Motion to Go to Conference on H.R. 2360, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2006

MOTION TO GO TO CONFERENCE ON H.R. 2360, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - September 28, 2005)

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think the real question here is, if you are happy with the way the planning went to prepare for Katrina, vote for this motion to instruct conferees. But if you think that we can plan better for disasters in this country, including hurricanes like Katrina, then reject this motion and allow the Department, the government to bring together all of the agencies that might be involved in planning for a disaster into the same room. Not just FEMA. Bring the Coast Guard, bring the military, bring the border patrol, bring the Secret Service.

Bring all of the agencies that deal with disasters or have a part of that into the same place, the same directorate, if you will, in the Department of Homeland Security so that we can properly plan and bring the resources to bear of the government in a timely way, at the outset, by properly preparing. FEMA is a FEMA-centric organization. It stays within its boundary and does a good job basically in responding, but not planning, not preparedness.

The gentleman from Minnesota says early on in his statement, Katrina shined a bright spotlight on troubling gaps in our ability to deal with catastrophes. I could not agree more. That is why I think we need to allow the government to create a directorate for preparedness that is the broadest in its scope it can be, encompassing all of the agencies of the government, not just FEMA.

The gentleman from Minnesota also said in his opening remarks, people demand that we fix what is broken. I agree with that as well. Ironically, however, his motion to instruct conferees would prevent our capability of being able to fix what is broken. To fix what is broken, which is preparedness, we need to be able to build a much broader-scoped organization, looking just at preparedness for these disasters. A single preparedness directorate will be able to work not just with the Federal agencies but State and local governments as well to build a comprehensive preparedness strategy, focused not just on terrorist activities but certainly an all-hazards strategy.

Consolidating all preparedness functions will assist the Department in successfully deploying this strategy throughout all levels of government where it is needed the most.

The responsibility for preparedness exists in various agencies and levels of the government outside of FEMA. For example, the Coast Guard is not a part of FEMA. Do you want to prevent the Coast Guard from being able to help plan for rescuing people in case of a flood or disaster like Katrina?

I do not want to exclude the Coast Guard from that process. Do Members want to exclude the military and the National Guard from that process? This motion would keep things just as it is. I am not happy with things just as they are. Hurricane Katrina proved that it is not getting the job done.

Do Members want to exclude the Corps of Engineers? They are not a part of the FEMA, they are part of the Army. Do Members want to prevent the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the military and all other agencies from helping plan to prepare for these disasters? I want them included, not excluded. Creating a directorate in the Department whose sole focus is preparedness will bring together all of these agencies and build a preparedness capability in DHS that does not currently exist.

Also, keep in mind that FEMA will continue to be responsible for their portion of preparedness planning within this much-larger construct. They will continue to administer the Emergency Management Institute, which serves as the national focal point for the development and delivery of emergency management training and enhances the capabilities of Federal, State and local governments in order to minimize the impact of disasters. They will still be involved, deeply, in preparedness planning. But I think we need to add these other agencies into the mix so we know from the outset, from the git-go who is going to do what, when, where and why. What is wrong with that?

The bottom line is that this reorganization will allow for better coordination among the various preparedness components within the much larger Department of Homeland Security and encourage learning and building off of each other. If FEMA were to be solely responsible for preparedness, the result will be a FEMA-centric approach, just within the small world of FEMA. DHS must develop a broader, all-hazards focus when it comes to preparedness, one that includes natural disasters and terrorist incidents.

We know that somewhere in response to Hurricane Katrina, the system broke. To vote for this motion will perpetuate the status quo. If Members like things just as they are, then vote for the Sabo motion. But if Members want a much broader context of preparing for these disasters with all of the agencies of the government that could be involved in disaster relief and planning, if Members want all of them involved, then reject this motion and let the Department reorganize the preparedness part of getting ready for these terrible storms using all of the assets of the government, not just a small part.

I urge Members to reject this motion and to allow the conferees to go about the business of conferring with the other body and bringing back a bill responsibly to this body.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the proposal to create within the Department a directorate dealing just with preparedness and bringing into that agency all of the other agencies of the government, Federal, State, and local, to help plan so that we will not have another Katrina episode makes altogether good sense. This was not developed overnight, the idea. In fact, it has been studied by the Secretary and the Department for many months.

I want to quote briefly from a letter that I received just this morning from the Department, from Secretary Chertoff, which says as follows: ``Our proposal was formed after intensive consultations with preparedness professionals, first responders, law enforcement officials, the former leadership of'' the Department, ``and State and local stakeholders.'' All of these people were involved in the construction of this idea of creating a massive government-wide directorate for preparedness planning.

``Our objective is to create a stronger capability to do preparedness planning across the full spectrum of all hazards, both natural disasters and terrorist attacks.''

Continuing to read: ``Critically, no structural changes were made to FEMA prior to Hurricane Katrina.'' Katrina was under the old scheme. ``Going forward, our plan will significantly strengthen the planning and preparedness actions of FEMA and the entire Department by ensuring that a dedicated team will focus on these actions on a full-time, urgent basis. Our preparedness directorate,'' the Secretary says, ``will integrate and leverage the capabilities of FEMA with those of Coast Guard; TSA,'' Transportation Security Administration; the customs agents, both on the border and internal, ``and Secret Service,'' among others.

``FEMA is and should be a surge organization.'' We have forgotten that.

FEMA develops with the surges of the moment. ``When incidents occur, every asset of the organization and its entire leadership team surges into the incident. ``Our proposal,'' the Secretary says, ``for a preparedness organization supports FEMA's capacity to surge while maintaining a systematic planning and exercise regime in support of FEMA's mission and that of other DHS components. The directorate will aggressively support FEMA's training and exercising needs.''

Continuing to read from the Secretary's letter: ``It aligns our grant-making programs and our crucial training and exercising work in support of the Department's all-hazards mission. The directorate will include increased focus on issues broader than FEMA, including infrastructure protection, cybersecurity, and a new chief medical officer.'' Those are not considered today in the present FEMA. We have got to take a look at the broader picture. So those are the comments of the Secretary.

Now, who supports the Secretary in bringing a broader perspective to preparedness planning? Groups like the International Association of Fire Chiefs. If there is a first responder organization that typifies what they do, it is the fire departments and the fire chiefs, the people who know best about preparing for disasters. They say this is a critical change that is necessary, and I am quoting from their letter to that effect: ``This preparedness directorate must be a new function and must be separate and distinct from operational functions, although it must coordinate with those operational functions.''

Quoting further from the International Association of Fire Chiefs: ``Currently, the U.S. Fire Administration is located within the Emergency Preparedness and Response directorate. Unfortunately, the preparedness functions of the USFA are diminished because EP&R is frequently focused on the operational response to disasters.'' That makes sense.

They go on to say: ``It is critical that fire chiefs or other senior fire service leaders be included in this directorate, along with other State, local, and tribal first responders, so that they may provide essential perspective in the creation of policy for DHS and not only in the review or enactment of policy.'' This puts the fire chiefs in the middle of the planning process, not at the other end. They are not being told what to do. They are being asked what to do with this proposal.

If Members vote for the Sabo motion, they are saying to the fire chiefs, We do not care about you. We will tell you what to do. We do not want you to tell us how we should do it before we do it.

We want to bring them into the planning process, not tell them what to do at the end of the process.

In bringing about this directorate, the Department of the Secretary over months went out and talked to all sorts of people and organizations. I will give some examples, and I have got three pages here of the listing of some of the people they have talked to.

Lee Baca, the Sheriff of L.A. County; Matt Bettenhausen, director of the California Office of Homeland Security; Roger Vanderpool, director, Arizona Department of Public Safety; Art Faulkner, liaison for assistant director for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Alabama Department of Homeland Security; Jim Timmony, police chief, City of Miami; Mike Sherberger, director of the Office of Homeland Security, Georgia; Illinois, Jonathan Schachter, City of Chicago; Art Cleaves, director of Maine Emergency Management; John Cohen, Massachusetts Homeland Security;

Also Colonel Tom Robbins, Massachusetts State Police; Sid Casperson, the Director of the New Jersey Office of Counterterrorism; Jim McMahon, Director of New York State Office of Homeland Security; Brian Beatty, Secretary of Public Safety in North Carolina; Doug Friez in North Dakota; Ken Morckel, Director of Public Safety for Ohio; people from Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia; the Federal Order of Police; the International Associations of Chiefs of Police; and I could go on.

So, here is a list, a brief list, of some of the people contacted by the Department as they came up with this idea to consolidate preparedness planning in a single place, encompassing all of the agencies of the Federal, State and local governments, people like the fire chiefs and chiefs of police.

From the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a letter saying ``law enforcement across the Nation supports the President's position that the best way to prepare for a terrorist attack is to stop it from happening. We feel that the Department should unify the components that share this common mission. At present, the Prevention and Protection Grants plans and intelligence are each in separate agencies. Long overdue, the Nation would be well served by DHS directorate committed solely to protecting the American people. For the first time, the chiefs of police say, ``local law enforcement could work with a single DHS directorate focused on our common goal to protect the American people from another terrorist attack.''

Chiefs of police, fire chiefs, first responders, State and local directors of homeland security all say the same thing: We have got to consolidate and bring in one place the preparedness planning practice within Homeland.

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, when Secretary Chertoff became the Secretary of the new Department, he declared sort of a moratorium; and he went off with his staff, and they began to discuss and think and plan about how to improve the Department's capability to respond and prevent attacks either by nature or by man; homeland security.

And one of the biggest things they found was that in the different Departments of the government, there were agencies that had something to do with responding to an emergency and being prepared for that, but separate and apart from each other.

For example, the Coast Guard had their own preparedness group that plans what they should do in an emergency. Of course, States have their own plans, as they should. And local officials, mayors and the like, have their own plans for response and preparedness. The military has obviously planned for disasters. They have been prepared. And, of course, the National Guard, the same way. The Corps of Engineers have their own unit that deals with preparedness for disasters, and we could go on. All across this government there are agencies within all of these, or many of these Departments that are preparing for disasters.

The Secretary said we need an agency within Homeland Security where all of these groups can come together under one roof and participate and plan as one unit, not just the agencies of the Federal Government, but States and localities as well. He went out, his people went out and they talked to hundreds, literally hundreds of directors of State homeland security groups, of fire chiefs and police and the first responders all over the country, and there came back from all of those people the unanimous idea: we need a single place where we can all go, and know to go, both to plan and to inquire.

So that now, in this plan that the Secretary has, the police and the firemen and the State emergency directors, as well as the Federal agencies, all of them from the Coast Guard to the Secret Service, all can come together in one place and do nothing but planning. They are not concerned about doing the operational part of responding to an emergency, that is FEMA and the various agencies. But for the planning purposes, they want to be together.

So the Secretary says, okay, that is the way it shall be. And in his reorganization plan, he agreed with all of the police chiefs and the fire chiefs, the State planning directors, the emergency planners in each State, the homeland security people in the States, and mayors, he agreed with them and gave them what they wanted: a single place.

Let us not have another Katrina. Let us work together so that we each know what we are supposed to do in the event that a disaster occurs.

So I urge my colleagues to reject this motion to instruct conferees. Let these experts do their work. I am no expert on how to respond to a fire or a disaster. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) may know more than I, but I doubt he is an expert either. We have experts who do nothing but this. Let us put the experts in charge, and let them tell us what we need to do, and let us then follow along and do what has to be done to save lives.

The bottom line: if you are happy with the way FEMA planned for Katrina, vote Sabo. If you think we can improve and we can do better in planning for the next disaster, reject Sabo. Vote ``no.''

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