Hearing of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Subcommittee of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security - The National Incident...

Federal News Service September 29, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY SUBJECT: THE NATIONAL INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: ENHANCING RESPONSE TO TERRORIST ATTACKS

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE JOHN SHADEGG (R-AZ)

WITNESSES: GIL JAMIESON, ACTING DIRECTOR, NIMS INTEGRATION CENTER, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY;

CHIEF P. MICHAEL FREEMAN, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT, CALIFORNIA, ON BEHALF OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS; STEVE LENKART, NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF POLICE OFFICERS; DR. JOSEPH BARBERA, CO-DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR CRISIS, DISASTER, AND RISK MANAGEMENT, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

BODY:

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. BENNIE G. THOMPSON (D-MS): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join the chairman in welcoming our witnesses to this hearing and I look forward to hearing the testimony on the National Incident Management System, which has significant implications for our first responder community. However, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the priorities of the Homeland Security Committee also.

This week, at least half a dozen House committees will debate and mark up the Republican leadership's legislation to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. But the Homeland Security Committee will not be one of those committees. According to press reports, Chairman Cox's staff has stated that we cannot mark up the 9/11 legislation because we are too busy focusing all our attention on completing the report regarding the future of the Homeland Security Committee. And although we are too busy to weigh in and mark up what may be the most important intelligence and homeland security reform legislation this year, we do appear to have the time to hold a hearing on the National Incident Management System.

Let me suggest that we are not too busy to exercise our jurisdiction, assert the authority of this committee and mark up the 9/11 Commission legislation. By taking this action, we will demonstrate through our work rather than through the report of the House that our committee should be permanent. Therefore, I hope the chairman of the full committee will reconsider his decision and that he will schedule a mark-up before the week's end.

Now, with respect to the National Incident Management System, or NIMS, there are some aspects of this program that should be carefully examined. As a former volunteer firefighter, I understand the importance of a clear command and control structure and the benefits that such a structure provides during incident response. But I think the witnesses will agree with me when I say that incident command system, and unified command, existed long before anyone ever contemplated the Department of Homeland Security. These systems have always been bottom up organizational structures focused on addressing the unique needs of different types of disasters and emergencies by first maintaining the flexibility to modify response strategies and, second, simplifying the integration of additional state and federal resources if required.

However, the current version of NIMS is heavily focused on the top down response structure, almost to the point that we may find that we lose ability and flexibility to effectively respond. In addition, the Fiscal 2005 budget request for NIMS is solely devoted to increasing the preparedness of federal response forces rather than state and local responders. Increasing the preparedness of federal response organizations does not increase the preparedness of individual communities who will be the first on the scene following a terrorist attack.

According to the September 8th letter from Secretary Ridge to the governors, in the Fiscal 2006 year, the administration will require state and local governments to adopt NIMS in order to be eligible for federal preparedness grant assistance. It is not clear to the states and localities which grant funds will be impacted by this requirement nor is it clear what these governments will need to certify that they have to adopt NIMS. I would ask our DHS witness to provide some more details on this matter.

That same letter also outlines the secretary's requirements for the states in Fiscal Year 2005. Among other tasks, DHS expects the states to incorporate NIMS into the emergency operation plan, coordinate and provide technical assistance to local entities regarding NIMS and institutionalize the use of the incident command system. I am concerned that DHS is not providing additional grant funds to achieve these goals and they are an unfunded mandate.

For example, I am not aware of any additional funding for state and local governments to train personnel in NIMS nor am I aware of any funding to revise and publish new emergency operation plans that are consistent with NIMS. It appears that DHS expects the states to leverage these general ODP grant funds for the purpose and choose between implementing NIMS and other equally pressing needs like specialized equipment training, terrorism exercise and enhanced security at critical infrastructure sites.

This concern applies, in particular, to the law enforcement community, which does not traditionally run its response operating using the incident command system. How does DHS expect the states to train and certify thousands of law enforcement personnel who will soon be required to adopt NIMS? I hope that the witnesses can provide us with their perspective on these questions and I look forward to that testimony.

Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We've talked about the 2005 and 2006 periods during the testimony today. And there is the reference to the term "certify." I want to make sure we are all on the same page as to what we are talking about when we say "certify" for different departments. Chief, if you would, technically what do you-when they say certify you're NIMS compliant, what does that mean in your mind? Has anybody talked to you about what does that mean?

MR. FREEMAN: I've had an opportunity to review a document in another role that I have where I have seen the letter to the governors and, as I understand it in that context, which is narrow right now, is that the various agencies need to gradually adopt certain elements of NIMS and ICS and moving forward from that point. As a fire chief, as a practitioner, I haven't heard specifically what that means as yet.

REP. THOMPSON: So do I detect from that a little urging on your part to the department that they need to be a little more forthcoming with that information if the targets are to be met?

MR. FREEMAN: Well, I believe that what is the plan of action is to roll this out through the states and then the states roll it out to the local governmental entities. And perhaps it would be good as these rollouts are occurring is if we could ask the department to maybe share it with local governmental officials as well as the governor of the state simultaneously where possible. I think it would help with the information flow.

REP. THOMPSON: Mr. Lenkart, one of the issues associated with this command and control situation is how do police departments fit in the mix because there is a division of labor that's really different for policemen in this situation. I heard your testimony about your concern. What would you say to DHS if the mandatory requirements came down like they are that you would like to see them take into consideration?

MR. LENKART: Well, sir, my guess is law enforcement having the unique responsibilities that they have, we've been at the same incidents for years as other first responders and we work well alongside each other. But we don't typically haven't worked well with each other. In order to do that, you're reversing years and years and years of traditional thinking. You have to teach a couple of old dogs some new tricks and instill some policies that would actually integrate them and not just force them to be there and present.

My asking of DHS would be to show a little bit more patience with that type of thinking. It does take a little bit of time to do that, to get people to buy into something like this and not hold up grant monies if they come across a little bit of reluctance or hesitance on the part of law enforcement to get on board. It is going to take a little bit more time than some other folks.

REP. THOMPSON: Dr. Barbera, one thing that struck me about your testimony is the reference to the private sector involvement in incident command situations. Are we presently providing, in your opinion, the private sector enough training or involvement or have we focused it primarily on state and local government? And, if not, how do we bring the private sector into this process?

DR. BARBERA: Thank you very much. That's a very good question. There has been quite a bit of training available to the private sector, medical providers, hospitals, health practitioners. Much of it has been at the level of tactical response, how do you do decontamination, how do you physically manage mass casualties. There hasn't been a lot of training at the level of management of systems for mass casualties. And particularly, I'm not sure we've well defined for national understanding how you integrate the concern issues and opinions of acute care medicine when you have a rapidly moving mass casualty event, where what command does for a decision has a lot to do with what you need to do medically and how you can do it, the time frame, et cetera.

And I don't think it's just with private medicine. I think we had issues with this after 9/11 in New York City with construction, deconstruction experts and others. I think that the processes are there. They're just not very well defined. I think this is the area again that the NIMS Integration Center could take a close look at and be very helpful.

We need to define the model better so that the training can follow and we really have to remember that in order for training to be effective at the operational level, we first have to have the system in place. So once you train, you can turn around and operate the systems. And I think we still need further guidance on management systems that integrate hospitals with public health, acute care medicine and the rest of emergency response.

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you. We have an interoperability problem. (Laughter.)

Well, let me thank you all of you for your testimony this morning. A couple of issues that concern a district like mine. My district is primarily rural. Most of the people involved in any kind of situation would be volunteers, good people that don't possess the training model that paid departments have. And I guess this is to Mr. Jamieson. How are we proposing to implement this system with rural volunteer departments?

MR. JAMIESON: Congressman, I think the first thing that we don't probably want the feds trying to figure that one out. There's got to be a great reliance here in terms of relying on those mechanisms and the orchestration on the part of the state to define where their areas of risk are and how they are going to do this. One of your questions in your opening comment was this issue of certification. The federal government is just not going to be able to get down there in your district at the local level and say, you know, your district is compliant with NIMS. We're going to have to go to some mechanism which basically says the state, recipient of most of our grant funding, is going to have to conclude back to us that taken as a whole, this state complies with NIMS.

So we're placing a premium on the states to develop the infrastructure and the processes to ensure that they're reaching down to every corner and level of the state. Our job will be to provide train the trainer to the states, distance learning capabilities, workshops and the funding to the states so that they can do that. But I would hate to think that myself or others sitting here, where we sit in Washington, would be prescribing how that might be accomplished.

REP. THOMPSON: Well, it's nice for our government to finally admit that they don't quite know everything and I'd say you're correct in that respect. But the issue is many of those fine men and women will respond to a situation and unless they are properly trained could potentially cause themselves significant harm and that is what we all would want to avoid if at all possible. Have you put that burden on the states to do just that, what you've said?

MR. JAMIESON: Well, yes, sir. I mean, you know, the states are the recipients of all of the Homeland Security grant funding that's going out there. It's their job to create a strategic plan that takes into consideration the needs of local governments or regional government that are supported through a mutual aid compact.

REP. THOMPSON: Well, excuse me for cutting you off. Well, then my question is if I came to you and said if the Bolton (ph) Volunteer Fire Department, which covers my home area, are you requiring the state to provide the Bolton Volunteer Fire Department with certain training for its volunteers and, if so, are you going to look and approve or certify that training as what's required?

MR. JAMIESON: Sir, your question leads to the issue of credentialing and whether or not, as we begin to credential emergency first responders, what training should they receive and who is certifying the training. And quite frankly, we haven't worked all of that out yet. I don't think the federal government is going to be in a position of making that certification. We're going to have to draw on the disciplines specifics, what the fire service is doing, what they're doing at the state level to train and accredit and certify their individuals now. We're going to have to drink heavily on what's going on there as opposed to creating some new system at the federal level to comply with NIMS.

REP. THOMPSON: Well, Chief, do you have any comments on that?

MR. FREEMAN: Actually, our experience in California is that through the state, through the state fire marshal, they're training their certification. There is a level of credentialing already in place in that state. I spent 25 years in the fire service in Texas. I know that there is a state's commission on standards for firefighters and so forth. I would assume-I'm not familiar with where Texas is now but I would assume that an agency like that would be involved in this process. Every state is going to be probably different but I think that's the model as I understand it. And I think Mr. Jamieson has made that clear, that it comes from the federal government to the state and then within the state, there needs to be a system in place to deliver the training and to do whatever certification and credentialing as appropriate.

REP. THOMPSON: Well, Mr. Jamieson, so you would approve the states' plan. Am I correct?

MR. JAMIESON: In those early years, sir, we would be asking as part of the grant, states would be certifying to us that they have met the requirements under NIMS and if they make that certification, we would provide the grant funding. There is no specific plan at the state or local level at this particular point that they're required to prepare in order to comply with NIMS. There is a planning requirement for the other federal departments and agencies. And yes, we would be approving that. But at the state level, as opposed to standing up yet another planning requirement, we are trying to concert all of these planning efforts under the planning efforts that the department has now.

REP. THOMPSON: As the chairman just said, they self certify?

MR. JAMIESON: Yes, sir.

REP. THOMPSON: To what standard?

MR. JAMIESON: Well, standards issue is a good question. I mean, part of the challenge that we confront with implementing NIMS is developing some of those standards. You know, as the chief said, there is some 513 different requirements of the NIMS document and part of it is just kind of a checklist. Did you do it, did you not do it? When you get into the credentialing issue which by no means we have walked through at this particular point, there are going to have to be standards in place by which we credential our first responders. And in some instances, in the fire service, we have a baseline standard, it's an FBA 1600. In the medical community, it's extremely vexing with standards and privileging issues that are out there.HSE-HOME-SEC PAGE 40 09/29/2003 .STX

Sir, I don't mean to use your time. But let me just say that the secretary has made it perfectly clear to me that on the subject of doctrine and where we go next in implementation and credentialing, my number one priority is ensuring that we're getting the centers of gravity from all these different disciplines in a room and shutting the door and telling us how we need to figure it out. We are clearly-I was over with Governor Romney who chairs the Homeland Security Advisory Council just last week, saying, You tell us what workgroups you want, who should populate these working groups because the secretary has made it as clear as a bell to me that we need to continue this collaboration and we need to make sure that we're not doing anything wrongheaded here in Washington but we are listening to our first responders in terms of what they want us to do.

So we're not going to sit back and arbitrarily develop some standards apart from our partners out there and the mechanisms are in place to do it. Is it done? No, sir, not at this particular point. But it's clearly part of our planning process to involve them every step of the way.

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT