Joint Hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism

Statement

Joint Hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism and Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight - The Future of Border Security: Can SBINET Succeed?

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REP. AL GREEN (D-TX): Thank you, Mr. Subcommittee Chair, and I thank the Full Committee Chair, and the Full Committee Chair has really preempted any questions that I have, so I will quickly move through this but I appreciate his means by which he was able to extract the information because I was gong to take another approach and I think his approach was the much better approach, so thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just ask about the $3,000 that we are offering to persons to negotiate. Where are we with that project? If you would, please, someone?

MR. GIDDENS: Sir, we discussed it briefly here that $3,000 was one of the options that we looked at not for right of entry but something that we looked at for right of construction, and we've -- go through the process before we finalize the actual cost and execute the real estate transaction.

It was one of the options we looked at. We decided not to pursue that as an option, so that's no longer in our plans.

REP. GREEN: No longer an option and no money was expended in the project?

MR. GIDDENS: No, sir.

REP. GREEN: What will happen -- and I think this is a question that many persons are interested in hearing the answer to -- what will happen when negotiation is not as fruitful as you would want it to be?

MR. GIDDENS: What happens in that case is we come back and we look at where is that parcel that causes us to be down at the parcel level, and there's places where a 2-mile stretch of fence that we've proposed to locate may have 20 or 30 owners.

So, at each parcel, you have to make that determination. We would come back, bring that information back to Customs, Border Protection leadership and work with Border Patrol to get their insight on the criticality of that fence.

So, you could have a two-mile segment that for a quarter of a mile, or an eighth of a mile or the middle of it, the landowner said, I don't want to sell. And if you build around that, then you're going to weans with an eighth of a mile in the middle without a fence, that then will become a funnel -- potential for ideas to come through. So, we're not looking to make any of those decisions before their time.

As -- (inaudible) -- has indicated that this is a national issue and while he reserves the right in terms of culmination that's not clearly off the step and the Border Patrol's analysis on the criticality is one of the big factors that has to come into play.

REP. GREEN: Is there a process in place such that, we, the members of Congress, will be aware of how you're proceeding once you get to that point in the implementation phase?

MR. GIDDENS: Yes, we'd be happy to come and for members or the subcommittee to keep them apprised of our progress, going through much like we did, I think two or three weeks ago, whom we reached out to all the -- the border State to members, and indicated where we were in the process. And we would look to continue that transparency.

REP. GREEN: I ask because we -- it's sometimes difficult to read about these things in the newspaper and have an intelligent response to constituents who will -- who will want to know what is really going on.

It's helpful to hear about them before they hit the newspaper, if at all possible. Sometimes I question how things get to the news media before they can get to me, but I think it's important for us to at least have some knowledge of what's happening.

MR. GIDDENS: Yes, sir, I share that, but I'd also like to indicate that, frankly there's news that comes on the paper that surprise us, that are not even what we're doing.

So I'd ask your indulgence that as we work to keep your prize that if you read something, it may not necessarily mean that it's true.

REP. GREEN: Yes sir, I do understand that. I've read a few things about myself that I had issue with.

MR. GIDDENS: But sir -- but I don't want to downplay your comment, though, to keep the information -- keep -- and we wouldn't do that.

REP. GREEN: All right, and the final comment we'll come back to where I initially ended this and the chairman was absolutely on target and I commend him and thank him for the way he handled it but I do want to ask your 90 percent assurance.

My belief is that with this 90 percent assurance, in the month of December, we should have a report at some point from what happened in November, so that we will know that the 90 percent assurance was in fact something that was effected in November, will we get that in December?

What I'm saying is you will now turn the system over in November. At some point we will get a report about what happened when you made that turnover. Would that come in December?

MR. GIDDENS: Sir, I'm not the most appropriate to take that, because that report would come from us.

Once Boeing turns that system over to us, the Border Patrol would start to use it in a operational stance and then we'll have learned from that as we continue to mature to the next version of P28, and we'd be happy to write a report to that in December, and I'd suggest there maybe touch-points after December as well.

REP. GREEN: Well, the reason that that's important is obviously because either we get a report or we have a hearing. Usually that's one of the two ways that I'm aware of that we get the information, and it's not -- it doesn't end with turning it over.

There's something that is an analysis of the benefits of having this system in place and may be some of the things that are not quite so beneficial, that have taken place that we should be aware of.

MR. GIDDENS: Absolutely, sir, and that's one of the things that we're so anxious to try to get in the operator's hands and start learning some of those lessons because we realize that a prototype system is not going to completely meet their needs.

That's when we get budgeted money to mature this system through '08. So you're absolutely right. Those things will be critical for us. Those will be nuggets that we need to learn to improve the system.

REP. GREEN: And in December, we can look for those nuggets?

MR. GIDDENS: Yes, sir.

REP. GREEN: Okay.

MR. GIDDENS: Thank you very much. That -- in December. We'll continue to learn beyond December.

REP. GREEN: Yes, sir. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, you've been more than generous.

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