the Secretary and the Director
relied upon this grant of authority, found in 5 U.S.C. 9701, to
promulgate regulations that modify chapters 71 and 77 and alter the way
the FLRA and MSPB handle DHS cases.
TRAINING OF SUPERVISORS
Question. One of the continuing concerns surrounding the final DHS
personnel regulations is the fact that many personnel decisions,
especially pay, will now be based on factors under the control of local
supervisors and directors. How does DHS plan to address the concerns of
front line officers that supervisors, who will be granted a tremendous
amount of pay and performance evaluation discretion under the new
personnel regulations, will be properly trained to ensure transparency
and fairness for all front-line personnel?
Answer. Performance ratings will continue to be determined by local
supervisors, just as it occurs in today's performance management
process. The concept of a second level reviewing official has been
retained as an inherent check and balance. A comprehensive training
program will be undertaken to train supervisors and managers to make
meaningful distinctions in performance and, just as important, to
articulate clear performance expectations, which will be used to track
performance. An automated performance management system will make the
administration of the system more transparent to employees and will
facilitate self-assessment and peer review capabilities that can serve
as important information sources for the supervisor's consideration.
Additionally, we envision that performance pay pools will be centrally
established and managed at higher organizational levels, thus
mitigating the influence of a single supervisor on the pay side of the
process. A Department-level Compensation Committee, including DHS union
representation, also will have considerable influence on the pay for
performance program and its administration.
Question. In addition, this system will take more training and
administrative time. How will those increased administrative costs be
paid for?
Answer. The vast majority of administrative costs associated with
training will be funded through requested appropriations specified for
implementation of the new HR system and managed by the DHS Chief Human
Capital Office for the Department-wide training initiative. As part of
the new system, DHS will provide automated tools, e.g., a new
electronic performance management system, to assist management
officials in program administration.
Question. Won't resources be taken from frontline Homeland Security
positions?
Answer. The expectation is that resources will be provided in
requests for appropriations specifically identified to support
implementation of the new HR system. Individual Department components'
mission budgets are not expected to be impacted. We believe time spent
in training on effective performance management and in coaching and
providing feedback to employees is time well spent that generates
positive returns in overall agency effectiveness.
PAY FOR PERFORMANCE
Question. As you know, DHS employees' pay will be shifting from the
current GS-scale pay system to a pay-for-performance system under the
new DHS personnel regulations. How can a credible pay-for-performance
pay system work in an agency, such as DHS, that requires a tremendous
amount of teamwork to successfully accomplish agency missions?
Answer. Performance work plans will contain measurable performance
elements that specifically address teamwork or similar concepts for
those occupations requiring such attributes. Employees in those
occupations will know that performance that demonstrates teamwork will
be rewarded.
Question. Is the Department aware of any large scale pay-for-
performance system that has been successfully implemented in a law-
enforcement environment?
Answer. While we are unaware of a large scale pay-for-performance
system in a law enforcement environment, that certainly does not
prevent us from developing one. Pay-for-Performance is the concept of
providing a pay increase based on ``performance'' (e.g. achievement of
a performance goal or positive performance appraisal rating).
Organizations tie pay to performance in various ways. They may base pay
on measures of individual, team, or organizational performance. We feel
this concept can work well in a law enforcement environment. Research
involved in designing the system entails review and evaluation of
private, other Federal, State and local systems that have such
programs. Our design work includes program evaluation aspects in order
to periodically monitor, evaluate, and revise the system, as warranted
to ensure that objectives are being attained.
security and prosperity partnership of north america
Question. On March 23, President Bush held a press event in Waco,
Texas with Mexican Pres Foxx and Canadian Prime Minister Martin where
he announced a grant program for the Security and Prosperity
Partnership of North America.
The parties to the partnership were tasked to set specific,
measurable, and achievable goals and implementation dates to develop a
common security strategy to further secure North America, including
preventing and responding to threats within North America and
streamlining the secure and efficient movement of legitimate and low-
risk traffic across our shared borders.
Will we be receiving a budget amendment to provide the resources
for Customs and Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and Immigration and
Customs Enforcement to implement this partnership or was this
announcement an exercise in public relations?
Answer. On March 23, 2005, in Waco, Texas, President Bush, along
with Canadian Prime Minister Martin and Mexican President Fox, unveiled
the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SPP), a
blueprint for a safer and more prosperous continent. The three leaders
instructed each nation to establish ministerial-level SPP working
groups. I chair the security component, and the prosperity component is
chaired by Department of Commerce Secretary Gutierrez. Department of
State Secretary Rice is working to ensure the two components are
integrated and that the SPP advances U.S. foreign policy goals and
enhances our strong relationships with Canada and Mexico.
The SPP will complement, rather than replace, existing bilateral
and trilateral fora and working groups that are performing well. The
issues of immigration and trade disputes will be dealt with outside the
SPP through existing treaties and congressional action.
Following the March 23 announcement, DHS and Commerce conducted a
series of Congressional briefings and other stakeholder outreach
sessions.
On June 27, I and Gutierrez and our government counterparts in
Mexico and Canada released the first report of the SPP that identifies
initial results, key themes and initiatives, and work plans that
further promote the security and prosperity of the continent.
At this time, DHS anticipates accomplishing the fiscal year 2006
initiatives contained in the SPP within available resources. We would
like to reserve the opportunity to address some longer term priorities
as part of the normal budgeting process in the future. We continue to
be interested in input from the Congress, industry and other
stakeholders as we implement the SPP.
DHS REPORTS DUE
Question. In the fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security Appropriations
Act and associated reports, Congress directed the Department to report
to the Committee on a number of important issues. To date, 70 percent
of the reports currently due to the House & Senate Committees on
Appropriations have not yet been received. What is the Department's
plan for increasing the rate of timely submission of Congressionally
required reports?
Answer. The Department continues to place a significant priority on
providing timely information and reports to Congress. Of the reports
mentioned above, approximately 40 percent of those outstanding reports
are past due, and the Department has been working diligently to
expedite transmittal of those reports. Since the hearing on April 20th
through July 13th, the Department has reduced the overall number of
outstanding reports by approximately 30 percent. As of July 13, the
Department has submitted 143 reports for fiscal year 2005 to the
Congressional Appropriation Committees.
The status of reports is constantly monitored and regular progress
is tracked and evaluated. Furthermore, Congressional reports are
discussed regularly at several high-level management meetings,
including the DHS Management Council, Chief Financial Officers Council,
and Budget Officer meetings. In addition, the Department has reviewed
and implemented strategies to streamline and improve the clearance
process.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Question. From the fiscal year 2004 enacted budget to the fiscal
year 2006 President's request, the CIO's budget has increased
substantially. The President's budget for fiscal year 2006 requests
$303.7M for this office. What safeguards has the Department put in
place to ensure that this funding has the proper government management
and oversight?
Answer. The Department is using two parallel processes to ensure
proper governance and management of its funding, the Planning,
Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process, mandated by
Management Directive (MD) 1330, and the Investment Review Process
(IRP), mandated by MD 1400.
The PPBE process has four steps:
--Planning.--The Office of the CIO (OCIO) develops information
technology (IT) strategic plans and these plans are reviewed to
ensure alignment with the Department's overall strategic plan.
--Programming.--The OCIO enters its budget year plus 4 years funding
requirements into the Future Years Homeland Security Program
(FYHSP) system for review, program evaluation, and analysis by
Departmental management.
--Budgeting.--The OCIO budget is reviewed and the OCIO enters budget
justification information for all of its IT investments into
the Investment Management System (IMS) for scoring and
portfolio review by Departmental management.
--Execution.--All spending plans are reviewed before and during the
execution year by Departmental management. Also, each
individual expenditure is reviewed at multiple Levels within
the OCIO and by Departmental management before execution, and
is tracked through the Federal Financial Management System
(FFMS) and the Procurement Request Information Management
System (PRISM).
The Investment Review Process (IRP) consists of a layered review
process, depending on the Level and life cycle phase of the investment.
Specifically, the IRP consists of the following:
--Investment Review Board (IRB).--The IRB provides decision authority
for Level 1 investments that have an acquisition cost of over
$100 million and IT investments with a life cycle cost of over
$200 million.
--Joint Requirements Council (JRC).--The JRC provides decision
authority for Level 2 investments that have an acquisition cost
between $50 million and $100 million, and IT investments with a
life cycle cost between $100 million and $200 million.
--Enterprise Architecture Board (EAB).--The EAB conducts a full
review of Level 3 IT investments with an acquisition cost
between $5 million and $50 million, and a life cycle cost
between $20 million and $100 million and conducts a limited
review of Level 4 IT investments (investments with an
acquisition cost below $5 million and a life cycle cost below
$20 million). The EAB operates within the OCIO and ensures the
existence of an effective IT governance process in accordance
with DHS architecture principles. As part of its overall
governance strategy, the EAB conducts milestone reviews of
investment initiatives to help manage architectural alignment
within DHS and serve as the conduit for receiving, analyzing,
and disseminating information. This process also supports the
DHS CPIC (Capital Planning and Investment Control),
acquisition, and budget processes, and serves to identify,
evaluate, select, align, and approve investments, technologies,
and policies for use in DHS.
MEETING WITH UNIONS
Question. During your confirmation hearing on February 2, 2005, you
testified that you would meet with the representatives of the various
union members working in the Department. Have you met with the unions?
Answer. Yes. In April, I met with the President of the National
Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and the President of the American
Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). These are the two largest
unions represented in DHS, and the only two with national consultation
rights at the Department.
HEARINGS ON THE PATRIOT ACT
Question. The PATRIOT Act was enacted in haste, with minimal
debate, in a time of crisis.
Legislation called the SAFE Act has been introduced by Senators
Feingold, Craig, Durbin and others to modify certain provisions of the
PATRIOT Act. While I support review of the provisions referenced in the
SAFE Act, I would prefer that all provisions of the law be subject to
examination in hearings held by all relevant committees of jurisdiction
in the House and Senate. This law was never subject to substantial
debate. In prior meetings with you, you have assured me that you would
support hearings on the Patriot Act.
Do you continue to support broad ranging hearings to examine, in
depth, the provisions of the PATRIOT Act?
Answer. The USA PATRIOT Act provides invaluable tools for
protecting Americans from terrorist attacks while safeguarding civil
liberties and preserving the important role of congressional and
judicial oversight. The USA PATRIOT Act has been the subject of
numerous hearings in the Congress. I am committed to working with
Congress on all issues that relate to the Department, including
matters, like the USA PATRIOT Act, that are crucial to terrorism
prevention.
INFORMATION CONCERNING THE PATRIOT ACT
Question. As you know, when the PATRIOT Act was enacted, the
Congress included sunsets on certain surveillance powers so the
Congress could evaluate how those powers had been used before deciding
wether to extend them or make them permanent. Some of those provisions
scheduled to expire at the end of this year are not controversial.
Other provisions are controversial, and some that are not even subject
to sunset have been criticized for infringing on the privacy rights and
civil liberties of law-abiding American citizens.
Are you committed to working with the Congress to ensure that we
have the information we need from the Administration and the Department
of Homeland Security in particular, so the Congress may make an
informed decision about whether to renew those provisions that will
expire at the end of this year or make other changes to the PATRIOT
Act?
Answer. I am committed to ensuring that the Department continues to
provide Congress with the appropriate information it needs.
CONSULTING WITH CONGRESS
Question. Attorney General Ashcroft engaged in minimal consultation
with the Congress and members on both sides of the aisle on the PATRIOT
Act and other key pieces of legislation considered in the wake of 9/11.
A full draft bill, known as PATRIOT II, became public before any
discussions with interested Members of Congress had taken place, and
while the proposed bill was later disavowed as merely a draft, many of
the proposals contained in it were subsequently included in other
Administration proposals.
Now that you have been confirmed, will you continue to consult
closely with Congress and Members on both sides of the aisle before
rolling out new legislative proposals to expand Federal law
enforcement, surveillance, and other powers that might curtail
constitutional rights and protections?
Answer. I will continue to engage actively in the consultation
process as we seek to offer new programs and legislative proposals.
Question. What actions are you taking in your role as head of the
Department of Homeland Security to ensure that such consultation
occurs?
Answer. I have conveyed to the DHS Senior Leadership and the
appropriate offices within the Department of the importance of
consulting with Congress and keeping Members informed of programs,
policy, and operational activities within the Department. My
expectation is that they will do so in a timely fashion.
SECURE FLIGHT
Question. On March 28, 2005, the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) released a report entitled, ``Secure Flight Development and
Testing Under Way, but Risks Should be Managed as System Is Further
Developed''. The GAO was mandated to do this report by the fiscal year
2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act. In essence, the report found
that Secure Flight is not ready for primetime. Only one of the ten
specific aspects of the development and implementation of Secure Flight
has been met.
Mr. Secretary, I want to make the skies safer for all passengers
who fly on commercial aircraft. But I also want to ensure that those
individuals who fly have their legitimate privacy rights and civil
liberties protected. And I want to ensure that whatever pre-screening
system is developed is safe from abuse by outside or unauthorized
entities. My main concern with Secure Flight--and its predecessors--is
that I have not yet been convinced that these protections are in place.
Indeed, the GAO has not yet been convinced either. Four of the ten
areas the Congress mandated the GAO review are specifically focused on
privacy, safety and redress. The best that the GAO can say about the
status of these items is that they are ``under way''.
It is not yet clear that the new Secure Flight program will create
a redress process for passengers to correct erroneous information, nor
is it clear that it will include security measures to protect the
system from unauthorized access.
Over $130 million and more than 3 years have been spent to date on
Secure Flight and its predecessors. I understand your plan is to begin
initial testing of this program late this summer using passenger data
from two airlines. If in April 2005 the best that can be said of the
program is that it is ``under way'', what will be the likelihood that
Secure Flight will truly be ``under way'' in August 2005?
Answer. As we have stated, TSA intends to have Secure Flight
underway later in 2005. At the request of the air carriers, TSA shifted
its planned August launch date to September to account for the busy
Labor Day holiday travel weekend. In addition, TSA made further
adjustments to the implementation plan for Secure Flight to ensure that
all regulatory and privacy documents comply with all applicable
statutes and guidelines, as well as airline requests regarding
technical guidance. In addition, the decision not to include commercial
data in the initial rollout of Secure Flight caused further adjustments
in the schedule, as did the ongoing uncertainty regarding the program's
budget for fiscal year 2006. Under the revised implementation schedule,
TSA expects to be in compliance with the requirement of the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) to
implement passenger prescreening within 180 days of completion of
testing.
Question. Mr. Secretary, can you commit to us that Secure Flight
will not be deployed until all ten of these areas of concern are
addressed?
Answer. TSA is working to meet the deadline in the IRTPA to begin
to assume the watch list screening function from air carriers. As we
move forward, TSA is continuing to cooperate with GAO to address the
outstanding policy and operational items the agency is required to
resolve under the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005 (Public
Law 108-334), prior to implementation. TSA will show that it has
addressed those items, as well as each of the additional GAO
recommendations in its March 2005 report, prior to deployment of the
program.
Question. In recent weeks, data storage systems for major companies
which track and store commercial data on individual citizens have been
compromised. Both ChoicePoint and LexisNexis have admitted that their
databases have been accessed by unauthorized, outside entities--
potentially exposing hundreds of thousands of Americans to identity
theft. I have long been concerned about the privacy implications for
citizens by the possible use of commercial databases for passenger
screening activities. These unauthorized intrusions by outside hackers
and other unscrupulous individuals only serve to enhance my concerns.
The GAO has noted that Secure Flight's system safeguards and other
protections from unauthorized access have not yet been developed nor
tested. However, I understand that the use of commercial databases,
such as these, remain under consideration for the purpose of verifying
a potential traveler's identity.
Given these recent incidents, are you reconsidering the use of
commercial databases?
Answer. TSA conducted a very limited test to determine whether the
use of commercial data could improve the effectiveness of the watch
list comparisons undertaken in the Secure Flight program as well as to
assist with the identification of passenger information that is
incorrect or inaccurate.
In the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005 (Public Law 108-
334, Section 522(d)), Congress mandated that prior to commercial data
testing, TSA would be required to develop measures to assess the impact
of using commercial data on aviation security, and that the GAO is to
review those measures. TSA is complying with all Congressional requests
on this issue and the GAO will continue to evaluate TSA's development
of performance measures throughout the test phases.
TSA's testing of the use of commercial data is governed by privacy
and data security protections, including strict prohibitions on the use
of any passenger information provided by commercial data sources. TSA
will not incorporate the use of commercial data into Secure Flight
unless testing confirms that:
--it enhances security;
--it does not result in inappropriate differences in treatment of any
category of persons; and
--robust data security safeguards and privacy protections can be put
in place to ensure that commercial entities do not gain
wrongful access to or use passenger personal information
inappropriately.
TSA will not incorporate the use of commercial data into the Secure
Flight program prior to the completion of testing, assessment of
results, final approval by the Administration, and publication of a new
System of Records Notice and Privacy Impact Assessment announcing the
use of commercial data.
Results of the testing, the comparisons of Passenger Name Record
(PNR) information against names in the Terrorist Screening Database and
the use of commercial data, will be as publicly transparent as possible
without compromising national security. Testing and eventual
implementation will be governed by strict privacy protections including
passenger redress procedures, data security mechanisms, and limitations
on use.
Question. What can be done to ensure the security of these
databases and the integrity of the system?
Answer. TSA conducted a very limited test to determine whether the
use of commercial data could improve the effectiveness of the watch
list comparisons undertaken in the Secure Flight program as well as to
assist with the identification of passenger information that is
incorrect or inaccurate.
TSA's testing of the use of commercial data is governed by privacy
and data security protections, including strict prohibitions on the use
of any passenger information provided by commercial data sources. TSA
will not incorporate the use of commercial data into Secure Flight
unless testing confirms that:
--it enhances security;
--it does not result in inappropriate differences in treatment of any
category of persons; and
--robust data security safeguards and privacy protections can be put
in place to ensure that commercial entities do not gain
wrongful access to or use passenger personal information
inappropriately.
TSA will not incorporate the use of commercial data into the Secure
Flight program prior to the completion of testing, assessment of
results, final approval by the Administration, and publication of a new
System of Records Notice and Privacy Impact Assessment announcing the
use of commercial data.
Results of the testing, the comparisons of PNR information against
names in the Terrorist Screening Database and the use of commercial
data, will be as publicly transparent as possible without compromising
national security. Testing has been governed by strict privacy
protections including data security mechanisms, and limitations on use.
Secure Flight has a written data control policy for this very purpose.
All personnel who handle passenger data are required to sign a Non
Disclosure Agreement (NDA) specific to the Secure Flight program and
must successfully complete a privacy training course. Accountability
for data is accomplished by assigning a control number to each disk,
tape, or document on which the data is stored. In addition, a Chain of
Custody process is in place to record and track data transfers by hand
receipt. Finally, stand alone Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) has
been identified to be used on this project. Authorization to load/
install/read any PNR data is restricted to GFE designated and
documented to process PNR data, and none of those machines is capable
of transmitting data outside of the facility.
The Commercial Data Test also required the contractor to comply
with the security requirements, regulations, and privacy protections
for all records used, accessed, or contacted, as well as the data
handling procedures in the Security Standard Operating Procedures and
the Data Security and Control Policy. The contractor is required to
comply with security requirements to maintain their Secure Facility
Clearance.
Finally, the Secure Flight system will be subject to certification
and accreditation prior to achieving Authority to Operate (ATO) in
early fall 2005. TSA and DHS Chief Information Security Officers
require all information and system security is in working order prior
to ATO of the initial operating capability with initial air carriers.
SECURE FLIGHT--MOVEMENT TO SCO
Question. What impact will moving the operation of Secure Flight to
the proposed Screening and Credentialing Operations office have on its
implementation?
Answer. We support the concept of a Screening Coordination and
Operations (SCO) Office, and requested, through the 2SR process,
recommendations to best meet the goals of the office. Consistent with
the 9-11 commission recommendations, HSPD-11 and HSPD-12, the SCO
office would support the development of a more unified, comprehensive
and efficient system for the screening, credentialing, and redress for
passengers, while leveraging and optimizing investments in screening
systems and tools. The SCO would be supported by a management approach
that would lead to harmonized IT architecture, uniform redress, and
provision of coordinated or shared services such as card production,
biometric/biographic databases, and global enrollment systems/processes
that adhere to standards set by DHS with close linkage to policy
decisions and overall information technology enterprise architectures.
The SCO office would also ensure a consistent approach also for
outreach in the areas of privacy, civil rights, and helping to ensure
coordinated R&D efforts. DHS plans to set up the SCO office in fiscal
year 2006.
Question. Do you have concerns that further rearranging the
organizational chart will further slow the development and operation of
Secure Flight?
Answer. The exact roles, responsibilities, and composition of the
SCO are currently under review and further definition and refinement of
the SCO concept will be developed based on that review. An
implementation and transition plan for the SCO will also be developed
based on that review.
Question. If it is moved, who will actually maintain and operate
the system--the SCO or TSA?
Answer. The exact roles, responsibilities, and composition of the
SCO are currently under review and further definition and refinement of
the SCO concept will be developed based on that review.
Question. Have you experienced any delays in receiving timely
security information from the Terrorist Screening Center (which is run
by the FBI) for Secure Flight or your other screening programs?
Answer. No, TSA has not.
SECURE FLIGHT AND PRIVACY
Question. Mr. Secretary, I'm concerned about reports from February
and the end of March in which TSA officials, including a TSA
spokesperson, declared that Secure Flight will be implemented in August
with two airlines nationwide. That implementation would appear to
violate the law as mandated by 522 of the fiscal year 2005 Department
of Homeland Security Appropriations Act that prohibits the spending of
any sums appropriated on other than a test basis for Secure Flight
unless and until the GAO certifies to Congress that 10 criteria are
met. Is that implementation with two airlines scheduled to end at a
certain time so that it can be evaluated?
Answer. TSA is proceeding with demonstrating initial operating
capability for Secure Flight later this year. This timeframe is
consistent with the requirements laid out in IRTPA. In addition, TSA
intends to provide proof that each of the ten identified areas of
concern and the six GAO recommendations have been addressed before the
planned initial operating capability is implemented. Evaluations of the
performance of the program with the launch carriers will be conducted
prior to the program integrating additional airlines. A specific
timeline is still under development to ensure that all appropriate
evaluation takes place.
Question. Will the passengers flying those two airlines come late
August be able to distinguish between a test run of Secure Flight and
the real thing?
Answer. The passengers flying on the initial airlines will not be
able to distinguish between the test run of Secure Flight and the
``real thing.'' During the first phase of implementation, the carriers
will continue their normal vetting activities and a parallel operations
activity will be running in conjunction with TSA to confirm the
effective processing of related data without disruption to ongoing
business operations. Once the systems have performed in parallel for a
period of time, and the acceptable stabilization has occurred, TSA will
work with the carriers to ensure a smooth transition in taking over
from them the full watch list vetting function.
Question. Do you anticipate that the Secure Flight program will,
when finally implemented, use private companies to aggregate data on
passengers and perform verification checks?
Answer. This is undetermined. TSA conducted a very limited test to
determine whether the use of commercial data could improve the
effectiveness of the watch list comparisons undertaken in the Secure
Flight program as well as to assist with the identification of
passenger information that is incorrect or inaccurate.
In the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005 (Public Law 108-
334, Section 522(d)), Congress mandated that prior to commercial data
testing, TSA would be required to develop measures to assess the impact
of using commercial data on aviation security, and that GAO is to
review those measures. TSA is complying with all Congressional requests
on this issue; GAO will continue to evaluate TSA's development of
performance measures throughout the test phases. The limited commercial
data testing concluded in July 2005.
TSA's testing of the use of commercial data is governed by strict
privacy and data security protections, including strict prohibitions on
the use of any passenger-provided information by commercial data
providers. TSA will not incorporate the use of commercial data into
Secure Flight unless testing confirms that:
--it enhances security;
--it does not result in inappropriate differences in treatment of any
category of persons; and
--robust data security safeguards and privacy protections can be put
in place to ensure that commercial entities do not gain
inappropriate access to or use passenger personal information
inappropriately.
TSA will not incorporate the use of commercial data into the Secure
Flight program prior to the completion of testing, assessment of
results, final approval by the Administration, and publication of a new
System of Records Notice and Privacy Impact Assessment announcing the
use of commercial data.
Results of the testing, both of the comparisons of PNR information
against names in the Terrorist Screening Database and the use of
commercial data, will be as publicly transparent as possible without
compromising national security. Testing and eventual implementation
will be governed by strict privacy protections including passenger
redress procedures, data security mechanisms, and limitations on use.
Question. How many companies could provide the data broker and data
aggregation function to accomplish Secure Flight passenger
verification?
Answer. This is undetermined at this point. TSA will not
incorporate the use of commercial data into the Secure Flight program
prior to the completion of testing, assessment of results, final
approval by the Administration, and publication of a new System of
Records Notice and Privacy Impact Assessment announcing the use of
commercial data.
Question. Will you examine whether the private companies bidding
for this work have had data spills, or data breaches caused by identity
thieves?
Answer. This is undetermined at this point. However, as with all
contracts, TSA would set standards, establish program priorities and
direction, establish policies, make program decisions, and monitor
contractor performance. TSA will not incorporate the use of commercial
data into the Secure Flight program prior to the completion of testing,
assessment of results, final approval by the Administration, and
publication of a new System of Records Notice and Privacy Impact
Assessment announcing the use of commercial data.
Question. What penalties will the Secretary impose on the company
DHS and TSA eventually contracts with to perform passenger verification
for Secure Flight if that company fails to properly safeguard data
transferred as part of Secure Flight?
Answer. This is undetermined at this point. However, as with all
contracts, TSA would set standards, establish program priorities and
direction, establish policies, make program decisions, and monitor
contractor performance. TSA will not incorporate the use of commercial
data into the Secure Flight program prior to the completion of testing,
assessment of results, final approval by the Administration, and
publication of a new System of Records Notice and Privacy Impact
Assessment announcing the use of commercial data.
Question. I am concerned about recent GAO reports that show a lack
of progress regarding establishing a transparent, concrete and workable
system of due process and redress for passengers wrongly selected for
extra scrutiny who might miss a flight and those who are wrongly put on
a no fly list.
Mr. Secretary, please share with us what efforts you will take to
ensure that the government's own watch lists and databases used for
Secure Flight contain accurate information about would-be passengers.
Answer. U.S. Government intelligence and law enforcement agencies
collect, analyze, and evaluate data used to nominate subjects to the
No-Fly List. Intelligence analysts and law enforcement officers within
these organizations carefully review nominations based on the No-Fly
List criteria and thoroughly evaluate the information during each step
of the process. Watch List nominations often contain classified and/or
sensitive law enforcement investigative information. Nominations that
meet the established criteria are forwarded to the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC)
for inclusion in the TSC Data Base (TSDB) and for addition to the No-
Fly List. Time sensitive nominations may be routed directly to the TSC
if required.
If it is determined that a person on the No-Fly List should no
longer be identified as a No-Fly subject, they will be removed from the
list. If additional intelligence data is developed or a subject has
been interviewed by U.S. Government officials and deemed no longer a
threat, an official request for removal must be submitted to the agency
that placed the individual on the list. The original nominating agency
will evaluate the data and determine whether the person stays on or is
removed from the No-Fly List. The nominating agency will then make a
formal request through the nomination chain requesting that the person
be removed from the No-Fly List. In some cases, a review of the
derogatory information associated with a No-Fly nomination may result
in the subject being downgraded to the TSA Selectee List.
The TSA Office of Transportation Security Redress is developing a
redress process that will address any situation where passengers
believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly singled out for
additional screening under the future Secure Flight program. This
process will also allow passengers who feel they have been erroneously
placed on the watch lists to undergo a case review. The Office of
Transportation Security Redress will work to ensure that passengers
erroneously placed on the watch lists are in fact provided relief. The
redress process will be coordinated with other DHS redress processes as
appropriate.
TSA has developed and implemented a clearance protocol for persons
who are flagged for additional screening due to the similarity of their
names to those of individuals who are appropriately on the watch lists.
A passenger may initiate the clearance protocol by submitting a
completed Passenger Identity Verification Form to TSA headquarters. TSA
will review the submission and reach a determination of whether these
procedures may aid in expediting a passenger's check-in process for a
boarding pass. The Passenger Identify Verification Form, as well as
other information, has been posted on TSA's public website at the
following web address: http://www.tsa.gov/public/
display?theme=157&content=09000519800fb8af
However, this clearance process will not remove a name from the
watch lists. Instead, this process distinguishes legitimate passengers
from persons who are on the watch lists by placing their names and
identifying information in a cleared portion of the lists. This
information is transmitted to the airlines. Following TSA-required
identity verification procedures, airline personnel can then quickly
determine that these passengers are not the person of interest whose
name is actually on the watch lists.
In addition, an individual may seek to challenge his or her
inclusion on a watch list in a court of competent jurisdiction after
the redress and appeals process within TSA has been exhausted.
Question. And tell us what concrete redress policies you envision
for passengers wrongly detained for additional screening who might miss
a flight or those wrongly placed on a no-fly list.
Answer. The TSA Office of Transportation Security Redress is
developing a redress process that will address any situation where
passengers believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly singled out
for additional screening under the future Secure Flight program. This
process will also allow passengers who feel they have been erroneously
placed on the watch lists to undergo a case review. TSA will work with
the nominating agency to review the derogatory information. The redress
process will be coordinated with other DHS redress processes as
appropriate.
TSA has developed and implemented a clearance protocol for persons
who are flagged for additional screening due the similarity of their
names to those of individuals who are appropriately on the watch lists.
A passenger may initiate the clearance protocol by submitting a
completed Passenger Identity Verification Form to TSA headquarters. TSA
will review the submission and reach a determination of whether these
procedures may aid in expediting a passenger's check-in process for a
boarding pass. The Passenger Identify Verification Form, as well as
other information, has been posted on TSA's public website at the
following web address: http://www.tsa.gov/public/
display?theme=157&content=09000519800fb8af
It is important to keep in mind that this clearance process will
not remove a name from the watch lists. Instead, this process
distinguishes passengers from persons who are in fact on the watch
lists by placing their names and identifying information in a cleared
portion of the lists. This information is transmitted to the airlines.
Airline personnel can then more quickly determine when implementing
TSA-required identity verification procedures that these passengers are
not the person of interest whose name is actually on the watch lists.
In addition, an individual may seek to challenge his or her
inclusion on a watch list in a court of competent jurisdiction, after
the redress and appeals process within TSA has been exhausted.
US VISIT: WHEN WILL WE HAVE A REAL ``EXIT'' COMPONENT?
Question. The former DHS Under Secretary, Asa Hutchison, announced
with great fanfare meeting the December 31, 2004 deadline to have the
foreign visitor visa entry-exit system, known as US VISIT, up and
running at the 50 largest land-border ports of entry. This is a
positive accomplishment and I am pleased that the Department has taken
seriously our mutual interest in knowing who is entering this country
and in keeping out those who should not be allowed entrance.
However, I remain concerned that very few taxpayers know that while
we may know who is entering the United States at our airports,
seaports, and some land border ports, we continue NOT to know who is
exiting the United States. That's right--there is almost no ``exit'
component to the US VISIT system--a system which used to be called
``entry-exit''. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this
system--and another $390 million is requested for US VISIT in the
President's fiscal year 2006 budget, and yet we still are not able to
capture data on which visitors are exiting the country.
How can we know if someone has overstayed their permitted time in
this country if we do not know that they have left?
Answer. US VISIT is exploring different departure confirmation
alternatives where biometrics are collected on exit, in addition to the
biographic information, at 12 air and 2 sea port pilot locations. After
evaluating these exit procedures, DHS will select the most effective
process(es) and technologies to implement at airports and seaports
nation-wide.
Currently the US VISIT system collects both biographic and
biometric data on eligible (nonimmigrant) alien arrivals and departures
and stores the data in the Arrival Departure Information System (ADIS).
--Biographic data is primarily collected through the submission of
passenger manifests by the transportation carriers, with
additional arrival and departure information collected by
officers at U.S. ports-of-entry.
--Biometric data (digital fingerscans and photographs) are collected
at consular posts during visa interviews, at U.S. air and sea
ports-of-entry during admission, and at a limited number of
pilot locations at air and sea ports during departure.
--US VISIT analyzes the data in ADIS to prepare the Annual Report on
Integrated Entry and Exit Data System, as required by the Data
Management Improvement Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-215) and the
Visa Waiver Permanent Program Act (Public Law 106-396). The
report is due on December 31 each year. The report for 2004 was
transmitted to the Hill on August 19, 2005.
--During the last 3 months of the reporting period ending in
September 2004, the system consistently matched 90 percent of
exit records to entry records using biometrics due to the
increased number of visitors enrolled in US VISIT at the time
of admission. The system successfully matched approximately 10
percent more exit records than when using biographic data
alone.
--US VISIT then analyzes those remaining records to determine if
stays were legally extended, there were approved changes in
status, or information existing in other systems that would
indicate that the individual did not overstay.
--Once US VISIT reviews all the information, those who are
``confirmed overstays'' are referred to ICE's Compliance
Enforcement Unit for further vetting. Based on the outcome of
its analysis, ICE may refer unresolved cases to the field for
investigation. From January 2004 through August 2005, ICE has
arrested almost 70 individuals based on overstay information
provided by US VISIT.
--DHS also will leverage new technology in the land environment to
capture information about and departures. Our first proof of
concept using this new technology, radio frequency
identification (RFID), began August 4, 2005, at three land
border ports of entry along the Northern and two along the
Southern borders. This technology can detect a visitor at a
distance and provide primary inspection officers with entry
information as well as provide a mechanism for an accurate and
timely record of exits. The proof of concept testing at the
ports of Nogales East and Nogales West in Arizona, Alexandria
Bay in New York, and the Pacific Highway and Peace Arch in
Washington will continue through 2006.
Question. What are the threats from not knowing who left?
Answer. These threats are difficult to measure. Where we develop a
lead that someone is associated with a terrorist group after that
person has entered the country ICE coordinates its investigative
activity with necessary entities to take appropriate action. In
addition, one of the purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act
(INA) is to exclude and remove criminals, terrorists, drug traffickers,
and those who would work and live in United States illegally, from the
United States. Individuals who overstay their visas contribute to the
denigration of the integrity of our immigration system--that is why US
VISIT works with ICE to locate and apprehend these immigration
violators.
Question. When will we have a robust ``exit'' capability at our
airports and at our land borders?
Answer. US VISIT is exploring different biometric departure
confirmation alternatives at 12 airports and two seaports. The exit
pilots require foreign visitors to check out at an exit station or with
a US VISIT exit attendant at the departure gate at the port. After
evaluating these exit procedures, DHS will select the most effective
process(es) and technologies to implement at airports and seaports
nationwide.
Question. How much more will this cost and when will this system be
completed?
Answer. The fiscal year 2005 investment includes resources to
modernize our immigration and border management systems and provide
greater interoperability for immigration and border management data. In
fiscal year 2005, we will increase interoperability technology and
introduce basic common service-oriented architecture functionality to
enable delivery of expanded person-centric view capabilities. We are
currently developing the business requirements for the first phase of
this strategy.
The fiscal year 2006 request includes resources to improve our
immigration and border managements systems, as well as the continued
deployment of US VISIT at our land borders. The fiscal year 2006
request includes operation and maintenance of current and 2005
investments, including: initial implementation of the entry and exit
solution at air, sea and land ports of entry (POEs); implementation and
integration of border technology to the busiest land POEs; and
deployment of biometric travel document readers at air, sea, and land
POEs.
US VISIT
Question. In the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
reprogramming request submitted to Congress on March 11, 2005, the
Department offered up as a ``bill payer'' a portion of the US VISIT
``management reserve.'' The US VISIT program office had vociferously
advocated for this reserve. The Department suggested that this reserve
could be reduced by $17 million to meet the ICE funding shortfalls
which had been known by the Department for sometime.
Does this mean that the US VISIT management reserve is a lower
priority to the Department? Will we see this reflected in the next US
VISIT spend plan we expect to see regarding the fiscal year 2006 funds?
Answer. All components within DHS were asked to review their
budgets to determine if they could help address ICE funding needs.
Management reserve within US VISIT exists to address unforeseen funding
issues as they arise. This helps reduce program risk. Because of the
nature of the purpose of management reserve, it is difficult to
determine with certainty how much is needed in any given year. To
reduce programmatic risk on ICE programs, it was appropriate to propose
to accept temporary higher risk for US VISIT. However, a normal level
of management reserve must be an integral part of the program into the
future.
The recently enacted fiscal year 2005 supplemental for ICE
eliminated the need to reprogram funding from US VISIT for this
purpose.
TWIC PROGRAM--WHY THE DELAY?
Question. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on March 8, 2005,
then Deputy Secretary-nominee, Michael Jackson, said he did not
understand why it was taking so long to get the Transportation Worker
Identification Credential (TWIC) program up and running. He said,
``It's not rocket science.'' A number of states, notably Florida, have
already moved forward with their own credentialing programs for their
State workers. Mr. Secretary, if this program is not ``rocket
science'', what is causing the delay? Congress has provided upwards of
$65 million towards the program, pilot projects are underway, and
thousands of workers are waiting. Why the delay? Is this delay the
result of resource-constraints, policy decisions, privacy protections
(or lack of clarification of privacy protections) decisions, some
combination all of these, or something else?
Answer. TSA acknowledges that the TWIC prototype has proceeded
slower than expected. Technical and contractual issues have delayed
rollout of the final TWIC card model and installation of final version
biometric access control readers. Those issues are now solved.
Enrollments and card production are ramping up at East and West Coast
sites. The Florida rollout has been slowed as the State of Florida's
team worked to resolve issues unique to Florida due to the need to
comply fully with the Florida Uniform Port Access Credential (FUPAC)
Act. Working with both State personnel and the prototype contractor the
program has been successful in addressing and solving these problems.
The ability to discover and resolve problems during the prototype phase
rather than during implementation has been a welcome and valuable
result and will benefit the program as it moves forward.
The TWIC Program achieved initial operating capability (IOC) for
each region on November 17, 2004. IOC was defined as having functional
enrollment capability and at least one operational TWIC reader at one
or more sites within the region. Presently, TWIC is in Phase III-
Prototype whereby TSA is evaluating a full range of business processes,
policies and requirements for an end-to-end solution that includes
sponsorship, claimed identity verification, criminal history records
checks (in the State of FL only) and card production, personalization,
and issuance as well as revocation. Once Phase III-Prototype is
complete, TSA will conduct further analysis and make recommendations
regarding the nature and scope of Phase IV-Implementation.
EXPEDITED TRAVELER EXPANDING OVERSEAS
Question. The Department announced the creation of pilot expedited
traveler program at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, yet there has been no
decision made on expanding or making permanent the limited pilot tests
of the Registered Traveler program here in the United States. Why is
there a delay with expanding the domestic Registered Traveler program?
Answer. While both programs enhance the security of civilian
aviation, the two programs serve different purposes. The International
Register Traveler Program is intended to enhance the already-existing
requirement that CBP inspect and interview travelers seeking to enter
the United States, and the program enhances CBP's ability to make
admissibility decisions by separating out low-risk travelers. It builds
on legacy trusted traveler programs--e.g., SENTRI, NEXUS, FAST, INS
PASS. The domestic registered traveler program, by contrast, is a pilot
program to improve the aviation security screening process by helping
TSA align screeners and resources with potential risks.
Through a series of concurrent stand-alone pilots, TSA has been
aggressively testing the Registered Traveler (RT) concept of running
threat assessment and identity verification checks on eligible
volunteers in order to provide them with an expedited clearance through
security checkpoints. TSA is currently running pilot programs at five
Federally managed sites (Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, and
Washington, D.C.), which are scheduled to be completed in September
2005. TSA has also worked with the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority
(GOAA) to launch a pilot at Orlando International Airport that is
assessing the feasibility of incorporating a private sector component
into the RT concept.
Results of these pilots will be analyzed to determine the program's
effect on security and service, enabling the Department to make
decisions about full scale implementation of RT. Any timeline and
deployment schedule for implementing RT beyond the pilot stage will be
linked to the Department's decision.
Question. If we're not sure the domestic program is going to work--
or how exactly it should be structured--why are you starting an
international version at this time?
Answer. While both programs enhance the security of civilian
aviation, the two programs serve different purposes. The International
Register Traveler Program is intended to enhance the already-existing
requirement that CBP inspect and interview travelers seeking to enter
the United States, and the program enhances CBP's ability to make
admissibility decisions by separating out low-risk travelers. It builds
on legacy trusted traveler programs--e.g., SENTRI, NEXUS, FAST, INS
PASS. The domestic registered traveler program, by contrast, is a pilot
program to improve the aviation security screening process by helping
TSA align screeners and resources with potential risks.
Through a series of concurrent stand-alone pilots, TSA has been
aggressively testing the Registered Traveler (RT) concept of running
threat assessment and identity verification checks on eligible
volunteers in order to provide them with an expedited clearance through
security checkpoints. TSA has run pilot programs at five Federally
managed sites (Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, and
Washington, D.C.), which are scheduled to be completed in September
2005. TSA has also worked with the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority
(GOAA) to launch a pilot at Orlando International Airport that is
assessing the feasibility of incorporating a private sector component
into the RT concept.
Results of these pilots are being analyzed to determine the
program's effect on security and service, enabling the Department to
make decisions about full scale implementation of RT. Any timeline and
deployment schedule for implementing RT beyond the pilot stage will be
linked to the Department's decision.
LACK OF FUNDING FOR BORDER SECURITY
Question. During the hearing, you stated that the President's
budget for fiscal year 2006 both hires 210 new Border Patrol agents,
hires more immigration investigators and provides 1,920 new detention
bed spaces and, at the same time, provides sufficient funds to backfill
and hire the positions that were lost during the current fiscal year.
Are you guaranteeing that the budget request hires both all fiscal
year 2005 attrited Border Patrol positions and 210 new Border Patrol
agents?
Answer. The fiscal year 2005 Emergency Supplemental provides
funding for 500 additional Border Patrol agents. CBP has until the end
of fiscal year 2006 to fill these positions. However, CBP plans to hire
these positions aggressively. For fiscal year 2005, CBP will backfill
its fiscal year 2005 attrited positions and hire approximately 400 (of
the 500) additional agents.
For fiscal year 2006, the President's Budget requests 210
additional Border Patrol agents. Both House and Senate Appropriations
bills add 790 Border Patrol agents on top of this (for a total of
1,000). If enacted, CBP would hire these positions and backfill
estimated attrition (approximately 600 positions).
With that said, the total impact of the fiscal year 2005
Supplemental and the anticipated fiscal year 2006 budget will result in
1,500 new Border Patrol agents by the end of fiscal year 2006. CBP will
also hire for the backfill of attrition. CBP has the capacity to hire
and train this level.
With respect to ICE, the fiscal year 2006 President's Budget, when
combined with projected carryover balances from the fiscal year 2005
Emergency Supplemental, contains sufficient funding to support 376
fiscal year 2005 attrition hires. In addition, the fiscal year 2006
President's Budget includes an increase of $90 million to support 1,920
beds.
Question. And at what point in fiscal year 2006 will the Border
Patrol have hired and trained the same staffing level at the start of
fiscal year 2005 positions, plus the 210 new agents?
Answer. CBP ended fiscal year 2004 with 10,817 Border Patrol (BP)
agents. For fiscal year 2005, CBP plans to maintain that staffing level
as well as beginning to add the 500 new agent positions provided in the
fiscal year 2005 supplemental. For fiscal year 2006, CBP plans to add
the 210 new agents in the President's Budget and replace all attrition
positions. Hiring for the additional BP agents is a high priority.
BORDER SECURITY
Question. The Heritage Foundation's December 13, 2004 report
recommends that the Department ``conduct a national assessment of the
resources required for effective border security.'' Is this
recommendation a part of your comprehensive review of the Department
and its priorities?
Answer. The Department has been working aggressively outside of the
Second Stage Review process to assess our long-term border needs,
including the resources needed to secure substantial improvement in
control of our borders. Complimentary Second Stage Review efforts
examined needs in such areas as cargo security and passenger screening.
The Department also is developing a plan for an independent, outside
entity to examine border resource needs. All of our efforts will
coalesce into the development of a long-term border security and
immigration reform plan.
IMPACT OF REAL ID ON BACKLOG REDUCTION/WORKLOAD
Question. The House attached Rep. Sensenbrenner's REAL ID
immigration bill (H.R. 418) to the Emergency Iraqi War Supplemental.
This bill includes many of the provisions in the original House draft
of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.
Unlike some rhetorical Bush Administration amnesty, the specifics
of this legislation are known. The Administration supports the REAL ID
legislation.
If the conferees decide to include the provisions of this bill in
the Supplemental, what impact would it have on Citizenship and
Immigration Service's abilities to meet its backlog reduction goals and
what resources would be required to implement the Act?
Answer. Based upon our review, the Real ID legislation should have
no impact on the backlog elimination plan. The additional fee revenues
as a result of this legislation ensure the timely processing of these
cases.
The verification and adjudications functions of USCIS are
organizationally separate. The verification workload is handled by
Immigration Status Verifiers (ISVs) in the USCIS Records program, who
are dedicated and specially trained for that function. USCIS does not
intend to divert adjudications resources to implement the REAL ID Act.
Therefore, backlog elimination goals will not be impacted.
PASSPORT PRIVACY
Question. As the State Department is looking into the issue of
possibly embedding personal data in the next generation of U.S.
passports, what if any discussion has the Department's Privacy Officer
had with State Department officials about the protection of the privacy
of U.S. citizens?
Answer. The Chief Privacy Officer for DHS has a very good working
relationship with officials from the Department of State on matters of
mutual concern, including lost and stolen passports and appropriate
privacy notices for international travelers. While the Privacy Officer
has made her views known to the State Department on numerous privacy
matters, the precise question of how to protect personal information in
the next generation of U.S. passports is one that is being worked on
primarily by the Department of State, which has the lead authority for
matters pertaining to passports. Of course, the DHS Chief Privacy
Officer will work collaboratively with the State Department to ensure
that implementation of any decisions protect the privacy of U.S.
citizen's information.
CARGO CONTAINER SECURITY
Question. The conference report accompanying the fiscal year 2005
Appropriations Act notes that over $200 million has been spent over the
past 3 years on various projects designed to secure cargo containers
entering this country. It also calls on the Under Secretary for Border
and Transportation Security to report to the Congress no later than
February 8, 2005 on which DHS entity will have primary responsibility
for cargo container security and the setting of shipping industry
standards. To date we have not yet received that report. When can we
expect to see it?
Answer. This report was submitted to Congress on May 31, 2005.
Question. Are funds included in the President's budget request to
achieve this goal?
Answer. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget includes $138
million for the Container Security Program.
SUPPLY CHAIN AND CONTAINER SECURITY
Question. We received part one of the Supply Chain and Container
Security report required by House Report 108-541. It states that the
Container Security Initiative Division in headquarters ``is staffed
with a majority of CBP employees and a small number of ICE Special
Agents.
Please provide the total number of the CSI Division headquarters
staff and the number of those who are ICE Special Agents. Also, at
which--if any--of the overseas CSI ports do we have both an ICE and a
CBP attache?
Answer. The Container Security Initiative (CSI) Division
headquarters staff consists of 52 full time employees, four of which
are ICE Special Agents. At this time, there are no CSI ports with both
an ICE and a CBP Attache.
MERGING CBP AND ICE
Question. You currently are conducting a ``top to bottom'' review
of the Department, its structure, and its operations. Recent reports,
including a December 13, 2004 Heritage Foundation report, bemoan the
artificial division of Customs and immigration inspectors from Customs
and immigration agents and recommend that CBP and ICE be merged. What
is the status of the Department's discussion on these recommendations?
When will the Congress learn of your intentions, if any, in this
regard?
Answer. We are not merging ICE and CBP; however, we do see the need
to ensure that these organizations coordinate better. We will continue
to work closely with the leaders of ICE and CBP to improve cooperation
and coordination between these agencies. In deciding to not merge the
two agencies, we considered view points from a variety of sources,
including think tanks, as well as the Department's Inspector General,
Members of Congress, and other valuable stakeholders.
As you know, the Department looked at a variety of organizational
issues as part of the Second-Stage Review process, which helped clarify
where the Department needs to be organizationally to ensure effective
implementation of our critical missions. We considered whether ICE
should remain a stand-alone entity, and decided that it should. We
believe it's in the Department's best near and long-term interest that
ICE not be merged with another component, CBP in particular. To reach
this decision, we focused on the operational mission needs of both CBP
and ICE, not on the near-term management challenges. I take seriously
the challenges the Department has faced concerning ICE and appreciate
the difficult but necessary choices Congress has made in providing new
funding to address its needs. I am confident, however, that ICE has
made substantial improvements in financial management this year. Not
only have substantial new resources been provided, but a new management
team is taking shape.
IDENT/IAFIS
Question. The integration of the fingerprint databases created,
maintained, and used by the Department of Homeland Security and the
FBI--among other Federal agencies--continues to be a priority concern
for the Congress and the members of this Subcommittee. Border Patrol
agents daily compare the fingerprints of illegal aliens apprehended at
our borders against these databases. And Customs and Border Protection
inspectors--at a growing number of ports of entry--compare the
fingerprints of visa holders and others wishing to enter this country
against these same databases via the US VISIT system.
That is why I was concerned about the latest Department of Justice
Inspector General report on this subject. It stated that of the 118,000
visitors daily entering this country who are subject to US VISIT, an
average of about 22,350 individuals are referred for secondary
inspection.
According to DHS, by the end of this fiscal year, it expects to
directly check only about 800 individuals each day against the full FBI
fingerprint database known as the IAFIS Criminal Master File. This is
just 0.7 percent of the 118,000 daily visitors. The vast majority of
the visitors, 99.3 percent, will be checked only against the US VISIT
watch list. These persons will not be checked directly against the full
IAFIS Criminal Master File. Why is that the case? Why are so few people
being run against these valuable investigative tools?
Answer. The Department continues to work closely with the
Department of Justice to improve the integration and interoperability
of our fingerprint databases and we have established an integrated
project team. Currently, the FBI updates DHS' records with information
from a variety of criminal and threat-related databases. Based on
updates to the US VISIT system during the time period between January
2004 and the end of August 2005, officers have taken adverse action
against more than 800 individuals during US VISIT processing on entry.
In addition, integrated DHS Automated Biometric Identification System
(IDENT) and FBI Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
(IAFIS) workstations will be deployed to all POEs with significant
passenger volume, as well as to ICE locations by the end of calendar
year 2005. A report, describing plans for interoperability, was
submitted to Congress on August 18, 2005.
On July 13, 2005, I announced a decision that first-time visitors
to the United States will be enrolled in the program by submitting ten
fingerscans--a key step to achieving interoperability between IDENT/
IAFIS. We have worked with the Departments of State and Justice to
develop an implementation plan for the Initial Transition to 10 Print
Plan which addresses interoperability as well as migration to 10
fingerscans. In addition, the capability to capture 10 fingerscans will
allow us to increase accuracy for matching individuals against watch
lists and previous enrollment records; improve DHS's ability to match
enrollees against latent prints; and allow DHS to focus more time and
attention on individuals who might be potential risks to the country.
Question. The Conference Report accompanying the fiscal year 2005
Homeland Security Appropriations Act directs the Department to fund the
full cost associated to achieve real time interoperability with the US
VISIT system. Yet there does not appear to be any funding in the budget
to either establish real time interoperability of the DHS and Justice
fingerprint databases, or an expansion of the current DHS system of
capturing 2-fingerprints versus movement towards a 10-print system.
Why is there no specific funding in the budget to improve the
interoperability of IDENT/IAFIS and US VISIT?
Answer. On July 13, 2005, I announced a decision that visitors to
the United States will be enrolled in the US VISIT program by
submitting 10 fingerscans. DHS is working with the Departments of State
and Justice to develop an implementation plan that will address
interoperability as well as migration to 10 fingerscans and cost
estimates.
There are several different ongoing efforts to bring about
interoperability between the IDENT/IAFIS systems. Integrated IDENT/
IAFIS capabilities were deployed to all Border Patrol stations ahead of
schedule in fiscal year 2004 and additional deployment to all POEs with
significant passenger volume and ICE offices will be completed by the
end of calendar year 2005. The US VISIT program will use $9.3 million
of fiscal year 2005 resources to complete the deployment of IDENT/IAFIS
access configuration at 115 airports, 15 seaports, and 165 land border
POEs, as well as to specific ICE locations.
The fiscal year 2006 budget request includes resources for improved
interoperability and the integrated project team will develop cost
estimates for primary integration and development associated with
IDENT/IAFIS interoperability as it develops its plan.
IDENT/IAFIS INTEGRATION
Question. In the Department's ``2004 Year End Review'', it is noted
that the Integrated Automated Fingerprint System (IAFIS) was
operational at all Border Patrol stations 3 months ahead of schedule.
This is a positive first step. However, nowhere in the report does the
Department discuss the progress at fully integrating the IAFIS and
IDENT fingerprint databases. The statement of managers accompanying the
conference report on the fiscal year 2005 Appropriations Act discusses
at length the strong congressional interest having these databases
fully integrated. In fact, this was a topic that generated much
bipartisan discussion during one of our hearings last year. Chairman
Gregg again stressed its importance during our hearing with you this
year.
Integration has also been the subject of at least three Department
of Justice inspector general reports.
Who in the Department has the lead on this subject?
Answer. The US VISIT Program, working closely with DHS components
such as CBP and ICE, and the Departments of Justice and State, leads
the efforts for full IDENT/IAFIS interoperability within the
Department.
Question. What is the timeline for accomplishing this integration
and how much will it cost?
Answer. DHS (US VISIT) and FBI/CJIS have established an IPT to
address the policy, business requirements, and technical aspects of
integrating IDENT and IAFIS. This IPT has made significant progress in
resolving many of the long-standing issues originally referenced by the
DOJ Office of the Inspector General. A report, describing plans for
interoperability, was submitted to Congress on August 18, 2005.
Question. Are sufficient/any funds included in the President's
budget request for this activity?
Answer. The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice will
develop future budgets to support any necessary level of funding for
IDENT/IAFIS interoperability.
VEHICLE FLEET MANAGEMENT REPORT
Question. Senate Report 108-280 required the submission by February
8, 2005 of a vehicle fleet management report. That report has yet to be
submitted. It is difficult for the Congress to provide funds for new
and replacement vehicles when we have little confidence that decisions
to purchase these vehicles are being made in a methodical and reasoned
manner. When can we expect to receive this overdue report? Also, please
break out by type/category of vehicle the funds requested in the budget
for new and replacement vehicles for the various CBP entities.
Answer. The requested report is now being reviewed and will be
submitted to Congress as soon as possible. The type and number of
vehicles to be purchased will be based on the operational priorities of
the Border Patrol in fiscal year 2006.
AMO FLEET MODERNIZATION PLAN
Question. House Report 108-541 required submission of a report on
the costs and benefits associated with a service life extension program
of the P-3 Orion aircraft 30 days after enactment of the act. To date
we have not received this report. Please provide us with this report as
well as the status of Air and Marine Operations long-term procurement
plan for new and replacement air and marine assets, including P-3.
Answer. A technical and operational review of responses received in
reply to the CBP Request for Information (RFI) issued on February 28,
2005, has been completed. This review concluded that while there are
viable alternatives to either replace or remanufacture the CBP/AMO P-3
fleet, this effort should be part of a formal acquisition process
associated with CBP/AMO's overall modernization initiative. CBP's long-
term modernization plan will be developed as a component of the CBP air
asset integration study to be completed in the summer of fiscal year
2005.
APHIS--FOOD SAFETY INSPECTORS
Question. Since the announcement of the creation of the Department,
I have been concerned that ``core'' missions of the various legacy
agencies would get lost because of the new Department's primary focus
on homeland security. One area of concern is agriculture inspection
operations at our borders.
Border inspection responsibilities, including 2,500 frontline
inspectors, were transferred from the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) to DHS in March of 2003.
According to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture Inspector
General report, APHIS could not assure that the DHS process for
agriculture inspection operations contains adequate controls to
safeguard U.S. Agriculture against entry of foreign pests and disease.
It also noted that there was a reported 32 percent drop in the number
of pest inspections following the transfer to DHS. What is the
Department doing to correct this?
Answer. The effort to bring up the number of CBP agricultural
specialists to the level transferred from APHIS is a priority and CBP
has made significant progress. According to the Determination Order
that actually transferred personnel from APHIS, 1,872 agricultural
specialists including canine were sent to DHS CBP. Of these positions,
316 were vacancies. In fiscal year 2005, the hiring of additional
Agriculture Specialists is a priority. The USDA Professional
Development Center (PDC), the APHIS entity responsible for training new
CBP agricultural specialists, has scheduled 20 classes from May 2004
through February 2006. Seven classes have graduated as of April 22,
2005, with 203 graduates deployed to 62 POEs. It is projected that CBP
will have 500 graduates by February 2006.
In addition to training more agricultural specialists, under CBP's
``One Face at the Border'' initiative, all CBP Officers at the POEs are
used to perform the vast number of functions that CBP is charged with
carrying out. In terms of agricultural inspections, CBP officers are
being cross-trained, learning basic agriculture procedures for the land
border, mail, cargo, maritime, and air passenger pathways to increase
the value of referrals and supplement the work of the Agriculture
specialists.
CBP has noticed that several positive developments have resulted in
a greater level of compliance in agricultural importations. Offshore
mitigation strategies by APHIS to minimize the number of pests even
reaching the United States are working. CBP, in conjunction with APHIS,
has entered into several programs, such as a targeted program for
imported cut flowers that decreased the number of inspections because
the scientific data indicates that such commodities pose a much lower
risk to American agriculture. During the same period, interceptions of
prohibited animal by-products went up by 26 percent and prohibited meat
and poultry by 6 percent.
In summary, as the vacancies are filled with newly trained
specialists, CBP will create a sufficient workforce of agricultural
specialists to target and intercept prohibited material, and report all
insects found in CBP seizures. When this occurs, the interception rate
will more precisely reflect the true level of CBP efforts. CBP has
asked USDA to supply additional insect pest detection training at POEs
based on the specific pest pathways of concern.
Question. Is the Department working with APHIS to establish a
method to coordinate information regarding inspections?
Answer. DHS-CBP has been working with and coordinating with USDA-
APHIS in numerous ways to synchronize and verify information and data
collected about inspections. The following are some of the ways CBP and
APHIS have worked together.
Joint Quality Assurance (QA) Program
--CBP and APHIS have formed a joint QA team and began conducting port
reviews together.
--QA reviews will assist the Directors, Field Operations and improve
our credibility among agricultural stakeholders.
--CBP's Agricultural Inspections Policy and Programs (AIPP) conducted
successful Joint APHIS QA reviews at the Port of Philadelphia,
December 7 and 8, 2004, and the Port of Miami, April 18-22,
2005.
--Plans and dates are being developed to conduct Joint QA reviews
once a month for the remainder of fiscal year 2005.
--The QA team produces recommendations that are conveyed to CBP
management for consideration and action.
Creation of selectivity criteria and rule sets for agricultural
targeting
--CBP AIPP and APHIS are working together to develop rule sets for
targeting and prevention of Agro/Bio Terrorism.
--Plans are in place to hire two CBP Agriculture Specialists to be
assigned to the National Targeting Center (NTC).
--CBP assisted APHIS in the placement of one employee at the NTC to
target and help prevent Agro/Bio Terrorism.
--CBP has engaged and included APHIS in discussions about developing
selectivity criteria for agricultural products.
USDA access to CBP databases
--CBP has been instrumental in negotiating an agreement with USDA to
share data and databases between the agencies.
--CBP has granted access for certain USDA offices to relevant CBP
databases.
--The combination of USDA databases and CBP databases and electronic
systems will add to our capability to measure agricultural risk
worldwide, target, develop new rule sets, and build CBP's
expertise and capacity for early threat detection.
Communications within CBP
--CBP is making efforts to redesign and improve the Agriculture
Inspection section of the cbp.gov website to be an effective
means of communication within CBP.
--The intranet site, cbp.net, is being redesigned to highlight joint
actions and important efforts with USDA/APHIS.
--CBP uses a system of alerts and musters as well as other CBP
systems to notify the ports of issues of immediate concern.
Joint Operations with USDA--Measurement Driven Special Operations
(MDSO)
--Fifty joint MDSO's are proposed for the remainder of fiscal year
2005.
Management Inspection Division (MID)
--CBP used the MID to establish audit protocols that target mission
critical agriculture functions.
--Planning inspections at JFK, Miami, Los Angles and Newark
International Airports: International Mail, Pest Interceptions
(Cargo), Pest Interceptions (PAX), Cargo Control (Agriculture),
Agriculture Quarantine Inspection Monitoring (AQIM).
--Proposed MID Inspections at Port Elizabeth, Baltimore, and Buffalo:
AQIM.
--Proposed MID Inspections Nogales, El Paso, Blaine, and Puerto Rico:
AQIM.
Self-Inspection Reporting System (SIRS)
--CBP AIPP also uses the SIRS to monitor the agricultural program and
to identify areas for improvement.
--CBP AIPP has developed self-inspection worksheets based on Office
of Field Operations (AIPP) policies based on USDA regulations,
rules, policies, and needs.
--For example, worksheets target Data Management, Cargo Control, Pest
Exclusion, International Mail, and Clearance of Conveyances.
Question. The report claims that the Department has denied APHIS
access to port locations when access was requested, even to perform
duties for which APHIS still has regulatory responsibility. Is this
true and, if so, why was this access denied?
Answer. CBP and USDA-APHIS have forged a new working relationship
and resolved many of the earlier port access issues. CBP and USDA
employees are working together cooperatively and sharing resources. CBP
has worked with USDA to achieve the appropriate level of access to the
POEs for their personnel. As Congress has provided, the inspectional
functions were transferred from USDA to CBP. CBP has set forth
procedures that have facilitated USDA gaining access to the ports to
perform their functions.
CBP and USDA-APHIS signed in February 2005 Appendix 8 to Article 8
of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between DHS and the USDA. The MOA
establishes and enhances coordinated actions and operations between the
two agencies and responds to many of the issues raised in the OIG
report.
Question. The report also states that APHIS and the Food Safety and
Inspection Service (FSIS) do not require DHS to notify FSIS of all
incoming shipments, which could allow the shipments to bypass FSIS re-
inspection. Is this correct and, if so, why?
Answer. DHS and USDA are currently developing a MOA to address the
data needs of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) as well as
other USDA agencies.
In conjunction with FSIS, CBP has developed rule sets within our
targeting systems to assist with the notification process. CBP and FSIS
meet once a week to discuss food safety issues and FSIS has assigned an
employee to work at CBP 2 days a week as a liaison. CBP is working very
closely with FSIS to make sure that they are properly notified about
arriving meat shipments. USDA and FSIS are also working together to
update USDA manuals that would require notification of such shipments
to FSIS.
Question. Has the Department provided adequate data on staffing
levels and deployment of agriculture inspectors to APHIS for
evaluation?
Answer. We are unaware of any formal APHIS request for such
information nor what type of evaluation is contemplated by the
question. However, CBP shares data concerning staffing levels and
deployment of CBP agriculture inspection personnel with APHIS regarding
training needs for newly hired CBP agriculture specialists in
cooperation with CBP and is thus aware of the numbers of new hires.
CBP and APHIS also conduct joint QA port reviews that explore
staffing as a standard element. APHIS has identifiers and other
personnel at the ports that can verify the staffing levels.
PULSED FAST NEUTRON ANALYSIS
Question. On April 13, 2005, my staff received a report regarding
the PFNA program called for by House Report 108-280. This overdue, four
paragraph report stated that the contractor testing of this program,
which was supposed to have begun in June 2004, been completed by
October 2004, with a report issued by December 2004, has ``set a firm
date of April 18, 2005, for the test to begin.'' That date has now
passed. Did the test start on April 18, 2005? If not, when did or will
the test begin? Can you confirm that ``the testing will be completed by
August 19, 2005, and (that) the test report should reach Congress by
November 2005''?
Answer. The operational evaluation of the Pulsed Fast Neutron
technology commenced on May 2, 2005, and is scheduled to run for 4
months. An evaluation of the test is expected to be issued in November
2005.
USE OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES
Question. I understand that the Department has issued a Request for
Information to private industry to determine the capability and
availability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems for use in border
control and enforcement. What is the deadline for industry response?
Answer. The RFI for the UAVs was issued on April 13, 2005, and
responses were due on April 29, 2005. CBP received 14 responses.
Question. Have you engaged in a dialogue with the private sector
about your needs and requirements in this area?
Answer. As noted above, CBP initiated dialogue with the private
sector on UAV capabilities and CBP performance requirements through the
RFI.
Question. Do you plan to engage in down select and fly-off between
competing systems?
Answer. We do not plan to engage in fly-offs between competing
systems during down select for the following reasons: the time
constraint to establish an Initial Operating Capability (IOC) in fiscal
year 2005 does not allow for this, market research resulted in a
decision to procure mature commercial off the shelf technology, the
development of a refined CBP UAV Performance Specification clearly
outlines system requirements, and the RFI included the CBP Performance
Specification.
Question. When do you expect a Request for Proposal to come forward
and what is the target date to begin acquisition of a system?
Answer. CBP released a Pre-solicitation notice on May 10, 2005,
that was followed by an RFP on June 21, 2005, which closed on July 20,
2005. CBP is in the process of evaluating proposals and anticipates a
contract award on or about August 29, 2005.
Question. During the period June through September, 2004, there was
a pilot program that successfully demonstrated the value of UAVs under
the Arizona Border Control Initiative. What were the results of that
demonstration and will the lessons learned be incorporated into the
Department's long-term acquisition strategy?
Answer. The pilot program demonstrated that the UAVs had some
operational effectiveness, but will require further evaluation to
determine its optimal deployment. Some of the evaluation criteria were
incorporated into the Request for Proposals issued for the purchase of
UAVs for CBP. Lessons learned have been incorporated into both the
present and long-term DHS acquisition strategies.
Question. I understand that one of the lessons learned from last
summer's pilot program was that the initial speed to ``get something
flying'' resulted in some inefficiencies in operation of the system
(such as the location of where it was operated and the limited hours it
was able to fly) which might have been avoided with proper planning.
Are things like this being taken into consideration as you move forward
with the program?
Answer. Yes, the lessons learned from the pilot program are being
considered as we move forward with the present acquisition. Much
attention is being focused on system acquisition, operational
procedures and UAV basing to afford DHS the best solution to
effectively meet our requirements.
Question. In view of the continuing flood of illegal aliens across
the Southwestern Border and the reported success demonstrated with the
2004 UAV program, why hasn't the Department used the $10 million
Congress appropriated for UAVs in fiscal year 2005 to restart the
demonstration program as an effective enforcement and learning tool
while the long term UAV program is developed?
Answer. The Department has evaluated the lessons learned from the
two prior UAV deployments and has established UAV requirements that,
although mindful of other DHS users, meet CBP's specific needs. A
request for proposals was issued in June 2005, and follows the request
for information that closed on April 29th. The $10 million in fiscal
year 2005 is to be used for a UAV acquisition and subsequent deployment
of a UAV system that will serve as the DHS UAV initial operating
capability along the Southern border this fiscal year. In the interim,
CBP has deployed a Cessna 206 and two Piper Cheyenne airplanes (all
equipped with electro optical and infrared sensors) to the Arizona
desert to adequately provide aerial surveillance until CBP can acquire
and field its own UAVs.
As noted above, DHS is in the midst of a systems-level review of
its border control architecture to identify the right mix of personnel,
technology and infrastructure to help achieve effective control of the
border.
Question. If it chose to do so, how soon could the Department
restart that demonstration?
Answer. Since all necessary support requests have since expired,
CBP would have to re-negotiate Letters of Procedure with all other
airspace managers, a Request for Assistance from the Department of
Defense (DOD) to allow us the use of Ft. Huachuca's facilities and
logistics, and a Certificate of Authorization issued by the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow UAVs to operate in the National
Airspace System. The earliest the demonstration could be restarted is
60 days from deciding to do so.
DHS ``BRANDING'' NOT COMPLETED
Question. The Department claims great success with some of its
systems integration, including that of its legacy e-mail systems.
However, my staff was surprised to learn that one legacy agency--the
Federal Protective Service (which transferred over in its entirety from
the General Services Administration)--still uses ``gsa.gov'' for its e-
mails as opposed to the DHS ``branded'' ``dhs.gov''. What is most
troubling is that the FPS must continue to pay GSA for its e-mail
services while also being billed by DHS (or ICE) for these same
services--which it is not receiving. Why is there a delay in fully
integrating FPS into the Department's operations?
Answer. Fiscal year 2005 resources were committed early in the year
to expedite the conversion, which was over 80 percent complete as of
March 31, 2005. The remaining Federal Protective Service (FPS)
locations were converted by August 19, 2005.
Question. How much has FPS had to pay to GSA for this service this
fiscal year to date?
Answer. Fiscal year 2005 GSA charges for FPS information technology
support through August 1, 2005, totaled $5,837,498. All FPS offices
with the exception of FPS HQ have been converted to the DHS Network.
FPS Headquarters is scheduled to relocate from GSA (18th/F) to ICE
Headquarters as of August 22, 2005. FPS will reimburse ICE OCIO for
services provided.
Question. Since the Department has made claims that all agencies
are on the same e-mail system, will the FPS be ``made whole'' or
otherwise reimbursed as a result of these double payments?
Answer. The FPS will fund conversion costs to the DHS email system.
FPS has not made, nor will it make, double payments.
C-TPAT
Question. In your statement for the record you say that C-TPAT is
due for an increase of $8.2 million and that these funds ``will be used
to enhance our ability to conduct additional supply chain security
validations.'' Is that the sole purpose for the increase, or will the
program also be expanded with these funds?
Answer. CBP intends to use these funds to support the validation
process.
Staffing for this program was significantly increased in fiscal
year 2005 (120 new positions provided for conducting validations),
which will allow CBP to conduct validations of all high-risk supply
chains. An aggressive hiring drive to recruit permanent Supply Chain
Specialists (SCSs) is underway, and CBP anticipates having 100
permanent SCSs on board at the end of fiscal year 2005. Additionally,
CBP has trained 38 field officers to help with the initiation of
validations.
As of August 15, 2005, the C-TPAT program has completed validations
of 16 percent of certified members, and has validations underway on
another 36 percent of certified members.
As of August 15, 2005, the C-TPAT program has over 9,700
applicants, of which 5,174 have been accepted and are certified. With
an average of 2,000 to 3,000 new applicants each year, C-TPAT
anticipates continued program growth and expansion through fiscal year
2006 and beyond.
Question. Please describe the ``security validations'' that will be
conducted with the proposed increase.
Answer. Validations begin with a domestic corporate meeting.
Foreign site visits typically include a corporate meeting with foreign
manufacturer corporate personnel, and a tour of appropriate
manufacturing, shipping/consolidation and port facilities. Validations
conclude with a close out meeting between CBP SCSs and the certified
member's Point(s) of Contact(s). The Validation Report issued by the
CBP SCS contains sections on Findings, Recommendations and Best
Practices.
CBP initiates validations based on risk, using a quantitative risk
assessment tool to identify certified members with high-risk supply
chains. CBP uses a validation selection methodology that relies upon
quantifiable data coupled with an objective assessment of the submitted
security profile to determine the top priorities for validations.
Validation resources are then directed accordingly.
CBP uses a risk-based approach to validate the security
enhancements that have been committed to by C-TPAT members, to evaluate
the status and effectiveness of key security measures in the
participant's profile, and make recommendations where appropriate. In
particular, CBP is placing emphasis on the importer and carrier
sectors, and has modified its validation approach to maximize resources
and increase efficiencies, such as validating multiple foreign
suppliers within a geographic proximity.
Moreover, CBP has enhanced its ability to record and measure
validation results by developing the Automated Validation Assessment
Tool, which is an electronic questionnaire that automatically scores
and weighs the findings of the Supply Chain Specialist to produce an
overall assessment of the supply chain security measures in place. Any
identified weaknesses must be corrected in order to retain program
benefits.
Once the Validation is completed, the C-TPAT partner's role in the
process continues as follows:
--Communication on supply chain security issues continues with CBP
and the assigned SCS;
--Continual self-assessments of supply chain and security processes
and procedures are performed;
--A pro-active approach is maintained with regard to supply chain
security and membership in C-TPAT.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Question. I am concerned that illegal immigrants continue to find
new ways into this country. I understand that since the Navy stopped
training and steaming in Vieques, Puerto Rico that there has been a
surge of illegal immigrants coming to the United States through the
Eastern Caribbean into Puerto Rico. What are you doing to close this
gap?
Answer. CBP arrest statistics do not substantiate a surge of
illegal immigrants through the Eastern Caribbean.
The Office of Border Patrol has one Station and Sector located in
Ramey, Puerto Rico. This Sector and Station are located on the Western
side of Puerto Rico and respond to their primary threat, which is
illegal smuggling through the Mona Passage from the Dominican Republic.
Ramey Sector has integrated its Intelligence Unit with other DHS
partners to monitor traffic in its area of operation. The Ramey Border
Patrol Sector enjoys a cooperative relationship with the U.S. Coast
Guard and local Puerto Rican Maritime Police Forces (FURAS). The Coast
Guard, Puerto Rican Police, CBP's Air and Marine Office all cooperate
on interdictions and landings and share intelligence in a timely
manner.
Question. Has there been an increase in the number of illegal alien
interdictions or other evidence of an increased flow of illegal aliens
to Puerto Rico or Florida from the Eastern Caribbean?
Answer. As noted above, CBP arrest statistics do not indicate that
there is an increase in alien apprehensions from countries located in
the Eastern Caribbean area or an increase in the flow of illegal aliens
from the Eastern Caribbean to Puerto Rico and Florida.
Question. What is the status of discussions to open a Border Patrol
Substation in the U.S. Virgin Islands?
Answer. CBP's priority mission is to prevent the entry of
terrorists and terrorist weapons into the United States, and agency
resources are allocated on the basis of risk assessment. The Northern
Border represents a significant terrorist risk due to the presence of
terrorist groups within Canada. In addition, aliens from special
interest countries have been apprehended crossing the Southern Border
using traditional alien smuggling routes. These indicators have to date
not been manifested in the Caribbean. Therefore, although CBP continues
to work closely with the U.S. Coast Guard to detect and interdict alien
and drug smuggling activity in the Caribbean, CBP has not deployed
additional resources in the area. CBP's Office of Intelligence is
currently conducting a comprehensive risk analysis of the Caribbean,
which will form the basis for making a future decision regarding the
location of Border Patrol stations in the region.
COLLECTION OF ANTIDUMPING AND COUNTERVAILING DUTIES
Question. Senate Report 108-280 included specific language that
directed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to submit a report to the
House and Senate Appropriations Committees by February 8, 2005. The
report was to provide a coordinated plan, including legislative or
regulatory changes proposed by CBP, if necessary, to increase CBP's
collection of antidumping and countervailing duties owed to the United
States. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet received that
report. Will the report be delivered prior to the Subcommittee marking
up the fiscal year 2006 bill in June?
Answer. The report was sent to the Committee on July 7, 2005.
Question. On December 17, 2004, Customs and Border Protection
issued its regular Annual Report on the Combined Dumping and Subsidy
Offset Act (CDSOA). The Annual Report described how hundreds of
millions of dollars in duties are not being collected by Customs, and
the agency has been unable to explain why it cannot collect these
funds. In fiscal year 2003, the agency failed to collect $130 million
in duties owed the United States under the U.S. antidumping and
countervailing duty laws, and CBP failed to collect an additional $260
million in fiscal year 2004. The majority of that $390 million is the
result of uncollected duties on goods imported from China.
What is CBP doing to solve this problem?
Answer. CBP disburse annually all antidumping duties available from
entries that have been finally liquidated to domestic petitioners. The
disbursements are made within 60 days of the end of the fiscal year.
CBP recognizes that imports of antidumping merchandise pose a
financial risk to domestic industry. We share the concern regarding the
lack of funds available for disbursement to domestic petitioners of
antidumping duties. Therefore, CBP has instituted several aggressive
actions to mitigate the collection risks going forward. We have a high
degree of confidence that for entries received after the initiation of
these new measures, the collection rate will improve.
--Amendment to the Continuous Bond Guidelines.--As of July 9, 2004,
CBP has increased the continuous bond amount for importers of
agriculture/aquaculture products subject to antidumping cases.
The bonds will be set at a much higher rate, providing
additional coverage in the event that an importer defaults. The
new and proactive approach by CBP will provide the highest
level of protection against default and directly addresses
instances where the final liquidation rate is much higher than
the initial deposit rate made at time of entry.
--Integration With Other Agencies.--CBP has recently begun working
with the Department of Treasury to address the financial risks
associated with sureties. Treasury conducts quarterly solvency
evaluations of sureties and provides approval of the sureties
to write customs bonds. By working together, we have developed
a mechanism by which CBP can provide Treasury with data about
sureties that are heavily weighted in ``high-risk''
transactions, such as antidumping. Treasury will incorporate
this information in their solvency evaluation to mitigate the
risk of surety bankruptcy. In addition, CBP is closely working
with the Department of Commerce to find workable solutions to
the challenges we face in collecting antidumping duty.
--Increased Monitoring of Imports.--CBP has taken measures to
increase the monitoring of entries of agriculture/aquaculture
products subject to antidumping duties. This monitoring
provides a means to ensure compliance with bonding
requirements, aids in the identity of surety risks, and helps
thwart circumvention attempts. The closer scrutiny allows CBP
to quickly identify new importers, particularly sham or shell
companies. The monitoring provides CBP with the opportunity to
raise bonds on these entities at once. By stepping up the
monitoring of agriculture/aquaculture imports, CBP is also in a
position to recognize shifts in patterns that may indicate
circumvention attempts.
We believe that the new bonding methodology, working with other
agencies, and closely monitoring imports will have a positive impact on
the collections of antidumping duty, making more funds available for
disbursement to the domestic industry.
CBP has taken a number of steps to ensure that the appropriate
antidumping and/or countervailing duty (AD/CVD) revenue is collected.
CBP has initiated centralization of all AD/CVD continuous bond activity
for the bond program under the Revenue Division, Office of Finance,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Indianapolis, Indiana. This
establishes more uniform, consistent and effective management of
continuous bonds involving AD/CVD. Also, AD/CVD bond formulas have been
amended with an objective to minimize AD/CVD revenue losses as a result
of bond insufficiency. The first commodity subject to this new bonding
formula is shrimp.
Question. Why is this problem of non-collection growing, and what
is CBP doing to address it?
Answer. Final liquidation for AD/CVD occurs several months,
sometimes years after actual entry of the merchandise. The significant
increase in uncollected antidumping duties seen in fiscal year 2003
reflected the first series of liquidation instructions for cases
covering the types of merchandise we now understand to be problematic
for collection; agriculture/aquaculture merchandise. These liquidation
instructions covered entries going back as far as 1997 and 1998. The
increase in uncollected antidumping duties in fiscal year 2004 reflects
the growth in imports that was seen in years after the initiation of
the cases, particularly the crawfish case. CBP is confident that
collection rates will increase for entries received after the
implementation of the measures highlighted in above.
CBP has taken several measures to maximize collection of AD/CVD
revenue. Continuous bonds covering new AD/CVD merchandise are being
managed as a part of the overall centralization of continuous bonds at
the Revenue Division, Office of Finance, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection in Indianapolis, Indiana. Also, AD/CVD bond formulas have
been amended with an objective to minimize AD/CVD revenue losses from
bond insufficiency. However, uncollected revenue will occur as a result
of entry activity during years prior to affecting these new measures.
As an example, although the Revenue Division has processed over 25,000
continuous bonds from the beginning of the centralization effort that
began August 12, 2003, not one bond has been subject to a collection
action. Collection action is dependent on liquidation of the formal
entry summaries covered by the bond. Liquidations may occur up to
several years following the initial entry date. In addition, the
amended AD/CVD bonding formula currently covers only shrimp.
Question. In past correspondence with my office, Commissioner
Bonner indicated that CBP supported legislation that Senator Cochran
and I introduced in the last Congress--and that we have reintroduced in
the 109th Congress--to solve this problem of non-collection. That
legislation, which passed the Senate unanimously last year, would
require cash deposits instead of bonds in certain antidumping reviews.
Would you be willing to express your support for this legislation
directly to House Ways & Means Chairman Bill Thomas and other Members
of the Congress, including the House leadership?
Answer. The Department and CBP are taking steps necessary to
collect appropriate duties and provide appropriate funds to U.S.
companies and workers through the Continued Dumping Subsidy Offset Act
(CDSOA) disbursements. We agree that cash deposits in lieu of single-
entry bonds may provide greater coverage and are less of an
administrative burden. We are taking steps to provide greater security
for the collection of AD/CVD within the framework of existing
legislation, and are working with the Department of Commerce to apply
more innovated methods to address these and other risks from imports
subject to antidumping and countervailing orders. We look forward to
continuing to work with Congress on ways to improve our performance in
this area.
Question. As mentioned previously, in the past, U.S. industries
like the U.S. crawfish industry have discovered only very late in the
year that millions of dollars of antidumping duties for some reason
have not been collected in their cases against Chinese imports as
required by law. And, because CBP's failure to collect these duties has
been discovered late in the year, the non-collection problem in these
cases could not be addressed in time to enable the industries to obtain
their yearly distribution of funds under the CDSOA. As a consequence,
the U.S. crawfish industry, for example, last year failed to receive at
least $54.4 million it otherwise would have received in duties paid the
U.S. Government by Chinese importers. It is my understanding that CBP's
Office of Information Technology (OIT) is fully capable of running an
already existing program much earlier in each calendar year, (meaning
by the end of March at the latest), which would enable both CBP and
U.S. industries to learn, much earlier, if millions of dollars in
duties are not being collected by CBP from U.S. importers of foreign,
dumped products.
Why can't CBP's OIT determine by the end of this month if there are
cases in which CBP is not collecting duties owed the U.S. Government
and make that information publicly available as early as possible?
Answer. CBP has responded to the revenue risk posed by the
inability to collect certain AD/CVD duties through several means, one
of which is the monitoring the AD/CVD bills and collections on a more
regular basis. For the distribution of these funds to take place
timely, it is necessary not only to monitor the timely collection of
AD/CVD duties but also to ensure our revenue collection system is
protected from possible circumvention and corporate solvency schemes
designed to enter AD/CVD goods into the U.S. market with the intention
of never paying the proper duties at time of liquidation.
On a monthly basis, CBP is performing a risk-based review of
outstanding bills for AD/CVD duties. The information has proven
effective in identifying high-risk companies for AD/CVD evasion as well
as improves the timeliness of our reviews. CBP is also focused on the
long-term issue of the company's financial solvency and their ability
to pay outstanding AD/CVD bills. The continuous bond guidelines for
imports of certain agriculture/aquaculture imports were amended in July
2004 to address just such an issue. Working with the Department of
Commerce, we are addressing the AD/CVD issues that pose the greatest
risk.
Question. Again, two of the problems that CBP has exhibited with
respect to its administration of the CDSOA are (1) CBP failure to
collect duties rightfully owed; and (2) its failure to pay duties
already collected in a timely fashion to eligible U.S. companies and
their workers. With respect to the second problem, CBP sometimes holds,
in what are called ``clearing accounts,'' duties that are collected
over many years--but for which the agency is awaiting final
``liquidation instructions'' from the Commerce Department prior to
distribution. Often, the Commerce Department claims that such
instructions have been sent, but CBP does not know they have been sent
or never receives them. It has been proposed that one solution to this
problem would be for CBP to publish the amount of funds held in CBP's
clearing accounts, by administrative review period, so that CBP and
Commerce can work together to determine which funds should have been
liquidated and be available for distribution to eligible U.S.
producers. CBP, in certain circumstances, has provided such information
to Members of Congress upon request, but has refused to provide such
information generally.
Will you commit to identifying (i.e., publishing) the amount of
funds held in clearing accounts by administrative review period?
Answer. The AD/CVD modules within the Automated Commercial System
(ACS) do not provide information by administrative review periods;
therefore, CBP cannot currently track entries in this manner. CBP has
provided information of this type in certain circumstances through a
manual review process. CBP is working towards including functionality
in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) to identify and track AD/
CVD data to ensure timely and accurate liquidation.
The OIG expressed concern about approximately one million entries
suspended by CBP. As a result of this finding, CBP developed a plan to
isolate those suspended entries that were beyond the normal timeframes
of an AD/CVD case. Once identified, CBP worked with the Department of
Commerce (DOC) to obtain liquidation instructions for these entries. To
date, CBP has reduced the national inventory by 80,000 entries. CBP
plans to continue to work with DOC to reduce the inventory
substantially.
In fiscal year 2005, CBP is concentrating on the liquidation of
remaining AD/CVD entries entered prior to 1995 that remain suspended.
This action will remove approximately 50,000 entries representing over
$46 million in deposits on 222 cases from the ``official'' inventory.
By the middle of fiscal year 2006, CBP plans to liquidate the remaining
50,000 or so entries.
Another reason that monies remain in the ``clearing accounts'' and
are unavailable for distribution via CDSOA is the number of protests on
bills issued by CBP. Payment of a protested bill is deferred until the
protest decision is rendered. Currently, many protests of AD/CVD
liquidations are suspended pending the final decision by the Federal
Appeal Court on International Trading.
Question. Will you commit similarly to identifying the reasons for
the lack of liquidation in cases where liquidation has not occurred for
more than 4 years, and provide specific information with respect to
those cases showing the amounts that remain unliquidated accompanied by
an explanation of CBP's understanding of why the amounts have not been
liquidated?
Answer. Again, the AD/CVD modules within the ACS do not provide
information by administrative review periods; therefore, CBP cannot
track entries this way. This functionality will be programmed into the
ACE and should be available by the end of fiscal year 2007.
STAFFING
Question. What was the CBP on-board strength (including AMO) on
September 30, 2004? What was it on March 31, 2005? Provide the same
data for the Border Patrol.
Answer. Air and Marine Operations employees were not transferred to
CBP until October 31, 2004. The attached chart therefore provides on-
board strength at two snapshots in time to reflect this transfer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 2,
2004 April 2, 2005
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total CBP staffing
CBP total............................... 40,934 41,717
Border patrol agent staffing
Border patrol Agents total \1\.......... 10,817 10,859
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ These amount are also included in the CBP totals above.
DETENTION FACILITIES
Question. One of the primary functions of the Bureau of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is to serve as this country's interior
line of defense by apprehending illegal entrants and detaining them
pending the outcome of an administrative determination of their status.
However I understand that ICE is considering closing the only secure,
non-criminal detention center in New York City--the very site of the
2001 terrorist attacks--because of an apparent decision to focus the
bulk of the agencies efforts on only identified criminal aliens and
other high-risk illegal immigrants. This concerns me greatly because I
understand that the vast majority of the individuals detained at this
New York City detention facility would be released on their own
recognizance into the New York City area.
Why is DHS proposing to close this detention facility in New York
City? Is this because of a lack of funds? Are there not enough aliens
needing to be detained which necessitates the closure of this facility?
Answer. In a continuing effort to consolidate detention capacity
where possible in order to increase operational efficiency, ICE has
decided not to exercise the next available option to extend contract
performance at the Queens CDF.
The current contract was awarded to GEO on March 27, 2002. The
Queens CDF provides detention housing and transportation of non-
criminal detainees in the custody of ICE. A significant population
designated to the Queens CDF is comprised of asylum seekers apprehended
at POEs in the New York area.
The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract includes a
guaranteed minimum detainee population of 150 ($219.02 per manday) and
a maximum capacity of 200 ($9.17 per manday exceeding 150 beds). The
contract consists of a base year and 4-1 year options, exercised at the
unilateral discretion of the government. The contract is currently
performing within Option Year 2.
A recent assessment determined that a substantial number of the
population routinely designated to the Queens CDF could be adequately
managed through a combination of bonds, orders of own recognizance,
and/or the increased use of alternatives to detention (e.g., electronic
monitoring; telephonic reporting, etc.). All non-detention options will
be applied based on established ICE standards. The remaining population
requiring detention can be consolidated into substantially lower cost
detention capacity available to ICE via commercial contracts and
agreements with local government service providers. Other efficiencies
will accrue from the consolidation of detainees, staff, the
administrative hearing process, support programs, etc. These increased
efficiencies will permit ICE to apply funds toward detaining higher
priority cases.
It should also be noted that various non-governmental organizations
have previously expressed concern regarding conditions of confinement
at the Queens facility (See February 8, 2005 CIRF report, ``Report on
Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal).
Utilizing all available options to manage the non-criminal alien
population apprehended in the New York area and consolidating the
population requiring detention into lower cost facilities, will result
in improved efficiency in the ICE detention program.
Question. I understand that ICE makes an initial determination as
to the level of risk of the illegal alien and that such a determination
often is conducted at the point of entry which, in the case of this
facility, is JFK International Airport.
How often does ICE make an initial determination that an individual
is a ``low-risk'' illegal immigrant and then, after further
investigation, determine that the individual should have been
classified as ``high-risk?''
Answer. The law enforcement databases used to track alien detention
do not allow for us to determine the number of aliens who were
initially considered ``low risk'' and are then later considered ``high
risk''. These categories are used as guidelines in making the detention
decision, but are not recorded as such in these databases.
Question. I believe these non-criminal detention facilities serve
several purposes, one of the most important of which is holding those
potentially high-risk individuals who fall through the cracks during
the initial screening and who initially are misclassified as low-risk.
Furthermore, I believe that facilities such as the one in New York City
serve a very important deterrent effect. I understand that JFK Airport
was a popular entry point for illegal immigrants prior to the opening
of this New York City detention facility.
Does DHS believe that these types of facilities serve a deterrent
effect and, more importantly, serve to catch high-risk individuals who
might slip through the initial screening process?
Answer. Detention and removal are deterrents to illegal
immigration. However, detention resources must be effectively managed
to ensure that secure capacity is available to accommodate cases
according to our detention priority continuum. It has been determined
that a substantial number of the population routinely designated to the
Queens CDF could be adequately managed through a combination of bonds,
orders of own recognizance, and/or the increased use of alternatives to
detention (e.g., electronic monitoring; telephonic reporting, etc.).
All non-detention options will be applied based on established ICE
standards. The remaining population requiring detention will be
consolidated into substantially lower cost detention capacity available
to ICE via commercial contracts and agreements with local government
service providers. Other efficiencies will accrue from the
consolidation of detainees, staff, the administrative hearing process,
and support programs. These increased efficiencies will result in
savings that can be applied to other immigration enforcement
activities.
Question. Given the importance of these types of facilities, how
can DHS justify their closure in New York City, especially when the
only other facility in the general vicinity is designed to hold
criminal aliens and which I understand operates at or near capacity?
Answer. A recent assessment determined that a substantial number of
the population routinely designated to the Queens CDF can be adequately
managed through a combination of bonds, orders of own recognizance,
and/or the increased use of alternatives to detention (e.g., electronic
monitoring; telephonic reporting, etc.). All non-detention options will
be applied based on established ICE national standards. The remaining
population requiring detention can be consolidated into substantially
lower cost detention capacity available to ICE via commercial contracts
and agreements with local government service providers. All cases
requiring detention will be designated to appropriate conditions of
confinement. Efficiencies will accrue from the consolidation of
detainees, staff, the administrative hearing process, and support
programs. ICE can use the savings from these increased efficiencies to
detain higher priority cases.
MEASURES FOR DETERMINING BUDGETS
Question. What is the ratio or other measurement by which ICE
determines how many detention beds are required in a given year? For
instance, is there a ratio or determination made such that if one
assumes that one Border Patrol agent is responsible for x apprehensions
of illegal aliens then there is a need for y detention beds? And is
there a similar ratio or measurement between the amount of bed space
required because of the investigation success rate of ICE immigration
investigators?
Answer. The Department is working aggressively to develop a
comprehensive border control strategy that responds more effectively to
alien apprehensions and the overall flow of illegal crossings. As
fundamental improvements to the system are implemented through this
strategy, we will implement systematic modeling that can more
accurately link resources with apprehensions and other measures of
demand.
WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT
Question. For Worksite Enforcement, how does ICE determine how it
will focus its resources? For example, which areas or industries will
be targeted?
Answer. Since September 11, 2001, ICE Worksite Enforcement
activities have focused primarily on removing unauthorized workers from
critical infrastructure facilities to reduce the risk of terrorist
attack from insiders. ICE Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
operations are generally initiated at the local level and are based
upon factors such as the type and number of infrastructure facilities
present in each Special Agent-in-Charge jurisdiction (seaports,
airports, military bases, defense contractors, nuclear plants, etc.)
and upon specific or general threat information received from various
intelligence sources, the general public, and from other law
enforcement agencies.
ICE Worksite Enforcement activities also target criminal employers
whose violations have a nexus to human smuggling, immigration document
or benefit fraud, and worker exploitation. The authorities being
enforced generally include one or more of the civil and/or criminal
provisions of INA 274A (Unlawful Employment of Aliens). Many criminal
employer investigations also result in the charging of violations
relating to harboring, smuggling, and document fraud. The fiscal year
2006 Budget includes an increase of $18 million and an additional 140
agents to support the Temporary Worker Program.
CYBER CRIMES
Question. For fiscal year 2005, Congress provided $4.2 million for
additional cyber crime forensic infrastructure and expansion of the
Cyber Crime Center to ICE field offices. What is the status of this
effort?
Answer. This funding provides for the creation of a wide area
storage network for the ICE Computer Forensic Program. Upon award, disk
storage arrays will be installed in four or five (final numbers are
contingent upon final pricing) ICE field offices to provide storage for
digital evidence under examination.
The ICE Cyber Crime Center has conducted a thorough market and
technical analysis and is in the final stages of making a vendor
selection.
An inter-agency agreement has been established with the U.S. Bureau
of Public Debt (BPD) to utilize their existing IT procurement vehicle
to make the contract award. The statement of work and performance work
standard documents have been forwarded to BPD on August 18, 2005. It is
anticipated that the contract will be awarded to TKC Communications of
Fairfax, VA, an Alaskan native corporation, shortly. Once awarded, site
surveys, selection, and installations will begin in earnest.
Question. Have any of these funds been obligated?
Answer. None of the $4.2 million has been obligated.
Question. Have any additional personnel been hired?
Answer. No additional personnel will be hired with the $4.2
million.
Question. To which field offices, if any, will the Center expand?
Answer. This answer contains infomrmation considered Law
Enforcement Sensitive and has been provided to the Committee under
separate cover.
PASSENGER AIR FEES
Question. The Administration's budget for DHS proposes a
significant increase to the security fee passengers pay by more than
doubling the cost for the first leg of a flight from $2.50 to $5.50.
These fee collections, if approved, would be used to pay for
approximately 83 percent of the fiscal year 2006 budget request for the
Transportation Security Administration. According to the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO), this proposal would generate $1.680 billion in
additional funding for fiscal year 2006.
Will a legislative proposal be sent to the authorizing committees
with jurisdiction over this issue, and if so, when?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 President's Budget provided a
legislative proposal to modify this fee authority. In Title V--General
Provisions, the proposal states, ``SEC. 517. In Chapter 449 of title
49, United States Code, section 44940(c) is amended by striking `$2.50'
and replacing it with `$5.50', and striking `$5.00' and replacing it
with `$8.00'.'' This modification to the fee authority would allow TSA
to implement the fee increases sought in the President's fiscal year
2006 Budget. TSA will work with the Appropriations Committees of the
House and the Senate, as well as the appropriate authorizing committees
in both bodies, to ensure enactment of the proposed security service
fee increase.
Question. Second, if the proposed fee is not approved, will the
Secretary urge the President to submit a budget amendment to fill the
$1.7 billion funding gap?
Answer. The sharing of aviation screening costs between industry,
passengers, and Government is essential to ensure that there is
sufficient funding for existing and emerging threats to the integrity
of the aviation security infrastructure. The proposed increase is
intended to shift the burden of paying aviation screening services from
the general taxpayer to the airline passenger. The Department will work
with Congress to ensure that security priorities are met.
Question. Finally, what programs and activities does the Department
propose be cut if the fee increase is not authorized by Congress?
Answer. The sharing of aviation screening costs between industry,
passengers, and Government is essential to ensure that there is
sufficient funding for existing and emerging threats to the integrity
of the aviation security infrastructure. The proposed increase is
intended to shift the burden of paying aviation screening services from
the general taxpayer to the airline passenger. The Department will work
with Congress to ensure that security priorities are met.
AIR CARGO
Question. Public Law 108-458, which was signed into law by the
President on December 17, 2004, included an authorization for $100
million in fiscal year 2006 to accelerate the development of
technologies to screen air cargo. The Administration's budget proposes
that air cargo screening technology development be funded through the
Science and Technology directorate, but funding is cut by $45 million
from last year and funding is $70 million below the amount authorized
in the Intelligence Reform Act. How is a cut of this magnitude
justified? Has there been a break through in the development of
detection technology for air cargo that justifies the proposed cut?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 President's Budget transfers $109
million in R&D funds from TSA to the S&T Directorate. Of this amount,
$29.578 million is dedicated to projects that will address air cargo
screening capabilities. TSA retains $23 million in its fiscal year 2006
request to continue analyzing EDS products emerging from the Phoenix
Phase II R&D program, piloting passenger screening projects, including
next generation trace portal and automated checkpoint EDS, continuing
EDS cargo break bulk evaluation, and conducting cargo technology field
evaluations for field experiments.
The S&T Directorate does not plan to fund consolidated air cargo
technology development outside those efforts captured by our broad R&D
program, or captured in other efforts within the directorate, such as
RFID technology, unless air cargo pilots demonstrate the need and
utility in specific cases, and focus instead on break-bulk inspection.
Given a break-bulk inspection paradigm, the same technologies being
explored for package or luggage inspection apply to cargo screening--
and thus it is straightforward to include consideration of any specific
requirements, e.g., size and throughput, into our broad R&D program.
With the fiscal year 2006 R&D funds, the S&T Directorate plans to
conduct broad R&D that is applicable across the spectrum of baggage,
package, and cargo screening. The S&T Directorate estimates that the
funding required in fiscal year 2006 to complete the assessment of the
efficacy of specific existing methodologies for particular cargo
commodities, and to test screening procedures in the laboratory would
be approximately $5 million. The Phoenix project is aimed at reducing
false alarm probabilities in EDS systems, which is clearly beneficial
to both baggage and package inspection. Other relevant RDT&E efforts
within the aviation explosives detection efforts include
nanotechnology-based sensors, CT array-based imaging (as opposed to
rotating scans), and improved trace systems. Some of the TSA R&D
projects funded in fiscal year 2005 will continue into fiscal year 2006
through completion of prototypes. These projects may continue to be
funded by the S&T Directorate if they meet certain criteria,
particularly in the area of break-bulk inspections.
Question. Public Law 108-458 authorizes $200 million per year for
TSA to improve aviation security related to the transportation of cargo
on both passenger aircraft and all-cargo aircraft. Why doesn't the
fiscal year 2006 request include additional funding for air cargo
security?
Answer. TSA's request for air cargo resources is at an appropriate
level to ensure air cargo security and recognizes non-recurring system
development costs while at the same time meeting all of the necessary
transportation security priorities.
Question. Are there plans to increase the number of inspectors?
Answer. TSA currently employs 196 cargo inspectors. Three others
have been selected and are in the final stages of the hiring process.
Question. Is TSA satisfied with 200 air cargo inspectors?
Answer. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget request is a
reflection of the resources required to ensure air cargo security and
recognizes non-recurring system development costs while at the same
time meeting all of the necessary transportation security priorities.
Going forward, TSA will evaluate the needs and resources available to
determine whether additional inspectors would be appropriate.
PRE-PACKAGED NEWS
Question. On March 16, the Washington Post printed an editorial
entitled Viewer Beware. The editorial questioned the use of government-
packaged and government funded news reports to look and sound like
regular television reports. The editorial stated ``Although this
Administration apparently isn't the first to use video news releases,
it seems more enamored of them than its predecessors. For example: A
spot commissioned by the Transportation Security Administration lauds
``another success'' in the Bush Administration's drive to strengthen
aviation security,'' which the reporter describes as ``one of the most
remarkable campaigns in aviation history.'' Unbeknownst to the viewer,
the so called reporter was no reporter at all. She was a contractor
hired by TSA. This type of pre-packaged reporting has occurred in other
agencies as well, such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) and the Department of Health and Human Services.
In every year since 1951, Congress has included a provision in the
general government appropriations act which states the following: ``No
part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be
used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not
heretofore authorized by Congress.''
In recent cases involving prepackaged news stories by ONDCP and the
Department of Health and Human Services, GAO concluded that those
prepackaged news stories violated the publicity or propaganda
prohibition. GAO did not receive a request to review the TSA story, but
it was developed in a similar manner.
The Senate recently approved by a vote of 98-0 an amendment to the
emergency supplemental to prohibit Federal funding of pre-packaged news
stories unless the story includes a notification that it was created
and funded by a Federal agency.
Do you agree that pre-packaged news segments produced by any DHS
office should include a clear notification to the audience that the
story was prepared or funded by that Federal agency?
Answer. DHS has a unique responsibility to provide Americans with
important information they can use to be prepared for disasters,
terrorist attacks or even to better navigate security procedures at our
airports and ports-of-entry. Video news releases can serve as one tool
for accomplishing this objective. We agree with the Administration's
previously articulated position that Federal agencies should be open
about their activities and that DHS-produced Video News Releases (VNRs)
should be clearly marked.
SCREENING WORKFORCE PERFORMANCE
Question. The DHS Inspector General recently released results of an
audit on Transportation Security Administration screener performance.
The IG's audit indicated that the problems will most likely persist
without greater use of new technology. The IG recommended that the TSA
administrator aggressively pursue the development and deployment of
innovations and improvements such as the backscatter x-ray and
explosive trace detection portals to help the screener workforce better
detect weapons and explosives. However, the Department's fiscal year
2006 budget actually reduces the amount of money included for Next-
Generation explosive detection systems from $54 million to $49 million
and significantly below the $100 million authorized in the Intelligence
Reform Act.
In light if the sobering results of the IG audit, how can you
justify reducing the amount of funding for the development and
deployment of innovative detection technologies?
Answer. The TSA recognizes that additional resources must be
devoted to address this critical vulnerability and improve the
effectiveness of checkpoint screening. As it relates to deployment, TSA
will have the ability to screen elevated risk passengers for explosives
at all passenger checkpoints by January 2006. TSA will devote a total
of $100 million to this initiative in fiscal years 2005 and 2006. In
fiscal year 2005 TSA received $28.3 million to field emerging
technology equipment at checkpoints. For fiscal year 2006, TSA is
requesting a total of $72 million (an increase of $43.7 million over
the fiscal year 2005 base amount) for emerging checkpoint explosives
technology. In fiscal year 2005, TSA devoted $54 million for research
and development (R&D) on Next Generation Explosives Detection Systems
(EDS). The fiscal year 2006 Budget proposes to transfer TSA's R&D
function to the S&T Directorate.
TSA SPENDING ABUSES
Question. The DHS Inspector General recently released a report that
highlighted a laundry list of disturbing financial purchases relating
to the creation of the Transportation Security Operations Center. For
instance, $252,000 was spent on artwork, $30,000 was spent on expensive
silk plants, money was used to buy leather brief cases and coffee pots,
and over $83,000 in overpayments remains unaccounted for. There are
even seven kitchens in the building for just 79 Federal employees
located there. This report follows on the heels of the IG's findings
last year that TSA provided excessive bonuses to its executives.
In response to these findings, A TSA spokesman said that ``a new
management structure'' has been put in place ``to strengthen its
acquisition program to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer
dollars.'' Please explain in detail what steps have been taken to
change TSA's management structure to prevent such abuses from
continuing.
Answer. Since its inception, TSA has worked to develop and
implement a more responsive and robust acquisition program based on
sound business management practices. The elevation of the Office of
Acquisition within the agency is a key indicator of our commitment.
Since the Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC) lease
process was initiated, the Office of Acquisition has been elevated to
the Assistant Administrator level, equivalent to the Chief Financial
Officer (CFO) rather than as a sub-program within the CFO's office. In
late 2003, the Office of Acquisition stood up an Acquisition and
Program Management Support division to focus on certifying, training,
and providing day-to-day assistance to and for TSA's program managers.
Well over 1,200 TSA employees have been trained to date in key
acquisition topics and the Program Management certification program is
robust.
At the beginning of fiscal year 2005, TSA took the following steps
to help strengthen and mature its acquisition program in four key
areas.
--Continue to support the TSA mission with efficient, expeditious,
and accurate contracts. TSA recognizes that the agency's
ability to attract, recruit, and retain qualified acquisition
personnel to support contracts is critical to fulfilling its
mission. Initial staffing in the Office of Acquisition was
barely adequate to award contracts in time to meet
Congressional deadlines, much less commence good business
processes. Over the past year, TSA has raised the Office of
Acquisition's staff ceiling by nearly 30 percent. Additionally,
a percentage of TSA's budget has been earmarked for contract
oversight, which includes support from the Defense Contract
Audit Agency and Defense Contract Management Command, and
independent contractor support.
--Significantly improve acquisition and program planning. The Office
of Acquisition is focused on strengthening the program planning
function. The office developed and now coordinates an
Investment Review Board process that drives successful program
decisions by providing direct subject matter expert support to
program managers. Additionally, the office provides direct
support to program offices to assist them in developing sound
acquisition and program strategies.
--Significantly improve program management and administration. Well-
trained, certified program managers are fundamental to robust
acquisition programs. These managers were, initially, in short
supply at TSA. To address immediate knowledge gaps in key
areas, the Office of Acquisition rolled out a set of workshops
in October 2003. In early 2004, TSA worked with DHS to
implement a Program Management certification program and the
first TSA applications were received in June of 2004. Moreover,
the Office of Acquisition developed a Management Directive
regarding acquisition planning, review, and reporting that
significantly tightens up the overall process.
--Build and mature the TSA acquisition infrastructure. TSA is focused
on these two infrastructure areas: human resources and systems.
Human Resources.--In addition to increased staff, the Office of
Acquisition is developing a longer-term strategic human capital plan to
manage recruitment and retention issues, provide for career
development, and succession planning. The plan will provide a roadmap
for strengthening the current workforce (training, communication,
professional development), as well as outline strategies to recruit
highly qualified individuals and manage attrition. Simply put, the
strategy will outline a plan to develop the right people with the right
knowledge and skills for each of TSA's acquisition programs.
Systems.--On the systems level, TSA is implementing PRISM, an
integrated finance and procurement system which will streamline and
strengthen our processes and integrate acquisition with finance and
asset management.
AIR CARRIER FEES
Question. The Government Accountability Office recently estimated
that 2000 passenger and property screening costs incurred by air
carriers was $448 million, $129 million less than what the air carriers
paid to TSA. What plan of action will be taken by TSA as a result of
GAO's estimates?
Answer. In the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005, (Public
Law 108-334) Congress directed the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) to determine how much air carriers spent on security screening in
2000--the basis for the fee imposed on airlines. GAO completed its
review and issued a report on April 18, 2005. The report concludes that
the amount of the industry-wide passenger and property screening costs
was between $425 million and $471 million, with a midpoint estimate of
$448 million. The midpoint difference between what is collected now and
what GAO indicates should be collected is $129 million. However, GAO's
estimate did not include certain cost categories (e.g.; real estate,
CAPPS, and positive bag match) due to the unavailability of information
within the timeframe provided. The cost of these items could be
significant. The TSA is currently reviewing all the findings of the
report and developing a suitable overall implementation strategy for
the air carrier fee.
SECTION 605 OF VISION 100
Question. The TSA budget proposes to defer use of allocation
formulas required by Section 605 of Vision 100. Please provide a list,
by airport, of all requests for assistance under the allocation formula
program versus funding provided via Section 605. This list should
distinguish between large hub airports, medium hub airports, and small
hub airports.
Answer. TSA has received a number of requests from airports for
funding to support construction of, or reimbursement for, in-line
checked baggage screening solutions. Below is a list of the airports
that have made these requests:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Airports that have requested
funding for an Inline System Category Notes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BWI...................................... Baltimore-Washington L ...........................
International Airport.
DCA...................................... Ronald Reagan Washington L ...........................
National Airport.
DTW...................................... Detroit International L ...........................
Airport.
EWR...................................... Newark International Airport L ...........................
FLL...................................... Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood L ...........................
International Airport.
HNL...................................... Honolulu International L ...........................
Airport.
IAD...................................... Washington-Dulles L ...........................
International Airport.
IAH...................................... George Bush Houston L ...........................
Intercontinental Airport.
JFK...................................... John F. Kennedy L ...........................
International Airport.
LGA...................................... LaGuardia Airport........... L ...........................
MCO...................................... Orlando International L ...........................
Airport.
MDW...................................... Chicago Midway International L ...........................
Airport.
MIA...................................... Miami International Airport. L ...........................
MSP...................................... Minneapolis-St. Paul L ...........................
International Airport.
OAK...................................... Metropolitan Oakland L ...........................
International Airport.
ORD...................................... Chicago O'Hare International L ...........................
Airport.
PHL...................................... Philadelphia International L ...........................
Airport.
SAN...................................... San Diego International L ...........................
Airport.
SFO...................................... San Francisco International L ...........................
Airport (reimbursement).
SLC...................................... Salt Lake City International L ...........................
Airport.
TPA...................................... Tampa International Airport. L Current in-line system
ANC...................................... Anchorage International M ...........................
Airport.
BDL...................................... Bradley International M ...........................
Airport.
BNA...................................... Nashville International M ...........................
Airport.
CLE...................................... Cleveland-Hopkins M ...........................
International Airport.
MCI...................................... Kansas City International M ...........................
Airport.
MKE...................................... General Mitchell Milwaukee M ...........................
International Airport.
OGG...................................... Kahului Airport Maui........ M ...........................
PDX...................................... Portland International M ...........................
Airport.
PVD...................................... Providence T F Green State M ...........................
Airport.
RSW...................................... Southwest Florida Fort Myers M ...........................
International Airport.
SAT...................................... San Antonio International M ...........................
Airport.
SJC...................................... San Jose International M ...........................
Airport.
SMF...................................... Sacramento International M ...........................
Airport.
SNA...................................... Orange County John Wayne M Current in-line system
Airport.
BIS...................................... Bismark Municipal Airport... N ...........................
LNK...................................... Lincoln Municipal Airport... N ...........................
ACY...................................... Atlantic City International S ...........................
Airport.
GEG...................................... Spokane International S ...........................
Airport.
GPT...................................... Gulfport-Biloxi S ...........................
International Airport.
MDT...................................... Harrisburg International S Current in-line system
Airport.
PSP...................................... Palm Springs International S
Airport.
TLH...................................... Tallahassee Regional Airport S ...........................
VPS...................................... Okaloosa Regional Airport... S ...........................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Category: small (s), medium (m), large (l) or non-hub (n).
BASE DECREASES
Question. On page 38 of the TSA budget request, there is a
reduction of $15.9 million for ``management and technology
efficiencies'' and a reduction of $53.9 million for a ``base
realignment adjustment.'' There is no additional justification or
information relating to those reductions. Provide a detailed
justification for those decreases including a list of all management
and technology efficiencies and how realigning the base saves $53.9
million.
Answer. The attached spreadsheet provides a detailed explanation of
program reductions and base adjustments that resulted in $53.9 million
in savings.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
EMERGING CHECKPOINT EXPLOSIVES TECHNOLOGY
Question. For fiscal years 2005 and 2006, provide a deployment
schedule, including the identification and cost of the technology
acquired, the manufacturer of the technology, and the airports at which
the technology has been or will be deployed.
Answer. The following list of airports (Fig. 1) will have
checkpoint Explosives Detection Trace Portals deployed by January 2006.
TSA is deploying the systems concurrently, therefore the list does not
reflect any sort of priority. The timing for deployment between now
through January 2006 will depend on the results of site surveys that
are currently underway and the production capabilities of the vendor.
TSA will be purchasing two different portals, the GE Ion Track
Entry Scan and the Smiths Sentinel, and the results of the site surveys
will help TSA determine which of the two technologies is best suited
for each of the airports listed. TSA is planning to purchase equal
numbers of each of the two products.
In fiscal year 2005, TSA received $28.3 million to field emerging
technology equipment at checkpoints. For fiscal year 2006, TSA is
requesting a total of $72 million (an increase of $43.7 million over
the fiscal year 2005 base amount) for emerging checkpoint explosives
technology.
In support of checked baggage screening, the following list of
airports (Fig. 2) will have the Reveal Technologies CT-80 deployed by
January 2006. Like the checkpoint Explosives Trace Detection Portal,
TSA's intent is to deploy the CT-80s concurrently, therefore this list
does not reflect any sort of priority. The timing for deployment
between now through January 2006 will depend on the results of site
surveys that are currently underway and the production capabilities of
the vendor. Consistent with the direction provided in the Homeland
Security Appropriations Act, 2005, $30 million will be spent for
purchase and installation of this capability.
FIG.1--EXPLOSIVES DETECTION TRACE PORTALS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Airport
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATL....................................... Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
International
BOS....................................... Boston Logan International
BWI....................................... Baltimore/Washington
International
CLE....................................... Cleveland-Hopkins
International
CLT....................................... Charlotte/Douglas
International
CMH....................................... Port Columbus International
CVG....................................... Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky
International
DCA....................................... Ronald Reagan Washington
National
DEN....................................... Denver International
DFW....................................... Dallas/Ft. Worth
International
DTW....................................... Detroit Metropolitan Wayne
County
EWR....................................... Newark Liberty International
FLL....................................... Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood
International
HNL....................................... Honolulu International
IAD....................................... Washington Dulles
International
IAH....................................... Houston Intercontinental
IND....................................... Indianapolis International
JFK....................................... John F. Kennedy
International
LAS....................................... McCarran International
LAX....................................... Los Angeles International
LGA....................................... LaGuardia International
MCI....................................... Kansas City International
MCO....................................... Orlando International
MDW....................................... Chicago Midway International
MIA....................................... Miami International
MSP....................................... Minneapolis-St. Paul
International
OAK....................................... Metropolitan Oakland
International
ORD....................................... Chicago O'Hare International
PBI....................................... Palm Beach International
PDX....................................... Portland International
PHL....................................... Philadelphia International
PHX....................................... Phoenix/Sky Harbor
International
PIT....................................... Pittsburgh International
RDU....................................... Raleigh-Durham International
SEA....................................... Seattle-Tacoma International
SFO....................................... San Francisco International
SJU....................................... Luis Munoz Marin
International
SMF....................................... Sacramento International
SNA....................................... John Wayne Airport-Orange
County
STL....................................... Lambert-St. Louis
International
TPA....................................... Tampa International
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIGURE 2.--REVEAL TECHNOLOGIES CT-80
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Airport
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABE....................................... Lehigh Valley International
ACY....................................... Atlantic City International
ALB....................................... Albany International
BGR....................................... Bangor International
BIL....................................... Billings Logan International
BTV....................................... Burlington International
CHS....................................... Charleston AFB/International
ELP....................................... El Paso International
EYW....................................... Key West International
FAI....................................... Fairbanks International
GPT....................................... Gulfport-Biloxi
International
GSP....................................... Greenville-Spartanburg
International
HGR....................................... Hagerstown Regional-Richard
A Henson Field
HPN....................................... Westchester County
HSV....................................... Huntsville International-
Carl T Jones Field
ISP....................................... Long Island MacArthur
LGB....................................... Long Beach/Daugherty Field
MRY....................................... Monterey Peninsula
OMA....................................... Eppley Airfield
ORF....................................... Norfolk International
PIE....................................... St. Petersburg-Clearwater
International
RNO....................................... Reno/Tahoe International
ROC....................................... Greater Rochester
International
SWF....................................... Stewart International
SYR....................................... Syracuse Hancock
International
TYS....................................... McGhee Tyson
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Has the checkpoint technology that has been deployed been
verified by the Science & Technology Directorate?
Answer. TSA works closely with the S&T Directorate and discusses
its ongoing R&D efforts to ensure the S&T Directorate is not only aware
of but supports TSA's efforts related to technology development.
hazardous materials endorsement for commerical driver's license
Question. On January 13, 2005 a final rule was published in the
Federal Register which established a fee for individuals who apply for
or renew a hazardous materials endorsement for a commercial driver's
license. According to the final rule, TSA intends to use fees collected
under this rule to pay for the costs of the security threat assessments
and the costs of collection and transmission of finger prints and
biographical information.
Please provide the committee with an estimate of the amount of
money these new fees are expected to bring in.
Answer. By law, the fees for individuals who apply for or renew a
hazardous materials endorsement for a commercial driver's license
cannot be collected in excess of the expenses to run the program.
Accordingly, the program is expected to cost about $9 million in fiscal
year 2005 and approximately $28 million in fiscal year 2006. The
original fiscal year 2006 estimate of $44 million was adjusted mainly
due to the change in the estimated HAZMAT applicant population.
PRIVATE SCREENERS
Question. The budget proposes an increase of $15 million to
continue the privatized screening contracts at the current service
levels. Explain why an additional $15 million is necessary when,
currently, only one airport has applied for a private screening
workforce. Does TSA still anticipate the current number of airports
participating in privatized screening contracts to remain the same?
Answer. As of May 2005, the Screening Partnership Program (SPP) had
received a total of seven applications, which includes the original
contract screening pilot program (PP5) airports (San Francisco, Kansas
City, Rochester, Jackson Hole and Tupelo), and two new airports (Elko,
Nevada and Sioux Falls, South Dakota).
In directing TSA to establish PP5, ATSA required that the level of
screening services and protection provided at the PP5 airports be equal
to or greater than the level provided at an airport with Federal
screeners. Similarly, contract screeners must receive compensation and
other benefits that are not less than the compensation and other
benefits provided to Federal personnel. In accordance with these
requirements, TSA strives for a level playing field between airports
with private contract screeners under PP5 and the SPP and airports with
Federal screeners. Consequently, as each airport considers whether to
continue with Federal screening or to apply for the SPP, it can base
its decision on its own preferences and criteria rather than
considerations of security, resources, or level or service.
The additional $15 million requested is reflective of the increased
cost of providing screening services at the levels required under ATSA.
TSA is not funding services in addition to those provided in previous
years except where consistent with changes in the Standard Operating
Procedure made effective throughout the Nation's commercial aviation
system.
In fiscal year 2005, a reprogramming increase of $23 million was
made to support the cost of providing PP5 airports with the level of
screening required for all commercial airports under ATSA. This
reprogramming supported increased insurance premium costs for worker's
compensation, terrorism and health insurance premiums, ATSA-guaranteed
screener pay parity, and operational requirements relating to
flexibilities granted to contractors in the areas of recruitment,
hiring, and training.
Question. Are any of the airports currently participating planning
or considering opting out of the private screening program?
Answer. TSA has received applications from all five private
screening pilot airports to participate in the SPP.
Question. Are other airports not currently participating in the
program planning to opt in?
Answer. While several airports have expressed interest to TSA about
participating in the SPP, to date, only Elko Regional Airport and Sioux
Falls Regional Airport have formally applied.
FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC REPAIR STATION INSPECTIONS
Question. The budget request includes $6 million for Foreign and
Domestic Repair Station Inspection Operations. Does TSA have a schedule
to inspect the 664 Foreign and Domestic Repair Stations? If so, provide
the schedule to the Committee.
Answer. TSA has developed a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)
that will increase security at both foreign and domestic repair
stations. The NPRM is currently under Departmental review and is
expected to be released for public comment in late summer of 2005. The
agency has not yet developed a firm schedule for auditing all foreign
repair stations. TSA is currently developing a survey document that
will be sent to repair stations to assess their operations. This effort
will assist in determining which repair stations pose the greatest
potential risk and should be given priority for audits. TSA is also
developing the necessary assessment tools for use by the inspectors
during their visits to repair stations.
TSA fully expects to have developed the assessment tools necessary
for the auditing effort by the time the final rule for repair station
security is released, which TSA expects to occur by spring 2006. The
actual schedule of audits will be dependent upon the initial survey of
repair stations, which will begin as soon as the final rule is
released.
Question. Is $6 million and 31 FTE the full amount necessary to
inspect all Foreign and Domestic Repair Stations and the domestic
maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities in the United States? If
not, how much is needed to comply with ``Vision 100?''
Answer. TSA would like to note that the $6 million and 31 FTE are
earmarked solely for audits of foreign repair stations, of which there
are approximately 650. There are approximately 4,500 repair stations in
the United States, and current plans are to cover domestic audits with
the existing force of Aviation Security Inspectors (ASI). Approximately
950 ASIs are presently assigned to geographical areas across the United
States and inspect all facets of regulated aviation assets, not just
repair stations.
The hiring projection with the $6 million requested in the fiscal
year 2006 Budget is 12 inspectors, one program manager, and one program
analyst. It is anticipated that additional foreign repair station
inspectors, plus a manager and analyst, will be hired over a three-year
time period. The hiring and operating projection costs of the program
for its second and third years will be more accurately approximated
after TSA assesses the costs of the initial year of the program.
TSA R&D
Question. The budget proposes to consolidate TSA R&D activities
within the Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate. However, only $109
million is proposed for fiscal year 2006 within the S&T budget. TSA's
budget maintains $23 million for operation R&D activities, such as
pilot projects. Please explain why the program is proposed to be cut by
$46 million and what impact that would have on ongoing R&D activities
and those planned prior to the transfer proposal.
Answer. The $46 million consists of the following reductions: $25
million from Air Cargo R&D and $21 million from Explosives Detection
Equipment (EDS) R&D. The reductions are appropriate given maturing
technology in both areas, which, for example, will result in the
deployment of Explosive Detection Trace Portals to 41 airports by the
end of January 2006.
Overall, the reductions will have minimal effect on the R&D
activities that would have been undertaken by TSA because those
activities were budgeted by TSA and included in the proposed amount of
$109 million.
REGISTERED TRAVELER
Question. Last year, TSA indicated that, assuming there was
sufficient national interest in the program, the $15 million provided
in fiscal year 2005 would be used for start-up operational costs and
future funding would be generated by fees incurred by participants.
What is the amount anticipated in fiscal year 2006 from offsetting
collections?
Answer. TSA envisions a fully operational RT Pilot Program to be
fee funded. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget proposal includes
$22.5 million from potential offsetting collections for RT, which was
consolidated into the proposed SCO. However, TSA will need to implement
a fee rule to accept fees for RT.
Question. What is the timeline and deployment schedule for
implementing this program beyond the pilot stage?
Answer. Through a series of concurrent stand-alone pilots, TSA has
been aggressively testing the RT concept of running threat assessment
and identity verification checks on eligible volunteers in order to
provide them with an expedited clearance through security checkpoints.
TSA is currently running successful programs at five Federally managed
pilot sites (Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, and Washington,
D.C.), which are scheduled to be completed in September 2005. TSA is
concurrently working with the GOAA to launch a sub-pilot at Orlando
International Airport in summer 2005 that will assess the feasibility
of incorporating a private sector component into the RT concept.
Results of these pilots will be analyzed to determine the program's
effect on security and service, enabling the Department to make
decisions about full scale implementation of RT. Any timeline and
deployment schedule for implementing RT beyond the pilot stage will be
linked to the Department's decision.
DEEPWATER BUDGET
Question. Virtually the entire increase requested for Deepwater in
fiscal year 2006 is just to sustain legacy assets. The revised
Deepwater plan indicates that the lifecycle costs to sustain legacy
assets could cost anywhere between $828 million and $1.8 billion. Why
is there such a large difference between these two amounts?
Answer. The difference the two amounts is a function of time and
money. The lower number reflects a lower total acquisition cost ($19
billion) over a shorter implementation period (20 years). The higher
legacy asset funding amount reflects a higher total acquisition cost
($24 billion) over a longer implementation period (25 years). The
shorter plan invests less funding in legacy sustainment, decommissions
legacy assets sooner, but commissions fewer new assets. The longer plan
invests more in legacy sustainment to keep the assets in commission
longer, invests more in technology refresh/obsolescence prevention
(i.e. life cycle costs), and delivers more new assets. Earlier
decommissioning of legacy assets translates into lower legacy
sustainment costs, but equates to a lower number of assets to perform
Coast Guard missions both during build out and upon completion.
Question. What is the Coast Guard doing to better plan and prepare
for legacy asset sustainment?
Answer. The Coast Guard has a detailed plan for maintaining its
legacy cutters and aircraft. Coast Guard men and women are well trained
to maintain and continually upgrade Coast Guard aviation, surface, and
shore infrastructure assets. A mature project planning and execution
program exists within the Coast Guard to provide routine unit-level and
depot-level maintenance. Where expertise or infrastructure doesn't
exist organically within the service, the Coast Guard uses contracted
resources to provide the requisite maintenance support. Maintaining a
high proficiency level amongst the Coast Guard's ``maintainers'' is
critical to the long-term health of the service. One of the service's
guiding principles is to maintain a core competency of maintenance
expertise amongst Coast Guard (military and civilian) members to ensure
service readiness, especially during periods of national emergency.
The Coast Guard maintains its legacy aircraft and vessels using
organic maintenance and repair infrastructure in conjunction with
contracted depot-level maintenance activities. These operating expense
(OE) funded maintenance efforts are complemented by periodic
Acquisition, Construction and Improvement (AC&I) projects which either
enhance/sustain asset capabilities and extend asset service lives, or
replace assets.
On April 20, 2005, the Coast Guard submitted a legacy asset report
to Congress, detailing the Coast Guard's legacy asset issues. This
report reflects legacy cutter and aviation AC&I projects that the Coast
Guard has included in the fiscal year 2006 Budget request and
anticipates requesting in future budget submissions.
Question. The Coast Guard's capital investment plan indicates that
the Deepwater budget will be decreased by $214 million in fiscal year
2007. How can you propose such a cut in light of increasing mission
demands and the ``declining readiness'' of existing assets?
Answer. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget requests $966
million for Deepwater, $242 million above the fiscal year 2005 enacted
levels, to fund critical modernization initiatives such as production
of the third National Security Cutter and design and long lead material
purchase for the Offshore Patrol Cutter while addressing immediate
legacy asset issues such as HH-65 re-engining and Medium Endurance
Cutter mission effectiveness programs. The Coast Guard's fiscal year
2006-2010 Capital Investment Plan contains $752 million for Deepwater
in 2007 to highlight the one-time nature of several of these
investments in legacy asset conversions and sustainment projects.
Question. The GAO recently testified that the Coast Guard has
acknowledged that it needs to develop condition measures that more
clearly demonstrate the extent to which asset conditions affect mission
capabilities, but such measures have not been finalized or implemented.
What is the Coast Guard's schedule for putting such measures in place?
Answer. To track the condition of the its cutters, the Coast Guard
currently measures a Percent of Time Free (POTF) of major casualties
measure that shows the general decline in condition of Deepwater legacy
assets between 2000 and 2004. To track the condition of the its
aircraft, the Coast Guard currently measures aircraft availability
rates. However, as GAO has pointed out, ``the Coast Guard's available
condition measures are inadequate to capture the full extent of the
decline in the condition of deepwater assets with any degree of
precision.'' and Justice Issues, testified to the House Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure that, ``Other evidence we gathered,
such as information from discussions with maintenance personnel, point
to conditions that may be more severe than the available measures
indicate.''
The Coast Guard acknowledges that it needs better condition
measures to more accurately depict the condition of its assets. To
address this issue, the Coast Guard is developing condition measures
that more clearly link cutter condition to mission capability. This
effort is scheduled for completion by the end of fiscal year 2005.
In fiscal year 2004, a team of personnel was assembled from
engineering support activities in both Atlantic and Pacific Areas to
work with Coast Guard Headquarters to construct an asset condition
matrix that incorporates engineering casualty reporting (CASREP) data
and performance data maintained in the Coast Guard's Readiness
Management System (RMS). To do so, the team is identifying/linking
thousands of shipboard engineering subsystems across every cutter class
and their direct impact/contribution to each Coast Guard mission.
By establishing a clear relationship between engineering subsystems
and mission performance, the Coast Guard will be better able to
identify return on its maintenance investments and determine the best
use of limited maintenance resources.
The Coast Guard is currently working to develop a comparable
measure for its aviation assets; however, it has not established a
timeline for implementation.
Question. The GAO report also noted that certain legacy costs, such
as maintaining the 378-foot class through 2016 instead of 2013 as
originally planned, is not addressed in the revised Deepwater budget
baseline. How much funding will this require and are there other legacy
assets that need further maintenance but are not included in the
revised Deepwater plan?
Answer. Legacy asset sustainment is a Coast Guard stewardship
priority that requires judicious balancing of current and future
demands on limited AC&I investment resources. One of the primary
determining factors is how long the asset class will remain in service.
The 378-foot High Endurance Cutters (WHEC) are the first legacy cutters
expected to be removed from service as the National Security Cutters
(NSCs) are deployed. Therefore, the Department and the Coast Guard have
invested AC&I funds toward acquisition of NSCs vice sustaining WHECs.
Until they are decommissioned, WHECs will be sustained through routine
depot level maintenance funded within the Coast Guard's Operating
Expense Appropriation. The 210-foot and 270-foot medium endurance
cutters are projected to remain in service longer, therefore
substantial AC&I investments are being made in these classes in the
form of Mission Effectiveness Program funds sought in fiscal year 2006
and in the out-years. Similar legacy sustaining initiatives are funded
in the Deepwater implementation plan for aircraft that will remain in
the Coast Guard's final Deepwater inventory. Additional details on the
Coast Guard's plan to sustain its legacy assets are provided in a
report that was submitted to Congress on April 20, 2005.
Question. What measures have the Coast Guard put in place to ensure
that competition is built into Deepwater acquisition decisions?
Answer. From the beginning of the acquisition process, the Coast
Guard has ensured competition has been built into the Deepwater
program. The GAO recently reported that all assets originally planned
for the first five years of the contract were properly competed through
the initial contract award process that resulted in selection of
Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) as the Deepwater contractor.
Beyond the initial contract award process, the Coast Guard has taken
several steps, including implementing GAO recommendations to ensure
acquisitions decisions are adequately competed. There are many examples
of competition in subcontracts that can be provided, if desired. For
example, where changes to the original proposal have been introduced
into the acquisition, the Coast Guard ensures that a competitive price
determination is made. The price of this change order must be
determined to be fair and reasonable before the Coast Guard will
approve ICGS action. The Coast Guard monitors ICGS' use of the open
business model as required by their internal procedures for second-tier
subcontractors. ICGS also requires the first-tier subcontractors to
encourage 2nd and 3rd tier suppliers to promote competition.
Question. What is the cost comparison of re-engining the existing
fleet of HH-65 aircraft versus the procurement of a new aircraft
outfitted to perform the same mission?
Answer. Re-enginging an HH-65 helicopter costs approximately $3
million. It would cost approximately $19 million to buy a new,
commercial aircraft capable of performing the missions of a re-engined
HH-65. Under the revised Deepwater implementation plan, HH-65
helicopters will receive additional upgrades to become multi-mission,
cutter helicopters. The total cost of the re-engining and the upgrade
to Multi-Mission Cutter Helicopter (MCH) is slightly less than $7
million per unit. To replace the entire HH-65 fleet would cost $1.8
billion vice $636 million for upgraded HH-65s, three times as much. It
should also be noted that when the Coast Guard made the decision to re-
engine the HH-65s it was in the face of a crisis in engine safety and
reliability. Timely resolution of that crisis did not allow for
acquisition of a replacement fleet. Further, HH-65 re-engining was
already planned as part of the Deepwater solution. Re-engining was the
most timely, cost-effective short and long-term solution.
Question. What is the status of the HH-65 re-engining process?
Answer. In August 2004, the first re-engined HH-65 was delivered to
the Coast Guard at Aviation Training Center Mobile, AL, for operational
testing and evaluation. As of the first of September 2005, 10 re-
engined HH-65Cs had been delivered for full operational status to Air
Station Atlantic City, NJ, (5), Aviation Training Center Mobile, AL,
(1), and Air Station Savannah, GA, (4). To accelerate the HH-65 re-
engining project the Coast Guard and its contractor, Integrated Coast
Guard Systems (ICGS), have examined the quality and suitability of a
second re-engining facility located in Columbus, MS. In August 2005,
this facility delivered its first re-engined aircraft to the Coast
Guard. This aircraft was determined to meet needed quality and
suitability parameters and the Coast Guard contracted with ICGS to re-
engine an additional 11 aircraft at the Columbus facility. The Coast
Guard plans to have all 84 operational aircraft re-engined in early
2007.
Question. Will the 24 month schedule be met?
Answer. Provided the President's fiscal year 2006 request of $133.1
million for HH-65 re-engining is fully funded, the Coast Guard's plan
is to complete re-engining the operational fleet of 84 helicopters by
February 2007. This is the fastest possible production schedule based
on the availability of engine kits and parts, maximum production at
Coast Guard Aviation Repair and Supply Center, additional production
capacity that may become available at a second facility, and number of
aircraft that can be removed from operational service at any given
time.
Question. What is the current timetable?
Answer. The first re-engined HH-65 was delivered for operational
test and evaluation in August 2004. Regular production delivery of
operational HH-65 began in April 2005, when the second HH-65 was
returned to operational status at Air Station Atlantic City, NJ. Four
others are scheduled for delivery in May 2005. In fiscal year 2005, a
total of 29 conversion starts are planned. In fiscal year 2006, 51
conversion starts are planned. All 84 operational aircraft are
scheduled for completion early in fiscal year 2007. Re-engining of all
95 HH-65s is scheduled to be completed in 2007.
Question. What barriers exist that could the Coast Guard from
meeting this schedule?
Answer. The current timetable, resulting in completing the re-
engining of the Coast Guard's operational fleet of 84 HH-65
helicopters, is based on the best outcome of a number of variables. To
achieve this schedule there must be:
--Full support of the President's Budget request for $133.1 million
in fiscal year 2006 funding for re-engining;
--Maximum availability of engine kits and parts;
--Effective mitigation of operational needs to maximize the number of
aircraft that can be removed from operational service at any
given time;
--The highest possible production at Coast Guard Aviation Repair and
Supply Center; and
--Additional production capacity at a second facility.
If any of these variables are not optimal, then the schedule will
not be met.
DEEPWATER PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
Question. For fiscal years 2005 and 2006, provide a detailed spend
plan for program costs for ICGS Management and Government program
management/ICGS.
Answer.
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING & INTEGRATION BUDGET
[Dollars in millions]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year
Activity 2005 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Systems Engineering:
Performance Engineering (Measurement 6 6
& Modeling) \1\....................
Engineering and Process Management 15 16
\2\................................
Integration Management:
Systems Operations Management \3\... 17 17
Data Management \4\................. 2 2
Award Fee Pool.......................... 3
-------------------------------
Total............................. 43 45
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Performance Engineering.--In accordance with Deepwater's performance-
based acquisition, Performance Engineering includes the efforts
required to measure the degree to which the Integrated Deepwater
System achieves the overarching goals of maintaining and improving
operational performance while managing total ownership costs within an
aggressive baseline. Risk reduction is achieved through modeling,
simulation, and analysis coupled with test & evaluation to assess the
appropriate mix and capabilities of Deepwater assets to achieve the
desired operational performance.
\2\ Engineering and Process Management.--Engineering Management consists
of the overarching technical management team responsible for
translating Coast Guard operational and performance requirements into
a cohesive Implementation Plan and managing all the technical efforts
required to develop, deliver, deploy, and maintain the Deepwater
assets critical to achieving the Implementation Plan. Correspondingly,
Process Management is responsible for leading the identification,
evaluation, implementation and improvement of Deepwater technical
engineering processes deemed critical to the successful execution of
the Implementation Plan.
\3\ Systems Operations Management.--The Systems Operations Management
effort includes the industry program management tasks required to
direct and control all organizational functions including engineering,
business management, contract management, quality management,
configuration management, and data management. An Integrated Deepwater
System Program Management Team (including C4ISR, Surface, Aviation,
and Integrated Logistic Systems management teams) ensures effective
cost control, schedule, and technical performance required to maintain
the System-Of-Systems approach necessary for the Coast Guard to
perform its specified missions.
\4\ Data Management.--The Data Management effort includes tasks required
to provide configuration control infrastructure for all data across
the program. A program-wide Integrated Product Data Environment is
utilized to integrate the efforts of geographically-separated
engineering teams using a common toolset to enable rapid collaboration
and sharing of consistent information.
Deepwater Program management funds are used for technical support from
private sector and other government agencies not available within the
Coast Guard.
GOVERNMENT PROGRAM MANAGEMENT BUDGET
[Dollars in millions]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year
Activity 2005 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Performance Support:
Technical Engineering Support \1\... 19.1 20.1
Operational Tests and Evaluation \2\ 3.8 4.0
Program Management Support:
Financial Management \3\............ 3.0 3.1
Transition Support \4\.............. 4.6 4.9
Management Support \5\.............. 2.6 2.7
Performance Metrics/Measurement 2.2 2.3
Support \6\........................
Information Technology \7\.......... 2.7 2.9
-------------------------------
TOTAL............................. 38.0 40.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Technical Engineering Support.--Aeronautical, electronics and naval
engineering; logistic systems, Command and Control, weapons system
certification, and other expertise not available from Coast Guard
resources.
\2\ Operational Tests and Evaluation.--Navy's Commander Operational Test
and Evaluation Forces is the technical advisor to the Coast Guard
responsible for management of independent tests for the early review
and assessment of Integrated Deepwater System asset operational
performance.
\3\ Financial Management.--Includes independent analysis and support of
the Defense Contract Auditing Agency, other Defense Contract support,
performance/risk management, financial systems management provided to
asset level Program Management Representative Offices for independent
cost analysis and pricing.
\4\ Transition Support.--Augments Coast Guard teams for delivery of new
assets, existing infrastructure changes, developing document
configuration and management, graphics support, and support for
training infrastructure analysis, manpower analysis, operations
doctrine development, architecture analysis.
\5\ Management Support.--Provides for program specific training, project
management and outreach initiatives as recommended by Government
Accountability Office.
\6\ Performance Metrics/Measurement Support.--Modeling, simulation, and
analysis of various inputs to include Total Ownership Cost,
Operational Performance, and Earned Value Management Processes.
\7\Information Technology.--Specialized information technology to
support Deepwater Program management.
MARITIME TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ACT IMPLEMENTATION
Question. On July 1, 2004, port facilities and vessels were
required to submit security plans to the Coast Guard and to be in
compliance with those plans. The Coast Guard has now inspected
approximately 2,900 regulated facilities. The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) recently concluded that it is unclear if the Coast Guard's
inspection process has been effective or not. Can you describe what the
Coast Guard is doing to ensure that these facilities are following
through on their security plans?
Answer. The Coast Guard ensures that facilities operate in
accordance with their approved security plans through annual exams and
spot checks. The Coast Guard continues to work constructively with GAO
to insure Coast Guard requirements and procedures are sustainable and
that they make a positive impact on the security of the maritime
transportation system. The requirement for an evaluation of vessel and
facility security plans is one tool to reduce vulnerabilities in this
critical system--the vast majority of which is owned and operated by
the private sector. To ensure that regulatory and inspection frameworks
continue to serve the intended objectives, regular evaluations and
performance metrics are being developed to assess their effectiveness.
For example, the Coast Guard plans to begin an evaluation of its
facility inspection efforts in June 2005, complete the field portion of
the evaluation in September 2005, and produce a final evaluation in
December 2005.
Question. Last year, GAO reported that many facility and vessel
owners said it would be difficult to obtain the financial resources to
fully mitigate their known vulnerabilities. GAO reported that one
official at a major port indicated that some security vulnerabilities
were not included in its facility plan because funding was not
available to address them. What is the Coast Guard doing to ensure that
the inspection process is just not a ``paper exercise'' and one that
addresses vulnerabilities?
Answer. The Coast Guard has several policies in place that provide
for a meaningful inspection process and ensure facilities fully address
vulnerabilities.
Prior to final Facility Security Plan (FSP) approval, Coast Guard
Captains of the Port review and evaluate each submitted Facility
Security Assessment (FSA), ensuring the FSPs identify and addressed all
vulnerabilities. This evaluation includes an on-site survey by the
Coast Guard.
After approving the FSP, the Coast Guard annually inspects each
facility for MTSA compliance. The Coast Guard developed specific
inspection policies to ensure that:
--The facility complies with its FSP;
--The approved FSP adequately addresses the performance-based
criteria outlined in the regulations;
--The adequacy of the FSA and the Facility Vulnerability and Security
Measures Summary (CG-6025); and
--Measures in place adequately address the vulnerabilities.
To carry out the inspections, qualified Coast Guard facility
inspectors use a published, comprehensive inspection guide to identify
deficiencies and any vulnerability not previously disclosed.
Question. With no port security grant program, how can ports know
that resources are available to implement the MTSA?
Answer. DHS has administered a total of four port security grant
rounds since fiscal year 2002. The Coast Guard has played a significant
role in all four grant rounds, participating at every step of the
process, from field recommendations to the grant awards--which have
totaled over $560 million since September 11, 2001.
In 2004, Secretary Ridge designated the Office of State and Local
Government Coordination and Preparedness (SLGCP) as the Department's
``one-stop shop'' to centralize State and local terrorism preparedness
and grant administration with other emergency preparedness grant
programs, including the Port Security Grant Program previously
administered by the TSA. The centralization will provide better service
to key stakeholders and provide a more effective overall homeland
security grant program. The Coast Guard will maintain an important and
active role in the port security grant process. $150 million was
appropriated for fiscal year 2005 (Round 5) port security grants. A
fact sheet regarding round 5 is available upon request. Additional
information on the port security grant program can be found at the
following internet address:
https://www.portsecuritygrants.dottsa.net/tsadotnet/default.aspx
requirements gap
Question. The Coast Guard's budget references a July 2004 ``Call to
Action'' from the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator. That report noted that
actionable intelligence has never been better but the United States is
frequently unable to pursue identified interdiction opportunities. An
example of this is the amount of operational hours that are available
for the Coast Guard's Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
To meet the operational requirements cited in the Coast Guard's MPA
requirements study, the Coast Guard would have to double the amount of
maritime patrols from the current capability of 32,000 hours. Your
budget includes an increase of only 1,500 maritime patrol hours for
homeland security, counter-drug, and other mission areas. Why does such
a large gap in requirements exist and what will it take to close it?
Answer. The Coast Guard fixed wing requirements were determined by
calculating the post-September 11 mission needs above the 1998 Coast
Guard multi-mission baseline. The 1998 baseline was 44,400 hours. The
additions are: 5,139 hours for counter-drug (CD) hours based on Joint
Inter-Agency Task Force South analysis of the Department of Defense and
multi-national drawdown in CD forces; 18,195 hours for maritime
security long range surveillance under moderate, high and imminent
threat periods; and 285 hours for Coast Guard Strike Force and Maritime
Safety and Security Team transport. Given that 32,400 flight hours are
available from Coast Guard fixed wing aircraft in fiscal year 2005,
this leaves a gap of 34,454 hours.
The Coast Guard's fiscal year 2006 budget includes several
initiatives to help mitigate the current Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA)
shortfall:
--$16.5 million is requested for C-130H augments, providing an
additional 1,500 annual C-130H MPA flight hours. Funding will
also provide for dedicated aviation sensor personnel and
enhanced sensors to improve effectiveness in high-threat zones,
and permanently establish forward operating and logistics
support for MPA operating in the Central/South American region
to maximize time ``on station'' and reduce aircraft downtime
due to unscheduled maintenance.
--$12.6 million is requested for 1200 additional annual operations
flight hours for C-130Js to conduct proficiency training and
logistics flights--freeing up missionized C-130Hs to conduct
MPA missions.
--$5 million is requested to continue the missionization of the 6 C-
130Js, through operation of the Aircraft Project Office, which
are estimated to be completely missionized by 2008.
--$8.7 million is requested to staff and support the first two CASA
aircraft in advance of delivery and full operating capability
anticipated in 2007.
The MPA gap will likely persist until the Deepwater system
(including the CASAs, C-130s, and unmanned aerial vehicles) is fully
built out.
Question. What other major Coast Guard assets have a gap between
capabilities and mission requirements?
Answer. The significant capability gaps faced by the Coast Guard's
major assets in the post-September 11 environment were the catalyst for
the Deepwater Performance Gap Analysis and subsequent Mission Need
Statement and the revised Deepwater Implementation Plan. These gaps are
quantified both under capability--the attributes of individual assets,
and capacity--force structure/fleet size. The following table depicts
the capabilities and capacity for the Deepwater fleet to begin to close
these gaps.
In addition to the MPA gap, a capacity gap exists with the patrol
boat fleet. Considering available 110-foot and 123-foot patrol boats
and 179-foot patrol coastals on loan from the U.S. Navy, total patrol
boat available hours reached it lowest point of approximately 75,000 in
2004. This is considerably lower than the 1998 baseline of
approximately 100,000 hours, and is a result of having cutters deployed
to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and cutters out of service for the 110-123
foot conversion program. With the advancement of the fast response
cutter design and construction, the Coast Guard should reach the 1998
baseline again between 2013 and 2015.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Mission Needs Revised Mission Needs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fleet Fleet
Asset Size Capabilities Size Capabilities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Security Cutter (NSC)/ 8 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 8 DHS/DOD/Rescue 21 (R21) Interoperability
Maritime Security Cutter, Large Basic CG Command and Control (C2) Feed........ Remote/Integrated Anti-Terrorism/Force
(WMSL). Forward Looking Infrared...................... Protection (AT/FP) Weapons
Redundant/Hardened/Improved C2
Underwater Detection
Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC)/ 25 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 25 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
Maritime Security Cutter, Medium 22 kt Speed................................... CG COP Connectivity
(WMSM). Standard Flight Deck.......................... ..............................................
Integrated Electo-Optical/Infrared System
......... Threat Receiver............................... ......... Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear &
30mm Gun...................................... Explosive (CBRNE) Detection
Manual Small Arms............................. Enhanced Maritime Patrol Surveillance
Capability
Nation-wide DHS Strategic Lift
Fast Response Cutter (OPC)/ 58 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 58 DHS/DOD/R21 interoperability
Maritime Patrol, Coastal (WPC). 30mm Gun...................................... Remote Weapons & AT/FP Suite
Baseline C4 Suite............................. Redundant, Hardened C4
Threat Receiver............................... Defense Survivability
20-yr Steel Hull.............................. 40-yr Composite Hull
CBRNE Detection & Defense
Underwater Detection
Short Range Prosecutor (SRP)...... 42 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 33 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
Long Range Interceptor (LRI)...... 82 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 91 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
Long Range Surveillance Aircraft 6 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 22 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
(LRS)/ HC-130H/J. Basic CG C2 Feed.............................. CG COP Connectivity
Forward Looking Infrared...................... Integrated Electo-Optical/Infrared System
CBRNE Detection
Enhanced Maritime Patrol Surveillance
Capability
Nation-wide DHS Strategic Lift
Multi-Mission Cutter Helicopter 93 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 95 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
(MCH)/HH-65C. CG COP Connectivity
CBRNE Detection
Airborne Use of Force
Vertical Insertion/Delivery
Medium Range Surveillance Aircraft 35 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 36 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
(MRS)/CASA CN-235. CG COP Connectivity
Integrated Electo-Optical/Infrared System
CBRNE Detection
Medium-Range Recovery Helicopter 42 Deepwater Interoperability.................... 42 DHS/DOD/R21 Interoperability
(MRR)/MH-60T. CG COP Connectivity
Integrated Electo-Optical/Infrared System
CBRNE Detection
Airborne Use of Force
Vertical Insertion/Delivery
Vertical Take-off & Landing UAV 69 .............................................. 45 CBRNE Detection
(VUAV).
High Altitude & Endurance UAV 7 .............................................. 4 ..............................................
(HAEUAV).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PORT SECURITY ASSESSMENTS
Question. In the fiscal year 2003 Supplemental, Public Law 108-11,
Congress appropriated $38 million to conduct vulnerability assessments
at all tier I strategic seaports. Of that amount, $16.8 million remains
unobligated. Why hasn't this funding been spent?
Answer. Prior to enactment of Public Law 108-11, the Coast Guard
received supplemental funding and was able to conduct Port Security
Assessments (PSAs) at 13 of the 55 strategic ports. The average cost of
these assessments was $900,000 per port. The $38 million appropriation
was to complete remaining port assessments based on this per-port
average.
In response to various maritime security initiatives, such as the
Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, the Coast Guard revised
the PSA methodology to ensure that the PSAs provided the greatest value
to the port without being redundant to the other initiatives and
programs. This updated methodology resulted in a reduction of costs
from $900,000 to approximately $300,000 per port.
As of September 14, 2005, the Coast Guard has expended $22.9
million for the completion of PSAs of the Coast Guard's 55 militarily
and economically strategic ports, as well as for important port
security initiatives such as special technical assessments, development
of a Geographic Information System (GIS) viewer, Coast Guard
participation in the Comprehensive Review of nuclear power plants, and
PSA Program operational costs. The remaining $16.6 million will be
expended during the remainder of fiscal year 2005 and 2006 to continue
refining port security assessments and our knowledge of port-specific
vulnerabilities through specific technical or infrastructure
assessments (bridges, tunnels, dangerous cargo, etc.). This additional
work is critical to address needs that were identified in the course of
the initial port assessments. It will provide important amplifying
information to Coast Guard Captains of the Port and the Area Maritime
Security Committees allowing them to address effectively port-specific
vulnerabilities that have been identified.
Question. How many assessments of tier I ports have been completed
to date and what is the schedule to complete all Tier I ports?
Answer. All Tier I PSAs are complete. The Coast Guard has completed
PSAs at each of the previously identified 55 militarily and
economically strategic U.S. ports, of which ``Tier I'' ports are a
subset.
PORT SECURITY ESTIMATES
Question. Last year, in response to a question for the record on
port security, the Committee was told that Department of Homeland
Security spending on port security increased by $224 million (13
percent) in the President's Budget, from $1,661 million in 2004 to
$1,885 million in 2005. Within the 2005 total is $1,675 million for
Coast Guard port, waterway, and coastal security activities, including
over $100 million for expenses related to the Maritime Transportation
Security Act (MTSA). How was that funding level determined?
Answer. The $1,675 million for Coast Guard Ports, Waterways, and
Coastal Security (PWCS) activities in fiscal year 2005 was incorrectly
stated in last year's question. The 2005 operating expense budget
estimate for PWCS activities estimated in the Coast Guard's 2005 Budget
congressional justifications as $1,501 million. The Coast Guard
develops estimates of mission-specific spending using an activity based
Mission Cost Model. The $101 million increase to implement MTSA
attributable to PWCS was included in the $1,501 million estimate.
PORT SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM
Question. The Coast Guard authorization Act for 2005, which was
signed into law by the President on August 9, 2004, authorized $35
million for the Secretary to fund pilot programs and award grants to
investigate new methods and technologies to better secure our ports.
The law specifically cites the need to examine new technologies such as
those that can accurately detect explosives, chemical or biological
agents, and nuclear materials. The law calls for the examination of new
methods for securing our ports such as the use of satellite tracking
systems and tools to mitigate the consequences of a transportation
security incident. The fiscal year 2006 request does not include
funding for this program. What intelligence led the Coast Guard to
believe that such a program was unnecessary?
Answer. The Coast Guard is aggressively moving to implement new
technologies in order to better secure our ports. Rather than pilot
programs or grants, the Coast Guard believes it more prudent in the
near term to expend limited resources on the deployment of important
proven technologies while other DHS components responsible for
development of cross-cutting technologies and private sector grant and
research programs administer pilot and grant programs, notably the S&T
Directorate and SLGCP. S&T, in particular, has a wealth of research and
development expertise as well as an active university research program
to pursue technology enhancements across all homeland security
requirements. Concurrently, SLGCP is overseeing the administration of a
port security grant program that has awarded over $560 million in port
security grants already, and will award another $150 million in fiscal
year 2005.
In the near term, the Coast Guard is focused on enhancing Maritime
Domain Awareness (MDA). MDA is defined as ``the effective understanding
of anything associated with the global maritime environment that could
impact the security, safety, economy or environment of the United
States.'' Effective MDA is a critical enabler to national maritime
security strategies and supports the full range of Coast Guard
missions.
COVERT SURVEILLANCE AIRCRAFT
Question. What is the Coast Guard's definition of a ``covert
surveillance aircraft''?
Answer. The 2005 DHS Appropriations Act conference report defines
the manned covert surveillance aircraft as a ``medium to short range,
fixed wing surveillance aircraft.'' In the context of the Coast Guard's
Manned Covert Surveillance Aircraft (MCSA) acquisition project,
``covert'' is defined as ``the capability to operate quietly and
surreptitiously enough to enable the surveillance, detection,
classification and identification of a maritime target without the
target's inhabitants becoming aware of the aircraft's presence.''
Question. How will a covert surveillance aircraft serve the Coast
Guard's mission?
Answer. The Coast Guard is developing the operational requirements
documents that will define the missions and operating parameters for a
manned covert surveillance aircraft. The Coast Guard is also examining
how this aircraft will fit into the Deepwater system, given that the
Deepwater implementation plan accounts for the service-standard fixed,
rotary wing and unmanned aircraft necessary to meet projected Coast
Guard mission needs documented in the revised Mission Needs Statement.
Question. How much does the Coast Guard estimate the cost of a
covert surveillance aircraft to be?
Answer. The rough order of magnitude acquisition cost of a fully
missionized, FAA-certified manned covert surveillance aircraft is
estimated to be $8 million.
Question. What is the timeline for acquiring a covert surveillance
aircraft or aircrafts for operational use?
Answer. The procurement timeline is currently being constructed
with the Manned Covert Surveillance Aircraft acquisition team. The
following table provides the best estimate of initial operating
capability (IOC).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operational Requirements Document Written July 2005
& Approved.
Release of Request for Proposal........... September 2005
Aircraft Award............................ January 2006
Airworthiness Certification Test/ January 2007
Evaluation Commencement.
Initial Operating Capability.............. January 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Are there existing platforms available on the commercial
market that would meet the Coast Guard's specifications for a covert
surveillance aircraft? If so, please describe them.
Answer. Currently, the Coast Guard is developing the operational
requirements and specifications for the Manned Covert Surveillance
Aircraft. Once these are defined and approved, the Coast Guard will
conduct a formal market survey and or request for proposal to determine
the availability of any suitable aircraft in the commercial market that
meets its requirements.
AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM
Question. The Coast Guard has obligated $7.5 million to a contract
with a commercial low earth orbit satellite communications provider for
the installation of AIS capability on a concept validation satellite
and design for installation on future satellites. What type of coverage
does this provide to the Coast Guard?
Answer. The deployment of a concept validation payload aboard a
commercial low earth orbit satellite is a prototype for the receipt of
AIS signals via satellites from vessels within 2000 nautical miles of
the U.S. coast.
Question. The AIS budget provides for approximately $30 million per
year over the next five fiscal years (including fiscal year 2006).
Could this acquisition program be accelerated if additional funding
became available?
Answer. The Coast Guard's fiscal year 2006-2010 Capital Investment
Plan calls for project completion in 2011; however, the project could
be completed sooner if additional funding is provided.
coast guard support of nsf research operations in the polar regions
Question. The budget request for the National Science Foundation
includes $48 million in budget authority to operate and maintain the
399 foot Polar Icebreakers. This amount does not include funding such
as extraordinary maintenance costs. In fiscal year 2005, these
extraordinary maintenance costs are estimated to be $18 million. The
budget indicates that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is being
discussed to address these additional costs. What is the status of the
MOU between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Coast
Guard?
Answer. The Coast Guard and NSF are currently negotiating to
conclude an MOU for fiscal year 2006.
The $48 million NSF budget authority represents the base funding to
operate and maintain the 399 foot POLAR STAR and POLAR SEA and the 420
foot HEALY. The MOU will reflect an agreement between NSF and Coast
Guard for NSF to pay for all personnel, maintenance and operational
funds necessary to manage the polar icebreaking program.
The Administration plans to maintain current polar icebreaker fleet
capabilities at least until a new national polar icebreaker
requirements policy decision is made.
Question. Please provide a historical breakdown, by fiscal year, of
the costs to support the NSF's scientific and operational programs in
the Polar Regions, including maintenance costs, and how much the NSF
reimbursed for those costs in each fiscal year.
Answer. In recent years, the Coast Guard icebreaker fleet has
devoted, on average, 82 percent of its operational time in support of
the NSF. The chart below attributes NSF's percentage of operational
time to the total annual funding for the icebreakers (including
maintenance costs).
The following table provides a historical breakout of Coast Guard
polar icebreaking support costs, those costs attributable to NSF
activities, and the amounts reimbursed by NSF to the Coast Guard per
the MOA between the two agencies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Costs Percent
Reimbursement required to Operational Cost to
Fiscal year Amount from support time devoted support NSF
NSF cutters \1\ to NSF programs
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1999............................................ $2,711,732 $31,397,056 76 $24,004,075
2000 \2\........................................ 2,145,242 40,971,438 80 32,777,150
2001............................................ 4,966,672 41,899,046 64 26,839,661
2002............................................ 5,961,684 49,195,000 93 45,643,381
2003............................................ 8,165,647 50,501,309 91 45,925531
2004............................................ 12,422,190 57,585,544 89 51,189,137
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Note: Costs include actual unit level operating and maintenance costs, fuel costs, depot level maintenance
costs, and personnel costs for the salaries and benefits attributable to the people assigned to the cutters.
These costs have grown to exceed budgeted amounts due to extraordinary maintenance costs required to sustain
the polar icebreaking fleet. The President's fiscal year 2006 budget proposes transfer of the Coast Guard's
base funding (using budgeted amounts) to support operation and maintenance of these cutters.
\2\ Reflects the addition of the HEALY as the third Coast Guard icebreaker.
Question. If a Memorandum of Understanding is not reached and the
NSF decides to contract out for their icebreaking needs in the polar
region, would the Coast Guard need to maintain the Polar Sea and the
Polar Star icebreakers?
Answer. On August 8, 2005, the Coast Guard signed an MOU with NSF
to ensure that the polar icebreaking fleet will be operated and
maintained in fiscal year 2006.
Question. If so, what functions would they serve and what would be
the costs in fiscal year 2006?
Answer. The polar class icebreakers (POLAR SEA and POLAR STAR) have
been and will continue to primarily support the U.S. Antarctic Program
re-supply effort (Operation Deep Freeze) each year. Due to Antarctic
ice conditions, the age of the vessels and the breakers' increasing
maintenance needs since 2001, these two vessels are no longer able to
support simultaneously the U.S. Antarctic Program. Pending additional
funding from the NSF in fiscal year 2006, POLAR SEA will continue the
second year of a 2-year maintenance availability to ensure readiness
for the Operation Deep Freeze 2007 deployment to Antarctica. POLAR STAR
is currently scheduled to support the 2006 Operation Deep Freeze
mission. HEALY is scheduled to support Arctic research, typically
lasting from May to November of each year. The fiscal year 2006 base
funding and overall costs are outlined below:
FISCAL YEAR 2006 COAST GUARD POLAR ICEBREAKER BASE FUNDING
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Projected costs AFC Cost center POLAR SEA 2006 POLAR Total
HEALY STAR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Training & Recruiting........................... $210,512 $355,244 $355,244 $921,000
Military Personnel.............................. 5,936,630 9,547,685 9,547,685 25,032,000
Depot Level Maintenance......................... 4,498,926 4,493,037 4,493,037 13,485,000
Operating and Maintenance....................... 3,586,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 7,586,000
Central Accounts................................ 109,000 183,500 183,500 476,000
---------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Total............................... 14,341,068 16,579,466 16,579,466 47,500,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FISCAL YEAR 2006 PROJECTED COSTS REQUIRED TO SUSTAIN POLAR ICEBREAKER FLEET ABOVE THE BASE FUNDING LEVEL
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
Projected costs AFC Cost center POLAR SEA 2006 POLAR Total
HEALY STAR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Depot Level Maintenance......................... $7,100,000 $9,700,000 $500,000 $17,300,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. If not, what would be the cost for the Coast Guard to
mothball or dispose of the two icebreakers?
Answer. The Coast Guard estimates that the cost to mothball or
dispose of each Polar Class Icebreaker is $750,000 per hull, for a
total of $1.5 million.
The estimated personnel transfer cost if the two icebreakers are
decommissioned is $700,000.
Question. What are the long-term costs to maintain the Coast
Guard's Polar Icebreakers?
Answer. The two heavy polar icebreakers are nearing the end of
their service lives and require major systems overhauls to continue to
operate in a cost-effective manner. The Coast Guard has not developed
detailed analyses of the costs associated with the long-term costs of
recapitalizing the heavy polar icebreaking fleet. As the national needs
for heavy polar icebreaking are more thoroughly studied by the National
Academies of Sciences (NAS), the Coast Guard will inevitably be
involved in developing long-term cost estimates for heavy polar
icebreaking.
Since the Healy medium-duty polar icebreaker is a relatively new
vessel, there are no significant long-term maintenance costs above the
budgeted base amounts for that ship.
Question. What efforts are underway to fund a replacement vessel or
overhaul one or more of the existing vessels to support the long-term
needs of the scientific community?
Answer. There are no plans to replace or overhaul CGC HEALY, which
was commissioned in 2000.
In accordance with the fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security
Appropriations Bill Conference Report, the NAS will be conducting a
polar icebreaker study, with an interim report expected during November
2005 and completion of the final report anticipated during July 2006.
The NAS study report could be used as the basis for an update of the
1990 Presidential Decision Determination on national polar icebreaker
requirements policy.
Question. What would the cost be and the amount of time necessary
to acquire a new polar icebreaker?
Answer. Initial rough estimates indicate that one new polar
icebreaker, with the equivalent heavy icebreaking capabilities as the
Polar Class icebreakers, would cost approximately $600 million and
would require 6 years to construct.
Question. The Coast Guard is absorbing roughly $9 million in fiscal
year 2005 to meet key milestones in the maintenance of the Polar Sea.
Is critical maintenance in other areas being delayed or canceled to
meet the needs of the Polar Sea?
Answer. Yes, the $9.2 million for extraordinary maintenance of the
POLAR SEA will be absorbed within the Coast Guard's fiscal year 2005
maintenance funds, requiring deferral of critical maintenance in other
areas, such as replacement of aging and obsolete subsystems onboard
Coast Guard legacy cutters.
Question. If so, please describe those delays and the impact they
will have on the Coast Guard fleet.
Answer. As the end of fiscal year 2005 approaches, and the level of
fleet-wide unscheduled maintenance activity becomes clearer, specific
maintenance activities will be identified for deferral by Coast Guard
maintenance managers as they shift resources to deal with their most
immediate fleet maintenance challenges.
Question. Section 888 of Public Law 107-296 ensures that Coast
Guard ``functions and capabilities be maintained intact and without
significant reduction.'' Under what authority does the proposal to
transfer funding for icebreaking operations to the NSF fall under?
Answer. Subsection 888(c) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002
provided that: ``the authorities, functions, and capabilities of the
Coast Guard to perform its missions shall be maintained intact and
without significant reduction after the transfer of the Coast Guard to
the Department, except as specified in subsequent Acts.''
The proposed shift of appropriations for polar icebreaking, if
enacted, does not remove any of the authorities, functions, or
capabilities of the Coast Guard. Since NSF and the Coast Guard have a
signed MOU ensuring funding for the icebreaking program in fiscal year
2006, the Coast Guard will continue to perform its polar icebreaking
mission. Furthermore, the proposed shift of appropriations, if enacted,
would be the result of a ``subsequent act'' of Congress, in the terms
of Subsection 888(c).
RECRUITING
Question. What is the Coast Guard's goal for recruiting active duty
personnel in fiscal year 2006? Provide a chart showing the total number
of recruits in each of the past 10 years for active duty personnel and
reserves and compare them against the Coast Guard's targets for those
years.
Answer. The following tables show the total number of Coast Guard
active duty and reserve recruits in each of the past 10 years compared
with the Coast Guard's targets for those years.
COAST GUARD ACTIVE DUTY RECRUITING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Targets Accessed
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1996.................................... 3,300 3,299
1997.................................... 3,900 3,697
1998.................................... 4,464 3,962
1999.................................... 4,150 4,159
2000.................................... 4,700 4,721
2001.................................... 4,300 4,332
2002.................................... 4,800 5,169
2003.................................... 4,475 4,488
2004.................................... 3,800 3,809
2005.................................... 4,110 \1\ 4,110
2006.................................... \1\ 4,200 \1\ 4,200
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Projected.
COAST GUARD RESERVE RECRUITING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Targets Accessed
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1996.................................... 350 229
1997.................................... 430 303
1998.................................... 1,313 554
1999.................................... 900 801
2000.................................... 900 692
2001.................................... 700 424
2002.................................... 718 585
2003.................................... 1,150 880
2004.................................... 940 911
2005.................................... 950 \1\ 800
2006.................................... \1\ 900 \1\ 900
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Projected.
C-130JS
Question. In March, the Coast Guard placed interim limitations on
the HC-130H 1500 series aircraft. What is the status of these
restrictions?
Answer. The HC-130H 1500 series aircraft are operationally
restricted/limited based on potential cracking in the center wing box
based on effective wing age. The restrictions on the five Coast Guard
1500 series aircraft are similar to restrictions imposed on United
States Air Force aircraft of similar vintage and use rate. The
restrictions are designed to limit wing loading by limiting fuel, cargo
and airspeed under certain conditions. These restrictions will remain
in place until Lockheed Martin Aero (LMA) Service Bulletin (SB2) is
developed and the required inspections are completed. SB2 is expected
on May 30. Each aircraft inspection will take approximately 1 month to
complete. If serious structural cracking is found during inspections,
the Coast Guard will determine whether to refurbish the affected
aircraft to keep them in service well into the future or if there are
other alternatives.
Question. What impact have these restrictions had on the Coast
Guard?
Answer. The restrictions currently impact only the five 1500-series
C-130s at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City and have resulted in
some degradation of the unit's ability to perform long-range search and
rescue, maritime patrol, logistics and International Ice Patrol
missions. These operational restrictions are based on reduced fuel and
cargo loads similar to those imposed on United States Air Force
aircraft of similar vintage and use rate. The restrictions reduce the
maximum endurance of the aircraft from 12 to 7.5 hours, reduce the
maximum cargo capacity from 45,000 to 10,000 lbs, require slower
airspeed when in the vicinity of turbulence and require greater fuel
reserves. These restrictions have been mitigated by incorporating more
refueling stops and or using newer 1700-model C-130s without
restrictions.
Question. What are the Coast Guard's plans to remedy the structural
problems, including necessary funding?
Answer. There are no known structural problems to be remedied. The
1500 series aircraft are operationally restricted/limited based on the
potential of cracks in the center wing box based on effective wing age.
LMA is currently developing the procedures to inspect the wings to
determine if cracks exist. If inspections find no evidence of
structural cracking, the operational restrictions will be adjusted or
removed. If serious structural cracking is found during inspections,
the Coast Guard will determine whether to refurbish the affected
aircraft to keep them in service or if there are other alternatives.
Cost estimates to effect necessary repairs will be based on the results
of the inspections.
SIPRINET
Question. The Coast Guard is in the process of increasing its
SIPRNET presence to include all of its major shore side operational
units (Areas, Districts, Sectors, & Air Stations). Approximately half
of the planned shore side Coast Guard units (80 out of 156) currently
have SIPRNET connectivity. What is the funding level for this activity
in fiscal year 2006?
Answer. The Coast Guard SIPRNET Program is fiscal year 2006 base of
funds is $9.5 million. This includes funding for recurring circuit
costs, contract labor costs, new installations, and equipment
recapitalization.
Question. What is the current schedule to provide connectivity to
the remaining units?
Answer. The Coast Guard is currently planning to fund the
installation of 23 new sites during fiscal year 2006. The Coast Guard
anticipates completing SIPRNET installations at all 152 sites by fiscal
year 2009.
Question. Could the schedule be accelerated if additional funding
became available in fiscal year 2006?
Answer. Additional funding in fiscal year 2006 would not accelerate
the installation schedule. The installations are currently scheduled at
maximum install rate due to the time required to build the facilities
and installation contractor resource capabilities.
MARITIME SECURITY CUTTER--LARGE OPERATIONAL COSTS
Question. The Coast Guard is expecting the first WMSL to be
delivered in May 2007. Please provide a spend plan and timeline related
to the funding necessary for pre-commissioning familiarization and
training for core personnel.
Answer. The timeline for pre-commissioning training and
familiarization is as follows:
--Phase I: Winter/Spring 2005.--Five crewmembers reported to
Pascagoula for pre-arrival training, ship engineering
familiarization, and doctrine development. Cost: $151,352
--Phase II: Summer/Fall 2006.--96 crewmembers report to Alameda (the
ship's homeport) to conduct pre-arrival training, which is
provided at various government and commercial facilities around
the country. Following pre-arrival training, these crewmembers
will proceed to Pascagoula for pre-commissioning
familiarization. Cost: $1,830,816
--Phase III: Winter/Spring 2007.--Remaining 61 crewmembers report to
Alameda then immediately proceed to Pascagoula for pre-
commissioning familiarization. Cost: $1,063,930
--May 2007.--First National Security Cutter/Maritime Security Cutter
Large (WMSL) is delivered to the Coast Guard.
The travel and subsistence cost for crewmembers to complete the
initial pre-arrival and pre-commissioning training is estimated at $3.1
million.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Question. Section 888 of Public Law 107-296 ensures that Coast
Guard ``functions and capabilities be maintained intact and without
significant reduction.'' Under what authority does the proposal to
shift Cost Guard R&D functions to the S&T Directorate fall under?
Answer. Subsection 888(c) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002
provided that: ``the authorities, functions, and capabilities of the
Coast Guard to perform its missions shall be maintained intact and
without significant reduction after the transfer of the Coast Guard to
the Department, except as specified in subsequent Acts.''
The proposed shift of appropriations for Research, Development,
Test and Evaluation from the Coast Guard to the S&T directorate, if
enacted, would be the result of a ``subsequent Act'' of Congress, in
the terms of Subsection 888(c).
Question. How would the proposed transfer improve the ability of
the Coast Guard to accomplish its missions?
Answer. The consolidation of Research and Development (R&D) funding
at the Department level will maximize effectiveness of R&D activities
across the Department by minimizing redundancies. Through the Coast
Guard portfolio manager at S&T, the Coast Guard will continue to
develop and provide homeland and non-homeland security research
requirements which support all of the Coast Guard's homeland and non-
homeland mission programs.
ATTRITION RATE
Question. What is the current attrition rate for Secret Service
agents and Uniformed Division Officers?
Answer. In fiscal year 2004, the attrition rate for special agents
was 6.28 percent, and for Uniformed Division officers 7.6 percent. The
Secret Service expects that the attrition rate for fiscal year 2005 for
special agents will be 5.2 percent, and for Uniformed Division officers
8.5 percent.
OVERTIME RATE
Question. What is the current monthly overtime rate for Secret
Service agents?
Answer. The current average monthly overtime rate for Secret
Service agents is 71 hours.
PAY INCREASE
Question. The budget includes funding for a 2.6 percent pay
increase for Secret Service employees in 2006, but the Administration
requested a 2.1 percent across the board pay increase for Federal
employees. Why is the Secret Service budgeting for a higher pay
increase?
Answer. The Secret Service's fiscal year 2006 budget includes
funding for a 2.3 percent pay increase for Federal employees. This is
the same percentage increase proposed by the Administration.
Question. What is the cost difference between a 2.1 percent pay
increase and a 2.6 percent pay increase?
Answer. A 2.1 percent pay increase would require $11,752,000, and a
2.6 percent pay increase would require $14,550,000, a difference of
$2,798,000. The Secret Service request was $12,871,000 or 2.3 percent.
WHITE HOUSE MAIL
Question. The budget includes $16.365 million to process White
House mail. What is the status of the Department's efforts to develop a
long-term plan for a fully operational White House Mail facility?
Answer. In the summer of 2004, the U.S. Secret Service and the
General Services Administration (GSA) initiated the planning of a
permanent White House mail facility.
The stakeholders utilized two previous studies in order to begin
their effort. In 2003, the Secret Service commissioned Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to develop a full-scale
mail screening facility in concept. In addition, GSA conducted a site
selection study in which they identified four feasible locations in the
Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for a White House mail facility.
In October 2004, GSA procured the services of HDR, an architectural
engineering and consulting firm, to complete a Program Development
Study (PDS). The PDS, which was completed in February 2005, reflects
the efforts of the team to define the feasibility, analyze needs,
prepare cost analysis and program requirements for the program. A mail
screening facility proposal was defined by the PDS. Three sites located
at the Anacostia Naval Annex were selected as most feasible. The PDS
estimated the cost for construction at $33.5 million.
Since the completion of the PDS, the development team has worked
closely with GSA to identify a potential future site for the White
House mail screening facility. GSA is working with the Navy Real Estate
Office to assess the availability of property at the Anacostia Naval
Annex, in Washington, D.C. adjacent to other White House support
facilities for this purpose. Upon identification of available Federal
property, GSA will conduct environmental and design studies of the
potential site. This information will be used to determine the GSA
facility acquisition plan (lease/build) and project the new facility's
operational costs.
Question. What is the percentage of mail addressed to the White
House that doesn't reach its destination?
Answer. For the 14-month period beginning in March 2004 and ending
April 2005, the White House mail screening facility received
approximately 1,730,000 pieces of mail, flats or parcels. Of these,
288,800 items (or 16 percent) were classified as junk mail and,
therefore, not processed at the facility. Of the remaining 1,441,200
processed mail pieces, 1,441,000 (or 99.9 percent) pieces were
delivered to the complex.
The two hundred pieces of mail (or less than 1 percent) not
delivered to the complex were identified by the facility as containing
an unknown substance or an overt threat and were referred to the Secret
Service Intelligence Division for investigation. In addition, 29
referrals were made to Secret Service field offices due to items
received at the facility and two arrests were made.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE FUND
Question. The latest report (date) from OMB on the status of the
$40 billion Emergency Response Fund, enacted 3 days after 9/11, shows
that the Secret Service has an unobligated balance of $6 million. Why
have the funds not been used and what are your plans for the
unobligated funds?
Answer. As of October 2004, the Secret Service had no unobligated
balance from the Emergency Response Fund.
NATIONAL RESPONSE PLANNING
Question. DHS has recently released the National Incident
Management System Plan, the Nation Preparedness Goal and begun the roll
out of the National Response Plan which will better guide the spending
of Federal resources like the over $11 billion Congress has
appropriated for first responders programs. With this additional
guidance, what changes have you seen/do you expect to see in the local
requests for projects that will prevent wasteful spending?
Answer. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) integrates
effective practices in emergency preparedness and response into a
comprehensive national framework for incident management. The NIMS will
enable responders at all levels to work together more effectively to
manage domestic incidents no matter what the cause, size or complexity.
The Department is requiring that states and territories begin work on
compliance with the NIMS as part of their fiscal year 2005 grant
funding.
The National Response Plan (NRP) establishes a comprehensive all-
hazards approach to enhance the ability of the United States to manage
domestic incidents. The plan incorporates best practices and procedures
from incident management disciplines--homeland security, emergency
management, law enforcement, firefighting, public works, public health,
responder and recovery worker health and safety, emergency medical
services, and the private sector--and integrates them into a unified
structure. It forms the basis of how the Federal Government coordinates
with State, local, and tribal governments and the private sector during
incidents.
The National Preparedness Guidance, issued on April 27, 2005,
addresses the implementation of the NIMS and the NRP, as one of the
overarching national priorities. DHS is now beginning to work with
states, territories, and urban areas to update their existing State and
urban area homeland security strategies to bring them into alignment
with the seven national priorities. This alignment with the national
priorities will enable States and territories to continue expending
funds in accordance with the goals and objectives already outlined in
the strategies. With this, DHS expects a greater emphasis on training
and exercises to further implement the NRP and NIMS within the States
and territories. Historically, there has been a higher trend towards
the purchase of specialized equipment, but DHS believes that the States
are undertaking training and exercise programs that typically require
longer-term planning.
Question. How have the State and local entities reacted to the
changes?
Answer. State and local entities have had many questions about the
publication of all three of these documents. Understandably, they do
not always clearly understand the intent of the documents and how they
are related to the grant funding that they receive. Likewise, they are
concerned about the resources they will need at the State level to
ensure compliance. Anticipating such concerns, DHS created on-line
training materials through FEMA/USFA's Emergency Management Institute
and National Fire Academy's Distance Learning Programs that cover both
NIMS and the NRP. To date, more than 200,000 personnel have completed
these training courses. In order to further articulate these
requirements, the Department has scheduled several rollout conferences
for the NIMS and NRP across the country to educate the State and local
stakeholders. The NIMS Integration Center (NIC) is responsible for
orchestrating NIMS implementation and NIMS compliance. Through
training, exercises, and technical assistance, the NIC is working to
ensure that our state, local, and tribal partners understand NIMS and
take the appropriate steps to implement it in their communities. In
addition to the NIMS and NRP outreach, the Office for Domestic
Preparedness (ODP), within SLGCP, has scheduled three additional
meetings on the National Preparedness Guidance so that States and
territories understand the imbedded requirements. We also are offering
technical assistance packages that are customized to each State and
territory. ODP is committed to providing additional education and
outreach to our grantees as we move forward in implementing the seven
national priorities codified in the National Preparedness Guidance.
SLOW PACE OF GRANT DISTRIBUTIONS
Question. On October 18, 2004, the President signed into law the
fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act. The majority of
the grants funds have just recently been made available for application
this month: 6 months since the Act was signed into law. Rail security
funds were made available on April 5, 2005. Transit security funds were
also just made available on April 5, 2005. Port security funds, as of
April 20, 2005, still have not been made available for application. The
State Homeland Security Grant Program is the only program that has
awarded funding and that is because the Congress required it by law.
None of the other fiscal year 2005 homeland security grant funds have
actually been distributed.
Why is it taking so long to get the money out the door?
Answer. The responsibility for most non-aviation grant programs was
transferred from the TSA to SLGCP during fiscal year 2004. This
resulted in a transition period while programs and staff adapted to
different processes and new automation. More importantly, the
Department has used this time to work with Federal partnering agencies
and applicable state, local, and private sector stakeholders to
redesign these programs to include a more risk-based approach to
allocation of funding that aligns with Administration priorities as
described in Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-8 and the
recently released National Preparedness Goal. The Department is
committed to awarding grants earlier in the year while maintaining
effective oversight.
Question. What steps are being taken to expedite the process?
Answer. Completion of the programmatic redesign process coupled
with automation of the application submission, reporting, and payment
processes for these programs will result in greatly enhanced processing
capabilities for future program funding. In addition, SLGCP has
established the Transportation Infrastructure Security Division to
manage these programs. The Division is in the process of filling
remaining vacancies and consequently will be in a greatly strengthened
position for management and administration of future grant programs.
Question. When will funding be awarded for Intercity Passenger Rail
Security, Transit Security, Intercity Bus Security and Port Security
grants?
Answer. The current schedule for each program is as follows:
Intercity Passenger Rail Security Program--awarded July 18, 2005;
Transit Security Grant Program--awarded July 15, 2005; Intercity Bus
Security Grant Program--first round of awards were awarded on August 9,
2005, and the final round of awards will be awarded on September 30,
2005; Port Security Grant Program--awarded September 1, 2005.
Question. As part of your Department review, will you commit to
expediting the grant making process so that money that is supposed to
make Americans safer does not sit in the Treasury in Washington, DC?
Answer. The Department takes its responsibility very seriously for
protecting Americans and the critical transportation infrastructure
they depend on. As stated previously, the recent redesign of these
programs, coupled with the newly instituted SLGCP Transportation
Infrastructure Security Division and automation of the application,
reporting, and payment processes for these programs will result in
significantly enhanced capabilities relative to the management and
administration of these programs. In addition, SLGCP is also in the
process of establishing an Office of Grants Operations that will
further streamline financial management activities associated with
these grants.
PORT/RAIL/TRANSIT
Question. According to the American Public Transportation
Association, there are approximately 9.6 billion transit trips annually
and people use public transportation vehicles over 32 billion times
each workday. This is more than 16 times the number of aviation
passengers, and yet the Department continues to spend less than 10
percent of its transportation security resources on non-aviation
security. The President's Budget Request proposes that individual grant
programs for port, rail/mass transit, bus, and truck security grant
programs be eliminated and collapsed into a new grant program called a
``Targeted Infrastructure Protection Grants'' program. Because none of
the previous individually appropriated grant programs are specified in
this new account--ports will compete against rail and mass transit, and
other infrastructure for $600 million. For mass transit security alone,
the American Public Transportation Association estimates a need for $6
billion in transit security. Not only does this insufficient request
show a lack of support for modes of transportation other than air
travel security but it further frustrates the officials responsible for
securing people's safety on these modes by pitting them against each
other for scarce resources. We currently spend $5 billion on aviation
security. This proposal continues a disturbing pattern by the
Department of focusing on the last battle--aviation security--and less
on non-aviation modes of transportation.
How does the agency really expect that this request furthers the
mission of homeland security when we are only as strong as our weakest
link?
Answer. Enhancing the security of the Nation's critical
infrastructure, including transportation, continues to be a high
priority for the Department, which is why the Department proposed the
development of a Targeted Infrastructure Protection (TIP) Program. This
program would consolidate Port Security, Rail/Transit Security,
Intercity Bus Security, and Trucking Industry Security grant programs
into a single larger program. Because it is unrealistic to anticipate
infrastructure threats and protection needs nearly 12 months in
advance, the Secretary requires flexibility to target valuable TIP
resources to address emerging needs, risks, and national priorities.
Moreover, funds for this program will also allow the Department to
build on and leverage partnerships with other Federal agencies and
industry that seek to advance the State of the Nation's preparedness
through better security solutions and information sharing approaches.
Because the program is designed to provide us with maximum flexibility
at the appropriate time, the Department is confident that the TIP will
help further the mission of securing the homeland. The Administration
requested a nearly 50 percent increase in total infrastructure funding
in order to reduce concerns about ``competition'' among various
sectors.
ALL-HAZARDS
Question. The fine men and women of FEMA have recently responded to
wildfires in Alaska, mudslides in California, and hurricanes in Florida
in an unprecedented period of activity. As the backbone of the nation's
all-hazards emergency management system the Emergency Management
Performance Grants (EMPG) Program, now administered by the Office of
State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, is the only
direct source of Federal funding to assist State and local governments
with planning and preparedness activities associated with natural
disasters. Congress saw fit last year to reject the President's
proposal to cap allowable salary expenses and to shift the program away
from its all-hazards philosophy. Secretary Chertoff said on March 2 of
this year ``while fighting terrorism was the reason for the
department's creation, it is not our sole function,'' which implies
that all-hazards prevention, preparedness, response and recovery is a
priority of DHS. Yet, a proposed $10 million cut in the EMPG program
appeared in the Budget Request.
Why is it that the President proposes a $10 million cut in this
program?
Answer. The Department's fiscal year 2006 Budget request of $170
million for the Emergency Management Performance Grants (EMPG) Program
remains consistent with the fiscal year 2005 request and demonstrates a
continued strong commitment and support to the nation's emergency
prevention and response community through an all-hazards approach. In
fiscal year 2006, EMPG will provide support for State and local
emergency management departments and agencies based on identified needs
and priorities for strengthening their emergency management
capabilities, while addressing homeland security concerns. Further, the
integration of EMPG into the Homeland Security Grant Program umbrella
results in synergies with other related homeland security assistance
programs. In addition, this integration also has facilitated efforts by
states/local jurisdictions to leverage homeland security assistance to
accomplish goals and objectives in their homeland security strategies.
FIRE GRANT FUNDING
Question. Each day firefighters put themselves in harm's way to
protect property and help citizens in time of need. There are currently
over 1 million active firefighters in the United States, and about 73
percent of those volunteer. According to the U.S. Fire Service, many
fire departments report shortfalls in facilities, equipment, and
training of personnel particularly volunteer companies in rural
communities. An estimated one-third of firefighters per shift are not
equipped with self-contained breathing apparatus. In communities under
10,000 in population that have at least one building 4 stories high or
higher, 10 percent are estimated to have no ladder or aerial apparatus.
The assessment also found that overall fire departments can only equip
about half of the emergency responders on a shift with portable radios.
Additionally, 21 percent of fire departments, nearly all of them
predominately volunteer departments, have four or fewer firefighters
available in a mid-day fire house which means it is likely that the
departments fail to deliver the minimum of 4 firefighters needed to
safely initiate an interior attack on a fire. Fiscally stressed
communities make every effort to support public servants but State and
local funding simply is not there. Yet, the President proposes to
reduce firefighter grants from $715 million to $500 million. In
addition, he proposes to eliminate funding for the SAFER program, which
Congress authorized to help communities hire firefighters.
Please explain how the President's proposed 30 percent cut in
funding helps fill these gaps.
Answer. The Department's fiscal year 2006 Budget request reflects a
strong commitment to our nation's fire service by providing $500
million for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. This request
is consistent with the Administration's budget request since fiscal
year 2003 and reflects the appropriate balance of funding priorities
among DHS grant programs. Further, this program has been in existence
for 5 years and has 4 years of grant experience. In its
reauthorization, Congress directed that an update to an assessment of
the needs of the fire service be done, as the prior assessment does not
reflect the impact of more than $2 billion in grant funding that DHS
has provided to the nation's fire service over the last 3 years, both
through Assistance to Firefighter Grants and Homeland Security Grants.
In fact, the nation's fire service has received more DHS grant funding
than any other public safety discipline. This report is expected to be
completed in February or March 2006. In addition, Firefighting
Operations and Support for terrorist attacks, major disasters, and
other emergencies is among the national target capabilities identified
in the forthcoming National Preparedness Goal. Finally, it is important
to note that there is significant funding available for similar
purposes included in other programs, such as the State Homeland
Security Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative.
Question. Also, please explain why the President proposes to
terminate the SAFER firefighter hiring program.
Answer. The Administration has requested significant funds over
several years to support public safety preparedness at the State and
local levels of government. Over the last 3 years, Congress has
appropriated and DHS has granted over $12 billion to support training,
exercising, and equipping public safety personnel, including
firefighters, across the nation. The Administration maintains that
hiring firefighters should remain a local responsibility, as local
resources will eventually be needed to retain newly hired personnel. To
that end, Federal support should focus on enhancing local capacities
through training, equipment, and exercises; and not building inherently
local capacities.
INTEROPERABILITY COMMUNICATIONS
Question. Over $800 million in grant funding has been distributed
for interoperability projects. The next largest specific first
responder category--at less than half of that--is regional response
teams funding. The Intelligence Reform Act authorizes a new DHS grant
program for interoperability as well as a pilot program and the ability
to establish and Office of Interoperability and Compatibility.
What lessons learned or best practices has the agency gleaned from
the fiscal year 2003 demonstration with COPS and FEMA?
Answer. The ``fiscal year 2003 demonstration'' refers to the
competitive grant program that COPS, FEMA, and SAFECOM collaborated on
to maximize the funding available for interoperable communications
equipment. The program provided competitive funding to local
jurisdictions to demonstrate effective solutions for achieving
interoperability. The lessons learned from this program have been
incorporated into SAFECOM's coordinated grant guidance.
SAFECOM, a program of the S&T Directorate's Office for
Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC), is the umbrella program
within the Federal Government that oversees all initiatives and
projects pertaining to public safety communications and
interoperability. SAFECOM's coordinated grant guidance provides the
public safety community with consistent guidance, coordinated
application processes, similar requirements across grant programs, and
general guidelines for implementing a successful wireless
communications system. This guidance seeks to incorporate best
practices and lessons learned from the fiscal year 2003 demonstration
program. The guidance was incorporated in the fiscal year 2003 FEMA and
fiscal year 2003/fiscal year 2004 COPS grant awards, as well as ODP
grant packages in fiscal year 2004. Examples of the lessons learned
which are incorporated into the grant guidance include:
--General criteria relating to public safety communications grants;
--Criteria specific to block grants allocated to states;
--Additional criteria based on the lifecycle of public safety
communications projects;
--Additional guidelines, examples, and resources for improving public
safety communications and interoperability, and implementing a
wireless communication system; and
--A thorough list of questions that applicants can use to help ensure
that they have taken into account the needs of public safety,
potential partners, and considered short and long-term goals.
SAFECOM's coordinated grant guidance is available at
www.safecomprogram.gov.
Question. Outside of equipment acquisition what are the obstacles
to interoperability?
Answer. While equipment acquisition is a substantial obstacle,
there are many other significant challenges to achieving
interoperability. In a February 2003 report, the National Task Force on
Interoperability identified five key challenges facing the development
of interoperability, including: limited and fragmented radio spectrum,
lack of coordination and cooperation, limited and fragmented funding,
incompatible and aging communications equipment, and limited and
fragmented planning.
DHS understands the complexity of the problem of interoperability.
The OIC, through SAFECOM--the umbrella program within the Federal
Government that oversees all initiatives and projects pertaining to
public safety communications and interoperability--has developed the
Interoperability Continuum to serve as a framework for addressing the
obstacles to interoperability, beyond just equipment. The Continuum
helps the public safety community and local, tribal, state, and Federal
policy makers address critical elements for success as they plan and
implement interoperability solutions. These elements include
governance, standard operating procedures, technology, training/
exercises, and usage of interoperable communications. Making progress
in each of the five critical elements is crucial to the Department
providing guidance to overcome the obstacles to interoperability.
INTEROPERABILITY STANDARDS
Question. What is the status of national standards for
interoperable communication?
Answer. DHS has made significant strides in the development of
national standards and requirements for interoperable communications
through SAFECOM. SAFECOM has developed accelerated standards for public
safety interoperable communications, and drafted a report as required
by IRTPA that discusses DHS plans for accelerating standards. This
report includes a schedule of milestones and achievements. The report
is moving through the clearance process and will be sent to Congress
immediately therafter.
DHS recognizes that the development of standards can only occur
within the context of an architectural framework. The SAFECOM process
for identifying and developing standards begins with development of a
practitioner-accepted statement of requirements which then drives the
development of a Public Safety Architecture Framework (PSAF). SAFECOM
released Version 1.0 of the first comprehensive Public Safety
Communications and Interoperability Statement of Requirements (SoR) in
2004. Developed with public safety practitioner input, the SoR defines
the functional requirements for public safety practitioners to
communicate and share information when it is needed, where it is
needed, and when authorized. SAFECOM, in cooperation with the National
Institute of Standards Technology's (NIST) Office of Law Enforcement
Standards (OLES), completed a draft of the PSAF, currently being
reviewed for publication. The architectural framework outlines what the
overall structured approach is for facilitating interoperability and
indicates how the architecture will operate through the development of
interface standards.
Since the release of v1.0 of the Public Safety Communications and
Interoperability SoR, SAFECOM has undertaken the development of v1.1 of
the SoR. SoR v1.1 will reorganize the requirements contained within
v1.0 into a layered structure, reclassifying the requirements into
Network Functional Requirements, Device Functional Requirements, and
Application/Services Functional Requirements. SAFECOM is currently
vetting v1.1 of the SoR with the public safety practitioner community
and anticipates releasing v1.1 to the public upon completion of that
vetting process.
Development of v2.0 of the SoR is currently underway. SoR v2.0 will
add additional quantitative values to the functional requirements
contained in v1.1, as well as address NIMS compliance. SAFECOM
anticipates that it will be able to vet the draft of this version with
the public safety community beginning in early 2006.
Question. What other equipment does DHS plan to publish standards
for and when will those standards be published?
Answer. The Standards Portfolio in the S&T Directorate is working
with voluntary consensus standards organizations and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop standards in
many areas of homeland security. In the CBRNE area, standards should be
published in fiscal year 2005-fiscal year 2006 for: radiation detection
(portal monitors, neutron detectors, training and data format);
suspicious powder protocols, trace explosive detection; and chemical
agent vapor detection. Standards for CBRNE personal protective
equipment for emergency responders are being developed for: powered air
purifying and self contained breathing respirators; chemical/biological
hot and warm zone ensembles; personal alert safety systems; thermal
exposure measurement; law enforcement PPE; and a bomb suit. Standards
are also in development for biometric evaluation protocols, user
interface guidelines, image quality. Standards efforts are in progress
for: building security personal identity verification and access
control; gaseous air cleaning; economic standards for security-related
issues; and design/economics for structural integrity. Check lists for
security of information technology products and PDA forensic tools have
been published. Finally, SAFECOM is working with NIST's OLES and other
Federal partners to accelerate the publishing of relevant radio
standards for public safety interoperable communications in fiscal year
2006-fiscal year 2007. Standards for the Inter-Sub-System-Interface,
Console Interface, and Fixed Station Interface will pave the way for
future seamless communications. Standards for basic functionality will
be published by the second quarter of fiscal year 2006, with the
balance of the functions being published by the second quarter of
fiscal year 2007.
NON-PROFIT GRANT FUNDING
Question. In fiscal year 2005, $25 million was provided for non-
profits for security at high-threat facilities. Who have these awards
been distributed to, for how much and for what purpose?
Answer. The $25 million was provided to protect nonprofit
organizations located in the top 18 urban areas receiving funds in the
fiscal year 2005 UASI program. These funds are to be used for target
hardening, which includes the acquisition and installation of security
equipment in real property (including buildings and improvements) owned
or leased by a nonprofit organization, specifically in response to a
risk of terrorist attack. Specific allocations for urban areas are
available in the fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security Grant Program
(HSGP) program guidelines and application kit, which can be found at
the following website address: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/fundopps.htm
Question. Do funds remain available for obligation? If so, how
much?
Answer. Upon receipt of fiscal year 2005 funds awarded through the
HSGP, States were required to issue a solicitation within 60 days of
the award date for organizations to apply for funds allocated for
nonprofit organizations. States are currently in the process of
finalizing these awards.
EMS FIRST RESPONDER FUNDING
Question. In response to a request of the Appropriations Committee,
the Department recently submitted a report entitled, ``Support for EMS
Provided by the DHS Office of State and Local Government Coordination
and Preparedness'' which indicates that under the funding provided for
our first responders, the Emergency Medical Services only receives
about 4 percent of the total.
What information does the Department have that tells us whether 4
percent is an adequate share to prepare the professionals who will
provide emergency medical care to victims at the scene of a potential
attack or terrorist event?
Answer. SLGCP provides training, funds for the purchase of
equipment, support for the planning and execution of exercises,
technical assistance, and other support to assist states, urban areas,
and local jurisdictions in preventing, planning for, and responding to
acts of terrorism. SLGCP established and maintains several programs
that provide these services to emergency responders, including the
HSGP, the UASI, and the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. SLGCP
grant funds can be used to enhance emergency responder capabilities,
including EMS, in accordance with the goals and objectives identified
in the State or urban area's homeland security strategy. Additionally,
fire department-based EMS providers have been, and continue to be,
eligible for assistance under the Assistance to Firefighters Grant
Program.
The readiness of EMS is vital to ensuring prompt and appropriate
emergency care and transportation as a component of the overall
response to a terrorist incident. Therefore, it is essential that EMS
agencies receive support and assistance from the States and be
integrated into planning efforts and working groups to enhance the
overall preparedness of state, urban area, and local public safety
personnel to prevent, respond to and assist in the recovery from
terrorist incidents. SLGCP funds for EMS agencies are allocated through
the state's State Administrative Agencies (SAA), in accordance with
each state's homeland security strategy. These strategies are based
upon comprehensive assessments that address the specific
vulnerabilities, threats, capabilities and needs in each state. In
recognition of each state's unique threat, need, and vulnerability
assessments, the Department does not dictate a specific percentage of
funds that should be allocated to supplant EMS services. Instead, the
Department supports a distribution strategy capable of addressing the
distinctive needs of EMS agencies by allowing specific allocation
amounts to be determined at the discretion of each state. However, in
recognition of the important role played by EMS providers, the
Department issued an Information Bulletin on May 6, 2004. The
Information Bulletin reminded States that EMS providers are eligible to
receive funding under the State HSGP and UASI programs.
PORT SECURITY GRANT COORDINATION
Question. What coordination is occurring among states, local port
authorities and the Captains of the Port, to ensure all vested parties
are aware of grant determinations and that the limited resources are
maximized when port security grants are made to independent terminal
operators?
Answer. As part of the transition of the Port Security Grant (PSG)
Program from TSA to SLGCP, the Department has completely redesigned the
process to focus on the risk-based prioritization of ports and
allocation of the funds to address specific national port security
priorities from a port-wide perspective. Redesign of the program was a
collaborative process between SLGCP, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), the
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate (IAIP),
the Maritime Administration (MARAD) within DOT, and the American
Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), among others. As part of this
process the USCG Captain of the Port (COTP) will coordinate a field
review of all projects submitted for funding consideration. This field
review will be conducted in coordination with the MARAD Region
Director, the SAA responsible for the state's Homeland Security
Strategy, and appropriate members of each port area's Area Maritime
Security Committee (which includes representatives of the local port
authorities) to ensure that a port-wide approach to risk reduction is
taken and that scarce resources are maximized. Lastly, when
determinations of funding have been made, a consolidated list of
projects for each port area will be provided to the COTP, MARAD Region
Director, SAA, and relevant members of the Area Maritime Security
Committee.
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
Question. How much of the $50 million appropriated for the
Technology Transfer Program has been awarded, to whom and for what
projects?
Answer. The Technology Transfer Program is known as the Commercial
Equipment Direct Assistance Program (CEDAP). The legislation set aside
$10 million for testing and evaluation of commercially available
equipment to determine appropriateness for inclusion in the CEDAP
program. The remaining $40 million was dedicated to the CEDAP program.
On March 22, 2005, SLGCP officially opened the CEDAP to
applications. The applications are competitive and must be consistent
with the State homeland security plan. This first pilot test of the
program ended May 5, 2005, with applications from 1,500 agencies for
$34.4 million in equipment. The first award to 214 agencies of $2.0
million in equipment and training will take place June 15, 2005. (See
table below.)
Phase II of the CEDAP program will begin with the opening of the
application process in the summer of 2005. Award of the equipment and
hands on training for the accepted applicants will take place early in
the fall of 2005.
CEDAP AWARDS, ROUND #1--AGENCY BY STATE
[Total Agencies: 214]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State/Agency City Technology Type Unit Cost
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama:
Alexander City Fire Alexander City..... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... $12,500.00
Department.
Atmore Police Department.... Atmore............. Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Brick Hatton Volunteer Fire Town Creek......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Calera Fire Department...... Calera............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Calera Police Department.... Calera............. Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Cherokee Rescue Squad....... Cherokee........... Search Camera Victim Emergency Medical 14,620.00
Locator System. Services.
Cherokee Volunteer Fire Cherokee........... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Fighters.
Choctaw County Emergency Butler............. Thermal Imager....... Emergency 12,500.00
Management Agency. Management.
Cottonwood Police Department Cottonwood......... CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Daphne Police Department.... Daphne............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Georgiana Police Department. Georgiana.......... CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Guntersville Fire/Rescue.... Guntersville....... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Jasper Police Department.... Jasper............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Margaret Fire and Rescue.... Margaret........... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Phoenix City Police Phoenix City....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Russell County Sheriff's Phoenix City....... Night Vision Kit..... Public Safety..... 3,700.00
Department.
Alaska:
Kodiak Police Department.... Kodiak............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Arizona:
Safford Police Department... Safford............ Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Arkansas:
Clinton Police Department... Clinton............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Ouachita County Sheriff's Camden............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Sherwood Police Department.. Sherwood........... Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
California:
Greenfield Police Department Greenfield......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Humboldt County Sheriff's Eureka............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Mariposa County Sheriff's Mariposa........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
Monterey Peninsula Airport Monterey........... CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Police. Protective Equipment
Kit.
San Rafael Police Department San Rafael......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Colorado:
Idaho Springs Police Idaho Springs...... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Manitou Springs Police Manitou Springs.... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Connecticut:
Mohegan Tribal Fire Uncasville......... Night Vision Kit..... Public Safety..... 3,700.00
Department.
Putnam Police Department.... Putnam............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Torrington Police Department Torrington......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Town of Stafford............ Stafford........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Delaware:
Elsmere Bureau of Police.... Elsmere............ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
New Castle Police Department New Castle......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Florida:
Florida Gulf Coast Fort Myers......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
University Police.
Havana Police Department.... Havana............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Kissimmee Police Department. Kissimmee.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Winter Springs Police Winter Springs..... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Georgia:
Austell Police Department... Austell............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Jackson County Sheriff's Jefferson.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Idaho:
Madison County Sheriff's Rexburg............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Rexburg Police Department... Rexburg............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Illinois:
Elkville Volunteer Fire Dowell............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Homewood Police Department.. Homewood........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Olney Fire Department....... Olney.............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Indiana:
Francesville Volunteer Fire Francesville....... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Hudson Marshal's Office..... Hudson............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Wayne County Sheriff's Richmond........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Iowa:
Cedar Falls Police Cedar Falls........ Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Department. Locator System.
Eldridge Volunteer Fire Eldridge........... CEDAP Personal Fire Department... 4,140.00
Company, Inc.. Protective Equipment
Kit.
Marion County Sheriff's Knoxville.......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
Poweshiek County Emergency Grinnell........... CEDAP Personal HAZMAT............ 4,140.00
Management Agency. Protective Equipment
Kit.
Scott County Sheriff's Davenport.......... Thermal Imager....... Public Safety..... 12,500.00
Office.
Sheldon Police Department... Sheldon............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Kansas:
Rose Hill Police Department. Rose Hill.......... CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Washington County Sheriff's Washington......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Kentucky:
Bourbon County Sheriff's Paris.............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Office.
Louisiana:
District 8 Fire Department.. Rayville........... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Grant Parish Sheriff's Colfax............. Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Office. Locator System.
Jackson Parish Sheriff's Jonesboro.......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Lincoln Parish Sheriff's Ruston............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Richland Parish Sheriff's Rayville........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
Rosepine Police Department.. Rosepine........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
St. James Parish Sheriff's Vacherie........... Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Office. Locator System.
West Monroe Police West Monroe........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Maine:
Ashland Police Department... Ashland............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Westbrook Fire Rescue Westbrook.......... Search Camera Victim Fire Department... 14,620.00
Department. Locator System.
Massachusetts:
Burlington Police Department Burlington......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Fairhaven Police Department. Fairhaven.......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Gardner Police Department... Gardner............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Granby Police Department.... Granby............. CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Nantucket Fire Department... Nantucket.......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Norwood Fire Department..... Norwood............ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Plymouth Police Department.. Plymouth........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Saugus Emergency Management Saugus............. Thermal Imager....... Emergency 12,500.00
Agency. Management.
Wayland Police Department... Wayland............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Michigan:
Gogebic County Emergency Bessemer........... Thermal Imager....... Emergency 12,500.00
Management. Management.
Grosse lle Police Department Grosse Ile......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Hampton Township Fire Essexville......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Harper Woods Police Harper Woods....... CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Department. Protective Equipment
Kit.
Kent County Sheriff's Grand Rapids....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Minnesota:
Annandale Fire Department... Annandale.......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Cleveland Police Department. Cleveland.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Douglas County Sheriff's Alexandria......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Elk River Police Department. Elk River.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Hector Police Department.... Hector............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Mentor Volunteer Fire and Mentor............. Night Vision Kit..... Fire Department... 3,700.00
Rescue.
Nicollet County Sheriff's St. Peter.......... Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Office. Locator System.
Red Lake County Sheriff's Red Lake Falls..... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office/OEM.
Winona County Sheriff's Winona............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Winona Police Department.... Winona............. Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Mississippi:
Clarkdale Fire & Rescue..... Meridian........... Search Camera Victim Fire Department... 14,620.00
Locator System.
North Haven Volunteer Fire New Albany......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Tippah County Sheriff's Ripley............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Missouri:
Buchanan County Sheriff's St. Joseph......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
JasCo Metropolitan Police Oronogo............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Jonesburg Police Department. Jonesburg.......... Advanced Portable Law Enforcement... 10,200.00
Detector.
Kelso Police Department..... Kelso.............. Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Madison County Sheriff's Fredericktown...... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Park Hills Police Department Park Hills......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Sni Valley Fire Protection Oak Grove.......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
District.
Terre du Lac Fire and Rescue Bonne Terre........ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Nebraska:
Cuming County Sheriff's West Point......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Grand Island Police Grand Island....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Hall County Sheriff's Grand Island....... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Hay Springs Police Hay Springs........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Keith County Sheriff's Ogallala........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Platte County Sheriff's Columbus........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Wayne County Sheriff's Wayne.............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
New Hampshire:
Allenstown Police Department Allenstown......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Durham Police Department.... Durham............. CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
New Jersey:
Cinnaminson Township Police Cinnaminson........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Clark Police Department..... Clark.............. CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Franklin Township Police Pittstown.......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Glen Ridge Police Department Glen Ridge......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Magnolia Police Department.. Magnolia........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Ridgefield Police Department Ridgefield......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Sea Girt Borough Police and Sea Girt........... Advanced Portable Other............. 10,200.00
Fire Departments. Detector.
Washington Township Police Robbinsville....... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Waterford Township Fire Atco............... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Waterford Township Police Atco............... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
New York:
Harriman Police Department.. Harriman........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Melrose Fire District....... Melrose............ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
New Windsor Police New Windsor........ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
North Carolina:
Beaufort Police Department.. Beaufort........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Forest City Fire Department. Forest City........ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
McDowell County Emergency Marion............. Thermal Imager....... Emergency 12,500.00
Management. Management.
Rocky Mount Police Rocky Mount........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Rutherfordton Fire Rutherfordton...... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Trent Woods Police Trent Woods........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
North Dakota:
New England Fire Department. New England........ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Stark County Sheriff's Dickinson.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Ohio:
Akron Police Department..... Akron.............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Beavercreek Police Beavercreek........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Northwest Ambulance District Geneva............. Advanced Portable Emergency Medical 10,200.00
Detector. Services.
Oklahoma:
Enid Fire Department........ Enid............... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Marlow Police Department.... Marlow............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Owasso Fire Department...... Owasso............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Woodward Police Department.. Woodward........... CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Oregon:
Cascade Locks Fire & Cascade Locks...... Thermal Imager....... Other............. 12,500.00
Emergency Medical Services.
Hubbard Police Department... Hubbard............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Illinois Valley Fire Cave Junction...... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
District.
Malheur County Sheriff's Vale............... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Oakland Rural Fire District. Oakland............ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Turner Police Department.... Turner............. CEDAP Personal Law Enforcement... 4,140.00
Protective Equipment
Kit.
Turner Rural Fire Protection Turner............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
District.
Pennsylvania:
Bristol Township Police Bristol............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Millersville Borough Police Millersville....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Wilkes-Barre Police Wilkes-Barre....... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Wilkes-Barre Township Police Wilkes-Barre....... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Rhode Island:
Bristol Police Department... Bristol............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Cumberland Hill Fire Cumberland......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
District.
North Smithfield Fire & North Smithfield... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Rescue Service.
Pawtucket Fire Department... Pawtucket.......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
South Carolina:
Hardeeville Fire/Rescue..... Hardeeville........ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Tennessee:
Lenoir City Police Lenoir City........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Martin Fire Department...... Martin............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Milan Police Department..... Milan.............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Texas:
Arp Marshal's Office........ Arp................ Thermal Imager....... Emergency 12,500.00
Management.
Bosque County Constable's Meridian........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office--Precinct 1.
Brownsboro Police Department Brownsboro......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Clifton Volunteer Fire Clifton............ Search Camera Victim Fire Department... 14,620.00
Department. Locator System.
Cockrell Hill Police Dallas............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Conroe Fire Department...... Conroe............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Crims Chapel Volunteer Fire Henderson.......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Gainesville Police Gainesville........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Hillsboro Fire/Rescue....... Hillsboro.......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Jacksboro Police Department. Jacksboro.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Marietta Volunteer Fire Marietta........... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Meridian Fire Department.... Meridian........... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Valley Mills Police Valley Mills....... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Victoria Police Department.. Victoria........... Advanced Portable Law Enforcement... 10,200.00
Detector.
Wichita County Texas Wichita Falls...... Search Camera Victim Emergency 14,620.00
Emergency Management. Locator System. Management.
Winters Police Department... Winters............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Utah:
Cedar City/Iron County Fire Cedar City......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Department.
Emery County Sheriff's Castle Dale........ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
Helper Police Department.... Helper............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Morgan County Sheriff's Morgan............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Virginia:
Amherst County Sheriff's Amherst............ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Buena Vista Police Buena Vista........ Night Vision Kit..... Public Safety..... 3,700.00
Department.
Cumberland County Sheriff's Cumberland......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Emporia Police Department... Emporia............ Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Henry County Sheriff's Martinsville....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
King George Sheriff's Office King George........ Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Washington:
Bainbridge Island Police Bainbridge Island.. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Department.
Chelan County Sheriff's Wenatchee.......... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Columbia County Sheriff's Dayton............. Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Office.
Colville Police Department.. Colville........... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Colville Tribes Fire Rescue. Nespelem........... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Jefferson County Sheriff's Port Hadlock....... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Office.
Kettle Falls Police Kettle Falls....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Lakewood Police Department.. Lakewood........... Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Pierce County Fire District Orting............. Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
18.
San Juan County Sheriff's Eastsound.......... Night Vision Kit..... Fire Department... 3,700.00
Office.
San Juan Fire District 3.... Friday Harbor...... Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Stevens County Fire District Hunters............ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
2.
Stevens County Fire Clayton............ Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Protection District 1.
Stevens County Sheriff's Colville........... Night Vision Kit..... Emergency Medical 3,700.00
Ambulance. Services.
Sumas Police Department..... Sumas.............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Tumwater Police Department.. Tumwater........... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Walla Walla Police Walla Walla........ Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Department. Locator System.
Wisconsin:
Auburndale Joint Fire and Auburndale......... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Rescue Department.
Chippewa Falls Fire and Chippewa Falls..... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Emergency Services.
Chippewa Falls Police Chippewa Falls..... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Chippewa Fire District...... Chippewa Falls..... Thermal Imager....... Fire Department... 12,500.00
Cottage Grove Police Cottage Grove...... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Fox Valley Metro Police Little Chute....... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Department.
Germantown Police Department Germantown......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
McFarland Police Department. McFarland.......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Mishicot Police Department.. Mishicot........... Search Camera Victim Law Enforcement... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Park Falls Police Department Park Falls......... Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Sharon Police Department.... Sharon............. Thermal Imager....... Law Enforcement... 12,500.00
Stanley Fire Department..... Stanley............ Search Camera Victim Fire Department... 14,620.00
Locator System.
Vernon County Emergency Viroqua............ Night Vision Kit..... Law Enforcement... 3,700.00
Management.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. What success have come out of the technology transfer
program?
Answer. The first award to 214 agencies of $2.0 million in
equipment and training took place on May 19, 2005. The second award
will take place in the coming weeks. A detailed evaluation is under
development to determine the impact and cost effectiveness of the CEDAP
program.
CITIZENS CORP
Question. For what, specifically, will the increase of $35 million
for Citizens Corp in the fiscal year 2006 President's Request be used?
Answer. The Citizen Corps Program (CCP) is the Department's grass-
roots initiative to actively involve all citizens in hometown security
through personal preparedness, training, and volunteer service. CCP
funds support Citizen Corps Councils with efforts to engage citizens in
preventing, preparing for, and responding to all hazards, including
planning and evaluation, public education and communication, training,
participation in exercises, providing proper equipment to citizens with
a role in response, and management of Citizen Corps volunteer programs
and activities. State and local governments have embraced the concept
of Citizen Corps. They are developing the management capacity of the
Councils, conducting public education, providing training for citizens,
and engaging citizens through volunteer programs. However, there is a
need to expand this effort to ensure that citizens are integrated in
all aspects of State and local government preparedness, response and
recovery and to support more significant community outreach through
schools, private and public sector worksites, faith-based
organizations, recreational outlets, and local media. The requested $50
million is critical to meet the demand and build the capacity of
preparing, training, and involving citizens. In the end, this will
result in the development of a fully-prepared community, with citizens
who are fully aware, trained and practiced on how to detect, deter,
prepare for, and respond to all hazards and threats.
BEST PRACTICES
Question. As the Office of State and Local Government Coordination
and Preparedness discovers lessons learned and best practices across
the Nation regarding procurement and allocation of grant funding, are
those practices being collected and made available for State and local
governments to benefit?
Answer. SLGCP currently has several avenues to identify and share
grant-related best practices and lessons learned with its State and
local grantees.
--The office has analyzed the states' and territories' narrative on
management capabilities responses included in the fiscal year
2005 HSGP applications, including information on allocation of
grant funding. SLGCP will provide each respondent with a
written overview summary analysis that highlights best
management practices and lessons learned. This overview will
allow States to learn about approaches that are working
successfully in other states. In addition to the overview,
SLGCP will also provide a state-specific analysis of the
management capabilities outlined in the applications.
--SLGCP is developing a Program Management Handbook that includes
guidelines for building strong program management
infrastructures. These guidelines have been written to provide
a common, flexible framework with potential for customization
at the state, regional, and local levels. Best practices in
program management will be collected and disseminated to
support the implementation of the capabilities outlined in the
Handbook.
--ODP is exploring ways to provide procurement assistance including
identification and dissemination of procurement best practices
to help States develop streamlined procurement practices.
Currently under development is procurement technical assistance
including informational materials, tools and templates, and
customized on-site guidance.
AIRBORNE RAPID IMAGING FOR EMERGENCY SUPPORT
Question. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center, the State of New York utilized a technology
that provided maps to first responders showing location, elevation, and
temperature ranges of features on the ground within 8-10 hours after
data collection. The Department of Homeland Security's Office of State
and local Government Coordination and Preparedness provided $3 million
in 2004 to demonstrate and further improve this technology by reducing
turn around time through a system called the Airborne Rapid Imaging for
Emergency Support (ARIES).
What were the results of the ARIES flight demonstration that was
conducted last November?
Answer. The Airborne Rapid Imaging for Emergency Support (ARIES)
program was a DHS-funded initiative to explore the technical
feasibility of providing near real-time map-quality imagery for first
responders in the event of a crisis. The program began in the spring of
2004 and culminated with a technical demonstration on November 17, 2004
at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. The objectives of the demonstration
were as follows:
--Demonstrate the capacity to obtain digital imagery rapidly using
commercial aircraft in a simulated emergency event.
--Downlink this imagery directly from the aircraft to a receiving
station using micro millimeter wave technology.
--Process the raw, uncorrected imagery in a portable environment for
use by existing DHS systems within 3 hours of acquisition.
--Distribute the imagery to multiple agencies for emergency needs.
--Provide on-site visualization, tracking, and information gathering
capabilities to assist with any emergency response
requirements.
The demonstration satisfied the technical criteria for four of the
five components. Distribution of the imagery was not successfully
demonstrated. This was a technical demonstration that did not address
the utility of ARIES' orthorectified imagery products to emergency
responders.
Overall, the ARIES program proved the technical feasibility of the
concept. A final program report including a costing analysis of the
ARIES concept was conducted by the Institute for Defense Analysis. The
report is in the final review process and will be made available upon
completion.
Question. What is the current capability in Federal, state, or
local government organizations or private industry to provide
integrated digital imagery, lidar, and thermal information to first
responders?
Answer. Many types of imagery, acquired for particular uses, are
available commercially to support first responders. The capability of
various organizations to deliver this imagery directly to first
responders varies significantly from State to state. However, the
capability of first responders to receive it and do sophisticated
analysis is limited because there is no end-to-end system in place to
acquire process and deliver imaging products to the first response
community. The DHS Geospatial Management Office (GMO) is currently
conducting pilot programs to demonstrate delivery of geospatial
products to first responders using wireless hand held devices.
Question. What is the Department's need and plan to advance and
utilize this technology?
Answer. According to the DHS GMO, the simultaneous collection,
processing and integration of Digital Electro-optical (EO) Imagery,
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) elevation data and Thermal Infrared
(TIR) Imagery from a single aerial platform was demonstrated in the
ARIES pilot. The ARIES demonstration provided a unique capability
determined to be necessary in the aftermath of September 11. Imaging
technologies are collected and used by Federal, State or local
organizations in a variety of mapping applications or special studies.
Currently, however, the acquisition, dissemination and use of airborne
and space-borne sensor information for emergency response are mostly
uncoordinated among levels of government, across jurisdictions and
between mission areas.
The DHS GMO is responsible for providing leadership and
coordination in meeting the geospatial information requirements of
those responsible for planning, prevention, mitigation, assessment and
response to emergencies, critical infrastructure protection, and other
functions of the Department. The GMO is working with the DHS components
as well as other Federal, State and local organizations to understand
the geospatial information needed to support their missions. The GMO
developed the Geospatial User Needs Assessment Report which identified
many of the needs. The GMO has also produced and is maintaining the
Geospatial View of the Geospatial Enterprise Architecture which is a
current view of the as-is and target geospatial information technology
architecture for DHS. The DHS Geospatial Architecture view is
referenced in the fiscal year 2005 HSGP and is being used as a model
for the emerging Geospatial Profile. As the DHS and HLS architecture
mature, rapid geospatial imagery acquisition requirements will be
identified and services will be acquired.
HAZARD MITIGATION
Question. The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program provides critical
funding to States following a declared natural disaster to assist them
in reducing future disaster losses. The funding is an amount equivalent
to a percentage of eligible FEMA funds. The funds provided are 75
percent Federal and 25 percent local or State. Since the passage in
December 2000 of the Disaster Mitigation Act which amended the Stafford
Disaster Relief Act, FEMA has encouraged States to put forth the
additional effort required to obtain an approved enhanced plan. Those
with an enhanced plan would be eligible for an amount equivalent to up
to 20 percent of eligible FEMA funds. Based on this incentive numerous
States are working to obtain this goal. The fiscal year 2006
President's Budget proposes language to reduce the percentage to up to
12.5 percent.
Since this incentive has been in the law for 4 years, why are you
requesting this change now that some States have put forth significant
commitment of already overburdened resources to achieve enhanced
status?
Answer. The President's Budget request preserves the 5 percent
incentive for developing enhanced mitigation plans. The Hazard
Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) now uses a 7.5-percent multiplier to
calculate the amount of mitigation money available to a State after a
disaster declaration, when the State has an approved basic mitigation
plan. When the State has an approved enhanced mitigation plan, it is
eligible for up to 12.5 percent. Both the Administration and Congress
agreed to the 7.5 percent basic formula, which was changed from 15
percent when Congress created the Pre-disaster Mitigation (PDM) program
to provide additional funding for mitigation activities on a nationally
competitive basis.
The incentive was 5 percent when the program used a 15 percent
baseline and when HMGP represented the primary means for States to
receive Federal mitigation funds. The incentive remains 5 percent now.
Under the old plan, only the States in which a disaster was declared
were eligible. However, the availability of PDM grant funds allows the
States to compete for mitigation funds without a Presidential disaster
declaration. The budget request of up to 12.5 percent HMGP for the
States with enhanced mitigation plans preserves the 5 percentage point
incentive authorized in the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000.
Question. Which States have approved plans and which States are in
the process of working on enhanced plans?
Answer. All 50 States now have approved State Mitigation Plans. In
addition, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin
Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands have approved state-
level mitigation plans. (The Federated States of Micronesia is the only
non-Tribal jurisdiction without an approved plan. FEMA Region IX
expects to be able to approve it soon.)
There are currently four States with approved enhanced mitigation
plans: Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington. FEMA has recently
reviewed enhanced plans from Maryland and Pennsylvania; however, they
require revision prior to approval. The following States have advised
FEMA that they may submit enhanced plans for review and approval within
the next 6 months: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana,
Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and
Wisconsin. Arizona, California, Delaware, North Dakota, and Utah have
expressed interest in developing enhanced mitigation plans, but, to
date, such plans have not been received.
Question. Were the States advised that you intended to reduce the
incentive?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 President's Budget is the first time
that a specific percentage, other than 20 percent, has been
communicated to the States working on enhanced plans. The incentive for
an enhanced plan, however, remains 5 percent.
FLOOD MAP MODERNIZATION
Question. What is the schedule, by state, for implementation of the
Flood Map Modernization Program?
Answer. The schedule varies from State to State and changes from
year to year. FEMA has developed a strong business planning process in
which it works with the States and with other significant mapping
partners to identify and schedule mapping projects jointly. FEMA then
works with its partners to execute the plan based on the funding
appropriated and makes adjustments twice a year to align schedules with
current realities. FEMA balances stakeholder input with national and
regional flood mapping needs to develop a nationwide plan for flood map
update schedules and anticipated budgets. FEMA used stakeholder input
to develop the initial plan, and received additional feedback on the
plan that will be addressed in future updates. The current Multi-year
Flood Hazard Identification Plan (MHIP), detailing the 5 year schedule
and budget for developing the updated flood hazard data and maps, can
be accessed online at http://www.fema.gov/fhm/mh_main.shtm.
Question. Are we on track to complete this project within the
projected timeframe of completion in fiscal year 2008 within the budget
that has been appropriated and requested?
Answer. FEMA is on track to complete the project by 2010, should
the funding requested through 2008 be provided. That is, studies funded
in 2008 are expected to be complete by 2010. The digital flood hazard
data will meet quality standards contained in the MHIP. However,
stakeholders have identified additional engineering requirements beyond
what can be accomplished within this project. Data on these additional
engineering requirements are being collected as FEMA coordinates with
States and communities during the nationwide mapping effort. These data
will provide the basis for evaluating future resource needs.
Question. What sort of cooperation is happening with State and
local governments?
Answer. The map modernization effort is built upon constant
collaboration between FEMA Headquarters and FEMA Regions I-X, the
States and local entities, and the business planning process
facilitates this collaboration. Many FEMA mapping partners are
contributing not only to the flood map production process, but to the
planning process as well. In fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004,
FEMA provided more than $92 million directly to its Cooperating
Technical Partners (CTPs) to develop flood map data in support of map
modernization. Also, in 2002, as part of its broader effort to
incorporate local, state, and regional involvement in flood mapping,
FEMA asked the states, territories, and some CTPs with multi-
jurisdictional responsibility for floodplain management to prepare map
modernization plans. The plans included extensive flood mapping needs
assessments that were developed pursuant to FEMA and other criteria. In
early fiscal year 2004, FEMA made funds available through the Flood Map
Modernization Management Support (FMMMS) program to these same entities
to upgrade and update their plans. FEMA received a total of 55 plans
covering 48 States and four of the five water management districts in
Florida. FEMA also received plans from the District of Columbia and two
Territories.
The FMMMS program, with more than 50 partners, provides a means to
ensure that partners can support Flood Map Modernization through
administration and management activities. These activities, although
not directly resulting in the production of a flood map, increase
partners' investment and capability to manage their flood hazard data,
strongly bolster the efforts of mapping partners, and ensure a
tailored, local focus within a national program. Two of the most vital
outcomes of FMMMS are the partners' ability to review program planning
policy and guidance and their identification of needs as a part of
their business planning process.
Question. What will the maintenance cost of this program be once
the modernization piece is completed?
Answer. FEMA is currently estimating maintenance costs and will
provide this information to the Office of Management and Budget as
scheduled. The strong partnerships, business planning processes, and
flood mapping technologies deployed as part of Flood Map Modernization
will allow FEMA to improve its estimated maintenance costs as the
program draws to completion. FEMA will continue to work with the States
and communities to define the most efficient and effective approach for
providing and maintaining up-to-date flood hazard information for the
nation.
CERRO GRANDE FIRE CLAIMS
Question. What is the unobligated balance of the Cerro Grande fire
claims fund?
Answer. As of April 30, 2005, the unobligated balance of the Cerro
Grande fire claims fund is $36,559,305.
Question. Is there a deadline for claims? If so, what is it?
Answer. The deadline for filing claims (other than mitigation
claims) with the Office of Cerro Grande Fire Claims was August 28,
2002. The deadline for filing mitigation claims was August 28, 2003.
Question. If it has passed, what is the remaining balance of the
fund?
Answer. As of April 30, 2005, the remaining unobligated balance of
the Cerro Grande fire claims fund is $36,559,305.
Question. How many claims totaling how much are left to be resolved
and what is the timeline for resolving those claims?
Answer. FEMA has successfully processed 21,453 claims, including
all administrative appeals. There are two claims left to be resolved.
Those claims, totaling $5,249,866, were filed in the United States
District Court for New Mexico. The resolution of these two cases
depends on the schedule of the United States District Court. All of the
4,529 subrogation claims have been processed, and 70 percent of each of
those claims has been paid, leaving $34,509,270 as the remaining
subrogation liability. The subrogation claims will be paid with funds
remaining after the adjudication of the two claims in Federal Court.
PRE-DISASTER MITIGATION GRANTS
Question. Last year the Conferees expressed concern over the slow
progress in awarding fiscal year 2003 Pre-disaster Mitigation Grants
and over the unobligated balances that remained in the program. How
much fiscal year 2004 funding has been released to date and how much
remains unobligated in the program?
Answer. To date, FEMA has not released any fiscal year 2004
competitive grant funding ($131 million). Since the PDM funds are
available until expended, FEMA is combining the remaining fiscal year
2003 funds with the fiscal year 2004 funds and with the fiscal year
2005 appropriation into a streamlined fiscal year 2005 PDM competitive
grant program. Of the fiscal year 2004 appropriation of $149 million, a
total of $137 million (competitive grants, administrative, and
miscellaneous funding) remains unobligated.
Question. For fiscal year 2005 funds, why is it taking so long to
distribute the funds and how can the program be expedited?
Answer. After completing the first competitive PDM process, FEMA
began awarding the fiscal year 2003 grants in April 2004. The fiscal
year 2003 appropriation, authorized in February 2003, directed FEMA to
implement a PDM grant program in three parts: (1) a nationally
competitive PDM grant program for state, territory, local government,
and Indian tribal government projects and plans; (2) a nationally
competitive PDM grant program for disaster-resistant university
projects and plans; and (3) a one-time planning grant allocation to the
states and territories. The PDM grants are awarded based on the results
of a three-phase competition--eligibility and completeness review,
technical evaluation, and national evaluation team review. The
applications are ranked and announced, and subsequently, the applicants
are notified that their application has been selected for funding. Once
this takes place, the grant award process can begin. The majority of
the fiscal year 2003 funds have been awarded; however, an additional
$18.5 million will be awarded when ongoing Federally required
environmental and historic preservation compliance reviews are
complete. FEMA anticipates that this will be no later than the end of
fiscal year 2005. At that point, FEMA will have funded all eligible
fiscal year 2003 grant applications and approximately $11 million in
fiscal year 2003 funds will remain.
In response to the announcement of funds available for fiscal year
2005, FEMA received 821 applications totaling nearly $517 million. FEMA
conducted eligibility and completeness reviews in March 2005. Technical
reviews in the areas of engineering, cost effectiveness, and
environmental and historic preservation were conducted in March and
April 2005. The National Evaluation will be conducted May 17-June 3,
2005. Representatives from 27 states, 3 tribes, and 1 territory will
participate in the National Evaluation process.
Based on the eligibility, completeness, and technical reviews
completed to date, FEMA expects that the selection of grants for award
will be completed in June, after which pre-award activities and the
obligation of grant awards will begin. Grants will be selected so that
ultimately, all funds from fiscal year 2005 and prior years will be
obligated.
Federal environmental and historic preservation compliance
requirements for project grants, as well as state-level grant
processing requirements, are significant factors that can delay the
obligation of grant funds to selected grantees. FEMA will work with
grantees to complete these requirements expeditiously; however, for
those grants that cannot be obligated in fiscal year 2005, FEMA will
work to complete the requirements and to obligate the grant funds as
early as possible in fiscal year 2006.
FEMA PERSONNEL
Question. Recently FEMA has experienced a large number of
vacancies. In fiscal year 2004 and to date in fiscal year 2005 how many
vacancies has FEMA experienced in headquarters and in the regions?
Answer. At the end of fiscal year 2004, there were approximately
357 vacancies agency-wide (not including Stafford Act employees). By
mid-year of fiscal year 2005, FEMA had approximately 342 vacancies
agency-wide.
Question. Were any of those vacancies eliminated or transferred to
other parts of DHS?
Answer. Yes, some of the vacancies were transferred to the SLGCP at
the start of fiscal year 2005.
Question. Is so, what is the total number eliminated, and the total
number transferred and to where?
Answer. Sixteen vacancies were transferred to SLGCP at the start of
fiscal year 2005.
Question. How many vacancies does FEMA have as of April 20, 2005?
Answer. As of April 20, 2005, FEMA has approximately 342 vacancies.
Question. What is the current plan at FEMA for filling vacancies?
Answer. FEMA will continue to fill vacancies and to maintain
staffing levels sufficient to sustain its mission.
Question. How has the vacancy of so many positions affected the
ability to prepare and respond to disasters?
Answer. FEMA still is able to maintain its mission capability.
IA'S ROLE IN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
Question. In February 2004, the DHS IG noted that the mission of
the IAIP Risk Assessment Division (RAD) overlaps in many ways with the
Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), now called the National
Counterterrorism Center. The TTIC was created through executive order
in 2003. In August 2004, the IG noted that DHS is not playing a lead
role in consolidating terrorist watch list information even though the
Homeland Security Act called for DHS to play a major role in watch list
consolidation. In December of 2004, the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act was signed by the President making sweeping
changes in the intelligence community.
With the Intelligence Reform Act and other executive orders
stripping away most of the responsibilities of IA and placing them with
the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the Terrorist Screening
Center, what role does IA play in the intelligence community?
Answer.
The Role of DHS Office of Information Analysis in the Intelligence
Community
DHS Office of Information Analysis (IA) plays a leading role in the
intelligence community for homeland security intelligence. The Office
provides border, infrastructure, maritime and domestic threat analysis;
fuses unique information from our components and our non-traditional
stakeholders; and serves as the primary intelligence information
provider to state, local, territorial and tribal governments and the
private sector, as well as their advocate for intelligence information
within the intelligence community. As I announced on July 12, 2005, I
am committed to enhancing this role.
DHS IA's role as a leader of homeland security intelligence within
the intelligence community is likewise enhanced by the IRTPA 2004 and
other executive orders; the greater integration of the intelligence
community as a result of IRTPA 2004 will strengthen the ability of DHS
IA to carry out its mission.
IRTPA 2004 and the Integration of the Intelligence Community
DHS IA is aggressively integrating into the intelligence community
to ensure we can maximally contribute to the nation's security,
especially in our unique areas of expertise (producing unique analysis
and providing unique information), and to ensure we are able to most
effectively leverage the expertise and support of the intelligence
community on behalf of the Homeland Security mission and its
stakeholders, especially those non-traditional stakeholders such as
State, local, territorial, and tribal governments and the private
sector (with whom we have unique partnerships).
Integrating DHS IA Unique Analytic Expertise into the Intelligence
Community
DHS IA has ``forward deployed'' DHS intelligence analysts to our
intelligence community partners, to include the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and to non-intelligence community members such as the TSC.
These seasoned analysts are able to ensure our intelligence
community partners have the benefit of our unique DHS analytic
expertise in Border Security Intelligence, Infrastructure Security
Intelligence, Maritime Security Intelligence (esp. through our Homeland
Infrastructure Threat and Risk Assessment Center), and Domestic Threat
Intelligence.
We frequently collaborate with our partners when expertise is
required in our unique analytic areas and we are fully engaged in
ongoing community efforts to develop community production plans
reflective of an efficient application of the community's resources.
For example, DHS IA is fully participating in the NCTC led effort to
develop a communitywide counterterrorism production plan; we are taking
the lead in those areas that make use of our unique DHS analytic areas
(borders, infrastructure, maritime and domestic threat, as appropriate)
and partnering with other organizations on those topics that will be
strengthen by including our experts' input.
Working with NCTC and TSC on Analysis
DHS IA has been a strong partner in NCTC since its inception as the
Terrorist Threat Integration Center in January 2003. On a daily basis
we levy the expertise resident in the NCTC to answer the needs of our
customers--we focus on ensuring the best counterterrorism analysis in
the government is put into a form, context and classification that is
useful for our state, local, territorial and tribal governments and
private sector partners. At the same time, we provide our substantial
expertise to the NCTC on areas where we are the experts: borders,
infrastructure, maritime, and domestic threat analysis. The result of
this partnership is that we work together on many joint products--
bringing the best expertise in the government to bear on behalf of our
customers.
DHS IA took a lead role in helping stand up the TSC, providing
staff and support (to include a senior manager). Our experienced
analysts in the TSC help ensure the success of its vital work in
watchlist consolidation.
DHS IA also conducts a valuable alternative analysis program; our
Red Cell provides alternative analytic perspective to complement--and
challenge--NCTC and others findings. Our Red Cell has received
compliments for its insightful and adventurous thought--and this work
is an essential component of the alternative analytic capability
required under IRTPA 2004.
Integrating DHS IA Unique Information into the Intelligence Community
In parallel with our efforts to integrate DHS unique analytic
expertise into the intelligence community, we are also moving forward
in ensuring our vast DHS unique information holdings are made available
to the intelligence community through direct access and quality
reporting.
DHS has vast information holdings, unique to this department,
either as a result of our operational elements' investigations and
enforcement operations or as a result of our unique position as the
primary interface between the Federal Government and the State, local,
territorial and tribal governments and private sector.
DHS IA is working to ensure analysts throughout the intelligence
community have access to our information holdings, while respecting the
privacy and civil liberties of our citizens. In several cases, the
Department has made operational elements' data holdings directly
available to partner organizations in the intelligence community. In
addition, DHS IA is establishing a reports officer program, focused on
drawing information out of the department's information holdings and
placing them into traditional intelligence community channels, through
the Intelligence Information Reports vehicle. DHS IA has deployed
trained reports officers into key departmental operational nodes to
report counterterrorism information derived from border enforcement
efforts and immigration investigations to the intelligence community.
In the future, DHS IA will deploy trained reports officers throughout
the components--and out into State and Local Fusion Centers--to ensure
the all the department's relevant information is made available to
those who need it, in a timely manner and in the channels analysts in
the intelligence community are comfortable with and expect to receive
reporting.
Integrating DHS IA Unique Partnerships into the Intelligence Community
DHS IA has been charged to be the primary Federal Government
intelligence information provider to the State, local, territorial, and
tribal governments and the private sector (a responsibility re-
emphasized by IRTPA 2004)--and to be their advocate within the
intelligence community. On a daily basis we are integrating our support
for these customers into the larger intelligence community by working
to ensure the free flow of information and products from the
intelligence community out to our customers, by providing actionable
intelligence, and by contextualizing intelligence to explain the
product to our customers in terms they understand and working with our
partners to produce the reports at the classification levels our
stakeholders can use.
We are also continually working to ensure our customers'
requirements--whether they are for information or for finished analytic
production--are represented in the intelligence community requirements
statements, collection decks, and production plans. Our work in
integrating the homeland security intelligence requirements of the
state, local, territorial, and tribal governments and the private
sector into the intelligence community requirements system is the first
time these requirements have been systematically included and advocated
for in the intelligence community.
IRTPA 2004 and DHS IA Departmental Responsibilities
In addition to our lead role for homeland security intelligence
within the intelligence community, DHS IA maintains several key
departmental support responsibilities--including a new role of leading
and managing the departmental intelligence activities.
Some of these key departmental roles include:
--Providing direct support to the Secretary and department senior
staff for policy, programmatic, and operational decision
making.
--Developing the plans, programs and policies required to build a
unified, integrated DHS intelligence capability, which the
Secretary has said will lie at the heart of the department's
risk-based approach to securing the homeland.
--Supporting the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS). IA will
continue to provide specific intelligence to the Secretary and
the White House to enable timely changes in the threat level
and support dissemination of this information to stakeholders.
We will contribute to the function of Indications & Warning
(I&W) in partnership with the HSOC.
--Building out of the intelligence infrastructure for DHS
headquarters.
--Developing an Education, Training, and Career Workforce Management
Program for DHS analysts and intelligence professionals.
Finally, early reviews by the DHS OIG and concerns resulting from
the changing roles and responsibilities of the NCTC and other
organizations due to IRTPA 2004 and other executive orders are not
reflective of the successes DHS IA has demonstrated as a leader within
the intelligence community for homeland security intelligence. As
stated above, our value added comes in our unique data and analytic
expertise (border, infrastructure, maritime, and domestic threat
analysis--analysis that has distinguished itself on several occasions
and led the community toward the appropriate threat characterization),
in providing our unique information (information never before available
to the intelligence community and by which we have already contributed
to successes in other agencies), and in partnering with our
stakeholders--especially in our unique role as the primary Federal
Government intelligence information provider to the state, local,
territorial, and tribal governments and the private sector and in our
role as their advocate within the intelligence community.
We remain focused on our mission of leading the DHS intelligence
activities in support of the department and its components, and for the
full benefit of the state, local, territorial, and tribal governments
and the private sector, to secure the homeland, defend our citizenry,
and protect our critical infrastructure.
Question. What role does the Homeland Security Operations Center
(HSOC) serve in comparison to the NCTC?
Answer. In contrast to the NCTC, the HSOC provides general domestic
situational awareness, a common operational picture, and support to the
IIMG and DHS Leadership, as well as acting as the primary conduit for
the White House Situation Room and IIMG for domestic situational
awareness. The HSOC will continue to collect domestic related
suspicious activity reports, look at domestic terror threats and
natural disasters, focusing efforts domestically. HSOC is the lead
conduit to State and local agencies.
Question. The FTE levels authorized for IAIP appear to be based on
the larger role in intelligence gathering and analysis that was
envisioned when IAIP was established. What is the justification to
carry such a high number of FTE for intelligence analysis now that many
functions envisioned by the Homeland Security Act have been placed at
other agencies?
Answer. IAIP's mission is an entirely new one, and it is a
manpower-intensive effort owing to the vast size and scope of the
threats to the homeland. IAIP is performing an intelligence mission
never before attempted, and it is a mission that includes Federal,
state, local, tribal entities as well as privately-held interests.
Additionally, IAIP is responsible for intelligence pertaining to
securing the borders of the United States, which is in itself an
enormous undertaking. DHS and IAIP have been given the mission of
producing intelligence analysis and products that simply did not exist
before, and to do so with a ``target set'' that is staggering in its
size and complexity. While the need to conserve resources is clear, the
need to perform the analyses needed to ensure that our Homeland is
prepared to detect, intercept, withstand, and, if necessary, recover
from a terrorist attack is even more vital.
CHEMICAL SECURITY
Question. Last year, I asked Secretary Ridge about his plans to
address security at chemical plants and he told me that the private
sector was taking care of it. Yet, the Department has no benchmarks to
determine whether the private sector is taking steps to secure its
facilities. In response to this apparent gap in our security, last
year, I asked GAO to determine what steps are being taken by the
private sector to protect the American people. The GAO concluded that
for 93 percent of the industry, it is uncertain whether facilities are
improving security at all. Only 1,100 of the 15,000 chemical facilities
identified by the Department of Homeland Security are known to adhere
to voluntary industry security procedures.
It has been more than 2 years since the GAO urged the EPA and DHS
to develop a comprehensive strategy for the protection of our chemical
plants. Yet, little has been done.
What are your plans to enhance security for the chemical sector?
Answer. As part of the development of the NIPP, the Office of
Infrastructure Protection (IP) has been tasked with authoring the
Chemical Sector Specific Plan (SSP), which will outline the strategic
guidance for securing the Chemical Sector.
While the Chemical SSP is being developed, DHS continues to work
within the Chemical Sector to enhance overall protective capability
through several ongoing initiatives. To help guide the resource
targeting of these initiatives, the Department is applying a risk
management process that examines the likelihood of a given event and
its potential consequences. This approach allows for the Department's
protective efforts to be directed at those chemical facilities posing
the greatest potential danger to the American public. Examples of these
protective efforts include the following:
--Site Assistance Visits (SAVs).--SAVs are visits to critical
infrastructure facilities by DHS protective security
professionals in conjunction with subject-matter experts and
local law enforcement (LLE) to assist asset owner/operators in
assessing vulnerabilities at their facilities. To date, SAVs
have been conducted at 38 chemical facilities.
--Buffer Zone Protection Plans (BZPPs).--BZPPs identify and recommend
security measures for the area surrounding a facility (the
``Buffer Zone''), making it more difficult to plan or launch an
attack. DHS trains LLE personnel on how to assess Buffer Zone
security and provides a standardized template for use in the
creation of a BZPP. To date, DHS has received BZPPs for 111
chemical facilities, with BZPPs expected to be completed for
the 289 highest-risk chemical facilities by the end of fiscal
year 2005. In conjunction with the BZPP program, $14.5 million
in grants have been provided to first preventers responsible
for the protection of chemical facilities
--Educational Reports.--Based on data gathered from SAVs and BZPPs,
DHS has developed three types of educational reports for use by
LLE and asset owner/operators to learn how to better secure CI/
KR assets. Characteristics and Common Vulnerabilities reports
(CVs) identify common characteristics and vulnerabilities at
specific types of CI/KR. Potential Indicators of Terrorist
Activity reports (PIs) provide information on how to detect
terrorist activity in areas surrounding CI/KR. Protective
Measure (PM) reports identify best practices and other
protective measures for use at specific CI/KR types. CVs and
PIs have been developed for Chemical Facilities, Chemical
Storage Facilities, and Chemical and Hazardous Materials
Transportation. A PM report has been developed for the Chemical
and Hazardous Materials Industry.
--Facility Security Assessments/Facility Security Plans (FSAs/
FSPs).--Pursuant to the Maritime Transportation Security Act of
2002 (MTSA), owners of chemical facilities located along
waterways are required to complete FSAs and FSPs and submit
them to the USCG for review and approval. FSPs must include
security measures and procedures for responding to security
threats. To date, USCG personnel have visited over 230 chemical
facilities under the MTSA.
--Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protection
(RAMCAP).--DHS, in conjunction with the American Society for
Mechanical Engineers, is developing the RAMCAP, a risk
assessment methodology that will allow asset owners/operators
to assess the security of their critical assets. Results from
RAMCAP assessments will allow comparison of assets from across
sectors, allowing for better prioritization of national CI
protective efforts. The Chemical Sector module will be
completed by the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2005.
--Webcams.--Web-based cameras have been installed at ten high-risk
chemical facilities in order to enable LLE and DHS to conduct
remote surveillance of the buffer zone surrounding each
facility during elevated threat levels.
--Tabletop Exercises.--As part of DHS-IP's Exercise Program, tabletop
exercises have been conducted at six chemical facilities. The
findings from these exercises are compiled in After Action
Reports which serve as a basis for planning future exercises;
upgrading security plans and operating procedures; and taking
corrective actions.
--TIH Rail Security.--DHS, in conjunction with DOT, is supporting a
variety of efforts to improve security for Toxic-by-Inhalation
Hazards (TIH) rail shipments. These efforts include studying
ways to make HAZMAT rail cars less identifiable; conducting
vulnerability assessments for the high-risk urban areas where
the largest quantities of TIH chemicals move by rail; a DC Rail
Pilot Project involving a ``virtual fence'' with various
sensors and monitors to help secure the DC rail corridor from
potential incidents involving HAZMAT; and establishing TIH
HAZMAT teams in the DC area.
--Training.--DHS provides various training courses to asset owner/
operators, State and local government officials, and LLE
agencies responsible for the protection of chemical facilities.
Such courses include: Terrorism Awareness and Prevention;
Advanced Bomb Technician Training; Surveillance Detection; SWAT
Operations; and Underwater Hazardous Device Search Training.
--Private Sector Initiatives.--In addition to protective activities
led by DHS or other Federal entities, asset owner/operators in
the Chemical Sector are voluntarily undertaking a variety of
security initiatives. Chief among these is performance of self-
assessments using the Responsible Care Security Code (Security
Code). This code, developed by one of the Chemical Sector's
largest trade associations, is designed to help chemical
facilities improve their security using a risk-based approach
to identify, assess, and address vulnerabilities; prevent or
mitigate incidents; and enhance training and response
capabilities. Implementation of the Security Code is a
prerequisite for membership in some of the sector's largest
industry associations. Recently, DHS reached a tentative third
party verification agreement with two of these associations
(the American Chemistry Council and the Chlorine Institute).
Question. Will legislation be proposed to Congress that sets
security standards across the industry?
Answer. At this time, our non-regulatory partnerships with industry
are producing results. However, DHS has concluded that the existing
patchwork of authorities does not permit us to regulate the industry
effectively. Accordingly, DHS has agreed to work with Congress to
assess the need for a carefully measured, risk-based regulatory regime
in the chemical sector designed to close the existing gaps and develop
enforceable performance standards to reduce risk across the chemical
sector.
Question. Do you agree that the Department must establish
benchmarks to assess both the private sector's and Federal Government's
role in securing the chemical sector?
Answer. DHS believes facility chem site security should be based on
reasonable, clear, equitable performance standards. Enforceable
performance standards should be based on the types and severity of
potential threats posed by terrorists, and facilities should have the
flexibility to select among appropriate site-specific security measures
that will effectively address those threats.
BUFFER ZONE PROTECTION PLANS
Question. DHS recently released $92 million in Buffer Zone
Protection Plan grants. Of the 1,849 grants, provide a chart that shows
the distribution of grants and the funding by critical infrastructure
sector.
Answer. Please see table below.
BREAKDOWN OF BZPPS BY SECTOR FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004-2005
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Percent of Approx.
SECTOR sites \1\ sites funding \2\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agriculture & Food.............................................. 5 0.27 $250,000
Banking & Finance............................................... 41 2.20 2,050,000
Chemical & Hazardous Materials Industry......................... 272 14.62 13,199,870
Commercial Assets............................................... 880 47.29 43,592,631
Dams............................................................ 7 0.38 350,000
Defense Industrial Base......................................... 6 0.32 300,000
Emergency Services.............................................. 5 0.27 202,975
Energy.......................................................... 213 11.45 10,550,954
Government Facilities........................................... 142 8.28 7,100,000
Information Technology.......................................... 5 0.27 250,000
National Monuments & Icons...................................... 10 0.54 500,000
Nuclear Power Plants............................................ 92 4.94 4,423,802
Postal Shipping................................................. 2 0.11 100,000
Public Health................................................... 23 1.24 1,117,506
Telecommunications.............................................. 5 0.27 250,000
Transportation.................................................. 98 5.27 4,836,168
Water........................................................... 43 2.31 2,150,000
-----------------------------------------------
TOTALS.................................................... 1,849 100.00 $91,223,906
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The exact composition of the fiscal year 2004-05 BZPP list is still evolving; the current sector breakout is
a snapshot, but will not change substantially.
\2\ Subject to prioritization decisions of 18 States and 1 territory that have elected to prioritize their
assets, an exact sector breakdown is not currently available. A total of $91,315,793 is available under the
grant program.
Question. Does DHS plan to broaden the criteria for receiving
grants to include the gross consequence of an attack and other
vulnerabilities?
Answer. In determining where to target its protection resources,
DHS applies a risk management process that examines the likelihood of
attack and its potential consequences. This approach allows the
department's protective efforts to be directed at those facilities
posing the greatest potential danger to the public. DHS is continuing
to improve data collection in support of risk analysis, and to refine
our risk assessment methodologies to ensure resources are being spent
where they are most needed.
MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION
Question. The fiscal year 2006 congressional justification shows
that $1 million will be spent on ``Purchases from Government Accounts''
and $19 million for fiscal year 2006. In response to reprogramming
questions, IAIP adjusted the number for ``Purchases from Government
Accounts'' to $20.2 million. Provide a detailed chart on what the $20.2
million will buy in fiscal year 2005 and what the $19 million will buy
in fiscal year 2006.
Answer. In fiscal year 2005, the reprogramming of $20.2 million
into ``Purchases from Government Accounts'' includes funding for
facilities, Project Management Office, and IT costs. In fiscal year
2006, the $19 million in ``Purchases from Government Accounts'' will
fund the Homeland Secure Data Network (HSDN).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year 2005:
Homeland Secure Data Network........................ $7,500,000
Shared Services..................................... 2,000,000
Facilities.......................................... 4,500,000
WCF Contribution.................................... 7,700,000
IT NCR ops.......................................... 500,000
---------------
Total............................................. 22,200,000
===============
Fiscal year 2006: Homeland Secure Data Network.......... 19,400,000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Explain the large increases in fiscal year 2006 for
equipment and land and structures.
Answer. The $38 million funding request does not support the design
and construction phases of facilities projects. Department Operations
requests funds for the facilities design, basic tenant improvements
(construction/renovation), physical security upgrades, and emergency
power requirements for facilities IAIP will occupy at the Nebraska
Avenue Complex (NAC). The IAIP facilities funding is requested to
support the costs of occupying facilities, both on and off the NAC,
once they are ready, including fit out costs such as furniture,
computers and other Information Technology (IT), and the operations and
maintenance costs (rent, security, IT support) associated with occupied
facilities. Specifically, the operations and maintenance portion of the
IAIP facilities funding covers electric costs for additional air
conditioning required due to the technology requirements in IAIP spaces
(HSOC and server requirements), maintenance for the secure, up to date
unclassified and classified Local Area Networks, IT desktop services,
as well as required janitorial services. The tenant improvement portion
of this funding covers the mentioned fit out costs and ensures
facilities capable of meeting both the classified and unclassified
space and technology requirements in recognition of the fact that IAIP
is an IT and security intensive tenant. These costs include IT
infrastructure and cabling, IT equipment, security, IT certification
and accreditation, furniture, data migration and relocation costs. The
request does not pertain to land, as IAIP is a tenant in GSA-controlled
facilities.
CONTRACT EMPLOYEES
Question. In response to fiscal year 2005 reprogramming inquiries,
IAIP reported that there are 564 contractors supporting the program
function of IAIP, 138 of which are funded through the Management &
Administration account and 426 through the Assessments and Evaluations
Account.
Of the 426 in the A&E account, what is the distribution of contract
support by portfolio?
Answer. Please see chart below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contract
Account support
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Management & Administration............................. 138
===============
Assessments and Evaluations............................. 426
Homeland Security Operations Center................. 32
Critical Infrastructure Outreach and Partnerships... 74
Cyber Security...................................... 78
NS/EP Telecommunications............................ 32
National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis 24
Center; Protective Actions; Critical
Infrastructure; Identification and Evaluation;
Biosurveillance....................................
Threat Determination and Assessment; Evaluations and 186
Studies; Infrastructure Vulnerability and Risk
Assessment.........................................
===============
Total............................................. 564
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. What makes these positions not inherently governmental
positions?
Answer. The support personnel listed against the programs are
performing services consistent with Appendix B to Office of Federal
Procurement Policy (OFPP) policy letter 92-1. On-site contractor
personnel only perform support functions to IAIP and do not perform any
activities that are considered inherently governmental. IAIP is
currently covering significant portions of the workload associated with
open authorized FTE positions (which are inherently governmental)
through significant workload sharing of on-board FTE and use of
contractors to support non inherently governmental functions of those
same FTEs. The mix of contractor support staff will change as programs
progress and as new tasks are levied, and workloads will redistribute
to more logical and efficient workflows as FTEs come on-board. Although
the current work flow arrangements are difficult, they are working due
to the dedication and professionalism of the current FTE workforce.
IAIP is aware of its responsibilities under the FAIR Act (A-76) and we
annually review functions for inherently governmental versus commercial
activities.
ASSESSMENTS AND EVALUATIONS
Question. The budget request shows--$137.404 million in Adjustments
to Base. For each adjustment on page 76 of the congressional
justification for IAIP, explain the reduction or increase.
Answer. Please note that all dollars are in thousands.
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A decrease of $4,789 is due in part to contractor ($4,789)
savings created by the increased number of FTE
positions for Field Security Detachments.
Additionally, further savings are garnered by the
joint funding of Protective Security Task Forces
(PSTFs) between Critical Infrastructure Identification
and Evaluation (CIIE) and Public Actions (PA). There
are elements of the PSTF program that align with CIIE
such as the identification of critical infrastructure
and the CI/KR expertise of the PSTF team members.
However, the overarching emphasis of the PSTF mission
is the implementation of protective measures at high
priority CI/KR in light of emerging threats. In fiscal
year 2006 the program will be funded jointly between
CIIE and PA, but the entire program will be
transitioned to PA in fiscal year 2007. This is an
attempt of IP to better align our programs with the
budget structure......................................
A decrease of $899 will be transferred to S&T to (899)
support Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
Testing within Cyber Security, responsible for
securing the U.S. industrial systems that have become
increasingly dependent on powerful, electronic
communications tools, the internet, and supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems..........
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (5,688)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS CENTER ADJUSTMENTS TO
BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Travel, includes all costs of transportation of ($5)
persons, subsistence of travelers, and incidental
travel expenses in accordance with Federal travel
regulations. In fiscal year 2004 travel for
Headquarters personnel was funded from M&A, but has
been transferred to A&E for fiscal year 2005 and
fiscal year 2006......................................
Advisory and Assistance Services; the fiscal year 2006 (3,995)
request includes decreases due to decreases in program
advisory services and transfers of shared service
expenses from A&E back to M&A.........................
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (4,000)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIOSURVEILLANCE ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Adjustments................................... $147
---------------
Total Adjustments to Base......................... 147
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROTECTIVE ACTIONS ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fiscal year 2006, the PA program is reduced by ($53,000)
$53,000 to establish the new TIP program administered
by the SLGCP. TIP grants will be used by state/local/
territorial/tribal entities to procure goods and
services determined necessary by IAIP's BZPP process.
Previously, these goods and services which reduce the
vulnerability to terrorist threats around certain high
vulnerability critical infrastructures and key assets
within the state/local/tribal jurisdiction were funded
by assistance from IAIP. The TIP program will also
result in a $3,000 savings in program consultation
support costs.........................................
A decrease of $41,500 for Emerging Pilot Projects and ...............
Technology Application Pilots saving initiative.......
Technology pilots will be a cooperative effort with S&T ...............
for the development of new technologies for protective
measures. This effort is funded within S&T............
Emerging Pilot Projects has evolved into the Protective ...............
Measures Demonstration Pilots project which takes
advantage of innovative uses of existing protective
methods and commercially available equipment and
technology to enhance the security of CI/KA...........
A pilot project would take technology already developed ...............
for a specific use and apply it to fill gaps in
protective security and evaluate the effectiveness and
benefits in ``real life'' or field environments as
they relate to IP objectives and priorities.
Protective Security Pilots are developed from gaps and
protection shortfalls identified in interdependency
analysis and consequence of attack analysis as
directed by the NIPP, and also from BZPPs, SAVs, and
needs identified by Sector Specific Agencies. Pilots
are meant to demonstrate solutions for vulnerabilities
that cross sectors and stakeholders. Once the means of
mitigating the vulnerability is established and
proven, the solution is disseminated to all entities
that have similar vulnerabilities so that the
strategies can be integrated in their respective risk
management strategies.................................
IP is the Sector Specific Agency for 3 sectors (41,500)
(chemical, nuclear, and commercial assets) and is also
responsible for cross-sector protection as detailed in
the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. IP is
responsible for increasing the general level of
protection for CI/KR sites absent of specific threat
and is also responsible for addressing specific threat
events. PSD's intention in fiscal year 2006 is to
address the most critical vulnerabilities identified
by vulnerability assessments and BZPPs in fiscal year
2005 within the sectors that IP is directly
responsible for, including chemical, nuclear and
commercial sectors. Other individual sectors and cross-
sector vulnerabilities will also be addressed with the
demonstration of pilot protective measures based on
intelligence and threat information. As directed by
the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) and
HSPD-7, demonstration pilots are also taken on by PSD
to mitigate specific vulnerabilities across sectors as
the dynamic threat environment changes................
A Decrease of $9,800,000 for Regional Protective ...............
Actions...............................................
Pilot programs to establish regional centers for use by (9,800)
local law enforcement entities will not be continued
in fiscal year 2006. The performance impact will be
negligible as PSD will maintain close contact with
local police and protective security agencies through
the use of the outreach program, training programs,
Site Assistance Visits, the BZPP program and visits by
Protective Security Advisors and other DHS personnel.
DHS also conducts seminars and conferences in order to
maintain contact with State and local agencies. PSD
has developed close working relationships with local
police agencies and will continue to foster and
maintain these relationships in the future............
Technical Adjustments.................................. 4,052
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (100,248)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OUTREACH AND PARTNERSHIPS ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Adjustments.................................. $885
The cost of maintaining the data center which was (35,000)
funded in fiscal year 2005, in the CIOP program, and
initiated under the direction of the Department's CIO
is not requested in fiscal year 2006..................
A $13,800 reduction in CIOP results from a (13,800)
restructuring and completion of analytical tasks,
institutionalization of partnership relationships, and
implementation of management efficiencies.............
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (47,915)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CYBER SECURITY ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Adjustments................................... $969
---------------
Total Adjustments to Base......................... 969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NS/EP TELECOMMUNICATIONS ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advisory and assistance services includes services to $1,807
support Executive Order 12472, which provides authority
for the National Communications System (NCS) to
initiate telecommunications service priority programs
such as Wireless Priority Service (WPS) and Government
Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS). GETS and
WPS are essential telecommunications services to
support restoration and recovery following catastrophic
events.................................................
Travel.................................................. 57
Technical Adjustments................................... 14
---------------
Total Adjustments to Base......................... 1,878
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THREAT DETERMINATION AND ASSESSMENT ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information can be provided under separate cover upon ($2,043)
request...............................................
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (2,043)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INFRASTRUCTURE VULNERABILITIES & RISK ASSESSMENTS ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information can be provided under separate cover upon $3,267
request................................................
---------------
Total Adjustments to Base......................... 3,267
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information can be provided under separate cover upon ($4,000)
request...............................................
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (4,000)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVALUATIONS AND STUDIES ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information can be provided under separate cover upon $20,139
request................................................
---------------
Total Adjustments to Base......................... 20,139
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOMELAND SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTER ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Adjustments.................................. ($192)
----------------
Total Adjustments to Base........................ (192)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INFORMATION SHARING AND COLLABORATION ADJUSTMENTS TO BASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description Adjustment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Adjustments................................... $282
---------------
Total Adjustments to Base......................... 282
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. The budget proposes a decrease of $41.5 million for
Emerging Pilot Projects and Technology Application Projects with the
understanding that ``this effort is funded within S&T.'' There is no
budget transfer into S&T for this purpose. Is this just a simple
reduction in this area?
Answer. The Emerging Pilot Projects and Technology Application
Projects are designed to review existing technologies and help get
appropriate protective measures in the field in a usable manner. These
pilots and projects identify commercially available or emerging
technologies and determine if they can be successfully used to
eliminate existing vulnerabilities in a real-world situation. These
projects will allow DHS to expand the potential protective measures
that can be deployed and to fill existing identified operational gaps.
The Technology Application Projects identify commercially available
technology and determine if the technology can be applied in the field
to fill real needs. The Emerging pilots are required to ensure that any
new technology is deployed to the field with appropriate methods and
restrictions to allow the state, local, or commercial operators to
successfully implement the new technologies. Aspects for successfully
technology deployment require: pilots to determine the usefulness of a
technology under various conditions; personnel training for deployment
and effective use; monitoring methods or personnel required; required
response time; technology calibration information; maintenance cycle
and manuals, etc.
NOAA WEATHER RADIOS
Question. Virtually none of the funding appropriated for NOAA
radios as been obligated by IAIP. Why does this funding remain
unobligated?
Answer. IAIP has obligated the procurement and shipment of NOAA
``All Hazard'' radios to schools across the country. Specifically, a
$500,000 pilot program has been funded to disseminate these radios to
all the K-12 public schools in certain UASI cities and two rural
states. The radios will arrive in September, which coincides with the
start of the school year and National Preparedness Month. These radios
regularly disseminate weather related information and can now broadcast
official DHS alert and warning information. (DHS/IAIP and Commerce/NOAA
entered into a MOA in 2004 that provides for DHS message dissemination
over NOAA's All Hazard Radio and also over FEMA's local Emergency Alert
System.) IAIP, NOAA, Department of Education, DHS Citizen Corps, DHS
Procurement, DHS Grants Office, and other DHS entities have been in
regular contact regarding this effort for over a year. After lessons
have been learned from this initial pilot, additional IAIP alert and
warning funds ($1.5 million) will be used for radio procurement for
other schools across the country. This $2 million obligation for the
radios and the $18 million transferred to FEMA for program management
of other alert and warning projects represent all IAIP funding to
improve alert and warning for the general public.
VIOLATING THE DHS APPROPRIATIONS ACT
Question. Congress and this Committee take very seriously the
constitutional powers bestowed on the legislative branch to enact laws.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 States that ``No money shall be drawn
from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law.''
Since the beginning of fiscal year 2005, the Department, on several
occasions, has violated legislative provisions set forth in the fiscal
year 2005 Homeland Security Act. For example, Section 503 of the Act
sets strict reprogramming and transfer guidelines restricting the
ability of the Department to reallocate appropriated dollars from one
program to another without congressional notification. In fiscal year
2005, DHS has violated that provision on more than one occasion. In one
instance, DHS stood up a brand new office, called the Domestic Nuclear
Detection Office, which has been reporting directly to the Secretary.
The start-up costs for this office were taken from funds appropriated
to the Under Secretary for Science and Technology. Within the
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Office, the
Department reallocated funding from an appropriation that pays salaries
to its employees to start a new program called Information Sharing and
Collaboration. Section 507 of the fiscal year 2005 Act requires DHS to
notify Congress on any contract or grant in excess of $1 million 3
business days before it is announced. This provision is an important
tool for Congress to keep track of the vast amount of contract and
grant funding appropriated to the Department. On several occasions, the
Committee has become aware of grants or contracts through the press
after the award had been made and without a notification to Congress.
In addition, the S&T Directorate spends the majority of its $1 billion
annual appropriation on R&D contracts and grants. Through January 31 of
this year, the S&T Directorate expended nearly $120 million, yet the
Committee has received only 1 grant notifications and 1 contract
notification.
Mr. Secretary, I don't expect that you were apprised of these
violations nor will you be able to comment on them today. My questions
is however, will you look into this pattern of negligence and develop a
plan within your office to ensure that the Department will follow the
letter of the law as enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed by the
President of the United States? As part of your transition review, will
you develop a plan to avoid other violations similar to the examples I
described?
Answer. The Department takes seriously its responsibility to adhere
to the reporting requirements referred to in this question. One of the
key imperatives that will drive this Department is to improve DHS'
stewardship, particularly with respect to financial management.
Likewise, improving communications with Congress, including the timely
provision of information such as reports and reprogrammings are
important, and will be improved. The Department has already put in
place new mechanisms to better track and more aggressively manage
reports assigned to DHS by Congress. DHS considers this an important
priority and is dedicating significant focus and attention toward
ensuring reports are sent to Congress in a timely manner. With respect
to the DNDO, the Department provided a reorganization notification and
a reprogramming notification, and withheld spending resources for any
DNDO activities, including the setting up a DNDO, during the required
waiting period. Congress repeated this message in its action on the
supplemental in May, and the Department has abided by the requirements
and deadlines in that bill and report.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick J. Leahy
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
Question. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been
plagued by budget problems basically since the creation of your
department. ICE has had a hiring freeze in place since last year and it
is unclear when it will be lifted, and only a significant reprogramming
request allows it to balance its books for the current fiscal year. Of
course, these funding problems are occurring while members of Congress
from both parties have emphasized the importance of enforcing our
immigration laws in the interior.
How will you ensure that ICE has the funding it needs to perform
its mission?
Answer. I am committed to ensuring that ICE has the funding it
needs to perform its mission. The fiscal year 2006 President's Budget,
which includes $205 million to address base requirements within the
agency, along with fiscal year 2005 supplemental funding, will assure
that ICE has the necessary funding.
Question. Does the Administration's fiscal year 2006 request
provide sufficient funds to avoid another large reprogramming request
next year?
Answer. The fiscal year 2006 request provides sufficient funds to
avoid another large reprogramming request in fiscal year 2006.
ALL-STATE MINUMUM
Question. I was disappointed that President Bush' proposed budget
for fiscal year 2006 reduces from 0.75 percent to 0.25 percent the all-
state minimum formula, which I authored, in applying it to the programs
under the State Homeland Security Grant Program. This formula assures
that each State receives a minimum of 0.75 percent of those grants to
help support their first responders' basic preparedness needs.
Not only would this change result in the loss of millions in
homeland security funding for the fire, police and rescue departments
in small- and many medium-sized states, but also deal a crippling blow
to their efforts to build and sustain their terrorism preparedness.
Mr. Secretary, does this Administration want to shortchange rural
states, rolling back the hard-won progress we have begun to make in
homeland security by slashing the protections provided to us by the
all-state minimum?
Answer. For fiscal year 2006, DHS proposes to redesign the homeland
security funding process to award State HSGP funds based on an
evaluation of risk and needs. The intent of this approach is to change
the way DHS invests its limited homeland security resources in order to
achieve the greatest return on investment for our nation's homeland
security. This is consistent with recommendations from the 9/11
Commission, which contends that Federal homeland security assistance
should supplement State and local resources based on the risks or
vulnerabilities that merit additional support. As proposed, fiscal year
2006 awards will be based on a relative evaluation of risk and
application-based review of need with no State receiving less than 0.25
percent. DHS will consider risk factors such as threat, presence of
critical infrastructure, vulnerability, population and population
density, international borders, and ports of entry in making final
award determinations. In the consideration of need, DHS will undertake
an assessment with the States and territories to identify their
capabilities and gaps consistent with the capabilities and tasks
identified under Homeland Security Presidential Directive-8. In
addition, at least 20 percent of funds awarded will be dedicated to
support law enforcement terrorism prevention activities. Overall, this
approach will result in the achievement of the highest possible
readiness to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from
major events in order to minimize the impact on lives, property, and
the economy.
Question. Mr. Secretary, would you agree that homeland security is
a national responsibility shared by all states, regardless of size?
Answer. Yes, DHS strongly believes that homeland security is not
only a Federal responsibility, but it requires collective national and
even international action. The protection of our citizens, our critical
infrastructure, our businesses, and our communities is a shared
responsibility, requiring Federal, state, local, international, and
private sector partnerships. The partnership required to protect the
homeland involves sharing information as well as responsibility. For
that reason, allocation of State and local grant funding should reflect
the best available data and analysis of the threats, risks, and unmet
needs--not static formulas.
Question. Mr. Secretary, do you agree that each State has basic
terrorism preparedness needs and, therefore, a minimum amount of
domestic terrorism preparedness funds is appropriate for each state?
Answer. The President's Request proposes a 0.25 percent allocation
to be provided to each State as a supplement to State and local
resources allocated to domestic preparedness. DHS resources should be
used to enhance basic levels of preparedness and not to supplant State
and local responsibilities. In addition, the Department believes that
States and urban areas should focus on a set of collective capabilities
needed to prevent, protect against, respond to, or recover from a
terrorist attack or catastrophic event. Through the newly-developed
Interim National Preparedness Goal and the accompanying National
Planning Scenarios and Target Capabilities List, the Nation will begin
to implement a coordinated approach to national preparedness, utilizing
a risk-based and regional methodology.
Question. If you do not support applying the 0.75 percent minimum
to the State Formula Grants Program, what compromise between 0.75
percent and 0.25 percent for the distribution of funds would you
support?
Answer. The DHS proposal to reduce the minimum State allocation
from 0.75 percent to 0.25 percent is based on the redesign of the
homeland security program to support a risk and need-based approach to
funding. Factors such as threat, presence of critical infrastructure,
vulnerability, population, borders, and POEs will be used to make final
award determinations. An increase in the base percentage allocation
would result in a reduction in resources available for those States
with the greatest risk and needs. Therefore, DHS believes that raising
the minimum allocation is not conducive to maintaining maximum
readiness.
FIRST RESPONDERS (GENERAL)
Question. President Bush often says that he wants to ensure that
our State and local first responders receive the resources necessary to
do the job the American public expects them to do. I find that hard to
believe, though, when I read that he proposes a $455 million overall
cut in funds for State Homeland Security Grant Program, Law Enforcement
Terrorism Prevention Program, Emergency Management Performance Grants
and other programs SLGCP Office that directly benefit police, fire and
medical rescue units. The Administration argues this is justified
because it does not believe those funds are ``targeted'' to homeland
security capabilities.
I believe, however, that the current Administration has failed to
make first responders a high enough priority by consistently
underfunding homeland security efforts of every state.
The Hart-Rudman Terrorism Task Force Report argued that our Nation
will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical
emergency responder needs through this decade's end if current funding
levels are maintained. Clearly, the domestic preparedness funds
available are still not enough to protect from, prepare for and respond
to future domestic terrorist attacks anywhere on American soil.
Would you agree, Mr. Secretary, that to be truly protected from,
prepared for and able to respond to terrorist attacks we must look to
increase the funds to our Nation's State and local first responders,
rather than decrease them, as proposed by the President?
Answer. The President's fiscal year 2006 Budget request includes
$3.6 billion for SLGCP to continue our strong commitment and support to
the nation's emergency prevention and response community. Of this
amount, $1.02 billion is for the State HSGP, which has been
significantly redesigned to award funds based on risk and need, while
aligning with national priorities. An additional $1.02 billion is for
the continuance of the UASI, which targets funds to the nation's
highest risk urban areas. Further, the President's request provides
$600 million for a new TIP Program to supplement state, local, and
private sector infrastructure protection efforts based on critical
vulnerabilities. The fiscal year 2006 request also includes a strong
commitment to our nation's fire service by providing $500 million for
the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. The request includes $50
million the CCP and $170 million for the EMPG. For continuation of our
commitment to training our nation's first responders, the request
includes $94.3 million for SLGCP's State and Local Training Program.
The request also includes $59 million for the National Exercise
Program, which includes support for State and local exercises and for
the National Top Officials exercise series. Finally, the request
includes $10.6 million for technical assistance initiatives for State
and local agencies and $14.3 million for program evaluation and
assessments. Between fiscal year 2002 and fiscal year 2004 the SLGCP
awarded homeland security grants totaling $6.1 billion. In fiscal year
2005, SLGCP anticipates awarding an additional $3.64 billion in grants.
We believe, at this point, that funding provided to our nation's first
responders has been sufficient to address their critical needs.
BORDER PATROL
Question. The intelligence reform bill Congress passed and the
President signed last December mandated an increase of 2,000 Border
Patrol agents in fiscal year 2006, with an increase of 400 agents at
the Northern Border. The President's budget for DHS would pay for an
increase of slightly more than 200 agents, or about 10 percent of what
Congress called for. None of these new agents would be deployed on our
Northern Border.
Why does the Administration believe that an increase of about 200
agents is sufficient to secure our borders?
Answer. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the
CBP Border Patrol has accelerated its efforts in increasing its
enforcement presence along the northern border to achieve the
definitive goal of operational control, and the number of agents
allowing the northern border more than tripled. DHS is completing work
on comprehensive immigration reform, which calls for additional new
hires. We have supported additional agents in fiscal year 2006
consistent with both House and Senate appropriation marks for CBP
hiring.
Question. Would additional agents beyond the number proposed by the
President be useful to the Department's efforts to prevent illegal
entry into the United States?
Answer. The Department appreciates the 500 additional agents funded
in the Emergency Supplemental. As noted above, the Department is in the
midst of a systems-level review of its border control architecture.
ICE/CBP MERGER
Question. As you know, there has been substantial discussion in
recent months about a possible merger of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement with Customs and Border Patrol. Do you support such a
merger?
Answer. I do not support a merger at this time. ICE and CBP were
formed just two and a half years ago and the transition to the current
structure has been challenging. I am concerned about embarking on yet
another far reaching transition affecting these organizations. Most
importantly, however, it is too soon to say that the current structure
will not effectively serve our border missions. As we move forward with
comprehensive reforms and improvement to our border security and
immigration system, I am confident that both ICE and CBP can operate in
an effectively coordinated manner without being merged.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patty Murray
PORT SECURITY
Question. Mr. Secretary, one of my greatest concerns--as a Senator
from a State that depends on its seaports for its livelihood--is that
we have a cohesive port security plan that protects our communities and
our economy from potential threats.
Yet the Administration's budget request again seeks to eliminate
the Port Security Grant program.
Mr. Secretary, as I've mentioned before, the Coast Guard Commandant
testified that it would take more than $7 billion to implement the
Maritime Transportation Security Act. To date, we have provided a
little more than $500 million toward this $7 billion--most of which was
not requested by the Administration. Mr. Secretary, for the past 2
years, nearly $1 billion in port security grant requests came to DHS
annually. And, the American Association of Ports Authorities has
estimated that there is a need of at least $400 million to help secure
our port facilities this year. From our discussions, I know that
securing our ports is a priority for you. And, again, I realize you did
not draft this budget--but you've been sent here to defend it.
I must ask--is this a budget game the Administration is playing, or
does the White House discount all of the intelligence reports that tell
us our ports are a significant risk?
Answer. Enhancing the security of the nation's critical
infrastructure, especially its ports, continues to remain a high
priority for the Department. For fiscal year 2006, DHS is proposing to
consolidate the Port Security, Rail/Transit Security, Buffer Zone
Protection (BZP) Program and Trucking Industry Security grant programs
into the single TIP Program. Combined resources for the fiscal year
2005 distinct programs totaled $315 million. The DHS fiscal year 2006
request for the TIP Program is $600 million, almost double the amount
of fiscal year 2005 available resources for the distinct fiscal year
2005 programs. With that being said, funds provided through TIP will
directly enhance the ability of the owners and operators of key port
assets and transit systems to prevent and respond to large scale
incidents. In fiscal year 2005, DHS shifted to a more risk-based
allocation of funding across sectors, as well as integration of these
programs with regional homeland security planning efforts, such as
those required by the UASI. The fiscal year 2005 program also considers
intelligence and threat data to set specific security enhancement
priorities. The fiscal year 2006 TIP Program will continue to build on
these enhancements by shifting to a discretionary approach for all
program elements, allowing DHS to better supplement state, local and
private sector infrastructure based on risk. Additional priorities for
the fiscal year 2006 program include further enhancing the linkages
between critical infrastructure protection and regional planning
efforts, and a continued emphasis on security investment at ports and
transit agencies based on relevant intelligence and threat data. In the
end, this will result in a more agile and responsive program based on
risk.
CARGO SECURITY
Question. Mr. Secretary, I know we both agree the agencies involved
in securing these seaports are doing an admirable job--they are working
through a difficult problem.
Yet, they aren't being given the proper tools, resources, and
guidance to knit together a coordinated port security regime for our
nation.
Last year, I added language into the fiscal year 2005 Committee
Report that directed the Under Secretary of Border and Transportation
Security to develop a plan to create that coordinated approach to port
security. That report was due--quote--no later than February 8, 2005.
Yet, we have not received that report. Unfortunately, the message that
the Administration has sent is that the White House is not willing to
take the responsibility for developing and implementing such a plan.
Mr. Secretary, I've discussed this issue at great length with you,
Deputy Secretary Jackson, Commissioner Bonner, your predecessors--
anyone who might listen.
I've talked about legislation and additional funding but all we
have seen from the Administration is a directive that appointed a new
Commission to study the issue.
Mr. Secretary, I know we agree this is an issue of importance. What
do you believe we need to do--how can we help you come up with a
coordinated approach to secure our ports, the cargo moving through them
and the people who work and live near them?
Answer. The report was submitted on June 8, 2005.
Maritime and supply chain security remain priorities for DHS. When
the President signed HSPD-13/NSPD 41 in December 2005, he indicated the
Administration's commitment to addressing port security as part of the
greater maritime system. In this Directive, DHS and DOD were directed
by the President to develop a strategy for securing the Maritime
domain, including a variety of issues related to port and cargo
security. DHS is actively working with DOD and other Federal partners
to meet this goal.
In addition, I am reviewing the status of DHS's cargo security
efforts, how they can be further strengthened and how we can further
transform the system to ensure the United States security and economic
needs are met.
HAMMER TRAINING
Question. Mr. Secretary, as you might be aware, Washington State is
home to the The Volpentest Hazardous Materials and Emergency Response
Training and Education Center--we know it as HAMMER.
This is a state-of-the-art, Department of Energy facility with
expertise in threats posed by chemical, radiological, and biological
agents, hazardous materials, and weapons of mass destruction. HAMMER
specializing in hands-on training for first responders but the
Department has not designated this facility a regional training center.
Instead, first responders from throughout the Northwest have to use
their local budget--or DHS funding--to travel to facilities around the
country for the training they could receive close to home. Under the
fiscal year 1999 Defense Authorization Act, the Secretary of Energy was
specifically authorized to enter into partnership arrangements with to
share the facilities at HAMMER with Federal agencies. Under the
Homeland Security Act of 2002, you are authorized to enter into joint
sponsorship arrangements with the Secretary of Energy to use DOE sites
to carry out the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr.
Secretary, we have a great facility at HAMMER and I encourage you to
come personally, or send your staff out to visit. I know that when you
see their capabilities, you will agree that using HAMMER as a
designated training center would be a benefit to both the first
responder community throughout the Northwest--and DHS itself.
Will you visit HAMMER and consider adding it as a member of the
National Domestic Preparedness Consortium?
Answer. The NDPC was chosen based on each member's expertise in
first response training. At present, plans to expand DHS' training
network are extremely limited, and more than likely will not include
the establishment of additional consortium members or residential
training facilities. Under the provisions of the Department of Homeland
Security's fiscal year 2004 Appropriations Act (Public Law 108-90), ODP
received funds for a limited ``competitive training grants'' program to
supplement training efforts provided through the National Domestic
Preparedness Consortium. The Competitive Training Grant Program (CTGP)
was developed to facilitate national scale training programs, and the
fiscal year 2004 program funded 14 training sites. Currently, the
Department is undergoing its evaluation process for fiscal year 2005
CTGP applicants. In addition, enhancing existing training programs is
an eligible use of other SLGCP grant funds. The Department encourages
HAMMER to explore the use of other DHS grants as a potential source of
Federal funding in the future.
NORTHERN BORDER SECURITY
Question. Mr. Secretary, the President's budget request only
includes funding for 210 of the 2,000 new border agents called for by
the Intelligence Reform Act that was signed into law last December.
We currently have about 11,000 Border Patrol agents and 90 percent
of them are stationed on the southern border. We have a major security
issues at our northern border--ranging from drug trafficking to the
apprehension of potential terrorists--and they aren't being addressed.
What kind of message is this sending to our border communities? Is
stepping up this security going to be a priority for you?
Answer. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the
CBP Border Patrol has accelerated its efforts in increasing its
enforcement presence along the Northern Border to achieve the
definitive goal of operational control, and the number of agents
allowing the Northern Border more than tripled. This accelerated and
focused effort has clearly provided the Nation with a more secure
Northern Border. Moreover, Emergency Supplemental Legislation and
President Bush's fiscal year 2006 Budget call for the hiring of an
additional 710 agents by the end of fiscal year 2006, and CBP is taking
aggressive steps to recruit, hire and train candidates to fill these
spots. The hiring of these new agents comes in addition to the standard
attrition hires that supplement the several hundred agents who retire,
transfer, or leave for medical reasons over the course of a year. New
agent positions will be allocated based on risk-based priorities. That
said, effective control of the border--Northern or Southern--requires a
more comprehensive approach than simply adding more agents.
DHS is accordingly in the midst of a systems-level review of its
border control architecture to identify the right mix of personnel,
technology and infrastructure to help achieve effective control of the
border. DHS will identify a program manager to oversee the development
of a specific set of border security plans.
NORTHERN BORDER AIR WING
Question. Along those lines, the first Customs Air and Marine
Operations Wing was established in Bellingham, WA last summer. I was
very happy to be there at the dedication and have worked with Director
Stallworth to get the program up and running. The second air wing is in
Up-State New York and 3 more are planned. We need to make these a
priority--especially with the lack of Border Patrol agents on the
Northern Border. They also need to be able to communicate with the
local law enforcement. Since that time it has become clear that many
local law enforcement jurisdictions don't have compatible radios--our
eyes-in-the-sky can't coordinate with the police on the ground. I'm
told it would cost about $5 million to run a pilot program.
Do you agree that this is an issue we should deal with? Will you
help make this happen?
Answer. Deployment of additional Northern Border airwings will be
addressed as part of the CBP Air and Marine program integration review
now underway. This review is expected to be completed in the summer of
fiscal year 2005.
NORTHERN BORDER PROSECUTIONS
Question. Mr. Secretary, because of the increased presence and law
enforcement activity on the northern border, incarcerations and
prosecutions are up dramatically since September 11. The major border
crossing between Seattle and Vancouver, BC is in Blaine--a very small
community compared to Detroit and Buffalo--and a very limited local tax
base to cover these costs. This community has already seen more than a
$3 million increase in prosecution costs simply because they are
located on the border. This trend is expected to continue with an
expected $4 million in prosecution and incarceration costs in fiscal
year 2005. Mr. Secretary, this community needs some special help--they
don't have the tax base or population to sustain this and even greater
increases.
What can your Department do to help communities like this one?
Answer. DHS has committed significant resources to address the
increase in smuggling activity between the United States and Canada, as
well as the demonstrated vulnerabilities that exist on the Northern
Border. This dedication of enforcement resources has resulted in an
increase in arrests, seizures, and prosecutions involving border
related criminal activity. Some prosecutions based on DHS enforcement
activities have been deferred to the State for prosecution since the
violators also fall under State law.
SEATAC AIRPORT
Question. Secretary Chertoff, I am very concerned with the reports
that Seattle Tacoma International Airport in Washington State may see a
reduction in their Federal security screener force this year.
Currently, SeaTac Airport is facing a shortage of approximately 200
FTEs to meet the summer travel season at present staffing levels.
Without these additional screeners SeaTac will undoubtedly see repeats
of 2002 and 2003 that saw security lines regularly exceeding 1 hour.
Mr. Secretary, I request that you review the situation at SeaTac
and work with the local Federal Security Director to ensure that
SeaTac's screener staffing level allows the airport and TSA to provide
the same level of customer service achieved last year.
Answer. Based on the Screener Staffing Model, SeaTac Airport (SEA)
is currently below its required staffing level. TSA is in the process
of bringing SEA up to that staffing level. Recruitment of new screeners
is underway.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Gregg. The hearing is recessed.
[Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m., Wednesday, April 20, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene to subject to the call
of the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:29 a.m., in room SD-192, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Judd Gregg (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Gregg, Cochran, Stevens, Craig, Allard,
Byrd, and Inouye.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
STATEMENT OF DR. PENROSE C. ALBRIGHT, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JUDD GREGG
Senator Gregg. We will convene this hearing.
The purpose of this Homeland Security hearing is to review
where we stand relative to defending this Nation from
biological or chemical attack, which is in my opinion the
biggest threat to our country. If you prioritize threat, which
is exactly what we should be doing as a Congress and as a
Government, you have to put at the top of the list the concerns
weapons of mass destruction used against the American
population somewhere here in the United States or overseas
obviously.
We, 2 years ago, began the effort to try to aggressively
address this issue, recognizing some fundamental flaws within
our structure as a country, the biggest flaw being the
pharmaceutical industry, which one would presume would
naturally pursue ways of being able to respond to a biological
attack, was not structured to do so, and the Government was not
structured to deal with a chemical or a biological attack.
BIOSHIELD
So we worked very hard, in my prior role as Chairman of the
Health Committee, to pass a piece of legislation called
BioShield, which was the initiative of the administration. And
the purpose of this bill was to reenergize the vaccine industry
in this country and to energize the research community within
our Nation to pursue ways to respond to various chemical and
biological agents which might be used against us.
We understand, obviously, there is no market for a product
to respond to these type of agents. These agents are by
definition agents which do not commonly occur, but only occur
when we are attacked, although smallpox was a problem, but it
has been eradicated. So we needed to create a structure where
there would be not only an atmosphere where creative
individuals and scientists would step forward to develop
responses to attacks involving threats such as anthrax,
smallpox, botulism, and plague, but we also had to create a
monetary system, a market system which would encourage this
from a standpoint of making it a reasonable place to invest
your money if you were an investor. And that is what BioShield
was all about. It basically put the Government in the business
of buying antidotes and vaccines for this list of major
threats.
We are now well into this process. Progress has been made
in some areas but there is still a long way to go in other
areas. The purpose of this hearing is to discuss what we are
doing and what we should be doing that will better produce
results.
My own personal concern is we have still not stood up a
vaccine industry in this country at the level I would like to
see it. We still do not have many participants in the
production of vaccine, that the research community, especially
our academic research community, has not yet embraced this
initiative as well as and as aggressively as I would hope, and
that there appears to be some incentives in the system which
are discouraging research in this area, and the question of how
we are purchasing products, to the extent it is being brought
on line, whether that is chilling competition or participation
of other parties in the research and development of creative
new ways to address these types of threats.
It is a complex issue involving the most cutting-edge
levels of science, and it does not have a simple solution. If
it did, we would have gotten to it much sooner. But we do have
a committed effort to do it, and we have got a committed
Government to accomplish it, and I think we have got some good
witnesses today to find out where we stand and where we should
go.
With that, I will yield to the honorable Senator from
Virginia, Senator Byrd.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD
Senator Byrd. That is West Virginia.
Senator Gregg. I apologize profusely.
BIOLOGICAL OR CHEMICAL ATTACK
Senator Byrd. Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me thank you
for your service. I listened with rapt attention at your
remarks. You are well prepared to be the Chairman of this
subcommittee and well prepared to probe this very important
subject.
I welcome the witnesses on both panels for this hearing,
and I applaud you, Mr. Chairman, for calling us together for
such an important topic.
Earlier this year during testimony before the Senate
Intelligence Committee, CIA Director Porter Goss warned and I
quote ``It is only a matter of time before Al Qaeda or another
terrorist group tries to use chemical, biological,
radiological, or nuclear weapons in the United States.'' Mr.
Chairman, I believe that. I believe it is absolutely the case,
and I am not sure that we are prepared. I doubt it because we
do not know when, we do not know where this monster will
confront us with a bioterror attack, a chemical attack, a
nuclear attack, or a radiological attack.
With regard to a biological attack, Congress made a serious
commitment by appropriating $5.6 billion to pursue new vaccines
and medications to protect the American public from known
biological threats. It is essential the agencies involved in
this process be accountable for progress in this area. So, I
look forward to discussing this and other homeland security
efforts, not only to detect and respond to a bioterror
incident, but what efforts are being made to prevent a
biological, chemical, also to examine nuclear terror incident.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Senator Byrd.
We will turn to the panel now. The first panel will be
people in our Government who have first-line responsibility for
getting us prepared for a biological or chemical attack and
being able to respond to it. Our first witness is Dr. Albright
who was confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security,
Plans, Programs, and Budgets on October 3. Our second witness
is Mr. Simonson who is the Assistant Secretary for Public
Health Emergency Preparedness, United States Department of
Health and Human Services. And these two gentlemen have the
portfolio and we look forward to hearing how we are doing. So
let us start with you, Dr. Albright.
STATEMENT OF DR. PENROSE C. ALBRIGHT
Dr. Albright. Good afternoon, Chairman Gregg, Senator Byrd,
and distinguished members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to
appear before you today to discuss the progress the Science and
Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security
is making in the Nation's efforts to prevent, protect against,
respond to, and recover from acts of bioterrorism against the
American people.
President Bush has made strengthening the Nation's defenses
against biological weapons a critical national priority. The
President's focus on these issues has resulted in a joint
Homeland Security Presidential Directive/National Security
Presidential directive entitled Biodefense for the 21st Century
that provides a comprehensive framework for our Nation's
sustained and focused effort against biological weapons
threats.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN BIODEFENSE
The Department of Homeland Security and the Science and
Technology Directorate have explicit responsibilities in this
integrated national effort. In particular, I want to highlight
the strategy, planning, and accomplishments to date of the
Science and Technology Directorate in the area of biodefense
and the essential collaborations with key Federal partners,
including those represented here today.
In 2004 and 2005, the Science and Technology Directorate
developed a national architecture and plan for the detection of
biological attacks, should they occur, and as initial steps,
deployed the BioWatch Environmental Sensor System to protect
our Nation's cities from the threat and ramifications of such
an attack and also initiated the design of the National
Biosurveillance Integration System as part of an interagency
process.
We completed the planning and conceptual design of the
National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center. This
center will focus on, among other things, creating a
scientifically based understanding of the biological threat.
We established the Biodefense Knowledge Center, which is an
operational hub for enabling collaboration and communication
within the Homeland Security enterprise. We have certified four
material threats and have two additional certifications
underway. These material threat determinations are required in
order to commit BioShield funds.
We have established a National Bioforensic Analysis Center
to provide a national capability for conducting forensic
analysis of evidence from biocrimes and terrorism to obtain a
biological fingerprint to identify perpetrators and determine
the origin and method of the attack.
In 2006, our expectations are to complete the deployment of
the second generation BioWatch system to the top threat cities
and to complete test and evaluation of the laboratory
prototypes for the third generation of these detection systems.
We will also complete the first formal risk assessment that
is required under HSPD-10 and close many of the key remaining
experimental gaps in our knowledge of the classic biological
threat agents.
We will continue operations of the Plum Island Animal
Disease Center and essential upgrades to the facility and
initiate the design of the National Bio and Agrodefense
Facility.
We continue to develop bioassays for Foot and Mouth Disease
and look-alike animal diseases. We continue to conduct cutting-
edge research in academia through our Homeland Security Centers
of Excellence. Although each of the four centers we have has a
role in addressing bioterrorism, let me highlight two.
One is at Texas A&M and its partners which study foreign
animal and zoonotic diseases at the National Center for Foreign
Animal and Zoonotic Disease, and they address potential threats
to animal agriculture, including Foot and Mouth Disease, Rift
Valley fever, Avian influenza, Brucellosis, that sort of thing.
The University of Minnesota and its partners established
best practices and attract new researchers to manage and
respond to food contamination events.
S&T DIRECTORATE'S INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION
Ensuring that all relevant Federal Departments and agencies
coordinate in the area of biodefense is critical to protecting
the Nation from biological threats. The Science and Technology
Directorate has been and continues to be an active participant
in relevant interagency activities. A full list of the S&T
Directorate's interagency collaborations is in my statement for
the record. Highlights include our integral participation in
the creation of HSPD-10. We also participate in the
Counterproliferation Technology Coordinating Committee, the
National Science and Technology Council's Weapons of Mass
Destruction Medical Countermeasures Committee, which is really
crucial to our way ahead on BioShield. This last, which I
personally co-chair, provides an interagency forum for
discussing and prioritizing the medical countermeasure needs,
as I said, that will be pursued under the BioShield program.
We work closely with our colleagues in the Department of
Health and Human Services and USDA. Mr. Simonson and I see each
other very frequently, and he and I and our staffs interact
nearly daily in our respective efforts to protect the Nation
from the threats of bioterrorism.
As I hope I have indicated, the Science and Technology
Directorate's programs fully support the National Biodefense
Program, as stated in HSPD-10. Moreover, they are conducted in
an active collaboration with other Federal Departments and
agencies, having a role in meeting this national priority and
are focused on reducing the threat of a biological attack
against the Nation's population and its agricultural and food
infrastructures. We also support a science-based forensics and
attribution capability.
PREPARED STATEMENT
This concludes my prepared statement. With the
subcommittee's permission, I request that my formal statement
be submitted for the record. Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd,
members of the subcommittee, I thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you and will be happy to answer any questions
that you may have.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Penrose C. Albright
INTRODUCTION
Good afternoon, Chairman Gregg, Senator Byrd and distinguished
members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before you today to
discuss the progress the Science and Technology Directorate of the
Department of Homeland Security is making in the Nation's efforts to
prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from acts of
bioterrorism against the American people.
President Bush has made strengthening the Nation's defenses against
biological weapons a critical national priority. Although significant
progress has been made to protect America, President Bush instructed
Federal departments and agencies to review their efforts and find
better ways to secure America from bioattacks.
This review resulted in a Presidential Directive entitled
Biodefense for the 21st Century that provides a comprehensive framework
for our Nation's biodefense. This directive builds upon past
accomplishments, defines specifies roles and responsibilities, and
integrates the programs and efforts of various communities: national
security, medical, public health, intelligence, diplomatic,
agricultural and law enforcement into a sustained and focused effort
against biological weapons threats.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Science and
Technology (S&T) Directorate have explicit responsibilities in this
integrated national effort. In particular, I want to highlight the
strategy, planning and accomplishments to date of the Science and
Technology Directorate in the area of biodefense, and the essential
collaborations with key Federal partners.
BIODEFENSE
Before I speak directly to the biodefense efforts of the S&T
Directorate, I want to briefly address the role of the DHS's
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate (IAIP),
and how their work is linked to the S&T Directorate. IAIP assesses
intelligence and information about threats and vulnerabilities from
other agencies and takes preventative and protective action. They are
partners in the total interagency efforts to obtain, assess and
disseminate information regarding potential threats to America from
terrorist actions. These threat and vulnerability assessments are
inputs into the strategy and research, development, testing and
evaluation (RDT&E) activities of the Science and Technology
Directorate. For example, agriculture and food are two of the multiple
critical infrastructure sectors identified by Homeland Security
Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD-7). As such, they fall within the domain
of the IAIP Directorate; they are also within the domain of concern for
biological threats and are considered in HSPD-9 and HSPD-10/National
Security Presidential Directive-33 (NSPD-33). In addition, the IAIP
Directorate's cooperation with the Science and Technology Directorate
is critical to the Department's mission to determine what agents would
significantly impact national security if released (Material Threat
Determinations).
Mission and Objectives
HSPD-10 outlines four essential pillars of the Nation's biodefense
program and provides specific directives to further strengthen the
significant gains made in the past 3 years. The four pillars of the
program are:
--Threat Awareness.--Which includes biological weapons-related
intelligence, vulnerability assessments, and anticipation of
future threats. New initiatives will improve our ability to
collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence on biological
weapons and their potential users.
--Prevention and Protection.--Which includes interdiction and
critical infrastructure protection. New initiatives will
improve our ability to detect, interdict, and seize weapons
technologies and materials to disrupt the proliferation trade,
and to pursue proliferators through strengthened law
enforcement cooperation.
--Surveillance and Detection.--Which includes attack warning and
attribution. New initiatives will further strengthen the
biosurveillance capabilities being put in place in fiscal year
2005.
--Response and Recovery.--Which includes response planning, mass
casualty care, risk communication, medical countermeasures, and
decontamination. New initiatives will strengthen our ability to
provide mass casualty care and to decontaminate the site of an
attack.
The Department of Homeland Security has a role and responsibility
in each of these four pillars of the national biodefense program. The
S&T Directorate has the responsibility to lead the Department's RDT&E
activities to support the national biodefense objectives and the
Department's mission.
Accomplishments and Planned Activities
In fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005, the Biological
Countermeasures portfolio:
--Deployed the BioWatch environmental sensor system to protect our
Nation's cities from the threat and ramifications of a
bioterrorist attack.
--Engaged in creating additional near real-time monitoring
(Autonomous Pathogen Detection System) of critical
infrastructure facilities such as major transportation hubs.
New infrastructure protection efforts include shorter response
time biological agent detection capabilities for BioWatch. This
pilot (second generation Bio Watch) is in the process of being
deployed in New York City and will join an expansion of the
number of collectors in that city.
--Initiated the design of the National Biosurveillance Integration
System (NBIS) as part of an interagency process. Recently
completed in the first quarter of fiscal year 2005, we will
work with the Information Analysis and Infrastructure
Protection (IAIP) Directorate to implement this system.
--Conducted preliminary analyses, using the reference scenario
approach recommended by Homeland Security Presidential
Directive (HSPD)-10 for understanding the requirements of an
integrated national biodefense architecture, of four baseline
reference cases: a large outdoor release of a non-contagious
agent (anthrax); a large indoor release of a contagious agent
(smallpox); contamination of a bulk food supply; and two highly
virulent agricultural attacks, one on livestock (Foot and Mouth
Disease) and the other on crops (soy bean rust).
--Established the Biodefense Knowledge Center, an operational hub for
enabling collaboration and communication within the homeland
security complex. The Biodefense Knowledge Center will meet the
operational and planning requirements of government decision-
makers and program planners, the intelligence community, law
enforcement officers, public health practitioners, and
scientists. Specific capabilities offered to these end-users
include knowledge services, modeling and simulation,
situational awareness and a pathway to accelerate research and
development.
--Certified four ``material threats'' (anthrax, smallpox, botulinum
toxin, and radiological/nuclear); will complete the rest of the
Category A bioagents (plague, tularemia) by the end of fiscal
year 2005.
--Established the National Bioforensic Analysis Center (NBFAC) to
provide a national capability for conducting forensic analyses
of evidence from bio-crimes and terrorism to attain a
``biological fingerprint'' to identify perpetrators and
determine the origin and method of attack. The NBFAC was named
in HSPD-10 as the lead Federal facility to conduct and
facilitate the technical forensic analysis of materials
recovered following a biological attack in support of the
appropriate lead Federal agency [in most cases the lead Federal
agency will be the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)].
In fiscal year 2006, the Biological Countermeasure portfolio plans
to:
--Complete the three high-level architectures initiated in fiscal
year 2005, identifying key requirements for each major element,
a ``report card'' on the current and projected status in that
area and performing detailed design tradeoffs for those areas
in which DHS has execution responsibility.
--Complete the first formal risk assessment required under HSPD-10
and close many of the key remaining experimental gaps in our
knowledge of the classical biological threat agents. Near-,
mid-, and long-term plans for dealing with engineered agents
will be developed, and R&D on addressing the gaps in responding
to genetically modified organisms (e.g., antibiotic resistant)
initiated.
--Complete the deployment of Generation 2 BioWatch systems to
additional cities while continuing to operate and optimize
already extant BioWatch systems.
--Complete test and evaluation of laboratory prototypes of the
Generation 3 BioWatch detection systems for selection of
fieldable prototypes for fiscal year 2007.
--Continue operation of the interim National Bioforensic Analysis
Center. International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
certification is expected to
--5 have been achieved, giving the analyses conducted additional
credibility and authenticity in both the national and
international community and courts of law. R&D will continue on
the physical and chemical signatures of the ``matrix''
materials associated with biological agents so as to develop
methods for understanding tell-tale remnants of enrichment
media, culture conditions, metabolites, and dispersion
technology.
--Continue operation of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC)
and essential upgrades to the facility and initiate design of
the National Bio and Agrodefense Facility (NBAF). R&D will
continue on next generation vaccines and antiviral therapeutics
for foot and mouth disease (FMD) and other high priority
foreign animal diseases.
--Continue to develop bioassays for FMD and look-alike animal
diseases. The initial agricultural forensic capability
established in fiscal year 2004 at PIADC will be enhanced and
epidemiologic capability added. A High Throughput Diagnostics
Demonstration will be initiated to work with regional and State
laboratories to demonstrate a capability of analyzing thousands
of samples per day in support of response to a suspected case
or an outbreak. A FMD table top exercise will be conducted, and
development of a coupled epidemiological and economic model for
FMD will begin. The end-to-end systems study initiated in
fiscal year 2004 for Soybean Rust and FMD will be completed,
and system studies will be initiated for highly pathogenic
avian influenza.
National Bio-Defense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC)
The NBACC, a key component of the National Strategy for Homeland
Security, addresses the need for scientific research to better
anticipate, prevent, and mitigate the consequences of biological
attacks. The need for the NBACC facility is further defined in HSPD-10,
the Nation's blueprint for future biodefense programs. The NBACC's
mission will support two pillars of this blueprint--threat awareness
and surveillance and detection. The NBACC is made up of two centers,
the Biological Threat Characterization Center and the National
Bioforensic Analysis Center to carry out these missions. Specifically,
NBACC's mission is to:
--Understand current and future biological threats, assess
vulnerabilities, and determine potential impacts to guide the
research, development, and acquisition of biodefense
countermeasures such as detectors, drugs, vaccines and
decontamination technologies; and
--Provide a national capability for conducting forensic analysis of
evidence from bio-crimes and terrorism to attain a ``biological
fingerprint'' to identify perpetrators and determine the origin
and method of attack.
In fiscal year 2004, the Department completed the planning and
conceptual design of the NBACC facility. Additionally, the Department
has been working through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
process during the year, which culminated in the signing of the Record
of Decision in January 2005 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) for the construction project and subsequent operations. It was
decided to delay the award of any contracts for design and construction
until further in the EIS process. As the public concerns are analyzed
and considered it is anticipated that contracts will be awarded in
fiscal year 2005 to initiate design and construction of the NBACC
facility
In fiscal year 2005, the solicitations of contracts for the
construction of the NBACC facility are expected to be awarded. The
design of the NBACC facility will commence in March 2005. Congress
appropriated $128 million in obligated funds, of which $35 million was
appropriated for award of the construction contract in the fourth
quarter of fiscal year 2005. Construction of the facility is planned
for completion by the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008.
University Centers of Excellence
The mission of the University Programs is to stimulate, coordinate,
leverage and utilize the unique intellectual capital in the academic
community to address current and future homeland security challenges,
and to educate and inspire the next generation of scientists and
engineers dedicated to homeland security.
Within the University Programs in the S&T Directorate, the Homeland
Security (HS) Centers of Excellence provide independent, cutting-edge
research in academia for focused areas of homeland security Research
and Development. Established centers include: the Homeland Security
Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, the National
Center for Foreign Animal Disease and Zoonotic Defense, and the
National Center for Food Protection and Defense. In the next few
months, the S&T Directorate expects to establish the Homeland Security
Center for Behavioral and Social Aspects of Terrorism and Counter-
Terrorism. Each Center is selected on a competitive basis, and each
grant is for 3 years. Each Center has a role in addressing bioterrorism
and two are specifically aligned with addressing bioterrorism.
DHS awarded funds, over 3 years, to the University of Southern
California (USC) and its major partners, University of Wisconsin at
Madison, New York University and Structured Decisions Corporation
(affiliated with MIT) to establish the Center on Risk and Economic
Analysis of Terrorism Events. The mission objectives are to evaluate
the risks, costs and consequences of terrorism and to guide
economically viable investments in countermeasures. Specifically, the
Center will develop risk assessment and economic modeling capabilities
that cut across general threats and targets, in application areas such
as electrical power, transportation and telecommunications.
Additionally, USC and their partners will develop tools for planning
responses to emergencies, to minimize the threat to human life and
reduce economic impacts of terrorist attacks.
Texas A&M University and its partners from the University of Texas
Medical Branch, University of California at Davis, and the University
of Southern California expect to receive funds over the course of the
next 3 years for the study of foreign animal and zoonotic diseases. The
Center, which will be known as the National Center for Foreign Animal
and Zoonotic Disease Defense, will work closely with partners in
academia, industry and government to address potential threats to
animal agriculture including Foot and Mouth Disease, Rift Valley fever,
Avian influenza and Brucellosis. The Foot and Mouth Disease research
will be conducted in close collaboration with DHS's Plum Island Animal
Disease Center.
The Department of Homeland Security will provide the University of
Minnesota and its partners, Michigan State University, University of
Wisconsin at Madison, North Dakota State University, Georgia Institute
of Technology, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with funds
over the course of the next 3 years to establish best practices and
attract new researchers to manage and respond to food contamination
events, both intentional and naturally occurring. The University of
Minnesota's National Center for Food Protection and Defense, will
address agricultural security issues related to postharvest food
protection.
Negotiations began January 10, 2005, for a 3-year grant with the
University of Maryland for a fourth Center on Behavioral and Social
Research on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. We expect its mission
objectives to be to provide strategies for intervention of terrorists
and terrorist organizations and to embolden the resilience of U.S.
citizens. Major domestic partners include, the University of California
at Los Angeles, University of Colorado, Monterey Institute of
International Studies, University of Pennsylvania, and the University
of South Carolina.
A broad agency announcement was released in mid-January, 2005 for
proposals for a fifth DHS Center of Excellence on the topic of High
Consequence Event Preparedness and Response.
In addition to the University Centers of Excellence, the Department
of Homeland Security's University Programs and the Environmental
Protection Agency's Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program are
reviewing proposals for a research Center of Excellence focused on an
area of high priority to both Agencies, Microbial Risk Assessment (MRA)
for Category A bio-threat agents.
Interagency Collaboration
Ensuring that all relevant Federal Departments and agencies
coordinate in the area of Biodefense is critical to protecting the
Nation from biological threats. The previously mentioned HSPD-10, as
well as other directives including HSPD-9, Defense of United States
Agriculture and Food; HSPD-8, National Preparedness; HSPD-4, National
Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction; and HSPD-7, Critical
Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection, identify
national objectives and priorities, and departmental and agencies'
roles in addressing these national objectives.
The S&T Directorate has been, and continues to be an active
participant in these interagency activities as illustrated by our
participation in the biodefense program. At the highest level HSPD-10/
NSPD-33 laid out the overall strategy, department and agency roles, as
well as specific objectives and called for periodic reviews to plan,
monitor and revise implementation. This was followed by an interagency
review, of specific fiscal year 2006-fiscal year 2010 science and
technology needs to support the national biodefense strategy as
articulated in HSPD-10.
The National Science and Technology Council's Weapons of Mass
Destruction Medical Countermeasures Subcommittee (WMD-MCM), co-chaired
by the Assistant Secretary of the S&T Directorate, provides an
interagency forum for discussing and prioritizing medical
countermeasure needs to be pursued under BioShield. At still the next
level of coordination, there are strong bilateral efforts around key
elements of the strategy. Examples of this coordination including
strong and frequent collaborations on Bioshield (HHS/DHS), the
development of coordinated civilian and military surveillance and
detection systems (DHS/DOD), the development and execution of a
National Strategy for Agricultural Biosecurity (DHS/USDA), and
development and assessment of decontamination technologies (DHS/EPA).
In addressing these activities, DHS has a leadership role in
several key areas and partners with lead agencies in others. Those
areas in which the S&T Directorate provides significant leadership are:
--Providing an overall end-to-end understanding of an integrated
biodefense strategy, so as to guide the Secretary and the rest
of the Department in its responsibility to coordinate the
Nation's efforts to deter, detect, and respond to biological
acts of terrorism.
--Providing scientific support to the intelligence community and the
IAIP Directorate in prioritizing the bio-threats.
--Developing early warning and detection systems to permit timely
response to mitigate the consequence of a biological attack.
--Conducting technical forensics to analyze and interpret materials
recovered from an attack to support attribution.
--Operation of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center to support both
research and development (R&D) and operational response to
foreign animal diseases such as foot and mouth disease.
DHS also supports our partnering departments and agencies with
their leads in other key areas of an integrated biodefense: the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on medical
countermeasures and mass casualty response; the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) on agriculture biosecurity; USDA and HHS on food
security and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on
decontamination and on water security.
In addition, the Science and Technology Directorate has engaged
with other Federal Agencies in the following efforts:
--The S&T Directorate worked with DOS (STAS), USDA, Office of Science
and Technology Police (OSTP), National Science Foundation (NSF)
to create and support the U.S.-Japan Safe and Secure Society
forum.
--The Directorate and DOS (OES) jointly created and negotiated the
US-UK S&T Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). The resulting MOA
supports collaboration on Homeland Security research,
development, testing, and evaluation between the United States
and the UK.
--The S&T Directorate represents DHS as the lead U.S. agency for the
US-CA Public Security Technical Program (PSTP) which is the
primary cooperative arrangement on S&T for homeland security
between the two countries. Other U.S. agencies involved in the
PSTP include: FBI, DOE, DOD, USDA, HHS, DOC (NIST), EPA, DOS,
NSA and other DHS components.
--Currently leads a partnership with the Center for Disease Control
(CDC), EPA, and FBI on the deployment of BioWatch, a bioaerosol
detection system deployed to many of this Nation's cities.
--Funds BioNet--Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) executed pilot
program to integrate civilian and military domestic
biodetection and consequence management, using San Diego as a
pilot city.
--Leading an interagency effort with HHS, DOD, and the United States
Postal Service (USPS) to develop a National Integrated
Biomonitoring System, part of HSPD-10 responsibility.
--Primary participant in the establishment of the National
Interagency Biodefense Campus being developed at Ft. Detrick.
--The National Bioforensics Analysis Center (NBFAC) is a joint
Science and Technology Directorate-FBI program
--In a joint effort with USDA, have developed an integrated national
agrodefense strategy, with especial emphasis on foreign animal
disease. The Directorate and USDA also conduct joint research
and development programs at the Plum Island Animal Disease
Center
Presidential Initiatives
Three Presidential Initiatives address the needs of an integrated
biodefense strategy and DHS plays a key role in each one. These three
initiatives are:
BioShield.--Signed into law July 21, 2004, BioShield is a program
coordinated by the Secretary for Homeland Security and the Secretary
for Health and Human Services that provides $5.6 billion over 10 years
for the purchase and development of countermeasures to WMD. DHS's S&T
Directorate plays a significant role in this in determining which
agents constitute ``material threats'' and in developing scenarios that
inform decisions on the quantity of countermeasures required. We have
certified four ``material threats'' (anthrax, smallpox, botulinum
toxin, radiological/nuclear, and nerve agents), have two additional
underway, (plague and tularemia), and the rest of the Category A
bioagents should be completed by fiscal year 2006.
Biosurveillance Initiative.--A program that seeks to enhance
systems that monitor the Nation's health (human, animal and plant) and
its environment (air, food, water) and to integrate these with
intelligence data to provide early detection of an attack and the
situational understanding needed to guide an effective response. The
S&T Directorate plays a major role in the Biosurveillance Initiative in
operating its 1st Generation BioWatch System, in deploying a 2nd
Generation system and significantly expanding the number of collectors
in the highest threat cities and at key facilities (e.g. transportation
systems), and in continuing to develop advanced detection systems to
further increase the capabilities. We are also designing the
information system that will be used to integrate health and
environmental monitoring information from the sector specific agencies
with intelligence data from the IAIP Directorate. Implementation of
this system will actually be initiated by the IAIP Directorate in
fiscal year 2005, but the S&T Directorate will continue to supply
subject matter expertise in biological threat and defense.
Food and Agricultural Initiative.--Seeks to enhance the security of
our agricultural and food infrastructures. DHS activities in this area
are led by the IAIP Directorate--but the S&T Directorate brings
significant contributions in end-to-end studies of key agricultural and
food threats, through the development of advanced diagnostics, and
through R&D conducted jointly with USDA at the Plum Island Animal
Disease Center.
CONCLUSION
The Science and Technology Directorate's programs conducted within
the Department of Homeland Security fully support the national
biodefense program as stated in the presidential directive Biodefense
for the 21st Century, and other Homeland Security Presidential
Directives. Moreover, they are conducted in an active collaboration
with other Federal departments and agencies having a role in meeting
this national priority, and are focused on reducing the threat of a
biological attack against this Nation's population and its agriculture
and food critical agricultural infrastructures, and supports a science-
based forensics and attribution capability.
This concludes my prepared statement. With the Committee's
permission, I request my formal statement be submitted for the record.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd, and Members of the Subcommittee, I thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you and I will be happy to
answer any questions that you may have.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Mr. Albright.
Before we turn to Mr. Simonson, it is the tradition of this
subcommittee to recognize the Chairman of the full committee,
whenever he arrives, for any statement he wishes to make.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR THAD COCHRAN
Senator Cochran. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Let me
congratulate you on the success of the legislation which you
authored here in the Senate to establish the legal authority to
appropriate funds to deal with threats to our food supply and
our agriculture infrastructure and our other concerns in the
whole general area of bioterrorism. There is nothing more
frightening to contemplate than an attack against these
resources and assets in our country, and we do have a serious
lack of products, drugs, countermeasures to deal with a serious
assault on our food supply and our agriculture infrastructure.
So it is very appropriate, I think, that you chair this
subcommittee now that is in charge of funding the law you
helped create and took a leadership role in, and we appreciate
those efforts very much.
I am glad to be here with Dr. Albright and Mr. Simonson to
congratulate them on their initiatives and hard work in
developing a response structure at the Federal level and to
provide national leadership in this very important undertaking.
Thank you.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would simply
note, it is only through your generosity that I chair this
subcommittee, and I am very appreciative of that.
Mr. Simonson.
STATEMENT OF STEWART SIMONSON, J.D., ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, OFFICE OF PUBLIC HEALTH
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Mr. Simonson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd,
Senator Allard, and Senator Craig, and other members of the
subcommittee. I am Stewart Simonson, Assistant HHS Secretary
for Public Health Emergency Preparedness, and I appreciate the
opportunity to share with you information on the progress of
implementing the Project BioShield Act of 2004, which was
enacted some 9 months ago.
The events of September and October of 2001 made it very
clear bioterrorism is a serious threat to our Nation and the
world. The Bush administration and Congress responded
forcefully to this threat by seeking to strengthen our medical
and public health capacities to protect our citizens from
future attacks. To encourage the development of new medical
countermeasures against threats and to speed their delivery,
President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address proposed
and Congress subsequently enacted Project BioShield. The $5.6
billion 10-year special reserve fund was created to assure
developers of medical countermeasures that funds would be
available to enable the Government to purchase critical
products.
Since enactment, my office has moved aggressively to fill
immediate gaps in our reserve of medical countermeasures. A
sense of urgency has pervaded our efforts and has defined new
ways of doing business. Let me briefly describe to you what we
have done to address these gaps beginning with anthrax.
ANTHRAX
Anthrax is a serious public health threat, and although the
Strategic National Stockpile contains antibiotics sufficient to
treat millions of persons exposed to anthrax, the vaccine has
an important place in our preparedness and response strategy.
The U.S. Government, relying on interagency expert input,
defined the initial vaccine requirement for protecting 25
million persons.
The Institute of Medicine, in a report issued in 2002,
urged that a new anthrax vaccine based on modern principles of
vaccinology be developed. An assessment of developing
technologies was undertaken by HHS, experts in the field, and
it was determined there was sufficient scientific basis to
support the aggressive development of a new generation of
vaccine consisting of recombinant protective antigen, the so-
called rPA vaccine. Research spanning more than a decade,
conducted in large part by the U.S. Government, permitted us to
move the vaccine further along the development pipeline. The
National Institutes of Health took the lead in working with the
private sector to advance development of this new vaccine.
When HHS felt the technology was mature enough to indicate
that the vaccine could be licensed within 8 years, my office
launched an initiative to acquire it for the Strategic National
Stockpile. Utilizing a stringent evaluation process, we
reviewed multiple proposals and finally negotiated a contract
with VaxGen of Brisbane, California for 75 million doses of
vaccine, anticipating a three-dose regimen. The milestone
contract with VaxGen lays out an ambitious program, including
delivery of the first 25 million doses of usable vaccine within
2 years of award.
I want to draw your attention to a feature of the contract
with VaxGen and, indeed, all BioShield contracts. No payment
for vaccine is made until the product is received into the
stockpile.
To provide for the stockpile's immediate needs, my office
is in the process of completing negotiations for 5 million
doses of the currently licensed vaccine and hopefully with an
option for an additional 5 million doses. We expect those
negotiations to be concluded shortly.
But we are focused on threats beyond anthrax as well. My
office has moved quickly to address the need for pediatric
liquid formulation of potassium iodide, a drug that protects
the thyroid from radioactive iodine. This formulation is aimed
at young children who are at the greatest risk from the harmful
effects of exposure to radioactive iodine. In March, a contract
was awarded under Project BioShield for suspension potassium
iodide to protect at least 1.7 million children. Product
delivery will begin next month.
In addition to the BioShield contracts that have already
been awarded, there are several other BioShield procurement
related activities underway. We are reviewing the responses for
request for proposals for anthrax therapies and we are
continuing to move forward on the acquisition of an antitoxin
treatment for botulinum.
To signal our intent to acquire a next generation smallpox
vaccine, we will be releasing a draft request for proposal for
industry comment within the next few weeks.
Finally, in anticipation of yet-to-be-determined
requirements, we actively monitor the state of the medical
countermeasure pipeline, both within and outside of the U.S.
Government, by evaluating Government research and development
portfolios and engaging industry to the publication of requests
for information. For example, we have released three RFIs to
assess the time line to maturity of medical countermeasures to
treat nerve agent exposure, acute radiation syndrome, and
additional products that might be available to treat anthrax.
These requests are key for HHS to dialogue with industry
partners to inform them on the development of a sound
acquisition strategy.
Defining priorities and quantifying the size of the threat
to the population are key steps in focusing our efforts. In the
process, we must be mindful of the realities of the spectrum of
efforts needed along the research and development pipeline to
produce a usable medical countermeasure. The process of
defining required specifications for countermeasures often
reveals few, if any, candidates in the pipeline. We have been
fortunate that some of our highest priority needs for
countermeasures could be addressed using the available advanced
development products already in the pipeline. However, basic
research and early development efforts, when even robustly
funded, often take years before a concept is mature enough for
advanced development, and it is only when a product has reached
the advanced development stage that Project BioShield provides
a meaningful incentive for manufacturers to take the product
the rest of the way.
PREPARED STATEMENT
In closing, HHS has a clear mandate from President Bush and
Congress to lead the charge in countermeasure development. We
have already made important strides to address the public
health needs of the Nation, but there is more that needs to be
done. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you and
Senator Byrd and other members of the committee to address the
challenges of bioterrorism and to improve the public health of
the Nation.
Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stewart Simonson
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Byrd and Subcommittee members.
I am Stewart Simonson, Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency
Preparedness. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you
information on our progress in implementing the Project BioShield Act
of 2004, which was enacted some 9 months ago. Biodefense is a top
priority for the Bush Administration and having an appropriate
armamentarium of medical countermeasures is a critical aspect of the
response and recovery component of the President's ``21st Century
Strategy for Biodefense.'' The acquisition and ready availability of
medical countermeasures, such as antibiotics, monoclonal and polyclonal
antibodies against infectious threats, therapies for chemical and
radiation-induced diseases, and vaccines to protect against exposure
from biological agents will have a substantial impact on our
preparedness and response capabilities.
PROTECTING AMERICANS
The events of September and October 2001 made it very clear that
terrorism--indeed bioterrorism--is a serious threat to our Nation and
the world. The Bush Administration and Congress responded forcefully to
this threat by seeking to strengthen our medical and public health
capacities to protect our citizens from future attacks. The
Bioterrorism Act of 2002 substantially increased funding authorization
for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Strategic National
Stockpile. To encourage the development of new medical countermeasures
against biological, chemical, or radiological agents and to speed their
delivery and use in the time of an attack, President Bush, in his 2003
State of the Union address proposed and Congress subsequently enacted
the Project BioShield Act of 2004. The Special Reserve Fund, pre-
appropriated with $5.6 billion was created to assure developers of
medical countermeasures that funds would be available to purchase
critical products for use to protect our citizens.
THE STRATEGIC NATIONAL STOCKPILE TODAY
The wake-up call that we received in the fall of 2001 brought
clarity to the gaps in our chemical countermeasure armamentarium and we
immediately sought to address them. Although there is much work still
to be done, we have made significant progress in building our Strategic
National Stockpile from that time to what we have on-hand today. For
example, our smallpox vaccine stockpile has grown from 90,000 ready-to-
use doses in 2001 to enough vaccine to protect every man, woman, and
child in America. Major strides have been made in building our chemical
countermeasure reserve against anthrax, plague, and tularemia. We are
now able to protect and treat millions of Americans in the event of an
attack with one of these agents. We have taken the botulism antitoxin
program started by the Department of Defense in the early 1990s to
completion and we are now building our antitoxin stockpile further. We
have also built our stockpile of countermeasures to address the effects
of radiation exposure with products such as Prussian Blue and
diethylenetriaminepentaacetate, or DTPA. These countermeasures act to
block uptake or remove radioactive elements such as cesium, thallium,
or americium from the body after they are ingested or inhaled.
Potassium iodide, a drug that can protect the thyroid from the harmful
effects of radioactive iodine, is also in the Stockpile.
THE STRATEGIC APPROACH TO ADDRESSING MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURE GAPS
The initial focus of our efforts to protect the Nation was aimed
largely at those threats that could do the greatest harm to the
greatest number of our citizens, namely, smallpox and anthrax. A sense
of urgency has pervaded our efforts and has defined new ways of doing
business. Our new national security environment demanded accelerated
product development timelines and new paradigms of interactions between
industry and government with risk-sharing and enhanced intra-
governmental collaboration. Using a robust interagency process, that
mined intra- and extra-governmental expertise, requirements for medical
countermeasures were identified, and options elaborated for addressing
immediate and long-term needs. These experts continue to help us define
the most expeditious way to traverse the critical pathway to develop
and acquire usable countermeasures for the Strategic National
Stockpile.
Application of the strategic approach: Anthrax
Although not transmissible from person-to-person, an attack
involving the aerosol dissemination of anthrax spores, particularly in
an urban setting, was considered by public health experts to have the
potential for catastrophic effects similar to smallpox. . . . The
potential for large-scale population exposure following aerosol release
of anthrax spores, the threat demonstrated by the anthrax letters, and
our knowledge that anthrax had been weaponized by state-actors,
highlighted the nature of the treat. The Secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security determined that anthrax posed a material threat to
the Nation. And, because untreated inhalation anthrax is usually fatal,
the Secretary of HHS identified anthrax as a significant threat to
public health.
The approach to protect citizens against this threat demanded
immediate, intermediate and long-term strategies and requirements.
First, the existing stockpile of antibiotics in the Strategic National
Stockpile was increased. Second, there was a need for a licensed
vaccine to be used not only for pre-exposure protection for laboratory
and other workers at known risk for anthrax, but for use along with
antibiotics after an exposure to potentially decrease the currently
recommended 60-day course of antibiotic therapy. Anthrax spores are
stable in the environment and would have a profound impact if released
in an urban population. Availability of a vaccine is a critical
requirement for repopulation and restoration of the functionality of
any exposed area.
The limitations inherent in the currently available anthrax vaccine
were articulated in a 2002 Institute of Medicine report, ``Anthrax
Vaccine: Is It Safe? Does it Work?'' The report stated, ``. . . a new
vaccine, developed according to more modern principles of vaccinology,
is urgently needed.'' An assessment of developing technologies was
undertaken by HHS experts in the fall of 2001 and the decision was made
that there was a sufficient scientific foundation, including a detailed
understanding of the pathogenesis of anthrax and how anthrax vaccines
provide protective immunity, to support the aggressive development of a
next generation vaccine consisting of recombinant protective antigen
(rPA). This research, spanning more than a decade from its inception in
the early 1990s, was conducted in large part by the United States Army
Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick,
Maryland.
HHS defined a three-stage development and acquisition strategy with
open competition for awards at each stage. The early and advanced
development programs were supported by the National Institutes of
Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with
contract awards in September 2002 and 2003, respectively. These were
milestone-driven contracts with well-defined deliverables including the
manufacture of clinical-grade vaccine and the conduct of Phase 1 and
Phase 2 clinical trials. Large-scale manufacturing capacity would be
required to support the civilian requirement for this medical
countermeasure, which was defined through an interagency process to be
the initial protection of up to 25 million persons. Senior officials
throughout the United States government evaluated acquisition options
to achieve this requirement and, in the fall of 2003, the decision was
made to pursue the acquisition of rPA anthrax vaccine.
An evaluation of the status of the NIAID rPA anthrax vaccine
development program suggested rPA vaccine could potentially become a
licensed product within 8 years. In March 2004, the acquisition program
for this vaccine, under the direction of my office, was launched using
the Special Reserve Fund created in the fiscal year 2004 Department of
Homeland Security appropriations bill. Utilizing a robust technical and
business evaluation process, we reviewed multiple proposals and finally
negotiated a contract with VaxGen of Brisbane, California, for 75
million doses of the vaccine, (anticipating a three-dose regimen).
Using a milestone and deliverables approach utilized with the ACAM2000
smallpox vaccine development and acquisition program, and the rPA
anthrax vaccine development related contracts at NIAID, the VaxGen
contract lays out an ambitious program to include the delivery of the
first 25 million usable vaccine doses to the Strategic National
Stockpile within 2 years of contract award. A unique and critical
aspect of the rPA vaccine BioShield acquisition contract is the fact
that no payment is made until a usable product is delivered to the
Stockpile. While awaiting delivery of this new vaccine to the Stockpile
my office will complete negotiations for 5 million doses of the
currently licensed anthrax vaccine in the next few days to support
immediate requirements. Delivery of the product to the Stockpile will
begin very soon after the contract award and will have a direct impact
on our preparedness.
Other Needed Countermeasures
In an effort to fill other gaps in the Stockpile, we have made
progress in contracting for products that will soon be delivered for
use.
Potassium Iodide
In March 2005 a contract was awarded under Project BioShield for a
pediatric liquid formulation of potassium iodide, a drug that helps
limit risk of damage to the thyroid, from radioactive iodine. This
formulation is aimed at young children who cannot take pills and are at
the highest risk of harmful effects from exposure to radioactive
iodine. This acquisition will provide needed protection for at least
1.7 million children. Product delivery will begin next month.
Ongoing Project BioShield activities
In addition to the Project BioShield acquisition contracts that
have been awarded in the last 9 months, there are several other
important BioShield procurement-related activities underway. We are
reviewing the responses for Requests for Proposals for anthrax
therapies, and we are continuing to move forward on the acquisition of
an antitoxin treatment for botulism. Furthermore, to signal our intent
to acquire a next generation smallpox vaccine, we will be releasing a
draft request for proposal for industry comment within the next 2
weeks. Finally, in anticipation of yet to be determined requirements,
we actively monitor the state of the medical countermeasure pipeline--
both within and outside the government--by evaluating USG research and
development portfolios and engaging industry through the publication of
Requests for Information (RFIs). For example, we have recently released
three RFIs to assess the timeline to maturity of medical
countermeasures to treat nerve agent exposure, acute radiation
syndrome, and additional products that might be available to treat
anthrax. These requests are a key tool for HHS to dialogue with
industry partners and to inform the development of sound USG
acquisition strategies.
Priority Setting Beyond Smallpox and Anthrax
The approach taken to rapidly expand our Nation's response capacity
to meet the medical and public health impact of either a smallpox or
anthrax attack demonstrate our national resolve to address these
threats. But, in many ways, anthrax and smallpox represent the ``low
hanging fruit'' for medical countermeasure research, development and
acquisition and was enabled by a substantial research base developed by
USAMRIID and NIH. There was consensus that these were our highest
priorities and we had countermeasures available or relatively far along
in the development pipeline to permit acquisition. Given an almost
endless list of potential threats with finite resources to address
them, prioritization is essential to focus our efforts. We rely heavily
upon our interagency partner, the Department of Homeland Security, to
provide us with a prioritized list of threats along with material
threat assessments that will provide reasonable estimates of population
exposure. This information is critical for future strategic decision
making regarding how best to focus our National efforts in
countermeasure development and acquisition, including whether in the
short-term, the so-called ``one-bug, one-drug'' approach should
continue while simultaneously investing in more broad-spectrum
prevention and treatment approaches for the longer term.
Challenges to Rapidly Expanding the Strategic National Stockpile
Although defining priorities and quantifying the size of the threat
to the population are the key steps to focus our efforts, we must be
mindful of the realities of the spectrum of efforts needed along the
research and development pipeline to produce a useable medical
countermeasure. The process of defining required specifications for a
countermeasure often reveals few, if any, candidates in the pipeline.
Basic research and early development efforts, even when robustly
funded, often take years before a concept is mature enough for advanced
development. When a product has reached the advanced development stage,
Project BioShield Act of 2004 provides an important incentive for
manufacturers to take the product the rest of the way through the
pipeline. And, as I have outlined here today, in the 9 months since
Project BioShield was enacted, the incentive has sped final development
of several products for the Stockpile.
Conclusion
In closing, I must emphasize that the number of threat agents
against which we could guard ourselves is endless and new and emerging
threats introduced by nature will present continuing challenges.
Although we cannot be prepared for every threat, we have the ability to
create a strategic approach to identifying and combating the greatest
threats. HHS and its agencies including NIH, CDC, and FDA, have a clear
mandate from President Bush and Congress to lead the charge in this
arena. We have already made important strides and will continue to work
to address the obstacles identified. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to
working with you and members of the Subcommittee to address the
challenges of bioterrorism preparedness and its impact on public
health.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, gentlemen.
Let me start by saying I think there has been significant
progress made. We started at zero, but I do not think we should
underestimate how far we still have to go. We will start off by
saying you have done a good job getting to where you are going,
but the context of this hearing may ask questions about where
do we have to go and how do we get there and why are we not
there yet.
Let us begin. You, Mr. Simonson, talked about anthrax, and
that is probably a good case study to look at because if you
order the pathogens which are our biggest threat, smallpox is
number one, followed by anthrax, and you have botulism. Then
you actually drop down a level in my opinion and you hit
botulism and hemorrhagic fever and a number of other things
that are much more controllable than either anthrax or
smallpox.
SYSTEM WEAKNESSES
But we have also seen three instances of what I would call
real-life case studies as to how we react. We have got the SARS
situation. We have got the avian flu situation, and we have
just the simple flu vaccine situation. In each one of those
instances, we saw weaknesses and we saw strengths of our
system. I wanted to focus a little bit on the weaknesses
because the strengths are good. Let me congratulate you for
them, but I am concerned about the weaknesses.
The weaknesses, as I see it, are this. In the flu
vaccination situation, we found ourselves with an ``all the
eggs in one basket'' philosophy, and the provider of the
vaccine turned out to be incapable of maintaining the supply.
And thus, people were unable to get the vaccine. Are we
creating the same problem again with anthrax, for example,
where we essentially committed to a single supplier where the
situation is that the supplier has not even gotten through
clinical trials yet. Should we be approaching this by throwing
the net wider and trying to energize more input to get more
participation from more players?
We have one approved vaccine out there, which you mentioned
you are buying 5 million doses from. It is a much more complex
vaccine procedure than the one being proposed, but the one
being proposed has not been approved, whereas the one that
exists is approved. And so I guess my question is, why are we
not splitting up at least into a couple baskets here rather
than going full bore with one basket? That is the first
question.
The second question is, are we energizing the minds out
there that might have even more creative answers? Again, I will
use anthrax as an example. I hate to be anecdotal because this
should be more systematic than anecdotal. But I was up at
Dartmouth where they have a very fine research facility, and
the researchers up there said they were having great success
with a proposal which basically addressed not only pre-
prevention, but also if you were actually exposed to anthrax,
had almost 100 percent recovery from anthrax. It was just at
the mice level but they thought they were making great
progress. But their attitude was they could not break into the
system.
How many other people are out there? Are there people at
Baylor? Are there people at Duke? Are there people out in
Minnesota who basically have not figured out how to break into
the system but might have the ideas? Are we energizing the
research community first to come up with ideas and are we
giving them a clear pathway that gets those ideas into the
process, or are we shutting them out by simply choosing a
winner here and saying this is the vaccine we are going to use,
everybody else is off the table for the next 5 years because
all the money is committed to this vaccine?
So it is two levels of questions. Have we made technically
the right decision by choosing one vaccine to basically put all
our eggs in one basket in light of the flu experience? And
secondly, in doing that, have we also shut down the creativity
in this area of anthrax because everybody now says, well, the
anthrax is off the table because they have chosen this vaccine?
So people at Dartmouth, people at Baylor, people at Duke are
going to move on to something else.
Mr. Simonson. I think, Senator, the influenza situation and
other situations where we have put all of our eggs in one
basket is distinguishable from what we are doing on anthrax.
Utilizing what we sometimes call the push-pull, you push
scientific development along the way using NIH and other
instrumentalities to the point where it is far enough along
that a Government contract can incentivize a maker to pull it.
That is a very delicate balance in the negotiations with these
companies. We found in our negotiations with the contractor
that got the award that the $75 million was about what we
needed to pull it and----
Senator Gregg. How much does that constitute in dollar
value?
Mr. Simonson. $877 million.
That was the pull needed to get there. Cutting it in half
would have really limited our ability to take advantage of the
economies of scale and so forth as you ramp up.
But I think our interest in acquiring more AVA BioPort
vaccine shows we are seeking not to put all of our eggs in one
basket. Hopefully, we will be finishing the 5 million dose
contract very soon. There is an option in there for another 5
million doses. It keeps the door open and allows us to continue
a dialogue with BioPort so we can, where appropriate, adjust
our stockpiles there.
Plus, we are doing some other things that are related. We
have enormous quantities of antibiotics effective against
anthrax.
We are trying to develop a good anthrax therapeutic, and
this procurement I think especially speaks to the situation you
mentioned earlier about people feeling locked out. What we have
said is in order to keep our acquisition in sort of the state
of the art, we are going to engage in essentially a three-stage
acquisition, acquire the first round of anthrax therapeutics,
but keep RFPs open for the next 2 years so products that were
not able to compete in the first round could compete in the
second round so that we have a diverse portfolio of anthrax
therapeutics. So it was specifically designed for the purpose
of not locking out someone who was on the verge of a
breakthrough but had not quite gotten to the point where he
could meaningfully compete for a BioShield contract. So we are
sensitive to that.
I am not sure we are doing it the right way. I am not
saying we are fully satisfied with the experience, but I think
we are learning as we go and we are trying to be good stewards
and to not over-commit where we do not see a need to. But we
are sensitive to the need to keep the scientific community
energized and interested in breakthroughs.
Senator Gregg. Senator Byrd.
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL AGENTS
Senator Byrd. The Gilmore Commission in its December 15,
2003, report stated that a single biological or nuclear attack
could realistically kill tens of thousands of people. The
report went on to say that to meet today's threats, we need
technological breakthroughs such as the development of sensors
to detect deadly chemicals or biological agents.
I believe that is your area, Dr. Albright. What are you
doing to prevent these deadly agents from crossing our borders,
coming into our ports, or arriving by plane?
When Secretary Ridge testified before the subcommittee last
year, he said if a passenger wanted to board a plane with a
biological or chemical weapon, we do not have the capacity to
detect it. Is that still the situation? Does your budget
request address this issue?
Dr. Albright. So there were a couple questions. To answer
the second question, the answer is no, we do not have a good
way of detecting someone trying to bring a vial of pathogen
across the border. That would be an extraordinarily difficult
technical problem to address. If you think about the amount,
for example, of anthrax or of smallpox needed to be brought
across the border in order to either affect a large number of
people or to act as seed stock for a domestic capability, you
do not really need very much. The amount of the actual anthrax
you would need would be about the size of a quarter. You would
need very little smallpox to start culturing seed stock.
So the approach we have taken is rather than trying to
solve what appears to be an intractable problem at the borders,
let me stop and say there is another side to this, and that is
when people and cargo do cross our borders, to the extent that
we are able to target suspicious individuals or suspicious
cargo and then inspect them manually and thoroughly, that would
certainly provide a venue, just as it would provide a venue for
detecting almost anything else they would bring across the
border. But looking for, as I said, a vial of anthrax, the
technical obstacles to that are just extraordinary.
So the approach we have taken instead is rather to detect
an attack when it occurs because, in a sense, one of the real
dangers or terrors associated with these kinds of pathogens is
if they are deployed covertly, they start to infect people
before anybody really knows what has happened. And by the time
you start to see symptoms, it is usually too late to do much
about it. So the trick here is to detect the attack before
people become symptomatic, and when we have an opportunity,
deploy the stockpile and treat the individuals concerned and
save them.
BUDGET REQUEST
Senator Byrd. Would you touch upon the other question I
asked? Does your budget request address this issue?
Dr. Albright. Yes, sir. Our budget request I believe is
approximately $80-odd million for the next generation of the
BioWatch. These are the urban detection systems. We have also
got about $100 million in our budget, roughly that is
operations in support for the current system and actually there
is another generation being deployed as we speak.
CHEMICAL DETECTORS
Senator Byrd. The Department is spending over $100 million
on the system of sensors known as BioWatch. The budget request
for fiscal year 2006 proposes over $225 million for a new
office called the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.
Less clear are the Department's efforts to prevent a
chemical attack. After 9/11, the Senate approved $15 million
for the D.C. Metro system to deploy chemical detectors in the
D.C. subway system. Now, that is an excellent system. It gives
Metro the capacity to immediately determine if the subway has
been exposed to a chemical agent so it can effectively respond.
This funding was included at Congress' initiative. It was
not requested by the President. In fact, the White House
specifically objected to the funding, describing it as
excessive.
Last year, Under Secretary McQueary listed the D.C. Metro
project as an accomplishment.
Is there any funding in the President's budget to take
advantage of the lessons learned from this pilot program to
deploy the chemical detectors in other large subway systems or
urban areas around the country?
Dr. Albright. The short answer is yes. Let me explain to
you how it works.
First, it is called the PROTECT System, the system we have
in the Washington Metro system. We see it as a significant
success. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security is no
longer really involved with it. We turned it over to the
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. They operate it
to the extent they need technical assistance, which is almost
never, we supply it for them, but this is something that has
been completely transitioned.
I will also add that during both the Republican and
Democratic national conventions, we deployed this system also
to the subway systems in Boston and in New York, and in fact,
at the specific request of the New York Transit Authority
police, we have kept the system deployed at certain sites in
the New York subway system.
The way it works, though, is that from our perspective, the
technology development is finished. So now the question here is
one of transition. How does one do that? In particular, how
does one transition these technologies to transit authorities
which are local government entities?
So what we have been doing is working very closely with the
Office of Domestic Preparedness, with ODP, to create grant
guidance that will allow and focus grants to be deployed in
local metro systems. There are something like over 30 metro
systems around the country. They would then basically take the
system and install it. It is really very inexpensive. It is
only a few million dollars per metro system that is needed to
do this. So that work is underway, but that would be embedded
within our overall grant budget.
Senator Byrd. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Senator Gregg. Thank you. Again, I recognize the chairman
of the full committee.
NEW PRODUCTS TO PROTECT AGAINST BIOTERRORISM ACTS
Senator Cochran. Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of
questions. One is to focus attention on how we are developing
incentives for researchers to discover and develop new products
to protect the general public against bioterrorism acts. Dr.
Albright, what are we doing and what is in the budget to try to
help reach that goal?
Dr. Albright. In terms of fundamental research for medical
countermeasures, sits within the realm of my colleague here,
Mr. Simonson, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
I will point out they have well over $1 billion devoted to
research and development activities within NIAID to invoke
intramural and extramural contracts, and by that, I mean to
researchers within NIAID, as well as to universities to develop
the scientific basis for countering these threats across the
entire list of category A and even B and C agents.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Simonson, do you have a response?
Mr. Simonson. That is absolutely right. We have about $1.7
billion assigned to the biodefense research portfolio at NIH.
It is a very aggressive agenda there to move advancement
forward.
Senator Cochran. Will this utilize expertise that we have
at academic health science centers, specifically the drug
discovery efforts of schools of pharmacy?
Mr. Simonson. The extramural program does leverage academic
health centers. I will check this for certain, but I would be
shocked if discoveries in schools of pharmacology did not
leverage some of this money.
SYSTEMS THAT MONITOR SUPPLY OF PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS
Senator Cochran. I know there are efforts underway at the
Centers for Disease Control and other agencies to develop
systems that monitor the supply of pharmaceutical products
besides those already in the strategic stockpile that could be
needed in the event of widespread bioterrorism attack. Mr.
Simonson, can you comment on such systems?
Mr. Simonson. Yes. CDC, through the Strategic National
Stockpile, has a monitoring function where we are looking for
availability in the both reverse distribution and distribution
system, in case something happens where we would have to
leverage what is already out in the field.
The FDA has a drug shortage function where they are
tracking vulnerabilities in the pharmaceutical industry, how
much of a particular product is out there and could be used in
an emergency.
The difference is FDA has access to very closely held
proprietary data that CDC often does not have access to. So we
work it together.
Senator Cochran. Is there a sufficient amount of money in
the budget request to get us started, Dr. Albright, to develop
the infrastructure, the facilities for continued research in an
aggressive way to meet this challenge?
Dr. Albright. I think certainly in our fiscal year 2006
budget request, the answer is yes. There are multiple aspects
to your question. Certainly in the research side, again that
would be in DHHS, but there have been funds actually
appropriated in 2004, for example, for the development of the
laboratory infrastructure, the capitalization, for example, of
biosafety level 4 research facilities across the country, and
it is my understanding is well underway.
There are other issues, though. One of the things that Mr.
Simonson and I have been working closely with is some of the
capitalization needs associated with the developmental process.
There are some unique issues associated with putting some of
these bioterror pathogens through clinical trials, or the
equivalent of clinical trials, because obviously we do not
infect human beings with these diseases in order to test them,
that we are actively discussing at the moment.
Senator Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you.
Senator Craig.
SHELF SENSITIVE VACCINES
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
You touched upon a subject I want to pursue with our panel,
and gentlemen, you are the professionals here. You tell me if
this is an area that does not pertain to this particular area.
In the last several years, I chaired the Select Committee
on Aging and a week before Chiron announced its Liverpool plant
had been shut down, they were before us telling us they were
going to meet the necessary 100 million doses, or whatever the
number was, for the flu season. They did not meet it. We got
through that season.
But it exposed to us the vulnerability of that particular
vaccine industry, and it was a product, in part, because of
what had transpired over a course of years. Here you have a
mutating virus, I believe, and it changes annually, and you
cannot stockpile, and so you have to predict and produce. If
you mispredict, you end up with a lot more doses and it
bankrupts your company and you go away. And you find out it is
much too expensive to play in that field of health care, if you
will, unless it is incentivized by government.
Of course, that technology is an egg-driven culture
technology, and we are not into cell technology yet. We are
trying to get money there.
The bottom line is we made it through this last season. I
do not know that a flu virus could be brought to this country
effectively and spread to create a pandemic by a terrorist
organization. You are the ones who would have to be able to
tell us that, whether it was a doable proposition.
But if it were, we would be so unprepared at this time to
deal with it by all situations, and in certain segments of our
country, certain demographics, the elderly, flu can be lethal,
as we know, losing thousands and thousands of them in a normal
flu season.
We are trying to correct that problem, but we are not quite
there yet. Government is simply going to have to help these
companies and buy off the surplus at the end of the season to
allow them to produce.
Senator Cochran. How many of these kinds of vaccines or
treatments are we preparing that are shelf-sensitive, that have
to be rotated on an annual basis, that have to be sensitized to
the mutating viruses all the time to be good and usable?
Mr. Simonson. Flu is the only vaccine that has to be made
in this campaign process.
Senator Craig. Is it transportable and can it be used as a
weapon?
Mr. Simonson. Influenza?
Senator Craig. Yes.
Mr. Simonson. One would think so, yes.
Senator Craig. Would you agree we are totally unprepared if
it were ever used in that situation?
Mr. Simonson. I am not sure I would say we are totally
unprepared, but it presents an enormous challenge to us and it
is something we have been mindful of and worried about I think
since the President took office.
Senator Craig. We are proceeding into the next flu season
with how many producers of flu vaccine? Two?
Mr. Simonson. There are two producers of the killed
vaccine, one producer of the live attenuated vaccine, and a
third on the horizon. There is still regulatory work occurring
with respect to the third.
CELL TECHNOLOGY VERSUS CULTURE TECHNOLOGY
Senator Craig. How much investment are we making in the new
cell technology versus, if you will, the culture technology of
eggs?
Mr. Simonson. We entered into a $97 million contract for
tissue culture, cell culture technology, which has enormous
benefits over the embryonated hen's egg approach.
Senator Craig. And that benefit is to be able to speed up a
process ultimately to produce a vaccine more quickly. Is that
not correct?
Mr. Simonson. More quickly and it is less vulnerable to the
things chickens are vulnerable to. We have hundreds of
thousands of chickens who lay eggs for our vaccine every year.
A high path influenza virus, avian influenza virus----
Senator Craig. Clean chickens.
Mr. Simonson. Yes, but they are still susceptible to
disease. So it has worked out so far, but it is a fragile
infrastructure.
We have also developed over the last 6 months some
contingencies for our chicken flocks. We are building up flocks
so if we have a problem in one, we can supplement with another,
and we can also produce year around.
Senator Craig. But you have a tremendous time spread in
that technology compared to tissue. Is that not correct?
Mr. Simonson. That is right.
Senator Craig. Well, I hope you are putting money into that
new technology. We lucked out this year. We made it through the
season with a lot of cooperation and, frankly, a lot of good
coordination on the part of NIH and others and a lot of
communities of interest. But I was absolutely amazed at our
vulnerability in that area and the unwillingness, at least of
Congress to date, to recognize it and incentivize it so we can
keep industries functioning in those areas, not just in
influenza but in other childhood areas. There is the liability
issue, along with a lot of other things, that have just simply
caused them to leave the market.
Mr. Simonson. Even before 9/11, this was a very clear
priority of the Bush administration. There was work going
forward even before 9/11 on this. There is so much more to be
done, but we have made a very good start I think. But it was,
for decades, neglected as a seasonal nuisance, the flu, and the
flu is not a seasonal nuisance. The flu is, in some ways, a
very, very unique threat to us if you look back at 1918 and
what that did to this country, and we have to prepare for that
and we are.
Senator Craig. Thank you.
Senator Gregg. Senator Stevens.
ADVANCE APPROPRIATION
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I was pleased to join you in introducing this basic bill on
BioShield, Senator Gregg. We gave an advance appropriation of
$5,593,000,000. How much of that has been allocated to you for
2005? That was for the years 2004 to 2013. I just wondered how
much has been released to you.
Mr. Simonson. Well, $2.5 billion has been released to us.
DEMONSTRATION OF IDEAS BY PEOPLE
Senator Stevens. We had a sense of urgency in terms of your
mission. Part of it came from the fact that I was chairman of
appropriations. Senator Cochran is now, and he is going to have
this delightful experience. But people came to me to
demonstrate some of the things they said they had prepared. One
gentleman told me he had a substance which, if it was injected
into the leg of an individual, would guarantee protection
against all substances for a period of 48 hours. Now, I sent
them to see you. What do you do with people like that when they
come in?
Mr. Simonson. Well, there are a number of these people.
Senator Stevens. There are a great number of people, but
somewhere there might be one who knows what he is doing. That
is what I want to know. What do you do with them?
Mr. Simonson. I hold out that hope as well. So what we do
is we gather the research and development types, the physicians
and scientists, in my office who have the capability of seeing
maybe a gem in the rough and we go through it. In fact, we do
this, I would say, in the regular course of business. We are
going to be doing it again next week with a provider, a stem to
stern review of what they say will protect against, in this
case, irradiation exposure.
But it does happen often. We do it, and if we think there
is any hope for it, we bring in our colleagues from NIH. We are
looking all the time for more. Sometimes they are stacked up a
little bit, but we do get to the people who come forward with
these ideas.
Senator Stevens. Is Dr. Franz still out there?
Senator Gregg. He has not testified yet.
Senator Stevens. He has not testified yet. Can I ask him a
question?
Senator Gregg. You can, sure.
NONGOVERNMENTAL SCREENING GROUP
Senator Stevens. Do you think there should be a
nongovernmental screening group that people will know exists
that could review suggestions like this coming from individual
scientists?
Dr. Franz. I'm sorry, sir. A nongovernmental screening
group?
Senator Stevens. Yes. Should we have provided for such an
entity in the bill that we passed, a nongovernmental screening
entity to review these suggestions so it would be quickly
reviewed?
Dr. Franz. I think it depends on the resources. My own
experience was as the Commander of the USAMRIID, we used to
receive a lot of these things, and for the most part, as Mr.
Simonson has said, I believe it is possible to look at the data
presented, and oftentimes it is scanty. And to sit down with
some smart people with both basic research and clinical
experience and make a decision to do a very careful screening,
using good laboratory practices and so on, of each of these
products would be very, very expensive. So I think it is
important there be some kind of careful look outside the
laboratory by some smart people before we send them to the
laboratory.
Senator Stevens. Thank you.
Mr. Simonson, my only comment is it just sounds to me there
are a great many people in our national community who are
thinking about these threats and some of them have capability
and others do not. But I do hope we find some way to have an
identification of where these people can take their
suggestions. I am sure Senator Cochran will appreciate this
because they still keep coming to us for money and we do not
know one single thing about what they are talking about. So I
do think there ought to be some identifiable place where people
with capability and ingenuity to try to help solve some of
these problems could go and know who they are talking to and we
could know who to send them to.
Mr. Simonson. There is one other mechanism we use, as I
indicated earlier. This request for information. We will take a
look at what is missing and having looked through the
Government pipeline, seeing nothing, we will send out a request
for information, sources sought. Do you have work in this area
that might be useful to the Government? And that produces a
fair amount of really reliable data that we can then move
forward on. So we are trying to do that.
I think there is no question, Senator, that when it comes
to security countermeasures, people coming forward and saying
we have got these ideas and we need a place to go, ours is the
place to go. We want to have an open door for those sorts of
inquiries.
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much. My only comment would
be if I let someone study how many permits the Wright brothers
would have had to proceed with the demonstrations down at Kill
Devil Hills, it would amaze you how many they would have had. I
am sure similar things apply in this area. There is just an
overwhelming number of permits necessary for anyone to even
proceed with this independently. So I do hope we find some way
to accommodate the knowledge of some people who may have the
ingenuity to think a lot better than we thought they could.
Senator Gregg. Senator Allard.
Senator Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BIOTERRORISM AND COOPERATIVE EFFORTS
I would like to make an inquiry as to how your efforts
against bioterrorism are being coordinated with the Department
of Defense, as well as the CDC lab? They are all deeply
involved in biological threats to this country either through
an epidemic, what we naturally have occurring in this country,
which may be introduced or could be used by other nations as
far as a bioweapon is concerned. I wonder if you might comment
about your cooperative efforts, if you would, please.
Mr. Simonson. We have a structure in place that Dr.
Albright and I, Dr. Winkenwerder, Assistant Secretary for
Health Affairs at the Department of Defense, and Dr. Kline, who
is Assistant to Secretary Rumsfeld for chemical and
radiological and nuclear matters. The four of us chair an
interagency group that works through these countermeasure
issues, set requirements, and make sure the right hand knows
what the left is doing because there is a fair amount going on
outside of HHS laboratories. Parny may have something to add to
this, but I think that really is where all the coordination is
occurring right now on the countermeasure development front.
Senator Allard. Are you communicating with the Department
of Agriculture's plant and animal infectious diseases also?
That is anthrax and potentially plague and zoonotic diseases. I
assume you are also communicating with them.
Mr. Simonson. Yes. They participate in this group.
INTRODUCTION OF DISEASES FROM OTHER COUNTRIES
Senator Allard. Now, I understand the chairman had some
questions he raised about flu. I was not sure whether he was
talking about just the regular variety of flu that affects
humans or he was talking about the avian influenza, which does
not occur in this country but causing some deaths in Asia and
apparently is pretty virulent and is a disease that is of
serious concern to get introduced in this country.
When you have those kind of reports, what kind of action do
you take?
Mr. Simonson. The first thing we do is to ensure that we
are getting reliable data out of the region.
Senator Allard. So we send scientists down there to confirm
the diagnosis.
Mr. Simonson. We do send people there. We also bring
material back to the CDC or other laboratories to make sure the
sample is being properly evaluated and that we are watching for
antigenic drift, changes in the characteristics of the disease.
We fund, directly through the World Health Organization
(WHO) or through bilateral agreements, ways to improve
surveillance in these countries that have minimal
infrastructure.
The United Kingdom and the United States fund a transport
fund to actually pay for isolates to be shipped out of these
countries that cannot afford to ship them, believe it or not.
It is a very expensive proposition.
So that is the first thing we do. We trim that up. We send
doctors into the field working with the WHO.
I think the second thing we do, this is something Secretary
Levitt has been very committed to doing, is work diplomatically
with his counterparts, health ministers and so forth to
underscore the importance of transparency because without
transparency, none of this is going to do us any good. We are
trying to back up that transparency with funding.
Senator Allard. Well, the importation of material that is
infected or potentially infected is a very volatile issue. We
have a research laboratory off the shores of this country so we
can make a claim that the disease does not occur in this
country. I would hope that when you are bringing in those types
of materials some consultation be made that in this particular
case we happen to be talking about animal diseases, and it is
important on our trade agreements that we never and we can
always make the claim the disease does not occur in the United
States. And avian influenza can have a dramatic impact, for
example, in the poultry industry if we cannot make that claim
as far as import and international trade and everything.
So I would encourage you, if you are not, to work closely
with those various agencies because we are trying to do what is
necessary to protect our population. We need to study. We need
to be prepared for them, but yet we have to be careful in what
way we set up our studies and how we handle that kind of
material. It can be very complicated and it could be very
controversial.
Mr. Simonson. I just want to follow up on something I said
a moment ago. When we bring material back into this country, it
is done in a very high level of bio-security so that we do not
have to worry about it getting out, much like when other agents
are brought back----
Senator Allard. Very, very important. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gregg. Thank you. I want to thank the panel.
I think Senator Stevens' point that we need to formalize
the point of access where people of ideas can go is a pretty
valid one because I know I hear it too. I have people come to
me and say I have got a solution to this problem, and I refer
them. It would be nice, I think, if we could pick a central
Government place where we could send all these people who have
those good ideas. I guess yours is the shop. I am not sure how
we make it more visible in that area, but I think that might be
useful.
But we do appreciate your work and we thank you for your
time this morning and appreciate your testifying.
We are going to now move on to the second panel which is
folks who are outside the Government right now and who have
expertise as to whether or not we are doing a good job as a
Government and who have a lot of experience, beginning of
course with Dr. Franz, who has already been drawn into the
discussion here, which we very much appreciate. Hopefully we
can get the electronics here to work well so we do not end up
with a lot of interference. Dr. Franz we know well because he
was head of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command
for 23 years. He is now active in a number of other activities.
We have Dr. Leighton Read, who has joined the Alloy
Ventures as a general partner in October 2001. He has 14 years
as a biotechnical entrepreneur and investor, and he is going to
give us his thoughts as to how you get into this business and
whether or not the Government is making it easy.
And we have Mr. John Clerici who is an expert in liability
issues. He was Judge Advocate in the United States Air Force
where he spent a considerable amount of time advising the Air
Force research laboratories on how to procure technologies.
So we appreciate all of you taking the time to be with us
today. What we are interested in hearing about is how you think
the Government is doing in instituting the goals of BioShield,
which have certainly been outlined rather thoroughly this
morning, to prepare ourselves to deal with a biological/
chemical attack and to anticipate what the problems would be
and be ready to deal with them. So we want to hear your
thoughts on this.
We will start with you. Why do we not start with Dr. Franz
and make sure we have got this thing working so that he is up
and running. Dr. Franz is in Boston, which is obvious because
there is a Red Sox symbol in front of him, probably curing Red
Sox fever. If you could give us a test, Dr. Franz, that would
be good.
Dr. Franz. Good morning, sir. Can you hear me?
Senator Gregg. Yes, we can. Thank you. Why do you not
proceed?
STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID FRANZ, CHIEF BIOLOGICAL
SCIENTIST, THE MIDWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Dr. Franz. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members, it is an
honor to appear before you to address issues related to the
procurement of medical countermeasures to protect the American
population from bioterrorist agents and emerging infectious
disease. I am currently Senior Biological Scientist at the
Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City. I believe you have
my resume.
This committee has asked that I provide some broad
perspective on the medical aspects of biological defense in the
context of a world in which intentional release of biological
agents is of significant concern and natural introduction of
disease is a reality. I will make seven brief points that
encapsulate my written statement and then summarize my thoughts
regarding the implications of these points for the challenges
at hand.
First, regarding the threat, I believe the most significant
barriers to biological terrorism today is the intention to
commit the crime. This is especially true for contagious
viruses. In the future, technology will draw on the options for
both protection and for abuse.
Second, we are extremely vulnerable to bioterrorist attack
in this free society, but for many technical and behavioral
reasons measuring actual risk to any segment of the American
population or its agriculture will continue to be extremely
difficult.
Third, biology is characterized by great diversity.
Microbes like our own immune systems can be either strong or
weak. We can rank microbial capabilities that cause disease and
even their utility for terrorist exploitations, but without
solid intelligence, we can never know for sure which specific
biological agent we might face or when. Many of us agree,
however, as was mentioned earlier, there are outliers among the
diverse microbial population. These include organisms that
cause smallpox, anthrax, and foot and mouth disease.
Fourth, biology is neither as crisp nor are the rules of
play as well defined as they are for physics and chemistry.
Therefore, there are many opinions regarding the way ahead for
bioterrorism defense.
Fifth, just trying to decide how to organize to protect
ourselves is challenging. Secretary Richard Danzig has proposed
a handful of select scenarios to be used ``as an anvil against
which to hammer our ideas.'' A compatible approach, which I
have often discussed, is to prepare for the outliers and then
broadly enhance our public health system as if we were
expecting an unknown emerging infectious disease.
Sixth, regarding future threats, we should assume that
almost anything is or will be possible, but we must not forget
just because it is theoretically possible it is almost always
harder for us to manipulate biology either for good or for ill
than we predicted.
And finally, seventh, we can do many things to protect
ourselves but our preparation can never be perfect. I believe
it is critically important that we carefully craft our concept
of use and application of various biodefense measures are being
developed so we address the greatest risks and vulnerabilities
and ensure the maximum benefit for our investments. It will be
costly, but the cost of failure in this area is potentially
enormous. So how can we apply these principles?
First for vaccines. It is relatively easy to justify the
acquisition of vaccines for anthrax and smallpox for the
population. It is important, however, we thoroughly understand
our concepts of use as we attempt to develop traditional agent-
specific vaccines for the civilian population. In the short
term, we should exploit next generation, flexible vaccine
platforms. We were working on these in USAMRIID in the mid-
1990's already, which will allow us relatively quickly to
produce a licensed product, counter an outbreak of either
epidemic or even pandemic. The basic platform might be licensed
for use in humans now, allowing us to simply add a genetic
cassette when a new vaccine is needed, greatly shortening the
time for use. Our current system of vaccine research,
development, and approval is simply not flexible enough to
respond to terrorist attack or emerging disease.
For drugs, it is difficult to argue against spending as
much as we can afford on antivirals and new classes of
antibiotics and exploiting the genomic revolution to develop
new categories of anti-infectives. All of these will improve
the lives of Americans with or without a bioterrorist attack.
And regarding the future, attempting to protect our
population from the unknown threat of today and especially of
tomorrow with specific countermeasures like traditional
vaccines will likely be extremely costly and inefficient.
Significantly boosting the immune system to give us broad,
multi-agent protection is now slightly more than a great idea I
believe. I will not be surprised if it will be 15 or 20 years
before we can do this in domestic animals effectively and maybe
30 years before we can really make a difference in the broad
population of humans. But I believe we must be doing the
necessary research right now. We probably do not yet know how
much difference attempts to turn up the gain on our own immune
systems will make. It is likely that for prophylactic use in a
broad population where side effects may be totally
unacceptable, the value could be minimal. However, in select
populations or the already exposed or ill, where non-life-
threatening side effects are accepted, this class of
countermeasures may be significantly more effective. We
actually have examples of use in individual patients with
cancer and hepatitis today, but our tools are still very, very
crude.
Finally, regarding market drivers for medical
countermeasures, my experience is second-hand and limited. I
believe specific countermeasures for most bioterrorism agents
and probably for briefly emerging infectious diseases will, for
the most part, require Government funding. For those
countermeasures that have broader application, a significant
portion of the research will still probably be funded by the
Government. However, advanced development and even production
will be of interest to industry, I am sure. Even there,
incentives may be helpful or necessary in driving development
and production of certain compounds.
prepared statement
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to present this
information before the committee. I worked hard to keep our
leading national laboratory for the development of medical
countermeasures for the force solvent through the 1990's. I
know it is not easy to convince someone that medical
countermeasures for a poorly understood threat of unknown risk
are really important. The field of the vaccine and antiviral
drugs requires both science and imagination, a phenomenal
personal dedication by scientists and shepherding over enormous
regulatory hurdles. And when it is completed, you cannot paint
on the national colors and sail it around the world or even fly
it over the Super Bowl at half-time. When it is finally
licensed, the administration of that vaccine is often dreaded
by the healthy recipient whose very life you want to save.
Thank you for your important work and for this opportunity.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. David Franz
Medical Countermeasures to Biological Threats--and Emerging Infectious
Disease
Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members, it is an honor to appear
before you to address issues related to the research, development and
procurement of medical countermeasures to protect the American
population from bioterrorist agents and emerging disease. I am
currently the Senior Biological Scientist at the Midwest Research
Institute in Kansas City. I served on active duty in the U.S. Army from
1971 to 1998, with 24 of those years in the U.S. Army Medical Research
and Materiel Command. I served for 11 years at the U.S. Army Medical
Research Institute of Infectious Disease, which I commanded before my
retirement. I currently serve on a number of senior S&T advisory panels
for the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.
This committee has asked that I provide some broad perspective on
the medical aspects of biological defense in the context of a world in
which intentional release of biological threat agents is of significant
concern and natural introduction of disease is a reality. I have
attempted to provide my views on a number of these issues below.
What is the nature of the bioterrorist threat?
Biological terrorism is a unique threat to our society, our economy
and our freedom. Like the biological warfare threat of a decade ago,
dual-use facilities and technologies may be exploited to make terrorist
weapons. Although we have improved our defensive capability, we can
still not yet, geographically or temporally, warn our citizens of an
attack in time to take evasive or protective action. Unlike biological
warfare, the production facility' and the weapon of the bioterrorist
may be very small indeed. Finally, as we have learned since October
2001, attribution of a small scale attack can be very difficult or
impossible. Furthermore, the microbes are generally widespread in
nature and the technological tools are rapidly improving in capability
and availability worldwide. Neither the microbes nor the tools to
manipulate them can be outlawed, the former because if their ubiquity
and the latter because of their value to society. Therefore, it is
possible to easily hide a biological terrorist program. With proper
agent selection there could be minimal technical hurdles. The most
significant barrier to the biological terrorist today--and for the
foreseeable future--is the intention to commit the crime.
Can we measure the risk?
We know that our human and livestock populations are extremely
vulnerable; this is a function of our free society and our well-
developed livestock industry. We know that the impact of an intentional
attack with microbes could be enormous, measured in human lives or
dollars lost. We know there are groups and individuals who threaten us
and we have some sense of their abilities with things biological. Our
understanding of the all-important factors of intent and motivation is
much less clear. Therefore, risk--where all these variables come
together--is only poorly understood. The president's directive
``Biodefense for the 21st Century'' specifically calls for a biological
risk assessment to be performed every two years, so that our national
response to the threats, vulnerabilities and consequences of
bioterrorism can be improved. This risk assessment presents technical
challenges that are being addressed by the Department of Homeland
Security.
Are some agents to be feared more than others?
Biology is characterized by great diversity. Microbes of a given
genus or family may be strong or weak. Species, subspecies or strains
within a genus or family may be stronger or weaker than their near
relatives. We call variola virus (the agent of smallpox), Bacillus
anthracis bacterium, the foot and mouth disease virus and maybe even
the toxin, botulinum, ``outliers'' because they can cause severe
disease in humans or impact animal populations. Even that is an
oversimplification. Botulinum isn't botulinum and anthrax isn't
anthrax. All of these organisms, or the toxins they produce, live on a
spectrum with regard to the pathology they can cause in humans or
animals: some weaker; some stronger. To be an agent of concern' the bug
need not only be able to cause disease in humans or animals, but must
also have the right combination of a series of important
characteristics, for example: stability, transmissibility, easy
producability and/or the ability to overcome countermeasures. With
regard to catastrophic bioterrorism, we may be truly concerned about
less than 1 percent of those microbes found in nature. Yet, that's
enough! The lesson for us is that we can--at least to some degree--
prioritize the agents for which we use our resources to develop
countermeasures. However, without solid intelligence, we can never know
for sure which one we will face.
What is the impact of all this variability in biology?
If we were able to plot all known microbes in the world on a graph
with their name stacked up on the vertical (Y) axis and their relative
ability to hurt us spread across on the horizontal (X) axis, we would
get some kind of a curve. Let's assume the curve would be roughly bell-
shaped with a small number of microbes having very low ability to cause
disease, most of them with moderate ability to cause disease and few
which can cause severe disease. We could do the same thing with
stability, transmissibility and the ease with which they can be
produced. If that isn't enough, we could plot all Americans on a
similar curve, describing the relative ability of their natural immune
systems to combat disease of various kinds. Some of us are strong and
some are weak, but most of us are average in ability to withstand
exposure to disease. More than half of us might survive exposure to
smallpox, without any medical help, but maybe only a few percent of us
would survive inhalational anthrax. To complicate the picture even
further, the outcome of some exposures is dose-dependant. This is
especially true of the toxins, which don't replicate within out bodies,
but act more like chemicals. Biology is just not as crisp and clean as
physics or even chemistry; this is one reason we have heard so many
opinions about protecting our citizens from biological terrorism.
How can we decide what to protect ourselves against?
The short answer is, ``We can't''. However, certain bugs are much
better suited as weapons than others: B. anthracis, because of it's
ability to survive in a spore form for many years; variola virus,
because of its ability to spread from person to person and foot and
mouth disease virus because of the way it can sweep through an
agricultural economy so quickly that its point of introduction may be
difficult to discern. We have recognized those and either have dealt
with the outliers or are in the process of dealing with them
specifically--as we should.
Richard Danzig has proposed another scheme in his excellent
document entitled, ``Catastrophic Bioterrorism: What is to be done?''
His approach involves a short set of specific agent release or
introduction scenarios, which if prepared for properly will likely give
us many of the tools and capabilities to deal with most other agents
which have characteristics similar to those we specifically prepared
for. Several of our government departments and agencies responsible
have implemented Secretary Danzig's approach.
Another model which I, and others, have put forward--after taking
anthrax and smallpox off the table with specific countermeasures--is to
think about the unknown as emerging infectious disease and take general
steps such as establishing surveillance systems, upgrading diagnostics
capabilities and educating healthcare providers regarding outbreak
response. Eliminating vulnerabilities in our public health system is
not difficult to justify, and has a beneficial ``dual use''. I have
characterized this way of thinking about preparation by the simple
equation, Bioterrorism--Emerging Infectious Disease + Intent. We don't
know when we will face a bioterrorist attack, but history tells us that
we should expect emergence and reemergence of ``exotic'' diseases every
few years in the United States. If we prepare our public health system
to deal with these types of occurrences, we will be far better prepared
to deal with a bioterrorist attack.
What about future threats?
We believe that multiple-drug-resistant bacteria were produced by
the Soviets before the genomic era. We know that foreign genes can be
added to both bacteria and viruses, making avirulent agents virulent,
or conferring additional properties of virulence or pathogenicity. We
know that the tropism--the virion's preference regarding the body's
cells it infects--can be changed. We know that nature can change an
animal pathogen so that it infects humans. In the biology of microbes,
we should assume that almost anything is possible. That does not mean
that it will be done by a human--but we are entering an era in which
all these manipulations and more will become easier.
Can we place a value on classes of countermeasures?
We can do many things to protect ourselves from a bioterrorist and
his bugs; they range from political and behavioral actions to change
intention in those who might harm us, or to undermine their support
where they live, to medical solutions like vaccines and drugs, physical
devices such as protective masks that filter microbes out of the air we
breath, or monitoring systems to detect an attack on high population
densities. All have a place in our integrated national defense, but not
all are equally suitable for all populations we must protect--or
deter--OR for every agent we wish to protect against. The Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction program has had a very significant
positive result among the now-aging weaponeers of the FSU, but we would
not expect the same model to work with Al Quiada. A protective mask
will be of much greater utility to a soldier on the battlefield than a
businessman in Boston, because we don't have, and probably can't
afford, the capability to tell the business man when to don it. A
vaccine against plague will more likely be useful to a Marine than a
housewife, for behavioral and cost reasons. A currently-available
antibiotic may be of great utility after an anthrax attack and useless
after the release of highly-pathogenic avian flu virus that has been
adapted to infect humans. We need to carefully craft our concept of use
and application of the various biodefense measures that are being
developed so that we address the greatest risks and ensure the maximum
benefit of our investments.
Can we place a value on individual countermeasures within a class?
Vaccines are the most agent specific of medical countermeasures;
therefore, for agents which are rarely seen in the clinic, they have
very limited application. Stockpiling vaccines for civilians makes
sense for anthrax and smallpox for two reasons. For these two agents,
unlike most others, vaccines can be used--in different ways--after an
attack. For most other agents, efficacy of post-exposure vaccination
just hasn't been demonstrated. The one instance in which, let's say a
plague vaccine or an Ebola vaccine if we had one, might have utility is
during a bioterrorist campaign; a series of sequential attacks (the
term ``reload'' was coined by Secretary Danzig). Here, an individual or
group attacks one U.S. city and then announces that another city will
be targeted unless we capitulate. I will leave it to epidemiologists
and statisticians to decide if we could respond effectively in such a
situation, assuming we had the right vaccine licensed and in stock. In
attempting to place a value on such a vaccine, we must consider actual
cost to develop, produce and license, the shelf life, as well as the
biology and the psychology involved. The behavioral and legal issues
surrounding the prophylactic use of vaccines in the general population,
without significant evidence of risk, can be difficult, as has been
seen with both anthrax and smallpox vaccine programs in the recent
past.
Antibiotics are considered a general countermeasure and, therefore,
will likely have dual-utility. They can and are typically given post-
exposure. This makes them ideally suited for protecting a civilian
population after an attack. The issues to be considered include, first,
sensitivity of the specific bacteria to a given antibiotic, then
availability of the drug and its timely distribution to the affected
population, if that population can be determined. Secondary issues,
post attack, include possible allergy or other reactions to the drug,
but the psychological and public relations issues may be slightly
different after an attack than before. We currently have licensed
antibiotics which are effective against most bacterial agents likely to
be used by a terrorist. For some there would be issues of availability
and, possibly, surge production. We believe that the Soviet Union
developed antibiotic resistant strains in the past. Resistant strains
have also developed naturally' throughout the world in recent years.
Although, I am not expert regarding recent submissions to the FDA, it
is my understanding that there are few, if any, new classes of
antibiotics moving forward for licensure. This trend should be of
concern to all of us, even if there were no potential for bioterrorist
attack on our population.
Anti-viral preparations can, for this purpose, be considered to
have the general use characteristics of antibiotics, but are for use
against viruses. They would have wide application if we never have a
bioterrorist attack. For a number of reasons related to the way viruses
live and function in our bodies, it is more difficult to develop
antivirals that both stop the microbe and are safe for human use than
it is to develop antibacterials. A very few antiviral drugs have been
developed in the past 20-30 years. Now, with the availability of
genomic and proteomic information, we are probably in a better position
regarding the discovery or design of new classes of antivirals
compounds, at least for certain families of viruses. As is with
antibiotics, it is my understanding that market dynamics within the
pharmaceutical industry have not, in recent years, been favorable for
the development of antiviral drugs.
Antibody preparations which provide passive immune protection
without vaccination, whether produced in animals, or by modern
synthesis methods, have a place in our medical tool kit. They, like
vaccines, are specific in that they typically are only effective
against the agent they were developed for. Unlike vaccines, they can be
used immediately before exposure, immediately after and in some cases
in the face of disease. They are typically less effective than
vaccines, even if given before exposure; an exception to this
generality is the antibody preparation for botulinum toxins, which, if
given before clinical signs of disease, is amazingly effective in
laboratory animals. Logistically, however, antibody preparations are
cumbersome in that they must be administered either intramuscularly or
intravenously.
Vaccines protect by stimulating the body to produce a specific
antibody which identifies and deals with the microbe when it enters the
body. Antibiotics and antiviral drugs generally attack the microbe
directly. There is a fourth possibility that we haven't fully
exploited, primarily because we don't yet understand our immune systems
well enough. This method is called non-specific immunity. Our bodies
normally produce a variety of cells and chemical substances that attack
microbes and help keep us healthy. These cells and chemicals deal with
both bacteria and viruses. This part of our immune system is tightly
integrated into our entire being and might be what we are describing
when we say one person is generally ``healthy'' and another is not. The
``innate'' immune system is generally stronger when we have had a good
night's sleep, when we are fit, when our nutritional and hydration
status is within normal limits and when we are ``happy''. This
protective system breaks down when we are jet-lagged or stressed. The
beauty of the innate immune system is that it can protect us from many
different agents and it's always on board. The limitation is that it
can be easily overwhelmed. Some scientists believe that, if we could
increase the ``strength'' of the innate immune system, we might be able
to actually shift each of us toward ``healthy'' on the population bell
curve. Today we understand this system only well enough to use very
crude tools to treat some cancers and viral infections like hepatitis
C. Even when we gain greater precision, it is likely that turning up
the power of the innate immune system won't work for everyone. Just as
a vaccine might only work for 90 percent of a given population, this
method might work for 40 or 60 percent--and until we get really good,
there will be significant side effects. As we learn more and more about
this system, we will be better able to control it and protect humans
and animals from infectious diseases. This method of protecting our
citizens from biological terrorist attack--or emerging infections--may
be available in 15 years--or maybe 30. It is critical that we do the
basic research now to make the most of the innate immune system. This
investment will pay enormous dividends even outside the world of
infectious disease.
Principles regarding development of medical countermeasures for
biodefense:
--Vaccines are probably the best solution, but they are good for only
one microbe and must generally be given long before onset of
illness. Their concept of use is more consistent with military
deployment than with homeland security, with some specific
exceptions.
--Antibiotics have more general application, but they are good only
for bacteria.
--Antivirals that are safe and effective have been difficult to
discover, but we have some new tools and should exploit them.
--Our innate immune system, if manipulated appropriately, holds
promise, but we have a lot to learn before we can exploit it,
especially in the healthy population.
What principles might we consider regarding acquisition of medical
countermeasures?
Vaccines.--It is relatively easy to justify the acquisition of
vaccines for anthrax and smallpox. Reactogenicity, cost, shelf-life,
animal efficacy and licensure are all being considered. It is important
that we thoroughly understand our concepts of use as we develop
additional agent-specific vaccines. We should be developing next-
generation flexible vaccine platforms which will allow us to relatively
quickly produce and license a vaccine to counter an outbreak that
subsequently becomes epidemic or pandemic. The basic platform might be
licensed for use in humans, allowing us to simply add a genetic
cassette when a new vaccine is needed, to greatly shorten the time to
use. Our current system of vaccine research, development and approval
is simply not responsive enough to respond to terrorist attack or
emerging disease.
Drugs.--It is difficult to argue against spending as much as we can
afford on antivirals, new classes of antibiotics and exploiting the
genomic revolution to develop new categories of anti-infectives. All of
these will improve the lives of Americans with or without a
bioterrorist attack.
Non-Specific Therapies.--We have a long way to go to achieve broad
application of what is little more than a hypothesis, but we should be
doing the necessary research now. Attempting to protect our population
from the unknown threat of today, and tomorrow, with specific
countermeasures, will likely be extremely costly and inefficient. We
probably don't yet know how much difference these preparations will
make; it is likely that, for use prophylactically in the broad
population where side-effects may be totally unacceptable, the value
will also be minimal. In select populations or the already exposed or
ill, where non-life threatening side effects are accepted, this class
of drugs may be significantly more effective.
Market issues:
My experience regarding market drivers for medical countermeasures
is second-hand and limited. I believe that specific countermeasures for
most bioterrorism agents--and probably for emerging infectious
disease--will remain in the category of orphan drugs. Research,
development and production will be dependent on funding by the U.S.
Government and the debate regarding licensure or investigational use
will be handled for each preparation. For those countermeasures that
have broader application, a significant proportion of the research will
be funded by the government; however, advanced development and even
production will be of interest to industry. Tax- or intellectual
property-related incentives may be helpful or necessary in driving
development and production, especially where the market is large enough
to interest the pharmaceutical industry.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to present this information
before the Committee. I shall be happy to answer your questions.
Senator Gregg. Thank you, Dr. Franz. The last few comments
there are well taken and very much appreciated. We appreciate
your service to the Nation. Clearly you should have a flag
painted over your front door and the appreciation should be
there for all you have done in the area of protecting our
soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
Dr. Read.
STATEMENT OF J. LEIGHTON READ, M.D., GENERAL PARTNER,
ALLOY VENTURES
Dr. Read. Mr. Chairman and members, thank you for the
opportunity to testify about BioShield and our Nation's
strategy. Your interest in stopping to consider the overall
approach is timely and appropriate here.
I am commenting today as an individual who has been
building and financing biotechnology companies in Silicon
Valley for about 17 years now. Before that I was an internal
medicine doctor, and my academic career was studying costs,
risks, and benefits of new medicines and vaccines.
When I received your invitation just a little a while ago,
I looked up my testimony on biodefense for the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee in 2002 and then in 2003 for the
Subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Re-
reading that testimony, I have to say I had concerns and
recommendations that I voiced then that are just as relevant
today as they were when the Department of Homeland Security and
Project BioShield were still on the drawing board. So there is
clearly still some work to do.
This problem requires long-term thinking. I agree with
statements made earlier by your colleagues that there is no
potential threat to us. I would like to focus particularly on
our economy and our lifestyle. If an easy-to-deploy,
transmissible bioweapon were deployed, even with a very small
loss of life, the impact on our economy would be unbelievable
because the necessary steps to interrupt the chain of
transmission would interfere with travel and commerce of all
kinds, even potentially food and medical supply distribution.
Most importantly, I am really concerned about the impact of
this on the freedom of people to meet during a time of stress
and worry and political consequence. Nothing would test our
trust in Government authority more than a quarantine separating
loved ones. So, the stakes are very high.
One of the companies I built was in the influenza vaccine
business, and I agree it would be a very realistic proposition
that someone could smuggle a dangerous strain of influenza into
the United States. That deserves serious attention.
Now, a great deal of positive work has been done. It is
hard to describe how big a step forward the BioShield
legislation was and some of the implementation that has
followed that at the same time as talking about how much is
still to be done, but we need to do that. Much remains to be
done to educate the public and strengthen our traditional
public health systems, our first responders.
I was very heartened by some of the responses to the
presidential directives in Mr. Albright's testimony. Many of
those problems or challenges can be dealt with in just a few
years of sustained effort, and one of my key points is that is
not the case for our longest lead time countermeasures, drugs
and vaccines, that have not even been invented yet to counter
these threats. As you know, drugs typically take 5 to 10 years
from the first commitment to do something to the delivery of
something for patients; vaccines, more like 10 to 20 years.
This company I founded in 1992 licensed a very promising
influenza vaccine, nasal influenza vaccine technology from the
University of Michigan in 1995. This technology had already
undergone 20 years of clinical trials under NIH support, and
yet it was 2003, 8 years later, and after the expenditure of $1
billion by three different companies of private capital before
this product was approved by the FDA. This is a product known
as FluMist which is now of growing importance as part of our
influenza protection armamentarium.
My second point is we clearly need the private sector to be
involved and BioShield represented a very strong and clear
recognition that this was the case, that we needed to get the
incentives right. There are many reasons why we need the
private sector, but basically all of the drugs and vaccines we
use today for everything outside the field of biodefense come
from the private sector, admittedly and with great respect for
the huge national investment in the basic science made these
discoveries possible.
Start-ups and smaller companies play a very important role.
I invest in these companies as a full-time venture capitalist.
They take on higher-risk projects. They can demonstrate proof
of principle.
But I would like to underscore today the importance of the
larger, more capable companies. They often acquire technology
by acquiring these smaller companies that we invest in or by
carrying out licensing deals with them. But there are skills
for the downstream development of pharmaceuticals and vaccines
that are very hard to come by outside a relatively small number
of very large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The
real test of whether BioShield is working is whether it engages
the capabilities of these companies in the development of
countermeasures. I would say we are not there yet.
A biodefense procurement strategy that relies on companies
that have not even launched a commercial product is likely to
incur extra delays and other down-side surprises. So this is
really a point for attention.
What I think is a key missing ingredient is, we need
markets for these products which mimic the size and the
predictability of markets for treatment and prevention of other
diseases. That is really the goal. The current BioShield law
was, as I said, a step in the right direction, but it fails to
adequately signal the Government's intention to purchase
successful countermeasures. We need much more transparency on
what the priority list is so the companies can begin to think
about these things in advance. We need much more clarity about
who are the people who have both the knowledge to comment and
the authority to make decisions.
There are lessons to be learned from some of the ideas
being aggressively explored to stimulate private sector
investment in vaccines for global health problems, such as
AIDS, malaria, and TB. This notion of advanced purchase
contracts deserves study as a model for your continued
refinement and enhancement of BioShield. The notion there is a
strong connection between the benefits of investing in
infectious disease research for other diseases or even broadly
and defense against biodefense is a very valid concept that is
completely appropriate.
BioShield misses in important respects with respect to
providing indemnification from product liability. Basically it
is a test of confidence. If a company tells you they are not
really concerned about that in a conversation about working
with the Government in biodefense, it is just because they have
not grown up to understand how critical it is for their
shareholders.
We need to streamline procurement. It is not clear that any
of the work so far by our great public servants who are
carrying out the legislation of BioShield have taken advantage
of the full ability to streamline the procurement process and
take advantage of those special provisions. I think that is
going to be important.
I would like to come back to emphasize the point raised by
Senator Stevens that we need a way to screen. As a venture
capitalist, we get a very large number of proposals for
investments, and only a tiny, tiny percentage are actually
companies that receive investment. We have worked out screening
processes, and I do not know that it is a model but it makes me
sympathetic to the problem of a public servant who gets calls
from people who think they have a good idea but the science is
not really there and the person who gets lost in that crowd
really does have the right idea. I can think of a number of
ways we could use some of the new technologies, web-based
technologies, table top exercises and maybe even a private
sector intermediary to help with some of the filtering.
We are in a biological arms race with our future attackers,
and there are specific targets we should be going after. I
completely agree with the priority for anthrax and smallpox.
That makes sense to me. I must say it is pretty hard for people
outside the Government to figure out what the priority list is
below that. We have the long list of 20 or 30 agents, but the
Government's own thinking about the rank order of what comes
after smallpox and anthrax for civilians in particular is
obscure. And it seems to me while it might require some defense
of that ranking and that might be a little bit difficult, that
it should be transparent so the private sector can set
priorities.
Sooner or later, despite our efforts to make good specific
countermeasures, a clever or lucky perpetrator may deploy an
agent for which we have not made specific preparations. And
this calls for the notion of some kind of broader approach. We
may need broad spectrum antimicrobials or vaccines, as has been
mentioned. We may need to harness the nonspecific defenses
already working in human biology like innate immunity. We may
need to build systems, still very speculative, that you could
move from obtaining the pathogen to having a drug in a very
short time period. And all of those are worth stimulating some
kind of prize or novel recognition and financial reward for
some of these more speculative approaches. It might be very
useful. I compare it to the X-prize for manned space flight
that was successfully competed for and won in the last year.
If we want to think about this broadly and in the long time
frame which is really appropriate, a 2030, maybe even longer
time horizon, we should be looking broadly. One idea I would
like to suggest as an example, it should be studied before
moving forward, would be to think about a survey of the
microbial world on a scale that has not been attempted. Just as
we carry out ambitious projects to systematically catalog the
sky within reach of our light and radio telescopes, maybe it is
time to carry out a planetary scale survey of humans and the
microorganisms with which we frequently interact. We might want
to begin by focusing on the respiratory tract.
PREPARED STATEMENT
There is technology available. I cite a remarkable
experiment by Craig Venter's group in which they obtained
sequences for over a million new genes by looking at 1,500
liters of Atlantic seawater. A company called Affy Metrix has
gene chips that have been used to study which organisms are
present in nasal swabs taken from approximately 10,000 subjects
in studies. So it is possible now with some of the technology
to think about such a broad survey. Not only could it provide
us a baseline for measurement of new emerging infections by
intent or by nature, but the basic science that would be
enabled by this survey could provide more fundamental
understandings to help us deal with the general problem.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of J. Leighton Read, M.D.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today regarding BioShield and our Nation's
strategy for confronting bioterrorism. Your interest in stopping to
consider our overall approach is timely and appropriate.
I am commenting today as an individual who has been building and
financing biotechnology companies in Silicon Valley for over 17 years.
Before that, I was an internal medicine doctor doing research on the
cost, risk and benefits of new medicines and vaccines. On receiving
your invitation to appear here, I looked up my testimony on biodefense
for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee \1\ in 2002 and for
Subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee \2\ in 2003.
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\1\ http://www.bens.org/highlights_testimony_read.html.
\2\ http://www.bio.org/healthcare/biodefense/20030327.asp.
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Unfortunately, the concerns and recommendations voiced then are as
just as relevant today as they were when the Department of Homeland
Security and Project BioShield were still on the drawing board. Since
those remarks are available on the internet, I will only restate the
main points here before turning to new thoughts.
Long Term Thinking
Biodefense is a gigantic, long-term problem. There is no potential
threat to our economy or lifestyle that would be as easy to deploy or
costly to contain as the release of a transmissible bioweapon. We
should be clear that deliberate introduction of an agent that spreads
from person to person is a completely different category of risk than
an attack with dangerous organisms that do not spread. This is because
our reasonable efforts to interrupt the chain of transmission would
interfere with travel and commerce of all kinds, including distribution
of food and medical supplies, and importantly, the freedom for people
to meet each other in a time of grave worry and political consequence.
Effective quarantine separating loved ones will profoundly test our
trust in government authority.
Despite a great deal of positive work, we are not yet organized to
deal with this threat. Much remains to be done in educating the public
and strengthening traditional public health systems and our first
responders. Fortunately, much of this kind of work can be accomplished
in only a few years of sustained effort. That is not the case for the
longest lead-time components of our readiness: medicines, vaccines and
other biomedical technologies needed to protect our population and that
of our trading partners. For drugs against viruses or bacteria, it
takes 5-10 years from commitment to delivery of medicine for patients.
The process for vaccines typically takes 10-20 years. In 1995, a
company I founded, named Aviron, licensed a promising intranasal
influenza vaccine from the University of Michigan that had already
undergone 20 years of clinical testing by the NIH. It took nine more
years and over $1 billion in private investment by three companies
before the product known as FluMist <SUP>TM</SUP> was approved by the
FDA. Despite these timelines and costs, some pathogens are such natural
candidates for potential abuse well into the foreseeable future that we
must begin work now. It is important to seize this opportunity because
infectious diseases represent some of our greatest triumphs in
discovering, preventing and treating disease.
Larger, More Capable Companies must be Involved
This work will require enthusiastic and committed engagement by our
country's most capable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. All
of the drugs and vaccines in use in the United States come from the
private sector, often after substantial public investment in government
and university laboratories. Start-ups and smaller companies play an
essential role in taking on many higher-risk projects and demonstrating
proof of principle. Larger players gain access to these technologies
through licensing deals or purchase of the smaller companies. Several
hundred million dollars of private capital and down-stream development
skills rarely found outside of larger companies are usually required to
finish the job for each important innovation. When R&D is successful,
this investment makes sense because innovative products that address
substantial medical need are reimbursed at the high value they
represent to patients and healthcare payers.
The experience factor is so important that a biodefense procurement
strategy that relies on companies with scant experience in launching
commercial products is likely to incur extra delays and other down-side
surprises. Yet this appears to be exactly where we are heading with
BioShield because the market incentives are not yet in place to attract
the most capable innovators.
The missing ingredients for biodefense countermeasures are markets
which mimic the size and predictability of markets for treatment and
prevention of other serious diseases. The current BioShield law
provided an important step in the right direction, but it fails to
adequately signal the Government's intention to purchase successful
countermeasures that are still years away from completion. There is
much to be learned from progress in defining Advanced Purchase
Contracts and related ``pull'' mechanisms for stimulating vaccine R&D
against global health targets such as malaria., tuberculosis and HIV.
Restoration of patent term lost during regulatory review will be
helpful. Important gaps still remain in the details and degree of
indemnification from product liability. Larger, more capable companies
will not participate unless these problems are addressed in future
legislation.
Streamline Procurement and Improve the Dialogue With Industry
It is time to finish the job of re-inventing procurement of
biodefense countermeasures. The bureaucratic tangle of approvals and
sign-offs involving multiple agencies and departments (even including
the President) prescribed in BioShield must be streamlined. Spending
authority should be concentrated in the hands of someone close to the
intelligence analysis which helps set priorities.
It is essential that much more frequent and transparent
conversation occur between companies and those setting the priorities
for countermeasures. The formal process of RFPs and related acronyms
cannot substitute for frequent, informal contact. Novel formats for
meetings, including more table-top exercises web-based interactions
should be encouraged. Antitrust relief may be required if these
concerns are inhibiting valuable multiparty conversations.
BioShield did not adequately address the need for more
centralization of authority for setting priorities, funding solutions,
and managing incentives. There is a recurring theme in my conversations
with executives interested in making a contribution to biodefense: they
can't find the right person in the government who knows the issues AND
can make a decision. This more centralized authority should also have
enhanced ability to adjust FDA influence processes and safety standards
in preparing for high-risk threats.
A Biological Arms Race
One can identify the highest risk agents for the near and
intermediate time frame, based on the biology of the microbes, the
technical challenges faced by our potential attackers and intelligence
data. These agents are presumably at the top of the priority list for
BioShield, although it is hard to get clarity about which of a dozen
potential threats rank most highly after anthrax and smallpox. There
are at least a dozen agents that deserve serious countermeasure
investment.
Sooner or later, however, a clever or lucky perpetrator may deploy
an agent for which we have not make specific preparations. It may have
been derived from nature, cultivated in the laboratory, or engineered
to have novel drug resistance or host range. There are several paths to
get ready for this event. One is to seek broader spectrum antimicrobial
drugs or vaccines. While there are examples of such agents discovered
by accident, the rational design of broad spectrum countermeasures is
largely beyond our current capabilities. Another path is to harness and
enhance the non-specific defenses already available in human biology.
We are still early in our understanding of how to manipulate innate
immunity and the role of cellular factors such as interferon. Finally,
highly speculative processes have been proposed by which one could move
from knowledge of a new pathogen to a new treatment in a month, or a
week, or a day. Technologies such as antisense agents and interfering
RNAs may hold promise for such a goal.
Our biodefense strategy must include a mix of disease-specific
countermeasures and new technologies which offer more general treatment
or prevention. I am concerned that getting the right mix depends on the
quality of the dialogue among companies and the diverse government
agencies that are involved. A high level of transparency on priorities
and authority will be essential before the parties can effectively
explore technical risk and financial incentives needed to get the job
done. For some of the more aggressive goals, serious prizes, such as
the X-prize for manned space flight may be the most appropriate way to
focus innovator's attention.
The Basic Science of Biodefense
Our country has made and continues to make a large national
investment in the underlying science of infectious disease and host
defense. This effort is serving us well in many current biodefense
efforts. In many cases, adequate financial rewards for the final
product will provide incentives to develop new research tools along the
way. In other cases, and particularly, animal models it is more
efficient to have centralized research tools that can be shared by many
innovators. When the government has the keys to scarce resources needed
to carry out research, such as higher level biocontainment facilities,
or access to dangerous strains, it is essential that access be
facilitated for all who need them in pursuit of sanctioned goals.
It may be time to consider an even bolder investment in basic
understanding of the relationship between humans and microbes. Research
is giving us a growing appreciation of the interdependency of genetics
and environment, with particular emphasis on the environmental
interaction of unrelated, but physically proximal organisms. Technology
is now available to conduct a broad survey of microorganism diversity,
genetics and metabolism A few projects have demonstrated the
feasibility of collecting and analyzing data on a very large number of
organisms. One example is Craig Venter's report on a rapid genetic
sequencing technique that found evidence of 1.2 million new genes in
1,500 liters of Atlantic seawater. Another comes from a company called
Affymetrix whose gene chips have been used to identify which organisms
are present in nasal swabs taken from thousands of study subjects.
Just as we have carried out ambitious projects to systematically
catalogue all of the heavenly bodies within reach of our telescopes, it
may be time to carry out a planetary-scale survey of humans and the
microorganisms with which they frequently interact. A focus on agents
which colonize or infect the respiratory track might be the best place
to begin. Data from such a survey could serve as a baseline for
detecting introduction of novel threats. More importantly, analysis of
the data could lead to more fundamental understanding of how to create
robust protection against such threats.
Mr. Chairman, I know that you have recently introduced legislation
that would address many of the concerns mentioned here. Thank you for
your leadership on this issue and your persistence in asking whether we
are doing enough of the right things at the right time. I would be
happy to provide further comment if you have questions.
Senator Gregg. Thank you.
I have to recess. I have got to make a quick phone call. I
will be right back. It should not take more than 5 minutes.
Thank you for your courtesy. I apologize for the
interruption.
Mr. Clerici.
STATEMENT OF JOHN M. CLERICI, ESQ., PARTNER, McKENNA,
LONG & ALDRIDGE, LLP
Mr. Clerici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, members
of this subcommittee, it is an honor to testify before you
regarding my views of where we are with Project BioShield and
biodefense in general. I applaud the leadership of you, Mr.
Chairman Gregg, in your work on the Health Committee and being
the lead sponsor on BioShield I, and also applaud the
bipartisan leadership of Senator Lieberman and Senator Hatch,
and Senator Kennedy, obviously, took a great leadership role in
that effort and continue to be leaders on the issue of
biodefense.
Over the last few years, I have had the chance to
personally work with the Department of Health and Human
Services on behalf of a number of clients and entities not only
in the area of biodefense, but also emerging infectious
disease. We have negotiated contracts, some of which Assistant
Secretary Simonson referred to, for SARS, avian flu, pandemic
influenza planning, and other issues.
Based upon that experience, it is clear to me that HHS does
need additional tools beyond what was provided in BioShield to
get the goals accomplished that the legislation meant to
accomplish. Primary and first among those goals, as Dr. Read
has pointed out, is to address the issue of liability.
As we have begun to purchase these countermeasures slowly
and there have been a couple contracts let to date, as
Assistant Secretary Simonson said, and a few more on the way
shortly, the primary obstacle at the end of the day to getting
these deals done is addressing how liability concerns will be
addressed. Certainly, as Dr. Read just pointed out, the
liability concerns of a public company with shareholders and
large assets are much different than a small biotech which has
the ability to bet the company without worrying about
liability. And I am not sure those are the types of companies
we want necessarily participating or leading the way in this
effort to bring these countermeasures to market.
Today, there are two primary ways liability can be
addressed. Public Law 85-804 has been on the books since the
first Wars Powers Act during World War II, and it allows the
Government to indemnify contractors after award, only after
award, for risks that are deemed in the national security
interest. It is an indemnity contract. Therefore, the public is
at risk, and I know in your role as budget chairman is of great
concern to you as well, Senator. But unfortunately, it provides
no predictability because you do not know whether you are going
to get liability protection until after you bid on the
proposal, negotiated a contract, and are prepared to deliver.
It provides no certainty to industry and no transparency to
industry to plan.
The second mechanism has been pointed to is the SAFETY Act,
and I am very familiar with the operations of the SAFETY Act.
It is a piece of landmark legislation to address the tort
concerns of providers of Homeland Security goods and services
in general. It does not work particularly well for
countermeasures for two primary reasons.
First, the SAFETY Act has a gap in it that does not protect
vaccine manufacturers because the liabilities removed by the
SAFETY Act are only those that occur following an act of
terrorism. Most of the liability concerns of a vaccine
manufacturer are, of course, before anything has happened. It
is in the administration of the vaccine itself.
Second, much like with Public Law 85-804, it is an
application process, and there is lack of predictability
involved with the SAFETY Act. And currently there are less than
20 companies that have been certified under the Act and no
biodefense measures or pharmaceutical companies are among
those.
The SAFETY Act also requires a company to litigate all over
the country to exert what amounts to an affirmative defense to
get out of litigation. Therefore, there are still substantial
uncertainty subject to the judicial system in America, which is
obviously not something that anyone wants to be their company
on sometimes.
I note in your bill, Senator, in Senate bill 3, you have
done an excellent job of addressing, in my view, the liability
concerns for biodefense manufacturers, and you also attempt to
address the liability concerns of pandemic flu manufacturers.
As we heard during the previous panel, the threat facing the
country from a pandemic flu is much greater in my mind than the
threat facing the country in bioterrorism, and that threat is
enormous, as you know. The 1918 influenza pandemic, Spanish flu
pandemic, killed millions of Americans, and unless we are
prepared for that pandemic, we will be facing those same sort
of liabilities both in terms of lives and in dollars if another
influenza pandemic occurs again.
The reason why pandemic influenza should be treated off
line in my view is the sense of urgency. No amount of
detection, no amount of intervention, and we can have the
biggest armies and navies in the world, are going to prevent
mother nature from affecting us. And this is urgent. We are
past the time when this country and this world should be facing
a pandemic based on statistics.
The threat of pandemic liability is much like the threat of
smallpox in the sense that if there is a pandemic, you will
need to vaccinate the entire Nation. And your previous
committee, the Health Committee, and through the Homeland
Security Act, addressed the liability for smallpox vaccine
manufacturers particularly by providing them immunity. We need
to provide at least the same sense of liability protection to
providers of pandemic flu vaccine because the threat from
liability is identical, if not greater than the threat of
liability from a smallpox vaccine manufacturer.
Your staff has also asked me, Senator, to address some of
the challenges in the implementation of the procurement
provisions of BioShield, aside from liability, and liability is
certainly first among them again.
As Dr. Read has mentioned, the Department, in implementing
Project BioShield, has not taken full advantage of all of the
authorities that Project BioShield gave them back in 2004 when
the legislation was signed. They have the ability at HHS to
conduct these procurements under simplified acquisition rules.
They have not exercised that authority to date. What has
transpired through these negotiations is nongovernmental
contractors, commercial entities, that are not used to doing
business with the Federal Government are subject to the same
amount of Federal acquisition regulation that our large defense
contractors are subject to in providing these goods and
services. That causes them both delay, uncertainty, a lack of
transparency in what they are signing up to, and the delays
resulted have been definitely inhibiting our ability to bring
these countermeasures into the market as quickly as possible.
We have discussed already there have been two awards to
date, primarily big awards. There is a third smaller award
addressing irradiation treatment for children, but two large
awards using the special reserve fund under Project BioShield,
one large award and one RFP pending, one award pending.
The first award went to VaxGen which has already been
discussed. Although that is often labeled as the first
BioShield procurement, I would disagree with that
characterization. It is the first procurement using BioShield
funding, but the mechanisms to procure that countermeasure was
done the same traditional way the Government would normally
procure things. It was a multi-stage procurement, taxpayer-
funded research and development resulting in, at the end of the
day, a contract that as Secretary Simonson says, will not be
paid until substantial delivery but, nevertheless, is a multi-
stage, prolonged procurement. We did not set a market or set
someone to guarantee it. Rather we had them chase the market
just as if they would traditionally.
The next award up in Project BioShield will most likely be
for anthrax therapeutic, and Secretary Simonson mentioned that
as well. Now, that will be the very first BioShield
procurement, but again, HHS has not made use, in the
solicitation at least, of the simplified acquisition procedures
allowed to make use of it during that process.
As a result, those contractors, whoever will get this
award, face the possibility of very powerful and strong
regulatory burdens upon them, including certified cost and
pricing data and other burdens that have led this award to take
over a year at this point from award. The request for
information for anthrax therapeutics was issued on April 1,
2004, and I believe we are at least 2 months away from award
for that contract. So these pharmaceuticals and these vaccines
are not entering the stockpile at the rate I think Congress
intended.
PREPARED STATEMENTS
Going forward, we can certainly do oversight to make sure
that HHS and DHS work closely together to make better use of
the authorities that BioShield I provided them. We can also,
through BioShield II or other legislation such as Senate bill
S. 3, provide additional tools such as liability reform and
encouragement to make clear these contracts are not to be
burden by over-regulation.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much.
[The statements follow:]
Prepared Statement of John M. Clerici
Chairman Gregg, Senator Byrd, and Members of the Committee, it is
an honor for me to testify before you today regarding my views on the
Project Bioshield Act of 2004 and whether we are meeting the biodefense
needs of the United States.
I appear before you today as someone who has worked with industries
helping to supply the United States with critical biodefense, chemical,
radiological, and nuclear countermeasures since even before the attacks
of 2001. During this time, I have worked with a number of large
pharmaceutical companies, mid and small size biotechs, and companies
that provide detection equipment and other ancillary services to help
protect the Nation from the threat of biological, chemical, nuclear, or
radiological weapons. I also have had the opportunity to work with
Congress and the Administration to help formulate policies to stimulate
the creation of a thriving bio-defense industry in America. I and other
members of our firm have provided testimony to both the House and
Senate regarding the Project Bioshield Act of 2004 and we continue to
work closely with your staff, Mr. Chairman, and the staff of other
leaders in this area, including Senator Lieberman, Senator Kennedy,
Senator Burr, and Senator Enzi, to ensure the best possible policies
are in place to promote the deployment of the best possible
countermeasures in this critical area.
During the last 3 years, I have been personally involved with a
number of direct negotiations with the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) for a number of critical biodefense countermeasures, as
well as negotiations for contracts for critical vaccines for emerging
infectious disease such as SARS, Avian influenza, and pandemic
influenza. That said, it is my view, and I believe the view of many
others in this industry, that HHS should be given additional tools to
maximize participation of the entities that are best suited to provide
critical countermeasures.
First among these additional tools must be expanded authority to
address the issue of unmitigated liability associated with undertaking
Bioshield contracts.
Liability Must be Addressed to Have a Successful Bio-Defense Industry
Industry concerns over the massive cost of product liability
lawsuits are preventing critical countermeasures from being developed
for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). The liability concerns of a
company engaged in day-to-day drug development are clearly different
from the liability concerns of a company participating in Project
Bioshield. Manufacturers of countermeasures produced under Project
Bioshield risk exposure to devastating product liability lawsuits to a
far greater degree than typical drug companies. Safety and efficacy
data must be derived, for the most part, from animal trials since
healthy humans cannot be exposed to toxic agents during testing. Thus,
these critical countermeasures must be developed and are likely to be
deployed without the full battery of testing typical of other drugs.
Without liability protections, responsible companies will remain on the
sidelines for fear of risking corporate assets to defend lawsuits
brought as a result of producing a countermeasure that generally has a
much lower profit margin than a typical pharmaceutical product.
Even as the Federal Government has begun to purchase Bioshield
countermeasures, it has no current way to resolve issues of liability
with any degree of certainty. As a result, needed countermeasures are
not being developed and deployed, thereby exposing the economy, and the
Nation as a whole, to far greater potential liability due to the lack
of available effective countermeasures in the event of attack. Either
way, the Federal Government is likely to bear both the human and
financial cost of such an attack as it did on September 11th. By
failing to account for these costs before an attack, countermeasures
will not be developed and the Nation will be more exposed to attack.
Senate Bill 3 attempts to address these liability concerns for not
only terrorism, but also countermeasures developed and deployed to
protect the United States against naturally occurring epidemics such as
SARS and pandemics such as Avian influenza. These epidemics and
pandemics have the potential to be even more costly in terms of lives
and dollars than even the worst terrorist attack. By addressing the
issue of liability before an event occurs, we are not only assuring
that needed countermeasures are developed, but also, being fiscally
responsible by mitigating at the least economic cost of such a tragedy
and reducing the cost of needless litigation.
While the similarities between the public health threats of bio-
defense and infectious disease are obvious, I would strongly urge
Congress to consider--and act upon--liability protections that are
necessary to bring a pandemic influenza vaccine to market as quickly as
possible. The dangers of a pandemic are real and immediate. Should the
Nation face a pandemic similar to the one it faced in 1918 and 1919
with the Spanish flu, millions of American are certain to die. While I
do believe Senate Bill 3 provides adequate protections to stimulate the
creation of a bio-defense industry, it is inadequate to protect
providers of pandemic vaccine given that the response to such an event
would be to quickly vaccinate nearly 300 million Americans. Thus, the
response to a pandemic is similar to--and perhaps, far broader than--
the response to a potential outbreak of smallpox. For this reason, the
liability protections provided for a pandemic influenza vaccine
provider must be at least as strong as those protections given to
providers of smallpox vaccine under the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, manufactures, suppliers
and administrators of smallpox vaccine are immune from any and all
liability resulting from the administration of the vaccine during a
declared emergency. These protections provide the certainty necessary
to ensure the Nation has an adequate supply of smallpox vaccine in the
event of an attack. While there are several improvements that should be
made to this legislation to ensure health care workers are properly
compensated, these same types of protections must be extended to
providers of pandemic influenza vaccine.
Available Liability Mitigation Tools are Inadequate
Under current law, there are currently only two legal authorities
that allow the Federal Government to mitigate the liability concerns
for providers of countermeasures other than smallpox vaccine--through
Federal indemnification under Public Law 85-804 and through
designation/certification under the SAFETY Act. Both measures are
inadequate to address the practical realities of potential litigation
facing the providers of countermeasures and the fiscal realities facing
the Federal Government
Public Law 85-804 grants the President an extremely broad authority
to allow a Federal Government contractor to obtain financial or other
forms of relief under certain circumstances, even when the government
may have no express legal obligation to grant such relief, or when
there are express prohibitions against such relief contained in other
statutes, regulations, or common law. Under this authority, the heads
of designated departments or agencies have the discretionary power to
provide contractors with government indemnity when they are engaged in
``unusually hazardous'' activities and when it is in the interest of
the national defense to provide such indemnity.
Indemnification under Public Law 85-804 relies upon the American
tort system and places the Federal Government in the position of an
insurer--where payments are made only after all claims have been
adjudicated in the court system and judgments have been rendered. This
rather lengthy process does not result in compensation to victims being
paid in a timely manner nor does it place any effective limits on the
Federal Government's potential payments to victims when it acts in this
capacity.
Although this authority has been invoked by the Department of
Health and Human Services (which was first granted the authority in
October 2001 following the anthrax attacks) in agreements involving the
donation of smallpox vaccine by Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur to the
Federal Government in 2001, HHS will only address the issue of
indemnification prior to the award of a contract for a countermeasure.
As a result, potential providers of countermeasures must expend scarce
resources to prepare and submit a proposal that may result in a
contract that cannot be accepted due to the lack of liability
protections should HHS ultimately refuse to provide indemnification.
More often, companies simply refuse to bid at all due to the lack of
certainty on the issue of liability. This has resulted in the largest,
and far more experienced, drug companies with the necessary expertise
to address this threat being left on the sidelines.
Moreover, HHS and OMB have taken the position that indemnification
under Public Law 85-804 cannot be granted to protect suppliers of
pandemic influenza vaccine since there is not an immediate connection
to national security. This extremely narrow view of what constitutes
``national security'' ignores the implications that our troops
stationed in Southwest Asia (which is currently facing a potential
Avian Flu epidemic), it also ignores the national security implications
of having millions of America perish in a pandemic. Thus, Congress must
address this issue immediately to ensure the Nation is fully prepared.
Congress did attempt to address the issue of liability associated
with antiterrorism goods and services with the passage of the SAFETY
Act in November 2002. The SAFETY Act does, in fact, provide significant
protections to providers of countermeasures that receive certification
under the Act. However, to date, no such certifications have been
granted for bio-defense countermeasures. In addition, there are
specific limitations upon the effectiveness of the SAFETY Act for
providers of countermeasures under Project Bioshield.
Section 865(1) of the SAFETY Act notes that qualified anti-
terrorism technologies may include technologies deployed for the
purpose of ``limiting the harm such acts [of terrorism] might otherwise
cause.'' The ``harm'' that may be caused by an act of terrorism clearly
goes beyond the immediate effects of the Act itself. An act of
terrorism such as the attacks of September 11th or the October 2001
anthrax attacks trigger a number of immediate remedial and emergency
responses to limit the resulting harm and deter follow-on attacks.
While the SAFETY Act can provide signification protections to a
company, its application in the context of countermeasures is extremely
limited. Most significantly, the potential liability of a provider of
anti-terrorist technologies that may allegedly cause injury PRIOR to a
terrorist attack, such as a vaccine, are not currently addressed by the
SAFETY Act. This limitation of the SAFETY Act leaves providers of anti-
terrorism vaccines without any adequate projections aside from the
possibility of Federal indemnification.
Moreover, SAFETY Act certification is most inadequate to provide
the type of protections required for large companies to enter the
market for countermeasures. Holders of SAFETY Act certification are
still faced with the possibility of hundreds of lawsuits brought
against them throughout the country, albeit in Federal court. Since the
SAFETY Act protections must be asserted as an affirmative defense to
any lawsuit, the unpredictability of the American judicial system still
places providers of countermeasures with a large degree of uncertainty
regarding potential liability. This uncertainty, coupled with the
``gap'' in the SAFETY Act for vaccine providers and the cumbersome
nature of the application process to receive SAFETY Act certification
makes it an inadequate protection for providers of countermeasures
under Project Bioshield.
For all of these reasons, Congress should equip HHS with the
adequate tools to address liability concerns that are inhibiting the
development and deployment of critical countermeasures as soon as
possible. More over, it is in the best interests of the United States
that Congress act immediately to extend the same types of protections
afforded to providers of smallpox vaccine to providers of pandemic
influenza vaccine to ensure an adequate response to the certain public
health crisis an influenza pandemic will cause the United States unless
we are adequately prepared.
Additional Regulatory Relief for Providers of Countermeasures is Needed
The Project Bioshield Act of 2004 makes great strides to reduce
many of the regulatory burdens that are obstacles to allowing companies
that do not traditionally sell the Federal Government to participate in
the development of needed countermeasures. Based upon the experience of
industry during the first procurements conducted Bioshield, more can be
done to reduce the amount unnecessarily burdensome regulations. To
date, industry reaction to Bioshield has been muted, partly because of
initial implementation challenges and partly because the scope and
incentives of Bioshield are too limited to attract serious attention
from investors, including venture capitalists, institutional investors,
or manufacturers that are needed to grow the biodefense industry.
It is important to examine the first actions HHS has taken under
the Project Bioshield to understand the challenges in implementing the
statute, as well as the need for additional procurement reforms.
On October 26, 2004, HHS received the first proposals to provide
therapeutic products for treatment of inhalational anthrax disease in
response to Solicitation No. 2004-N-01385 (the ``Anthrax Therapeutics
Solicitation'') under what was the first, true, Project Bioshield
procurement. Just over 2 weeks later, on November 4, 2004, VaxGen, Inc.
(``VaxGen'') received an award of a large contract to produce an
experimental recombinant protective antigen anthrax vaccine (``rPA'').
While this award to VaxGen was the first countermeasure contract
funded from Bioshield's Special Reserve Fund, this was not a true
Bioshield procurement. In fact, all of the research and development for
this countermeasure was funded at the taxpayer's expense through the
National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease under two earlier
awards totaling over $200 million. Unlike the goals of Bioshield to
create a market to encourage private investment, the first award funded
by Bioshield was a very typical, multi-stage, Federal procurement fully
funded at the taxpayer's expense, without utilizing any of the unique
authorities Congress provided to HHS under Project Bioshield.
The first Bioshield procurement for Anthrax therapeutics
solicitation is for the acquisition and maintenance within the SNS of
therapeutic products to treat U.S. civilians who have inhalational
anthrax disease. The Anthrax therapeutics solicitation contemplates
that the awarded contract(s) will be for 10 grams of an investigational
new drug (``IND'') for use in testing. The actual manufacture of
anthrax therapeutic product is an optional contract line item, which
the government may decide to exercise within 12 months from the date of
contract award and after the government reviews and approves the test
sample. However, while this procurement could have utilized the
streamlined procurement provisions provided under Project Bioshield,
the solicitation includes numerous provisions of the Federal
Acquisition Regulation (``FAR'') and other detailed requirements for
bidders, including detailed rules governing the methods of preparing
pricing for the proposal.
This initial Bioshield solicitation was curious in three ways.
First, the way the solicitation structures the options in the contract
fall short of the Congressional intent of the Act to provide for a
commitment to recommend funding for production for the SNS as
contemplated by Project Bioshield. Contrary to the intent of the Act,
HHS has not committed to recommend exercise of the options for
production quantities of the countermeasure upon successful development
of the countermeasure. Such a commitment would help to advance the
Act's purpose of promoting the development of a biodefense industry by
informing the markets that there is some certainty that there will be a
government market for the product. Second, as noted above, the
solicitation failed to use the simplified acquisition authorities that
Bioshield makes available to the government, which would have permitted
far fewer bidding requirements. Third, the solicitation makes IND
status an absolute criteria for award of the contract. This has been
criticized as unduly--restricting the ability of companies with
promising technologies that have not yet reached IND, FDP status from
competing.
Unlike the Anthrax therapeutics solicitation, the VaxGen
solicitation did not suffer from a lack of commitment to production
quantities. The scope of work for the rPA contract requires VaxGen to
manufacture and deliver to the SNS 75 million doses of experimental
(and non-FDA approved) rPA vaccine in pre-filled syringes along with
safety needles (with a minimum of 25 million doses delivered within two
years of contract award). The contract also requires a variety of
ancillary commitments by VaxGen related to testing and licensing.
The VaxGen contract is valued at $877.5 million, representing
approximately 15 percent of the amounts appropriated for Project
Bioshield for the next 10 years. The contract provides for payments to
VaxGen of $754 million in advance of the following milestones: (1)
approval of a Biologics License Application (``BLA'') for general use
prophylaxis, (2) approval of a BLA for post exposure prophylaxis; and
(3) demonstration of 18 months of real time stability in pre-filled
syringes. When and if these milestones are accomplished, VaxGen will
receive specified per dose price supplements.
There are three main criticisms of the VaxGen contract. First, it
appears that, as with the Anthrax therapeutics solicitation, HHS
elected not to use simplified acquisition procedures in awarding the
contract. Second, despite the availability of an FDA licensed competing
vaccine technology, HHS restricted the competition for the contract to
firms that produced rPA-based vaccines, which have not been advanced
beyond early testing in the regulatory approval process. This has made
the government and the Nation's security against anthrax attacks highly
dependent on an early stage, unproven technology. Third, the government
awarded the contract to a single vendor, thereby making the Nation's
security against such attacks dependent on this single vendor.
Proposed Implementation Improvements
HHS can take several steps to implement Bioshield to increase
industry participation. To fully realize the legislative intent of the
law, HHS should enact regulations required under the Project Bioshield
Act that take into account the following issues:
--Specify that Project Bioshield Act procurements include only those
FAR clauses specifically required by FAR Part 13, Simplified
Acquisition Procedures;
--Fully describe how HHS and DHS will make a determination of a
material threat and the other determinations required by the
Project Bioshield Act;
--Provide for determinations of the order in which the government
plans to procure countermeasures;
--Require HHS to specify a firm number of doses or courses of
treatment in the call for countermeasures stage;
--Provide for industry participation in market surveys undertaken
during the assessment of the availability and appropriateness
of countermeasures stage;
--Provide critical suppliers of needed medical countermeasures annual
``warm base'' funding to ensure that the U.S. Government will
have continued access to those products following any
procurement contract;
--Provide that multiple products manufactured by multiple suppliers
using multiple technologies be procured where practicable to
avoid undue dependence on any single supplier or single
technology;
--Provide that countermeasures that are already licensed by the Food
and Drug Administration should where possible be purchased
under Project Bioshield; and
--Provide for the appropriate use of HHS' ``Other Transaction''
Authority in procurements under Sections 2 and 3 of the Project
Bioshield Act, in accordance with the authority provided to HHS
by Title XVI of the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization Act.
Also, as required by Section 319F-2(c)(4)(C)(ii) of the Public
Health Act, HHS should, in a call for bio-terrorism countermeasures,
provide industry with an estimate of the quantities of a countermeasure
(in the form of number of doses or number of effective courses of
treatment) that HHS intends to procure upon development of a
countermeasure that meets the statutory criteria. Providing industry
with wide ranges of potential requirements for a countermeasure, as HHS
did in the Anthrax therapeutics solicitation, does not serve the
statutory purpose of promoting the development of a biodefense industry
because it introduces additional uncertainty about the size of the
government market for the countermeasure.
HHS and the Department of Homeland Security (``DHS'') should
provide industry with information concerning the implementation of the
Project Bioshield Act. For example, HHS and DHS should provide industry
and the public with a status report concerning the governmental
processes required by Section 319F-2(c)(2)-(6) of the Public Health
Act. HHS should also publish the report on the adequacy of
biocontainment facilities required by Sec. 5(c) of the Project
Bioshield Act. This report was due in January, and yet, has not been
completed or provided to industry.
Perhaps most important, DHS should inform industry of the progress
and priority of the required threat assessments so that companies can
make proper business decisions in their planning process. Project
Bioshield requires that the DHS, in conjunction with the HHS, conduct a
threat assessment to ``assess current and emerging threats of chemical,
biological radiological, and nuclear agents; and determine which of
such agents present a material threat against the United States
population sufficient to affect national security'' and for which a
countermeasure is needed. As implemented, this threat assessment must
be conducted prior to any decision to purchase a needed countermeasure
under the Project Bioshield.
It is my understanding that, to date, no such assessment has been
conducted to determine the threat of cyanide to the American people.
Aside from cyanide's historical use as a battlefield weapon in World
War I, this country has already suffered from terrorist attacks and
plots using cyanide: in the 1980s, with the tampering of Tylenol; in
2003, with the discovery of a cyanide bomb in the possession of a white
supremacist in Texas that held enough cyanide to fatally gas everyone
in a 30,000 sq ft facility; and, in early 2004, with the discovery by
U.S. troops in Baghdad of a 7-pound block of cyanide salt. Moreover,
soon after our successful liberation of Afghanistan in 2002, our forces
discovered Al Qaeda training videos using cyanide to poison dogs and
other animals.
I note that in the legislative history of the Project Bioshield, a
potential treatment for cyanide poisoning, hydroxocobalamin is
specifically identified in the reports filed by the House Committees on
Government Reform and Energy and Commerce. Thus, providers of this
countermeasure are ``on hold'' pending completion of this threat
assessment. Providing this information to industry will aid industrial
base planning efforts and thereby promote the Project Bioshield Act's
objective of fostering the development of a biodefense industry.
In addition to the specific recommendations above that should be
taken into account during regulatory process and in order to carry
forth the initiative's legislative intent, we have several policy
suggestions that should be considered in implementing Project
Bioshield: HHS should keep in mind that the government's use of
multiple countermeasure suppliers and technologies would be in the
overall interests of public health and homeland security. As evidenced
by the recent influenza vaccine shortage, having a diverse
``portfolio'' of countermeasures in the strategic national stockpile
will facilitate flexibility in responding to bioterrorism threats and
attacks.
First and foremost, HHS should make clear that the statute does not
require contractors to comply with burdensome government procurement
requirements, including the requirement for certified cost and pricing
data, in order to stimulate the maximum interest possible by commercial
companies. Similarly, HHS should avoid the use of cost-type contracts
or contract line items (thus, eliminating the need for a proposed
contractor to adopt non-GAAP accounting practices) wherever possible.
HHS should structure Bioshield contracts to avoid a ``staged''
procurement approach such as that announced in the recent Anthrax
therapeutic request for proposal, wherever possible. While we recognize
the need for staged procurements under certain circumstances, using
this method where HHS has conducted proper market research will avoid
unnecessary delays and unpredictable results, thereby stimulating far
greater private sector interest.
Maximizing the use of these authorities, as well as enactment of
the additional streamlined authorities identified above, will go a long
way to ensuring the greatest possible participation in Bioshield.
Moreover, as we have already seen in how slow the contracting process
has been to date with Bioshield, failure to act on these procurement
reforms will cost the Nation something that no amount of money or any
act of Congress can ever make up for time.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to offer testimony on this
very important public health and anti-terrorism issue. Achieving the
objectives of the Project Bioshield Act of 2004 and Senate Bill 3 are
of the utmost importance to ensuring homeland and national security.
Again, I applaud your efforts, and the efforts of President Bush and
his Administration, and look forward to continuing our work with
Congress and the Administration in this critical area.
I am happy to respond to any questions you may have.
______
Prepared Statement of the Sarnoff Corporation
Chairman Gregg, Ranking member Byrd, Sarnoff Corporation
appreciates the opportunity to offer testimony on ``BioShield and
Bioterrorism.'' Sarnoff Corporation (www.sarnoff.com) produces
innovations in information, biomedical, and electronic technology that
generate successful new products and services for clients worldwide.
Founded in 1942 as RCA Laboratories, Sarnoff has been serving both the
public and private sectors to develop breakthroughs in integrated
circuits, lasers, and imagers; drug discovery and development; digital
TV, video for security, surveillance and entertainment; high-
performance networking; and wireless communications. Our history
includes the development of color TV, liquid-crystal display, and the
disposable hearing aid, as well as a leadership role in creating the
U.S. digital television standard. With the Rosettex Technologies and
Ventures Group (a joint venture with SRI), Sarnoff has demonstrated a
unique ability to bring a broad range of private sector organizations
together to accelerate technology development in the interest of the
national security. As discussed below, we believe that these skills are
vital to the Nation's ability to meet the bioterror threat.
As a science and technology leader, Sarnoff recognizes the serious
danger posed by bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases to the
United States. In addition to the many infectious agents already
recognized as threats, new agents, like the SARS coronavirus and the
avian flu continue to emerge. Moreover, the bioterrorist threat
includes the growing potential to use biotechnology to create new,
genetically engineered pathogens against which existing countermeasures
are ineffective.
To effectively secure our Nation against the threat of
bioterrorism, in addition to developing countermeasures for all
existing threats, it will be necessary to rapidly develop, manufacture,
and distribute new countermeasures to treat illness and prevent further
infections in the population for those agents we cannot predict.
However, today it takes an average of 10 years to develop a
countermeasure for a new agent. Clearly, this process must be
accelerated if the entire spectrum of the biothreat, not just the set
of currently recognized agents, is to be defeated.
Sarnoff believes that the countermeasure development process can be
significantly shortened with a focused effort. For this reason, we are
highly supportive of the inclusion of the concept of ``research tools''
in S. 3 and other legislative efforts seeking to improve the Nation's
biodefense. Research tools are integral to the drug and vaccine
development process, and thus an essential focus of all efforts to
accelerate this process. The concept of research tools includes not
only animal models and in vitro tests, but also technologies that
reside outside the laboratory or in computers, such as bioinformatics
and toxicological databases and drug and disease modeling systems. In
addition, the use of new technology and methods in the clinical setting
and during manufacturing will have crucial roles to play in
accelerating development. While new animal models are essential for
approval of needed countermeasures under FDA's current Animal Rule,
ultimately research tools will help us move beyond the existing
regulatory system by enabling much faster, less expensive, but highly
reliable routes to new countermeasures. The FDA's 2004 report,
Innovation or Stagnation? The Critical Path to New Medical Products
lays out a vision of faster translational research and improved product
development, and calls for better research tools for determining safety
and efficacy and new manufacturing processes.
Determining what research tools are necessary to shorten the
countermeasure development process is a significant challenge. Drug and
vaccine development is extremely complicated, highly diverse, and
multidisciplinary, involving hundreds of different types of technology
and areas of scientific expertise. Along the pathway, roadblocks and
time-consuming steps, often referred to as ``bottlenecks,'' are
multiple and interconnected. We believe a systems approach is required
to address what is essentially a complex systems problem. Research
tools must be integrated into end-to-end systems in order to move from
the local acceleration of the development process that is current
practice to substantial, overall reductions in the drug development
cycle.
The development of research tools and research tool systems
requires more than just scientific and technological advancements. It
requires a well coordinated and tightly orchestrated national strategy
designed to encourage and support creation of these systems. That
coordinated national strategy is not yet in place.
Further, Sarnoff believes an unprecedented public-private
partnership will be required not only to bring new research tools and
research tool systems into use, but also to enable their application to
rapid development of production of life-saving countermeasures in the
event they are needed in a national public health emergency.
In summary, the Sarnoff Corporation thanks you, Mr. Chairman, and
the Committee for the opportunity to submit this statement for the
record of this important and very timely hearing. We look forward to
working with you and your colleagues in ensuring that the threat
bioterrorism and infectious disease pose to national security and the
public health is adequately addressed, mitigated, and, ultimately,
eliminated.
THREATS IN ORDER OF PRIORITY
Senator Gregg. Thank you and thank all members of the panel
for what were very informative presentations. Hopefully there
is somebody here from HHS and Homeland Security listening to it
besides just those of us in Congress who try to get their
attention. I think some excellent points were made.
Dr. Franz, you essentially seem to be attracted to the
second approach here, which you outlined, which is to pick off
the major threats and try to come up with ways to address those
rather than a more global approach. You mentioned smallpox and
anthrax as being obvious areas to start with and where we do
appear to have started and made progress. Dr. Read said, but
what is next, and the market does not know what is next.
Is it possible, with your years of experience in the
Government, to get an agreement as to what the threats are in
order of priority for, say, the top 10 potential pathogens so
people could predictably start to look at those, if they are in
the scientific community, as places where they might want to
put some resources to develop responses?
Dr. Franz. Senator, I believe as I mentioned, there are
clearly outliers. The two that we all agree on are well above
many of the others in my opinion, and that is based on the
characteristics of the organisms. I really do not know anything
about the likelihood of their being used, but we would have
enormous vulnerabilities to those and likewise, as the last
speaker mentioned, influenza. I think we would have enormous
vulnerabilities there as well.
Senator Gregg. So should we go beyond those pathogens?
Should we just do those three then and get ready for those?
Dr. Franz. I think if you start into plague and tularemia
and Q fever and even botulinum--most of my lab work was done
back at the bench at USAMRIID before I moved into the front
office with bot. I do not put that up as high as these others,
and it is because of the characteristics of the organisms, how
difficult they are to grow, how easy they are to treat, how
stable they are in the environment and so on.
So I think it becomes so hard and so expensive to produce
specific countermeasures for those we do not consider outliers
that I prefer a broad, general approach to public health for
those, after we have dealt with the outliers. That should
include good diagnostics, good disease surveillance, good
epidemiology, and the same kinds of things, good education for
our health care providers and for our citizens, the same kinds
of things that help us in any emerging outbreak.
So I am a believer in very specific countermeasures for
those that are really tough to deal with and then very broad
preparedness for those which are easier to deal with and harder
to pick as potential threats.
Senator Gregg. That sounds like a rational approach, and it
is sort of the approach we are taking. Is it not?
Dr. Franz. I think it is, and I am happy with that. In that
regard, I am actually involved at the S&T review for DHS
programs for Secretary McQueary's program here today, and about
6 weeks ago, I was in Galveston to review the RCE meeting which
is the Fauci $1.5 billion or $1.8 billion basic R&D program.
Academe is heavily involved in both of these, and I have really
been quite pleased with the fundamental research going on out
there. We have some of our best scientists in the country
stepping forward as the Nation needs them to contribute.
As the other speakers have said and as I learned in the
military, the hard part is transitioning that good basic
research into the arms or into the airwaves of our citizens to
protect them, and that is where we need the most help I think.
INDEMNIFICATION
Senator Gregg. Well, the first part is good news, and the
second part is Dr. Read's job since he is the investment guy
here.
You listed a whole series of points, Dr. Read, as to how we
could create a better climate for getting people to pursue
these and move them to commercialization, if that is the right
term. Probably not, but at least to being used.
Would you put indemnification at the top of that list?
Dr. Read. Maybe because it is a non-starter without. So
there are many important things needed to be done to enhance
BioShield in order for it to meet the test of drawing in our
most capable innovators into this fight. So dealing with
product liability and indemnification is clearly going to be
necessary to have large, capable companies join the fray.
Senator Gregg. And next on the list would be what? The need
to know what the targets are, targets of opportunity, so to
say?
Dr. Read. Well, it is nice put next because it is clear and
somehow we ought to be able to do it. I do not understand why
the private sector should have to guess what the Government is
thinking about these priorities. So I would put it second for
clarity and because we ought to be able to check that box off.
I think one of the best ways it can be signaled is through
the economic incentives that our public servants can send using
the legislation and the funds available through BioShield and
whatever improvements you are working on. The clear economic
signals about a market, a reward at the end is by far the most
compelling way to communicate those priorities, as opposed to a
list. So if we knew the reward that had been created by the
Government because it cared so much about, just for example,
pick an agent on that list, tularemia or ebola or something,
was twice the size of the financial incentive to succeed with a
vaccine against another one, that would be about as clear a way
to send those priorities as possible. And it would be
incredibly useful not only if the reward were big enough and
product liability were dealt with. I sincerely believe our
largest and most capable companies would engage.
The truth is the market signals are used all the time to
make portfolio decisions inside large companies and small ones.
And if the large companies are there, the small ones will be
there, the companies I invest in, because the small companies
often make the key early-stage contributions that enable the
larger companies to finish the job.
RISK OF LIABILITY
Senator Gregg. Which brings us to Mr. Clerici's point,
which is that the big companies are not in there and the reason
we have lost our vaccine industry in this country is the
liability and the fact that the risk of liability so far
exceeds the risk of return that there is no way to get people
to put capital into this market.
Do you think we need to go beyond what we have in S. 3 or
do we have enough in there on this liability? I mean, we know
this whole liability fight is an uphill fight in the Senate,
period.
Mr. Clerici. Right. The approach that you take in S. 3,
whereby a winner of a BioShield contract is automatically
protected from liability, so it is based on the same theories
as the SAFETY Act, but without the same hurdles, I think would
provide the necessary incentives for manufacturers to get into
the biodefense market, large and small, because there at least
would be some certainty that, assuming that you deliver, this
liability protection is forthcoming automatically. I will put
aside the political challenges of a system such as that which
amounts to, more or less, tort reform rather than an
indemnification scheme such as present with smallpox or under
Public Law 85-804.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
For pandemic flu, I am not sure it is going to be enough
because the providers of that vaccine know at the end of the
day their vaccine is going into the arms of 300 million people.
Even under the legislation proposed in S. 3, you are still
going to be in Federal court defending those lawsuits
throughout the country. So the predictability of what a Federal
judge may do with the legislation and the fact that the
plaintiffs could certainly file litigation in every
jurisdiction throughout the land would be problematic to those
companies. And the companies that are primarily going to supply
the pandemic flu vaccine are the largest of the vaccine
manufacturers and therefore have the most shareholders and the
most concerns, being a large public company.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted to Dr. Penrose C. Albright
Questions Submitted by Senator Judd Gregg
Question. Which Federal agency determines the bioterrorism threat
and the Federal response to that threat?
Answer. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10 (HSPD-10),
Biodefense for the 21st Century, identifies the Department of Homeland
Security as the lead Federal agency for ``conducting threat periodic
assessments of the evolving biological weapons threat'' and for
``developing comprehensive plans that provide for seamless, coordinated
Federal, State, local, and international responses to a biological
attack.''
Question. Under what authority is the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) involved in responding to bioterrorist threats?
Answer. DHS authority to respond to bioterrorist threats traces
originally through Section 502 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002
which states that ``The Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary
for Emergency Preparedness and Response, shall include . . . (3)
providing the Federal Government's response to terrorist attacks and
major disasters'' and has been reaffirmed specifically for biological
attacks in the HSPD-10 as cited previously. This role is one of
providing overall coordination with the individual Sector Specific
Agencies executing their legislated responsibilities, e.g. the
Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for public
health and the Environmental Protection Agency for decontamination.
Question. How is a biological threat addressed once the threat has
been determined and what avenue does DHS use to respond to that threat?
Answer. Once a biological threat has been determined, it becomes a
potential or actual Incident of National Significance and DHS becomes
responsible for the overall coordination of the response. This is done
under the framework of the National Incident Management System (NIMS)
using the National Response Plan (NRP). The NRP provides the
coordinating structure and mechanisms for national level policy and
operational Federal support to state, local and tribal incident
managers. The Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC) serves as the
primary national-level multi-agency situational awareness and
coordination center. Other key coordinating mechanisms include: the
Interagency Incident Management Group (IIMG), a senior level
interagency group who provide strategic advice to the Secretary of DHS;
a Joint Field Office (JFO), a temporary Federal facility established
locally to provide a central point for Federal, State, local and tribal
representatives responsible for incident support and coordination; and
a Principal Federal Officer (PFO), designated by the Secretary of DHS
to work in conjunction with other Federal officials to coordinate
overall Federal incident management efforts. The Federal response to
actual or potential Incidents of National Significance is typically
provided through the full or partial activation of the Emergency
Support Functions (ESF). The NRP applies a functional approach that
groups the capabilities of Federal departments and agencies, as well as
the American Red Cross, into ESFs to provide the planning, support,
resources, program implementation, and emergency services that are most
likely to be needed during an Incident of National Significance. Each
ESF is composed of primary and support agencies, based on their
authorities, resources, and capabilities.
The NRP also includes a Biological Incident Annex, which outlines
the actions, roles, and responsibilities associated with response to a
disease outbreak of known or unknown origin requiring Federal
assistance. The annex outlines biological incident response actions,
including threat assessment notification procedures, laboratory
testing, joint investigative/response procedures, and activities
related to recovery. Because of its authorities, capabilities, and
resources, the Department of Health and Human Services is the lead
agency for the Biological Incident Annex.
Question. What role does DHS' Science and Technology (S&T)
Directorate play regarding research into bioterrorist threats?
Answer. The S&T Directorate plays a major role in research into
bioterrorist threats. The S&T Directorate is the national lead for the
periodic assessments required by HSPD-10 under its Threat Awareness
Pillar. These assessments include formal Risk Assessments every 2
years, with the first due in January of 2006, and Net Assessments every
4 years, with the first due in 2008. Under the BioShield Act of 2004,
DHS is also responsible for making the Material Threat Determinations
(MTDs) that inform the Department of Health and Human Services as to
which agents are of especial concern as to warrant pursuit of medical
countermeasures utilizing BioShield funding. To support and inform its
assessment roles, the S&T Directorate also conducts research to improve
the Nation's understanding of critical agent properties that might have
a significant impact on its defense and response, e.g. the infectivity
of agents at low doses or how long an agent survives in air, food or
water.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE AND INTEGRATED BIOSURVEILLANCE
Question. Can you provide the Committee an update on the status of
Integrated Biosurveillance?
Answer. The Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
Directorate (IAIP) of DHS is implementing the National Biosurveillance
Integration System (NBIS) to integrate biosurveillance information with
the objective of identifying and characterizing a biological attack on
the Nation. The NBIS implementation is closely aligned with the NBIS
design effort that was led by the S&T Directorate in 2004, with the
full participation of the interagency partners. Currently, IAIP is in
the procurement process for the NBIS system.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND BIOSHIELD
Question. How does the National Biodefense Analysis and
Countermeasures Center, or NBACC, fit into the Department's role in
defending against a bioterrorist threat?
Answer. The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center
(NBACC) is one of the Department's and the Nation's key tools in
defending against bioterrorism. NBACC consists of two centers: the
BioThreat Characterization Center (BTCC) and the National BioForensics
Analysis Center (NBFAC). The BTCC is responsible for the threat
characterization activities described previously, i.e. for conducting
the periodic Risk Assessments required under HSPD-10 and for the
scientific research to inform these threat assessments and support
intelligence activities. The NBFAC, as designated under HSPD-10, is the
lead national facility for conducting technical analysis of forensic
materials to support attribution by the appropriate Departments and
agencies. As such, the NBFAC is operated in close coordination with the
Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Investigation and with
portions of the Intelligence Community.
Question. Since its inception, the NBACC has received $130 million
in Federal appropriations from various sources, beginning with work
conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD). Given the current
research conducted by the Army at Fort Detrick, is there any
duplication of effort between what the Army does and what is proposed
for the NBACC facility?
Answer. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National
Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) and the U.S.
Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)
fulfill complementary but distinct missions at the Fort Detrick
National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC), where Congress has
identified the need for Federal agencies to work collaboratively to
address the threat of bioterrorism.
NBACC conducts research to protect the American public by enhancing
our scientific understanding of biological threats. This complements,
not duplicates, USAMRIID biodefense research and development and test
and evaluation to provide medical protections such as vaccines, drugs,
diagnostics, and information for military service members. Unlike
USAMRIID, NBACC does not perform research to develop medical
countermeasures.
NBACC threat characterization research provides a scientific basis
to understand current and future biological threats, to assess
vulnerabilities, and to determine potential impacts. Moreover, NBACC
threat characterization supports DHS material threat assessment
responsibilities under the BioShield Act.
NBACC bioforensic research provides a national capability to
conduct forensic analysis of bio-crimes and terrorism to attain a
``biological fingerprint'' to identify perpetrators and determine the
origin and method of a terrorist attack. HSPD-10 designates NBACC's
National Bioforensic Analysis Center to be the lead Federal facility to
conduct and facilitate forensic analysis of biological terrorism.
Question. How does the Department address its responsibilities for
dealing with a biological threat to our agricultural infrastructure?
Answer. As specified in HSPD-7 (Critical Infrastructure
Identification, Prioritization and Protection), the DHS Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate (IAIP) has the lead
DHS role for vulnerability assessments and protection of the Nation's
critical infrastructure, and has led the inter-agency effort to develop
a National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP; sector-specific plans
for agriculture and food are now in preparation). IAIP also has the DHS
lead role for outreach to the private sector, including the development
of a Food and Agriculture Sector Coordinating Council (F&ASCC) to
facilitate information sharing between government and the private
sector, and a Government Coordinating Council (GCC) to facilitate
coordination across government and between government and the sectors.
A ``food and agriculture portal'' has been created for the Homeland
Security Information Network (HSIN) to provide a platform for the
secure sharing of information (e.g., alerts, warnings, incident
reporting, event tracking, etc.), and a Protected Critical
Infrastructure Information (PCII) classification for the protection and
special handling of proprietary industry information (e.g.,
vulnerabilities, threats).
And, as specified in HSPD-9 (Defense of United States Agriculture
and Food), the S&T Directorate has responsibility for the overall
inter-agency coordination to ``accelerate and expand development of
current and new countermeasures against the intentional introduction or
natural occurrence of catastrophic animal, plant, and zoonotic
diseases.'' Since June of 2003, the S&T Directorate has been
responsible for the operation and management of Plum Island Animal
Disease Center (PIADC) and has developed a joint research and
diagnostic strategy with USDA (Animal Research Service and the Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service) for foreign animal diseases (FAD).
Together with USDA and HHS, we have also begun the conceptual design of
the next generation National Bio and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF)
needed to replace the aging PIADC. Other major S&T Directorate
agricultural thrusts include: systems studies, coupled disease and
economic models, and table top exercises to better understand outbreak
control options and inform policy and decision makers; demonstration of
high throughput detection to better control and respond to outbreaks of
foreign animal disease; detection systems for monitoring critical food
nodes in the processing and distribution of selected food products; and
two University Centers--one on foreign animal and zoonotic diseases and
the other on food protection--to provide longer term research and train
the next generation of agro-defense researchers and practitioners.
As specified in HSPD-5 (Management of Domestic Incidents), DHS has
developed a framework for overall national coordination. This framework
is established in the National Response Plan (NRP) and National
Incident Management System (NIMS). The NRP includes Emergency Support
Functions (ESF) to organize and provide Federal resources during
responses (e.g., ESF-8, ``Health & Medical Services'', DHHS lead; and
ESF-11, ``Agriculture and Natural Resources'', USDA lead) and Support
Annexes to insure efficient and effective incident management (e.g.,
``Science and Technology'', DHS Science and Technology Directorate
(S&T) lead).
Question. Who determines which vaccines are placed in the National
Stockpile and what's the Department's role in that decision, given its
responsibility for determining the bioterrorism threat?
Answer. The process to determine which vaccines are placed in the
National Stockpile is determined by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) within the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS). Recommendations for advance development of chemical, biological,
radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) countermeasures utilize the Weapons of
Mass Destruction Medical Countermeasures (WMD MCM) Subcommittee. This
is an interdepartmental subcommittee initially chartered by the
National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and co-chaired by senior
government officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of
Defense (DOD). The material threat assessments (MTA) developed by the
DHS based on a plausible attack scenario informs the sizing of the
requirement. The HHS then evaluates the availability of current
countermeasures and the possibility of development of new
countermeasures. The WMD MC subcommittee deliberates on the nature of
the medical consequence and the availability of appropriate
countermeasures to develop a recommendation for the acquisition of a
specific countermeasure. The HHS can issue a Request for Information
(RFI) to determine the market availability and to alert industry to the
U.S. Government interests. A Request for Proposals (RFP) announcing the
specific requirements will then follow, once a U.S. Government
requirement for a particular new medical countermeasure has been
established by the WMD MC subcommittee, and approved by the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB). The HHS implements the acquisition
process.
Question. Explain the steps in developing and putting into the
stockpile new medical countermeasures. Who has the lead at each step? I
understand the role of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in basic
research, but how is that science translated into product?
Answer. The science and research to develop a new medical
countermeasure will most likely have been supported by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) or the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute
for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID); however many industrial initiatives
are launched independently to develop a new product. In order to
translate a basic science advancement into a viable product, certain
applied research and advanced development is required. This process
will focus on establishing a ``formulation'' for the product and a
scalable manufacturing process utilizing a Good Manufacturing Processes
(GMP) validated process conducted under appropriate Quality Assurance
and Quality Control activities. In addition the appropriate animal
studies and human safety studies need to be conducted in accordance
with FDA regulations to assure that the results can be applied to
regulatory decisions. The ability to manufacture a consistent and
stable product is also evaluated. Please consult HHS for a more
complete description.
Question. Does BioShield sufficiently incentivize industry to
develop countermeasures to the bioterrorism threat?
Answer. This question is perhaps best answered by industry.
However, Project BioShield is a good first step and has sent a message
to industry that the U.S. Government is committed to obtaining
appropriate countermeasures for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).
The establishment of a 10 year special reserve fund of $5.6 billion
provides confidence to industry that acquisition funds are available in
the long-term. Ten months after the enactment of the Project BioShield
Act, the U.S. Government awarded three contracts totaling over $1
billion for SNS acquisitions. Negotiations are in progress for two
other contracts. In addition, two RFIs and one draft RFP have been
recently published.
Question. What is the appropriate Federal role regarding research
and development of countermeasures for the National Stockpile?
Answer. The role of the U.S. Government regarding research and
development for countermeasures has traditionally been through the
support of basic research. Both NIH and DOD (USAMRIID, USAMRICD, and
AFRRI) have excellent records in this regard. The U.S. Government can
further target and facilitate research and development (R&D) efforts by
setting clear requirements and specifications for medical
countermeasures; facilitating partnerships as needed between government
and industry or between differing industries; and providing critical
resources such as facilities (e.g. biocontainment labs), animals (for
testing), reagents and assays.
Question. How does the Department address the development of
countermeasures as it relates to industry disparities regarding large
and small companies and their available capital for research and
development?
Answer. Human medical countermeasures development is done through
HHS and DOD and not through the Department of Homeland Security, so we
will defer to them on the medical portions of this answer. For non-
medical countermeasures, the S&T Directorate does not require nor
expect cost sharing in our R&D programs. A company's available capital
to co-fund R&D is not an issue. Our competitive solicitations for all
kinds of countermeasures research and development have offered multiple
opportunities for both large and small businesses. Competitive
solicitation results show that for research and development in highly
technical fields, small companies can successfully compete outright,
and this is especially true when they partner with larger or other
small businesses.
Question. From your perspective, how has BioShield helped DHS
respond to the bioterror threat? Is it working as intended, and what
would BioShield II do for DHS and S&T specifically?
Answer. BioShield is helping DHS respond to bioterror threats by
stimulating the development of needed medical countermeasures, by
providing for emergency use authorization of these and other
countermeasures if needed, and by streamlining the review process for
research related to future generations of medical countermeasures for
these threats. Procurements are now in progress for botulinum anti-
toxin, the current generation anthrax vaccine (AVA), the next
generation anthrax vaccine (rPA) and for a pediatric formulation of
potassium iodide--a therapeutic for certain kinds of radiation
exposure. A Request for Information has recently been issued for a
third generation smallpox vaccine (MVA) which would further minimize
any side effects. Also, earlier this month, the National Institute of
Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) made its first series of
research awards using its new BioShield authorities.
Question. Please provide a list of administrative, regulatory and
legislative proposals needed to invigorate scientific research relevant
to the development of needed countermeasures and products to counter
natural pandemics and epidemics.
Answer. The Nation has a strong program in basic scientific
research related to the development of medical countermeasures. There
are broad activities in understanding the genomics and proteomics of
microorganisms. In addition many research programs are focused on the
understanding and control of the immune system. Advanced research and
development however falters after the proof of principle stage when
applied product development activities are required. Additional
attention is needed in areas critical to mid-stage development of
medical countermeasures such as animal studies, clinical studies,
regulatory issues and the need to establish and validate a GMP (Good
Manufacturing Processes) production process.
Question. I understand that you are the lead DHS representative for
an interagency working group on bioterrorism and bioterrorism
countermeasures. I also understand that the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) and DOD participate in this working group. Can
you tell me who else is involved in the working group, how often you
meet, and what the basic function of the group is?
Answer. Recommendations for advance development of CBRN
countermeasures utilize the Weapons of Mass Destruction Medical
Countermeasures (WMD MCM) Subcommittee. This is an interdepartmental
subcommittee initially chartered by the National Science and Technology
Council (NSTC) and co-chaired by senior government officials from the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD). The material
threat assessments (MTA) developed by the DHS based on a plausible
attack scenario informs the sizing of the requirement. The HHS then
evaluates the availability of current countermeasures and the
possibility of development of new countermeasures. The WMD MC
subcommittee deliberates on the nature of the medical consequence and
the availability of appropriate countermeasures to develop a
recommendation for the acquisition of a specific countermeasure.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, BIOWATCH, AND DETECTION OF EVENTS
Question. How does DHS respond to recent criticism in the press
that BioWatch is not effective?
Answer. BioWatch has been deployed to over 30 cities and provides
these cities with protection against biological threat agents. At the
request of the stakeholders, additional assets currently are being
installed to provide increased coverage to include high trafficked
facilities and other venues that attract large numbers of the
population. DHS believes that BioWatch is an effective system which
will be further improved by enhanced coverage while maintaining the no
system false positives to date after conducting over two million
assays.
Question. What kind of measures are in place to assist the
Department in its coordination role regarding BioWatch?
Answer. Formal BioWatch coordination is done officially through a
Memorandum of Understanding with the DHS, HHS/CDC, and EPA. Roles and
responsibilities are articulated and budgetary aspects addressed.
Additionally, the BioWatch Office works closely with CDC and EPA
regarding day to day operations, enhancement of the current program,
and future capabilities, thus ensuring success through close ties with
the partners. Supported by a HSC Biodefense Memorandum of
Understanding, the S&T Directorate also is actively engaged with USPS,
DOD, HHS, and DoJ to discuss technology R&D programs and
interoperability, concept of operations to include notification, and
the development of a national architecture.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY'S ROLE IN DETECTION EQUIPMENT
Question. Given the overarching responsibility the Department has
regarding biodefense, what is the Science and Technology Directorate's
role in the development and evaluation of biological threat detection
equipment?
Answer. The S&T Directorate's role in the development and
evaluation of biological threat detection equipment is to enhance
current systems capabilities while developing the next generation of
detection systems to provide early detection of attacks on outdoor and
indoor areas and on our agricultural and food infrastructures.
Currently, S&T Directorate efforts include: detection systems to enable
the next generation of BioWatch, our urban monitoring program; the
development of rapid (in minutes) identifiers for protection of high
valued facilities and special events, and the development of detection
systems for food distribution systems. Additionally, the S&T
Directorate has a robust bio-assay development program which both
supports our current biomonitoring systems such as BioWatch and is also
integrated with the Directorate's detection technology development
programs. The S&T Directorate, working through the Association of
Analytical Chemists (AOAC), has also taken the lead in testing and
evaluating hand-held assays for screening of so called ``white powder''
events.
The S&T Directorate participates routinely on interagency working
groups through the Homeland Security Council (HSC) and Office of
Science Technology Policy (OSTP) to help establish and coordinate
biodefense detection strategies and requirements. A major recent
accomplishment in this area is the signing of a Memorandum of
Understanding for Coordinated Monitoring of Biological Threat Agents
Amongst the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health
and Human Services, the Department of Defense, the Department of
Justice and the United States Postal System. The S&T Directorate also
interacts regularly with the detection development, test and evaluation
programs in the DOD and the EPA (e.g. the Environmental Testing and
Verification Program), including mutual participation in each others
program reviews. S&T Directorate staff members routinely monitors
literature, attend technology conferences, and host members from
industries, academia, and non-profit organizations which present their
current efforts and findings in technology development.
Question. How does the Directorate foster the growth in biothreat
detection equipment, and how do you respond to a rapidly changing
industry?
Answer. The S&T Directorate fosters the growth in bio-threat
detection equipment through two key steps (1) a clear formulation and
communication of our needs and requirements; and (2) an active, multi-
pronged, outreach to the broad R&D community for the best way to meet
these requirements in a timely fashion. Through systems studies and
scientific and interagency committees, we have focused on three classes
of detection systems that are critical to an integrated national
biodefense: advanced detection for monitoring urban areas; rapid
(minutes) identification for protecting key facilities and special
events; and detection systems for protecting our agricultural and food
infrastructures. Detailed performance and cost requirements have been
formulated to inform industry, academia and the national and Federal
laboratories of our needs and have been published on the S&T
Directorate's Homeland Security Advance Projects Research Agency
(HSARPA) website. The S&T Directorate has had broad solicitations in
each of these areas, typically involving an open, national level
workshop conveying the needs and asking for inputs and refinements from
the participants, a formal Request for Information (RFI), and then a
formal proposal solicitation. Hundreds of proposals have been received
and evaluated, with some fifteen proposals already funded and others in
the works. The focus is on applied research with a goal of fielding
technology as rapidly as possible, typically within 3 to 5 years. A
phased development approach is used. The technology developers are
evaluated and down selected by rigorous testing during each phase
(Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review, etc.). Each
technology does receive feedback during the testing at each phase with
an opportunity for adjustments and re-evaluation. However, candidate
technologies will be terminated if they fail to show reasonable
progress. The S&T Directorate will also consider testing technologies
funded through other programs (from other organizations) against the
goals set forth by the S&T Directorate. In parallel, the S&T
Directorate participates in a range of technical conferences and
discussions with developers of detection systems to stay abreast of any
developments that might change how it thinks about the realm of the
possible' in both near- and longer-term biodetection system. The S&T
Directorate believes the strategy outlined above provides both the
guidance and the flexibility to foster growth and responsiveness in a
rapidly changing industry.
Question. What role do the national labs play in this arena?
Answer. The national laboratories have played a key role in
BioWatch sensor development and deployment and provide expertise on
siting of detection systems. They continue to be a vital part of the
S&T Directorate's strategy to develop and pilot advanced biothreat
detection systems, with research and development activities in the
following areas:
--Development of specific instrumentation (Biobriefcase, Enhanced
BioAerosol Detector): Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LLNL) and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL).
--Development of new nucleic acid- and protein-based assays of
recognized biothreat agents to be used in biodetection
instruments: LLNL, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL),
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and SNL.
--Identification of next-generation signatures that reflect either
(a) the host-pathogen interaction or (b) virulence
characteristics or antibiotic resistance of recognized or
emerging biothreat agents and using these signatures to develop
new assays for biothreat detection: LLNL and PNNL.
--Provision of informatics support to enable the discovery of new
targets for assays and to develop new reporting tools for
detection instruments: LLNL, LANL, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory (LBNL), PNNL, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Question. Without getting into classified information, please tell
us how we are doing in the deployment of surveillance and detection
equipment.
Answer. In January and February 2003, BioWatch was deployed to
approximately 30 U.S. cities. At that time, a limited number of
collectors were strategically placed in each city to provide for
maximum population protection. At the request of the BioWatch cities, a
Generation (Gen) 2 BioWatch was developed to provide increased temporal
and spatial coverage and was piloted in New York City in fiscal year
2004 and early fiscal year 2005. Gen 2 increases the number of
collectors two to fourfold, including coverage of key priorities
identified by the cities, such as transportation hubs and other indoor
venues that are highly trafficked. Gen 2 is in the process of being
deployed to the top threat cities in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year
2006. Additional samplers will be placed in each BioWatch city to be
used at special events and/or at the cities' discretion. New technology
is now under development that will enable a ``Gen 3'' BioWatch which
reduces the sampling and analysis time to four hours on site and will
be wirelessly networked to a local public health interface for further
confirmation and so that positive samples can be retrieved for further
analysis. This technology will provide for the high sensitivity and
extremely low false positive rate consistent with the current system.
We are also developing other detection systems. High throughput
diagnostics for agricultural testing will be piloted in fiscal year
2006 and food sensors for specific applications will be developed by
fiscal year 2007. R&D is also on-going on detect-to-warn' sensors that
can detect biological agents in a less than five minutes and hence be
used to provide warning of releases in high value building, facilities,
and special events.
Question. Have you done any evaluation or testing of surveillance
and detection equipment once it's been deployed and is in use?
Answer. Yes, there is active evaluation and testing of the BioWatch
system. The BioWatch Exercise and Evaluation Program (BWEEP) is an
annual proficiency test for BioWatch laboratory and field operations
and is designed to insure protocols and procedures continue to meet or
exceed prescribed standards. If there are no deficiencies, they will
not be revisited until the next annual cycle. If there are minor
deficiencies, on-the-spot corrections or additional training will be
administered and they will be re-inspected in approximately 6 months.
If there are major deficiencies and/or safety violations, immediate
remedial actions will be taken.
Question. What collaborative process does the Department use to
gain the input from industry, researchers, and responders in the
development of new technology? Does the process include peer review?
Answer. The Science and Technology Directorate uses an open and
competitive solicitation process for research and development with the
private sector.
Before the official solicitation is issued, the S&T Directorate may
publish a draft Statement of Work for public comment, giving industry
the opportunity to provide advice and recommendations. In appropriate
cases, full scale technical workshops are held to assess the state-of-
the-art, inform all potential bidders of current developments in the
field, and sharpen the technical focus of the solicitation. In most
cases, after each solicitation is published, a public Bidders'
Conference is held to explain the solicitation in detail and answer
questions that may have arisen in the minds of potential bidders. Each
solicitation has an open Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on
the website where individual bidders' questions are answered and
published for the benefit of all. In a typical solicitation procedure,
the S&T Directorate uses the first bidder submission--the white paper--
as a vehicle for discussion with private sector bidders. In addition,
industry representatives are free to request direct interviews with S&T
Directorate Program Managers to describe or discuss their concepts,
ideas, and ongoing developments for new technologies.
The criteria by which white papers and proposals are evaluated by
DHS technical experts are listed fully in the public solicitation so
that bidders understand how their submissions will be judged. The S&T
Directorate uses a technical merit review instead of peer review.
Technical solutions to DHS needs and requirements often involve complex
engineering, proprietary information, and other information of economic
value to competitors. To perform technical review, the S&T Directorate
organizes a panel of Federal Government experts, including S&T
Directorate staff, other DHS technical and operational staff, and
experts from other Federal agencies. The evaluation panel may be
supplemented by outside advisors if there is a need for specialized
expertise the government evaluators do not have. These outside advisors
must agree that neither they nor their home institutions may bid
against that particular solicitation. The S&T Directorate has found
that providing review by government personnel, rather than a panel of
peers, allows bidders to be more open about proprietary information
supporting their proposed project.
Additionally, DHS and national laboratories are consulted
frequently by the S&T Directorate to formulate the strategic direction
of research, development, technology and evaluation (RDT&E) programs.
The science and technology needs of emergency responders are
represented in the S&T Directorate by the Portfolio Managers. Other
methods for collecting salient inputs include the annual Science and
Technology Requirements Council, an annual joint conference with the
Department of Justice, an annual conference to forecast S&T Directorate
opportunities and major program direction to the industrial community,
an intense 6 week effort each year involving the identification of
responders' needs for rapid prototypes, and face-to-face contact with
customers while working on current R&D projects.
Question. What types of detection equipment are most difficult to
develop, and how is the industry responding to the demands of the
requirements? For example, the drug/vaccine industry indicates that
decades of research are required before a drug/vaccine becomes
available in the market. Is that same time and financial investment
required by other industries?
Answer. In general, any development program that deals directly
with human health can take years of research, development, testing and
evaluation prior to becoming available to the market because of
extensive safety regulations. Instrumentation, including detectors for
biological, chemical, and explosive threats, also has a difficult
development schedule. Initial systems can be developed and deployed
within the next few years, but it may take upwards of a decade to
develop and deploy cost effective instruments with all the desired
capabilities. The main reason is the requirement to achieve a high
probability of detection and a extremely low probability of false
alarms in instruments that are of sufficiently low cost that they can
be widely deployed and used for continuous monitoring. This will
require development of completely novel technologies or complex
engineering projects.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE AND STANDARDS
Question. Given that Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate's
2004 guidelines and standards for biological countermeasures have been
in place for a year, please give us an assessment of the effectiveness
and relevance to the standards issued by the S&T Directorate regarding
biothreat agents? How has industry responded to them?
Answer. The S&T Directorate has a role and responsibility to ensure
the effectiveness of biological countermeasures tools developed for and
used by the homeland security community. By setting consistent and
verifiable measures of effectiveness for basic functionality, minimum
performance, interoperability, efficiency, sustainability, and
appropriateness and adequacy for the task, standards improve the
quality of homeland security systems and technologies. The S&T
Directorate's Standards Program strives to enable the homeland security
community to make informed equipment purchases by establishing minimum
performance standards which can be linked to Federal grants programs so
that equipment purchases comply with these minimum performance
standards.
In 2004, the primary focus for Standards for Biological
countermeasures revolved around developing minimum performance criteria
for biological screening devices (specifically lateral flow
immunoassays) used by first responders. In fiscal year 2004 and early
fiscal year 2005, an interagency task force was formed to address the
effectiveness and use of lateral flow immunoassays for the detection of
Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) by emergency responders. The task force
agreed upon and published accepted performance criteria associated with
the hand held assays (HHAs). The HHAs were tested and evaluated against
the accepted criteria and those results were also published. An effort
was also initiated with the Center for Domestic Preparedness to develop
a standard Bio-Protocol for first responders to use to guide their
response to a suspicious powder incident.
The relevance and effectiveness of this important effort to develop
and implement standards for biological field screening devices are
clear. In the past these devices were procured in great numbers and
often used incorrectly in the field by first responders to assess the
biological threat associated with suspicious powders. Numerous false
alarms were raised based on the results of these devices. Before these
devices can be used in the field, first responders must understand
their limitations, have a clear concept of how they are to be used, and
be trained to use them properly. The S&T Directorate's effort to
develop standards for the detection of anthrax using HHAs has given the
homeland security community access to reliable information on how these
devices perform and which devices met the performance standards. These
standards are just a first step in ensuring confidence in the Nation's
response to biological threats. There are numerous other types of
biological countermeasures technologies to be evaluated against the
range of biological agents. In addition, standard sampling protocols
and standardized training must be developed and implemented.
Industry was heavily involved from the onset with the process of
developing these standards. Manufacturers voluntarily attended the
interagency task force meetings, provided technical feedback on the
study design and testing protocols, and provided instruments for
testing. The entire standards development process relied upon working
in an open atmosphere and gaining consensus of the majority of the
stakeholders. Results of the testing were supplied to the manufacturers
in a clear and timely manner. Unfortunately not all of the devices met
the published acceptance criteria and hence some manufacturers were
disappointed with the outcome. However, most manufacturers have
indicated a desire to improve their devices and enter into a second
round of testing.
Question. How does S&T respond to the Department's Office of State
and Local Government Coordination finding that its existing standards
are inadequate?
Answer. The S&T Directorate acknowledges that the existing
biological countermeasures standards only address the performance of
one type of detection equipment to one type of biological agent. The
S&T Directorate's Standards Program is building a long-term plan and
process for the development of standards to ensure the effectiveness
and performance of all critical biological countermeasures technologies
for a number of biological agents. However, the standards development
process relies on consensus building, an activity that is often time-
consuming and costly. Therefore, standards development activities have
focused to date on urgent, high priority areas. In order to validate
the entire spectrum of biological countermeasures products and
technologies, requirements for each of the technologies must be defined
and consensus between the agencies on those requirements must be
obtained. Additionally, standards need to be fully developed that are
tested and evaluated for the various biological technologies, methods
and processes. Also needed is the development of integrated policies
and procedures based on conformance to the standards, and institute
standardized training. All of these tasks are necessary and important
and shall be incorporated in a long-term plan, but their accomplishment
requires the necessary resources and cooperation of all of the key
stakeholders. In addition, the Standards Program must assess and
balance the need for standards in all homeland security areas based on
the available resources. In the near future, (fiscal year 2005 and
fiscal year 2006) the standards portfolio will address the need for
standards for biological sampling activities and additional biological
screening devices.
Question. Have any revisions or refinements been made to those
standards?
Answer. The standards development process consists of a number of
well-defined steps including periodic review and revision of standards
when necessary. Revisions or refinements have not currently been made
to the published acceptance criteria for the performance of hand held
immunoassays for the detection of anthrax. DHS intends to initiate a
second round of testing of new and improved devices and will hold a
meeting of the interagency task force to determine whether revisions
are needed and incorporate lessons learned before the new round of
testing is initiated. As always, voluntary consensus standards
development is an open process, and interested stakeholders will have a
means of providing comments and feedback on any necessary revisions or
refinements.
Question. What process is used to update the biothreat standards?
Answer. Because DHS is not a regulatory agency, the process of
updating standards will follow the voluntary standards development
organization's guidelines. In the case of the hand held immunoassays,
the Association of Analytical Chemists International (AOACI) was the
standards development organization. Hence, the AOAC process to update
the standards will be followed.
Question. Have end-users and industry found the biothreat standards
useful in the development and use of new equipment? Can you give us an
example?
Answer. End-users are now able to obtain reliable information on
the performance of various manufacturers' hand held immunoassays before
procurement. That information enables end-users to make knowledgeable
decisions on whether to use these devices and if so which ones are most
reliable. In addition, many of the manufacturers have indicated that
they have already made adjustments to their technologies and are eager
to submit the new and improved technologies for a second round of
testing.
SAFETY ACT
Question. How much of the SAFETY Act has been implemented by the
Department? Is it being implemented by industry, issue, or on an ad hoc
basis?
Answer. The Department has placed significant emphasis on the full
implementation of the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective
Technologies Act (SAFETY Act) and has accomplished much in an extremely
short time period. In less than 15 months, the Department has
established an Office of SAFETY Act Implementation (OSAI), which is
responsible for administration of the program. The Department has
developed, published, and implemented a proposed rule (July 11, 2003)
and an interim rule (October 16, 2003) governing the implementation of
the SAFETY Act. In addition, the Department is in the process of
developing revisions to the current implementing regulations to address
public comments and operational experience.
More than 450 experienced technical and economic reviewers have
been vetted and are available to evaluate SAFETY Act applications in
accordance with the statutory criteria. OSAI has designed a reviewer
training program specific to SAFETY Act requirements that each reviewer
is required to attend.
The Department initially developed a SAFETY Act application kit for
use by interested parties and has since revised the kit. The revised
application kit reflects substantial feedback from applicants and
industry as well as our operational experience, and we expect it to
provide applicants with better guidance and tools for a successful
application. On December 13, 2004, a Paperwork Reduction Act notice for
the revised version of the new kit was published in the Federal
Register. Further, a web-based, interactive application process has
been instituted that allows sellers to submit applications
electronically, obtain automatic feedback on the status of an
application, submit questions to a help desk to obtain assistance with
navigating the application process, and provide access to resource
documents and frequently asked questions.
Significant elements of the Department's SAFETY Act implementation
include:
--Website.--The SAFETY Act website (www.safetyact.gov) contains the
electronic application kit, reference materials, Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQs), and specific instructions for
applications submitted in connection with a procurement.
--Help Desk.--OSAI established a help desk that can be accessed by
way of on-line forms, an e-mail address
(helpdesk@safetyact.gov), or a toll free phone (1-866-788-
9318). The Department has received much praise for the help
desk. Applicants not only receive timely responses, but they
can actually speak with a staff member.
--Outreach.--Throughout the past year, OSAI has made presentations at
numerous SAFETY Act-relevant conferences, held meetings with
applicants, and established internal procedures to ensure that
each applicant has the opportunity to discuss an application
with relevant staff early in the review process.
--Pre-Applications.--OSAI implemented a pre-application process
designed to provide applicants with a quick assessment of the
likelihood of its technology being approved for Designation or
Certification if a full application is filed. These pre-
applications are processed within the 21 days advertised and,
in addition to a written assessment, each applicant is given
the opportunity for a personal debriefing on its pre-
application. Early processing delays have been eliminated--
essentially all of the approximately 120 pre-applications filed
since March 1, 2004, have been completed on time.
--Application Kit.--The initial application kit was designed with the
expectation that changes would be required as operational
experience was obtained. During the past year, OSAI has sought
input from applicants, industry, and government on areas
appropriate for revision. Utilizing this input and its own
operational experience, OSAI prepared a revised Application kit
in concert with the proposed revision to the interim rule. The
Paperwork Reduction Act notice for the final version of the new
kit was published in the Federal Register on December 13, 2004,
and the Department anticipates early adoption of the new kit.
The SAFETY Act requires the Department to evaluate technologies on
an application by application basis; however, the Department has
undertaken a significant effort to coordinate the SAFETY Act
application process with major anti-terrorism procurements where
multiple Sellers will be providing the same technology to ease the
burden on applicants and speed the evaluation process.
To date, the Department has received more than 200 pre-applications
and 94 full applications. As of June 18, 2004, twenty Designations and
Certifications have been granted and five applicants have received
Designation only.
Question. How is the SAFETY Act being applied to Project BioShield
products?
Answer. The Department is not aware of any application submitted in
connection with the BioShield program. Any provider of an anti-
terrorism technology may apply for the protections afforded by the
SAFETY Act and it is reasonable to anticipate that participants in the
BioShield program will apply for SAFETY Act protections as their
technologies mature.
Question. Is the Department going to apply the SAFETY Act to the
pharmaceutical industry when it comes to the development of biological
countermeasures?
Answer. A very wide range of technologies may potentially qualify
for protection under the SAFETY Act. The Act explicitly applies to any
qualifying product, equipment, service (including support services),
device, or technology (including information technology) that is
designed, developed, modified, or procured for the specific purpose of
detecting, identifying, preventing, or deterring acts of terrorism, or
limiting the harm that such acts might otherwise cause. This broad
definition of ``technology'' encompasses tangible products, software,
services, various forms of intellectual property, and anything else
that can be sold that has a specific anti-terrorism application. This
definition of technology would encompass pharmaceutical products and
their related delivery technologies when used for anti-terrorism
purposes.
Question. How is S&T working with the drug and vaccine industry to
determine which products should be considered for SAFETY Act
protection?
Answer. The Office of Safety Act Implementation (OSAI) has a robust
outreach program. Members of OSAI staff frequently provide informative
presentations on the SAFETY Act at a variety of trade shows and
industry meetings and often have a presence in the vendor areas where
additional informative material on the application process and the
benefits of protection under the SAFETY Act are available. OSAI staff
members also provide informal guidance on an individual basis at these
same events. In addition, OSAI will host another round of nationwide
SAFETY Act seminars to introduce prospective applicants to the program
including the benefits of SAFETY Act protections, the new application
kit, and the revised interim rule.
The Department does not pre-determine if a particular technology is
an anti-terrorism technology within the context of the SAFETY Act. Each
applicant describes its specific anti-terrorism technology in its
application and explains why it believes the technology or its proposed
use of the technology meets the statutory criteria. OSAI does provide
personalized guidance to applicants on a variety of issues at a number
of points throughout the application process. Most often, the anti-
terrorism application of the technology is reviewed, analyzed, and
discussed with the applicant during the pre-application process,
telephone discussions following receipt of the formal response to the
pre-application, and through telephone conversations at the end of the
completeness review before formal evaluation is commenced.
While we are not able to assess directly the extent to which this
information has penetrated the pharmaceutical community, the fact that
we have received some applications relating to vaccines indicates that
some measure of penetration has been achieved.
Question. Is the SAFETY Act perhaps too limited with respect to
certain areas? Is the Department reviewing the Act's authorities and
issuing regulations or other administrative means to best utilize the
Act?
Answer. The Department is committed to the primary goal of the
SAFETY Act--to ensure that the threat of liability does not deter
potential manufacturers or sellers of critical anti-terrorism
technologies from developing and commercializing technologies that
could save lives. The SAFETY Act review process is not intended to
guarantee that anyone will be able to purchase ``the very best''
product or services. It is designed, as required by the statute, to
help individual effective technologies overcome market barriers on an
application-by-application basis. Throughout its implementation of this
program, the Department has engaged applicants, industry, and the
public to solicit feedback to enhance the process. Many concerns raised
by interested parties have already been addressed and the Department
will continue to encourage input to improve the program. The Department
is committed to fulfilling the intent of Congress as set forth in the
language of the SAFETY Act and will continue to improve upon efforts
working towards successful implementation of this important
legislation.
Among the efforts being undertaken by the Department to improve its
implementation of the SAFETY Act are revisions to the application kit
and the interim rule. The initial application kit was designed with the
expectation that changes would be required as operational experience
was obtained. During the past year, Office of Safety Act Implementation
(OSAI) has sought input from applicants, industry, and government on
areas appropriate for revision. Using this input and its own
operational experience, OSAI prepared a revised application kit in
concert with the proposed revision to the interim rule. The Paperwork
Reduction Act notice for the final version of the new kit was published
in the Federal Register on December 13, 2004. In addition, the
Department is in the process of developing revisions to the current
regulation. The revised regulations will address public comments and
address other areas with a view to facilitating greater participation
in the SAFETY Act program.
RAPID PROTOTYPING
Question. How does the rapid prototyping function within S&T assist
in the Department's effort to combat bioterrorism?
Answer. The S&T Directorate's Rapid Prototyping Portfolio assists
in the effort to combat bioterrorism by reducing the time needed to
develop and commercialize relevant technologies that can meet needs on
an interim basis while technologies that meet long-range needs are in
development. The S&T Directorate's first rapid prototyping effort
(conducted with the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) in fiscal
year 2003) produced thirteen separate efforts related to combating
bioterrorism. When developed and completed, these efforts will provide
such capabilities as: better methods to characterize biological
backgrounds in facilities; methods for large-scale restoration of
biologically contaminated urban areas; a low-cost, personal bio-
decontamination system; a biological aerosol threat warning detector;
direct detection assays for botulinum toxin; and improvements in
biological detection systems.
The S&T Directorate's Rapid Technology Application Program (RTAP)
has worked intensively with the DHS internal customers and field agents
to identify their most urgent needs for countering bio threats. These
needs will be published to the private sector in early summer 2005 with
the goal of delivering the prototypes to those customers within 18
months of contract award.
Question. Do bioterrorism-related technologies lend themselves well
to rapid prototyping?
Answer. All technologies, including technologies for bioterrorism
countermeasures lend themselves well to rapid prototyping. Technologies
needed to combat bio-terrorism range from near-term prototypes to
extremely difficult long-term projects. Based on the expressed
expectations of DHS customers, tactical concerns in the field dominate.
They need technical capabilities to determine if a suspicious substance
is a bio-agent or powdered sugar, other capabilities to tell them if an
entire area is contaminated or not, and a fast, reliable method of
definitive bio-agent identification. Technically effective isolation or
containment of suspected bio-contaminants and improved protection of
field personnel from bio hazards are cited often as developments needed
in the short term.
In other areas, such as bioinformatics, forensics, bioassays for
novel or engineered bio-agents, rapid prototyping must give way to
careful, painstaking, long-term development.
Question. How do you determine which items are chosen for the rapid
prototyping program?
Answer. The Rapid Technology Application Program annually conducts
a series of meetings with DHS internal customers and field agents, and
State and local responders to identify their highest priority needs for
rapid prototyping developments. These customers identify and prioritize
their needs in any technical area. Within the constraints of technical
feasibility, development time (no longer than 18 months), and available
resources, their top priority rapid prototyping needs will be
developed.
Question. Has the rapid prototyping effort incentivized both the
scientific community and entrepreneurs to develop products?
Answer. Industry has been avidly interested in the S&T
Directorate's solicitations. For example, the S&T Directorate's first
rapid prototyping effort (with TSWG in fiscal year 2003) was valued at
$60 million over 2 years and resulted in 94 contract awards for
research and development work now underway. When developed and
completed, these efforts will provide such capabilities as: better
methods to characterize biological backgrounds in facilities, methods
for large-scale restoration of biologically contaminated urban areas, a
low-cost, personal bio-decontamination system, a biological aerosol
threat warning detector, direct detection assays for botulinum toxin,
and improvements in biological detection systems. There were more than
3,000 initial submissions for that solicitation. The DHS Rapid
Technology Application Program, currently valued at $35 million is
scheduled to release its first public, competitive, rapid prototyping
solicitation in early Summer 2005 and a proportional strong response is
expected.
Question. What is the most difficult hurdle when it comes to rapid
prototyping?
Answer. The most difficult part of the rapid prototyping process is
deriving meaningful customer requirements that are feasible,
affordable, and have a high potential for actual deployment upon
completion of development.
Question. Do antidote and vaccine development fall under the rapid
prototyping effort or is that entirely under HHS' jurisdiction?
Answer. Section 302(4) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 assigns
to the Under Secretary for Science and Technology the responsibility
for, . . . conducting basic and applied research, development,
demonstration and testing, and evaluation activities that are relevant
to any or all elements of the Department, through both intramural and
extramural programs, except that such responsibility does not extend to
human-health related research and development activities:'' [emphasis
added]. Section 304 (a) assigns this responsibility to the Secretary of
Health and Human Services.
Question. Are different tools combined and cross-pollinated to
accelerate research and development when rapid prototyping to address
bioterrorism?
Answer. Yes. The S&T Directorate's Rapid Prototyping development
period is nominally between 6 and 18 months from contract award. In all
but a very few cases this implies that most rapid prototypes will not
involve basic research, but will heavily involve development. These
developments take forms such as modifications of existing equipment for
new purposes, increases in effectiveness derived from new algorithms or
software, changes in configuration to be smaller, lighter weight, or
redesign for decreased power consumption for example. Many of these
rapid prototyping developments use ``tools'' developed for other
purposes. Personal Data Assistants can be modified for identification
of, and use by emergency responders. Personnel protective equipment can
be redesigned to be less bulky, more effective against an array of
hazards and more user-friendly. Wireless communications technology, for
example, has many uses in bio countermeasures and it can be licensed
off-the-shelf for many applications.
Question. How are the legal ramifications to rapid prototyping
being addressed when S&T is dealing with items which do not have
patents filed? Under this scenario, who owns the intellectual property
when the product is changed as it moves through the rapid prototyping
process?
Answer. In all but a very few cases most rapid prototypes will be
heavily focused on late stage development. These developments take
forms such as modifications of existing equipment for new purposes,
increases in effectiveness derived from new algorithms or software,
changes in configuration to be smaller, lighter weight, or have
decreased power consumption, for example. The S&T Directorate will use
procurement contracts (or Other Transactions for Prototypes) for rapid
prototyping developments. Both kinds of vehicles are legally binding
and require negotiation of many aspects of the development. Generally
the developer retains title in any invention or data developed with the
Government receiving a license. When appropriate, the Government will
require licenses for Federal, State, tribal, and local government use.
Specific intellectual property treatment, ownership, licensing, usage
and royalties are always addressed in these detailed negotiations and
contractually secured on terms agreeable to the developer and the
Government, subject to all applicable laws and regulations.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Pete V. Domenici
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DETECTION PROGRAM
Question. In 2003, the Department of Energy transferred to the
Department of Homeland Security a highly successfully Chemical and
Biological Detection program, including $78 million in annual funding.
This was a capability supported in conjunction with the nuclear
detection capabilities at our national laboratories.
How much progress has DHS made in implementing this capability and
how much is budgeted for these activities?
Answer. The Department of Energy's Chemical and Biological National
Security Program (CBNP) was a highly successful R&D program that served
as the foundation of the S&T Directorate's Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures Portfolio, which was eventually split into biological
and chemical components. The program was continued, augmented, and
expanded to cover a range of biological and chemical countermeasures
R&D targeted at homeland security applications. Efforts initiated in
the CBNP that have come to fruition include the Biological Aerosol
Sentry and Information System (BASIS), a deployable capability for
biological threat agent detection that is now part of the S&T
Directorate's special event monitoring and National Security Special
Events (NSSEs), and served as the foundation for the BioWatch program
that was deployed to over 30 U.S. cities. The Program for Response
Options and Technology Enhancement for Chemical Terrorism (PROTECT)
currently is operational and owned and operated by the Washington
Metropolitan Area Transit Administration and the associated program in
the San Francisco International Airport has provided guidance on
airport protection. A restoration demonstration effort is underway
there and will be completed this year. PROTECT served as a basis for
the operational NSSE chemical protection efforts in New York City and
Boston in fiscal year 2004.
Another key CBNP chemical defense program is the MicroChem lab, an
effort to develop a next-generation hand-held chemical detector with
capability to detect a broader set of chemical hazards than currently
available sensors and with fewer false positive responses. Under DHS
funding in fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004, the effort has now
completed development through prototype phase and will be evaluated
against other developing sensors under the S&T Directorate's Chemical
Detection program test/evaluation phase. There is no current active
funding for this project as it has already accomplished the target
prototype needed for evaluation. After fair test and evaluation among
all candidates, successful technologies will be selected for further
support toward final engineering. The Local Integration of NARAC
(National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center) with Cities (LINC)
program will continue to operate in its current configuration in five
U.S. cities through this fiscal year and will be subsumed into the
Biological Warning and Incident Characterization System once it is
mature. R&D efforts that transitioned with the program in March 2003
have been continued through this year and new ones, such as the foreign
animal disease R&D efforts and NBACC-related activities have been
initiated. In fiscal year 2004, Biological Countermeasures was funded
at $286.5 million and in fiscal year 2005, $362.6 million.
Question. Under the DHS Chem-Bio Detection program many research
and development contracts have been made through industry instead of
the national labs. The laboratory program supported a long term
capability, but has also been successful in commercializing handheld
detection units.
How is DHS allocating funding between industry, universities and
national laboratories?
Answer. The S&T Directorate collaborates with academia through the
Centers of Excellence program and its associated Integrated Network of
Centers, which is establishing a national network of affiliated
universities. Additionally, the S&T Directorate has a sizeable number
of interactions and programs with individual universities on specific
research topics and needs.
The S&T Directorate solicits proposals from industry and uses a
full range of contracting vehicles and its authority under the Homeland
Security Act to engage businesses (large and small), federally funded
research and development centers, universities, and other entities in
development of advanced technologies for homeland security. The
contracted research and development work now underway is the S&T
Directorate's main form of collaboration with industry and academia.
The S&T Directorate maximizes and leverages the existing capability
base of the national laboratory complex. The Directorate engages all
the national laboratories on a case-by-case basis, to tap into unique
technical expertise that is critical to accomplishing portfolio
objectives and goals. The Directorate also relies on national
laboratory technical experts as needed throughout the RDT&E processes
based on their years of experience applying technologies and processes
to field applications. This technical and practical expertise is used
to accelerate spiral development of technologies for transitioning
capabilities to operational end-users.
The S&T Directorate's CounterMeasures Test Beds (CMTB) program
operates in close partnership with a number of Federal and national
laboratories to execute its mission of testing and evaluating all
threat countermeasures and systems. The following national laboratories
participate in all CMTB Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E)
efforts and enable deployments in response to heightened alert
conditions as necessary. Multi-laboratory teams are encouraged to
ensure objectivity and a healthy interchange of ideas.
The Office of Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC) is currently
leveraging the resources of Eastern Kentucky University in developing
effective test methodologies for equipment and to provide technical
assistance to states and localities under the SAFECOM Program. At the
same time, OIC has enlisted a consortium of well over one hundred
universities and colleges to support the annual conference on
Technologies for Public Safety in Critical Incident Response, jointly
sponsored by DHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Industry associations participate in SAFECOM Program activities,
especially in standards development efforts. OIC has established a
monthly vendor process which allows for constant communication and
collaboration with our industry partners. Additionally, OIC/SAFECOM
will be conducting an industry summit in late fall to allow for ever
greater collaboration.
Question. Is this allocation sufficient to support long term
research and development necessary to develop the next generation
technology?
Answer. The S&T Directorate's strategic planning process uses a
risk-based approach (including threats, vulnerabilities, and
consequences) that identifies critical areas of need for RDT&E. The
potential impact of RDT&E investments is evaluated and those efforts,
both short- and long-term, that will have the greatest impact on
reducing risk are pursued.
In the 2 years that this Department has been in existence, the S&T
Directorate has focused its efforts on near-term development and
deployment of technologies to improve our Nation's ability to detect
and respond to potential terrorist acts. However, we recognize that a
sustained effort to continually add to our knowledge base and our
resource base is necessary for future developments. Thus, we have
invested a portion of our resources, including our university programs,
toward these objectives.
The S&T Directorate believes the distribution of funding between
industry, universities, and national laboratories supports both long-
term capabilities development as well as meeting near-term requirements
for end-users. The current funding distribution may change based on
national requirements and needs. We recognize the value of longer-term
capability development to ensure that the Nation has the necessary
knowledge for application development.
Question. Can you please provide me list of the grants the
Department has made in allocating the Chem-Bio diction funding for this
the past year?
Answer. The fiscal year 2004 grants that DHS has made in the area
of chemical and biological detection and related areas are listed
below:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performer Topic
------------------------------------------------------------------------
U of Pitt................................. Surveillance--RODS Decision
Enhancements for The
BioWatch System
Johns Hopkins............................. Surveillance--ESSENCE
Implementation of ESSENCE
Biosurveillance Systems
Arizona University........................ High Resolution DNA
Signatures for biothreat
Multiple \1\.............................. ECBC--Technical Advisory
Group to HSARPA on
Bioaerosol sensor testing
and evaluation.
Multiple.................................. Bioinformatics and Assay
Development Program
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies...... Bio-Alert
MIT/Lincoln Lab........................... Architecture Studies
Johns Hopkins University/APL.............. Real-Time Neutralization of
Biological Weapons in
Stadiums or Arenas
SAIC and Battelle......................... Demonstration & Verification
of Chlorine Dioxide
Decontamination Tech. in
Large-Scale Test
National Center for Atmospheric Research.. Urban Studies-Atmospheric
Transport & Dispersion
Calculations
MIT/Lincoln Laboratory.................... Water System Vulnerability
Studies for Homeland
Defense
Edgewood Chemical and Biological Command.. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
MIT/Lincoln Laboratory.................... High-Collection-Efficiency
Bio-aerosol Sampling
General Dynamics/CBRTA.................... DFU Filter Replacement Study
NYC DOHMH................................. Integration of Clinical
Testing to Complement
BioWatch and Disease
Surveillance in NYC
Army Research Laboratory.................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Naval Research Laboratory................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Battelle Laboratory....................... Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Ionian Corp............................... Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Johns Hopkins University/APL.............. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Research Triangle Institute............... Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Multiple.................................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Agilent Corp.............................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Smiths Detection/Pasadena................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
JHU/APL................................... Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Smiths Detection/Watford.................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Goodrich Corp............................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Sarnoff Corp.............................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
DOE National Laboratories................. Enhanced Bioaerosol
Detection System
Lawrence Livermore & Sandia Natl Bio-briefcase
Laboratories.
Pacific Northwest Natl Lab................ Botulinum detection system
Institute for Defense Analysis............ IDA Chemical Hazard Analysis
Edgewood Chemical and Biological Command.. Evaluation of Fielded
Decontaminants Against Non-
Traditional Agents
Institute for Defense Analysis............ Infrastructure Sensitivity
to Chemical Hazards
MITRE Corp................................ A JASON Study of Selected
Topics for the Department
of Homeland Security
Naval Research Laboratory................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures use of
CASPAR
Naval Research Laboratory................. Autonomous Rapid Facility
Chemical Agent Monitor
National Institute for Standards Solid State MEMs Microsensor
Technology. Arrays to Detect Dangerous
Chemicals
Goodrich Corp............................. TeraSpec
Sarnoff Corp.............................. TeraSpec
Multiple.................................. Detection Systems for
Biological and Chemical
Countermeasures
Monterey Institute........................ Survey/Evaluation of CBW
Detectors
Multiple.................................. Low Vapor Pressure Chemical
Detectors
Los Alamos National Lab................... Study of Receptor
Development for Certain
Chemical Threat Agents
Multiple.................................. Novel Personnel Protection
Equipment, BAA 04-13
Multiple.................................. Bioinformatics and Assay
Development Program
Lawrence Livernore Lab.................... Bioassays for Detection and
Forensics
Los Alamos Nat'l Lab...................... Bioassays for Detection and
Forensics
Sandia National Labs...................... Bioforensics
National Academy of Sciences.............. Assessing Vulnerabilities
Related to the Nations
Chemical Infrastructure
Scientific Applications International Corp IBIS TIGER Biosensors
Space and Naval Warfare Command........... Border Net (Chem/Bio Agent
Support)
Naval Sea Systems Command................. Chem/Bio Agent Support
Lawrence Livermore & other DOE Labs....... High Throughput Diagnostics
for Agricultural
Applications
Palo Alto Sensor Technology Innovation.... New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Seacoast Science, Inc..................... New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc.......... New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Synkera Technologies Inc.................. New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Cape Cod Research, Inc.................... New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
CogniScent, Inc........................... New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Technispan LLC............................ New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Nanomat, Inc.............................. New System/Technologies to
Detect Low Vapor Pressure
Chemicals (e.g., TICs)
Weld Star Technology, Inc................. Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
SomaLogic, Inc............................ Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
Orthosystems, Inc......................... Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
Nomadics, Inc............................. Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
Peterson Ridge LLC (dba Fluence).......... Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
BioElectroSpec............................ Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
Echo Technical............................ Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
Operational Technologies Corporation...... Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
Accacia International LLC................. Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
BioTraces, Inc............................ Chem-Bio Sensors Employing
Novel Receptor Scaffolds
CFD Research Corporation.................. Advanced Low Cost Aerosol
Collectors for Surveillance
Sensors and Personal
Monitoring
Digital Flow Technologies, Inc............ Advanced Low Cost Aerosol
Collectors for Surveillance
Sensors and Personal
Monitoring
MesoSystems Technology Inc................ Advanced Low Cost Aerosol
Collectors for Surveillance
Sensors and Personal
Monitoring
Research International, Inc............... Advanced Low Cost Aerosol
Collectors for Surveillance
Sensors and Personal
Monitoring
InnovaTek, Inc............................ Advanced Low Cost Aerosol
Collectors for Surveillance
Sensors and Personal
Monitoring
Enertechnix, Inc.......................... Advanced Low Cost Aerosol
Collectors for Surveillance
Sensors and Personal
Monitoring
Isotron Corporation....................... Wide-Area TIC Neutralization
Gumbs Associates, Inc..................... Wide-Area TIC Neutralization
Synergistic Advanced Technologies LLC..... Wide-Area TIC Neutralization
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Multiple indicates contract awards to more than one recipient in a
category from the funding provided for this solicitation. In most
cases, there remain companies in negotiation for award.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Robert C. Byrd
CHEMICAL DETECTORS
Question. In your oral testimony, you indicated that there are
funds in the budget to deploy chemical sensors, yet the S&T budget
document refers to ``critical design review'' of technologies, but
nothing about deployment of sensors across the country. Based on your
hearing comments, please provide specifics on the Department's
capabilities and deployment schedule for chemical monitoring.
Answer. The interface to which this question refers was a short
discussion on the issue of PROTECT, a networked chemical detection
system for enhanced response against chemical attacks on facilities,
particularly transit systems. This system has been demonstrated in and
transitioned to three subway systems (DC, Boston, and NYC). With
successful demonstration, the program has transitioned away from DHS
S&T Directorate and is available for installation in other transit
systems via the fiscal year 2005 Transit Security Grants Program
administered by the DHS Office of State and Local Government
Coordination and Preparedness (SLGCP) Office for Domestic Preparedness.
The reference to ``funds in the budget'' to support deployment was a
reference to funds in the Department's budget versus the S&T
Directorate budget. The fiscal year 2005 Transit Security Grant Program
includes $108 million for rail transit security, targeted to specific
urban areas for the prevention and detection of explosive devices and
chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear agents. Expenditures to
acquire the PROTECT system are permissible under this program. The
Science and Technology Directorate is assisting SLGCP with technical
data package development and is prepared to offer technical assistance
in the deployment of the system through this program.
BIOWATCH DETECTION
Question. Your budget proposes over $100 million for bio-aerosol
detection systems, better known as the ``BioWatch'' program. These
sensors are located in over 30 major cities across the country.
Samples are taken manually 1 or 2 times daily and then tested at a
lab to determine if a biological attack has occurred. If an attack
really occurs, hundreds or thousands of people could be harmed before
the lab results come in. What investments are you making to close the
gap between the release of a biological agent and the time it takes to
detect it?
Answer. We have a major program to develop the next generation of
biodetection systems which we call Biological Autonomous Networked
Detection (BAND). These systems will collect and analyze the sample on
site, reporting out as often as every four hours, and will wirelessly
transmit the data from any positives to the nearest Laboratory Response
Network for confirmation and to initiate sample retrieval. The BAND
system will simultaneously perform analyses for twenty or more agents,
significantly more than the current BioWatch system, with sensitivities
and false alarm rates equal to or better than the current BioWatch
system. Because the sample collection and analyses is fully automated
and done on site, the operational costs per ``detection site'' will be
about one-fifth that of the current system or less. This greatly lower
operational cost and the fully autonomous nature of the system will
enable expansion of biological protection within existing BioWatch
cities as well as to those cities and venues where it was previously
not practical. We are currently on schedule for demonstrating a
laboratory prototype of the BAND system in fiscal year 2006, developing
engineering prototypes in fiscal year 2007, piloting them in a BioWatch
city or cities in fiscal year 2008 and deploying them throughout the
existing BioWatch cities in fiscal year 2009/fiscal year 2010.
Question. My understanding is that certain prototypes are being
tested, but they won't be deployable until 2009. Is this a matter of
resources? What is needed to accelerate deployment of this system?
Answer. Your understanding is correct, as per the discussion
previously, we are not scheduled to begin deployment of the BAND System
to BioWatch cities until fiscal year 2009. This is in part technology
limited and in part resource limited. If the available R&D funding for
this system was increased from its projected fiscal year 2006-fiscal
year 2007 levels of about $25 million per year to $60 million per year,
we would be able to significantly reduce the technical risk in
developing the system and speed its deployment by 6 to 12 months. This
would be accomplished by pursuing more technology options more
aggressively. The competition engendered by being able to carry two or
three systems all the way through development would further assist in
meeting the challenging technical performance and cost goals. In
addition, manufacturing of these detection systems to enable wide scale
deployment would benefit from creating a guaranteed market for 1,000-
2,000 of these advanced detection systems, at a total estimated cost of
$50-100 million. A significant portion of this additional required
funding would need to be available in fiscal year 2007 so as to enable
deployment to start in fiscal year 2008.
BIOWATCH RESPONSE
Question. The budget notes as an accomplishment that the
``BioWatch'' detection systems, which are deployed in over 30 major
U.S. cities, conducted over a million assays with no false alarms.
While that is certainly an indication that the system works, an
official with the National Association of County and City Health
Officials recently complained that not enough focus has been placed on
what happens if the ``alarm bell'' rings.
If an incident of national significance is detected, are State and
local governments prepared to respond?
Answer. The S&T Directorate, in collaboration with CDC, EPA, and
DoJ, has prepared BioWatch Preparedness and Response Guidance (interim
draft guidance) and distributed it to the BioWatch cities. This draft
guidance is intended to assist the cities in their development of an
incident characterization plan following a positive BioWatch signal.
While some cities have developed a comprehensive plan, other cities'
plans are under development. The S&T Directorate continues to offer
assistance to each city and currently has an effort underway to address
the concerns of the local public health epidemiology community.
Question. What management practices are in place at the Federal
level to ensure that State and local governments are prepared to
respond to an incident of national significance? I would like to hear
both Assistant Secretary Albright and Assistant Secretary Simonson
respond to the question.
Answer. Contingency planning with State and local governments is an
important and ongoing process. A key component of the National Incident
Management System (NIMS) compliance for State and local jurisdictions
is the requirement for updating and revising emergency operations
plans. With the release of the National Response Plan (NRP), State and
local jurisdictions are encouraged to align their plans with the NRP.
State, local, and tribal organizations must adopt NIMS by fiscal year
2007 as a condition of receiving Federal preparedness assistance. State
and local governments can use DHS grant funds to implement the NIMS.
The NRP and the NIMS provide the template, policies, and protocols
for integrating all jurisdictions and the private sector as key
components of the Nation's response to domestic incidents. The NRP and
the NIMS are built on the principle that most incidents start, end, and
are managed at the local level. The NIMS stresses the concepts of
mutual aid, communications, resource typing, and preparedness, in
addition to the command and control elements, including the Incident
Command System and Multi-agency Coordination. The NRP details how those
varying levels of responsibility work together during Incidents of
National Significance (a new concept developed in the NRP to cover
every significant incident), which require the Department of Homeland
Security to take on the overall coordination role for Federal
involvement in domestic incident management. The NRP provides the
multi-agency coordination structures to support incident commanders and
local entities at the scene. It also provides coordination structures
for integrating with the private sector. One of the key concepts of the
NRP is that preventing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering
from Incidents of National Significance require the collective
capabilities of all involved jurisdictions.
DOMESTIC NUCLEAR DETECTION OFFICE (DNDO)
Question. The DHS budget proposes $227 million for a new office
called the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). I share the
Department's concerns that this threat warrants a coordinated effort at
the Federal level to address it. However, the criticism following 9/11
that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was
that there were too many stovepiped agencies across the Federal
Government dealing with homeland security that didn't know what the
other was doing.
In your opinion, is enough being done by the Secretary's office to
ensure that the DNDO will not become a stovepiped organization?
Answer. One of the principal motivators in the formation of the
DNDO was to remove this type of stovepiping within the Department, and
across the Federal Government, with regards to the prevention of
nuclear terrorist attack. DNDO is charged with integrating and
coordinating all planning and implementation efforts across the other
Federal departments and agencies, and within DHS, to ensure that
individual efforts are effectively and efficiently contributing to a
global strategy to defend against the terrorist use of a nuclear weapon
on our Nation.
The DNDO serves as a unique entity within the Department to
consolidate all nuclear-detection related activities, allowing for the
development of an integrated office that will be responsible not only
for research and development, but also for developing a global nuclear
detection architecture and developing and implementing a domestic
detection system, to include acquisition programs for detection assets
and operational support functions. This integration, as well as
coordination with nuclear detection programs in other departments, will
allow for the development of a single global nuclear detection
architecture to protect the Nation from attempts to import or transport
a nuclear device or fissile or radiological material intended for
illicit use.
Question. For instance, the proposal for DNDO calls for its own
office of assessments and evaluations. It has its own policy planning
office. It has an R&D office as well as a systems development and
acquisitions office. These are also functions currently performed by
the Science and Technology Directorate and the Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) Office.
Is the Secretary proposing to set up a separate intelligence unit
and a separate R&D arm just for this office? How does this affect
ongoing efforts within the Science & Technology Directorate?
Answer. With regards to intelligence collection and analysis, IAIP
will continue to be the conduit for DNDO coordination with the larger
intelligence community. Additionally, DNDO will leverage the current
capabilities within IAIP for intelligence analysis. The DNDO's Joint
Center for Global Connectivity (JCGC) will be closely integrated with
the Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC) to ensure that effective
information flows in both directions. DNDO expects to receive all
relevant intelligence information from IAIP in a timely manner and will
provide additional technical analysis capabilities on a 24/7 basis as
part of the JCGC. The JCGC, by receiving information and finished
intelligence from sources across the Federal, State and local levels,
will be able to additionally provide continuous analysis of real-time
data streams and the capability to provide continual national
situational awareness.
With regards to research and development, the DNDO will continue to
closely interface with the S&T Directorate on joint projects, as
appropriate, for the development of technologies that may provide
countermeasures against multiple threat types. The separation of the
DNDO nuclear detection research, development, test, and evaluation
(RDT&E) from the RDT&E conducted within the S&T Directorate will be
conducted so as to not have any detrimental affect on potential
collaborative efforts that would be gained through the S&T
consolidation effort. The goal is to make sure that this Nation
maintains a preeminent research and development program to address the
technical challenges in radiation detection science and technology,
while at the same time capitalizing on the benefits of integrating this
program with larger acquisition and operational support efforts.
Again, the intent of the DNDO is to provide an integration of
efforts across the Department, as well as the rest of the Federal
Government, rather than another disconnected layer of bureaucracy. For
exactly this reason, the DNDO will be a jointly-staffed office with
detailed employees from other DHS components, as well as other
departments, to provide strong linkages and a mutual continual
awareness between the DNDO and the parent organizations. The DNDO will
not operate in a vacuum separate from the rest of the Department, but
will instead operate in a fully-informed environment, cognizant of all
relevant Department efforts, including the intelligence and R&D efforts
mentioned.
RADIOLOGICAL/NUCLEAR COUNTERMEASURES TEST AND EVALUATION COMPLEX
Question. The budget request includes $9 million for a
Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Complex. The
budget indicates that $13 million was appropriated prior to fiscal year
2004 and $11 million was appropriated in fiscal year 2004. When was the
$13 million appropriated? Under which public law or laws was the
funding included?
Answer. At the stand up of DHS and S&T, funds were transferred from
other departments to provide an initial funding base. In particular,
funds for the Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Portfolio were
originally transferred from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)
and the Department of Energy (DOE). The first $13 million that was put
on contract for the Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Test and
Evaluation Complex was part of the fiscal year 2003 funding. Funding
was included under a reprogramming of funds request, and Radiological/
Nuclear Countermeasures received $65 million which was approved by the
House and Senate Appropriation Committees. The reprogramming did not
specifically state that the S&T Directorate was using funds for the
Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Complex;
however, the S&T Directorate used $13 million for this effort.
Question. The project schedule indicates that the construction
phase is scheduled to begin on May 1, 2005. Is the project on schedule?
If not, what impact does that have on the June 2006 completion goal?
Answer. The Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Test and
Evaluation Complex (CTEC) construction project is currently on schedule
to meet the expected June 2006 completion goal.
UNIVERSITY CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE
Question. Under Secretary McQueary testified last year that in
addition to the risk analysis and agro-terrorism centers, two more
solicitations would occur in fiscal year 2004 and if the budget request
for fiscal year 2005 was maintained at fiscal year 2004 levels, an
additional five Centers could be selected for a total of nine centers.
In fiscal year 2005, the fourth center was named, but the fiscal year
2006 budget request indicated that a fifth is being evaluated and two
additional Centers are anticipated in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year
2006 for a total of seven.
Why has the number of Centers planned by the Department changed?
Answer. The Science and Technology Directorate plans on supporting
seven Centers of Excellence and two Cooperative Centers in fiscal year
2005 and fiscal year 2006, for a total of 9 Centers supported. The
Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the fifth Center had proposals due
at the end of April 2005. The BAAs for the sixth and seventh Centers
are in development. The DHS-EPA Cooperative Center on Microbial Risk
Assessment has been funded for fiscal year 2005, with the recipient to
be announced shortly, and the second Cooperative Center is in
development.
Question. What areas of mission relevant research are not being
considered because of the reduction from nine to seven Centers?
Answer. We are planning on supporting a total of seven merit-based
Centers of Excellence through fiscal year 2006; topics for the sixth
and seventh Centers are being vetted within the Department for approval
prior to announcement. We anticipate releasing Broad Agency
Announcements requesting proposals for merit-based consideration in
fiscal year 2005. In addition to the seven Centers of Excellence, the
S&T Directorate will support two Cooperative Centers in fiscal year
2005 and fiscal year 2006. We believe that these seven centers will
address all current mission relevant research.
NATIONAL BIO AND AGRODEFENSE FACILITY
Question. The budget proposes $23 million for the National Bio and
Agrodefense Facility, which according to the project schedule, will
cost over $450 million to complete. According to the project schedule,
work to be performed in fiscal year 2006 will cost only $3 million. Why
is $23 million needed in fiscal year 2006?
Answer. The $3 million referenced will be spent in fiscal year 2005
to initiate a conceptual design study to define the scope and size of
the new facility. The $23 million fiscal year 2006 request will
complete the conceptual design, the NEPA process including site
selection, and initiate the detailed engineering design of the chosen
concept.
Question. Has a site been selected for this facility?
Answer. No site has been chosen at this point in the NBAF
development process. An interagency conceptual study has been
undertaken by DHS, USDA and DHHS to explore three major options for
NBAF each with increasing capability. The study will determine the
programmatic requirements, scope and size of the facility taking into
account cost, schedule, technical requirements and public support. This
process will provide the basis for more detailed engineering design,
NEPA evaluation and the site selection.
Question. Is an authorization required for this facility?
Answer. It is our understanding that under current legislation, an
authorization for this facility is not required. However, should
Congress decide to require one, we would of course comply.
CHEMICAL COUNTERMEASURES
Question. The budget request includes an additional $49 million for
the chemical countermeasures portfolio. The request indicates that $24
million supports construction of a new facility for countermeasures
testing. The object class for this funding is listed under ``Purchase
of goods/services from Gov't accounts.'' Will this facility be leased
or owned by DHS? Where will it be located? Why isn't this facility
listed under the Capital Investment and Construction Initiative
Listing?
Answer. The budget request identifies a $24 million increase from
fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2006 in ``Purchases from Government
Accounts.'' This funding includes support of two activities:
construction of a singular facility to conduct tests of countermeasures
against non-traditional agents and the enhancement of threat
characterization, analysis, and assessment, including initiation of
toxicology and environmental fate studies of non-traditional agents.
For clarity, of this $24 million, only $11 million are apportioned to
support the construction of the countermeasure test facility. The test
facility will be constructed at Edgewood Area, Aberdeen Proving Ground,
MD, and will be a Department of Defense (DOD) facility. The DHS funds
will be utilized to conduct a series of critical studies to provide
much of the foundation data to support design and safe use of the
facility, which is required for countermeasures assessment both by DOD
and DHS. A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between DHS and DOD is in
development to outline agreement on the requirements, shared expenses,
and use terms of the facility. Since the DHS funding is provided to
another government agency (Army) to support a facility of that agency,
the object class is identified as ``Purchase of goods/services from
Gov't accounts'' versus Capital Investment.
______
Questions Submitted to Stewart Simonson
Questions Submitted by Senator Judd Gregg
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES AND BIOSHIELD
Question. Please provide a list of administrative, regulatory or
legislative proposals needed to invigorate scientific research relevant
to the development of needed countermeasures and products for natural
pandemics and epidemics.
Answer. There is a very active scientific effort underway to
develop needed medical countermeasures and products for natural
pandemics and epidemics. Much of this effort is supported by the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). For example, NIAID is using
Project BioShield authorities to expedite the development of assays to
be used for the high-throughput screening of candidate therapeutics for
influenza. Influenza is currently considered a Category C biological
threat agent by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The influenza antiviral therapeutics currently available are limited
and the rapid emergence of antiviral resistance with widespread use of
these therapeutic agents is a potential concern.
Finding new options for treating influenza are a high priority for
the Nation, as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) draft
Pandemic Influenza Response and Preparedness Plan articulates.\1\
Grants will support research projects focused on the development of
needed diagnostic assays and screening techniques to permit speedier
identification of compounds with the potential to be effective against
a broad spectrum of influenza strains, including newly emergent
influenza strains.
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\1\ A copy of the Pandemic Influenza Response and Preparedness Plan
can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/pandemicplan/.
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In an effort to address the pressing need for additional reliable
influenza medical countermeasures, the RFP, NOT-AI-05-045, was released
on June 17, 2005, and the receipt date for applications is September 1,
2005. Grants are expected to be awarded in fiscal year 2006. The
Department of Health and Human Services will implement appropriate
administrative and regulatory actions to facilitate this research
activity.
Question. Many innovators complain that they cannot get access to
your office for an evaluation of their new product ideas. Please
describe your process for screening new products and new ideas.
Answer. HHS/OPHEP/ORDC has hosted numerous meetings with external
stakeholders. These meetings provide a forum for innovators to give
presentations on their products and to describe their capabilities to
ORDC. We have had over thirty contacts from industry since January
2005. ORDC hosts a Project BioShield website http://www.hhs.gov/ophep/
bioshield/ that provides frequently updated information on ongoing and
planned acquisitions under Project BioShield. The website also has an
email link that allows users to send a message directly to ORDC.
New products or ideas are screened depending upon factors including
the credibility and potential impact of the threat it proposes to treat
and stage of development in the research and development pipeline.
If the product is in the early stages of development, companies and
researchers need to seek NIH funding through grants, contracts,
partnerships or the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
The SBIR is a set-aside program (2.5 percent of an agency's extramural
budget) for domestic small business concerns to engage in Research/
Research and Development (R/R&D) that has the potential for
commercialization. The SBIR program was established under the Small
Business Innovation Development Act of 1982 (Public Law 97-219),
reauthorized until September 30, 2000 by the Small Business Research
and Development Enhancement Act (Public Law 102-564), and reauthorized
again until September 30, 2008 by the Small Business Reauthorization
Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-554).
If an innovator's product is sufficiently advanced in development,
then the Office of Research and Development Coordination (ORDC) in the
Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHEP) at HHS meets
with developers to provide guidance concerning the Project BioShield
acquisition process. This process includes a Material Threat
Determination (MTD) and a Material Threat Assessment (MTA) by the
Department of Homeland Security. A MTD is issued by the Secretary of
Homeland Security if it is determined that the specific CBRN threat
presents a material threat against the United States population
sufficient to affect national security. The MTAs provide information
about the extent of the threat and the vulnerabilities and are used to
inform U.S. Government (USG) medical countermeasure requirements. The
USG requirements and recommendations for acquisitions are established
by the interagency Weapons of Mass Destruction Medical Countermeasures
Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council. The
Project BioShield acquisition process also includes a joint
recommendation for acquisition by the Secretaries of HHS and the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and an approval for the
acquisition by the White House.
Question. Several recommendations have been made to formalize
access for screening new ideas for products, including convening a
working group of outside experts, contracting with the private sector,
and web-based submissions. Please provide a list of proposals on how
you would recommend formalizing access for screening new ideas for
products.
Answer. The NIH peer review process works very well in providing an
initial evaluation of new ideas. Both NIH and ORDC staff frequently
meet with developers using a ``Technology Watch'' process aimed at
ensuring that USG medical countermeasure research and development
experts are informed about promising, innovative products. As part of
the Technology Watch process, ORDC issues periodic Requests for
Information (RFI) to determine the level of maturity of the medical
product targeting countermeasures of interest in the developmental
pipeline. Finally, ORDC has a regularly updated website and an email
address that allows for web-based submission of questions.
Question. You made mention in your testimony of a number of Project
BioShield related procurement-related activities that include Pre-
solicitation notices, Requests for Information, and Requests for
Proposals. Can you provide additional information about these
activities?
Answer. A copy of the current OPHEP/ORDC BioShield procurement
activities is attached for your convenience. Furthermore, information
on these procurement-related activities is available on our website at
http://www.hhs.gov/ophep/bioshield/PBPrcrtPrjct.htm. This information
is also available at http://www.fedbizopps.gov.
Question. As described in the Project BioShield Act of 2004, there
are a number of determinations that must be made to support the
acquisition of a security countermeasure using the special reserve fund
appropriated in the fiscal year 2004 DHS Appropriations bill. Can you
please describe the role of HHS and the process used to make these
determinations, specifically that the determinations that
countermeasures are necessary and are appropriate for inclusion in the
Strategic National Stockpile and the joint recommendation for
procurement?
Answer. The Secretary of Homeland Security is charged with making
material threat determinations (MTDs). Upon receipt of the DHS MTD the
Secretary of Health and Human Services determines if medical
countermeasures are necessary to protect the public health. If
countermeasures are needed, the Secretary of Health and Human Services
must determine the number of doses required, if production and delivery
of a approved or licensed product is feasible with 8 years of contract
award, and an evaluation of whether there is a commercial market for
the product(s) other than as a security countermeasure. Finally, the
Secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services jointly
recommend to the President that the Special Reserve Fund be made
available for the recommended countermeasure procurement. The approval
for the procurement is made by the President (now delegated to the
Office of Management and Budget.)
Question. In your testimony, you've provided us with a summary of
the many accomplishments of your office since the enactment of the
Project BioShield Act of 2004, also known as BioShield I. As you know,
I am sponsoring the so-called ``BioShield II'' bill to further expand
on the efforts of BioShield I including indemnification for product
manufacturers and liability protection for health workers and patent
protections. Do you feel that the new bill appropriately addresses
remaining obstacles to medical countermeasure development against
weapons of mass destruction?
Answer. The Department of Health and Human Services is committed to
the development and acquisition of priority security countermeasures
and will work with Congress and stakeholders to address obstacles to
the effective implementation of Project BioShield.
Question. It is often stated that it takes 10 years to develop
medical products. What makes HHS believe that it can accomplish this in
less time?
Answer. It generally takes 10 years to develop a medical product
from inception to full FDA licensure or approval by proceeding along a
conservative, serial regulatory path. Project BioShield allows for the
procurement and delivery of medical countermeasures to the Strategic
National Stockpile (SNS) prior to full FDA approval or licensure and
their use under the Emergency Use Authorization provision of the
Project BioShield Act of 2004.
In order to acquire these critical medical countermeasures as
quickly as possible, Project BioShield encourages a parallel
development process in which the developer concurrently is finalizing a
formulation while conducting animal or human clinical trials and
scaling up and validating a current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP)
production process. This approach has some increased risk of failure;
however, the process is very closely monitored by relevant HHS staff.
Question. There are many different biological threats. Can you
explain why so much of the BioShield activities are focused on anthrax?
Answer. The initial focus of our efforts to protect the Nation was
aimed largely at those threats that could do the greatest harm to the
greatest number of our citizens--namely, smallpox and anthrax. An
attack involving the aerosol dissemination of anthrax spores,
particularly in an urban setting, was considered by public health
experts to have the potential for catastrophic effects. The potential
for large-scale population exposure following aerosol release of
anthrax spores, the threat demonstrated by the anthrax letters, the
persistence of anthrax spores in the environment and our knowledge that
anthrax had been weaponized by state-actors, highlighted the nature of
the threat. The Secretary of Homeland Security determined that anthrax
posed a material threat against the United States population sufficient
to affect national security. And, because untreated inhalation anthrax
is usually fatal, the Secretary of HHS determined that additional
countermeasures were necessary to protect the public health.
Question. I understand that the NIAID rPA anthrax vaccine advanced
development contracts with VaxGen and Avecia are still ongoing. Why did
you make the decision to commit to the acquisition of 75 million doses
of this product before those NIAID contracts were completed?
Answer. The material threat assessment provided by the DHS
supported the requirement to acquire sufficient vaccine to protect 25
million persons (75 million doses). The development work performed
under the NIAID contracts had proceeded to a level such that HHS had
confidence that a final rPA vaccine product was achievable and
licensable within 8 years of a contract award.
Question. In your statement you testified that the stockpile
already contains sufficient smallpox vaccine to protect every American.
Can you please explain why it is necessary to purchase any additional
vaccine?
Answer. The smallpox vaccines currently in the Strategic National
Stockpile are live virus vaccines derived from a virus called vaccinia.
These replicating vaccines are contraindicated in some segments of the
population, particularly those with weakened immune systems. Therefore,
there is a need to develop a vaccine which will be more appropriate for
use in these persons. An attenuated smallpox vaccine with limited
replication in humans, such as the Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA)
vaccine would be appropriate for use in such individuals.
Question. Former Secretary Tommy Thompson stated that food-borne
bioterrorism was one of his greatest concerns. Certainly, deliberate
contamination of food with botulism could result in a large number of
casualties. Would you please further describe your planned procurement
for botulism countermeasures?
Answer. Botulism toxin was determined to be a material threat by
the Department of Homeland Security on June 9, 2004. Presidential
approval for the acquisition of botulinum antitoxin using special
reserve funds under Project BioShield was granted on August 17, 2004.
HHS released a presolictiation notice on September 4, 2004 indicating
its intention to acquire 200,000 doses of heptavalent equine botulinum
antitoxin through a sole-source contract. The Request for Proposal was
issued to the prospective offeror on July 14, 2005. Horses are
currently being immunized to generate the plasma necessary to produce
the botulinum antitoxin. A contract award is anticipated in the 3rd
quarter of 2005.
Question. There is concern that we may not be responding adequately
to the threat of nuclear or radiological terrorism. What is HHS doing
to protect the public from illness after exposure to radiation?
Particularly, would you provide more information regarding procurement
of medical countermeasures against this threat?
Answer. The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) currently contains
medical countermeasures to treat the spectrum of potentially life-
threatening effects of radiation exposures. These include drugs to
block entry or to remove radioactive particles from the body as well as
to treat a major effect of penetrating radiation known as acute
radiation syndrome (ARS). Specifically, the SNS currently contains the
following:
--Potassium Iodide and a pediatric liquid formulation of potassium
iodide. Potassium Iodide is used to block the uptake of
radioactive iodine that could be released following a nuclear
detonation or a nuclear power plant accident;
--Calcium and zinc diethylenetriaminepentaacetate (Ca/Zn DTPA). The
DTPAs are used to remove radioactive transuranic particles such
as plutonium and americium from the body following the use of a
dirty bomb or similar device;
--Prussian Blue. This drug is used to remove radioactive cesium from
the body after a nuclear detonation or use of a dirty bomb or
similar device; and
--Filgrastim. This drug is used to treat life-threatening suppression
of infection-fighting white blood cells after whole-body
exposure to high doses of penetrating radiation--a form of
acute radiation syndrome.
Additionally, a Request for Information (RFI) for countermeasures
for an acute radiation syndrome was published in October 2004.
Responses to that RFI have been evaluated and a Request for Proposals
(RFP) is being developed. We are in the process of determining what the
specific requirements and acquisition options are so that we can
proceed with the acquisition process. HHS is eager to enlarge the
holdings of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) with respect to
radiological/nuclear countermeasures. Accordingly, the quality of the
proposals and the stage of product development will determine how HHS
acts on the results of the RFI and RFP.
Question. Nuclear or radiological terrorism has been cited as one
of the greatest threats this country faces with regard to homeland
security. Several promising bone marrow protection drugs could be
available in the near term to protect against this threat. When do you
expect to procure such drugs for the National Strategic Stockpile?
Answer. The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) currently contains
medical countermeasures to treat the spectrum of potentially life-
threatening effects of radiation exposures. These include drugs to
block entry or to remove radioactive particles from the body as well as
to treat a major effect of penetrating radiation known as acute
radiation syndrome (ARS). Specifically, the SNS currently contains the
following:
--Potassium Iodide and a pediatric liquid formulation of potassium
iodide. Potassium Iodide is used to block the uptake of
radioactive iodine that could be released following a nuclear
detonation or a nuclear power plant accident;
--Calcium and zinc diethylenetriaminepentaacetate (Ca/Zn DTPA). The
DTPAs are used to remove radioactive transuranic particles such
as plutonium and americium from the body following the use of a
dirty bomb or similar device;
--Prussian Blue. This drug is used to remove radioactive cesium from
the body after a nuclear detonation or use of a dirty bomb or
similar device; and
--Filgrastim. This drug is used to treat life-threatening suppression
of infection-fighting white blood cells after whole-body
exposure to high doses of penetrating radiation--a form of
acute radiation syndrome.
Additionally, a Request for Information (RFI) for countermeasures
for an acute radiation syndrome was published in October 2004.
Responses to that RFI have been evaluated and a Request for Proposals
(RFP) is being developed. We are in the process of determining what the
specific requirements and acquisition options are so that we can
proceed with the acquisition process. HHS is eager to enlarge the
holdings of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) with respect to
radiological/nuclear countermeasures. Accordingly, the quality of the
proposals and the stage of product development will determine how HHS
acts on the results of the RFI and RFP.
Question. It is estimated that one quarter of the U.S. population
cannot take the current smallpox vaccine that we have in our stockpile.
NIH has been hard at work on the development of a safe MVA-based
smallpox vaccine for that portion of the population that is
contraindicated. Please describe where we are in the development of the
vaccine and when you plan to issue your RFP for the purchase of the MVA
vaccine?
Answer. HHS released a presolicitation notice in anticipation of
releasing an RFP by the end of the summer to manufacture and deliver to
the SNS up to 20 million doses of the attenuated smallpox vaccine,
modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA).
Question. If the recent anthrax incident at the DC postal and DOD
facilities had turned out be a real anthrax attack requiring the use of
both antibiotics and the vaccine for those exposed and vaccinations for
first responders, how many doses of the FDA licensed anthrax vaccine
that are currently in Strategic National Stockpile managed by HHS would
be used?
Answer. The SNS currently contains sufficient antibiotics to treat
about 180,000 symptomatic anthrax patients and to provide for a 60 day
prophylaxis of more than 25 million persons. This stockpile of
antibiotics is growing monthly. The USG is currently negotiating for
the acquisition of specific anthrax antitoxins to treat symptomatic
anthrax patients. In addition to the use of antibiotics, HHS would
deploy as much anthrax vaccine from the SNS as was required to respond
to the event and to protect the population. The vaccine and the
prophylactic antibiotics would likely be used concurrently. There
currently is no FDA-licensed vaccine for post-exposure use following
anthrax exposure. In May 2005, HHS awarded a contract to BioPort
Corporation for the manufacture and delivery of 5 million doses of
licensed anthrax vaccine adsorbed (AVA) to the stockpile. There are at
present over 1 million doses of AVA available for the pre-exposure
immunization of at-risk groups such as certain laboratory workers and
first responders who would be involved with the response to an attack.
Question. For the past 1\1/2\ years, HHS has been in the process of
acquiring 5 million doses of the FDA licensed vaccine for the CDC
stockpile while the agency has committed nearly $1 billion under
government contracts to acquire 75 million doses of an early-stage
anthrax vaccine from a single manufacturer. Why has it taken so long
after the 2001 anthrax attacks for HHS to acquire any additional doses
of the current FDA-licensed vaccine for the stockpile?
Answer. HHS acquired a small amount of the AVA vaccine for civilian
use (21,400 doses) following the anthrax events of the fall of 2001.
Thereafter HHS initiated a process to acquire licensed AVA anthrax
vaccine from DOD. Various administrative and legal issues caused delays
in this acquisition. Once Project BioShield was enacted, HHS determined
that initiating a BioShield acquisition contract directly with the AVA
vaccine manufacturer, BioPort Corporation, would be the best mechanism
to acquire this vaccine. HHS awarded the contract on May 5, 2005 for 5
million doses and the company completed the initial delivery of over 1
million doses soon after contract award. We would be happy to provide
timelines if helpful.
Question. Please explain the decision to eliminate from the
President's fiscal year 2006 budget the funding for the CDC dose
reduction studies to allow FDA approval for fewer doses of the FDA-
licensed anthrax vaccine given that FDA approval of the new anthrax
vaccine is still years away? If the number of doses for pre-exposure
vaccinations against anthrax could be reduced in half, wouldn't that
also result in significant net cost savings for the Federal Government
and double the number of 1st responders and other who could be
vaccinated and protected before an anthrax occurs?
Answer. At the inception of this program in 1999, HHS anticipated
it would take 5 years to complete the necessary studies. It is
important to note that this type of study is normally undertaken by the
manufacturer in the interest of improving product utilization. To date
the program has generated sufficient data to allow BioPort to submit a
request to the FDA to change the route of administration from
subcutaneous to intramuscular and to decrease the six dose priming
series from six to five doses.
CDC has now completed the anthrax vaccine clinical trial interim
safety analysis, has presented the results to key stakeholders and has
submitted the final report detailing all findings from the safety
analysis to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Accordingly, the
HHS bioterrorism preparedness budget placed the highest priority on
expanding mass-casualty treatment capacity and procuring additional
pharmaceuticals for the Strategic National Stockpile.
Question. Would HHS provide assurance that the human clinical,
animal and CDC laboratory dose reduction studies for the currently
licensed anthrax vaccine will be continued and completed given the
potential rapid deployment and cost saving benefits for first
responders, lab workers and others from fewer doses?
Answer. Yes. As indicated above, HHS anticipated it would take 5
years to complete the necessary studies. CDC has now completed the
anthrax vaccine clinical trial interim safety analysis. The program has
generated sufficient data to allow BioPort to submit a request to the
FDA to change the route of administration from subcutaneous to
intramuscular and to decrease the six dose priming series from six to
five doses.
Question. One of the chief purposes of the Project BioShield Act of
2004 (the ``Act'') was to provide contracting flexibility to enable the
government to more rapidly acquire countermeasures against biological,
chemical, radiological or nuclear agents that might be used in
terrorist attacks. To what extent has HHS used simplified acquisition
procedures in the following Bioshield procurements:
--Solicitation No. DHHS-ORDC-05-01 for Pediatric Formulation of
Potassium Iodide;
--Solicitation No. RFP-DHHS-ORDC-04-01 for Licensed Anthrax
Recombinant Protective Antigen (rPA) Vaccine for the Strategic
National Stockpile;
--Solicitation No. 2004-N-01385 for Therapeutic Products for
Treatment of Inhalational Anthrax Disease for the Strategic
National Stockpile (the ``Anthrax Therapeutics Solicitation'');
and
--Solicitation No. 2005-B-01696 for Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed
(BioThrax<SUP>TM</SUP>).
Answer. Simplified acquisition procedures were not used for these
procurements. Some of these products could be obtained only through a
sole source, therefore a Justification for Other than Full and Open
Competition (JOFOC) was used. Since there was more than one potential
source, other products were acquired under full and open competitive
procedures as governed by the FAR.
Question. To what extent does HHS plan to use simplified
acquisition procedures in the following upcoming procurements:
--Solicitation No. 2004-N-01183 for 200,000 Doses of Heptavalent
Botulinum Immune Globulin Reference-Number;
--Request for Information (RFI) ORDC-05-01 for Therapeutics to Treat
Neutropenia and Thrombocytopenia Associated with the Acute
Radiation Syndrome (ARS); and
--RFI No. ORDC-05-03 for Development and Manufacture of Plasma
Derived Human Butyrl-Cholinesterase as a Prophylactice/
Therapeutic for Exposure to Nerve Agents?
Answer. For each proposed BioShield procurement, HHS reviews the
contract options available and applies the most appropriate authorities
to facilitate a fair, technically sound, and rapid acquisition. For
example, HHS has selected to use a sole-source acquisition strategy for
the procurement of the 200,000 doses of equine heptavalent botulinum
immune globulin cited above.
Question. Certain discretionary procurement laws and regulations,
such as the requirement for submission of certified cost and pricing
data under the Truth in Negotiations Act, place tremendous burdens on
commercial entities that do not regularly do business with the Federal
Government. Given that the express goal and clear intent of the Act is
to encourage greater participation by commercial entities in supplying
the Nation with needed countermeasures, to what extent has HHS, in its
discretion, required compliance with such laws and regulations (and
specifically, the submission of certified cost and pricing data)
notwithstanding the existing regulatory exemptions for commercial
entities to avoid such unnecessary burdens and the clear intent of the
Act to reduce the regulatory burden on procurements conducted under the
Act as much as possible?
Answer. In order to obtain the best value to the government and to
negotiate a fair price it is essential for the USG to have certified
cost and price data unless the contract can be awarded based on
adequate price competition. Cost or pricing data is especially needed
in regard to those entities that may not as yet have a commercially
marketed product or may be using a unique, innovative production
process.
Question. Please provide an explanation for any failure in Project
Bioshield procurements, both completed or on-going, to use the
simplified acquisition authorities granted to HHS under Sections 319F-
1(b)(1) and 319F-2(c)(7)(C)(iii) of the Public Health Service Act
(``PHSA'') as intended by the Act.
Answer. Simplified acquisition procedures have not been used for
Project Bioshield procurements to date. Some products could only be
obtained through a sole source, therefore a Justification for Other
than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) was used. Since there was more
than one potential source, other products were acquired under full and
open competitive procedures as governed by the FAR.
Question. Another chief purpose of the Act was to create incentives
for manufacturers to develop countermeasures. The main incentive
included in the Act was a grant of authority to the Secretary of HHS to
issue a call for development of countermeasures and to include in that
call a commitment that, upon the first development of a countermeasure
that meets the criteria of the Act, the Secretaries of HHS and the
Department of Homeland Security (``DHS'') will recommend procurement of
the countermeasure to the President. This provision was intended to
promote the development of a biodefense industry by informing the
markets that there is some certainty that there will be a government
market for the product. The Act also requires that calls for
countermeasures include: an estimated quantity of purchase, necessary
measures of minimum safety and effectiveness; estimated price for dose
and other information necessary to encourage and facilitate research,
development and manufacture of the countermeasure. Sec. 319F-2(c)(4) of
the PHSA.
--What calls for countermeasures have been issued by HHS? Please
provide copies of these announcements.
--BioShield requires HHS to provide a single estimate of the quantity
of countermeasures needed by the government. Has this process
been included in every Bioshield procurement to date and if
not, why not?
Answer. The publication of a Request for Information (RFI) signals
the USG interest in a particular countermeasure. The publication of the
Request For Proposal (RFP) is essentially a ``call for
countermeasures'' and indicates, by setting specific requirements and
expectations, the government's commitment to an acquisition, including
that funds are available to proceed with the procurement. The
publication of the RFP and the statement of the specific requirements
in the RFP establish that there is a certainty for a government market
for the product.
It is expected that most RFPs for BioShield acquisitions will
provide a single baseline required quantity for procurement. Some RFPs
also may provide options to acquire additional product beyond an
initial requirement, based on ongoing threat assessments and ongoing
requirements reviews. The RFP for ``Therapeutic Products for the
Treatment of Inhalation Anthrax Disease'' (RFP-2004-N-01385) indicated
a range of treatments required (10,000 to 200,000 treatments). This was
structured to allow for the flexibility to acquire several products of
differing therapeutic classes to meet the stockpile goal.
Question. The Act envisions the use of animal models to permit
expedited consideration by the FDA of request for approval for
countermeasures. What steps have been taken to assure that the FDA has
developed and implemented new procedures under the animal rule and
related emergency-like powers under BioShield to signal its commitment
to not slow down industries work to develop more countermeasures as
quickly as possible?
Answer. The FDA has been actively engaged in the review of animal
models and the applicability of the ``Animal Efficacy Rule'' (Federal
Register 67: 37988-37998, 2002) to facilitate the acquisition of
critically needed medical countermeasures. Meetings with developers and
the review of submissions related to bioterrorism countermeasures are
given a priority status. The FDA staff work closely with NIH and DOD
staff in the early phases of protocol designs and test methodology
development. The FDA has a major role in the Product Development Tools
(PDT) Working Group of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Medical
Countermeasures Subcommittee which includes representatives of DOD, DHS
and USDA as well as HHS. This PDT working group evaluates the need for
animals, appropriateness of animal models in use and the need for
additional models, facilities and reagents to support medical
countermeasures R&D.
Question. As you are aware, the issue of liability protections has
been widely discussed as a necessary component to encourage greater
participation in Project BioShield. While additional legislation may be
needed, what steps has HHS made to maximize use of its existing
authorities under Public Law 85-804 and the SAFETY Act to mitigate the
risks associated with the development of countermeasures? Specifically,
has HHS made clear that indemnification will be included as a contract
term during the Request for Proposal process, thus allowing potential
bidders the assurance that liability will not be a issue should they be
successful in winning the award in advance of incurring proposal costs?
If not, why not? Has HHS sought and/or received an exception from the
requirement under the implementing Executive Order for Public Law 85-
804 that application under the SAFETY Act is a condition for
application for indemnification? If not, has HHS been willing to
indemnify contractors for risks not otherwise excluded by the SAFETY
Act? Has HHS worked with the Department of Homeland Security to
integrate the SAFETY Act application process into the procurement
process for countermeasures in order to expedite review and
consideration of a SAFETY Act application by bidder? If not, why not?
Answer. In a number of instances, HHS has required contractors to
apply for SAFETY Act protection as a condition of indemnification.
Moreover, we have complied with Executive Order No. 13286, which
requires that before granting indemnification, the indemnifying agency
obtain (1) the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) judgment as to
whether the agency's requirement may constitute a qualified anti-
terrorism technology (QATT) eligible for SAFETY Act protection, and (2)
Office of Management and Budget approval in light of the DHS
determination.
HHS has not generally indicated in its solicitations that
indemnification will be included as a contract term. Subpart 50.4 of
the Federal Acquisition Regulation, concerning indemnification under
Public Law 85-804, contemplates that contractors will request
indemnification, rather than that the procuring agency will offer
indemnification on its own initiative. Not all BioShield contractors
have sought indemnification. Moreover, the Secretary must personally
consider each request for indemnification on its own merits based on
contractor submissions regarding, e.g., the availability of insurance.
Thus, the contracting officer cannot preempt the Secretary by
guaranteeing indemnification in the solicitation.
Executive Order No. 13286 does not require that contractors apply
for SAFETY Act protection as a condition of indemnification; rather, as
described above, the indemnifying agency must obtain DHS' determination
whether the agency's requirement may constitute a QATT eligible for
SAFETY Act protection. HHS has not sought an exception to this
requirement. HHS has indemnified contractors for risks not excluded by
the SAFETY Act.
Question. The Project BioShield Act grants HHS authority to enter
into personal service contracts and streamlined personnel authorities
to aid in the performance, administration or support of countermeasure
research and development. Sec. 319F-1(d) and (e) of the PHSA. To what
extent has HHS used this authority? Please explain any failures to use
this authority.
Answer. To date, NIAID has used Project BioShield authorities to
hire two individuals, with a third appointment pending. The positions
filled are:
--One individual in the dual positions of NIAID Associate Director
for Biodefense Product Development and Director of the Division
of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases' Office of Biodefense
Research Activities; salary >$100,000.
--One individual for the position of Associate Director for Product
Development in the Division of Allergy, Immunology, and
Transplantation; salary >$100,000.
--One individual for the position of Associate Director for Radiation
Countermeasures Research and Emergency Preparedness, in the
Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation; salary
>$100,000.
Question. Section 5(c) of the Act requires the Secretaries of DHS
and HHS to issue a report to Congress within 120 days after the
enactment of the Act concerning whether there is a lack of adequate
large scale biocontainment facilities necessary for the testing of
countermeasures in accordance with Food and Drug Administration
requirements. Why has this report not been issued? What work has been
done on this report? When will it be issued?
Answer. An interim report was submitted to Congress on April 28
2005, and the final report will be submitted soon. Additional time was
needed to sufficiently conduct an assessment of U.S. Biocontainment
facilities.
Question. The Act requires the Secretaries of HHS and DHS to enter
into an interagency agreement for procurement of countermeasures in
accordance with the requirements of the Act. Sec. 319F-2(c)(7)(B).
Please provide a copy of this agreement.
Answer. A copy of this agreement as it applies to the acquisition
of rPA anthrax vaccine is attached.
Question. The Act requires HHS to institute appropriate controls
concerning the use of procurement authorities under the Act. Secs.
319F-1(b)(1)(C) and 319F-2(c)(7)(C)(iii)(III) of the PHSA. Please
provide a copy of the written guidance explaining these controls. Does
HHS intend to publish the controls as regulations? Does HHS intend to
promulgate implementing regulations for the entire Act? If so, when? If
not, why not?
Answer. The BioShield Act is sufficiently detailed and prescriptive
to obviate the need for regulations. The procurement control process is
conducted consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and
the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulations (HHSAR). HHS will
be happy to provide the Committee with a copy of these documents should
you so desire.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Arlen Specter
Question. What role do you envision CDC would play in any new
BioShield legislation? Should not CDC be heavily involved in the
implementation of any future BioShield program?
Answer. CDC plays a significant role in current BioShield programs.
The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is located within CDC, is very
actively engaged in the BioShield acquisition process, and provides the
primary storage sites and distribution mechanisms for BioShield
products. Subject matter experts (SMEs) at CDC are participants of the
Weapons of Mass Destruction Medical Countermeasure Subcommittee (WMD
MC), which reviews and establishes the requirements for BioShield
acquisitions.
Section 10 of President Bush's Homeland Security Presidential
Directive/HSPD-8 issued in December of 2003 States that ``the Secretary
of HHS . . . and heads of other Federal departments and agencies that
provide assistance for first responders preparedness will base those
allocations on assessments of population concentrations, critical
infrastructures, and other significant risk factors, particularly
terrorism threats, to the extent permitted by law.''
Question. Has HHS abided by this Presidential directive in the
allocation of State and Local bioterrorism preparedness funding?
Answer. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funding
priorities for State and local bioterrorism preparedness are consistent
with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8). A large
percentage of public health emergency preparedness funds are allocated
using a ratio of jurisdictional to U.S. population. In addition, this
year CDC allocated funds for mass prophylaxis preparedness in 21 major
metropolitan areas through the Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI). Mass
preparedness is one of our Nation's priorities as described in the
Interim National Preparedness Goal. Urban areas are selected for CRI
based on population, risk, threats, and infrastructure. All of the CRI
awardees are also Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grantees. This
year HHS awarded funds to 15 additional metropolitan statistical areas
to support preliminary planning for becoming full CRI awardees in
fiscal year 2006, as proposed in the President's budget request. CDC
has developed Preparedness Goals designed to measure urgent public
health system response performance parameters that are directly linked
to health protection of the public. The Preparedness Goals are intended
to measure urgent public health system response performance for
terrorism and non-terrorism events including infectious disease,
environmental and occupational related emergencies. Preparedness
measures are a subset of the overarching targeted capabilities list and
are consistent with national preparedness goals
Question. What is the process for determining the prioritization of
items to be purchased for the Strategic National Stockpile? At what
level of the process are the scientists and infectious disease experts
of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention included?
Answer. The classifications of Category A, B, and C agents (agents
that are likely to be used in a bioterror attack) have been generated
from infectious disease and medical analyses to which NIH and CDC
scientists contributed significantly. We have initially focused our
countermeasure procurement efforts on Category A agents that pose the
greatest threats. To address the threat of any one particular agent,
consideration is given to currently available countermeasures, such as
antibiotics and vaccines. Further consideration includes the need for
or role of new countermeasures, such as antitoxins, next generation
vaccines, or antibiotics. Perceived need and absence of a new
countermeasure informs research initiatives. Scientists from OPHEP,
NIH, CDC, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Defense
(DOD), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are asked to determine
which new countermeasures are scientifically advanced enough to invest
in advanced development and testing, would have the greatest public
health impact, and have the greatest likelihood of success.
The process to determine which countermeasures are placed in the
SNS is informed by the interagency WMD MC subcommittee. This is an
interdepartmental subcommittee initially chartered by the Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and co-chaired by senior
government officials from DHS, HHS, and DOD. The material threat
assessments (MTA) developed by DHS based on a plausible attack scenario
informs the sizing of the procurement requirement. HHS, through the
coordination efforts of OPHEP, then evaluates the availability of
currently developed countermeasures and assesses the scientific
opportunities to develop new countermeasures. The WMD MC then
deliberates on the nature of the medical consequence and the
availability of appropriate countermeasures to develop a recommendation
for the acquisition of a specific countermeasure. HHS can issue a
Request for Information (RFI) to determine the market availability and
to alert industry to the U.S. Government interests. Once a U.S.
Government requirement for a particular new medical countermeasure has
been established by the WMD MC and approved by OMB is granted, a
Request for Proposals (RFP) announcing the specific requirements
follows. HHS implements the acquisition process.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Robert C. Byrd
LACK OF BIOSHIELD FUNDING FOR RAD/NUC RESPONSE
Question. On April 13th, the Department of Homeland Security wrote
Congress notifying us of the creation of the Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office. In the letter, the Department justified the creation of the
Office based on the assertion that, ``The risk that terrorists will
acquire and use a nuclear/radiological device is one of the gravest
threats that confronts the Nation.''
Yet despite this assertion, our Nation is still without a practical
way to medically treat the thousands or even hundreds of thousands of
Americans who may be exposed or who may believe they have been exposed
to radiation in the event we are attacked in this way. While I
understand that radiological and nuclear threats have been certified as
a ``material threat,'' I was surprised to learn that the Bioshield
program has not actually been used to procure several very promising
drugs that are now in late-stage development and could be available in
the near term to respond to this most insidious of threats.
Beyond your limited plan to purchase pediatric potassium iodide,
what is your schedule for procuring drugs for the national stockpile to
respond to what is called Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS)?
Answer. HHS is eager to enlarge the holdings of the SNS with
respect to radiological/nuclear countermeasures. A Request for
Information (RFI) for countermeasures for an ARS was published in
October 2004. Responses have been evaluated; and a Request for
Proposals (RFP) is being developed. We anticipate releasing a draft RFP
for industry comment on the general topic of ARS as soon as July 2005.
Accordingly, the quality of the proposals and the availability of
resources will determine how HHS acts on the results of the RFI and
RFP. The SNS currently contains Potassium Iodide, Pediatric Potassium
Iodide, Calcium/Zinc Diethylenetriaminepentaacetate (Ca/Zn DTPA) and
Prussian Blue (Ferric hexacyanoferrate (II)) as countermeasures for a
radiation event. In addition, Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-
CSF) is available to the SNS under Investigational New Drug (IND).
PRIVATE SECTOR INTEREST IN BIOSHIELD
Question. When the President signed the BioShield Act into law last
July, the Washington Post reported that ``Few companies have shown much
enthusiasm for diverting staff and money from programs to develop
drugs, such as cancer and cholesterol treatments, with bigger and more
established markets. Of about 1,000 U.S. biotechnology companies, about
100 are working on biodefense projects, according to the Biotechnology
Industry Organization, an industry trade group.''
Has the interest in BioShield increased or are companies still
reluctant to participate in the program? What recommendations would you
make to increase private sector interest in BioShield?
Answer. We have seen significant interest in BioShield, however we
recognize the need for continuing improvement and expanded outreach.
Many of the innovative approaches to developing a medical
countermeasure occur in small biotech companies that are inexperienced
in manufacturing, clinical trials, and the regulatory process. They are
generally funded by venture capital investors and are operating at a
loss. They usually need funds to validate a current Good Manufacturing
Practices (cGMP) manufacturing process and to conduct the necessary
animal studies or human safety studies to qualify for an
Investigational New Drug (IND) application.
The large pharmaceutical companies have numerous opportunities to
consider when establishing their business model and the priority
targets of their research and development portfolios. They must weigh
the opportunity costs for the biodefense market with its intrinsic
uncertainty regarding the size and sustainability against more
predictable and quantifiable markets for medical products for diseases
with relatively well-established target populations, many of which will
be sustained over many years. As large pharmaceutical companies
consider the profits for traditional medical products versus the
profits available for vaccines or other medical countermeasures, the
reason for their reluctance appears to be driven by the markets. For
example, as mentioned by Dr. Fauci in his February 8, 2005 testimony, a
year's supply of Lipitor to lower cholesterol is $1,608; a year's
supply of 50-milligram Viagra is $3,500; but a flu vaccine generally
sells for $7 to $10.
Today, the U.S. Government is involved throughout the pipeline of
countermeasure development, through basic research support at NIH and
the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
(USAMRIID) all the way to the procurement activities undertaken through
Project BioShield. Both NIH and the USAMRIID have excellent records in
this regard. The U.S. Government can further target and facilitate
research and development efforts by setting clear requirements and
specifications for: medical countermeasures; facilitating partnerships
as needed between government and industry or between industry and
industry; and providing critical resources such as facilities (e.g.
laboratories with high-level biocontainment), animals (for testing),
reagents and assays.
Grant Coordination--for Assistant Secretary Simonson
Question. The recent TOPOFF 3 training event recently portrayed a
scenario that exercised first responders, hospital capacity and the
ability to treat a sudden rush of people affected by chemical and
biological agents. We look forward to a report on the exercise around
mid-summer. Since fiscal year 2002, Congress has appropriated $11
billion to first responders through the Department of Homeland Security
and $5.5 billion through the Department of Health and Human Services to
provide local monitoring for outbreaks and surge capacity for
treatment. BioShield has $5.6 billion over 10 years to feed our
Strategic National Stockpile. We have committed a significant amount of
money into these programs, over $22 billion. However, when tragedy
strikes the citizens of this country demand a seamless operation that
provides emergency care, timely correct information, and treatment if
needed.
Do local health agencies have the capacity and infrastructure to
deal with a surge in activity?
Answer. CDC funding, distributed through cooperative agreements,
has enabled local health departments to increase both capacity and
infrastructure to deal with surges by providing for increased
epidemiologic capacity, terrorism preparedness and response trainings
for public health practitioners, improved communications systems (in
terms of not only equipment but also improved relationships between the
public health, medical and homeland security communities), and enhanced
technology and staff in public health laboratories. HHS recognizes that
not each of the approximately 4,000 local health departments can or
should have the same response capability, especially considering the
wide variation in size, risks and populations served as well as a
finite amount of funding. Therefore, HHS encourages and supports local
health departments to work together to develop regional capacity and
infrastructure through shared equipment, personnel, information and
other assets. For example, during a mass prophylaxis event, neighboring
local health departments might assist the affected jurisdiction in some
aspect of the response, such as staffing, so that the local health
department can focus on mass prophylaxis.
Local health departments have been developing volunteer pools and
strengthening partnerships with other agencies and businesses to
provide support activities such as mass prophylaxis. Another example is
laboratory capacity--a key asset for public health emergency
preparedness and response that is expensive for a local jurisdiction's
budget. Not every local health department can have advanced laboratory
capability. Therefore, some local health departments have basic
laboratory capability and refer some samples to a Laboratory Response
Network (LRN) laboratory. Other local health departments have
collaborative relationships with neighboring laboratories that have
existing capability. The State public health laboratory can provide
additional capability to all local health departments within their
jurisdiction. While local health departments continue to improve,
maintaining this capacity and infrastructure will also be necessary.
For healthcare surge capacity, HHS has proposed in its fiscal year
2006 budget funding for the procurement and maintenance of portable
hospital units (Federal Medical Contingency Stations) as a part of its
Mass Casualty Intiative. These units can be rapidly deployed to
anywhere in the country and would supplement local hospital surge
capacity by 5,500 beds in the event of an emergency.
Question. What lessons have we learned through coordinating first
responder efforts with medical response efforts?
Answer. Force Protection.--Important steps have been taken to
establish the necessary medical counter and preventive measures to
protect first responders. Vaccination and prophylaxis for the most
common agents have been studied and best practices developed. Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) standards have been established by the first
responder industry in conjunction with public health. Manufacturers are
now certifying equipment such as Self Contained Breathing Apparatus
(SCBA) as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) compliant.
Surge.--Issues of surge capacity have been addressed in multiple
ways. Solutions are being sought both in and out of the hospital.
Within the hospitals, mechanisms are being implemented to open beds in
case of a catastrophic incident. These mechanisms include the use of
adding beds to the existing infrastructure as well as discharging or
transferring patients who could receive care elsewhere. First
responders are being asked to support efforts to sustain develop and
various levels of treatment outside the hospitals that are free
standing or potentially an annex to an existing hospital.
Incident Command Structure.--With the advent of the National
Incident Management System (NIMS) and the National Response Plan (NRP),
we now have a common methodology for managing an event that
incorporates first responders and medical communities. As planning
efforts continue to move forward in these communities, the essential
link between them may be articulated.
Forensic Epidemiology.--CDC has created a course on Forensic
Epidemiology in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) from which more than 13,000 public health and law enforcement
officials have graduated. Criminal and epidemiological investigative
methods are used to demonstrate an understanding of the similarities
and differences in public health and law enforcement investigative
goals and methods. Common operating procedures about how finding are
communicated between the two groups are of primary importance.
Equipment Standardization.--HHS has supported the efforts and
participated in the Interagency Board (IAB) for Equipment
Standardization and Inter Operability Working Group since its
inception. The IAB is designed to ``establish and coordinate local,
State, and Federal standardization, interoperability, and responder
safety to prepare for, respond to, mitigate, and recover from any
incident by identifying requirements for Chemical, Biological, and
radiological, Nuclear or Explosives incident response equipment.''
Early Event Detection (Syndromic Surveillance).--Information
recorded by the first responders such as 9-1-1 call information,
Emergency Medical Services patient care records, and other public
health data are reviewed for statistical anomalies in the syndromes
that present. These anomalies are reviewed against signs and symptoms
of bio and chemical terrorism, as well as unforeseen natural disease
outbreaks. By collaborating with the first responder community, public
health authorities can obtain advanced insight into the changing health
conditions of a given population or frequency with which they occur.
Decontamination.--The capability of first responders to properly
decontaminate hundreds of people has become well established in the
majority of metropolitan statistical areas, which can be attributed in
large part to leadership from Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA) grants. Hospitals understand the importance of
not allowing facilities to become contaminated, and have taken
important steps to protect themselves. While acute mass decontamination
continues to be a challenge, significant efforts are under way to
develop methods to quickly decontaminate thousands of people.
Rapid Registry.--The Rapid Response Registry (RRR) is an HHS
response tool intended to assist local officials in rapidly
identifying, enumerating, and obtaining contact information for
individuals who have been, or who believe they may have been, exposed.
The emergency contact information collected is necessary for both
short-term and long-term follow-up for exposed, injured, and ill
individuals and would be available to public health officials to guide
public health response services directed at the affected population
during the emergency response. In addition to the data collection tool,
the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) staff can
provide either remote or on-scene technical assistance to support
public health needs assessment activities, medical assistance, health
interventions, or health education in the affected population during or
immediately following the recognition of a Chemical, Biological,
Radiological, and Nuclear Warfare, and Explosives (CBRNE) emergency.
This process allows State and local public health responders to target
enrolled individuals with updated information, triage their specific
risk for potential exposures, determine appropriate self-
decontamination procedures, and recommend any immediate medical
evaluation or interventions (countermeasures). Real time data
collection also enables future health studies by State and local public
health as part of long-term mitigation activities, should these be
determined appropriate.
HHS Secretary's Emergency Response Team (SERT).--The SERT acts as
the Secretary's agent on emergency sites working along with the first
responder community under the direction of the Assistant Secretary for
Public Health Emergency Preparedness (ASPHEP). The ASPHEP, on behalf of
the Secretary, directs and coordinates the Department's efforts to
prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from, the public health
and medical consequences of disaster or emergency. The SERT directs and
coordinates the activities of all HHS personnel deployed to the
emergency site to assist State, local, Tribal, and other Federal and
government agencies as applicable.
Health Alert Network (HAN).--The HAN ensures that each community
has rapid and timely access to emergent health information; a cadre of
highly-trained professionals; and evidence-based practices and
procedures for effective public health preparedness, response, and
service on a 24/7 basis. The HAN is dedicated to strengthening the core
public health infrastructure for information access, communications,
and distance learning at the State and community levels. Through
continuous, high-speed internet connectivity and broadcast capacity to
support emergency communication, HAN provides the national public
health system with a network of public health officials and other
first-responders who are continuously connected to information vital to
emergency and non-emergency public health practice.
Medical Reserve Corp (MRC).--MRC units are community-based and
function as a way to locally organize and utilize volunteers who want
to donate their time and expertise to prepare for and respond to
emergencies, and promote healthy living throughout the year. MRC
volunteers supplement existing first responders and public health
resources. MRC volunteers include medical and public health
professionals such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists,
veterinarians, and epidemiologists. Many community members--
interpreters, chaplains, office workers, legal advisors, and others--
also fill key support positions in the first responder community.
SNS.--The SNS has large quantities of medicine and medical supplies
to protect the American public if there is a public health emergency
severe enough to drain local supplies. Should Federal and local
authorities agree that the SNS is needed, medicines will be delivered
to any State in the United States or territory within 12 hours. Each of
our 62 grantees has plans to receive and distribute SNS medicine and
medical supplies to local communities as quickly as possible. Many of
these medical countermeasures will initially be used by the first
responder community so that they can continue to fulfill their vital
role in support of an event.
The National Incident Communications Coordination Line (NICCL).--
NICCL is a special toll free line with limited access via PIN number,
is maintained by DHS and is used to bring together the key Public
Affairs representatives from Federal, State and local agencies during
major incidents. DHS convenes calls to ensure all agencies are fully
aware of the facts concerning the incident, achieve agreement as to
which agencies have the public communications lead concerning the
various aspects of the incident and coordinate all public announcements
concerning the incident. The NICCL has been used effectively during a
number of incidents over the past year and as part of the Top Officials
3 (TOPOFF3) exercise. In each case not only Federal agencies
participated in the calls but also State and local Public Affairs
Officers from the affected areas were included.
Question. Are grant programs coordinated by DHS and HHS so that
Americans, in their time of need, are protected and treated to the
highest standard possible without confusion or lack of direction?
Answer. HHS cooperative agreement programs and DHS grant programs
are being coordinated at the Federal, State, and local levels. Since
2003 HHS has required that the State-wide joint advisory committees
required by CDC and HRSA cooperative agreements include members from
State homeland security or emergency management, fire, and police
agencies. In 2005, DHS added similar language to its program guidance
documents, which now requires State homeland security agencies to reach
out to the public health and medical communities. Many intrastate
coordinating bodies, which have been established by local
jurisdictions, require participation by homeland security, emergency
management, public health, and medical communities in regional planning
and response efforts as well. HHS also requires its awardees to comply
with the NIMS, which facilitates coordination, communication and
cooperation between first responders (e.g., fire, police, public
health) and first receivers (e.g., hospitals) during an event.
At the Federal level, both HHS and DHS review and comment on the
program announcements and guidance documents of their sister agencies,
to which States and local jurisdictions respond in order to receive
funds. Both Departments also have ten regional emergency coordinators,
who work closely with one another and with States to plan, train and
exercise across jurisdictional lines. More recently, HHS and DHS have
formed a steering committee to identify additional mechanisms to
increase coordination and collaboration between the awardees and
grantees, as well as between the Departments at the Federal level.
Future activities may include joint site visits and regional meetings.
BioShield Benchmarks--for Assistant Secretary Simonson
Question. In 1999, Congress charged the Department of Health and
Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with
the establishment of the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile. The
Homeland Security Act of 2002 renamed the effort the Strategic National
Stockpile and tasked the Department of Homeland Security with defining
the goals and performance requirements but the Stockpile was to be
jointly managed by DHS and HHS. The Project BioShield Act of 2003
returned oversight and guidance of the stockpile to HHS.
With all of the changes in command, what information and tools are
we using to ensure that Project BioShield is properly feeding the
Strategic National Stockpile so that it is truly ready to provide rapid
access to large quantities of the right types of pharmaceuticals and
medical supplies? What specific benchmark are we using to gauge
ourselves in the ability to respond to an unknown attack or natural
disaster?
Answer. The SNS staff has remained intact during the recent
departmental changes. In addition, the deliberative process to set
requirements and implement acquisitions for the SNS under Project
BioShield has also remained constant. The SNS engages in deployment
exercises with various State and local entities on a regular schedule
to assess the readiness of State and local partners and to improve the
deployment process. In addition, CDC and the SNS participate in
National and international exercises, such as TOPOFF3, to fully assess
their response capabilities for communication, logistics, resource
allocations, and stockpile utilization. These exercises serve as a
benchmark for the Nation's level of preparedness for an unknown or
natural disaster. SNS performance measures to deliver assets within 12
hours of decision to deploy. While project Bioshield is focused on
development of new countermeasures which will be incorporated into SNS
once available, SNS acquires and maintains significant countermeasures
currently available.
CONCLUSION OF HEARINGS
Senator Gregg. Well, if you have got thoughts, we would be
interested in language you think would improve that because I
do believe unless we address this issue of liability, we will
never get this straightened out and we will never get the
participation we need.
Well, all of your input has been excellent. I am trying to
think of what title we should have on this novel award. We will
have to come up with something. We will call it the Franz
award.
In any event, thank you very much. We appreciate your
input. This is not an end. This is just an ongoing discussion
as to how we make this whole system work better and just one
part of the discussion. We intend to continue to pursue this as
a committee. You obviously intend to pursue it as
professionals. So thank you.
Dr. Read. Thanks for your leadership.
Senator Gregg. The subcommittee is recessed.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., Thursday, April 28, the hearings
were concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
subject to the call of the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
----------
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES
[The following testimonies were received by the
Subcommittee on Homeland Security for inclusion in the record.
The submitted materials relate to the fiscal year 2006 budget
request for programs within the subcommittee's jurisdiction.]
Prepared Statement of the American Public Transportation Association
Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to submit written
testimony on the security and safety of public transportation systems.
We appreciate your interest in transportation security, and we look
forward to working with you as you develop the fiscal year 2006
appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
ABOUT APTA
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is a
nonprofit international association of over 1,500 public and private
member organizations including transit systems and commuter rail
operators; planning, design, construction, and finance firms; product
and service providers; academic institutions; transit associations and
State departments of transportation. APTA members serve the public
interest by providing safe, efficient, and economical transit services
and products. Over 90 percent of persons using public transportation in
the United States and Canada are served by APTA member systems.
OVERVIEW
Mr. Chairman, public transportation is one of our Nation's critical
infrastructures. We cannot over-emphasize the critical importance of
our industry to the economic quality of life of this country. Over 9.6
billion transit trips are taken annually on all modes of transit
service. People use public transportation vehicles over 32 million
times each weekday. This is more than 16 times the number of daily
travelers aboard the Nation's airlines.
Safety and security are the top priority of the public
transportation industry. Transit systems took many steps to improve
security prior to 9/11 and have significantly increased efforts since
then. Since September 11, 2001, public transit agencies in the United
States have spent over $2 billion on security and emergency
preparedness programs and technology, almost all from their own budgets
with only minimal Federal funding. Last year's events in Madrid further
highlight the need to enhance security on public transit systems and to
do so without delay. We do not need another wakeup call like Madrid.
In response to an APTA survey, transit agencies around the country
have identified in excess of $6 billion in transit security needs.
State and local governments and transit agencies are doing what they
can to improve security, but it is important that the Federal
Government be a full partner in the effort to ensure the security of
the Nation's transit users.
In fiscal year 2003, transit security received $65 million in
Federal funding from DHS. In fiscal year 2004, $50 million was provided
for Federal transit security programs from DHS. For the first time in
fiscal year 2005, Congress specifically appropriated $150 million for
transit, passenger and freight rail security. Out of the $150 million,
transit will receive approximately $130 million--almost $108 million
for rail transit and more than $22 million for bus. Also, ferries will
receive an additional $5 million for security from a separate account.
We are very appreciative of this effort. However, in the face of
significant needs, more needs to be done.
We urge Congress to act decisively on this issue. In light of the
documented needs, we respectfully urge Congress to provide $2 billion
in the fiscal year 2006 Homeland Security Appropriations bill for
transit security. Of that amount, we recommend that $1.2 billion be
provided for capital needs, and $800 million for transit costs. Federal
funding for needs should provide for, among other things, planning,
public awareness, training and additional transit police.
We are disappointed that the Administration recommended only $600
million for a Targeted Infrastructure Protection Program in the fiscal
year 2006 DHS budget proposal, which would fund infrastructure security
grants for transit, seaports, railways and energy facilities. We were
also disappointed that the Administration does not include a specific
line item funding amount for transit security. We look forward to
working with the Administration and Congress in securing adequate
transit security funding that begins to address unmet transit security
needs of the country.
We further request that the existing process for distributing DHS
Federal grant funding be modified so that funds are distributed
directly to transit authorities, rather than to State Administrating
Agencies (SAA). While we are willing to coordinate with the States and
urban areas that we serve, we believe direct funding to the transit
authorities would be more efficient and productive.
We are pleased to note that APTA has become a ``Standards
Development Organization'' (SDO) for the public transportation
industry. Our efforts in standards development for commuter rail, rail
transit and bus transit operations over recent years have been
significant and our status as a SDO has been acknowledged by both the
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Railway
Administration (FRA). The FTA and the Transportation Research Board
have also supported our standards initiatives through the provision of
grants. We would like to apply our growing expertise in standards
development of transit industry safety and security, best practices,
guidelines and standards. We look forward to working with the
Administration and Congress in support of this initiative and trust
that Federal financial assistance would be made available to develop
such standards and practices.
We also would like to work with Congress and the Department of
Homeland Security's Directorate of Science and Technology to take a
leadership role in advancing research and technology development to
enhance security and emergency preparedness for public transportation.
SECURITY INVESTMENT NEEDS
Mr. Chairman, after the awful events of 9/11, the transit industry
invested some $2 billion in enhanced security measures, building on the
industry's already considerable efforts. At the same time, our industry
undertook a comprehensive review to determine how we could build upon
our existing industry security practices. This included a range of
activities, some I discussed earlier in testimony, which include
research, best practices, education, information sharing in the
industry, and surveys. As a result of these efforts we have a better
understanding of how to create a more secure environment for our
riders, and the most critical security investment needs.
Our latest survey of public transportation security identified
enhancements of at least $5.2 billion in additional capital funding to
maintain, modernize, and expand transit system security functions to
meet increased security demands. Over $800 million in increased costs
for security personnel, training, technical support, and research and
development have been identified, bringing total additional transit
security funding needs to more than $6 billion.
Responding transit agencies were asked to prioritize the uses for
which they required additional Federal investment for security
improvements. Priority examples of operational improvements include:
--Funding current and additional transit agency and local law
enforcement personnel.
--Funding for over-time costs and extra security personnel during
heightened alert levels.
--Training for security personnel.
--Joint transit/law enforcement training.
--Security planning activities.
--Security training for other transit personnel.
Priority examples of security capital investment improvements
include:
--Radio communications systems.
--Security cameras on-board transit vehicles and in transit stations.
--Controlling access to transit facilities and secure areas.
--Automated vehicle locator systems.
--Security fencing around facilities.
Transit agencies with large rail operations also reported a
priority need for Federal capital funding for intrusion detection
devices.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Homeland Security issued directives
for the transit industry in May 2004, which would require that transit
authorities beef up security and to take a series of precautions which
would set the stage for more extensive measures without any Federal
funding assistance. We believe these directives are unfunded mandates.
Many of our transit systems have already carried out most of the
measures that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is calling
for, such as drafting security plans, removing trash bins and setting
up procedures to deal with suspicious packages. The cost of these
measures and further diligence taken during times of heightened alert
is of particular concern to us. We look forward to working with you in
addressing these issues.
As you know, in the fiscal year 2005 Homeland Security
Appropriations bill (Public Law 108-334), TSA can hire up to 100 rail
inspectors using a $10 million appropriation. We have concerns about
this provision. We believe that funding for the inspectors would be
better spent on things that would support the industry such as
surveillance cameras, and emergency communication and other systems
rather than highlighting security issues without providing the
necessary resources to address them. We look forward to working with
you in addressing our concerns.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Chairman, prior to and following September 11, 2001--the date
of the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history--APTA has
played a key role in addressing the safety and security issues of our
country. American public transportation agencies have also taken
significant measures to enhance their security and emergency
preparedness efforts to adjust to society's new state of concern.
Although agencies had a wide range of security initiatives in place at
the time of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and already had
developed emergency response plans, the September 11 incidents focused,
strengthened and prioritized security efforts throughout the industry.
Transit agencies have had an excellent safety record and have
worked for years to enhance their system security and employee security
training, by following government standards and APTA guidelines, and by
learning from the attacks on transit agencies abroad. For example, the
1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system caused U.S. transit
properties managing tunnels and underground transit stations to go on
high alert. The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, for
instance, responded to the potential threat of chemical weapons attacks
by sending a transit police team to Fort McClellan, Alabama, to learn
response tactics from U.S. Army chemical weapons experts.
In the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, transit
agencies of all sizes worked to identify where they might be vulnerable
to attacks and increased their security spending for both operations
and capital costs. The agencies subsequently upgraded and strengthened
their emergency response and security plans and procedures, taking
steps to protect transit infrastructure and patrons and to increase the
transit security presence while giving riders a sense of security.
Some initiatives around the country include:
--Increased surveillance via closed circuit TV;
--Increased training for employees;
--Hired more police, K-9 units added;
--Chemical detection systems being tested;
--Infrastructure design to eliminate hiding places;
--Drills are routinely held with first responders; and
--Encouraging riders to be vigilant for suspicious activities or
items.
After September 11, transit systems enhanced efforts to prevent
unauthorized entry into transit facilities. The need for employees and
passengers to stay alert and report suspicious occurrences became a key
goal of many agencies. These efforts are paying off. But, while many
transit agencies are more secure than they were prior to September 11,
more can and should be done.
APTA has launched additional efforts to further transit industry
security and preparedness, collaborating with FTA in developing
emergency preparedness forums, and sponsoring and organizing security-
related conferences and workshops. Moreover, APTA developed a list of
critical safety and security needs faced by the transit industry, which
it has provided to the Department of Transportation and the U.S.
Congress.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION SHARING ANALYSIS CENTER (ISAC)--NEED
FOR ONGOING FUNDING
Presidential Decision Directive Number 63 authorizes and encourages
national critical infrastructures to develop and maintain ISACs as a
means of strengthening security and protection against cyber and
operations attacks. APTA is pleased to have been designated a public
transportation Sector Coordinator by the U.S. Department of
Transportation, and in that capacity has received a $1.2 million grant
from the Federal Transit Administration to establish a transit ISAC.
APTA formalized an agreement with a private company to implement the
ISAC and make it available to public transit systems around the
country.
This ISAC for public transit provides a secure two-way reporting
and analysis structure for the transmission of critical alerts and
advisories as well as the collection, analysis and dissemination of
security information from transit agencies. The public transit ISAC
also provides a critical linkage between the transit industry, the U.S.
Department of Transportation, the Transportation Security
Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Public Transit ISAC has been invaluable to the public transit
industry. However, its 2-year funding from the FTA has expired, and
even though APTA pursued future funding for the ISAC from DHS and other
agencies, we were not successful. DHS has decided it will no longer
provide funding for ISACs. Instead, DHS has launched a new program--
Homeland Security Information Network-Critical Infrastructure (HSIN-
CI), in which we are participating. HSIN is designed to provide a new
set of tools to share critical sector information among private
industry and government, but a fully functioning HSIN has yet to be
realized. Once it is, there is no guarantee that it will ever be as
useful and comprehensive as the Public Transit ISAC. Consequently, we
believe that ongoing, reliable and consistent funding from Congress for
the Public Transit ISAC is necessary.
ONGOING TRANSIT SECURITY PROGRAMS
Mr. Chairman, while transit agencies have moved to a heightened
level of security alertness, the leadership of APTA has been actively
working with its strategic partners to develop a practical plan to
address our industry's security and emergency preparedness needs.
Shortly after the September 11 events, the APTA Executive Committee
established a Security Task Force. The APTA Security Task Force has
established a security strategic plan that prioritizes direction for
our initiatives. Among those initiatives, the Task Force serves as the
steering group for determining security projects with more than $2
million in Transit Cooperative Research funding through the
Transportation Research Board.
Through this funding, APTA has conducted four transit security
workshop forums around the Nation for the larger transit systems with
potentially greater risk exposure. These workshops provided
confidential settings to enable sharing of security practices and
applying methodologies to various scenarios. The outcomes from these
workshops were made available in a controlled and confidential format
to other transit agencies unable to attend the workshops. The workshops
were held in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Chicago.
In partnerships with the Transportation Research Board, the APTA
Security Task Force has also established two TCRP Panels that
identified and initiated specific projects developed to address
Preparedness/Detection/Response to Incidents and Prevention and
Mitigation. The Security Task Force emphasized the importance for the
research projects to be operationally practical.
In addition to the TCRP funded efforts, a generic Checklist For
Transit Agency Review Of Emergency Response Planning And System Review
has been developed by APTA as a resource tool and is available on the
APTA web site. Also through the direction of the Security Task Force,
APTA has reached out to other organizations and international
transportation associations to formally engage in sharing information
on our respective security programs and to continue efforts that raise
the bar for safety and security effectiveness.
APTA has long-established Safety Audit Programs for Commuter Rail,
Bus, and Rail Transit Operations. Within the scope of these programs
are specific elements pertaining to Emergency Response Planning and
Training as well as Security Planning. In keeping with our industry's
increased emphasis on these areas, the APTA Safety Audit Programs have
been modified to place added attention to these critical elements.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, in light of our Nation's heightened security needs
post 9/11, we believe that increased Federal investment in public
transportation security by Congress and DHS is critical. The public
transportation industry has made great strides in transit security
improvements since 9/11 but much more needs to be done. We look forward
to building on our cooperative working relationship with the Department
of Homeland Security and Congress to begin to address these needs. We
again thank you and the Committee for allowing us to submit testimony
on these critical issues, and look forward to working with you on
safety and security issues.
______
Prepared Statement of the Association of State Floodplain Managers,
Inc.
The Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc. (ASFPM) is
pleased to share comments on these key aspects of the fiscal year 2006
budget proposal for FEMA, which we believe greatly impact the ability
to reduce the Nation's risk and cost from flooding (or natural
hazards):
--Urge transfer of funds from the National Flood Insurance Fund to
the Flood Mitigation Fund in the amounts authorized in 2004 to
deal with the drain represented by repetitively flooded,
insured properties.
--Support for continued full funding for modernization of flood maps,
with comments about quality and the need to re-evaluate the
funding and duration of the effort.
--Restore the 15 percent formula for the Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program funding in States with Basic Mitigation Plans and
oppose the Administration's proposed reduction of Hazard
Mitigation Grant Program funds from 20 percent to 12.5 percent
for States that have Enhanced Mitigation Plans approved by
FEMA.
--Monitor how the Department of Homeland Security addresses natural
hazards, which each year threaten nearly every local
jurisdiction to some degree, and how the Department addresses
mitigation programs intended to bring about long-term reduction
in the impacts of hazards.
--Clarify that mitigation funds provided to private property owners
under FEMA's programs are not taxable as income.
The Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc., and its 20
State chapters represent over 7,000 State, local, and private sector
officials as well as other professionals who are engaged in all aspects
of floodplain management and hazard mitigation. All are concerned with
reducing our Nation's flood-related losses and reducing the costs of
flooding.
Transfer Funds to Address the NFIP'S Repetitive Loss Problem
Following several years of deliberation, Congress enacted the Flood
Insurance Reform Act of 2004. In large part, the Act is intended to
provide FEMA, States and communities with the funding and tools needed
to deal with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) repetitive
loss problem. For many years FEMA has identified the disproportionate
amount of repetitive claims paid on a very small percentage of NFIP-
insured properties as the most significant factor that drives increases
in the cost of flood insurance--which affects 4.4 million policyholders
in every State and over 20,000 counties, cities and towns. Fewer than
50,000 properties account for a drain of approximately $200 million a
year.
The Reform Act of 2004 authorizes transfers of funds (total of $90
million) from the National Flood Insurance Fund (which contains only
premium and fee income, no General Funds) into the National Flood
Mitigation Fund to aggressively mitigate repetitive loss structures.
Funds authorized for three elements of the Flood Mitigation Assistance
program are: Basic ($40 million/year), Pilot ($40 million/year through
fiscal year 2009), and Individual Property ($10 million/year). The
Basic Program is mature, with virtually all States currently active to
some degree. For the fiscal year 2006 Basic Program the Administration
requests $28 million, just $8 million over the funding level of recent
years. No funds were requested for the Pilot Program and the Individual
Property Program.
FEMA consistently asserts the merits of focusing mitigation efforts
on repetitive loss properties in order to help stabilize and strengthen
the National Flood Insurance Fund (NFIF). The Reform Act of 2004
directs that the repetitive loss programs be funded by transfer from
the NFIF without differentiating between fee income and premium income.
DHS Undersecretary Mike Brown testified that the budget request is
limited to only the additional $8 million for the Basic FMA program
because the Department is studying how to fund the repetitive loss
effort from fee income. ASFPM believes it is appropriate to transfer
funds, without further delay, from fee income and/or premium income.
Since the NFIF as a whole will benefit--and all policyholders will
benefit if the pressure to raise the rates is diminished--then it is
well worth the investment of some premium income.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to fully fund the Flood Mitigation
Assistance programs authorized in the Flood Insurance Reform
Act of 2004 by transferring funds from the National Flood
Insurance Fund to the National Flood Mitigation Fund.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to make clear that transfer funds for
the repetitive loss grant programs may be taken from premium
income and/or fee income, subject to the limitations of the
Reform Act of 2004.
Continue Support for Flood Map Modernization
Flood maps are used for many purposes beyond the immediate needs of
the National Flood Insurance Program. Good flood maps play a major role
in disaster cost reduction--they are used to support land use and
management of identified flood-prone areas. FEMA estimates that local
regulation of flood hazard areas, using the flood maps, avoids property
losses of over $1 billion each year. FEMA's estimate does not count the
benefits associated with using the maps to guide development to less
hazard-prone areas. Quality flood maps yield benefits at all levels of
government. They help reduce the need for Federal disaster assistance
and casualty loss tax deductions because at-risk homes with federally-
backed mortgages are required to be covered by flood insurance, which
provides financial resources to help owners recover.
ASFPM is concerned that rigid metrics imposed on FEMA are driving
map production, rather than the goal of producing defensible and
accurate flood maps that reflect necessary revisions. Further, budget
constraints created by an out-of-date estimate of map needs is
artificially restricting restudies and new studies to only a small
number of streams or short reaches of coastline. The expectation that
revised flood maps will meet high quality standards is an incentive and
justification for States and communities to invest their own funds in
the modernization effort--ASFPM is concerned that this expectation is
not being met.
--ASFPM strongly endorses the Administration's request for $200
million.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to request that FEMA re-evaluate the
duration and anticipated funding levels required to produce
revised and updated flood risk maps to the appropriate and
defensible quality standards. Re-evaluation is warranted
because of advances in technology, lessons learned in the early
years of this effort, improved understanding of the extent of
areas not adequately mapped, priorities identified by States
and communities, and the number of partnership efforts with
States and communities, including in-kind and other
contribution.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to express its expectation that FEMA
will address State-identified priorities and that adequate
quality data and mapping for streams and coastlines where
people are at-risk are the objectives.
Restore 15 percent Formula for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and
Reject Reduction of Funding Available for States with Enhanced
Mitigation Plans
ASFPM urges restoration of the 15 percent formula used to determine
amounts made available after disasters for the Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program (HMGP) authorized by Section 404 of the Stafford Act. States
and communities across the country have evidence that the most
effective time to garner support for mitigation projects is in the
aftermath of disasters. While mitigation planning is a vital activity
to identify hazards and potential risks, only actual damaging events
generate significant public interest and State and local financial
support. Redundant Regardless of the statistical evidence of the
likelihood of future disaster occurrence, communities rarely place
hazard mitigation above today's demands for education, social programs,
local first responders, and the like. This is especially true in
smaller communities where financial resources are always tight.
On the proverbial sunny day,' flooding is a low priority for the
millions of homeowners and business owners in the Nation's flood hazard
areas--regardless of the mounting evidence that future floods will
occur. Homeowners and business owners view offers for buyouts,
elevations, and retrofit floodproofing very differently when they are
shoveling mud, coping with toxic mold, or faced with collapsed
foundations. Restoring HMGP to the 15 percent formula will provide
resources to those who have just experienced damage and are most
receptive to change.
ASFPM recommends that pre-disaster funding be directed to
community-based planning in order to prepare communities to undertake
mitigation projects when the disaster strikes. It would also be
reasonable to make pre-disaster mitigation funds available to support
public projects that address at-risk State and community buildings,
facilities, and public infrastructure--among the more costly categories
of post-disaster public assistance. These projects, which do not
require direct and voluntary participation of property owners, can
readily be designed and implemented in the pre-disaster context and
provide broad public benefits.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to restore the Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program formula to 15 percent of certain Federal disaster
expenditures. The Disaster Mitigation Assistance Act of 2000
calls for communities to have pre-disaster local mitigation
plans in order to access HMGP. One result of this requirement
is that communities will be better prepared to identify
eligible activities after the next declared disaster, thus
further shortening the time needed to obligate and expend the
HMGP funds.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to reject the Administration's
proposed reduction in the formula to determine amounts
available to States with Enhanced Mitigation Plans. To qualify
for HMGP based on the 20 percent that is authorized by the
Stafford Act, a State demonstrates a strong commitment by
administering a comprehensive mitigation program, including
having the capability and capacity to manage grants and assess
the cost avoidance of mitigation measures. The potential
availability of the increased HMGP amount is a powerful
incentive for States to take on the significant additional
responsibility to work with communities and others to identify
and implement feasible and cost-effective mitigation measures.
--ASFPM recommends that the Subcommittee examine the effectiveness of
the nationwide, competitive Pre-Disaster Mitigation program. In
the fiscal year 2005 appropriations bill DHS was directed to
consult with State mitigation officials. Last fall State
officials were provided just 2 weeks to respond and, to date,
no report has been released. ASFPM recommends that particular
attention should be paid to citizen, community and State
interest in pre-disaster mitigation and how the ability to
provide the non-Federal cost share differs in the pre- and
post-disaster periods.
Monitor How the Department of Homeland Security Addresses Natural
Hazards and Mitigation
Floods, hurricanes, severe storms, tornadoes, harsh winter storms,
landslides, wildfires, and earthquakes put millions of Americans are at
risk every day. From a cost and future consequences perspective, ASFPM
remains concerned with the diminished focus on natural hazards and
mitigation by the Department of Homeland Security. Despite continued
assertions of commitment to FEMA's all-hazards mission, DHS has reduced
cohesiveness of programs and reduced the number of staff who deal with
natural hazards and mitigation. The following remain specific concerns:
transferring FEMA funds to areas of DHS that are not under the
jurisdiction of the Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness &
Response; detailing FEMA staff out of that directorate; and reducing
support for the vital network of State and local public safety and
disaster mitigation officials.
DHS Secretary Chertoff is beginning a thorough examination of
threats and vulnerabilities in order to prioritize them, and has
expressed his intent to align DHS resources and priorities based on
this analysis. Natural hazards are a threat in every State--every State
has experienced multiple devastating floods that resulted in
declaration of major disasters. Damage due to floods of all magnitudes
are estimated as exceeding $5 billion each year. Most areas are at risk
to other natural hazards, as well. Clearly, our communities and our
citizens are vulnerable. ASFPM hopes that adequate consideration of
natural hazards is made in the analysis called for by Secretary
Chertoff.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to monitor DHS proposals and actions
that affect FEMA programs and staff to prevent unwise and
unnecessary reduction in FEMA's effectiveness, which in turn
will jeopardize State and local efforts to deal with natural
hazards and mitigation.
Clarify that Mitigation Grant Funds Received by Private Property Owners
are not Taxable as Income
In 2004 the IRS made a determination that mitigation grants to
property owners who work with their communities and States to prevent
and minimize future damages to their homes and businesses are taxable
as income. This decision is having a dramatic impact on the Nation's
ability to reduce future damages and costs (many disaster costs are
paid directly by taxpayers). Property owners, when told that mitigation
cost-share grants will be taxable, are simply opting to NOT mitigate,
thus remaining at-risk to future damage. Ironically, property owners
are only eligible for cost sharing mitigation grants if it is clearly
shown that the benefits to the Nation outweigh the costs to the Nation.
--ASFPM urges the Subcommittee to include language in the
appropriations bill to clarify that mitigation cost sharing
grants are not taxable income.
For information about ASFPM and this testimony, contact Larry
Larson, Executive Director, at (608) 274-0123 (asfpm@floods.org) or
Rebecca Quinn, Legislative Officer, at (410) 267-6968
(rcquinn@earthlink.net).
______
Prepared Statement of the City of San Marcos, Texas
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: On behalf of the City
of San Marcos, Texas, I am pleased to submit this statement in support
of our request for project funding through the Appropriations Bill for
Homeland Security.
The City of San Marcos requests an appropriation of $5,000,000 for
the San Marcos Municipal Airport to construct and equip a multi-purpose
fire station and fire fighter training facility. We would respectfully
suggest that this project would properly fall within the scope of first
responder, emergency preparedness and response training. There is no
provision for this funding in the President's budget, nor has there
been any prior year Federal funding.
The City of San Marcos and facility users would be actively engaged
in the project's funding through cost-sharing. Approximately $200,000
would be provided by the City for all required real estate and
utilities. The City and facility users would provide an estimated
$600,000 annually in operating revenues when the facility is fully
functional.
The San Marcos Municipal Airport is a public general aviation
airport owned and operated by the City of San Marcos, Texas. It is
located just east of Interstate Highway 35 on Texas Highway 21
approximately 30 miles south of Austin and 45 miles north of San
Antonio. The airport occupies the site of a closed military air base,
and we share the former military base with the Department of Labor's
Gary Job Corps Center.
There are currently 225 aircraft based at the airport, and the
airport supports over 100,000 air operations annually. This makes the
San Marcos Municipal Airport the largest and most active general
aviation airport in the bustling Austin-San Antonio corridor. To serve
the present and future safety and security needs of the airport, an
emergency response capability, known in aviation terms as an Aircraft
Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) facility, has been among our highest
priority goals. We have encountered a challenge in obtaining Federal
funding assistance through conventional Federal Aviation Administration
channels. In order for the airport to qualify for ARFF funding, the
airport must first be certified under Federal Air Regulation, Part 139;
however, to achieve certification, the airport requires an ARFF.
As a better, more cost-efficient approach to achieving our goal, we
are proposing to partner with the San Marcos Fire Department and the
Gary Job Corps Center to construct and equip a facility on the airport
that will meet the airport ARFF requirement, serve as a fire station
for the City of San Marcos, and also be a training venue for the Gary
Job Corps Center and other regional agencies to train fire fighters and
emergency service first responders.
Our plan proposes to construct, equip, and then operate a multi-
purpose fire station and fire fighter training facility located on the
airport. The fire station would consist of two components. One would be
a Federal Aviation Administration certified ARFF to meet the evolving
public safety and security requirements of a growing public airport.
Another component would be a conventional City of San Marcos fire
station to be integrated with the San Marcos Fire Department's other
emergency response forces to serve the citizens of San Marcos.
In addition to these two emergency response capabilities, the
facility would be the educational site and provide support to the Gary
Job Corps Center's mission of training students for careers as
professional fire fighters and emergency service first responders. We
further envision that the facility will serve other regional training
needs, especially for the many small community and rural emergency
services responders who do not have the resources to maintain their own
training facilities and programs. The planning estimate's total cost
for project design, construction, furnishing, and equipping is
$5,000,000.
The San Marcos Municipal Airport is in desperate need of an ARFF to
enhance public safety and security. Both the City of San Marcos and the
San Marcos Fire Department need a fire station to serve the expanding
eastern section of the city. The Gary Job Corps Center needs a fire
fighter and first responder training school. All these critical public
policy needs can be most effectively and efficiently met with a multi-
purpose fire station and fire fighter training facility located on the
San Marcos Municipal Airport. This multi-purpose facility would
maximize the use of limited public safety tax dollars, and,
consequently, makes sense from a public policy perspective.
We appreciate very much the Subcommittee's consideration of this
request for $5,000,000 for the City of San Marcos for this important
public safety and security project.
______
Prepared Statement of the Coalition of Northeastern Governors
As the Subcommittee begins the fiscal year 2006 transportation
appropriations process, the Coalition of Northeastern Governors (CONEG)
is pleased to share with the Subcommittee testimony on the fiscal year
2006 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. The CONEG Governors commend
the Subcommittee for its past support of funding for the Nation's
critical transportation security needs, particularly rail security.
Although we recognize the extensive demands being made upon Federal
resources in the coming year, we urge the Subcommittee to continue the
important Federal role in securing the Nation's transportation systems.
Efforts to strengthen the Nation's security, particularly its
multi-modal transportation system, are of paramount importance to the
CONEG Governors. We believe high priority must be given to the safety
and security of the Nation's passenger rail systems, and therefore urge
that the fiscal year 2006 Appropriations include the funding necessary
to enable the Department of Homeland Security to help strengthen the
security of the Nation's intercity, commuter rail, and rail transit
systems. These extensive systems move millions of riders daily, and are
critical components of the transportation network. Funding for rail
security programs will allow the Department of Homeland Security to be
an essential partner with States, local governments and public
transportation authorities in ensuring that these vital rail systems
remain accessible, reliable--and safe.
The CONEG Governors thank the entire Subcommittee for the
opportunity to share these priorities and appreciate your consideration
of these requests.
______
Prepared Statement of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority
Chairman Gregg and distinguished members of the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security: The Greater Orlando
Aviation Authority (``the Authority'') greatly appreciates the
opportunity to submit written testimony in support of funding
initiatives necessary to enhance the efficiency and execution of
Department of Homeland Security requirements at Orlando International
Airport. The Authority remains a steadfast partner in ensuring the
highest standards of public safety and security of our homeland and
deeply appreciates the leadership and efforts put forth by you and your
Subcommittee to advance this mission.
The Authority respectfully requests your Subcommittee's
consideration and support of the following Federal initiatives:
Integrated U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)/USDA Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Facility
Two years ago, our Nation took a bold advancement in border
protection by unifying all Federal entities with border
responsibilities under one frontline border agency--the U.S. Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection (BCBP) within the Department of Homeland
Security. Identified as ``One Face at the Border'', this historic
initiative merged the personnel and functions of the former Customs
Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service and the U.S. Border Patrol to enhance
efficiencies and create greater accountability in one seamless border
service. Today's CBP officers are cross-trained to perform all
functions previously fulfilled by the individual legacy agencies.
On March 1, 2003, CBP designated a Port Director at each port of
entry to implement a single, unified chain of command. At Orlando
International Airport, an officially designated Port of Entry, over 230
employees of the legacy agencies were brought under the single command
of our Area Port Director. Although functions have been merged to
create a seamless border and inspection service, operational locations
are still stretched across the airport's 13,247 acres at multiple
locations.
The primary CBP facility, constructed almost a decade ago, is
located on the west side of the airport in the Tradeport Drive area. As
a result of the BCBP initiative, this facility is being utilized to its
maximum capacity and does not have the flexibility to accommodate the
realignment and future growth of staffing. INS functions are housed in
an independent facility along the west side of the airport, as is the
USDA Animal and Plant Inspection Service personnel.
The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority respectfully requests
funding under the Department of Homeland Security to construct a 28,000
square foot companion facility adjacent to the existing CBP facility in
order to promote a campus-style complex. This facility will accommodate
capacity needed by CBP and bring existing APHIS staff and inspection
facilities closer to CBP to increase interaction and accessibility.
Such a facility will ensure improved communications and efficiencies
needed to implement the Department's mission to protect the security of
our borders and homeland.
The Authority respectfully requests the Committee to include the
following line item in the fiscal year 2006 DHS budget:
``Design and Construction of an Integrated U.S. Customs and Border
Protection/USDA APHIS Facility at Orlando International Airport--
$9,000,000''
Additional U.S. Customs and Border Protection Staffing Positions
Orlando International Airport continues to steadily rebound from
the events of September 11, 2001 and significantly outpace passenger
growth estimates. During the past year, our airport has moved upward in
performance rankings to now lead as the 12th busiest commercial
passenger service airport in the Nation and the 20th busiest in the
world. Orlando International Airport has also surpassed Miami
International Airport as Florida's busiest commercial service airport.
As Orlando is a top destination choice of passengers, it is no
surprise that Orlando International Airport also ranks as our Nation's
5th largest Origination and Destination (O&D) Airport. As O&D
passengers are required to undergo more security screening requirements
than connecting passengers because they enter the sterile security area
for the first time, appropriate levels of staffing are needed to ensure
the efficient and timely flow of passengers through the screening and
inspection process.
CBP passenger wait times at Orlando International Airport routinely
exceed the national average. Additional inspectors are needed to
accommodate the airport's continuing growth. Annual CBP Inspector
expenses are approximately $150,000 per inspector per year. Federal
funding in the amount of $750,000 is needed to support the addition of
five new CBP officers.
The Authority respectfully requests the Committee to include the
following line item in the fiscal year 2006 DHS budget:
``Additional CBP staffing positions at Orlando International
Airport--$750,000''
Installation of In-Line Checked Baggage Explosive Detection System
(EDS)
Over 2 years ago, the Authority received concept approval from the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for the installation of an
In-Line Checked Baggage Explosive Detection System (EDS); however, the
TSA has not issued a Letter-of-Intent to proceed with installation of
this system due to lack of available Federal funding. Since the design
has already been completed, the system could be installed and fully
operational within two years if Federal funding is obtained.
Orlando International Airport (OIA) currently has 41 EDS machines
located throughout the airport, with the majority in ticket lobbies and
other passenger areas of the terminal. The physical size of each
machine and the footprint support area consumes a significant portion
(10 to 15 percent) of the terminal's capacity needed to process and
move passengers efficiently. The airport has already implemented
substantial renovations to the main terminal in partnership with the
Federal Aviation Administration to maximize the flow and efficiency to
the greatest extent possible. The existing placement of the EDS
equipment negates the effectiveness of this substantial investment and
may lead to the airport exceeding capacity levels earlier than
projected.
Installation of an In-Line system would result in a significant
reduction in the number of EDS machines needed and the number of
personnel required to manual operate the integrated system. Of the
1,000 plus TSA personnel currently stationed at the airport, almost
half (50 percent) are dedicated to the operation of the free standing
EDS machines. Initial investments by TSA for in-line systems clearly
result in immediate and long-term operational cost savings to the
Administration.
OIA primarily serves origination and destination travelers, who
undergo more screening requirements than connecting passengers. O&D
passengers represent approximately 95 percent of all passengers at OIA.
This high level of O&D activity is expected to continue. The Airport
accommodates more leisure travelers, who typically travel with a
greater number of bags and unusually-sized accompaniments such as golf
clubs, water skis, surfboards, etc. Under the current system,
passengers must wait in airline check-in lines to obtain a boarding
pass; then carry their luggage to the nearest EDS machine. Overall,
installation of an In-Line EDS at Orlando International Airport would
result in significant operational cost savings for TSA; recovered
terminal capacity for the airport; and a return to customer-friendly
expedited passenger processing. The total cost of the In-Line EDS Phase
II System is estimated at $100 million.
The Authority respectfully requests the Committee to include
additional funding for the installation of In-Line Checked Baggage
Explosive Detection Systems to enable TSA to execute additional Letters
of Intent to airports such as Orlando International Airport.
Justification and Closing
Orlando International Airport remains steadfast in its commitment
to help our Nation in its mission to protect our borders and homeland
while enabling safe, efficient and timely movement of passengers and
commerce.
Orlando International Airport (OIA) is one of the Central Florida's
primary assets and has been designated as an U.S. Security Category X
airport. In 2004, OIA served approximately 31.1 million passengers,
surpassing Miami International Airport as the busiest commercial
passenger airport in Florida. Additionally, OIA is the 12th busiest
commercial service airport in the Nation and the 20th busiest in the
world. In terms of origin and destination (O&D) passenger traffic at
domestic airports, OIA ranked 5th behind Los Angeles International and
traditional airline hub airports such as Las Vegas' McCarran
International, Atlanta's Hartsfield International and Chicago's O'Hare
International. O&D passengers represent approximately 95 percent of all
passengers at OIA. This high level of O&D activity is expected to
continue.
OIA has scheduled service to 82 non-stop domestic destinations and
19 non-stop international destinations, promoting increased airline
service and competitive fares. The largest rental car market in the
world is located at OIA. The airport shares a unique relationship with
the regional economy. A completed Economic Impact Study determined OIA
generates a $20.7 billion annual economic impact on Central Florida and
is responsible for 62,100 direct and indirect jobs.
The Authority expresses its gratitude for the opportunity to
present this testimony to your Subcommittee. We look forward to working
with you in advancing these safety and security initiatives that will
benefit the National Aviation System.
______
Prepared Statement of the International Association of Emergency
Managers
Chairman Gregg, Ranking Member Byrd, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to provide
testimony on the President's fiscal year 2006 budget request for the
Department of Homeland Security.
I am Dewayne West. As the Director of Emergency Services for
Johnston County, North Carolina, I supervise the Emergency Management
program, the Fire Marshal's Office and Emergency Medical Services. I
currently serve as the President of the International Association of
Emergency Managers (IAEM) and am providing this testimony on their
behalf. I am also a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), a member and
past president of the North Carolina Emergency Management Association,
and the Vice Chairman of the Emergency Management Accreditation
Commission (EMAP). I was recently appointed by the Governor to serve on
the N.C. State Emergency Response Commission (SERC).
The International Association of Emergency Managers has over 2,600
members including emergency management professionals at the State and
local government levels, the military, private business and the
nonprofit sector in the United States and in other countries. Most of
our members are city and county emergency managers who perform the
crucial function of coordinating and integrating the efforts at the
local level to prepare for, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and
recover from all types of disasters including terrorist attacks. Our
members include emergency managers from large urban areas as well as
rural counties.
We appreciate the support the Subcommittee has given to emergency
management in the past 2 years and especially appreciate your support
for the Emergency Management Performance Grants and your strong support
for and the all hazards mission.
We respectfully request your assistance on two issues.
Emergency Management Performance Grants (EMPG)
--Request the $10,000,000 funding cut be rejected and the amount
increased to $280 million to begin addressing the shortfall.
--Request that EMPG funding be maintained in a separate account as in
the fiscal year 2005 Congressional action and not combined with
other grant programs.
Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP)
--Request that the legislative language proposed in the budget to
reduce the formula for States with enhanced plans from 20
percent to 12.5 percent be rejected.
--Request HMGP formula for States with basic mitigation plans be
restored to 15 percent of FEMA eligible cost.
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE GRANTS (EMPG)
Increase funding for EMPG.--Appropriations Committee report
language referred to the program as ``the backbone of the Nation's
emergency management system.'' In order to maintain this system and
build the capacity required to meet the greatly increasing demands,
additional investment is needed.
However, the President's Budget request for fiscal year 2006
proposes to reduce the funding from the $180,000,000 appropriated in
fiscal year 2005 to $170,000,000. According to a biennial study
conducted by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) in
2004 there is a shortfall of $264 million. We respectfully request that
EMPG be increased $100 million over the fiscal year 2005 level for a
total of $280,000,000 to begin addressing this shortfall.
The Emergency Management Performance Grants (EMPG) constitute the
only source of direct Federal funding for State and local governments
to provide the foundation for basic emergency coordination and planning
capabilities for all hazards, including those related to homeland
security. The grants are pass through grants to State and local
emergency management offices and are used predominately for personnel
who plan, train, coordinate, and conduct exercises and other functions
essential to effective preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery
efforts.
EMPG grants require a 50 percent State or local match. Currently
many local jurisdictions are receiving 20 percent or less. In addition
many local jurisdictions receive no funding because of shortage of
funds.
Natural disasters continue to remind us of the great need for
preparedness and response coordination. In 2004 alone there were 68
federally declared disasters and 7 emergencies and local officials
responded to many more disasters that were not federally declared. The
size and scope of Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan
underscored the need for a strong national emergency system. Eight
hundred personnel from thirty-eight States provided support to the
affected States and communities through the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact.
State and local emergency management programs are in desperate need
of financial support if they are to continue to meet the requirements
of all hazard planning and coordination as well as implement the
President's homeland security strategy in States, counties, cities and
neighborhoods across America. Emergency managers must meet the
challenge of bringing the emergency response planning and organizations
in their States and communities in line with new Federal requirements
contained in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the
National Response Plan (NRP), and numerous new and pending national
standards for preparedness and response.
The new security concerns arising from the current world situation
make the coordination and unifying role served by emergency managers
more important than ever. Given continued support and funding,
emergency managers have the skills, the expertise, and the willingness
to rise to the planning and coordinating challenges presented by the
full range of hazards affecting their communities.
Maintain EMPG as a separate account.--We also urge you to continue
to maintain EMPG as a separate account. The President's budget includes
this program in the ``State and Local'' account with a number of other
grant programs. EMPG is different from the other programs in this
account. EMPG has existed for over 50 years and supports all hazards
emergency management, including terrorism. In addition, it is a
performance based continuing program with deliverables and requirements
which must be met in order to receive funding the next year.
HAZARD MITIGATION GRANT PROGRAM (HMGP)
The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program which is authorized by Section
404 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance
Act provides funding to States following a Presidentially declared
disaster in an amount equivalent to a percentage of eligible FEMA
funds. The monies are provided by the President's Disaster Relief Fund
and the costs are shared 75 percent Federal and 25 percent State or
local. These funds are critical to reducing the costs and impacts of
future disasters by breaking the cycle of damage and repair and damage
again.
Reject funding cut for States with enhanced plans.--The fiscal year
2006 budget request in the Disaster Relief account in the Emergency
Preparedness and Response Directorate proposes the following
legislative language which would amend the Stafford Act: Provided, that
the post-disaster hazard mitigation set aside for States is 7.5 percent
of eligible disaster costs: Provided further, That States with an
Enhanced Mitigation Plan may receive up to 12.5 percent of eligible
disaster costs.
This language would reduce funding available for post disaster
mitigation to States with approved enhanced mitigation plans from an
amount equivalent to 20 percent of eligible FEMA disaster costs to only
12.5 percent. Since the passage of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000
which added the 20 percent incentive, FEMA has strongly encouraged
States to work toward these enhanced plans. The FEMA regulations stated
``A State with a FEMA approved Enhanced State Mitigation Plan at the
time of a disaster declaration is eligible to receive increased funds
under the HMGP, based on 20 percent of the total estimated eligible
Stafford Act disaster assistance.'' The States of Missouri, Oklahoma,
and Washington have achieved this goal and others have been diligently
working toward it. This effort required a very significant commitment
of resources from already overburdened State and community officials to
develop a comprehensive mitigation program and requires States to take
on significant additional responsibility. However, many States have
committed to the additional effort because of the 20 percent incentive
provided by Congress. The ``carrot'' of increased funding has been in
the law over 4 years. Now that States have made the effort to achieve
the goal, the Federal commitment should be kept. We urge you to reject
the language lowering the percentage for States with Enhanced
Mitigation Plans.
Restore Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) to 15 percent.--The
President's budget language continues the HMGP program at 7.5 percent.
The fiscal year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill changed the formula
used to determine hazard mitigation funding from 15 percent to 7.5
percent of eligible disaster costs and provided funds for a new
nationally competitive predisaster mitigation grant program. Citizens
and elected officials are most receptive to undertaking projects and
initiatives that prevent the loss of life and reduce destruction of
property immediately after a disaster has occurred. States and
communities regularly report that the demand for post-disaster grants
exceeds the available funding. Now, with the HMGP funding reduced by
half, many more of these post disaster opportunities are being missed.
We urge you to restore HMGP to 15 percent.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to provide this testimony.
We would welcome the opportunity to provide additional information to
the Subcommittee.
______
Prepared Statement of the National Emergency Management Association
INTRODUCTION
Thank you Chairman Gregg, Ranking Member Byrd, and distinguished
members of the Committee for allowing me the opportunity to provide you
with a statement for the record on the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) fiscal year 2006 budget. I am David Liebersbach, the President of
the National Emergency Management Association and Director of the
Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. In my
statement, I am representing the National Emergency Management
Association (NEMA), whose members are the State emergency management
directors in the 50 States, the U.S. territories, and the District of
Columbia. NEMA's members are responsible to their governors for
emergency preparedness, homeland security, mitigation, response, and
recovery activities for natural, man-made, and terrorist caused
disasters.
Over the past year, our Nation's emergency management system has
been tested by the extensive natural disasters that we have faced. In
all, there were 68 major disaster declarations, seven emergency
declarations, and 43 fire management assistance declarations. Our
Nation bravely faced and responded to one of the most active hurricane
seasons with impacts by tropical Storm Bonnie, Hurricanes Charley,
Frances, Gaston, Ivan and Jeanne, while also dealing with other
disasters like flooding, tornadoes, and earthquakes. We also watched
the aftermath of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean and saw graphically
illustrated the importance of catastrophic disaster planning and
maintaining our own emergency preparedness and response system. In
Alaska, we experienced the largest fire season ever, with fires
impacting over 6.5 million acres and 10,000 square miles. At the same
time, emergency management continues to prepare for the threat of
terrorism with new requirements coming from the Federal government such
as updating State plans to reflect the National Response Plan (NRP),
training emergency responders on the new National Incident Management
System (NIMS), and implementing the National Preparedness Goal mandated
by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD 8) on National
Preparedness with no additional Federal financial assistance to meet
Federal mandates. The multi-hazards emergency management system
continues to be the means to practice and exercise for devastating acts
of terrorism, while at the same time preparing the Nation for
hurricanes, tornadoes, hazardous materials spills, and floods. We
respectfully ask for your Committee to consider the role of emergency
management as you address the fiscal year 2006 appropriations.
All-hazards preparedness is in danger of being regarded as a thing
of the past as more focus is being placed on terrorism. We must ensure
that our capability to deal with many hazards, including terrorism
remains intact and that we do not shift our focus to preparedness for a
single peril. The capability to coordinate an effective response to an
event does not change by the type of disaster. The HSPD 8 process shows
the increased focus on terrorism with only 2 of the 15 disaster
scenarios representing traditional natural disasters. The all-hazards
approach relies upon the maintenance of plans, trained personnel to
carry them out, and supporting infrastructure in the form of emergency
operations facilities with inter-operable communications. We must
continue this approach in practicing and exercising for all
emergencies, to include devastating acts of terrorism, as well as day-
to-day emergencies. We cannot afford to lose the system we have in
place to deal with all disasters in order to build new infrastructure
for homeland security's sake.
The Department of Homeland Security budget provides critical
support to State and local emergency management programs through actual
dollars, grants, and program support. This year, NEMA would like to
address three main issues with the proposed Federal budget for
Department of Homeland Security.
--Extreme concern for proposed cuts to the Emergency Management
Performance Grant (EMPG) program while requirements increase
for State and local governments;
--The need to address massive shortfalls in updating Emergency
Operations Centers (EOCs); and
--Concern about the reduced formula for the post-disaster Hazard
Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDING
The Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) is the only all-
hazards emergency preparedness grant program in support of capacity
building at the State and local level. At a time when we are aiming to
build the system, additional resources and funding is needed to sustain
State and local emergency management. The State and local government
partnership with the Federal Government to ensure preparedness dates
back to the civil defense era, yet increased responsibilities over the
last decade have fallen on State and local governments. With the recent
expanded focus on terrorism and the increased demands of the Federal
Government to assist in implementation of Federal initiatives like the
NRP, the NIMS, and HSPD 8, EMPG becomes more important as a means to
ensure State and local involvement and compliance with new systems.
The President's budget proposal will have a devastating impact on
the Nation's emergency management system at the same time that
responsibilities are increasing for new and emerging hazards. The
proposal decreases funding for the EMPG program by $10 million. These
cuts mean that emergency management would be saddled with increased
mandates, while coping with decreases to an already modest budget. In
budget consideration for fiscal year 2003 and 2004, Congress has
affirmed the importance of EMPG in appropriations bills in language
addressing the significance of the program and increased the levels of
funding for the program twice. Prior to these increases in fiscal year
2003 and 2004, the program had been straight lined for over a decade.
Additionally, Congress affirmed the intent of the program as all-
hazards and dedicated to supporting personnel during consideration of
the fiscal year 2005 budget. NEMA is appreciative of Congress'
recognition of the EMPG program, but this year we respectfully ask that
Congress aggressively address the programs shortfalls with an
additional $100 million in funding for EMPG for fiscal year 2006.
EMPG is the only all-hazards program that State and local
governments can use to build their emergency management capacity. The
grants can be used for personnel, planning, training, exercises,
warning systems, emergency operations centers, public outreach, and
interagency coordination. EMPG is a flexible program that allows State
and local governments to tailor funds to address the specific risks and
needs of their jurisdiction. While it is called a grant, EMPG is really
a 50/50 cost-share system which ties together the emergency management
system of local, State, and Federal Governments. Every dollar
contributed by the Federal Government is doubled with State and local
contributions. EMPG's modest Federal increases in 2003 and 2004 helped
the program grow, but shortfalls continue to force an unequal burden on
state and local governments. States are continuing to increase their
out of pocket costs in order to ensure there is adequate funding for
local programs. In fact, a 2004 NEMA study found that there is
approximately a $264 million shortfall in EMPG for all 50 States. This
means that many communities that would like to implement a full-time,
professional emergency management capability cannot do so because of
shortfalls in Federal funding. Further, EMPG is primarily used as a
pass-through program for local governments, so the shortfall affects
our smallest localities that are often those most in need of emergency
preparedness planning. Currently, States and local governments are over
matching the Federal Government's commitment to national security
protection through EMPG by $96 million according to the same 2004 NEMA
study.
During last year's hurricane season, the interdependencies of the
Nation's emergency management system were tested through the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). The state-to-state mutual aid
compact enabled 38 States to provide assistance in the form of more
than $15 million in human, military, and equipment assets and over 800
personnel to support the impacted States for over 85 days of continuous
response operations. The nature of the Nation's mutual aid system
vividly shows the need for all States to have appropriate capabilities
for all disasters. Additionally resources are needed to build emergency
response capabilities on a national basis and to ensure the system can
handle the demand of natural disasters and other emergencies no matter
where they occur. EMPG is the only means to support this assistance
that can be offered by other States in the face of disaster through
adequate preparedness. EMPG ensures all States have funding to develop
and maintain a base level capacity that can be utilized by other States
for mutual aid.
While terrorism continues as a major focus at this time, we must
balance preparedness efforts by integrating terrorism as one of the
many threats facing our Nation, rather than the current approach of
making all other preparedness efforts a subset of terrorism. Further,
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 States that, ``to the extent
permitted by law, Federal preparedness assistance will be predicated on
the adoption of statewide comprehensive all-hazards preparedness
strategies.'' The all-hazards approach cannot be dismissed based upon
the assumption that one threat is greater and more significant than the
other. After all, no one really has a crystal ball to predict what the
next disaster or emergency may be. Yet, the Federal requirements tied
to homeland security are not funded. Focus and resources will have to
be taken away from other preparedness initiatives in order to address
these new demands. Our system for day-to-day public safety and homeland
security must be mutually supportive and nimble enough to address any
hazard.
Last year, Congress affirmed the Department of Homeland Security's
(DHS) intent to create a ``one stop shop'' for homeland security
funding. As the fiscal year 2005 funding has been processed, NEMA has
been working alongside the Office of State and Local Coordination and
Preparedness (OSLCP) to ensure that the all-hazards intent of the
program is not changed. Additionally, OSLCP is looking at ways to
improve the program also in coordination with NEMA. However, because
DHS is a new Department with a new and developing financial management
system the changeover has not been without significant delays in the
amount of time that it takes for States to get their funding. In fact,
homeland security funding including EMPG is processed through the
legacy Department of Justice system that was used before the Office for
Domestic Preparedness was transferred into DHS. Additionally,
integrating EMPG funding into the homeland security grant program means
that in more than half of the States, another layer of bureaucracy is
added because only half of the Nation's emergency managers serve as the
State administering agency (SAA). In these cases, it takes even longer
for emergency management agencies to access the EMPG funding once it is
awarded. This has a domino effect as delays are then experienced by
local governments that receive EMPG monies. NEMA has received reports
of situations in which county emergency management programs were on the
verge of shutting their doors because they had expended their match
funds while Federal funding continued to lag. In most States, EMPG
funds were not received until 6 months into the Federal fiscal year.
NEMA hopes to work collaborately with Congress and OSLCP to resolve
these issues in the coming year to ensure swifter grant awards in
fiscal year 2006. Specifically, we ask that Congress de-couple the
Emergency Management Performance Grant which is an all-hazards, 50/50
match program from the homeland security grant program which is
terrorism focused with different and longer-term requirements.
The Federal Government must continue the commitment to ensuring
national security though all-hazard preparedness. Without adequate
numbers of State and local personnel to operate the all-hazards
emergency management system, the infrastructure used to prevent,
prepare for, respond to, and recover from all disasters will collapse.
Congress must ensure predictable and adequate funding levels for the
program.
EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTERS
Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) serve as the nerve center as
well as the State and local government coordination point during
disasters and emergencies. In fiscal year 2002 and 2003, a total of $81
million was appropriated to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to
address Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) improvements. The $81
million was allocated to States to begin the planning process to assess
the necessary infrastructure and security improvements and security
measures to be taken. Since then, no dedicated Federal funding has been
provided for the implementation of these plans. Many State and local
facilities are out of date; do not have the interoperable technology to
coordinate with the Federal Government or among State and local levels;
and lack adequate security features. Federal assistance is necessary to
match State and local commitments to upgrade their EOCs as an integral
part of the Nation's emergency response system. According to a 2004
NEMA survey, it is projected that more than $1.6 billion will be needed
to construct and maintain State and local primary and alternate EOCs
over the next 2 to 5 years. This includes the costs to consistently
upgrade equipment, buildings, and software, train personnel, and
conduct operations during emergency and non-emergency situations. NEMA
calls on Congress to assist in addressing this shortfall and immediate
need. When Congress did begin to address this shortfall, the match
requirement was lowered to 25 percent for State and local governments.
Congress should make a $160 million commitment this year as a down
payment to addressing the shortfall, or EOCs will fall further behind.
HAZARD MITIGATION GRANT PROGRAM & PREDISASTER MITIGATION
NEMA supports efforts by the Congress and the Administration to
continue both pre- and post-disaster mitigation activities. NEMA calls
on Congress to restore the post-disaster Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program (HMGP) formula to 15 percent and maintain the formula at 20
percent for ``enhanced plan'' States. Disasters present the opportunity
to learn from past mistakes and to also take advantage of the lessons
learned during the disaster. This means funding for utilizing
elevations and buy-outs as tools and building warning systems and
shelters.
Effective February 20, 2003, Congress changed the formula for post-
disaster mitigation grants from 15 percent to 7.5 percent. This change
limits the availability of funds for post-disaster mitigation and
prevents the lessons learned from disasters from being immediately
incorporated into mitigation projects to prevent loss of life and
destruction of property. The months immediately following disasters
provide unique opportunities to efficiently incorporate risk reduction
measures in a very cost-effective manner, in many cases lowering the
overall cost of the project by leveraging other funding sources
including insurance settlements. We ask that you restore the formula to
15 percent this year in order to address mitigation needs.
This year, the Administration is proposing to decrease the post-
disaster formula for ``enhanced plan'' States as well. Last year, all
States were required to complete hazard mitigation plans and to have
them approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As a
result of changes made to the Stafford Act in the Disaster Mitigation
Act of 2000, States could opt to do more work and planning in order to
qualify for enhanced plans. Thus far, three States (Missouri,
Washington, and Oklahoma) have qualified to receive the 20 percent
formula as enhanced plan states, and many more States are pursuing
enhanced plans for approval. But, the Administration is proposing to
lower the enhanced plan formula to 12.5 percent of disaster costs,
reducing the incentives for States to make the investment to seek
enhanced plans. Further, this will limit even more the mitigation
opportunities that are addressed in disaster-prone States.
The HMGP has proven to be a highly effective tool in steering
communities toward risk reduction measures, in many cases breaking
repetitive loss cycles that have cost other Federal disaster relief
programs multiple times. Cost-benefit analysis is currently a
requirement for predisaster mitigation programs. We must not lose these
opportunities to initiate projects to enhance our communities and
reduce future disaster costs. HMGP must be restored and the enhanced
plan formula must be maintained.
HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM
Congress has made significant attempts to ensure that the Homeland
Security Grant Program is streamlined and provides greater flexibility.
We appreciate the attention and funding that the Congress has given to
ensuring emergency responders are adequately prepared for domestic
terrorism threats. Emergency responders are better prepared today to
face the various threats associated with terrorism because of the
Federal commitment to address the war on terrorism that is being played
out in our States, cities, and towns. States continue to take an all-
hazards approach to disaster preparedness as we have integrated our
domestic preparedness efforts into the proven systems we already use
for dealing with both man-made and natural disasters.
Funding Levels
We continue to be concerned about cuts in the President's budget
proposal for homeland security that has been dedicated to improving
emergency responder preparedness for homeland security. The Federal
Government must maintain its commitment to ensure that homeland
security preparedness continues and the Constitutional responsibility
to maintain a national defense is not compromised. Continuity of effort
can only be maintained by State and local governments with adequate
Federal support, especially when it deals with the front line emergency
responders. Reductions in funding will immediately be translated into
reductions in prevention, protection, and preparedness activities.
Regional collaboration and mutual aid are critical components of the
National Preparedness Goal. If the Federal Government provides adequate
funding to the States for the necessary resources to be put in place to
respond to any event, then the Federal Government is supporting one of
the key overarching goals of the National Preparedness Goal. Further,
continued or increased funding should not take away from traditional
all-hazards capacity building programs for public safety, public
health, and emergency management.
Congressional Legislation to Simplify the Grants Process
As Congress considers legislation to address and reform the
Homeland Security Grants, we ask that you take NEMA's suggestions into
consideration. The suggestions include the following:
--Each State must have a base minimum level of funding to ensure the
capacity to respond to any event. Such capacity is necessary
for homeland security because of the changing nature of the
threat and also because of the importance our emergency system
places on mutual aid to respond to events;
--All efforts to increase emergency management capacity must be
coordinated through the States to ensure harmonization with the
State emergency operations plan, ensure equitable distribution
of resources, and to synthesize resources for intra-state and
inter-state mutual aid. Also, the Stafford Act, which governs
the way disaster assistance is allocated, successfully uses
States and Governors as the managers of Federal disaster relief
funds for local governments, which can become overwhelmed and
in need of assistance when disasters occur.
--States understand the need to get funding quickly to the first
responders and have long coordinated statewide and regionally
to ensure adequate State assistance to local governments for
emergency preparedness and response; and
--Traditional emergency management capacity building programs like
EMPG must be continued as separate and distinct from the
homeland security grants programs.
Fiscal Conditions and Match Requirements
Further, because the war on terrorism is a national emergency and
States and local governments continue to be in the toughest fiscal
situations since the deep recession in the early 1980s, we must be wary
of programs that would require significant matches. In fact, for local
governments to meet the match would be even more difficult given their
fiscal constraints. If a significant match is required, the application
of this initiative will only go to those agencies and governments that
can fiscally afford the match and not necessarily where the need is
greatest. If a match is necessary, we would suggest that the match be
non-fiscal or in the form of a deliverable as opposed to soft or hard
dollars. Waivers may be a way for the Federal Government to also
address the lack of capital for a match when State and local
governments are experiencing fiscal distress.
Flexibility for Personnel to Manage the Program
Greater flexibility to use some of the first responder grants for
personnel both at the State and local level to manage the programs is
critical to completing the preparedness mission. As an existing funding
stream, EMPG is used in part to fund State and local staff to manage
critical programs including the homeland security grants. The First
Responder Grants should recognize that personnel are necessary to
manage these programs, particularly when rigid deadlines are set for
obligating millions of dollars and accountability is paramount.
Additionally, new needs such as intelligence fusion personnel must be
recognized. As HSPD 8 deadlines loom, States will be faced with a new
set of requirements that could be tied to funding. Simply hiring
contractors to do the work is not a long-term solution for building and
maintaining national preparedness capabilities. State and local
government, emergency management, and responder organizations are
already working at a maximum capacity within existing resources and
need Federal support for more than the purchase of equipment and
exercises. Flexibility based on strategic approaches should be the
norm, not single-issue, narrowly focused grants.
NATIONAL HOMELAND SECURITY CONSORTIUM
The National Homeland Security Consortium is a voluntary, education
and outreach group representing State homeland security advisors, State
and local law enforcement, emergency management, fire, public health,
EMS, National Guard, public works, emergency communications, State and
local elected officials and private sector partners. The Consortium was
established in 2003 by the National Emergency Management Association
and was endorsed by former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge in September 2004.
This comprehensive group of subject matter experts offers itself as a
technical resource and sounding board for the Department of Homeland
Security as they develop and implement new policies and programs. The
Consortium represents State and local officials on the ground, in city
hall and in the statehouses charged with the responsibility of homeland
security and overall public safety. The group is meeting again in May
to provide another opportunity for all disciplines and levels of
government involved in emergency prevention, preparedness, response and
recovery to come together to continue to share information, develop
solutions to common challenges and build relationships that will
enhance State and local homeland security capabilities. The Consortium
serves as a model for intergovernmental coordination and demonstrates
the commitment of State and local governments to collaboratively
address the complex challenges of homeland security.
CONCLUSION
While we as a Nation are fortunate that another year has passed
without a terrorist incident on our Nation's soil, we must continue to
build national preparedness efforts with a multi-hazard approach. We
must be prudent and thoughtful in addressing homeland security
enhancements to our existing emergency preparedness and response
system. In this year's appropriations process Congress will make
critical decisions that shape the future of emergency management in
this country. As you begin your consideration, we ask you to recognize
the importance of adequately funding the EMPG program in building
capacity through people at the State and local level for all disasters.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of NEMA and
appreciate your partnership.
______
Prepared Statement of the National Flood Determination Association
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, the National Flood
Determination Association (NFDA) strongly supports the Budget Request
for the Flood Map Modernization Presidential Initiative. This major
project to update and modernize the Nation's flood risk maps is
critical to the functioning of the National Flood Insurance Program
(NFIP) and to protection of property through effective floodplain
management.
The NFDA is a professional association of companies which provide
flood zone determinations to lenders for compliance with the mandatory
purchase requirements of the NFIP. The association represents some two
thirds of the industry and has implemented a certification program
containing standards for flood zone determination companies. Because
the FEMA flood maps are the official documents for compliance with the
NFIP, flood determination companies are probably the most frequent
users of the maps. A survey of the NFDA membership reveals that it has
completed approximately 33,000,000 determinations in the year 2003.
Flood maps are used both to determine which properties are in or
out of a Standard Flood Hazard Area (SFHA) and also are used by county
and community officials to plan development and to reduce future risk.
Approximately 70 percent of the maps are 5 years and older, 45
percent at least 10 years old, and more that 2,200 flood prone
communities remain without flood hazard maps. The current process
utilized by FEMA to produce an updated map is 58 months. More than
20,000 map panels identified as requiring updates, meaning they have
outdated or inadequate flood hazard data requiring updates through
field reconnaissance, engineering analysis and floodplain mapping
utilizing improved analysis methodologies. The detailed flood studies
will include ``approximately studied'' and ``unstudied'' flood-prone
communities. There are more than 40,000 maps with adequate flood hazard
data but inadequate non-engineering data and reference features such as
roads. New elevation reference marks will be developed and implemented
emphasizing the use of GPS surveying technology and a network of
approximately 580,000 benchmarks.
Complaints to lenders, flood determination companies, and realtors
dramatized the problems caused for real estate transactions when maps
do not reflect true risk. Over a 10 or 20 year period, development,
road building and re-grading of land significantly alter flood risk.
The NFDA has been extremely gratified that the Administration has
recognized the real need to update and modernize the flood maps. As the
Map Modernization project develops, however, we have some concerns
about the update component. Updating the maps, particularly in high
growth areas, requires a full restudy which includes engineering,
surveying, hydrology and hydraulics. It should be noted that such
extensive restudy is not needed everywhere as the water flow and
retention properties may not have changed much over the years. Because
the updates require more time and investment, we are worried that
insufficient analysis is being undertaken in order to complete action
on maps more quickly. The quantitative requirements by which the map
modernization is judged may be moving away from the restudies and
toward limited revisions and digitization. Such a newly issued map,
with a new date, can be very misleading. Flood determinations done
using these ``new'' maps will continue to generate complaints.
To do justice to the national investment in good flood risk maps,
there may need to be some adjustment to the quantitative standards by
which the program is evaluated. It may not be possible to complete the
job in the originally projected 5 years.
Some technical coordination issues have also become apparent. It is
key that the map modernization process and product reflect the needs
and requirements of map users. For this reason, we strongly urge the
establishment of a stakeholder advisory group. This could be modeled on
the successful Technical Mapping Advisory Board established for 5 years
by the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994. It is our understanding that
FEMA has been looking into creating this kind of advisory board. We
urge the Committee to support this effort.
We were aware of a possibility last year that certain (at the time)
funds not obligated to map modernization could be redirected to other
needs of the Department of Homeland Security. Because it is becoming
very clear that the Nations' flood map modernization needs are
extensive, we are concerned about any redirection of funds appropriated
for the Flood Map Modernization Initiative.
The National Flood Determination Association remains committed to
working with FEMA to achieve the updated, modernized national flood
risk maps we all need. We urge the Committee to approve the full budget
request of $200 million.
______
Prepared Statement of the Ohio Department of Chiefs of Police, Inc.
Chairman Gregg, Ranking Member Byrd and Distinguished Members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide a statement
for the record regarding the fiscal year 2006 budget proposal for the
Department of Homeland Security.
Our names are Director Kenneth L. Morckel, Ohio Department of
Public Safety and Director Todd N. Wurschmidt, Ph.D., Ohio Association
of Chiefs of Police (OACP). Director Morckel is the designated head of
Homeland Security efforts in Ohio as appointed by Governor Bob Taft.
Dr. Wurschmidt oversees staff operations for the OACP and is involved
in managing the statewide effort and information sharing between Ohio
law enforcement agencies.
We respectfully request consideration on restoring a separate line
item in Homeland Security funding for the category, ``LETPP--Law
Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.'' Highlights of our statement
include:
--Prevention, Such As Information Sharing, Involves 100 percent of
America's Law Enforcement Agencies
--Terrorists Can Plan Anywhere, Thus Involving 100 percent of
America's Geography
--Preventing Terrorism Is Not UASI \1\ Urbans Versus SARASI \2\
Suburban and Rurals
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ USAI=Urban Area Security Initiative.
\2\ SARASI=Suburban and Rural Area Security Initiative.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Law Enforcement's Prevention Role Should Not Be Formula Funded At
the Expense of Law Enforcement's First Responder Role
--Proposed fiscal year 2006 Budget Cuts For Suburban and Rural
Prevention and Responder Efforts Total 32 percent
Have you heard of Iyman Faris? Probably not. In 2003, Mr. Faris was
making plans to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. He was NOT living in
Manhattan. Mr. Faris was apprehended outside of Columbus, Ohio. Had the
Brooklyn Bridge gone down, we probably would have all known Mr. Faris's
name well.
Heard of Azmi Al-Jayyusi? Probably not. In 2004, Mr. Al-Jayyusi
headed up a sophisticated plot, designed in the small villages in
Jordan, in which trucks, chemicals and explosives were surreptitiously
purchased for purposes of blowing up select strategic targets
(including the American Embassy) in the capital of Jordan, Amman. It
was estimated the chemical explosives would have caused the deaths and
injuries of 250,000 civilians. Once again, the urban city was not Mr.
Al-Jayyusi's site for plotting and preparing; it was the rural
countryside. Had Mr. Al-Jayyusi's terrorist plot been successful, we
could probably recite his name easily as well.
Heard of Ted Kazenski, the Unabomber? Yes, of course. Why? Because
this domestic terrorist was successful in reeking widespread fear, his
deeds carried out from the isolated forests of rural Montana. How about
Eric Rudolph, the Abortion Clinic Bomber? Yes? Mr. Rudolph's eventual
capture occurred during late night, at the site of a trash bin, behind
a business in the small North Carolinian town of Murphy; a rural
apprehension.
``All across our Country we'll be able to tie our terrorist's
information to local information banks so that the front line of
defeating terror becomes activated and real, and those are the local
law enforcement officials. We expect them to be part of our effort; we
must give them the tools necessary so they can do their job.''
President George W. Bush, February 2003
As President Bush so accurately notes, preventing domestic and
international terrorism requires enlisting the commitment and
involvement of 100 percent of America's geography and 100 percent of
America's law enforcement agencies.
Geography.--In the United States, there are 3,042 counties. There
are only 60 to 65 counties within the UASI (Urban Area Security
Initiatives) areas as designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (Map 1). That leaves some 2,980 counties within the non-UASI,
non-urban areas involved in preventing, detecting, deterring and
disrupting terrorism (Map 2).
Successful terrorism prevention requires that these 2,980 SARASI
counties (Suburban and Rural Area Security Initiatives) continue to
receive LETPP \3\ funds commensurate with their percentage geography,
and commensurate with the need to prepare, equip and train all local
law enforcement, urban, suburban and rural.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ LETPP=Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
L/E Agencies.--This Nation's terrorism fight requires our enlisting
the aid and commitment of all of America's 19,000 law enforcement
agencies. Over 80 percent of U.S. law enforcement agencies are located
outside the UASI cities, and within the SARASI counties, towns and
villages. Less than 20 percent of America's law enforcement agencies
are in UASIs. Yet, proposed fiscal year 2006 prevention funding is
weighted toward 50 large cities and decreases funding allocations
available to the over 80 percent of America's suburban and rural law
enforcement agencies (Table 1).
TABLE 1.--UASIS \4\ VERSUS SARASIS \5\ IN PREVENTING, DETECTING, DETERRING AND DISRUPTING DOMESTIC AND
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
[Prevention (E.G. Information Sharing) Involves 100 Percent of U.S. Law Enforcement Agencies]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total U.S. UASIs SARASIs
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Counties:
Number...................................................... 3,042 60-65 2,980
Percent..................................................... 100 2 98
Law Enforcement Agencies:
Number...................................................... About 19,000 About 3,500 15,500
Percent..................................................... 100 18 82
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ UASI=Urban Area Security Initiative.
\5\ SARASI=Suburban and Rural Area Security Initiative.
``Preventing terrorism equates to intelligence'' (eg. information
sharing). Congressman Christopher Cox (R-CA), Chair, Homeland Security
Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, February 2005.
In fiscal year 2004, the President and Congress identified the
unique role of law enforcement in the Nation's fight against terrorism.
That unique role of law enforcement is prevention. Thus, within the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security's grant programs, the ``Law
Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program'' (LETPP) was created. In the
above television interview, Chairman Cox emphasized the need for
prevention, intelligence and information sharing. Prevention,
intelligence and information sharing can only be achieved with 100
percent involvement of America's law enforcement agencies.
Although the proposed fiscal year 2006 President's budget collapses
grant fund categories and incorporates LETPP funding into UASI and
SHSGP \6\ categories, the loss of the separate LETPP funding category
will:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ SHSGP=State Homeland Security Grant Program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Greatly restrict suburban and rural law enforcement from moving
forward on prevention efforts such as information sharing;
--Increase the likelihood that local law enforcement will not be
fully funded on prevention plus their responder roles because
of the funding needs by all other public safety first responder
and health agency groups; and
--Greatly restrict funding for law enforcement's responder roles
because of formula funding that could be interpreted as having
funded law enforcement because of the 20 percent prevention
mandate.
Below we offer explanations for these potential complications.
``Smaller States would see an 80 percent cut according to the
proposed fiscal 2006 budget. That's not just a small drop. That's a
leap off the cliff.'' Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), Chair, Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The four-fold purposes of this document are to respectfully request
the U.S. Congress:
--Reinstate the Homeland Security funding category of ``LETPP--Law
Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program'' as a separate line
item funding category;
--Restrict the use of formula funding to require a threshold
percentage of funding be directed toward prevention versus
response efforts;
--Avoid funding allocations that will have UASI urban cities funded
to the detriment of all other counties, towns and villages
involved in the prevention of terrorism; and
--Avoid melding the prevention plus responder roles of law
enforcement into one funding category used to fund responder
functions for all other first responder public safety and
health agency forces.
The original purpose of the fiscal year 2004 LETPP was to ``seek to
provide law enforcement communities with enhanced capabilities for
detecting, deterring, disrupting, and preventing acts of terrorism.''
\7\ It should be noted that the mission statement identified ``law
enforcement communities,'' not just urban area law enforcement
communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Fiscal year 2004 Homeland Security Grant Program: Program
guidelines and application kit, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
page 38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The LETPP program funding category provided law enforcement
communities with monies to pursue five program areas: (1) information
sharing; (2) target hardening; (3) threat recognition; (4) intervention
activities; and (5) interoperable communications.
The President's 2006 Proposed Budget from the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security will inhibit efforts to build forward on terrorism
prevention and first responder work of local law enforcement officials.
The program budget review document for fiscal year 2006 ``State
Homeland Security Grants Program'' (as prepared by the Office of State
and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security) shows a total appropriation budget request of $1.242
billion or, a $482 million reduction from the $1.725 billion homeland
security funds approved for fiscal year 2005.8 This loss of half a
billion dollars from thousands of public safety agencies' budgets will
greatly reduce suburban and rural terrorism prevention and first
responder efforts (Table 2 and Table 3).
The philosophical and strategic argument for increasing funds for
the Nation's UASIs (Urban Area Security Initiatives) appears to involve
the adoption of ``risk assessment'' as opposed to population formula
for allocation of Homeland Security funds. The argument being put
forward is that the major cities will, in greater probability, be the
location of future terrorist attacks. Then, the argument of logic is
furthered that these major urban centers need more monies to adequately
prepare to prevent and respond. This argument should also recognize the
significant role that all of this Nation's law enforcement agencies
play in prevention efforts--to ``detect, deter, disrupt and prevent
acts of terrorism.''
TABLE 2.--PROPOSED $480 MILLION (32 PERCENT) LOSS IN PREVENTION AND RESPONDER FUNDING FOR THE 2,980 SARASI \9\
COUNTIES
[All suburban and rural prevention and responder efforts by fire, EMS, EMA, health and police will experience a
32 percent total cut in fiscal year 2006]
[In millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year Fiscal year 2006
2005 enacted request Change
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHSGP \10\................................................ 1,100 1,020 (80)
LETPP \11\................................................ 400 ................. (400)
-----------------------------------------------------
Total Funding to Suburban & Rural SARASIs........... 1,500 1,020 (480)
(32 percent cut)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ SARASI=Suburban and Rural Area Security Initiative.
\10\ SHSGP=State Homeland Security Grant Program.
\11\ LETPP=Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.
TABLE 3.--WITH THE PROPOSED FISCAL YEAR 2006 20 PERCENT FORMULA FUNDING
FOR LETPP \12\, FUNDING FOR JUST RESPONSE EFFORTS BY SUBURBAN AND RURAL
PUBLIC SAFETY FORCES WILL BE CUT BY ($284 MILLION) (26 PERCENT CUT) FROM
FISCAL YEAR 2005
[Proposed fiscal year 2006 First Responder cuts to SARASIs amount to a
26 percent cut from fiscal year 2005 funding levels]
[In millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amount Amiount
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year 2006 Request $1,020 SARASI First $1,100
SHSGP \13\. Responder
fiscal year
2005.
Formula Funding percent to 204 SARASI First 816
LETPP. Responder
fiscal year
2006.
Balance to First Responder 816 Loss to SARASI (284)
SARASIs \14\. First
Responders.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ LETPP=Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.
\13\ SHSGP=State Homeland Security Grant Program.
\14\ SARASI=Suburban and Rural Area Security Initiative.
Prevention of terrorism needs the involvement of 100 percent of the
law enforcement community throughout the Nation. Although the
probability of a future terrorist attack may involve major urban areas,
the prevention of future terrorist attacks must involve all 19,000 law
enforcement agencies throughout the 3,042 counties in the United
States.
Information Sharing as Prime Example: Information sharing amongst
law enforcement agencies is as critical as President Bush noted in his
February 2003 comments noted earlier, and as reinforced by U.S. House
Homeland Security Chair Congressman Cox's February 2005 comments noted
previously. Of the five program areas authorized in 2005 for LETPP
Homeland Security funding, information sharing between law enforcement
agencies is listed first. Effective information sharing requires
linking information systems for all 19,000 law enforcement agencies,
not just crime data systems within UASI agencies.
As example, the ``Ohio Local Law Enforcement Information Sharing
Initiative,'' as supported by the Ohio Department of Public Safety and
managed by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's Office and the Ohio
Association of Chiefs of Police, involves the linking of Record
Management Systems (RMS) between the nearly 1,000 law enforcement
agencies in Ohio. Approximately 18 percent of the Ohio law enforcement
agencies are within the four Ohio UASI regions, while 82 percent of the
law enforcement agencies are within Ohio's 84 SARASI counties.
The cost of linking all nearly 1,000 Ohio law enforcement agency
RMS systems approximates $20-25 million. The linking of any given
single agency is on, average, approximately the same, whether located
in an UASI region or SARASI region. Thus, of the total cost for Ohio's
Information Sharing Project, $3.5 million to $4.5 million must be
allocated for UASI located agencies, while $16.5 to $20.5 million must
be directed toward the law enforcement agencies in the SARASI counties
(Table 4).
TABLE 4.--OHIO INFORMATION SHARING PROJECT--COST TO LINK THE 18 PERCENT OHIO UASI \15\ AGENCIES AND THE 82
PERCENT OHIO SARASI \16\ AGENCIES
[The proposed fiscal year 2006 LETPP budget formula will only direct up to 50 percent of the LETPP to Non-UASI
or SARASI areas, while Ohio's suburban and rural SARASI agencies will need 82 percent of prevention funds to
complete one aspect of prevention, i.e., information sharing between agency RMS systems]
[In millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cost of connect
No. of counties No. of agencies agency RMSs \17\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ohio UASIs:
Number................................ 4 about 175................... $3.5-4.5
Percent............................... 4.5 17.......................... 17
Ohio SARASIs:
Number................................ 84 about 825................... $16.5-20.5
Percent............................... 95.5 82.......................... 82
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Total............................... 88 about 1,000................. $20-25
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ UASI=Urban Area Security Initiate.
\16\ SARASI=Suburban and Rural Area Security Initiative.
\17\ RMS=Record Management systems.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's fiscal year 2006 Budget
proposes the cost for information sharing prevention efforts be
allocated as a 50/50 split between UASIs and SARASIs. LETPP dollars
have been incorporated within the UASI and State Homeland Security
Grant Programs. By approaching 2006 LETPP funding using formula
percentages, States will no longer have the flexibility to allocate
necessary dollars to accomplish full information sharing.
In addition, the proposed U.S. Department of Homeland Security
fiscal year 2006 Budget also begins to increase the potential for
funding competition between law enforcement and all other public safety
first responder agencies. In the fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005
budgets, Homeland Security separated the law enforcement prevention
role by having the separate LETPP line item. By separating LETPP from
the State Homeland Security grant programs, response issues for all
First Responders (including law enforcement) were debated and explored
within the funds allocated to the ``State Homeland Security Grant
Programs.'' Prevention issues did not have to be co-mingled with
response discussions because LETPP existed as a separate line item.
By collapsing the LETPP program within the State Homeland Security
grant program, non-law enforcement First Responders (Fire, EMA, EMS,
Health) may be inclined to restrict additional funding needs of law
enforcement, be they prevention or response needs, because 20 percent
has already been required for law enforcement. The predictable concern
will be, ``Why should law enforcement get 22 or 30 or 40 percent of
funding, when Congress has already assigned 20 percent of funds for
police.''
The proposed 20 percent formula funding of LETPP will restrict
prevention efforts for the suburban and rural communities and counties,
potentially increase competition between law enforcement versus all
other first responders, and further inhibit police response role issues
to be separated from prevention role issues.
Additionally, all suburban and rural first responders will
experience reductions from the fiscal year 2005 $1.1 billion allocated
to State grants. With the proposed formula allocation of $204 million
incorporated within the State Homeland Security Grant Program for
LETPP, State grant allocations will be reduced to $816 million (an
almost $300 million reduction for SARASI or non-UASI county use for
response plans, equipment and training) (Table 3). These 80 percent of
First Responder and Health agencies within the SARASI communities will
experience a more than 25 percent reduction from funds available for
all First Responders involved in response planning, equipment and
training.
In summation, we would respectfully ask that the United States
Congress:
--Reinstate the Homeland Security funding category of ``LETPP--Law
Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program'' as a separate line
item funding category;
--Restrict the use of formula funding to require a threshold
percentage of funding be directed toward prevention versus
response efforts;
--Avoid funding allocations that will have UASI urban cities funded
to the detriment of all other counties, towns and villages
involved in the prevention of terrorism; and
--Avoid melding the prevention plus responder roles of law
enforcement into one funding category used to fund responder
functions for all other first responder public safety and
health agency forces.
America has not had any major terrorist incidents since 9/11. We
would respectfully ask, ``Why would we want to change that which is
working?'' Instead, would it not be more prudent to build forward, in
not redesigning that which is working, but to instead address
deficiencies which may have been recently identified? LETPP, as a
separate line item, has served this Nation well toward accomplishing
significant prevention strategies and in effectively separating out the
unique prevention role 19,000 law enforcement agencies perform amongst
the first responder roles all public safety forces are engaged in our
3,042 counties.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
______
Prepared Statement of the University of Miami
Chairman Gregg, Ranking Member Byrd, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide
testimony on the Disaster Resistant University initiative and to
request the program be continued in the fiscal year 2006 appropriations
bill of your Subcommittee.
We very much appreciate the interest Members of Congress have shown
in this program. With only a small Federal investment, the Disaster
Resistant University program created a model for other educational
institutions to develop and implement a loss control program and
created a sense of focus, pride and achievement. It is a small program
with great benefits. We urge that the program be continued.
Request for Fiscal Year 2006
We respectfully request the following language in the fiscal year
2006 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Report in the
Emergency Preparedness and Response section under Predisaster
Mitigation.
The Committee directs Emergency Preparedness and Response (FEMA) to
continue the Disaster Resistant University Program as a separate
program and to provide continued support of $500,000 directly to each
of the pilot universities and $500,000 each to those selected in 2004
to implement mitigation efforts to reduce their vulnerabilities and
improve protection of their students, employees, and the Federal
investment in vital research.
The FEMA Disaster Resistant University (DRU) Program was created to
reduce the potential for large loss of life and hundreds of millions of
dollars in key Federal research and billions of dollars in damage from
natural disasters. The University of California at Berkeley was the
prototype and founding member of the program.
In October 2000, FEMA selected five additional universities to join
Berkeley in the pilot phase of the program: the University of Alaska at
Fairbanks, University of Miami, University of North Carolina at
Wilmington, Tulane University, and the University of Washington at
Seattle. The pilot universities have two elements in common: a
vulnerability to disasters and a commitment to improve protection of
students, faculty and staff, and one of our most valuable assets,
intellectual property. The pilot program was funded with $700,000 in
grants from predisaster mitigation funds and the U.S. Fire
Administration.
Purpose of the Program
The purpose of the program is to help the Nation's colleges and
universities facing the threat of natural disasters and acts of
terrorism to assess their vulnerabilities and find ways to protect the
lives of their students, faculty, and staff; their research; and their
facilities. It will provide a framework and process for other
universities to do the same.
The intent of the program is to assist universities by first
providing a small grant for them to assess their vulnerabilities,
devise appropriate plans, and set priorities and then to provide grants
in following years of approximately $500,000 each for the universities
to implement projects to reduce campus vulnerabilities to disaster.
Need for the Program
The Federal Government funds $21.1 billion annually in university
research, according to the National Science Foundation statistics in
2002, the latest year available. This Federal investment in the vital
intellectual property of the Nation should be protected.
In addition, universities are critical to the economic health of
their surrounding communities. The ability to resume operations quickly
following a disaster greatly speeds the recovery of the entire
community.
Some examples of the economic impact of universities on their
communities follow:
--The University of Miami is the largest private employer in Miami-
Dade County with 10,157 employees and 6th largest employer
overall and has an economic impact of $3.9 billion a year and
37,000 employment positions in the community.
--The University of Washington is the 3rd largest employer in the
state of Washington and has a $3.4 billion impact.
--The University of North Carolina at Wilmington is the 3rd largest
employer in the area and is a $400 million annual benefit to an
eight county area.
--The University of California at Berkeley is the 3rd largest
employer in the Bay area and generates $1.4 billion annually in
the Bay area.
--Tulane University is the largest private employer in the New
Orleans metropolitan area and the 5th largest private employer
in Louisiana with an $842 million annual economic impact on the
City of New Orleans and an annual economic impact of $1.12
billion on the state of Louisiana.
--The University of Alaska at Fairbanks is the largest civilian
employer in the Tanana Valley.
In addition, many universities operate medical schools which
provide essential clinical services to the residents of their
communities and adjacent areas.
In the past decade, disasters have affected university and college
campuses with increasing frequency. For most universities, damage that
results in closure of four weeks or more would result in canceling a
semester with devastating consequences for the school, the students and
the community.
Many recent events underscore the need for the program: the loss of
many years of research at the Texas Medical Center as result of
flooding from Tropical Storm Allison; the earthquake damage to the
University of California at Northridge and the University of California
at Los Angeles; the facility damage and loss of life at the University
of Maryland as result of a tornado; hurricane damage to the University
of North Carolina at Wilmington; the earthquake damage to the
University of Washington at Seattle; and the declaration by the FBI
that our universities are ``soft' targets for terrorists.
Status of the Program
Congress directed in the fiscal year 2003 Appropriations Bill for
FEMA that $500,000 was to be available to the six existing DRUs and
$100,000 each was to be available for at least six new ones to start
the process. On December 31, 2003, FEMA published a Notice of Funds
Availability (NOFA) for grant applications. The funds were from the
PreDisaster Mitigation Fund.
Forty-four universities and four consortia applied by the March
2004 deadline. Applications were received from six Historic Black
Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and one tribal school. Applications
were received from universities located in nine of the ten FEMA
regions.
In October 2004 FEMA announced twenty-four colleges and
universities had been selected to join the six pilots in the program.
Those universities are as follows: Radford University (VA), Virginia
State University, Virginia Tech, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical
University, Florida International University, University System of
Georgia, University of Louisville (KY), University of Mississippi,
Horry-Georgetown Tech (SC), University of Memphis (TN), University of
Akron (OH) Southern University (LA), University of New Orleans (LA),
University of Central Oklahoma, Texas State Technical College, Texas
University-Medical Center, Metropolitan Community College (MO),
University of Colorado at Boulder, North Dakota State University,
Sitting Bull College (ND), San Jose State University (CA), University
of Southern California, University of Nevada-Reno, and the University
of Oregon. These colleges and universities received Federal grants
ranging from $31,000 to $100,000. The institutions are providing 25
percent of the cost.
The applications for the fiscal year 2003 funding for the pilots
and the new schools had layers of requirements and were very time
consuming. One of the new schools indicated that over 150 hours of
staff time was required to complete the application for $100,000.
However, the colleges and universities seeking to enter the program and
obtain a grant put forth the effort and accepted the responsibilities
of a rigorous planning and risk analysis process because of the
incentive to become part of the separate DRU program and to be eligible
for yearly grants of $500,000 to implement mitigation projects. In
addition the colleges and universities expected to be mentored by other
universities and guided by FEMA.
However, FEMA guidance for the PreDisaster Mitigation Program (PDM)
issued in October 2004 for the combined 2004 and 2005 PDM grant cycles
indicated that FEMA was not continuing the DRU as a separate program
and recommended that colleges and universities apply for projects in
the nationally competitive PDM program. Given the great benefit to FEMA
and the Nation from such a small investment, this was a great
disappointment to the pilots and to the new selections. Public and
private nonprofit colleges and universities were already eligible
applicants for the nationally competitive PDM program. Receiving a
single grant for one hurricane shuttering project, one drainage
improvement, or one earthquake retrofit is very helpful, but it is not
a substitute for a comprehensive, multiyear program.
Given the many challenges facing our universities, it is difficult
to compete for attention and money for disaster preparedness and
mitigation when there is not an immediate threat. However, designation
as a Disaster Resistant University has real value. The pilot
universities found that the designation as a Disaster Resistant
University and the expectation of continuing to participate in the
program brought attention and commitment at the highest levels of the
universities. The networking and partnerships built with Federal,
State, and local emergency management officials and other entities
serving the public, such as hospitals and utilities, have benefits to
the communities far beyond the scope of the original program and
certainly way beyond the amount of the grants. Participating in the
program created a framework for disaster planning and mitigation
activities that helped universities focus and enhance efforts to
protect their students, faculty, staff, vital research, and facilities.
Two of the great values of the program which should not be overlooked
have been the mentoring and exchanging of ideas among participating
universities and the pilots spreading the FEMA mitigation message as
they share their experiences at many different national and regional
meetings of educational institutions.
We again thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments
and respectfully urge that the DRU program be continued. A summary of
previous Congressional interest in this program is attached. We would
welcome the opportunity to provide additional information or to discuss
the program further with your staff.
Summary of Congressional Interest
We very much appreciate the support Congress has given this
program.
Fiscal Year 2002
The Conference Report on the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies
Appropriations bill for 2002 (House Report 107-272) contained the
following language:
The conferees believe that many of the Nation's universities are
vulnerable to disaster and urge FEMA to continue its Disaster Resistant
University program and expand the scope to include safe-guarding
university assets from acts of terrorism.
Fiscal Year 2003
The Conference Report on the fiscal year 2003 Omnibus bill in the
FEMA section of the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies stated the
following:
The conferees are in agreement that FEMA should continue the
Disaster Resistant University program and direct FEMA to carry out the
direction contained in House Report 107-740.
House Report 107-740 stated the following:
Finally, the Committee notes that in September of 2000 FEMA
selected five universities to join the University of California at
Berkeley in the pilot phase of the Disaster Resistant University
program: University of Alaska/Fairbanks, University of Miami,
University of North Carolina/Wilmington, Tulane University, and
University of Washington/Seattle. The purpose of the program is to help
the Nation's colleges and universities facing the threat of natural
disasters to assess their vulnerabilities and find ways to protect
their research, facilities and the lives of students, faculty and
staff. The Committee directs FEMA to continue the Disaster Resistant
University Program with grants of $500,000 to each of the six pilot
Disaster Resistant Universities and $100,000 each to at least six
additional universities, including at least one HBCU, to join the
program.
Fiscal Year 2004
The Senate Report on the Department of Homeland Security
Appropriations bill (S. Report 108-86) included the following language
under the National Pre-Disaster Mitigation Fund which was funded at
$150,000,000.
The Committee encourages the Department to continue the existing
Disaster Resistant University program at the fiscal year 2003 level.
The House receded to the Senate in the conference agreement.
______
Prepared Statement of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association
The Upper Mississippi River Basin Association (UMRBA) is the
organization created in 1981 by the Governors of Illinois, Iowa,
Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin to serve as a forum for coordinating
the five States' river-related programs and policies and for
collaborating with Federal agencies on regional water resource issues.
As such, the UMRBA has an interest in the budgets for the U.S. Coast
Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Both the Coast Guard and the FEMA have vital functions specifically
related to homeland security that must be adequately funded. But both
also have other traditional missions that are equally important to
public health and safety, economic well-being, and environmental
protection. For the Coast Guard, these include activities such as aids
to navigation, vessel and facility inspections, emergency response, and
mariner licensing. For FEMA, key traditional missions include the
National Flood Insurance Program, flood map modernization, hazard
mitigation, and response to floods and other natural disasters. Nowhere
are these services more important than on the Upper Mississippi River
System, which supports a vital link in the inland waterway
transportation system, some of the Nation's most productive
agricultural land, population centers ranging from small towns to major
metropolitan areas, and a nationally significant ecosystem.
COAST GUARD OPERATING EXPENSES
A continuing priority for the UMRBA is the Coast Guard's Operating
Expenses account. The President's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal
includes $5.55 billion for this account, an increase of almost 8
percent from the fiscal year 2005 enacted level. However, this net
increase of $390 million for Operating Expenses will be largely
consumed by specific increases tied to implementation of the Maritime
Transportation Security Act (MTSA); increased personnel costs; and
operating costs for new vessels, aircraft, and facilities related to
the Coast Guard's saltwater responsibilities. These initiatives are
important in their own right and will benefit a range of Coast Guard
missions. However, it is also true that the Coast Guard's non-security
missions on the Nation's inland waterways will be under continued
strain as the inflation-adjusted resources for many of these missions
remain static or shrink.
When the Department of Homeland Security was formed, the UMRBA
strongly supported the Coast Guard's stated objective of sustaining
traditional missions near their pre-9/11 levels. These traditional
missions are critical to the safe, efficient operation of the Upper
Mississippi River and the rest of the inland river system. Under these
mission areas, the Coast Guard maintains navigation channel markers,
regulates a wide range of commercial vessels in the interest of crew
and public safety, and responds to spills and other incidents. The
beneficiaries include not only commercial vessel operators, but also
recreational boaters; farmers and others who ship materials by barge;
and the region's citizens, who benefit enormously from the river as a
nationally significant economic and environmental resource.
Even prior to September 11, recent years had brought a number of
changes to the way the Coast Guard operates on the inland river system,
including elimination of the Second District; closure of the Director
of Western Rivers Office; decommissioning the Sumac, which was the
largest buoy tender on the Upper Mississippi River; and staff
reductions. While the States understand the need for efficiency, the
cumulative impacts of these changes must be carefully monitored,
particularly in light of the increased demands that we are now placing
on the personnel and assets that remain in the region. The UMRBA is
quite concerned that staff reductions and resource constraints have
combined to impair the Coast Guard's ability to serve as an effective,
proactive partner.
Specifically, increased security demands have reduced the staff
assigned to vessel inspections and limited the Coast Guard's
investigation of reported spills. Sending a single person to conduct
vessel inspections reduces the rigor of those inspections, and, in a
worst case scenario, potentially puts the inspector at risk. Similarly,
electing not to respond to reports of small spills means some of these
spills will go uninvestigated and puts increased demands on local
officials, who do not have the Coast Guard's expertise or resources.
Moreover, it could result in costly delays should a spill turn out to
be larger than first reported, an all-too-common occurrence. Temporary
adjustments initially made to accommodate immediate security needs are
now evolving into long term standard operating procedures. While
everyone recognizes the need to adjust to our new security environment,
it is essential for the Coast Guard to retain the capacity to perform
its traditional missions on the Upper Mississippi River. Toward that
end, the UMRBA supports the President's fiscal year 2006 budget request
for the Coast Guard's Operating Expenses account, and urges Congress to
ensure that sufficient resources from within this account are allocated
to the Coast Guard's inland river work.
Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation
Through its Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation (RDT&E)
program, the Coast Guard conducts cutting edge research in several
critical areas, including oil spill prevention and response, risk
assessment, and mariner safety. Of particular note, researchers at the
Coast Guard's Groton, Connecticut Research and Development Center have
made invaluable contributions to State-of-the-art fast water spill
response, in situ burning, and human error reduction. However, the
President is once again proposing to shift the Coast Guard's RDT&E
funding to the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology
(S&T) Directorate. This proposal represents precisely the kind of
diminution of the Coast Guard's non-security missions with which the
UMRBA and others have repeatedly expressed concern. Research on
innovative oil spill recovery equipment or new methods for combating
crew fatigue will likely be lost in the department-wide S&T
Directorate, with its overwhelming focus on homeland security issues.
Moreover, the President's proposal appears to be inconsistent with
Section 888 of the Homeland Security Act, which calls for ``the
authorities, functions, and capabilities of the Coast Guard to perform
its missions . . . [to] be maintained intact.'' The UMRBA urges
Congress to provide adequate and direct funding of approximately $24
million to the Coast Guard's multi-mission RDT&E program in fiscal year
2006. This is the amount the Administration suggests the Coast Guard
would receive from the S&T Directorate's competitive funds in fiscal
year 2006, and is a $5.5 million increase over the fiscal year 2005
RDT&E appropriation.
Reserve Training
The President is requesting $119 million for Coast Guard Reserve
Training in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $6 million, or 5 percent,
over the fiscal year 2005 enacted level. The UMRBA States are keenly
aware of the importance of the reserve forces. During major flood
events on the inland rivers, reservists have consistently provided
exemplary service, augmenting the Coast Guard's capabilities and
helping to protect public health and safety. More recently, many
reservists have been called to active duty, enabling the Coast Guard to
meet many new security-related demands. On the inland rivers, this has
included increased patrols near critical facilities and development of
security plans for key inland ports. The UMRBA urges Congress to fund
Reserve Training at $119 million in fiscal year 2006, thereby helping
to maintain a Coast Guard reserve that can effectively execute both
homeland security- and natural disaster-related missions.
Boating Safety Grants
The Coast Guard's boating safety grants to the States have a proven
record of success. The Upper Mississippi is a river where all types of
recreational craft routinely operate in the vicinity of 15-barge tows,
making boating safety all the more important. As levels of both
recreational and commercial traffic continue to grow, so too does the
potential for user conflicts.
Boat safety training and law enforcement are key elements of
prevention. However, the future of this successful grants program is
uncertain. Following the pattern of recent years, the President has
requested $59 million in fiscal year 2006 funding for boating safety
grants to the States. This is the amount historically authorized
without annual appropriation from the Boat Safety Account, which is
funded by a tax on fuel for recreational motor boats. Successive
Administrations have not typically exercised their option to request an
additional $13 million in annual appropriations for the grants.
However, the authority for the funding from the Boat Safety Account
must be extended if the program is to continue in fiscal year 2006.
Such a provision is currently being considered as part of pending
transportation legislation. The UMRBA urges prompt reauthorization of
the Boating Safety Program, and funding of this important work at $72
million annually.
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND
RESPONSE DIRECTORATE)
Hazard Mitigation
UMRBA is particularly interested in FEMA programs that help
mitigate future flood hazards. Mitigation, which is the ongoing effort
to reduce or eliminate the impact of disasters like floods, can include
measures such as relocating homes or community facilities off the
floodplain, elevating structures, and practicing sound land use
planning. Mitigation planning and projects are essential to reducing
the Nation's future disaster assistance costs. Given the importance of
mitigation, UMRBA supports the Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) grant
program, which was created in fiscal year 2003 and for which the
President is requesting $150 million in fiscal year 2006. While the PDM
grant program is still relatively new, it holds promise for enhancing
communities' ability to prevent future damages, particularly in areas
that have not experienced a major disaster and thus have not had access
to post-disaster mitigation assistance through the Disaster Relief
Fund. In addition, pre-disaster mitigation assistance is an effective
means of meeting the ongoing need in all communities to plan for future
floods and reduce their vulnerability before the next flood disaster.
In fiscal year 2003, forty communities in the five Upper
Mississippi River Basin States received PDM competitive grants,
totaling $3.4 million. While most were relatively small planning
grants, funding was also provided for acquisitions, safe rooms, and
electric utility protection. The application period for the second
round of grants (fiscal year 2004-2005 combined) just ended. While
there have been concerns expressed about the complexities of the
competitive process, there is no doubt that communities need such
grants to help them develop effective mitigation plans and reduce the
impacts of floods. Thus UMRBA supports the President's fiscal year 2006
funding request of $150 million for the PDM program.
Flood Map Modernization
Flood maps are not only used to determine risk-based National Flood
Insurance Program premium rates, but also provide the basis for local
regulation of flood hazard areas and for State and local disaster
response planning. However, current flood maps are rapidly becoming
obsolete due to the effects of land use changes in the watersheds. When
outdated maps underestimate flood depths, it can often lead to
floodplain development in high risk areas. It is therefore important
that flood maps be updated on an ongoing basis and in a timely way.
The President's fiscal year 2006 budget proposes $200 million for
FEMA's Flood Map Modernization program. While funding for flood maps
has increased substantially since the Map Modernization initiative
began in fiscal year 2003, there are growing concerns about the
adequacy of the original time and cost estimates. For instance,
producing updated and accurate maps often requires that new studies be
conducted. However, the existing map modernization budget is only
sufficient to fund actual mapping costs and will not adequately cover
the costs of necessary associated tasks, such as new flood elevation
studies or levee certifications. Given that mapping needs are being
prioritized based on population, rather than flood risk or need, it is
not clear when relatively sparsely populated counties along the
Mississippi River will be mapped. Ironically, the Federal Government,
through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, recently spent approximately
$17 million to develop new flood profiles for the Upper Mississippi and
Lower Missouri Rivers. Unfortunately this updated information cannot be
fully utilized until sufficient funding is made available to modernize
and digitize the flood maps for river communities. Thus, the UMRBA
urges Congress to provide adequate funding for map modernization,
including sufficient funding to develop new maps for the Upper
Mississippi and Lower Missouri Rivers based on the new flood profiles.
LIST OF WITNESSES, COMMUNICATIONS, AND PREPARED STATEMENTS
----------
Page
Aguirre, Eduardo, Jr., Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, Department of Homeland Security...................... 1
Prepared Statement of........................................ 32
Statement of................................................. 30
Albright, Dr. Penrose C., Assistant Secretary for Science and
Technology, Department of Homeland Security.................... 349
Prepared Statement of........................................ 353
Questions Submitted to....................................... 400
Statements of................................................ 351
Allard, Senator Wayne, U.S. Senator From Colorado, Statement of.. 147
American Public Transportation Association, Prepared Statement of 435
Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc., Prepared
Statement of................................................... 439
Bonner, Robert C., Commissioner, Customs and Border Protection,
Department of Homeland Security................................ 1
Prepared Statement of........................................ 18
Statement of................................................. 15
Byrd, Senator Robert C., U.S. Senator From West Virginia:
Letter From.................................................. 5
Questions Submitted by............................99, 229, 416, 429
Statements of...........................................3, 136, 350
Chertoff, Michael, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security.... 117
Prepared Statement of........................................ 121
Statements of................................................ 120
City of San Marcos, Texas, Prepared Statement of................. 442
Clerici, John M., Esq., Partner, McKenna, Long & Aldridge, LLP... 388
Prepared Statement of........................................ 391
Statement of................................................. 388
Coalition of Northeastern Governors, Prepared Statement of....... 443
Cochran, Senator Thad, U.S. Senator From Mississippi:
Prepared Statement of........................................ 155
Questions Submitted by......................................48, 218
Statements of................................................1, 359
Craig, Senator Larry, U.S. Senator From Idaho, Statement of...... 140
Domenici, Senator Pete V., U.S. Senator From New Mexico:
Questions Submitted by.................................90, 221, 413
Statement of................................................. 151
Feinstein, Senator Dianne, U.S. Senator From California,
Statement of................................................... 138
Franz, Dr. David, Chief Biological Scientist, The Midwest
Research Ins-
titute......................................................... 376
Prepared Statement of........................................ 378
Garcia, Michael J., Assistant Secretary, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security................... 1
Prepared Statement of........................................ 10
Statement of................................................. 8
Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, Prepared Statement of........ 443
Gregg, Senator Judd, U.S. Senator From New Hampshire:
Opening Statements of......................................117, 349
Questions Submitted by................................163, 400, 421
Inouye, Senator Daniel K., U.S. Senator From Hawaii, Questions
Submitted by................................................... 111
International Association of Emergency Managers, Prepared
Statement of................................................... 445
Kohl, Senator Herb, U.S. Senator From Wisconsin, Statement of.... 153
Leahy, Senator Patrick J., U.S. Senator From Vermont:
Questions Submitted by.....................................113, 341
Statement of................................................. 2
Murray, Senator Patty, U.S. Senator From Washington:
Prepared Statement of........................................ 145
Questions Submitted by....................................... 344
Statement of................................................. 142
National:
Emergency Management Association, Prepared Statement of...... 447
Flood Determination Association, Prepared Statement of....... 452
Ohio Department of Chiefs of Police, Inc., Prepared Statement of. 453
Read, J. Leighton, M.D., General Partner, Alloy Ventures......... 382
Prepared Statement of........................................ 386
Sarnoff Corporation, Prepared Statement of....................... 396
Shelby, Senator Richard C., U.S. Senator From Alabama, Questions
Submitted by................................................... 91
Simonson, Stewart, J.D., Assistant Secretary, Office of Public
Health Emergency Preparedness, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services................................................. 359
Prepared Statement of........................................ 361
Questions Submitted to....................................... 421
Specter, Senator Arlen, U.S. Senator From Pennsylvania, Questions
Submitted by................................................... 428
Stevens, Senator Ted, U.S. Senator From Alaska, Questions
Submitted by..................................................89, 219
University of Miami, Prepared Statement of....................... 459
Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, Prepared Statement of. 462
SUBJECT INDEX
----------
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Page
Absconders and Violators of Release Orders and Return Orders..... 150
Accomplishments in Biodefense.................................... 351
Additional Committee Questions.............................48, 162, 400
Advance Appropriation............................................ 372
Agricultural Inspections......................................... 169
Air:
And Marine Operations--Recapitalization...................... 75
Cargo........................................................ 285
Security................................................. 175
Carrier Fees................................................. 288
Traveler Satisfaction........................................ 188
Airborne Rapid Imaging for Emergency Support..................... 326
Airport Security................................................. 148
All:
Hazards...................................................... 313
State Minumum................................................ 342
Alternatives to Detention........................................ 35
America's Shield Initiative.....................................72, 105
AMO Fleet Modernization Plan..................................... 274
Anthrax.......................................................... 360
Antidumping/Countervailing Duty Collections...................... 37
APHIS--Food Safety Inspectors.................................... 274
Arizona Border Control Initiative................................ 67
Assessments and Evaluations...................................... 337
Asylum and Expedited Removal..................................... 68
Attrition Rate................................................... 310
Automated:
Commercial Environment....................................... 74
Identification System........................................ 305
Automation/Information Technology................................ 26
Aviation Security..............................................156, 218
Avoiding Future Fund Lapses...................................... 231
Background on GSA Basic Purchasing Agreement With IMC............ 135
Backlog:
Elimination.................................................. 31
Reduction Plan............................................... 81
Backscatter Technology........................................... 154
Base Decreases................................................... 289
Best Practices................................................... 326
Biodefense....................................................... 353
Biological or Chemical Attack.................................... 350
Bioshield........................................................ 349
Bioterrorism and Cooperative Efforts............................. 373
BioWatch:
Detection.................................................... 417
Response..................................................... 417
Border:
Needs:
Security Updgrades at Ports.............................. 221
UAV Technology........................................... 221
Patrol................................................110, 138, 343
Agent Staffing Increases................................. 40
Aircraft Replacement..................................... 47
Apprehensions............................................ 109
Checkpoints.............................................. 114
Stationing of Agents..................................... 110
Vehicles................................................. 98
Personnel:
Manpower................................................. 222
Training at FLETC........................................ 222
Problems..................................................... 141
Security....................................................95, 271
Budget:
Amendment.................................................... 137
Issues....................................................... 9
Request...................................................... 367
For Fiscal Year 2006..................................... 13
Shortfalls and Increased Staffing for the Border Patrol...... 2
Buffer Zone Protection Plans..................................... 335
C-130Js.......................................................... 308
C-TPAT........................................................... 278
Call Centers..................................................... 89
Cargo:
Container Security........................................... 271
Security...................................................144, 344
Supply Chain Security........................................ 18
CBP Response..................................................... 7
Cell Technology Versus Culture Technology........................ 371
Cerro Grande Fire Claims......................................... 329
Challenges....................................................... 12
Chemical:
And Biological:
Agents................................................... 366
Detection Program........................................ 413
Countermeasures.............................................. 420
Detectors..................................................367, 416
Security..................................................... 333
Chief Information Officer........................................ 260
CIS Local Ombudsman.............................................. 100
Citizens Corp.................................................... 326
Citizenship and Immigration Services Funding..................... 115
Classified vs. Sensitive Information............................. 231
Coast Guard:
C-130........................................................ 211
Support of NSF Research Operations in the Polar Regions...... 306
Collection of:
Antidumping and Countervailing Duties........................ 279
Duties....................................................... 106
Communication:
And Technology Systems....................................... 213
With ICE Employees........................................... 9
Comprehensive:
Border Control Strategy...................................... 17
Review of the Department..................................... 163
Concerns of Employees............................................ 257
Consulting With Congress......................................... 262
Container Security............................................... 105
Initiative: Expansion and Regularization..................... 103
Continued Funding Shortfalls--ICE................................ 48
Contract Employees............................................... 337
Contracting Out Report........................................... 232
Covert Surveillance Aircraft..................................... 305
Creating a 21st Century Department............................... 132
Critical Infrastructure Protection............................... 199
Cross-Cutting Functions and Integration.......................... 122
Customer Service................................................. 82
Customs:
And Border Protection--The Second Year....................... 19
Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.......................... 72
Cyber Crimes..................................................... 284
Debt Management Center........................................... 114
Deepwater........................................................ 209
Budget....................................................... 295
Program Management........................................... 298
Default of a Surety Company...................................... 39
Demonstration of Ideas by People................................. 372
Department of Homeland Security:
And BioShield................................................ 401
BioWatch, and Detection of Events............................ 404
``Branding'' Not Completed................................... 277
Headquarters................................................. 231
Intelligence.................................................
Mission.................................................. 198
Role..................................................... 158
Reports Due.................................................. 260
Role in Detection Equipment.................................. 405
Departmental Reorganization...................................... 166
Detailees to the:
Department................................................... 235
White House.................................................. 233
Detention:
And Removal.................................................. 10
Bedspace..................................................... 101
Facilities................................................... 282
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office..............................192, 418
Drug Trafficking................................................. 229
Electronic Surveillance.......................................... 135
Along the Border............................................. 119
Emergency Response Fund.......................................... 311
Emerging:
Checkpoint Explosives Technology............................. 292
Issues....................................................... 156
EMS First Responder Funding...................................... 317
Expedited:
Removal...................................................... 150
Traveler Expanding Overseas.................................. 269
F2B Preference Visa Petition..................................... 112
Federal:
Air Marshals................................................. 78
Service.................................................. 10
Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC)...................... 216
Protective Service........................................... 80
FEMA Personnel................................................... 330
Financial and Procurement Controls............................... 208
FIRE Grant Funding............................................... 314
First Responders (General)....................................... 343
Fiscal Year:
2004 Workload Statistics..................................... 16
2005 Accomplishments......................................... 125
2006 Budget Request.................................9, 30, 119, 128
Enhancements............................................. 13
For Citizenship and Immigration Services................. 3
Fisheries Enforcement............................................ 219
Flood Map Modernization.......................................... 328
Foreign:
And Domestic Repair Station Inspections...................... 294
Student Visas................................................ 154
Fugitive Operations.............................................. 78
Funding:
For First Responders......................................... 172
Issue........................................................ 4
Global Supply Chain Security..................................... 169
H2B Visa Program................................................. 3
Hammer Training.................................................. 345
Hazard Mitigation................................................ 327
Hazardous Materials Endorsement for Commerical Driver's License.. 293
Health and Human Services and BioShield.......................... 421
Hearings on the PATRIOT Act...................................... 261
HH-65 Helicopter Re-engining..................................... 211
Hiring Journalists............................................... 249
Homeland Secure Data Network..................................... 166
Human:
Resources.................................................... 207
Smuggling.................................................... 81
I-91 Checkpoint.................................................. 41
I-Staff.......................................................... 206
IA's Role in Intelligence Community.............................. 331
IAIP:
Coordination of Protection................................... 202
Hiring Difficulities......................................... 200
ICE:
CBP Merger................................................... 344
Cyber Crime Center........................................... 89
Hiring in Fiscal Year 2006................................... 39
Response..................................................... 7
IDENT/IAFIS...................................................... 272
Integration.................................................. 273
Update....................................................... 106
Illegal Immigrants..............................................92, 279
Immigration...................................................... 118
Advisory Program............................................. 71
And Customs Enforcement...................................... 341
Enforcement.................................................. 101
Officers in Local USCIS Offices.............................. 111
Services..................................................... 89
Impact of:
Bush Amnesty on Backlog Reduction/Workload................... 99
ICE Budget Shortfall......................................... 102
Late Duty Collection on Crawfish Industry.................... 104
Networking................................................... 152
REAL ID on Backlog Reduction/Workload........................ 271
Implementation of the Visa Reform Act............................ 45
Imported Shrimp Industry......................................... 98
Improvement in Customer Service.................................. 31
Improving:
Airport Security............................................. 154
National Preparedness and Response........................... 130
Indemnification.................................................. 399
Independent Review of Collective Bargaining Disputes............. 257
Information Concerning the PATRIOT Act........................... 261
Initial Preliminary Orders in Liquidation........................ 39
Institutional Removal Program.................................... 79
Integration of CBP Air and Marine Assets......................... 47
Intelligence..................................................... 118
Reform:
Act/Border Patrol Staff Increases........................ 44
And Terrorism Prevention Act............................. 4
Bill Authorizations...................................... 249
International Partnerships....................................... 163
Interoperability:
Communications............................................... 315
Standards.................................................... 315
Interoperable Communications..................................... 174
Introduction:
And Overview................................................. 18
Of Diseases From Other Countries............................. 374
Investigations:
And Intelligence............................................. 10
Of Arms Export Control Act Violations........................ 102
IT issues........................................................ 118
L1 Visa Inter-Agency Task Force.................................. 45
Lack of:
BioShield Funding for RAD/NUC Response....................... 429
Funding for Border Security.................................. 270
Land Port of Entry............................................... 90
Law Enforcement Support Center...................................2, 114
Legal Orientation Programs....................................... 115
Leveraging Technology............................................ 131
LIFE Act......................................................... 111
Lobbying Rules................................................... 229
Management and:
Administration............................................... 336
Staffing..................................................... 165
Mandatory Termination With No Outside Review..................... 258
Maritime:
Security Cutter--Large Operational Costs..................... 309
Transportation Security Act Implementation................... 299
Measures for Determining Budgets................................. 284
Meeting:
Our Twin Goals: Building More Secure and More Efficient
Borders.................................................... 21
With Unions.................................................. 261
Merging CBP and ICE.............................................. 272
Merit System Protection Board (MSPB)............................. 257
Movement of Resources............................................ 157
NAC.............................................................. 208
National:
Bio and Agrodefense Facility................................. 420
Border Security Assessment................................... 101
Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage....... 219
Preparedness Goal............................................ 170
Response Planning............................................ 311
Security Mission............................................. 31
Need for Additional Assistance From the Subcommittee............. 162
New:
Mexico Capabilities--Training at Playas...................... 222
Office of Screening Coordination and Operations.............. 41
Products to Protect Against Bioterrorism Acts................ 368
NOAA Weather Radios.............................................. 340
Non-Profit Grant Funding......................................... 316
NonGovernmental Screening Group.................................. 372
Northern Border:
Air Wing..................................................... 346
Prosecutions................................................. 346
Security..................................................... 346
Number of Border Patrol Agents Needed............................ 133
Observations Regarding the Department of Homeland Security....... 151
Office of:
Citizenship.................................................. 84
Fraud Detection and National Security........................ 82
Screening Coordination and Operations........................ 167
Mission.................................................. 44
(9/11 Commission Recommendation)......................... 65
Security..................................................... 204
One Face at the Border........................................... 16
1-800 Customer Service Numbers................................... 112
Operation Predator............................................... 91
Other:
Concerns..................................................... 119
Traditional Missions......................................... 27
Overhead Cost Sharing............................................ 78
Overtime:
Pay While Receiving Training................................. 104
Rate......................................................... 310
Overview of ICE Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Request.................. 10
Passenger Air Fees............................................... 285
Passport Privacy................................................. 271
Pay:
For Performance.............................................. 259
Increase..................................................... 310
Personnel Concerns............................................... 119
Port Security..................................................143, 344
Assessments.................................................. 304
Estimates.................................................... 304
Grant:
Coordination............................................. 317
Program.................................................. 304
Port/Rail/Transit................................................ 313
Ports of Entry in Vermont........................................ 113
Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grants................................... 330
Pre-Packaged News................................................ 286
Preparation for Biological Attack................................ 160
Private:
Screeners.................................................... 293
Sector Interest in BioShield................................. 430
Progress Since March 2003........................................ 30
Protecting Americans............................................. 361
Pulsed Fast Neutron Analysis..................................... 276
R&D Consolidation................................................ 191
Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Complex. 419
Rapid Prototyping................................................ 411
Recruiting....................................................... 308
Regions Initiative............................................... 205
Registered Traveler.............................................. 295
Repatriation Program With Mexicans............................... 150
Requirements Gap................................................. 300
Research and:
Development................................................213, 310
Technology:
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO)................. 228
Generally................................................ 225
NISAC.................................................... 227
Review of ICE Accomplishments.................................... 11
Revolutionizing the Borders...................................... 128
Risk:
Based Approach............................................... 125
Of Liability................................................. 399
Role of Science and Technology Directorate....................... 194
Rudeness of Customs Employees.................................... 148
S&T:
Directorate's Interagency Collaboration...................... 352
University Partnership Program............................... 197
SAFETY Act....................................................... 409
Satisfaction With Status Quo Budget.............................. 150
Science & Technology Directorate and:
Integrated Biosurveillance................................... 401
Standards.................................................... 407
Screening Workforce Performance.................................. 287
SeaTac Airport................................................... 347
Second Stage Review.............................................. 122
Section 605 of Vision 100........................................ 288
Secure:
Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection Program
(SENTRI)................................................... 71
Flight....................................................... 262
And Privacy.............................................. 264
Movement to SCO.......................................... 264
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America............. 259
Shelf Sensitive Vaccines......................................... 370
Significant ICE Achievements..................................... 8
SIPRINET......................................................... 309
Six-Month Average for Processing Benefits Applications........... 37
Slow Pace of Grant Distributions................................. 312
Southwest Border Control......................................... 139
Stabilization of Senior Management............................... 161
Staffing........................................................85, 282
Model........................................................ 60
Status of:
Security of the United States 2 Years After the
Establishment of the Department of Homeland Security....... 6
Technology in Use on the Borders and Detention Space......... 134
Status Quo Budget Request........................................ 149
Stepped up Enforcement Along the Border.......................... 142
Strategic:
Approach to Addressing Medical Countermeasure Gaps........... 362
National Stockpile Today..................................... 362
Strengthening Law Enforcement.................................... 129
Supply Chain and Container Security.............................. 271
System:
That Monitor Supply of Pharmaceutical Products............... 369
Weaknesses................................................... 365
Tasking the FLRA and MSPB........................................ 258
Technology Transfer.............................................. 317
Temporary Worker Program......................................... 142
And Backlog Elimination Program.............................. 97
Terrorist Travel (9/11 Commission Report)........................ 65
Thefts of Luggage of Passengers.................................. 158
Threats in Order of Priority..................................... 397
TOPOFF Exercise.................................................. 161
Trade/Travel Facilitation........................................ 17
Training of:
Border Patrol Agents......................................... 134
CBP Inspectors............................................... 108
Supervisors.................................................. 258
Transportation of Butant Stoves (Without Butane) on Airplanes.... 219
TSA............................................................118, 156
Air Carrier Security Fees.................................... 178
Contract Screeners........................................... 179
``No Fly'' Lists/Secure Flight............................... 185
Passenger Fees............................................... 177
R&D.......................................................... 295
Screener Training............................................ 182
Spending Abuses.............................................. 287
TWIC Program--Why the Delay?..................................... 269
UAVs............................................................. 220
Unfair Trade Practices--Catfish Imports.......................... 46
University Centers of Excellence................................. 419
US VISIT.......................................................168, 268
When Will We Have a Real ``Exit'' Component?................. 267
USCIS Response................................................... 7
Use of:
IDENT, IAFIS and US VISIT.................................... 159
Radiation Monitors........................................... 36
Stolen Passports--Inspector General Report................... 68
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles..................................... 276
Vehicle Fleet Management Report.................................. 274
Vetted Traveler Programs......................................... 42
Violating the DHS Appropriations Act............................. 341
Visa:
Overstays.................................................... 92
Security Unit................................................ 76
Waiver....................................................... 139
Program: Further Extension............................... 99
Visit to One of the Ports........................................ 148
War on Drugs--Historical......................................... 111
Weapons of Mass Destruction Detection Technology................. 17
White House Mail................................................. 310
Worksite Enforcement............................................75, 284
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