PREPAREDNESS AGAINST TERRORIST

ATTACKS

Wednesday, June 9, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS AND

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure WASHINGTON, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:08 p.m., in room 2253, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tillie K. Fowler [chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.

Mrs. FOWLER. Would the meeting please come to order. I want to thank all of you for being here this afternoon and we are going to have an interesting hearing. Today, our subcommittee is going to examine the Federal Government's programs that are designed to assist State and local emergency officials in preparing for a terrorist attack involving nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

The efficiency and effectiveness of Federal preparedness programs are not abstract issues if you receive a call that your child's school is being evacuated and you count on firemen, police, and paramedics to save and protect your child before you can get there. If you are confronted by the news of a huge explosion downtown, as one of our witnesses today has been, at your husband or wife's office, the last thing you need to worry about is whether the firemen or police are prepared to deal with that situation. We all automatically assume that they are prepared. Unfortunately, when you're faced with a weapon of mass destruction, not all first responders are ready today.

The Congress recognized this some years ago and has passed a number of laws and appropriated funds to bring Federal resources to bear on this problem. A large number of agencies have gotten involved in this effort and are experiencing dramatic increases in funding. For an example, this chart that's over here and I don't know how well you can see it, but you might want to take a little look at it later-shows how the budgets of just three agencies, the FBI, Health and Human Services, and the Office of Justice programs have increased. That's a pretty dramatic increase in funding levels.

[Chart]

The President's fiscal year 2000 budget request of $10 billion for unclassified programs combating terrorism is a $3 billion increase over fiscal year 1999 and a 43 percent increase over what was spent in 1996. Most of this increase has gone to the Department of Defense.

We're about to hear witnesses testify that there are serious problems in these Federal programs. These are not problems of quality. Federal agencies should be commended for assembling world-class training programs and response personnel. The problem is that there are a multitude of fragmented and independent Federal programs that are confusing the very local emergency officials that they are intended to help.

Witnesses will tell us that training and response teams appear unnecessarily redundant and inefficient. As one local official rhetorically asked after participating in yet another Federal anti-terrorism program"how many ways can you bake the same chicken?" These problems have been brewing out there for some time and thanks to the efforts of Representatives Chris Shays and Ike Skelton they are being brought to light.

The Administration is also aware of these problems and has created a new office in the Department of Justice to try and address some of them. We believe this is a step in the right direction. But I will tell you that I share the view of some of our witnesses that the ability of this new office to rein in diverse entrepreneurial Federal programs seems extremely limited. I have strong doubts that simply getting everyone in the same room to talk will make all these problems go away.

I also question why FEMA, who is the lead agency for Federal preparedness and response activities, is not assuming a stronger leadership role. Since this subcommittee has both oversight and legislative authority over Federal emergency management issues, we are uniquely situated to identify and legislate on these problems. We will be taking a closer look at these issues today and in the coming months.

State and local governments deserve the best support that we can give them. We need to make sure that these resources are translated into the best trained, best equipped and best supported fire, medical, and law enforcement officers in the world. And this should not be true in just Washington D.C. or Los Angeles or New York, but anywhere in the United States where we may face a weapon of mass destruction.

I look forward to hearing the testimony from all of our witnesses and working together on achieving this goal. I would like now to turn to my ranking member and good friend, Mr. Traficant, for his opening statement.

Mr. TRAFICANT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I congratulate you for calling this hearing on the state of the domestic preparedness against terrorist attack involving nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. I'm going to deviate a little bit from my prepared text, Madam Chairwoman, because later today or tomorrow I will have an amendment on the House floor.

The amendment is very straightforward. It would allow the use of military personnel on our borders to ensure that we might be able to stop penetration of terrorist threats and narcotics.

Nearly all terrorists finance their nefarious activities with the lucrative narcotics trade. What amazes me is a recent report that came out, Madam Chairwoman, that only three of every 100 trucks crossing the Mexican border is even inspected. Experts are saying that nuclear weapons and devices could be smuggled across our border while we are debating a bill that will ship 7,000 American soldiers to guard borders in Europe. Our borders are wide open.

Now, that's not the purpose of our meeting here. But everybody here assembled is familiar with the tragedy of Oklahoma City.

In fact, Madam Chairwoman, I'm going to be asking for your support later in this session when our committee marks up the Traficant Bill H.R. 809 that will make long overdue changes in the Federal protective services. But to underscore the importance of your hearing here, at the time of the tragedy at Oklahoma City, there was only one contract security guard on duty covering three Federal buildings. This is a disgrace.

I believe the Chairwoman is exactly correct when she said someone has to be the bottom line and the buck must stop there. And it's FEMA who has the preparedness responsibility and coordination. I don't see any coordination. Very few agencies really work together. In fact, Madam Chairwoman, there's a lot of competition for some reason among some agencies and not enough communication and camaraderie.

With that, I would ask that my total statement be incorporated into the record and I look forward to interacting with these panel members.

Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Traficant. I appreciate those comments.

Mr. Terry, do you want to make an opening statement?

Mr. TERRY. For the sake of saving time, I do have a statement that I will submit to you for the record; but I will make one quick comment. As an 8-year city council member in Omaha, Nebraska, which, by the way, was the runner-up city for McVeigh, in sitting down and talking to our firemen and our police, one of their major frustrations is lack of support and lack of training in case Omaha, Nebraska is a target for a terrorist attack.

And as McVeigh proved to the world, these are real threats, not only as you said, Madam Chairwoman, for New York and Los Angeles, but for the Oklahoma Citys and the Omahas of the world. So this is important.

Like I said, I have sat down and talked to our firemen, and they're frustrated that they aren't receiving the type of support and the training that they feel is necessary as first responders. What we all have to keep in mind is that whenever one of these attacks is pulled off in our country, the first people there are our local firemen and our local police officers. And those are the folks that need to be trained.

So the competition between agencies at the Federal level is just frustrating the ability to help folks in a real emergency at the local level.

So I look forward to these hearings. And hopefully we can find a solution to this problem.

Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Terry. Mr. Isakson, do you have an opening comment you want to make?