FY'07 Homeland Security Appropriations Hearing Directorate of Preparedness
FY'07 Homeland Security Appropriations Hearing - Directorate of Preparedness
This afternoon we welcome the Under Secretary of the new Preparedness Directorate, George Foresman and the Assistant Secretary for Grants and Training, Tracy Henke. This is the first appearance before the Subcommittee for both of our witnesses and I am pleased you are able to join us. In the broader sense, this is the first hearing for the new Preparedness Directorate, which is barely six months old. We are curious to hear your assessment of how the new organization is performing and where it is going.
Hurricane Katrina showed us that we have a lot of work ahead of us - we clearly were not prepared for that catastrophic event. Despite all of the talk and money spent on preparedness since 9-11, we failed. I sincerely hope that you, Mr. Secretary, can explain to this Subcommittee what is being done to prevent another Katrina. We expect you to take significant steps toward improving preparedness and correcting problems - and to be clear, I'm not just talking about throwing more money at a system which failed us in the past.
I am disappointed that we still do not have in place a final National Preparedness Goal. This is perhaps one of the more important documents that DHS is tasked with developing - it sets the stage for how our nation will prepare itself for terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies. It is also the document that we use to allocate federal assistance and guide first responders as they plan, equip and train for disasters. We expected a final Goal in December. It is now three months late and I am extremely disappointed. We continue to appropriate enormous sums of money for homeland security and, to date, we do not have a final vision of the Goal our nation is striving towards.
I continue to have concerns that the Department may be too heavily focused on terrorism. DHS was created to prevent, respond to and recover from not only terrorist attacks but all hazards faced by our nation. Despite an interim National Preparedness Goal that calls for a focus on all-hazards, our grants for first responders are focused on terrorism. While the Department has often stated that most grants are "dual-use" - that is for both terrorism and all hazards - I am concerned that Katrina showed us evidence to the contrary. The Bipartisan Committee on Hurricane Katrina concluded that grant funding did not adequately prepare State and local entities for this catastrophic event. We have put $32.6 billion on the streets for First Responders since 9-11 yet, in many instances, states and locals struggled to respond to Katrina.
You have come before us today asking for an additional $2.75 billion for first responders. At the same time, there is $5.1 billion still in the pipeline - about the same amount that was there last year at this time. I am concerned by the constant high rate of unobligated funds for grants to first responders. Despite our best efforts to get funds out the door quickly, chokepoints remain. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on what is causing these funds to linger in the pipeline for so long and how we can resolve this problem.
I also remain extremely disappointed by the lack of progress on critical areas such as defining standards for equipment and communications interoperability. While I appreciate that some of this work is being done elsewhere within the Department, I believe you have an obligation to ensure that these tasks are complete. Five years after September 11th is too long to still have interoperable communications as a problem. I don't understand what's taking so long.
Mr. Secretary, your Directorate is responsible for defining the essential minimum capabilities of our nation and ensuring that we actually develop those capabilities - in short, for making certain that our nation is prepared. Our preparedness strategy calls for an inventory and assessment of our capabilities but this has yet to be accomplished. The fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill requires that this assessment be complete by September 30, 2006. We want to know your progress in this area. It makes no sense to continue investing enormous sums of money in first responder planning, training, equipment and exercises when we do not know our current capabilities, let alone our desired goals. As I have stated in the past, simply throwing money at a problem will not make our nation more secure. With no goal in sight, how do we know that appropriated funds are making our country safer? How do we know that these funds are developing capabilities that state and local entities need to effectively respond to a catastrophic event?
Secretary Foresman, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these and other matters as we proceed here this afternoon, as well as the thoughts of Assistant Secretary Henke.
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