Hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee

HEARING OF THE HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
 
SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2004 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
 
SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I'll submit my statement for the record. I just welcome the secretary here and know that your office is in charge of a lot of interest in my state. I share the concerns of Senator Hollings in terms of our ports and the safety and security there. I'm deeply concerned that the money that we have given you for Operation Safe Commerce both in 2002 and 2003, a total of $58 million to date. Not one penny of that has been spent and we keep getting delays on that. We are going to have disaster at our ports if we don't start implementing this. And I will be asking you about that.

I also am very concerned about border crossings. As you know the north-west corner of my state is where we caught an Al-Qaeda operative several years ago and we know how important that is but the economy is also extremely important and we want to make sure that border works efficiently and I'm very interested in your—I think it's your visit system you're going to be establishing. I want to hear how that's going to work. And I also am very interested in hearing about how we're going to train those first responders and whether we have a national strategy.

So I'll reserve my questions for the comment period but thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing.

SEN. MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, thank you and I, first of all, want to associate myself with the comments of Senator Gregg on the entry- exit system. We have some really serious concerns and I appreciate your response back to him and look forward to working with you on that. I think the INS has been eager to do this since the 1996 legislation and it is an area we need to be vigilant on and move carefully. So I appreciate your comments.

I also --

MR. RIDGE: One point just there. I think it would be important for the Senators. You've probably done this. But, first of all, I do want to say something good about the men and women who work with the INS. They work hard. They haven't necessarily over the years been given the equipment to maybe provide other things that they needed in order to accomplish their task. But I think on a day-to-day basis, they go to work trying to do the right thing.

Maybe they weren't given the right direction. Maybe they weren't given the right information. Maybe they weren't given the right technology. But they've worked pretty hard and I was at a—and I know we've got a lot more work to do, Senator. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to sugarcoat some of the problems that have been identified publicly and that we've identified internally. They're there. Our job is to fix them. But at the end of the day, I just want to relate to you that I was in Los Angeles on Friday, talking about ports and airport security with the officials out there.

But I stopped for an hour and a half at an Immigration and Naturalization ceremony. Forty-two hundred new Americans from 135 different countries. And the notion to be present when 4,200 people raise their hands and at the end of taking an oath, regardless of their country of origin, they suddenly became Americans, they're now citizens. And the fact that people from 135 countries chose this country to live in—and these men and women at INS, that's the job they do. They've got a tough job. It's a welcoming job. We know we've got some work to do and we also know that we've got friends in Congress on both sides of the aisle that want to help us get it right. That's what we need to do in the years ahead.

SEN. MURRAY: I think that's all—well, thank you.

I also want to follow up on Senator Hollings' concerns about ports and the container security as an issue. I've been very concerned about sale of Tacoma Port, third largest in the nation. We've been working closely with them and other ports. In 2002, we gave you $28 million for Operation Safe Commerce and $30 million in 2003 and, as I said in my opening comment, this is an initiative that will enable the security of six million containers that enter our ports every day—every year to be monitored from the time they're loaded to the time they're unloaded.

It's extremely important that we begin to understand what's coming into our ports. This is a really important operation. But, so far, none of that money has been spent, despite all of our pushing. I wanted you to explain to the subcommittee why the department has not moved forward on Operation Safe Commerce that has now been funded in two separate fiscal years and can you assure me that we're going to see some movement on this?

MR. RIDGE: Senator, I believe we're in the process with regard to the '03 package I'm most familiar with is coming up with some grants guidance to distribute those dollars. I believe --

SEN. MURRAY: Well, Operation Safe Commerce is a pilot project targeted to the three top ports and the ports—everybody is ready. They've submitted their grants. They're waiting to hear from all of you. We were told that originally it was February. Now it's June, could be pushed. These people are ready to go. They have projects in place. They know what there needs to be done. They're waiting for the money.

MR. RIDGE: Senator, let me review it and I'll get back to you on that.

SEN. MURRAY: I would really appreciate it. We cannot allow six million containers a year to continue to come into our ports without monitoring them. We're ready to go with a project that works and we're just waiting for your --

MR. RIDGE: If I might, Senator. I appreciate that very much but we also need to understand that we've begun layering other defenses to review that cargo before it gets to any of the domestic ports. You've given $60 million or $70 million for the cargo security initiative. It's up and running and we're tying into more and more foreign ports. You've given us substantial dollars to enhance the Coast Guard's capability to target high-risk cargo. The number goes around and people use the number that we only board only two or three percent of the cargo ships in the country. But I would say to you, we board 100 percent of the cargo ships that we think are high-risk cargo ships. So we're trying to look at this.

SEN. MURRAY: Well, the point of Operation Safe Commerce is to begin to know what is in those containers and if you could take a look at it --

MR. RIDGE: I would be very pleased to and look forward to communicating --

SEN. MURRAY: -- and get back to me. I think you'd be pleased with what you see the ports doing, they are just waiting for the go ahead from your agency so if you could check that. I know my time is short, I wanted to also really bring up the issue of a national strategy on training. We have a lot of people out there who want to do what they need to do in terms of homeland security but training is a real issue. And I wondered if you could tell us what is the status of a national strategy on getting these folks trained and when we can expect some progress and seeing something from your office on that.

MR. RIDGE: Senator, we will oblige and will provide standards and certification of training, of communications and of equipment.

Again, with great respect, the department's been up and operational for about 60 days. FEMA's been working on it. We've been doing some work with the Department of Justice.

Again, one of the very important roles of the new department, as you've highlighted in your question, is that somebody in the federal government has to start setting standards. Standards for training, standards for equipment and standards for interoperability and that's one of our primary tasks. So again I would assure you that the process of setting those training standards—as you know we have four or five national training centers. I must tell you that there's hardly a day goes by that somebody else doesn't want to start another national training center somewhere else in this country --

SEN. MURRAY: That's exactly why I think we need a national strategy so we all --

MR. RIDGE: You're absolutely right. And I figure the Senator is right, you're right on target. If we develop the national training standard and the national model and we set aside X number of dollars for states or regions, there's no need to build more national training centers. If we have a model to train with, the training can be done intrastate. But we have to set the standard.

SEN. COCHRAN: The senator's time has expired.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay. I appreciate that and I would just hope that you look at the National Guard in terms of providing that training. They do much of that already and I think we don't want to lose that.