[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENSURING OPERABILITY DURING CATASTROPHIC EVENTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND
TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 26, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-49
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Don Young, Alaska Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Loretta Sanchez, California
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Christopher Shays, Connecticut Norman D. Dicks, Washington
John Linder, Georgia Jane Harman, California
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Tom Davis, Virginia Nita M. Lowey, New York
Daniel E. Lungren, California Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Columbia
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Zoe Lofgren, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Katherine Harris, Florida Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Islands
Dave G. Reichert, Washington Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Michael McCaul, Texas James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida
______
SUBCOMMITTE ON EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Dave G. Reichert, Washington, Chairman
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Loretta Sanchez, California
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Norman D. Dicks, Washington
Mike Rogers, Alabama Jane Harman, California
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Nita M. Lowey, New York
Katherine Harris, Florida Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Michael McCaul, Texas Columbia
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Peter T. King, New York (Ex Islands
Officio) Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(Ex Officio)
(II)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Dave G. Reichert, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology................ 1
The Honorable Bill Pascrell, Jr., a Representative in Congress
From the State of New Jersey, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Emergency Preparedness, Science and Technology.............. 2
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security.............................................. 4
The Honorable Charlie Dent, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Pennsylvania.......................................... 45
The Honoprable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington........................................ 40
The Honorable Nita M. Lowey, a Representative in Congress From
the State of New York.......................................... 42
The Honorable Michael McCaul, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas............................................. 34
The Honorable Mike Rogers, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Alabama............................................... 46
Witnesses
Panel I
The Honorable Mark Rey, Under Secretary, Natural resources and
Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture:
Oral Statement................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Dr. David Boyd, Director, SAFECOM, Office of Interoperability and
Communications, U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 10
Prepared Statement for the Record.............................. 12
Dr. Peter Fonash, Deputy Manager, National Communications System,
U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 18
Prepared Statement............................................. 20
Mr. Ken Moran, Director, Office of Homeland Security, Enforcement
Bureau, Federal Communications Commission:
Oral Statement................................................. 25
Prepared Statement............................................. 27
Dr. Linton Wells, II, Acting Assistant Secretary, Networks and
Information, Integration and Chief Information Officer, U.S.
Department of Defense
Oral Statement................................................. 29
Prepated Statement............................................. 31
ENSURING OPERABILITY DURING CATASTROPHIC EVENTS
----------
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness,
Science, and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:42 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. David Reichert
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Reichert, Rogers, Harris, McCaul,
Dent, Pascrell, Sanchez, Dicks, Harman, Lowey, Christensen, and
Thompson (Ex Officio).
Mr. Reichert. The Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness Science and Technology
will come to order. The subcommittee will hear testimony today
on ensuring operable communications during catastrophic events.
I would first like to welcome our witnesses and thank them for
taking time out of their busy schedules to be here with us
today.
We are here today to discuss a topic that is fundamental in
preparing our State and local communities to respond to a major
disaster or terrorist attack. The purpose of this hearing is to
examine the problem of responding effectively and efficiently
to catastrophic incidents when the everyday communication
infrastructure is severely damaged or destroyed. I would like
to welcome our witnesses once again who are joining us today,
and each of you bring a wealth of knowledge and I look forward
to hearing from each of you on how the government can insure
operability during a catastrophic event. The ability to
communicate is absolutely essential to mounting a well-
coordinated response to any catastrophic event.
First responders, Federal State and local officials cannot
establish meaningful command and control in the absence of
functioning communications system. Last month we heard
testimony on incident command and control. We learned that
communication is absolutely critical to having a unified
approach to respond to a catastrophic event.
In the absence of communication and effective planning,
incident command and control is severely hindered. An incident
commander may have difficulty in establishing situational
awareness. The operations chief must be able to issue
instructions to first responders in the field to direct
resources and personnel to areas of most need. Without the
ability to call for help, citizens cannot reliably seek medical
or other emergency assistance, as demonstrated by Hurricane
Katrina command and control directly depends upon the ability
of all levels of government to communicate effectively with one
another.
Since the events of September 11th of 2001, many in the
media and Congress have focused rightly on a problem of
interoperability. Simply stated, interoperability is the
ability of the public safety agencies to communicate with one
another via radio communications systems to exchange voice and/
or data with one another on demand in real-time when needed.
Until September 11, however, many people just assumed that
first responders from different disciplines could easily
communicate with one another. Unfortunately, that was not the
case. The inability of the New York City police, fire and
emergency medical services personnel to communicate with one
another effectively undoubtedly led to the loss of lives in the
World Trade Center.
Four years later, the inadequate response to Hurricane
Katrina has highlighted a separate but equally fundamental
problem. Before first responder equipment can be interoperable,
their equipment must first be operable. Interoperability
presumes the existence of an operable communications network.
As we saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there can be
no guarantee of communication. Communications operability in
the aftermath of a catastrophic natural disaster. Hurricane
Katrina destroyed more than 3 million customer telephone lines
in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The region's wire line
network sustained enormous damage. A thousand cell sites were
completely out of service.
Of the 41 broadcast radio stations located in New Orleans
and the surrounding areas, only two AM radio stations and two
FM radio stations remained on the air in the wake of the
hurricane. As a consequence, first responders had no choice but
to rely on the old fashioned paper relays to communicate
critical information between emergency operation centers and
the field. And on a personal note, I know that communication is
one of, if not the most important aspect in handling and
controlling stressful and high impact critical incidents. Back
in 1999 I was deeply involved as one of the leaders in managing
the WTO riots in Seattle as the sheriff in King County.
And I know if we didn't have the ability to communicate
with the various agencies, multitude of agencies who were
partners in that effort to bring peace and control back to the
city of Seattle, we would have been in serious trouble. I
believe it is critical that we have coordination between the
Department of Homeland Security, other Federal departments and
State and local officials, to assume operability during a
catastrophic event. The Chair now recognizes the ranking
minority member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from New
Jersey, Mr. Pascrell for any statement he may have.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding
a timely hearing on an issue of profound importance, an issue
that this committee and its full committee has discussed time
and time again. Indeed, ensuring communications operability
during a catastrophic event can result in the significant
reduction of lives lost. For this fact alone, the Congress and
this committee must do everything in our power to ensure that
the operational elements of communications systems throughout
our Nation's infrastructure can withstand an onslaught of a
disastrous incident.
And as we have seen, Hurricane Katrina and Rita highlighted
how this currently is not the case. Coordination of initial
rescue efforts in the days immediately following the landfall
of Hurricane Katrina were severely frustrated by the inability
to communicate. The hurricane knocked out, and as this chairman
has pointed out very succinctly, more than 3 million customer
phone lines in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The hard
wire telecommunications network sustained enormous damage, both
to the switching centers that route calls and to the lines used
to connect buildings and customers to the network. Now,
according to the FCC, of the 41 broadcast radio stations, I
want to reiterate this. It is very important to everybody on
this committee. The ones that were located in New Orleans and
the surrounding area, of all of those, only two AM and two FM
stations remained on the air in the wake of the hurricane.
In a number of cases, reporters were actually asked to
brief public officials on the conditions in the areas where
information was not reaching them in any other way, which
brings me to a subject that I talked about long before and the
members of this committee long before there was a committee
talked about, and that is what is the role of the FCC in all of
this. What is the role of the FCC? Well, let's take a look at
the national response plan which very clearly states in chapter
and verse that providing on-call support to identify sources of
radio frequency interference and to resolve civil frequency
interference issues and frequency assignment requests that is
the role, one of the roles of the FCC.
And it goes on to talk about the national communication
system. This is all in the national response plan, all things
that this committee, before it was a committee, when it was a
select committee, discussed time and time again. The extension,
the discontinuance and reduction of common carrier facilities,
the control of common carrier rates, charges, practices,
classifications. And I would say, before I go on with my
opening statement, that before 9/11, the FCC did not do, did
not respond to its own responsibilities with regard to
providing the first responders of this country with the
necessary networking, the necessary bands so that they could
communicate with one another.
And since--past administration, this administration, didn't
matter. And we have left our first responders out to dry. And
somebody's got to be held accountable. Someone has to be held
accountable. Now we are more interested in how many swear words
are on radio and television, and more interested in how we can
get conglomerates to get larger than we are at helping our
first responders. This is our legacy right now. The New Orleans
Police Dispatch Center and the New Orleans Fire Dispatch Center
were flooded and had been evacuated already. 911 was totally
inaccessible. The majority of public safety communications were
simply not functioning.
Clearly, the absence of a reliable network across which
first responders and State and local officials could coordinate
severely impeded any response to this catastrophic event. We
need to know how to ensure that a failure of this magnitude
does not happen again. After any major test of our response
system, it is crucial to assess what worked and what did not
work. The backbone of our Federal response is the national
incident management system and the national response plan.
These two documents must work in tandem.
In light of the Federal response to the Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita, I believe that both documents must be reevaluated to
improve the response and coordination for major disasters. Do
the NRP and do--and is the NIMS, have they taken into account
that possibility that during a disaster there may be an
inability to communicate? Do State and local officials
understand their roles within the national response plan and
the NIMS? The answer to both appears to be no. And this must be
improved. We know that communications is a DHS responsibility.
We voted on this. Emergency support function number two of the
national response plan gives the information analysis and
infrastructure protection directorate the leading coordinating
Federal actions to provide the required temporary emergency
telecommunications and the restoration of the
telecommunications infrastructure.
Again, another point Mr. Chairman. We had 7 days to prepare
for these storms. We will not have seven seconds to prepare for
a terrorist attack. What exactly is DHS doing to prepare for
catastrophic events that wipe out communication systems? What
have they done already?
And Federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense,
the U.S. Forest Service, have hands-on experience in
establishing communication in areas where they do not exist.
What has DHS done to reach out to these agencies to assist them
during catastrophic events? Are we at the right level of
funding? Do we have the appropriate standards? Do we know the
technological needs to adequately provide communications
support to the State and local government agencies before,
during and after a catastrophic event? So I look forward to the
hearing, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your due diligence.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Pascrell. The Chair now
recognizes the ranking minority member of the full committee,
the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, for any statement
that he may have.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I look
forward to the testimony of our witnesses here this morning. In
the past 2 months, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma have
devastated much of the gulf coast. I have spoken to local
officials, mayors, firefighters and police officers throughout
the gulf coast, and have heard uniformly about the inability to
communicate between levels of government and first responder
disciplines. While some progress has been made since the
attacks on September 11, these hurricanes once again have
revealed severe problems in our public safety communications
infrastructure.
Many first responders still cannot talk with one another
because their radios and communications network are not
compatible. In many cases, the lack of proper equipment or the
lack of radio spectrum are the root causes of the problem.
Congress must act quickly to address these issues. However,
compounding the problem in catastrophic events is the partial
or total destruction of the communications infrastructure.
During Katrina, cell and radio towers, 911 call centers and all
switching centers were all damaged as a result of the wind and
flooding and the subsequent loss of power. This was not an
issue of interoperability, but of basic operability resulting
from the damage. In the future, DHS and FEMA must not only
increase its own communications capacity, but must give more
assistance to local and State officials to get their
capabilities back on-line.
As a former volunteer firefighter and local official, I
know that the ability to communicate is essential in
establishing command and control of an emergency situation. The
Federal Government has the ability, assets and responsibility
to help State and local governments achieve operability when
the local infrastructure is overwhelmed. I look forward to the
hearing from the witnesses today on how their agencies are
looking at ways to coordinate with each other and adopt
military and private sector communication technology for use in
these catastrophic situations and how these efforts will
benefit local first responders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I
yield back
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Other members of the
committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted
for the record. We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of
witnesses with us here today. We have the Honorable Mark Rey,
Undersecretary of Natural Resources and Environment, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture,; Dr. David Boyd, Director of Office
of Interoperability and Communication, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security; Dr. Peter Fonash, deputy manager, National
Communications System, U.S. Department of Homeland Security;
Mr. Kenneth Moran, director, Office of Homeland Security
Enforcement Bureau, Federal Communications Commission; and Dr.
Linton Wells, II, Acting Assistant Secretary, Networks and
Information Integration and chief information officer, U.S.
Department of Defense.
Let me remind the witnesses, please, that their entire
written statement will appear in the record. And we ask that
due to the number of witnesses on our panel today that you
strive to limit your comments and testimony to no more than 5
minutes. The Chair now recognizes the Honorable Mark Rey, Under
Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment for the United
States Department of Agriculture to testify.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARK REY
Mr. Rey. Thank you for inviting me to talk with you today
about the forest service and interagency partners experience
with the incident command system and communications during
emergency response. The Forest Service, the Department of the
Interior agencies and our partners operate the largest wildland
fire management program in the world. These agencies and
partners pioneered the use of the incident command system as a
component of the natural interagency incident management system
in the early 1970s in order to respond to wild fires. Wild land
firefighters realized that a standard organizational structure
would help to communicate, set priorities and be more effective
in a rapidly changing situation. The incident command system
provides common terminology for position titles, resources and
facilities, common responsibilities for each position, common
planning, common communications, common locations and common
incident objectives. For large multi jurisdictional incidents,
a unified command system is used.
The ability of the Forest Service and its partners to
respond with trained and experienced personnel is based upon
the interagency incident qualifications and certifications. The
incident qualification and certification system is described in
greater detail in my testimony. The Department of Homeland
Security directed the use of the incident command system as
part of the national incident management system in 2004 to
organize incident management for all agencies on a nationwide
basis. An example of the adaptability of the incident command
system after September 11, 2001 is that the Forest Service
trained the Fire Department of New York City in the incident
command system.
In response to Hurricane Katrina, the Fire Department of
New York incident management team assisted the New Orleans Fire
Department initially in fire protection and then in the
inspection of buildings and reopening fire stations in New
Orleans. With regard to communications, effective
communications are critical in all emergency responses. When
the concept of the incident command system was developed, three
components were identified involving communications. First,
common terminology, including clear text; second, a
communications plan to provide information to responders via
radio; and third, an incident management plan to provide common
written descriptions.
Over the past 30 years, these components have proven
essential during the response to wild fires and other
emergencies. Wildland firefighting agencies reduce the
potential for radio frequency incompatibility problems by
planning and providing communications systems during
emergencies. The radio cache located at the National
Interagency Fire Center is the largest civilian cache of radios
in the United States. Fully half of those radios were devoted
to the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I would like to
say a few words about the Forest Service's involvement in the
two incidents.
Forest Service response efforts covered the entire spectrum
of the disaster. The Forest Service was tasked with more than
50 missions since requests for assistance from FEMA began
shortly before Hurricane Katrina struck. Our interagency
support peaked on October 1 with 29 incident management teams
that used the incident command system in the management of
their operations. Approximately 5,500 people, including 139
crews, all qualified in the incident command system were
assigned.
In addition, 2,700 pieces of equipment and 20 helicopters
and fixed wing aircraft were mobilized as well. In the days
after Hurricane Katrina, interagency management teams managed
all agency radio phone data communications, coordinated the
receiving and distribution of trailers for housing and
thousands of truckloads of supplies, provided evacuees with
food, clothing and shelter and supported emergency medical
operations at the New Orleans Airport. Interagency incident
management teams managed evacuation centers in Phoenix, Houston
and San Antonio. Teams were providing base camp operations and
support to emergency responders in 14 locations in Mississippi,
Louisiana and Texas. Camp operations including feeding,
building, showers and laundry for emergency personnel, disaster
and mortuary operations have also been supported by incident
management teams.
Additionally, 17 interagency buying teams have been an
integral part of the hurricane response effort. These teams
have purchased food, portable toilets, fuel safety gear,
medical supplies or leased land building or equipment as needed
to support the relief effort. Mr. Chairman, the Forest Service
and its 100-year history has responded to many emergencies and
incidents ranging from major fires to hurricanes. All of these
have tested the agencies and its partners management skills and
abilities. The systems that have been developed and tested over
and over again have proven useful and adaptable. Thank you very
much for the opportunity to testify today.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Under Secretary Rey.
[The statement of Mr. Rey follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Rey
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, Thank you for
inviting me to talk with you today about the Forest Service and its
interagency partners experience with the Incident Command System and
communications during emergency response. I understand the Subcommittee
is familiar with the Incident Command System so I would like to
describe how the Forest Service and its partners use the Incident
Command System and related systems developed over the years to respond
to wildland fires and also to all-hazard incidents.
Incident Command System
The Forest Service, the Department of the Interior agencies, and
our partners operate the largest wildland fire management program in
the world. These agencies and partners pioneered the use of the
Incident Command System (ICS), as a component of the National
Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS) in the 1970s, in order
to respond to wildland fires. Wildland firefighters realized that a
standard organizational structure would help them communicate, set
priorities, and be more effective in a rapidly changing situation.
Emergency and crisis events are often chaotic and highly dynamic; they
create physical, emotional, and social disruption. The Incident Command
System provides common terminology for position titles, resources, and
facilities; common responsibilities for each position, common planning,
common communications, common locations, and common incident objectives
to unify the Forest Service, Department of the Interior agencies,
Tribal, State, and local organizations to fight a fire or respond to
other types of emergency situations.
During fire season, critical firefighting needs are coordinated
through the National Interagency Coordination Center, located at the
National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. If fire-fighting
resources are strained as a result of multiple simultaneous fires,
resources are prioritized and allocated by the National Multi-Agency
Coordinating Group. These efforts ensure assets are appropriately
prioritized, allocated, and can be positioned based on the most up-to-
date information.
Interagency Incident Management Teams dispatched to incidents are
comprised of emergency response professionals from Federal, Tribal,
State, and local wildland fire organizations. These teams are able to
use their logistical, organizational, and adaptation skills to rapidly
deploy people and resources from many areas and respond to a wide
variety of tasks needed during emergencies. For large multi-
jurisdictional incidents, a unified command is used. In many cases, the
use of unified command is the most efficient means to facilitate
communications with all first responders. By having a representative of
each jurisdiction at the incident command post, managers can share
incident information down to each of their respective responders.
The ability of the Forest Service, the Department of the Interior
agencies, and their partners to respond with trained and experienced
personnel is based upon the interagency incident qualifications and
certifications. These were developed in conjunction with the Incident
Command System and are overseen by a group of fire directors for all
five federal land management agencies and representatives of States
that have wildfire suppression responsibilities. The system documents
all training, experience, certifications, authorities, licenses,
minimum qualifications, and physical fitness standards for about 28,000
permanent and temporary employees of the Forest Service. The automated
part of this system is known as the Incident Qualification and
Certification System (IQCS). IQCS stores data, prints reports and
qualifications cards, and provides data to other systems.
IQCS is tied to the Resource Ordering and Status System (ROSS);
qualified personnel can be quickly identified and dispatched to an
incident. ROSS is used by more than 400 dispatch offices serving
numerous Federal, State, County and municipal agencies. ROSS assists
dispatchers and coordinators with information on the availability and
location of crews, management personnel, equipment, aircraft, supplies,
and services. Resources can be requested, mobilized, and tracked to and
from the incident. In addition, allocation of resources at a regional
or national level can be accomplished. ROSS, along with interagency
dispatch and coordination, allows managers to identify and mobilize
resources from around the country to the incident within 12 to 24
hours. At the incident, Incident Management Teams use ROSS data to
support resource status tracking, cost reporting, and planning efforts.
Forest Service units across the nation have had emergency
operations plans for many years. They also developed interagency
operating plans describing how the unit and its other Federal, Tribal,
State, and local cooperators will work together during an emergency
incident. A key component to emergency operations plans is
communications. These plans include items such as which radio
frequencies are going to be used, the sharing of radio equipment, and
standardized formats for information flow from the incidents. All of
this planning is to improve communications and effective incident
management.
In his Directive on Management of Domestic Incidents (HSDP-5),
President Bush instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop
a National Incident Management System that is closely modeled on the
wildland fire system, including the use of the Incident Command System.
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security issued the National
Incident Management System (NIMS). Under the terms of HSPD-5, all
Federal Departments and agencies will use the NIMS in their domestic
incident management activities, as well as those actions taken in
support of State or local entities. In addition, state and local
entities are to adopt the NIMS a requirement for receiving Federal
preparedness assistance through grants, contracts, or other activities.
I would like to give you an example of the adaptability of the Incident
Command System. After September 11, 2001, the Forest Service trained
the Fire Department of New York City in the Incident Command System. In
response to Hurricane Katrina, the Fire Department of New York Incident
Management Team assisted the New Orleans Fire Department initially in
fire protection and then in the inspection of buildings and reopening
fire stations in New Orleans. Incident Management Teams are managing or
managed the base camps in Jackson Square and Holy Cross and are
providing the New Orleans Fire Department preliminary training in the
Incident Command System.
Communications
Effective communications are critical in all emergency responses.
When the concept of the Incident Command System was developed, three
components were identified involving communications: 1) common
terminology including clear text; 2) a communication plan to provide
information to responders via radio; and, 3) an incident management
plan to provide common written direction. Over the past 30 years, these
components have proven essential during the response to wildfires and
other emergencies. The result is improved communications within the
emergency response community.
In an emergency, all forms of communications must be well organized
and coordinated. As the Forest Service prepares each year for the
upcoming fire season, many units agree to mutual aid frequencies and
protocols with their interagency cooperators. Wildland fire agencies
reduce the potential for radio frequency and compatibility problems by
planning and providing communications systems during emergencies. The
radio cache located at the National Interagency Fire Center is the
largest civilian cache--over 5000--of radios in the United States.
Radios are dispatched in kits including repeaters, hand held radios,
and necessary antennas to set-up communication systems. These systems
allow responders to be given radios and assigned frequencies which are
sometimes added for unique situations. Every Incident Management Team
mobilized by wildland fire agencies has access to these systems. This
was done after September 11, 2001 when the National Interagency Fire
Center communications personnel were dispatched to New York City within
12 hours to set up the necessary communication links so critical in an
emergency.
A vital link to success for the National Incident Management System
(NIMS) is communication interoperability at a level appropriate to the
requirements of each circumstance. Radio frequency and equipment
compatibility issues among Federal, Tribal, State, and local emergency
responders, as well as the Department of Defense, National Guard, and
Reserves have been noted in past incident response evaluations. One
example is the California Governor's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission report
which found communications to be a major problem during the fires in
Southern California in October 2003. The Commission's Finding #1 states
``Communications interoperability is essential in the effective command
and control of personnel and resources during multi-agency,
multidiscipline responses to major incidents.''
Local agencies often operate on different bandwidths than do
Federal, Tribal, State and other local agencies. During joint
responses, communications protocols must be pre-planned to ensure a
positive communications capability is in place. Congress mandated a
restructuring of the Federal Radio Frequency Spectrum requiring Federal
Agencies to transition to narrowband FM frequencies by January 1, 2005.
Each wildland fire agency is currently planning, executing, and funding
the transition. State, local, Tribal, and cooperating agencies are not
required to transition until 2013, although many have implemented or
started the transition process.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
I would like to say a few words regarding the Forest Service
involvement following two major hurricanes: Category 4 Hurricane
Katrina, which made landfall on the Gulf coast of Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle on August 29, and
Category 3 Hurricane Rita which made landfall on the southwest coast of
Louisiana and northeast coast of Texas on September 24, 2005. Forest
Service response efforts really cover the entire spectrum of the
disaster. The ability of the Forest Service and its partners to respond
is based upon years of experience in the use of the Incident Command
System, IQCS, ROSS, and communications during wildfires.
The Forest Service is the primary agency for the Emergency Support
Function #4--firefighting--and is also a support agency to 11 of the 15
Emergency Support Functions in the National Response Plan. The Forest
Service has been tasked with more than 50 missions since requests for
assistance from FEMA began shortly before Hurricane Katrina struck. The
National Interagency Fire Center and the Geographical Area Coordination
Center in Atlanta, Georgia managed the mobilization of crews and
interagency Incident Management Teams from across the country and
assigned those teams to missions along the Gulf Coast.
Interagency support peaked October 1 with 29 Incident Management
Teams that used the Incident Command System in the management of their
operations. Approximately 5,500 people including 139 crews, and 1,300
management and support personnel, all qualified in the IQCS system were
assigned. In addition, 2,700 pieces of equipment and 20 helicopters and
fixed winged aircraft were mobilized and tracked through ROSS.
In the days after Hurricane Katrina, interagency Incident
Management Teams managed all-agency radio/phone/data communications,
coordinated the receiving and distribution of trailers for housing and
thousands of truckloads of supplies, provided evacuees with food,
clothing and shelter, and supported emergency medical operations at the
New Orleans base camp. Interagency Incident Management Teams have
managed evacuation centers in Phoenix, AZ, and Houston and San Antonio,
TX. Teams are providing base camp operations and support to emergency
responders in 14 locations in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Camp
operations include feeding, billeting, showers, and laundry for
emergency personnel. Disaster mortuary operations have been supported
by base camps run by interagency Incident Management Teams.
Seventeen Interagency Buying Teams have been an integral part of
the hurricane response effort. These teams have purchased food,
portable toilets, fuel, safety gear, medical supplies, or leased land,
buildings, or equipment as needed to support the Incident Management
Teams.
The National Forest, Research, and State and Private Forestry
branches of the Forest Service have begun extensive coordination with
the affected states, other federal agencies, and industry associations
to assist with managing the large scale ecological disturbance caused
by the hurricanes. The Forest Service is working in concert with the
State Foresters of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
to help private landowners with immediate problems of downed timber
removal and longer term questions involving storage and production
capacity. Interagency teams are in place and are working with the
States to plan for long range fuel mitigation, fire readiness and
prevention, and fire suppression. Fire prevention education teams are
also working with local agencies, media, and publics in stressing
caution about hurricane debris disposal. Additional firefighting crews
and equipment have been moved to the Gulf Coast in anticipation of
increased fire activity.
Summary
Mr. Chairman, the Forest Service, in its one hundred year history,
has responded to many emergencies and incidents ranging from major
fires, to insect infestations to hurricanes. All of these have tested
the agency's and its partners' management skills and abilities. The
systems that have been developed and tested over and over again are
useful and adaptable. I am glad the Forest Service could contribute to
responding to the emergency after the hurricanes. I would be happy to
answer your questions.
Mr. Reichert. The Chair now recognizes Dr. David Boyd,
director of the Office of Interoperability and Communications
of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to testify.
STATEMENT OF DAVID BOYD
Dr. Boyd. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the committee, for this invitation to speak to you
today. As you have already observed, Mr. Chairman,
interoperability requires before all else simple operability.
As Katrina demonstrated, in the absence of a reliable network
across which responders within an agency can effectively
communicate, interoperability is both irrelevant and
impossible. Some seem to believe the introduction of new
technologies alone can solve our interoperability problems. But
adding equipment addresses only part of what a fully robust
reliable and both operable and interoperable public safety
communications system requires. For example, on the technology
side alone, when we lose towers, first responders have only
their mobile or portable units available, so range is
dramatically reduced and control of the incident is severely
compromised. Portable units permit some short range
communications until the proprietary battery packs begin to
fail and cannot be recharged because the chargers are typically
attached to the power grid.
911 centers are tied to the wired telephone network and so
is the cellular system which also depends on cell phones that
use proprietary batteries. No single fix alone can address all
these elements. Many solutions have been offered and many
claims have been made for each solution and all do have a role.
But none is the silver bullet. Satellite phones are extremely
useful for command elements but often hopelessly impractical
for individual first responders. They require training and
signals can be blocked by vegetation, buildings, terrain and
even weather. They also use batteries that need recharging, and
the first responder in the middle of a rescue or up to his
armpits in water will find aiming the antenna hard or
impossible. Van--and trailer-mounted communication systems
dropped into an incident nearly always offer substantially less
coverage than the original system and may require significant
training to use.
And all of these, without solid prior planning, will add to
the difficulties of achieving interoperability once operability
is achieved. We believe that what we have developed to support
interoperability can also help first responders successfully
navigate any communications emergency. We in the public safety
community have identified six key building blocks required to
achieve interoperability--governance, standard operating
procedures, technology, training and exercises, and routine use
of interoperable systems. Crosscutting all of these is the
sixth and most important element, a high degree of leadership,
planning and collaboration with a commitment to and investment
in sustainability.
To help public safety agencies and especially the policy
levels of government understand the interrelationship of all of
these factors, we developed a tool called the Interoperability
Continuum. This planning tool explains how all these elements
relate to each other and makes clear all of these elements need
to be addressed before, not for the first time during an
emergency. Interoperability is not a new issue. It was a
problem in Washington D.C. when the Air Florida flight crashed
into the Potomac in 1982, in New York City when the Twin Towers
were first attacked in 1993, in 1995 when the Murrah Building
was destroyed in Oklahoma City, and in 1999 at Columbine.
Too many public safety personnel cannot communicate by
radio because their equipment is still incompatible or the
frequencies they are assigned to are different. They operate on
10 different frequency bands that run communication sytems that
are often proprietary and too often 30 or more years old. Over
90 percent of the Nation's public safety wireless
infrastructure is financed, owned, operated and maintained by
the more than 60,000 individual local jurisdictions, police,
fire and emergency medical services that serve the public.
National efforts to fix the problem have historically been
erratic, uncertain and until recently uncoordinated.
Worst, the efforts have too often been designed without the
direct involvement of the people with the greatest stake in
effective communications, the first responders. The attacks on
September 11 made clear this had to change. Since September 11,
significant progress has been made in interoperability, thanks
to the priorities both the administration and Congress have
placed on it. In 2001, SAFECOM was established as a
presidential management initiative.
In 2004, the Department established the Office for
Interoperability and Compatability to further strengthen and
integrate both interoperability and compatibility efforts and
in the Intelligence Reform Act Congress gave it a legislative
charter. While fixing the Nation's interoperability problem
will require a sustained effort, we recognize that we cannot
wait to move things forward. That is why SAFECOM has initiated
a number of near-term initiatives, including work with the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, to accelerate
the development of standards, development of the
Interoperability Continuum and statewide planning tools,
RAPIDCOM, a program executed in about 150 days which helped
ensure that 10 high risks urban areas had an emergency command
level interoperability capability.
Creation of a public safety architectural framework,
creation of a P-25 conformance testing program, development of
coordinated grant guidance for use in all Federal grant
programs, creation of a national baseline and identification of
public safety spectrum needs are all near term initiatives.
This Nation is heavily invested in an existing infrastructure
that is too often inadequate to the basic communications
requirements of individual agencies and not interoperable. We
must continue to pursue a comprehensive strategy that takes
into account technical and cultural issues associated with
improving interoperability which recognize the challenges
associated with incorporating legacy equipment and practices in
constantly changing technology, cultural environments and which
encourages strong local leadership in insuring that the needs
of the front line of emergency response, the first responders,
are met.
Though many challenges remain, we believe we have
accomplished a great deal in the short time DHS has managed the
program. And I would be happy to answer any questions the
committee may have
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Dr. Boyd.
[The statement of Dr. Boyd follows:]
Prepared Statement for the Record of Dr. David G. Boyd,
Introduction
Good morning and thank you, Chairman Reichert, Ranking Member
Pascrell, and Members of the Subcommittee, for the invitation to speak
to you today.
Today's testimony will focus on SAFECOM and its role in improving
public safety communications. SAFECOM is the communications program of
the Office for Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC), which resides
in the Office of Systems Engineering and Development, Science and
Technology (S&T) Directorate, Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
SAFECOM provides research, development, testing, evaluation, guidance,
and assistance for Federal, State, local, and tribal public safety
agencies working to improve public safety response through more
efficient and effective interoperable wireless communications.
Communications interoperability refers to the ability of public safety
agencies to talk across disciplines and jurisdictions via radio
communications systems, exchanging voice and data with one another on
demand, in real time as authorized.
Since September 11, 2001, significant progress has been made to
improve communications for the public safety community as more and more
jurisdictions move from being simply operable to being interoperable.
However, it is apparent that more progress must be achieved. Much of
this advancement can be attributed to the priority that both the
Administration and Congress have placed on achieving communications
interoperability. In 2001, SAFECOM was established as a Presidential
Management Initiative and charged with strengthening interoperability
at all levels of government by coordinating Federal programs,
initiating a comprehensive standards program, and developing a national
interoperable communications architecture. In 2004, the Department
established OIC to further strengthen and integrate interoperability
and compatibility efforts to help improve Federal, State, local, and
tribal public safety preparedness and response. OIC was directed to:
Identify and coordinate all DHS programs that address
interoperability;
Support the creation of interoperability standards;
Establish a comprehensive research, development,
testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) program for improving public
safety interoperability;
Integrate coordinated grant guidance across all DHS
grant-making agencies that address public safety
interoperability;
Oversee the development and implementation of
technical assistance for public safety interoperability;
Conduct pilot demonstrations;
Create an interagency interoperability coordination
council; and
Establish an effective outreach program.
Relationship between Operability and Interoperability
Communications operability refers to the functional capability of a
communications system that makes a specific operation possible. For
example, operability exists when all responders within one agency can
speak with each other by radio. The next step is to become
interoperable--which we at SAFECOM define as facilitating
communications between and among agencies and jurisdictions.
From its creation, SAFECOM has always emphasized the importance of
operability within an organization because it is a prerequisite for
interoperability. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, in the absence of
a reliable network across which responders within an agency can
effectively communicate, interoperability is neither possible nor
relevant.
For agencies that already have communications operability, SAFECOM
has created a number of highly successful tools and methodologies that
can be used to help achieve interoperability. For agencies that do not
yet have communications operability, much of SAFECOM's work is still
applicable. When operability itself is incomplete, , it is usually the
result of technical issues. SAFECOM's work in helping to develop
standards, encouraging system migration, and participating in the
coordination of communications spectrum policy have all helped improve
operability across the Nation. Once basic operability is achieved,
agencies can then focus on achieving interoperability.
SAFECOM's Vision for Improving Communications
Practitioners have helped SAFECOM articulate a long-term vision for
interoperability which projects that in the future emergency responders
will operate on a national system-of-systems using standards-based
equipment that provides the capability to respond to an incident
anywhere in the country, using their own equipment, on any network, and
on dedicated public safety spectrum. They will be able to communicate
with each other, as authorized, in real time via voice, data, and
video-on-demand. Achieving this vision will require effort in five
critical areas, including:
1. Development of guidelines and criteria for public safety
communications systems;
2. Coordination of testing and evaluation processes;
3. Standardization of equipment fortified by grant guidance;
4. Coordination of communications spectrum policy; and
5. Coordination of communications planning.
These efforts will take time to achieve, but many of them are
already beginning to strengthen communications and interoperability in
the public safety community.
Development of Guidelines and Criteria for Public Safety
Communications Systems
Communications plans to support incident response should be
developed based on a national architecture framework with common
guidelines and criteria for public safety communications systems. Only
when these guidelines are universally broadly recognized and followed
will emergency responders and the larger public safety community be
able to communicate effectively. To that end, SAFECOM published Version
1.0 of the first ever comprehensive Statement of Requirements (SoR) for
Public Safety Wireless Communications and Interoperability. Developed
with public safety practitioner input, the SoR defines the functional
requirements for public safety communications. Subsequent versions will
further refine these technical requirements so that industry will have
a blueprint from which to build technologies that address public safety
needs. This SoR also serves as the basis for developing a national
architecture framework for public safety communications
interoperability. SAFECOM is working to develop a Public Safety
Architecture Framework (PSAF) that, along with the SoR, will serve as a
tool to help the Nation's emergency responder agencies understand the
technical requirements and national migration path toward fully
interoperable communications systems without imposing requirements that
stifle innovation.
For agencies that do not yet have communications operability, the
SoR and PSAF are useful tools for analyzing options to achieve basic
operability and to achieve interoperability in the near future. The
PSAF allows agencies to understand that they need to have a
communication system that is not only operable, but also interoperable
with other systems in the region, while the SoR identifies technical
requirements needed for new systems.
Coordination of Testing and Evaluation Processes
The testing and evaluation of equipment will help communities
identify their levels of operability. Coordinated testing and
evaluation processes will ensure communications equipment meets the
critical needs of emergency responders; the first critical need being
operability. Public safety agencies face many complex procurement
decisions and do not always have in-house expertise to validate
manufacturer's claims. To ensure that public safety agencies can trust
the claims made by vendors, communications equipment needs to be
independently tested and evaluated. To do this, SAFECOM created a
testing and evaluation working group to help ensure that methodologies
for testing and evaluation of interoperability products are technically
sound and comparable across testing laboratories. The working group
members are practitioners and subject matter experts from law
enforcement, fire services, and emergency medical services. These
members help review and develop test criteria and serve the program by
determining which products should be evaluated.
Standardization of Equipment Fortified by Grant Guidance
Standardization of equipment, fortified by grant guidance measures,
is an essential step in achieving improved communications. The
equipment must adhere to communications standards that allow for
operability as well as interoperability. As standards are created,
funding solutions must also be implemented to help jurisdictions focus
on meeting interoperability goals and requirements. To better
coordinate funding for interoperability solutions, such as purchasing
new equipment, developing State plans, and other activities, SAFECOM
coordinated resolution of conflicting Federal grant guidance. This will
help maximize the impact of limited Federal resources to create systems
that improve interoperability rather than making it more difficult to
achieve.
SAFECOM's coordinated grant guidance outlines eligibility for
grants, the purposes for which grants can be used, and the guidelines
for implementing a wireless communications system in order to help
maximize the efficiency with which public safety communications related
grant dollars are allocated and spent. To ensure consistency in
interoperability grant solicitations, this guidance has been included
in grant programs administered by the Department of Justice and other
agencies within DHS.
Within DHS, the Office for State and Local Government Coordination
and Preparedness (SLGCP) reports that more than $1.6 billion in
homeland security assistance to local jurisdictions, urban areas, and
states has been spent on interoperable communications over the past two
years alone. SLGCP has three primary grant programs that have
incorporated SAFECOM's grant guidance on issues regarding
communications interoperability. These programs are the State Homeland
Security Grant Program, Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) Grant
Program, and the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Grant Program.
Many of the system procurements and enhancements supported by this
funding are in the process of being implemented.
It is important to note, however, that although SAFECOM has
developed consensus guidance and tools to improve the grant-making
process, SAFECOM does not directly manage nor provide funding to State
or local agencies for communications projects. Given the sheer number
of state and local public safety agencies, regional communication
implementation simply cannot be managed centrally from Washington.
Grant guidance is an important step toward improving national
interoperability because it helps to align public safety
communications-related grant dollars with the national effort to
improve interoperability at all levels of government.
In addition, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires
that all Federal agencies demonstrate their programs are fully aligned
with SAFECOM guidance in developing their own communications plans.
Coordination of Communications Spectrum Policy
The communications spectrum is a critical component for
operability; it is the highway over which voice, data, and image
communications travel. Radio spectrum is a finite resource--there is
only so much available, and it is shared by public safety, radio
broadcasters, government users, and other commercial and private
consumers. The large demand for this resource can lead to overcrowding,
which in turn can cause delays in or disruption of communication for
public safety. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has
allocated certain frequencies to public safety, but these allocations
are fragmented, creating challenges for communications among different
agencies and jurisdictions. In the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-458), Congress required the FCC, in
consultation with DHS and the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA), to conduct a study to assess the
spectrum needs for Federal, State, and local emergency responders,
which is due in December 2005. SAFECOM is currently assessing public
safety spectrum needs in support of the President's national spectrum
management initiative. DHS, in consultation with the Department of
Commerce and other relevant agencies, is developing a Spectrum Needs
Plan based on these assessments, which will be delivered to the
President by the end of November 2005. SAFECOM believes in maintaining
the current schedule to open the 24 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum in the
700 MHz band allocated by the FCC in 1998 for public safety use in
accordance with recommendations from the Public Safety Wireless
Advisory Committee.
Coordination of Communications Planning
Strengthening and ensuring basic-level public safety communications
capabilities, as well as backup communications, are key tasks in
improving communications. Once agency-specific operability is ensured,
it is essential to progress towards multi-jurisdictional and multi-
disciplinary interoperability, which requires attention to more than
technology. SAFECOM has identified five interrelated building blocks
that are essential to forming a foundation for multi-jurisdictional and
multi-disciplinary communications capabilities that include governance,
standard operating procedures (SOP), technology, training and
exercises, and usage.
SAFECOM has developed an interoperability continuum to measure a
community's level of progress in these elements. The continuum helps
communities assess where they are deficient and provides valuable
insight to Federal policy makers for targeting interoperability
assistance.
As the continuum provides a guide for communities to progress
towards interoperability, the National Interoperability Baseline study,
a major initiative undertaken by SAFECOM, will provide a statistically
significant, quantitative measurement of where communities stand on the
path towards interoperability. The development of the survey
methodology was initiated in January 2005, and the resulting study will
allow SAFECOM to identify areas with operability and interoperability
shortfalls, track the impact of Federal programs and measure the
success of these programs, establish an ongoing process and mechanism
to measure the state of interoperability on a recurring basis, and
develop an interoperability baseline self-assessment tool for State and
local public safety agencies.
Statewide Communications Interoperability Planning (SCIP)
SAFECOM has made considerable progress in developing statewide
planning tools. In 2004, SAFECOM partnered with the Commonwealth of
Virginia and the Department of Justice to develop a strategic plan for
improving statewide interoperable communications for the state. The
effort was based on SAFECOM's ``bottom-up,'' locally-driven approach,
which improves upon many previous statewide communications planning
efforts that use a top-down approach by considering the requirements of
the emergency responders who are the primary users and who control most
of the wireless infrastructure. Based on lessons learned from the
Virginia planning process, SAFECOM published the Statewide
Communications Interoperability Planning (SCIP) Methodology as a model
for integrating practitioner input into a successful statewide
strategic plan for every state.
Regional Communications Interoperability Pilots
SAFECOM is also implementing Section 7304 of the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458), which
authorized the Secretary of Homeland Security to carry out at least two
Regional Communications Interoperability Pilots (RCIP). In accordance
with Congressional criteria for determining the location of the pilot
sites, as well as criteria outlined by the program itself, SAFECOM
selected the State of Nevada and the Commonwealth of Kentucky as RCIP
locations. SAFECOM, in coordination with SLGCP's Interoperable
Communications Technical Assistance Program, is helping both states
implement the SCIP methodology.
Building on lessons learned from the SCIP Methodology and earlier
SAFECOM initiatives, the RCIP projects will help OIC identify models
for improving communications and interoperability that take into
account the wide range of challenges across the Nation. When the
projects are complete, Nevada and Kentucky will each have improved
interoperability plans, and we will be able to use the lessons learned
to better develop or strengthen replicable tools and methodologies that
will be made available to public safety practitioners, as well as to
State and local governments. An interim report regarding the progress
of the pilot projects has been submitted to Congress. A final report
will be provided to Congress in June 2006.
SAFECOM believes that statewide emergency communications plans are
fundamental to an effective response to a catastrophic event. As States
continue to develop their own plans, SAFECOM recommends that they do so
in coordination with SAFECOM methodologies and guidance.
RapidCom
SAFECOM has always emphasized that mission-critical operations are
the primary concern of public safety. Through efforts such as RapidCom,
SAFECOM initiated a program to help improve capabilities for immediate
incident-level interoperable emergency communications in ten high-
threat urban areas centered in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Jersey City,
Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and the
Washington metropolitan area. In coordination with SLGCP, the
Department of Justice's 25 Cities Program, and the DHS Wireless
Management Office, SAFECOM worked closely with public safety leaders in
the ten high-risk urban areas to assess their communications
interoperability capacity and needs, and to identify and implement
solutions. In keeping with SAFECOM's ``bottom-up'' approach, local
officials drove the design and implementation of solutions in their
jurisdictions.
With the on-time completion of the RapidCom project, incident
commanders in each of the urban areas have now confirmed they have the
ability to communicate adequately with each other and their respective
command centers within one hour of an incident. The lessons learned
from RapidCom can be applied to all public safety agencies at the
Federal, State, local, and tribal levels.
In the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2006,
Congress has provided $5 million in funding to expand RapidCom to other
urban areas.
Conclusion
SAFECOM will continue to emphasize that before progress can be made
to improve interoperable communications, operability must first be in
place. The initiatives described above are helping to advance
operability and interoperability of public safety communications. We
must continue to pursue a comprehensive strategy that takes into
account all issues associated with improving communications while
ensuring that the needs of emergency responders are met. Though many
challenges remain, we believe we have accomplished a great deal in the
short time DHS has managed this program.
We are confident that with your continuing support and the
assistance of our many Federal partners, we will continue to move
towards a world where lives and property are never lost because public
safety agencies are unable to communicate or lack compatible equipment
and training resources.
This concludes my prepared statement. With the Committee's
permission, I request my formal statement be submitted for the record.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Pascrell, and Members of the Subcommittee,
I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and will be
happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Appendix I: OIC Authorities from the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
Congress, with the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 (PL 108-458) less than a year ago, gave OIC and
SAFECOM legislative authority to carry out its responsibilities. Before
passage of this act, responsibility for addressing interoperability was
spread across three different agencies. The following is a scorecard of
OIC legislative authorities, activities that have been conducted under
those authorities, and the progress achieved on each activity:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OIC Authority from the
Intelligence Reform and OIC Activities Progress
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coordinate with other Federal Developin On
agencies to establish a g a national schedule
comprehensive national approach strategy, which
to achieving public safety leverages work
interoperable communications; conducted by
other agencies
across the
Federal
government
Working On
with the National schedule
Institute of
Standards and
Technology (NIST)
to develop
communication
standards
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Develop, with Federal agencies Created Completed
and state and local the Statement of
authorities, minimum Requirements for
capabilities for communications Public Safety
interoperability for Federal, Wireless
State, and local public safety Communications
agencies; and
Interoperability
(SoR)
Working On
with the Office schedule
for Domestic
Preparedness
(ODP) on the
Target
Capabilities List
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accelerate voluntary consensus Developed Completed
standards for public safety a plan, with
interoperable communications; NIST, and
delivered a
report to
Congress on
accelerating the
development of
national
voluntary
consensus
standards for
public safety
interoperable
communications
Working On
with NIST to schedule
develop a P25
Conformance
Testing program
that will use
independent labs
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Develop and implement flexible Developin On
open architectures for short- g the Public schedule
and long-term solutions to Safety
public safety interoperable Architecture
communications; Framework
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Identify priorities for Created a On
research, development, and Testing and schedule
testing and evaluation within Evaluation
DHS and assist other Federal working group to
agencies in doing the same with identify testing
regard to public safety priorities for
interoperable communications; interoperability
gateways and is
currently
evaluating other
potential
communications
products for lab
testing
Developin On
g a standardized schedule
report format for
presenting test
results
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Establish coordinated guidance SAFECOM's grant Completed
for Federal grant programs for guidance has been
public safety interoperable incorporated in
communications public safety
communications
related grant
guidance
including the FY
2003 Federal
Emergency
Management Agency
(FEMA) grants,
the FY 2003/FY
2004/FY 2005
Department of
Justice's Office
of Community
Oriented Policing
Services (COPS)
grants, the FY
2004/FY 2005 ODP
grants
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Provide technical assistance to Implement Completed
State and locals regarding ed the RapidCom
planning, acquisition Initiative
strategies, and other functions
necessary to achieve public
safety communications
interoperability;
Developed Completed
the
Interoperability
Continuum
Conductin On
g Regional schedule
Communications
Interoperability
Pilots (RCIP) in
Kentucky and
Nevada
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Develop and disseminate best Created Completed
practices to improve public SAFECOM Grant
safety communications Guidance
interoperability;
Developed Completed
the Statewide
Communications
Interoperability
Planning (SCIP)
Methodology
Developed Completed
the
Interoperability
Continuum
Developed Completed
the
Communications
Tabletop Exercise
Methodology
Created Completed
additional tools
and models to
help public
safety users
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Develop appropriate performance Developin On
measures and milestones to g the National schedule
measure the nation's progress Interoperability
to achieving public safety Baseline
communications
interoperability;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Provide technical guidance, Implement Completed
training, and other assistance ed the RapidCom
to support the rapid Initiative
establishment of consistent,
secure, and effective
interoperable communications
capabilities in the event of an
emergency in urban and other
areas determined by the
Secretary of Homeland Security
to be at consistently high
levels of risk from terrorist
attack; and develop minimum
interoperable communications
capabilities for emergency
response providers..
Conductin On
g Regional schedule
Communications
Interoperability
Pilots (RCIP) in
Kentucky and
Nevada
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appendix II: Tools and Methods based on State and Local Pilots
Tools and methods that SAFECOM has developed based on State and
local pilot efforts include:
Communications Tabletop Exercise Methodology, a
process for a communications-focused tabletop exercise
replicable across urban areas.
Tabletop Exercise After-Action Report, a template for
capturing key findings and identifying gaps following each
tabletop exercise.
Interoperability Pocket Guide, a process for creating
an area-specific interoperability pocket guide to ensure local
public safety officials are aware of current capabilities
available in their areas.
Templates for Improving Interoperability, including
governance charter, standard operating procedure, and
memorandum of agreement templates to help communities improve
interoperability.
Operational Guide for the Interoperability Continuum--
Lessons Learned from RapidCom, which outlines the importance of
each element of the Interoperability Continuum, provides common
challenges to consider when working towards improved
interoperability and recommends key actions to increase an
area's capabilities.
Mr. Reichert. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Peter Fonash,
deputy manager of the National Communications Systems of the
U.S. Department Homeland Security.
STATEMENT OF PETER FONASH
Mr. Fonash. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished
members of the committee. I am Dr. Peter Fonash, and I am
honored to testify before you today. I am the deputy manager of
the National Communications Systems, NCS. In my testimony
today, I will explain the role that the NCS played in preparing
for and responding to Hurricane Katrina. NCS started under
President Kennedy in the 1960s. The NCS is a consortium of
Federal departments and agencies that have assets, resources,
requirements and/or regulatory authority regarding National
Security and Emergency Preparedness, NS/EP. Communications. The
NCS assists the executive office of the President in ensuring
NS/EP communications for the Federal Government under all
circumstances.
A key tenet of ensuring communications is reliance on the
resiliency and rapid restoration capabilities of the commercial
communications infrastructure, necessitating strong
relationships with industry. The NCS's National Coordinating
Center for telecommunications, or NCC, is a joint industry/
government body within the NCS. The operational mission of the
NCC is the coordination of communications restoration efforts
in an emergency. The NCS has a major communications role in the
current National Response Plan, or NRP. The NCS is the lead
agency for emergency support function number 2 (known as
ESF#2), which is the communications component of the National
Response Plan.
The purpose of ESF#2 is to ensure the provision of Federal
communications support to Federal, State, local, tribal and
private sector response efforts during an incident of national
significance. Under the National Response Plan, the NCC is the
Federal office for national telecommunications domestic
incident management. To facilitate coordination of industry/
government operations during an emergency, the NCS has
established and continuously operates several priority service
programs which help to ensure critical calls are completed in
the event of congestion or damage to the national commercial
communications infrastructure.
The Nation heavily used each of these programs during
Hurricane Katrina. These programs include the Government
Emergency Telecommunications Service, (GETS) program, the
Wireless Priority Service, (WPS) program, and the
Telecommunications Service Priority, (TSP) program. The NCS
(also manages another program, the Shared Resources High
Frequency Radio, (SHARES), which provides voice and low speed
data communications independent of the commercial
communications infrastructure.
In anticipation of Hurricane Katrina, the NCS conducted
various preparations including: heightening the alert status of
the NCC's 24-hour watch; placing key programs such as GETS,
WPS, TSP and SHARES on alert; providing personnel to staff
ESF#2 regional offices and the FEMA headquarters; and
conducting analysis of critical communications assets in the
projected impact area. Industry worked equally hard to prepare.
Companies moved emergency response teams and equipment to the
region, established communication and bridges among carriers,
activated damage assessment teams and kept in constant
communication with the NCC. Bell South opened its operations
center to all carriers for coordination purposes.
As of August 28, the NCS was ready. All systems and
personnel were in place for the ESF 2 elements to receive
communications support requests from the States impacted by
Katrina. Katrina and the flooding in New Orleans caused
unprecedented damage to the communications infrastructure. More
than 3 million phone customers were out of service. For the
first time in history, switching centers were out of operation
due to water damage. Numerous 911 call centers were down and up
to 2,000 cellular towers were out of service. In addition,
significant damage had been inflicted on first responder land
mobile radio communications.
At the NCC in Washington, industry identified three
priorities to the NCS: security, fuel and access. The NCC
assisted industry by coordinating security forces and
requirements between industry and government to protect repair
teams, communications sites and staging areas. In addition, in
a limited number of circumstances, the NCC arranged to provide
communications carriers and broadcast companies with generators
where the power was out, fuel for generators and power outage
maps.
The NCS coordinated closely with FEMA and local authorities
to provide the carriers access to locations in need of repair.
In the impacted areas, ESF#2 worked with State and local
governments to help identify and provide solutions to the
communications needs. ESF#2 arranged for mobile satellite and
cellular vans and for hundreds of satellite phones. The extent
of the destruction and damage to communications infrastructure
and services caused by Katrina greatly exceeded any other
disaster previously encountered by the NCS. A hurricane of the
historical magnitude of Hurricane Katrina stressed the
processes and procedures of the NCS and required ESF#2 to
perform new functions, such as, providing an interim land
mobile radio system to three parishes in Louisiana.
Currently the NCS is fully engaged in assisting with the
restoration efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita,
and now Wilma. In an ongoing effort to improve communications,
the NCS is currently examining its actions regarding Hurricane
Katrina, identifying issues and lessons learned and developing
recommendations. We are fully committed to incorporating
lessons learned in future plans, procedures and capabilities.
This concludes my oral statement. I have submitted a
written statement for the record. Thank you for the opportunity
to address this distinguished subcommittee. I will be pleased
to answer any questions you have.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Dr. Fonash.
[The statement of Mr. Fonash follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Peter M. Fonash
I. Introduction
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee.
I am Dr. Peter M. Fonash and am honored to testify before you today. I
am the Deputy Manager of the National Communications System (NCS),
which is aligned within the Preparedness Directorate of the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS).
In my testimony today, I will explain the role that the NCS played
in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina. The NCS' greatest
concern was meeting the needs of those affected by Hurricane Katrina
and our first priority was trying to facilitate provisioning and
restoration of communications services.
As you know, Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural
disasters in our nation's history, impacting an area of approximately
90,000 square miles. For perspective, the area impacted by Hurricane
Charley in 2004 was 1,500 square miles. Also as a result of Charley,
more than 150,000 customers were without phone service. In contrast,
more than 3 million people in the Gulf States lost phone service due to
Hurricane Katrina, and over 180 central office locations were running
on generators due to loss of commercial power.
The NCS' authorities and responsibilities regarding emergency
communications stem from two principal federal documents. I will give a
very brief overview of these, and then detail the NCS' Hurricane
Katrina actions for you.
The NCS started under President Kennedy in the 1960s and was
formalized in a 1983 Executive Order under President Reagan called E.O.
12472. The NCS is a consortium of federal departments and agencies that
have assets, resources, requirements and/or regulatory authority
regarding national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP)
communications. Today, the NCS has 23 different federal entities,
including the Department of Defense, General Services Administration,
FEMA, National Telecommunications and Information Administration,
intelligence agencies, State Department and the Federal Communications
Commission, among others. The Office of the Manager NCS, comprised of
approximately 100 civilian and military personnel assigned to DHS,
executes the programs and activities of the NCS. As set forth in the
governing Executive Order, the NCS assists the President, The National
Security Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Homeland
Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget in
coordinating the planning and provision of NS/EP communications for the
Federal Government under all circumstances, including crisis or
emergency, attack, recovery, and reconstitution.
The NCS has a history of addressing issues that cut across the
Executive Branch. One important effort has been the establishment and
tasking of the Continuity Communications Working Group (CCWG). The
CCWG, within the past year, has initiated work on a Continuity
Communications Enterprise Architecture. This effort will help to
support Minimum Essential Functions of the Federal Government under all
circumstances, including crisis, emergency, attack, recovery, and
reconstitution.
As mandated by the Executive Order, the NCS also includes an
industry component, which was especially valuable during Hurricane
Katrina, called the National Coordinating Center for
Telecommunications, or NCC, a joint industry/Government body within the
NCS. The operational mission of the NCC is the coordination of
restoring and reinstituting NS/EP communications in an emergency. The
NCC operates a 24 hour, 7-day a week watch center-which during
Hurricane Katrina conducted daily analysis and situational monitoring
of ongoing events and response capabilities. The NCC houses both
industry representatives and Government counterparts in the same
physical space to facilitate information sharing and coordination of
activities.
The Executive Order also charges the NCS to ensure development of a
national communications infrastructure for a range of national
security/emergency purposes, including preparing for and responding to
hurricanes such as Hurricane Katrina. This includes critical features
such as priority communications, and infrastructure redundancy. A key
tenant of ensuring communications is reliance on the resiliency and
rapid restoration capabilities of the commercial communications
infrastructure (e.g., BellSouth, AT&T) necessitating strong
relationships with industry.
The NCS works closely with organizations within the Federal
government to ensure NS/EP communication requirements are built into
technology solutions. For example, the NCS engages with the DHS Science
and Technology Directorate, Office for Interoperability and
Compatibility (OIC) on the development and creation of standards
pertaining to communications. NCS also works with the DoD on the
development of security standards for next generation networks.
In addition to the Executive Order, the NCS has a specific
communications role in the current National Response Plan, or NRP.
Specifically, the NCS is the lead agency with responsibility for
Emergency Support Function #2 (known as ``ESF 2''), which is the
communications component of the National Response Plan. The
Communications annex ``ensures the provision of Federal communications
support to Federal, State, local, tribal and private-sector response
efforts during an Incident of National Significance.''
In support of the ESF 2, the NCS's NCC functions as a central point
of coordination and information sharing for communications
infrastructure operators. Once notified of a Federal disaster, the NCC
works with its federal government and industry partners to:
Assess anticipated/actual damage
Identify communication requirements
Prioritize requirements
Monitor the developing situation/response
Render status reports
Coordinate communication service provisioning and
restoration as required with industry members and other
communication providers
To facilitate coordination of industry/Government operations during
an emergency, the NCS has established and continuously operates several
priority service programs, which help to ensure critical calls are
completed in the event of congestion or damage to the national
commercial communications infrastructure. The nation heavily used each
of these programs during Hurricane Katrina. For example:
The Government Emergency Communications Service (GETS) program
provides priority treatment for authorized users to ensure a higher
rate of call completion during periods of outages or congestion
resulting from disasters. Simply put, the phone call of a GETS user
such as a state employee or hospital worker could go through before
others. During Hurricane Katrina, the NCS issued over 1000 new GETS
cards and over 40,000 GETS calls were made in the ensuring recovery
period.
The Wireless Priority Service (WPS) program established a wireless
counterpart of GETS, providing priority treatment for calls made during
periods of wireless network congestion by personnel with NS/EP
missions, such as those experienced on September, 01. The need
for this program was recognized after 9/11 because many Federal, State
and local Government and industry leaders utilize wireless as a primary
means of mobile communications. During Hurricane Katrina, the NCS
enabled over 4,000 cellular phones with WPS capability.
The Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) program establishes a
regulatory, administrative and operational framework for restoring and
provisioning of priority communications services. Through this program,
the FCC authorizes and requires service vendors to give priority to
restoration and provision of service to those with TSP assignments. TSP
is distinct from GETS and WPS, which provide priority for individual
calls over the network in an emergency. During Hurricane Katrina, the
NCS completed more than 1500 TSP assignments. Restoration of these
services supported key Federal, State, local and commercial activities,
such as emergency response at all levels, hospitals, and the military.
The Shared Resources High Frequency Radio Program (SHARES) provides
a single, interagency emergency message handling system using High
Frequency (HF) radio when other communications methods are unavailable.
SHARES uses common radio operating and message formatting procedures
and more than 250 designated frequencies. Participation in SHARES is
open to all Federal departments and agencies and their designated
affiliates on a voluntary basis. More than 90 Federal, State, and
industry organizations currently contribute resources. The use of
SHARES was an overwhelming success within the first few days of the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The NCS coordinated participation by
431 SHARES stations. Some of the accomplishments of SHARES include:
Assisted local Governments and Federal entities with
search and rescue missions for over 100 missing people in the
affected area by relaying critical information regarding those
persons to the appropriate agency.
Relayed critical logistical and operational
information from FEMA and Atlanta's EOC into the Mississippi
and Louisiana EOC's.
Coordinated with National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's (NASA's) Disaster Assistance and Rescue Teams,
Communications Group, assisting them in their preparations for
deployment to Stennis Space Center.
Provided frequency coordination with Department of
Energy, FCC, Military Affiliate Radio System, the U.S. Navy,
FEMA, Civil Air Patrol, Amateur Radio Emergency Services
(ARES)/Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), Louisiana
EOC's and Mississippi EOC's.
Coordinated inter-communications between SHARES and
ARES/RACES emergency networks.
Established contact with deployed Navy ships USS
Truman and USS Bataan which were detailed to New Orleans to
assist with the Katrina disaster.
Relayed health and welfare message traffic between
volunteer agencies in Georgia and the National Red Cross
Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The Alerting and Coordination Network (ACN) coordinates
communications restoration efforts among service providers when the
public service network is inoperable or congested. ACN membership
includes major communications companies and certain Federal agencies.
Operating independently of the public switched network, the ACN
supports the NCC-Telecom Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC)
24 hours a day, 7 days a week during both emergency and normal
conditions. ACN was not utilized during Katrina.
Now I will detail many NCS's critical actions before and during
Hurricane Katrina.
Pre-landfall Preparation:
Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall (Gulf Coast) on August
29, 2005. As of August 28, 2005, the NCS' preparations for Hurricane
Katrina included:
Heightened the alert status of the NCC's 24 hour Watch
which provides monitoring and reporting capabilities
24 hour Emergency Operations Teams support on stand-by
National and regional ESF 2 staffing structure for
standing up on short notice. GSA and DoD provided personnel to
staff ESF-2
Issued TSP assignments, GETS cards, and WPS procedures
SHARES activated
GETS and WPS user support on 24 hour alert
Activated National Response Coordinating Center ESF 2
desk at the FEMA Headquarters to provide level 1 (24x7) support
(effective August 27, 2005, at 7 am Eastern Standard Time
(EST))
Began staffing Region IV, Atlanta, Georgia, Regional
Response Coordinating Center
ESF 2 at Region VI, Denton, Texas, activated on August
28, 2005, at 7 am EST
NCC Watch providing 24/7 monitoring and reporting
capability
Industry/Government staging of mobile communications
SHARES contacted local High Frequency organizations in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama and conducted a
teleconference with Nationwide Emergency Communications Service
controllers
Conducted analysis of critical communications assets
in the projected impact area
All impacted communications companies moved Emergency Response
teams and equipment to the region, established communication bridges
among carriers, activated damage assessment teams, and Bell South
opened its Operations Center to all carriers for coordination purposes.
Industry and Government participated in joint conference calls,
which were conducted daily through the NCC. Communications companies
performed assessments from Hurricane Katrina's Florida landfall and
continued with preparations for Hurricane Katrina's second landfall. As
of August 28, 2005, the NCS/NCC coordinated with communication
companies the following preparations:
Moving company personnel to safety
Rerouting of traffic loads away from projected impact
areas
Movement of Emergency Response Teams into staging
areas
Identification of over 427 Cell on Wheels (COWs) and
Cell on Light Trucks (COLTS) to be deployed into damaged areas
to meet initial cellular communication requirements while the
infrastructure is being restored
Identification of communication vans, satellite
packages, and pre-deployment of MCI and AT&T mobile
communications vans that could be contracted by the Government
if needed
Coordinating with fuel and equipment suppliers
Deployment and staging of generators
Identification of 250+ satellite handsets that could
be deployed in the event of major cellular system damage
Coordination for satellite capacity
Requesting relief from Federal and State reporting and
service requirements due to evacuation of personnel from call
centers, service centers, and other operations such as remote
monitoring and control
III. RESPONSE:
From Monday August 29, 2005 the day of landfall on the Gulf Coast,
through the levee breech and the following days, the NCS engaged in
many round-the-clock actions. In addition to exercising the priority
programs discussed, the NCS' NCC played numerous coordination and
facilitation roles. Specifically, the NCS activated SHARES on August
29th and worked to coordinate with United States Northern Command
(USNORTHCOM) to identify and deploy communication assets. At this
point, communications service providers were awaiting physical access
to facilities to evaluate their networks and reporting was sparse
during the first 24 hours of the storm.
Katrina caused unprecedented damage to the communications
infrastructure. In the telecommunications sector, More than three
million phone customers were out of service. For the first time in
history, switching centers were out of operation due to water damage.
Numerous 9-1-1 call centers were down and up to 2000 cellular towers
were out of service shutting down telecommunications networks
throughout the area. In addition, significant damage had been inflicted
on first responder Land Mobile Radio (LMR) communications.
As of September 2, 2005, all systems were in place for the ESF 2
elements to receive communications requests from the affected region,
both through the JFOs and independent requests. In the ensuing period,
the ESF-2 elements on location:
Identified and dispatched satellite vans to various
locations affected by the hurricane, including New Orleans City
Hall, State Police in Baton Rouge, the Mobile Army Surgical
Hospital (MASH) at New Orleans Airport, and to the National
Guard in Jefferson Parish
Dispatched mobile capabilities, such as COLTs, to
provide communication to the JFO and offer cellular service to
the Louisiana State Emergency Operations Center (EOC)
Delivered mobile communications trucks to the State
EOC and to staging areas for Federal and Industry responders
Delivered satellite handsets to emergency responders
in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama
Initiated contacts with State EOCs to determine
communication requirements
Identified the requirement to replace the destroyed
LMR infrastructure in eight parishes in Louisiana. Worked with
FEMA to initiate contract to provide replacement system
Designed and installed new E-911 System in Plaquemines
Parish
Within 48 hours of Hurricane Rita making landfall,
arranged for installation of a 106 foot, portable, Emergency
Response Tower to Jefferson Parish to replace the destroyed 400
foot permanent tower supporting first responders in Jefferson
Parish
Deployed cellular capabilities were deployed to
Cameron Parish to replace communications devastated by
Hurricane Rita
At the NCS's NCC in Washington, industry identified three
priorities to the NCS: fuel, security and access. Throughout the
crisis, industry repeatedly made clear that in order to maintain
existing communications, to assess damage to its communications
infrastructure and to begin to make repairs and deploy alternative
services, it needed to get fuel to locations, to have security to
protect personnel, communications infrastructure, staging areas and
fuel convoys, and to have access to locations in need of repairs.
The NCC assisted industry by coordinating security forces and
requirements between industry and Government to protect repair teams,
communications sites, and staging areas. In addition, in a limited
number of circumstances, the NCC arranged to provide communications
carriers and broadcast companies with generators where the power was
out, fuel for generators, and power outage maps. The NCS recognizes the
interdependencies on other infrastructures and has established a
relationship with the Energy Information Sharing Analysis Center
through the response to previous disasters. Close coordination was
achieved through the hurricane response period.
Highlights of the NCS's NCC activities include:
NCC conducted twice daily conference calls with
government and industry representatives. Participants included
representatives from communications companies (wireline,
wireless, satellite) and from numerous federal entities located
in the field and in Washington, including NCS, GSA, FEMA. These
calls facilitated information sharing and coordination of
response actions.
Facilitated the provisioning of the United States
Marshals Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
personnel to protect the most important communications center
in New Orleans. These law enforcement officers provided
security for employees who felt threatened by individuals
outside the facility. The U.S. Marshals and FBI escorted
employees and fuel trucks to and from the facility as well as
providing facility security.
Provided the local carrier with detailed satellite
images which the carrier had been unable to access until the
NCC stepped in to help. This enabled the carrier to prioritize
its restoration efforts by providing information on which areas
were still totally flooded.
Successfully Coordinated offers for assistance of
communications resources and assets (such as satellite phones)
from local, national and international sources
Facilitated fuel delivery for Broadcasters in the
region
Maintained full time liaison with DoD's U.S. Northern
Command for coordinating communication support to effected
area.
Provided commercial emergency mobile assets and
coordinated military assets to support local authorities
following Hurricane Rita
Provided status reports to DHS and White House
IV. CONCLUSION:
Next Steps:
The extent of the destruction and damage to communications
infrastructure and services caused by Hurricane Katrina greatly
exceeded any other disaster previously encountered by the NCS. A
hurricane of the historical magnitude of Hurricane Katrina stressed the
processes and procedures of the NCS and required ESF 2 to perform
functions, such as providing an interim Land Mobile Radio system to 8
parishes, which has never been done before.
Currently, the NCS is fully engaged in assisting with the
restoration efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and now
Wilma. In an ongoing effort to improve communications, the NCS is
currently examining its actions regarding Hurricane Katrina,
identifying issues and lessons learned and developing recommendations.
We are fully committed to incorporating lessons learned into future
plans, procedures, and capabilities.
Some of the areas that will be considered are: standardized and
pre-approved emergency credentials to vital communications and other
key infrastructure providers, examination of mechanisms for improved
facilitation of industry assessment and repair efforts, consideration
of increased level of exercises with industry, state and local
government and improved acquisition of and coordination for emergency
communication capabilities.
The NCS will continue to work with industry and government to
improve the perseverance and restorability of the nation's
communications network
Mr. Reichert. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Kenneth Moran,
director of the Office of Homeland Security on the Federal
Communications Commissions Enforcement Bureau to testify.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH MORAN
Mr. Moran. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee. My name is Ken Moran, and I serve
as the director of the Federal Communications Commissions
Office of Homeland Security. In that role, I am primarily
responsible for consolidating support for the homeland security
and emergency preparedness responsibilities of the Commission.
Today, I will describe the Commission's efforts to assist
consumers, the communications industry and other Federal
agencies in response to the extensive damage inflicted by the
recent hurricanes.
As we all know, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma
devastated large areas of the southeastern United States.
People lost their homes, their businesses, and even their
lives. Our hearts go out to all of those who are now struggling
to put their lives back together. The chairman and ranking
member described the destruction of these hurricanes very well,
the destruction inflicted upon the communications
infrastructure, so I won't repeat it now. But I will say that
the resulting communications breakdowns made it extremely
difficult for millions of people to communicate with their
families and friends or to receive news and emergency
information.
Also, emergency workers and public safety officials had
great difficulty communicating. While no communications network
could be expected to remain fully operational in the face of a
direct hit from hurricanes of this magnitude, that fact was of
little consolation to the people on the ground. Fortunately,
the communications companies began to restore services almost
immediately. They have overcome significant obstacles including
flooding, lack of power, dwindling fuel resources for
generators and security problems to rebuild, reconnect and
broadcast. These extraordinary efforts were performed by
industry employees, many of whom had suffered their own
personal losses yet still continued to work to restore services
to all.
The Commission has devoted significant time and resources
to enable first responders to communicate and to facilitate
restoration of communications services. On August 30, Chairman
Martin established an internal task force to coordinate the
FCC's hurricane response efforts, which fall into three
categories, regulatory relief, industry outreach and
coordination with other Federal agencies. To date, nearly 200
FCC employees have assisted this effort. The Commission has
taken a number of steps to facilitate the resumption of
communication services and to authorize the use of temporary
services for use by disaster relief personnel and evacuees. At
the outset, the Commission notified the communications
providers that it would provide streamlined treatment for
requests for special temporary authority or STAs to aid them in
resuming and maintaining operations in areas impacted by the
hurricanes. The FCC has granted more than 90 STA requests and
more than 100 temporary frequency authorizations for emergency
workers and communications companies to provide wireless and
broadcast service in the areas affected, and also in the
shelters around the country.
The Commission has granted the vast majority of these
requests within 24 hours. In addition, the Commission has
released several public notices and quickly adopted orders to
provide temporary relief. The Commission works closely with the
National Communications System and FEMA in accordance with the
national response plan. We are continuously reaching out to
communications companies serving the affected areas, wire line
and wireless broadcasters, cable and satellite providers to
assess the companies status and determine what they need to
continue or resume operations.
Mr. Moran. The FCC continues to gather critical information
about resources that communications providers need to restore
and maintain service in the affected areas and provides this
information to the NCS and FEMA who are responsible for
ensuring that the priority needs are met. The Commission also
is responsible for providing information on communications
companies' operational status for incorporation into the
governmentwide situation reports.
In addition, the FCC works closely with industry to
identify resources for use by disaster response personnel. We
provide this information to the NCS and facilitate industry
communications with other Federal officials. We also work on a
wide range of providers, including those who offer satellite,
wireless, wireless Internet access and WIFI services to
identify those providers capable of offering facilities and
services that can assist those in the affected area.
In the aftermath of these hurricanes the Commission has
devoted significant time and resourced to enable first
responders to communicate. For example, the Commission granted
STAs to allow first responders to use through-the-wall imaging
equipment to locate hurricane victims and to help emergency
response organizations to facilitate communications on the
ground. These recent disasters are also prompting the
Commission to reassess steps that have been taken to address
interoperability issues. These steps consist mainly of efforts
to provide additional spectrum to public safety entities, to
promote technological development to enhance interoperability,
and to provide technical expertise on input to interagency
efforts.
In addition, Chairman Martin has announced his intention to
establish an independent expert panel to review the impact of
Hurricane Katrina on the public communications infrastructure.
The panel will be composed of public safety and communications
industry representatives and will make recommendations for
approved disaster preparedness, network reliability, and
communications among first responders.
In conclusion, the Commission is continuing to work with
other Federal agencies and the industry to determine what
additional actions can be taken to assist in disaster relief
and restoration efforts. We will also continue to reach out and
respond to many consumers affected by these tragedies and we
stand ready to work with the Congress and our colleagues at the
Federal, State, and local levels to do whatever we can do to
help with disaster relief and restoration.
I would be pleased to answer your questions. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Moran follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kenneth P. Moran
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Ken Moran and I serve as the Director of the
Federal Communications Commission's Office of Homeland Security. In
that role, I am primarily responsible for consolidating support for the
homeland security and emergency preparedness responsibilities of the
Commission.
In my testimony today, I will describe some of the damage wrought
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the communications industry and the
Commission's efforts to assist consumers, the industries the agency
regulates, and other Federal Agencies during this difficult crisis.
Finally, I will also address the Commission's efforts to ensure public
safety operability during catastrophic events such as the recent
hurricanes.
As we all know, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita devastated the
Gulf Coast. People lost their homes, their businesses, and even their
lives. Hurricane Wilma has also brought devastation to the people of
Florida. Our hearts go out to all of those who are now struggling with
putting their lives back together.
The destruction that Hurricane Katrina caused to the facilities of
communications companies, and therefore the services upon which
citizens rely, was extraordinary. More than three million customer
telephone lines were knocked down in the Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Alabama area. Significant damage was inflicted both on the wireline
switching centers that route calls and on the lines used to connect
buildings and customers to the network. Thirty-eight 9-1-1 call centers
went down. Local wireless networks also sustained considerable damage
with more than one thousand cell sites out of service. Over 20 million
telephone calls did not go through the day after the hurricane. While
we were not able to contact every station in the immediate aftermath,
we estimate that approximately 100 broadcast stations were knocked off
the air. Hundreds of thousands of cable customers lost service.
Hurricane Rita, which struck parts of Texas and Louisiana, also
caused significant damage. It produced extensive flooding throughout
the affected area, including many of the same parishes in Louisiana
still working to recover from Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane left
more than 80,000 consumers without telephone service, damaged more than
20 telephone company switches, and knocked out more than 250 cell sites
in the vicinity of Beaumont, Texas and Lake Charles, Louisiana. In
addition, at least five broadcasters went off the air in the affected
area as a result of the hurricane's wind and flooding damage.
As a result of the communications breakdown, it was extremely
difficult for hundreds of thousands of people to receive news and
emergency information and to communicate with their loved ones.
Emergency workers and public safety officials had difficulty
coordinating. It was at times like these that we were reminded of the
importance of being able to communicate. While no communications
network could be expected to remain fully operational in the face of a
direct hit from a category four or five hurricane, that fact was little
consolation to the people on the ground.
Fortunately, the work to restore communications services began
almost immediately. While considerable problems remain, the companies
in the region have made meaningful progress. They have overcome
significant obstacles--including flooding, lack of power, dwindling
fuel resources for generators, and security--to rebuild, reconnect and
broadcast. After Hurricane Katrina, three radio stations in New Orleans
continued to operate throughout the storm, and a fourth resumed
operations within several hours of losing power. Wireline carriers were
able to begin restoring service within five days, with significant
improvement accomplished within a week, and wireless carriers began to
restore service within two days, with substantial improvement by the
first weekend. These extraordinary efforts were performed by employees,
many of whom had suffered their own personal losses, yet still
continued to work to restore services to all.
COMMISSION ACTIONS
The Commission has devoted significant time and resources to enable
first responders to communicate and to facilitate companies' ability to
quickly restore services in the region. On August 30th, Chairman Martin
established an internal Task Force consisting of senior executives and
management from within the Commission. Chairman Martin directed the
Task Force to coordinate the FCC's hurricane response efforts, which
fall into two categories: (1) regulatory relief; and (2) industry
outreach and coordination with other federal agencies. The Task Force
has been working on these assignments continuously since August 30th.
To date, nearly 200 FCC employees have assisted in this effort.
Regulatory Relief
The Commission has taken a number of steps to facilitate the
resumption of communications services in the affected areas and to
authorize the use of temporary communications services for use by
disaster relief personnel and evacuees in shelters.
At the start of the disaster, the Commission notified
communications providers that it would provide streamlined treatment
for requests for special temporary authority (STA) in order to aid them
in resuming and maintaining operations in areas impacted by Hurricane
Katrina. The FCC has granted more than 90 STA requests and more than
100 temporary frequency authorizations for emergency workers,
organizations and companies to provide wireless and broadcast service
in the affected areas and shelters around the country. The Commission
has granted each of these requests within 4 hours of receipt of all
necessary information from the requestor, except in instances requiring
coordination with other government agencies. Even in those cases,
requests have been granted within 24 hours. In addition, the Commission
has released several public notices and quickly adopted orders to
provide temporary relief.
Industry Outreach and Coordination with Other Federal Agencies
The Commission has been working closely with industry as well as
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National
Communications System (NCS) pursuant to the procedures established in
the National Response Plan. The Commission is continuously reaching out
to communications companies serving the affected area--wireline and
wireless network providers, broadcasters, cable providers, satellite
providers--and to trade associations for these providers to assess the
companies' status and determine what they need to resume operations.
These efforts include Commission staff contacting each of the broadcast
stations in the affected region.
The FCC provides the critical information about resources that
communications providers need to restore and maintain service in the
affected area to FEMA and NCS, who are responsible for ensuring that
priority needs are met. For instance, the Commission identified
wireline central offices and radio and television broadcasters that
could be operational if provided fuel to power on-site generators. The
agency updates FEMA and NCS daily on evolving needs.
The Commission also is responsible for providing the National
Coordinating Center (NCC) with information on communications companies'
operational status for incorporation into the government--wide
situation reports. Again, the agency gathers and submits this data
daily.
In addition, the FCC has worked closely with the communications
industry to help identify resources for use by disaster response
personnel. The agency both transmits this information to NCC and
facilitates industry's communication with other federal officials. For
example, Commission staff coordinated discussions between FEMA and a
major Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) provider to set up free
televisions at disaster relief facilities and to provide a nationwide
channel for disaster emergency services programming. Staff also worked
with a wide range of providers--including those offering competitive
facilities-based telecommunications, satellite, wireless, wireless
internet access and Wi-Fi services--to identify those providers capable
of offering facilities and services that can assist those in the
affected area.
Finally, the Commission has been coordinating with the Interagency
Coordinating Council on Individuals with Disabilities, organized by the
Department of Homeland Security, to ensure that the needs of the
disability community are addressed in the coordinated federal relief
efforts.
INTEROPERABILITY
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Commission has
devoted significant time and resources to enable first responders to
communicate and to help facilitate companies' ability to quickly
restore communications services in the region. For example, the
Commission granted special temporary authorities (STAs) to allow first
responders to use ``through-the-wall'' imaging equipment to locate
hurricane victims and to emergency response organizations to facilitate
communications on the ground.
These recent disasters are also prompting the Commission to
reassess the steps that have been taken to address interoperability in
recent years. These steps have consisted mainly of efforts (1) to
provide additional spectrum to public safety entities; (2) to promote
technological developments that enhance interoperability; and (3) to
provide technical expertise and input on a number of interagency
efforts.
The Commission has designated approximately 97 MHz of spectrum from
ten different bands for public safety use throughout the country.
Public safety entities also actively use spectrum-based services in
other spectrum bands. In addition, the Commission has designated
certain channels in these public safety bands specifically for
interoperability. By ``interoperability,'' we generally mean radio
communications between public safety agencies (usually of different
jurisdictions) in furtherance of both day-to-day and emergency
operations. Frequencies designated for interoperability include 2.6 MHz
of the 700 MHz band, 5 channels in the 800 MHz band, 5 channels in the
150 MHz band (VHF band), and 4 channels in the 450 MHz band (UHF band).
A public safety entity may use these designated frequencies only if it
uses equipment that permits intersystem interoperability. In response
to requests from public safety entities, the Commission designated 50
MHz of spectrum at 4.9 GHz for public safety users. The 4.9 GHz band
rules also foster interoperability by providing a regulatory framework
where traditional public safety entities can pursue strategic
partnerships with others, including critical infrastructure entities,
as necessary for the completion of their mission. And, last year the
Commission released its decision regarding public safety interference
in the 800 MHz band, which will not only promote effective and robust
public safety communications but ultimately, will make additional
spectrum available for public safety use.
Other steps the Commission has taken to facilitate
interoperability include:
To facilitate interoperability on a regional basis,
the Commission reallocated television spectrum in the New York
City area for public safety use to promote interoperability
among area public safety entities.
The Commission has developed policies and rules to
promote the sharing of spectrum. For example, the Commission's
rules permit the shared use of radio stations where licensees
may share their facilities on a non-profit, cost-shared basis
with other public safety organizations, including Federal
government entities, as end users.
The Commission modified its rules to eliminate
regulatory barriers to help speed introduction of software
defined radio (SDR) technology. Radios traditionally have been
built with unalterable hardware components that perform
specific functions. SDR technology allows radios to cover
multiple frequency bands and signal formats by simply sending
different software instructions to a microprocessor instead of
using additional (frequently bulky and heavy) parts. Although
this technology is not currently available for public safety
use, we are aware that public safety entities and industry are
actively exploring these applications.
Chairman Martin has announced his intention to establish an
independent expert panel to review the impact of Hurricane Katrina on
the communications infrastructure. The panel will be composed of public
safety and communications industry representatives and will make
recommendations to the Commission regarding ways to improve disaster
preparedness, network reliability and communications among first
responders such as police, fire fighters and emergency medical
personnel.
CONCLUSION
The damage wrought by the recent hurricanes is tremendous and its
effects will be felt for months and possibly years to come. The
Commission is continuing to work with other Federal agencies and the
communications industry to determine what additional actions can be
taken to assist in the disaster relief and restoration effort. The
Commission also will continue its important work in reaching out, and
responding to, consumers affected by this tragedy.
The Commission stands ready to work with Congress, our colleagues
at federal, state, and local agencies, and the American public to do
whatever we can to help with the disaster relief and restoration
efforts. I would be pleased to respond to your questions.
Mr. Reichert. The Chair now recognizes Doctor Linton Wells,
II, Acting Assistant Secretary of Networks and Information
Integration, Chief Information Officer of the United States
Department of Defense.
STATEMENT OF LINTON WELLS, II
Mr. Wells. Chairman Reichert, thank you very much, Ranking
Member Pascrell, and members of the committee.
The lessons learned, if you will, from the Federal, State,
and local responses to Katrina parallel the lessons that DOD
has learned in the series of humanitarian assistance, disaster
relief operations around the globe, and also the stabilization
and reconstruction operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. All of
these have involved complex situations involving large
populations without basic access to services, including
communications and often power.
I will focus on four lessons out of these. The first is
communications command and control and the sensors to provide
situational awareness are not techie adjuncts, if you will, to
major muscle movements like the delivery of food, water, and
shelter, but in fact the critical enablers of everything else
that will happen. We need to be able to move these equipments
contemporaneously with the rescue efforts and actually before
the restoration of things like water, power, and shelter. In
addition, power needs to be included. Self-powered units for
erectable towers and equipment need to be included in these
first deployments.
The second point is that our military has to be able to
reach out beyond the boundaries of the traditional military
networks in order to communicate, collaborate, in some cases
translate and engage with nontraditional partners such as State
and local first responders, the commercial partners, and
overseas people like nongovernmental organizations. This is
important because so much of the information as well as the
recipients of the services reside outside these government
boundaries. In this area commercial technology is very
important. And it has been true for both domestic and for
international situations.
The third piece that is important is the social networks we
have to have in order to make this work, the personal and
professional relationships to interact in really three
different spheres: We have the military-to-military command and
control sphere; we have got the military to the State and local
first responders, and we have got the military to the
commercial partners. All of these are quite different
environments.
Working with police and firemen has been very important.
DOD has been trying to learn from the way they handle incident
responses, and in this we greatly appreciate the Chairman and
Ranking Member's work with the police and fire over the years.
I would also say for the Department of Defense in the last
year, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has introduced
a new topic, a doctrinal topic called integrated operations. We
have long been working towards joint operations among services
and combined operations among the militaries of several
nations. This year the Chairman introduced the importance of
working in integrated operations with nontraditional partners
such as State and local first responders, with indigenous
security services overseas, with nongovernmental organizations,
et cetera.
The fourth lesson then is that information sharing is
absolutely critical. Communications is one piece but the goal
ultimately is to share information. The Defense Department and
the Intelligence Community have a common set of data standards
that has stood us in very good stead in terms of sharing
information in, say, counterterrorist domains. It would be a
great help if the rest of the government were able to adopt
these sorts of standards to allow for the sharing of
information not just in counterterrorist situations but also in
the source of situations we saw in Katrina and Rita.
So I look forward to your questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you for the opportunity to be here today.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Doctor Wells.
[The statement of Mr. Wells follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Linton Wells, II
Chairman Reichert, Ranking Member Pascrell, distinguished members
of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the
subject of ensuring operability during catastrophic events. As the
acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information
Integration (NII)/Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Department of
Defense, I am responsible for enabling the warfighting, business and
intelligence processes of an enterprise by ensuring agility,
situational awareness, and effective corporate decision-making through
the use of information and communications technology (ICT).
Warfare in the 21st Century, the core business process of the
Defense Department, must be net-centric, meaning so well connected that
well-trained professionals can self-synchronize their behavior with
many others across vast distances, with devastating effect. Victory is
dependent on discovering the enemy, accessing data, making decisions,
and executing operations more rapidly and effectively than your
adversary. Let me begin by saying that the communications and command
and control (C2) lessons we are learning from the Federal, state,
local, and commercial responses to Hurricane Katrina appear consistent
with the lessons DoD has learned in the conduct of Humanitarian
Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) missions across the globe.
Moreover, these lessons appear consistent with those lessons learned
during stabilization and reconstruction operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. All of these situations involve high-levels of complexity, large
populations, and the destruction of basic information and
communications infrastructure. There is also a commonality of purpose
that must be organized, coordinated, deconflicted, and executed as
efficiently and effectively as possible, using multiple sources of
support--some of them totally unfamiliar with one another.
Communications--particularly wireless communications--are the
critical enabler of all other functions in any disaster relief
operation, along with the sensors to let you know what's happening and
share the information and the ability to command and control those
functions and information. These are all mission-critical functions.
Hurricane Katrina was no exception. Without effective communications,
every operation will suffer debilitating inefficiencies, some leading
to ineffectiveness. My experience indicates that the first priority in
both international and domestic situations is the establishment or
restoration of wireless communications. Establishing or reestablishing
communications has become a first-order requirement that must occur
contemporaneously with rescue operations. Communication and
information, when used appropriately, synergize the rescue response. It
is imperative to take advantage of everyday technology to rapidly
coordinate the rescue of our citizens across the entire spectrum of the
crisis until its conclusion.
By now, the members of this Subcommittee recognize that the
Department of Defense and civilian responders from across the spectrum
of Federal, state, and local authorities have matured into the post-
September 11 world with different lexicons. The mission of fighting and
winning this nation's wars is very different from responding to
catastrophes spread across vast distances, regardless of their cause.
Different lexicons are to be expected. America has a long tradition of
carefully separating military and civilian functions, especially in our
homeland. My experience, however, tells me that when Mr. Canterbury of
the Fraternal Order of Police testified before this Subcommittee on
September 29, his reference to command and control is the same concept
that General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refers to
using the same words. The ability to lead a complex organized operation
requires situational awareness and the ability to communicate with
everyone participating in that operation. The planning process
establishes the social networks and procedures that give people the
agility to adapt and overcome the unanticipated.
CATEGORIZING CHANGE
From my experiences since September 11, I have come to use a three-
part construct to describe the actions necessary to ensure operability
in catastrophic events internationally and domestically. These
categories include: 1) technical capacity development; 2) ``social
network'' development through planning, interaction, and collaboration;
and 3) doctrinal changes and training.
TECHNICAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
During the past 10 years, the U.S. military has honed its C2 skills
in multiple deployments involving a mixture of war-fighting, civil
affairs, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and stabilization and
reconstruction operations. The 1990's saw such deployments in Haiti and
the Balkans, and they have only accelerated since the 9-11 attacks,
with deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. More recently, U.S. forces
have been instrumental in providing key elements of the initial
humanitarian responses to global disasters, including the tsunami in
Southeast Asia, the recent earthquake in Pakistan and the subject of
today's hearing, Hurricane Katrina. All of these deployments have
highlighted the increased need in the Department to communicate,
collaborate, translate, and cooperate outside the closed networks
required for military operations. Unlike the military, which always
travels with its own power and infrastructure, civilian responders
encountered command and control issues at the operational and tactical
levels due to the devastation of the civilian-response infrastructure.
Technology designed to operate without stable power sources in the
austere environments of developing countries, is available today.
Working with industry, these innovations can help to increase the
survivability of tactical civil responder systems.
As stated earlier, when forces assigned to U.S. Northern Command
and National Guard units deployed with military communications, they
were once again ill-equipped to communicate with civilian responders
struggling with a lack of communications infrastructure. Therefore, the
Federal government must expand its capability to rapidly deploy
commercial-off-the-shelf networks making use of satellite links,
wireless local area networks (LANs), laptop computers and ``plug-and-
play'' equipment to bridge the gap created by a devastated civil
infrastructure.
The lack of interoperability of first responders' communication
equipment also hindered the effectiveness of operations. This problem
won't be resolved by everyone buying the same product. It will likely
be solved through collaborative efforts involving spectrum allocation
and agreement both within industry and in the first responder community
on common data standards. In the near term, we must continue to
encourage the development and purchase of technology that bridges these
disparate systems.
In the area of technical standards, one of the critical waveforms
that DoD and DHS have agreed upon as essential to become interoperable
under DHS's SAFECOM Program has been the Association of Public Safety
Communications Officials (APCO) Project 25 (APCO-25) standard. The
primary objectives of APCO Project 25 are to: (1) enhance functionality
of equipment and capabilities focused on public safety needs, (2)
ensure competition among multiple vendors through an open systems
architecture approach and (3) achieve effective, efficient and reliable
intra-agency and inter-agency communications. Our two agencies have
mutually agreed that this is the best approach at this point in time.
Although DoD is making efforts to adopt and implement APCO-25, SAFECOM
has had success in influencing the public first responder community to
implement this standard.
From a DoD perspective, we believe the APCO-25 implementation is an
important step to solve some of the current interoperability problems
in the first responder community. As an example, DoD is complying with
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
narrowbanding mandate by implementing APCO-25 in DoD Land Mobile Radios
(LMR). In addition, DoD is examining the development of an APCO-25
waveform that will work in the Joint Tactical Radio System so when our
military deploys to support homeland security missions, no matter what
they are, we will have an immediate communications capability with
First Responders.
SOCIAL NETWORK DEVELOPMENT
Much of the work that needs to be done at the strategic level in
the wake of what we have learned revolves around social networks rather
than any lack of technology. Hurricane Katrina showed us that a key
source of the problem stemmed from a lack of familiarity with each
other's operating practices--what DoD calls tactics, techniques, and
procedures. What was lacking was familiarity with the National Response
Plan, a shared understanding of how NORTHCOM was to support that plan,
and experience gained through exercises between US military and
Federal, state, and local responders. A nationally focused effort to
generate a truly collaborative information environment is feasible
through coordinating the resolution of legal, policy and technical
issues across all agencies and all levels of government. Ideally, there
would be full interoperability among systems for command and control,
communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (known together as ``C4ISR''). In addition, there needs
to be broader, more fully articulated planning for multiple kinds of
disaster events, ranging from natural disasters such as Hurricane
Katrina up through a nuclear strike. Command and control, which is a
social process augmented by communications and information, must extend
to all appropriate locations, from a local sheriff's car to the White
House. Moreover, we must exercise and train in a common environment to
be better prepared to respond to such crises in the future.
Multiple efforts have addressed, or are addressing, segments of the
need for a national response capability. These include:
National Security Telecommunications and Information
Systems--Developing plans and programs, including the development of
architectures, to ensure security on National Security Systems;
Continuity Communications Enterprise Architecture--
Architecture to enable the Federal Executive Branch to execute mission-
essential functions under all circumstances;
Intelligence Community Architecture--Architecture to
enable the intelligence community to share information;
We must vigorously support collaborative planning and
interoperability at all levels of government, ensuring that decision-
makers have unencumbered access to the best available information and
enabling interoperable command and control operations. The Federal
government must have command and control capabilities, supporting
facilities, and infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted connectivity and
coordination in support of essential functions in accordance with
constitutional authorities. Our goal should be to provide assured
services across government by:
Making information available on a network that is
dependable and trusted,
Providing the available and appropriate bandwidth,
frequency and computing capabilities within the spectrum management
process,
Assuring appropriate and effective collaboration
capabilities and other performance support tools,
Supporting secure and assured information sharing, without
disadvantaging the responder lacking a security clearance,
Continuously refreshing the information content of a
shared situational awareness capability,
Promoting infrastructure transparency (to the user),
Assuring independence of information and data for
consumers and producers,
Considering that all users of information are also
suppliers (and therefore encouraging parties to contribute data rather
than just downloading it),
Supporting information transactions that are asynchronous
in time and place,
Supporting the disadvantaged user with intermittent access
to limited data services, and
Applying federal data tagging standards and information
assurance policies.
I have learned a great deal about ``social networks'' in the
international context in the past three years. It is critical to
develop purposely professional and personal links among experts and
practitioners from multiple fields and sectors in humanitarian relief,
disaster relief, and stabilization and reconstruction operations. These
ties, built up over time and through enormous effort, are absolutely
vital to organizing an effective response when catastrophic disasters
occur. Unless working arrangements to communicate and share information
among all of these types of entities can be formulated, the success of
any operation can be compromised, with results that can prolong or even
exacerbate the effects of the disaster. Extensive planning and training
is essential before the crisis.
DOCTRINAL CHANGES AND TRAINING
In the area of doctrinal change in the international context, DoD
is embracing the concept of ``integrated operations.'' This reflects a
new battlespace management concept that will transform our military
competencies from joint operations to operations that are fully
integrated and coordinated with those of the military's partners in an
operation. In the case of humanitarian assistance activities, these
partners may include other U.S. agencies, allied militaries and
governments, nongovernmental organizations, local populations, and
private industry. And to maximize our effectiveness, DoD will integrate
from planning to execution and then on to the transition to a restored
local authority. Employing a coherent strategy that uses all
instruments of the state in concert will ensure success in relief
operations over the long term.
This doctrine also better prepares DoD to fulfill domestic response
missions, bringing together civilian responders and military planners
to synergize their efforts. Within the United States, DoD has conducted
many scenario-driven exercises designed to prepare the military to
support humanitarian assistance across a broad range of natural
disasters--and also with regard to protecting potential terrorist
target sites. Exercises and training opportunities between the U.S.
military and civilian responders are critical to achieving this level
of integration.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the Subcommittee.
Mr. Reichert. The Chair will recognize the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. McCaul. He is apparently a busy man. He has two
other appointments he needs to be at, so we are going to allow
him the courtesy to ask the first questions.
Mr. McCaul. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
We also after the events of Katrina and to some extent
Rita, we weren't interoperable, we weren't operable. All the
communication went down. And when that happens, when Rita
occurred--I am from Texas--they actually gave me a satellite
phone. I had never used one of those before. But when all the
communications go down, we really have to rely on satellite
technology and satellite communications.
My question to the panel as a whole, but more directed at
Doctor Fonash and Boyd with the Department of Homeland
Security, does your NCS--or does DHS in a broader scale have a
program to preposition this satellite capacity and equipment in
the regions of the Nation where we do have these critical
threats either from terrorist attacks or from Mother Nature so
that we can respond better to the needs of the first responders
in a more efficient manner?
Dr. Boyd. The Office of State and Local Government
Coordination Preparedness and a number of others are working to
try to identify what needs to be placed in the field. I don't
work directly with the program that would place those phones in
the field but I am sure we can get answers for you on exactly
what the status of that is.
Mr. McCaul. Obviously the problem is if it is a terrorist
attack, or in this case a hurricane, and all the communications
go down, it greatly impairs our ability to respond. So that is
why the satellites and that technology and prepositioning those
assets is so important.
Doctor Fonash.
Mr. Fonash. Sir, what I would like to say is, first of all,
that we do have satellite vans. The industry has satellite vans
and DOD has satellite vans and what they do is they don't
deploy them in the vicinity because they are concerned about
damage; what we do is we deploy them outside the area of
potential impact. As soon as the disruption is over with, we
bring those vans in and we restore communications at that point
in time.
FEMA has MERS vans, if you are familiar with MERS vans. We
arrange the mission assignments through FEMA, through the
National Response Plan. We arrange for vans to come in from the
commercial carriers, AT&T and MCI to establish satellite
communications. Actually satellite dishes provide much more
than handheld satellites but also give you full telephone
capabilities and things like that.
One of the things that we are looking at that we did for
Hurricane Wilma as a lessons-learned from Rita and Katrina was
that we actually pre-identified satellite capabilities with the
companies. We went to Global Star, one of the biggest providers
of satellite phones, and identified how many phones they had.
We also worked with the State and local emergency operations
centers, and one of the recommendations we made to them is that
they should have some satellite phones on hand.
But also a caveat, again, and I think Doctor Boyd mentioned
this before, satellite phones are limited. The battery life is
limited. You cannot get satellite capability in an urban
environment because the antennas will not work. Again, you have
to look at it as a set of tools that you can have. Satellite
phones are just one of the tools you have to look at using.
Dr. Boyd. If I could add one key point that you also have
to consider. The satellite phones and satellite capabilities
provide critical elements of the communications piece for the
command level. Getting to the individual rescue officer, the
guy who needs to be coordinated by the local chief of police or
the fire chief, Twin Towers is probably an ideal example of
that, where there were literally tens of thousands of State and
local officials, officers who are directly involved in the
operation, satellite phones tend not to be practical for them.
So there are two levels of communications that you need to
address: that command-and-control level where satellites become
a crucial piece, and then that level that goes out to the
individual officer in the field where satellite phones are
generally not as practical, partly because they are hard to use
and partly because bandwidth to support that number of
responders is not always available.
Mr. McCaul. If I understand the satellite capabilities,
they are better at the command and control level.
Dr. Boyd. I think to connect commanders to commanders. It
is crucial at the national level to allow that common operating
picture to be transmitted up the line so that at the national
command level they can make decisions across the larger command
levels. But there is that other level that you don't want to
leave out, which is the guy who is going into the attic and
saving the drowning victim, and that level of communications is
not terribly well supported by satellites.
Mr. McCaul. One follow-up. Are you coordinating with the
Department of Defense and the FCC on these issues at all with
respect to--
Dr. Boyd. I think we are probably going to give the same
answer; yes, we deal with them in a variety of ways. In SAFECOM
interoperability we work very closely both with the National
Guard Bureau, with the Joint Tactical Radio Aystem, with the
J6. I am part of the senior advisory group that deals with the
J6. When they look at how communications that deal with local
domestic authorities, particularly in base defense kinds of
communications requirements, I am sure you will get the same
answer.
Mr. McCaul. Is that your understanding, Doctor Wells?
Dr. Wells. The Department of Homeland Security has come to
us on a number of occasions; for example, work on the homeland
security network, SAFECOM, a variety of interoperability
efforts. We have an assistant secretary for homeland defense
who works very closely with the interoperability office at DHS.
Mr. McCaul. Lastly, let us take Katrina, for instance. When
was this technology deployed? You mentioned the mobile units.
At what point in time was that deployed to Louisiana, for
instance?
Mr. Fonash. The initial deployment of those mobile units
occurred on September 1st.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Pascrell, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is
to Mr. Moran. You said in your testimony that, if I may quote
you, sir, these recent disasters are also prompting the
Commission, the FCC, to reassess the steps that have been taken
to address interoperability in recent years. These steps have
consisted mainly of the following efforts: Number one, to
provide additional spectrum to public safety entities; number
two, to promote technological developments that enhance
interoperability; and number three, to provide technical
expertise and input on a number of interagency efforts.
Mr. Moran, we have been discussing additional spectrum for
over a decade. Over a decade. It takes a hurricane, it takes a
disaster to bring us to our senses. I didn't detect any sense
of urgency in your presentation, and I wish that you could
correct me, sir.
Mr. Moran. Well, there definitely was a sense of urgency at
the Commission with regard to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and
Wilma. The Commission, as I said, over 200 people at the
Commission actually have worked on those matters. We have
people that we put onsite in the ESF2 process that Doctor
Fonash talked about earlier; we have people today in Louisiana,
we have people in Florida, and we had people in Texas when the
Rita situation was going on.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Moran, could you explain to our audience
and the panel what is spectrum?
Mr. Moran. What is spectrum?
Mr. Pascrell. Yeah.
Mr. Moran. The portion of electromagnetic--
Mr. Pascrell. In English.
Mr. Moran. It is the portion of the radio and--radio--it is
radio spectrum that variousSec. hat TV stations use to
broadcast TV, radio stations use to do radio and public safety
communications and cellular operators use to communicate.
Mr. Pascrell. Why is it so important in the discussion in
terms of communication for our first responders? What does
spectrum have to do with first responders which we have been
discussing for a decade?
Mr. Moran. Because the amount of spectrum you have
determines how much communications you have available.
Mr. Pascrell. Okay. So in other words, it is up to the FCC
to expand spectrum so that first responders have a greater
ability and opportunity to communicate in the first place. Is
that an exaggeration, what I just said?
Mr. Moran. I think that is correct.
Mr. Pascrell. Why haven't we done that? Why hasn't the FCC
stepped up to the place in this matter?
Mr. Moran. The Commission has stepped up to the plate.
Mr. Pascrell. How?
Mr. Moran. The Commission made more spectrum available.
Mr. Pascrell. After emergencies happen. After emergencies
happen. This is what your testimony says: that after the fact
you have--in fact, what you said was that we have allowed
consideration after the hurricane hits, in this example. What
we do is we short-circuit the bureaucracy and we extend those
stays so we can have exceptions. That is what you say in your
testimony.
Mr. Moran. We have done all those things.
Mr. Pascrell. What else have you done before the hurricane?
Mr. Moran. Prior to the hurricane the Commission made
available 24 megahertz of spectrum in theSec.
Mr. Pascrell. That is for the hurricane.
Mr. Moran. Prior to the hurricane.
Mr. Pascrell. Was that done 2 years ago, 3 years ago?
Mr. Moran. It is actually in a transition right now that is
in part related to the spectrum will be fully usable with the
digital TV transition.
Mr. Pascrell. One final question along those lines, Mr.
Moran. What has been done by the FCC in the last 5 years, 6
years, 7 years, to expand spectrum for first responders, when
we know that is the most critical question facing us in
communications? You tell us.
Mr. Moran. We made the 24 megahertz available in the 700
megahertz range and we have made I think 50 megahertz available
I believe in the--it is much higher, I think it is in the 3.5
gigahertz range for more data. So we made a lot of spectrum
available for the public safety community. We have done that in
the last several years.
Mr. Pascrell. It is a good thing Congressman Curt Weldon
isn't here. It is a good thing. I am mild compared to that. But
it is interesting, your responses about trying to make us
believe--me believe that this has been a priority on the FCC
list. Long before 9/11 FCC dropped the ball, was not paying
attention to our first responders, and maybe you are listening
with one ear now. I don't know.
Can I have one more question, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Reichert. Yes, sir.
Mr. Pascrell. To Mr. Fonash.
You stated in your presentation that you provided frequency
coordination with the Department of Energy, FCC, the military
affiliate radio programs. I believe that was you.
Mr. Fonash. No, sir, I did not.
Mr. Pascrell. You said on page number 4.
Mr. Fonash. You're talking about my written testimony?
Mr. Pascrell. That is exactly what I am talking about. On
page number 4 you said that some of the accomplishments of the
SHARES program we are referring to include--and I am referring
to the fourth one down--provided frequency coordination with
the Department of Energy, FCC, military affiliate radio system,
the U.S. Navy, FEMA, civil air patrol, amateur radio, et
cetera, et cetera. You said that, right?
Mr. Fonash. Yes, sir, I did; in my written testimony.
Mr. Pascrell. Now I want to ask you this question. I want
to know what are the specific problems you encountered.
Mr. Fonash. Sir, what that is referring to is SHARES, which
is an HF radio network that enables people to communicate. What
you have to do is agree on certain frequencies that people will
communicate on. And what that is referring to is what we did to
coordinate with all these different agencies the frequency they
would use on the HF.
Mr. Pascrell. My question is what problems did you
encounter in acting out that coordination?
Mr. Fonash. Sir, the only problems was making contact. We
published a common frequency that everybody would have. Once we
published the common frequency, everybody would sign onto that
common frequency. After that, we would get agreement by working
with the different organizations on what were the frequency
assignments for use of the HF radio during Katrina.
Mr. Pascrell. This is what you consider to be coordination
of all of these entities dealing with communication?
Mr. Fonash. Yes, in reagards to dealing with the HF radio
and the SHARES network.
Mr. Pascrell. I have no further questions.
Mr. Reichert. The Chair will recognize himself for about 5
minutes or so.
I want to just mention there has been some progress made
and I think most members of the audience and the panel may also
be aware, some of the members here of the committee, this
afternoon at 3 p.m., the Energy and Commerce Committee will
mark the Digital Television Transition Act of 2005. This bill
will set a firm deadline for the transition of television
technology from analog to digital, which will free up some
spectrum space for first responders.
So there is some progress being made, but I have the same
passion that Mr. Pascrell and others on this committee have and
I agree with Mr. Pascrell, too. It is fortunate that Mr. Weldon
isn't here because he does get very, very passionate, as some
of you may have been present for some of his questioning.
I want to go back to 1972. That may seem a little bit odd,
but I started as a police officer on the street back in 1972.
So when you talk about we have been discussing interoperability
or operability for the last 10 years, it is not exactly true;
it has been highlighted for the last 10 years, but it has been
a problem for 30, 35, and 40 years.
I am just going to relay, I think pictures or stories draw
a very clear picture of the problem because it is still
happening today. In the mid-seventies I responded to a call as
a deputy on the street in South King County. It was a young boy
with a gun who had shot up the neighborhood. And when I
arrived, he took aim at me and fired a shot.
He disappeared into the neighborhood and I took up a
perimeter along with other police officers and I had a portable
radio with me. A neighbor ran across the street from the
opposite side of the road and said, hey, my neighbor just
called me on the telephone. First line of communication. Hard-
line telephone to the neighbor across the street. The man with
the gun is behind my home, laying on his belly with the gun
cradled in his arm, and he's ready to shoot some police
officers who are walking his way with a K-9 unit who are in
search of him.
I tried to get on my portable radio to let my supervisors
know that I knew where the man with the gun was but I couldn't
get through. It would not work. So I knew I had to take action,
so I ran across the street and slid alongside the house and I
saw the young boy with the gun laying in a prone position,
aiming at the police officers that were approaching. I still
couldn't get on the radio. No communication after all. Back
then we had one frequency for the entire county in King County.
It was not operable.
I had to run across the yard, threw the radio to the ground
and wrestled the rifle away from the young man. Fortunately he
was not hurt, the officers were not shot, and neither was I.
But it is an example of a problem that is still happening today
and we have to take--when you talk about immediate action, we
can talk about Department of Homeland Security, we can talk
about all the acronyms that you have used to describe the
different systems, but what we are talking about, as Mr.
Pascrell said, is life and death.
So my first question is we do have to have this spectrum,
we have to have additional wavelengths to work from. What do
you see--and anyone on the panel, please answer--what do you
see as the biggest vulnerability, the biggest challenge, the
biggest hurdle that we need to overcome in making this work for
our first responders whose lives are put on the line each and
every day?
Dr. Boyd. Interestingly, I think the first problem is not a
technical one, and let me make clear that we think release of
the 24 megahertz is essential. They need that spectrum
desperately. This will more than double what they have. Even
once we get that, what is going to be required above all else
is a willingness among public safety organizations to build
cooperative agreements, build cooperative governments so they
can put the agreements in place.
What we have discovered is that when we can work with
communities together to bring together all of the players, and
once we can get agreement on that, a lot of the basic
technologies that will allow communications at least that
command level--not the ideal interoperability we would like to
get to--but that command level that is required to be able to
pass the kind of message you talked about in your scenario is
available now.
What we have to do, however, is to have the kind of
leadership and commitment that will allow that to happen, and
that is why most of what SAFECOM has been involved in is
working directly with the public safety community to develop
the kinds of tools that communities, collections of communities
can use to put together that kind of governance and that kind
of agreement.
Mr. Moran. Yes, sir. I agree with what Doctor Boyd said
there. More spectrum has been made available, more will be
freed up when the DTV transition completes, and the Commission
is looking now to see if additional spectrum is needed. And I
believe we owe a report to the Congress in December in which we
will make some recommendations in that regard. But I will say
the Chairman has said to the Congress before that if additional
spectrum is needed for public safety, the Commission--he will
do what he can to have the Commission make it available.
Mr. Reichert. Again, to point out, this is really a very
urgent issue. Now we are talking about December, then January.
I still go back to 1972.
Mr. Moran. Absolutely. And I think it has been alluded to a
little bit and I think Doctor Boyd mentioned it perhaps in his
oral statement, but I think you said something like, I forget,
how many thousands of--all of these public safety
communications systems are owned and operated by State and
local jurisdictions and it will be very expensive to get them
into the 21st century to do a number of things, including
interoperability. So a lot of these are aging systems and it is
not going to be cheap. And there has to be leadership and there
has to be commitment to get to where we need to get to and
spectrum is part of it, and the Commission is committed to make
sure that that works, but there is a lot more and a lot of
investment that will have to be made.
Mr. Reichert. In 1997 when I was first appointed sheriff in
Seattle, we moved--began to move to 800 megahertz, and in that
process it was a mess. It still is a problem today in trying to
communicate across that county of 2,200 square miles. And some
of the competing interests, we know, as we drive by cell towers
and we all of a sudden lose total communication on an 800
megahertz system, brand-new system that just falls apart when
you drive by a cell tower. What are the competing interests
that is prohibiting the advancement of our progress in this
area to help first responders?
Mr. Moran. Along with what you just mentioned about
interference issues, the Commission--we do have--we are working
on a plan to eliminate some of the interference problems I
believe in the 800 megahertz area, so we are working that. We
know that there had been issues. The Commission in the last
year and a half, I think, has worked out a system that will
over the next couple of years resolve a lot of those issues,
but I still submit the big thing that is out there is it is
going to be very expensive, and these things are owned and
operated by State and local governments and it is going to be
hard to do it. Even when spectrum is available, even when the
systems are available, even when we know how to do the
operating systems and we have the standards, it is going to be
expensive.
Mr. Reichert. Okay. Thank you. Chair recognizes the other
gentleman from Washington.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations on
your new assignment as subcommittee chairman.
In looking at what happened down with the military, another
lesson Pentagon planners will be studying after Katrina
communications problems severely hampered the military's
ability to talk to first responders. In some cases the military
was reduced to using runners to physically carry messages
between units and first responders. Part of the problem was
that the storm destroyed some of the first responders' radio
equipment, another factor was desertion in the New Orleans
Police Department, which meant some people who were needed to
operate radio equipment were gone, still other problems was
many radios simply could not talk to each other.
Now, I don't know if the Chairman knows about this, but we
have a company out in Seattle called--we have a number of
companies in Seattle, by the way, but this one is called CoCo
Communications, that has developed a system that enables people
using different kinds of communications systems to share voice
and data signals with each other. It does this by capturing the
signals from each system, performing necessary translation
through software routines, and then transmitting the signals on
the appropriate channel. They refer to their technology as
cryptographic mesh protocol.
Doctor Boyd, you should know about this because you have
awarded a grant I think through your--to Love Field in Dallas
to use this. There was a story in the Washington Post about a
Prince William school district awarded a contract to CoCo.
There's one at Franklin High School in Seattle. The Washington
Port article said this: William County School System will be
the first in the country to deploy at several schools a new
technology that will offer administrators, teachers, police and
rescue authorities a better way to communicate during
emergencies, officials announced yesterday. The technology
developed by a Seattle-based CoCo Communications Corp and
funded with a $246,000 grant from U.S. Department of Justice
will enable school and public safety workers to share
information, even if one person is using a cell phone and
another a radio.
In the next several weeks, two Prince William Schools, a
middle and elementary school, will be equipped with a software
program that seamlessly links different devices on a single
network. Only one other school in the country in Seattle is
using the technology, according to Mike Berman, a CoCo
spokesman. The technology has implications for the whole
Nations' security, Lucy S. Beauchamp, the Prince William school
board chairman, said at a news conference yesterday. She
pointed to the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Washington
area sniper shootings, and hurricane Katrina as crises during
which this kind of communications made possible by the CoCo
software would have increased public safety. With this
software, teachers trapped in a school with their students
would use their cell phones or handheld computers to talk with
police officers outside with walkie talkies. Officials would
also be able to download images from the school or school bus
video surveillance cameras onto their own devices, and instead
of having to wait for police to call during a terrorism threat,
school officials would be able to get urgent news to teachers
who might be locked inside schools--inside classrooms with
students. Schools are isolated. They have their own radios and
telephones but they are not as integral part of our traditional
first responder community, said Peter Ericson, vice present of
CoCo. We're hoping to spread the technology to other schools
and build what it calls the National School Protection Network.
Now, would this kind of technology help, Doctor Boyd? Is
this the kind of thing we need to allow these disparate forms
of communication to interact through this software? Do you know
anything about this?
Dr. Boyd. Yes, I have met with CoCo Communications on a
number of occasions, and in fact it addresses an important
piece of the communications issue, because what it does is to
provide what in the parlance of the communities is sometimes
called an overlay, which allows the exchange of data across
disparate systems. What it does not do, and it is important to
understand these boundaries as well, it doesn't replace the
radio itself, and so the radio still has to be able to make
that RF communication with another radio. The answer is we
think this is a very powerful--
Mr. Dicks. Is this a problem with Motorola? Is this a
Motorola problem? I think we have heard about 80 percent of
these radios are Motorola, and they have been unwilling or
unable to fix these systems.
Dr. Boyd. Well, I can't speak for Motorola.
Mr. Dicks. You are the expert now.
Dr. Boyd. I understand, but I can't speak for Motorola.
Mr. Dicks. You can speak for the Federal Government.
Dr. Boyd. It is true, and I don't want to address this just
to Motorola, because I think we need to talk about the industry
at large and not just the RF pieces but communications pieces
as well, and that is that there is an inevitable tendency--and
we find this in the cellular industry as well and all those
manufacturers--to build proprietary components which make it
extraordinarily difficult, especially in an emergency, to tie
these things together. It also tends to tie you to a particular
manufacturer's equipment when you move forward.
So a major part of what we are trying to do is to create
open architecture, nonproprietary standards, so that we can--
when local public safety agencies come out with their requests
for proposals, require that they be nonproprietary. One of the
nice parts about the CoCo application is that it doesn't matter
what the underlying radio is. There are a couple of other
software applications we also think are promising in the same
way. It makes sure that the underlying equipment doesn't
matter. As long as you make the two radios talk together, you
can lay this on top and be able to communicate across
proprietary systems. But it is entirely true that there are
some issues that we are trying very hard to address to open up
some of the proprietary elements of the infrastructure and it
is entirely true that cause is part of our problem.
Mr. Dicks. Doctor Wells, we have been trying to get the
National Guard to look at this system. I have talked to General
Blum about this. Has the Defense Department looked at this
technology at all?
Dr. Wells. We have. But let me State for the record where
we are with the National Guard. I have looked at CoCo in
conjunction with Iraq, when we were looking at that. I need to
get up to speed with what is happening on CoCo. I would second
what Doctor Boyd said about the importance of open standards
and open architecture. We are trying to move away from
proprietary systems in DOD to get to maximum interoperability
and that is really important. I will get back to you on where
we stand on CoCo.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. The Chair will recognize the
gentlelady from New York, Mrs. Lowey.
Mrs. Lowey. I personally want to thank the Chairman for
your powerful presentation. And to all the panel I want to
thank you. However, we all understand the complexity of this.
We have been talking about it for years, you have been aware of
the challenge for much longer because of your own personal
experiences.
I want to make it clear to all of us the reason we keep
pressing is that this didn't appear overnight. Nine years ago,
the final report of the Federal Public Safety Wireless Advisory
Committee concluded, quote, unless immediate measures are taken
to promote interoperability, public safety agencies will not be
able to adequately discharge their obligation to protect life
and property in a safe, efficient, and cost-effective manner.
In 2004 a GAO study on project SAFECOM began by stating in
its 2-year history it has made very limited progress in
addressing its objective. Now the study is a year and a half
old--and we appreciate your presentation, Doctor Boyd--however,
we understand that the agency still has problems and a project
to establish a nationwide baseline for interoperability has
been undertaken by SAFECOM. However, the assessment was to have
been undertaken in 2004, it was delayed until 2005. It is now
promised for the summer of 2006. And in addition, the President
promised to cut overall funding for the Office of
Interoperability and Compatibility in the fiscal year 06 budget
request by 11.5 million, or 35 percent.
Now, given the fact that the President has proposed to
slash the budget of your office that is supposed to oversee
emergency communications systems, the poor performance of
existing programs, the fact that recent emergencies have
highlighted the major problems that still exist, I think we
have all good reason to question the commitment of the
administration to get serious about this.
In fact, Doctor Boyd, I understand that given your huge
responsibility, you have four people working in your office,
and we understand that this is a huge challenge, but I can't
help wonder how serious we are about this. Are we going to be
sitting here a couple years from now talking about how this is
a serious problem? In fact, in legislation I introduced, it
included a $5 billion over 5 years appropriation, because my
concern is--and you talk about problems with Motorola and how
important standards are--this goes back to our questions to
Secretary Ridge, to establish standards.
If the Federal Government has real dollars to give out,
then you could command that standards are going to be followed
and that you are providing the dollars so you have the
responsibility to demand results. You have laid out a very
important program, but I would still like to ask you why it is
taking so long. What can we do to move the process?
I am not going to get back to the spectrum issue because
that has been adequately discussed, but even if--we know from
the Baltimore experience, there have been articles on that--
even if you have a system that is being developed by a
particular community, if there are not Federal standards moved
in place quickly, if you are not providing the money and
requiring State and local governments to comply, I worry about
where we are going to be next year and the year after. Doctor
Boyd.
Dr. Boyd. Okay. Well, that is a lot of territory to cover
but let me try. In response to the first issue, I first got
involved in interoperability back in 1993, and the first
project I tried to undertake was in San Diego County where we
were able to put together a fairly primitive but effective
interoperability solution. Took about 30 days to put the
technology in place. It took 2 years to get all the players in
the county to agree they wanted to play as part of it. So we
have been working at this for some time, and understand that.
In 2003 when the Department of Homeland Security stood up,
a decision was made then, and I was asked if I would come from
Justice to Homeland Security to take over SAFECOM. At that
point the first thing that I felt that we needed to do was to
go back to those first responders and say what exactly is it
that SAFECOM needs to do to meet your needs? What is it you
have to have from us?
Out of that, we built a series of things, the first
statement of requirements, we built common grant guidance where
we in an interesting sort of way went to the folks who were
going to be the recipients of the grants and said what it is
you want us to require in these grants in order to make those
things happen because we understand, first off, that while at
the Federal level we often think we are providing humongous
amounts of money, in fact more than 97 percent of the money
that is spent in these communications systems is their money.
So our question was how do we fit this, how do we make this
work the way you want? In working with them we created common
grant guidance, which now for the first time at executive
direction is included in every grant program touching on
interoperability in the United States. We put it into place the
first time in 2003, we had to do some adapting because we were
following after the appropriation and had to fit what the law
said for the COPS program and FEMA and those providing those
grants.
For the first time, in 2001 SAFECOM was elevated as an
executive level--a Presidential Management Initiative. Before
then it had never been that. In fact, the way I funded
interoperability attempts before that was to try to scrape off
things from other programs where I could put that into place.
Congresswoman Jane Harman will be familiar with that because we
worked together in some of that in the Los Angeles arena as we
tried to do those things. It wasn't until this became a
Presidential Management Initiative that it began to arrive at
that level.
In the current President's budget, as I understand it, we
are budgeted for 28 for the office. We have been just like the
Department of Homeland Security, the rest of the Department. We
have been building a Department, a very large and complex
Department over some time. I will also tell you the public
safety community was in fact so happy with the way we have put
things together, that in April of 04 they issued a joint
statement which was signed by the chiefs of police, the fire
chiefs, the major city chiefs, the major county sheriffs,
League of Cities, Council of Mayors, Association of Public
Safety Communications Officers, the National Public Safety
Telecommunication Council, all of those expressing strong
support for the way the program was put together, and it
genuinely represented their interests. So that is what we have
been working to do.
One of the things we have also been addressing is that 24
megahertz of spectrum to be released, and one thing that I
think may be unclear that everybody needs to understand is one
of the reasons the 24 megahertz has not yet come available is
because legislation requires--the law requires that before the
24 megahertz can be released to public safety, at least 85
percent of each of the affected areas has to be capable of
receiving and using high definition television. The consequence
of that was a chicken-and-egg problem. You had broadcasters
uninterested in building high definition television
capabilities where nobody had high definition television
receivers, and nobody interested in buying high definition
television receivers because you didn't have the transmitters.
So it is also important to understand that there is a
legislative impediment in releasing the 24 megahertz.
Mr. Reichert. The Chair likes to thank the gentlelady.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much. I appreciate the amount of
time, and perhaps you can follow up because according to our
information, the committee gave you marginally more than the
President's request. So I think we still wonder, if this is a
top priority--and it certainly seemed to be with Katrina--why
there was a recommendation to cut the budget by 35 percent. So
I thank you very much for your skillful presentation. I look
forward to working with my colleagues on this.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Dent.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to clarify a
few points here and ask a few questions. It is my understanding
that between the State homeland security grant program, UASI,
EDPP, for 2004 there have been $2 billion available, a third of
which have been drawn down for interoperability, not to mention
the fact there are probably literally billions of dollars stuck
in a pipeline, dollars that for whatever reasons have not been
drawn down by the States that can be used for interoperability.
And I also want to point out for the record too, there are
certainly Department of Justice funds, COPS program, that is
available for interoperability. That is an important issue and
I support funding for it. There is a lot of money stuck in the
pipeline that needs to be drawn down and a lot of reasons it
hasn't been, but I want to put that out there for the record.
Question to Doctor Boyd, actually. How do you see the role
of the World Wide Web in development of emergency
communications systems and a dissemination of information by
the government to the public during times of disaster, man-made
or otherwise?
Dr. Boyd. Two pieces to that. One is obviously the Web
provides some really useful capabilities because it tends to be
very robust and it is a thoroughly redundant system. As you
begin to lose pieces of it, it still works. So the Internet
provides some real opportunities. What we have to make sure we
do, though, is as we capitalize on and plan on and make use of
the Internet is that when you have a major catastrophic
failure, you also tend to use the public switch telephone
network, for example, on which most of the Internet rides,
essential as a backbone piece. So if you have access to the
Internet, it offers powerful, powerful capabilities. The IP
protocol, which some people sometimes confuse with the
Internet, is the same kind of protocol that is used on the
Internet but is in fact a protocol which offers some powerful
capabilities in the wireless world independent of the Internet
because it provides real possibilities for some serious
interoperability.
Mr. Dent. Thank you. The next question is we have heard
that amateur radio is effective and a highly regarded means of
ensuring operability during disaster situations. Does any
Federal agency direct the coordination of the use of amateur
radio during disasters; and, if not, should amateur radio be
coordinated on a State or Federal or regional basis?
Mr. Fonash. That's my answer. We have a program called
SHARES which utilizes the HF radio. SHARES is a network of
networks. It can include DOD, the amateur radio-operator, and,
State and local operators. And so when SHARES comes up, all
those networks come up. For example, in the Louisiana EOC, we
actually had an amateur operator working SHARES in the State
EOC. So, yes, we actually do use that. One of the basic tools
that we use is HF amateur radio. There are limitations with the
HF amateur radio, so it is one of the tools you have to use,
but the power of it is that it is totally independent of the
public network, so if the public network goes down, you have
that as an alternative means, but it is a limited alternative
means and it does have problems; for example, atmospheric
problems and limited data rates.
Dr. Boyd. I have been a licensed amateur radio operator
since I was about 13. It is important to understand the amateur
radio community, in addition to this capability, also has VHF,
UHV and SHF capabilities because they have bands throughout the
spectrum and there are, in fact, a number of activities that
provide training. What I would suggest, having dealt with this
for a long time, is that it is also important if you are going
to use this--and local agencies and a number of sheriffs
departments, police departments use this--you have to integrate
them early, you have to train them properly, and you have to
make sure they understand what their boundaries and rules are
and how they fit, and they can become a powerful capability
because in a lot of respects they probably own more equipment
than the public safety community does.
Mr. Dent. My final question. I understand that the private
sector, basically commercial communications operators rolled
out temporary cell phone towers and distributed cell phones to
first responders and victims of Hurricane Katrina. Was this
coordinated by the local, State, and Federal governments, and
are there agreements in place between the private sector and
governmental entities to take advantage of the resources of
private sector in such situations?
Mr. Fonash. Again, sir, we are responsible as the lead
agency for ESF2. One of the key tenets of that is we have
something called the National Coordinating Center for
Telecommunications. It actually coordinates, between State,
local and Federal Government and industry, solutions. And so
many of those solutions were brokered through the NCC or
through ESF#2 functions on a local basis. So, yes, we are
involved in those.
Mr. Dent. Thank you. Anybody else wish to comment on that?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Reichert. As you can tell by the buzzers and pagers
going off, we are going to be voting soon, but we have time to
recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rey, I wanted to ask you about the
communication kits that you all have given out through the
buyer service. Tell us about those kits and what they do, how
you deploy them, what timeline.
Mr. Rey. Early on in the 1970s as we began to organize the
incident command system to fight wildfires, we knew that we
would be operating in fairly remote areas where traditional
communication technology was nonexistent, and we also knew that
we would be working with other Federal and State and local
responders. So what we have done is two things. One is we have
developed memoranda of agreement with our cooperators so we
know how to make sure our communications systems are
interoperable, theirs and ours. Second, we have developed a
fire communications cache so that we can stand up an entire
communications system with radios and repeating towers so that
all of the responders to a particular incident are using
similar or comparable equipment.
Mr. Rogers. So when you say you stand up those towers, so
if you are fighting a forest fire in a remote area that doesn't
have any towers, you can put up temporary towers?
Mr. Rey. That is correct.
Mr. Rogers. What kind of timeline, how quickly?
Mr. Rey. If we are deploying an incident command team we
will have those established as they arrive on the scene, within
24 hours. We also set up the same systems in New Orleans,
providing the equipment to other responders and particularly so
we could communicate within our own incident command structure
with interoperability.
Mr. Rogers. So those you sent to New Orleans, you had those
up and running within 24 hours.
Mr. Rey. Twenty-four hours of our arrival, yeah.
Mr. Rogers. Excellent. You stated that the incident
management teams managed all agency radio, phone, data
communications in the days following the hurricane. Can you
explain exactly what the teams did to facilitate communications
other than what you just described?
Mr. Rey. Pretty much what I described is it. We wanted to
make sure that we had communications within our own incident
command structure as well as with the other responders that we
were serving. Our role in this case was a supporting role, but
both from a communications standpoint as well as all of the
other logistical functions that we were providing.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. Just one quick statement. As you
have, I am sure, have taken in the feeling here of the
committee, this is an important issue for us and we hope that
you will go back to your respective work areas and assignments
and convey our sincere and express desire to move this along at
a quick pace.
I want to thank all of you for being here today, for your
valuable testimony. I want to thank the members for their
questions. The members of the committee may have some
additional questions for the witnesses, and we will ask that
they submit those questions in writing. The hearing record will
be open for 10 days. Without objection, the committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]