Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - April 26, 2007)

By Mr. DURBIN (for himself and Mr. Obama):

S. 1228. A bill to amend section 485(f) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 regarding law enforcement emergencies; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

S. 1228

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Campus Law Enforcement Emergency Response Act of 2007. This legislation takes several important steps to enhance the security of college and university campuses, including ensuring that schools have created and tested emergency response procedures and notification systems.

We will never forget the tragic events at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, when a mentally ill gunman brutally murdered 32 men and women over a period of several hours. This horrible incident demonstrated the need for colleges and universities to develop and test procedures for responding to emergency situations that pose a large-scale threat to public safety. In the era we live in today, college campuses may be viewed as inviting targets for those who seek to terrorize or kill. We have to be prepared for the possibility of mass-casualty attacks on our college campuses, and we have to be ready to respond to them if they occur.

Many schools in my home State of Illinois and elsewhere have taken measures, both before and after the Virginia Tech shootings, to safeguard against such emergency incidents. However, there are nearly 4,300 colleges and universities in the country, serving over 17 million students and millions more faculty, staff and campus visitors each year. We need to ensure that all of these institutions have effective law enforcement emergency response procedures in place, and we need to provide guidance and assistance for schools that need it.

The Campus Law Enforcement Emergency Response Act would ensure that institutions of higher education meet baseline preparedness and testing requirements for law enforcement emergencies. The bill would expand the focus of the Clery Act, an existing law that requires colleges and universities to issue annual reports on campus crime and crime security measures, to cover ``law enforcement emergency'' situations. The term ``law enforcement emergency'' as defined in the bill would include situations that occur on a college campus that involve a law enforcement response and that pose a potential threat of continuing danger. Such situations would include ``a shooting, the presence of an armed and dangerous person, a bomb threat, the presence of an unauthorized hazardous or toxic material that poses a threat to health and safety, a lock-down, a reverse evacuation, or any other comparable type of incident on the campus.......that involves the participation of one or more law enforcement agencies.'' Because of the threat of large-scale dangers that these types of emergency incidents pose to the campus community, additional preparations should be made for them.

First, the bill would require higher education institutions to develop and distribute policies regarding the institution's law enforcement emergency response program. These policies would have to specify the procedures students and employees should follow if a law enforcement emergency occurs and the procedures that the school and its partner law enforcement agencies would follow to inform and guide students and employees in case of such an emergency. Under this bill, schools are encouraged to establish notification procedures such as e-mail alerts, telephone alerts, text-message alerts, radio announcements, television alerts, audible alert signals, and public address announcements.

The bill would also require institutions to test their law enforcement emergency response procedures at least annually. Such testing is crucial for ensuring the efficient and effective coordination of law enforcement response activities with the actions of those on campus.

In addition, this legislation would require institutions to provide notice to the campus community through its notification procedures no later than 30 minutes after the discovery of a law enforcement emergency. Many have pointed out that over 2 hours passed between the discovery of the first shootings on the Virginia Tech campus and the initial threat notification to the Virginia Tech community. In the interim period, the Virginia Tech gunman moved across campus and shot many more victims. A 30-minute notification requirement provides enough time for law enforcement agencies to assess an emergency situation and to issue, at minimum, an alert notifying the campus community about the possibility of further danger.

The bill would give the Departments of Education and Justice joint authority to review, monitor, and ensure compliance with the bill's requirements. Given the Department of Justices experience in dealing with law enforcement emergencies, joint authority and coordination with the Department of Education will provide a significant benefit to schools. Additionally, the bill would authorize the Education and Justice Departments to advise schools on model law enforcement emergency response procedures and to disseminate information about these procedures. The bill would further require schools to report statistics on the actual occurrence of law enforcement emergencies at each school.

Finally, the bill would create a competitive grant program, to be administered by the Department of Education, to help institutions develop, implement, operate, improve, test, and disseminate campus law enforcement emergency response programs. The program would be authorized for 5 years, at $5 million for the first year and for such sums as may be necessary thereafter.

The tragedy at Virginia Tech should cause us to reassess numerous laws in an effort to prevent such tragedies from happening in the future. We need to reevaluate the State and Federal laws that allowed a man to purchase guns and ammunition despite a prior determination of mental illness by a court. We need to take a hard look at mental health in this country and to craft policies that identify and provide support for those with signs of mental illness. We must also work to strengthen the security of our primary and secondary schools in order to safeguard against shootings and other dangerous incidents on those school grounds. These issues will be the subject of discussions in the days to come, and enhancing the preparedness of our college campuses for law enforcement emergencies must be a part of those discussions as well.

Sadly, we cannot guarantee that a mass tragedy will never occur again on an American campus. But it is imperative that the Government, law enforcement agencies, and school administrations work together to guard against mass-casualty threats as best we can and to be ready to respond if they occur. The Campus Law Enforcement Emergency Response Act will help ensure that those who live, work, and study at our colleges and universities can do so more safely. I urge the Congress to pass this important and critical legislation.

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