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TESTIMONY
OF
CRAIG CONKLIN
CHIEF
NUCLEAR AND CHEMICAL HAZARDS BRANCH
(FEMA)
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
BEFORE THE
HOUSE
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL
THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
REGARDING THE ARMY'S CURRENT FORCE
PROTECTION PROGRAM INITIATIVES AND OTHER
MAJOR GROUND COMPONENT ACQUISITION PROGRAMS
APRIL
1, 2004
Mr. Chairman and members of
the Subcommittee, I am Craig Conklin, Chief
of FEMA's Nuclear and Chemical Hazards
Branch. I am pleased to provide this
statement to the Subcommittee wherein I will
update FEMA’s activities in support of the
Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness
Program (CSEPP) since my last testimony
before this Subcommittee, on October 30,
2003.
Once again, we welcome the
opportunity to share with the committee
CSEPP’s continued successes and how this
important program is benefiting our nations’
emergency preparedness and homeland security
efforts. Following my brief remarks, I will
be happy to answer your questions.
My statement will cover:
FEMA's roles and responsibilities in CSEPP;
the structure and operation of the program;
the current status and challenges presented
by this complex program; and the efforts to
share the lessons learned from this program
within the Department of Homeland Security.
FEMA’S MISSION
FEMA’s mission continues to
be the reduction of the loss of life and of
damage to property and to protect our
residents from all hazards, natural and
man-made. We accomplish this mission by
providing the Nation with comprehensive,
risk-based emergency management programs,
including mitigation, preparedness,
response, and recovery. Our integration
into the new Department of Homeland Security
has increased our opportunities to perform
this mission.
We continue to work closely
with many other Federal Departments and
agencies, and with States, Tribal Nations,
local governments, volunteer organizations,
and private industry.
CHEMICAL STOCKPILE EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM (CSEPP)
In my previous testimony, I
detailed the statutory foundation of the
Program, Public Law (P.L.) 99-145, wherein
Congress directed the Department of Defense
(DOD) to dispose of its lethal unitary
(pre-mixed) chemical agents and munitions
while providing “maximum protection for the
environment, the general public and the
personnel involved in the destruction of
lethal chemical agents and munitions . . .”
Both the U.S. Army and FEMA continue to work
towards Congress’ goal of maximum protection
for the environment, general public, and
personnel. FEMA and the Army jointly formed
CSEPP to ensure Congress’ intent was
followed.
Since 1988, FEMA and the Army
have cooperated in enhancing public safety
and working towards maximum protection at
the Army’s chemical stockpile sites. We also
have signed three Memoranda of Understanding
and one reaffirmation to show our
cooperation and resolve in protecting the
public.
CSEPP’s mission continues to
be protecting residents from exposure to
chemical agents and is, therefore, directly
beneficial to the work of DHS and our
Nation’s anti-terrorism efforts. Many of
CSEPP’s chemical hazard and public safety
research, training, and public outreach
efforts can be used nationwide.
FEMA’S CSEPP RESPONSIBILITIES
CSEPP is an outstanding
example of partnership among the Army, FEMA,
States, Tribal Nations, and local
jurisdictions. The Federal management
structure is uniquely designed to capitalize
on each Federal partner’s expertise and
administrative infrastructure to develop and
enhance the emergency preparedness
capabilities of the affected Army
installations and the participating State
and local jurisdictions.
Within CSEPP, FEMA’s
responsibility and accountability entail all
aspects of off-post emergency preparedness,
including:
-
Administering off-post CSEPP funds;
-
Supporting
the States in developing response plans;
-
Preparing,
developing, delivering, and evaluating
training;
-
Providing
technical assistance; and
-
Developing
programs for evaluating off-site readiness
capability.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
Ten States, 41 counties, and
one Tribal Nation surrounding the eight U.S.
Army stockpile sites participate in CSEPP.
The eight States hosting installations with
chemical stockpiles are: Alabama, Arkansas,
Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland,
Oregon, and Utah. Two additional States,
Illinois and Washington, also participate in
the program because of their borders'
proximity to the stockpiles in Indiana and
Oregon, respectively. The Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon
also actively participate in the program.
Thirteen (13) counties are in
Immediate Response Zones, the areas closest
to where the chemical agents are stored and
generally within approximately a ten-mile
radius. Twenty-five counties are in
Protective Action Zones, beginning at the
outer edge of the Immediate Response Zones
and extending to a distance of between six
and 31 miles. The remaining three counties
are designated as host counties, which lie
outside the Immediate Response Zones and
Protective Action Zones.
Like FEMA’s other emergency
preparedness programs, CSEPP is administered
through the States. Funds are distributed
to the States under Cooperative Agreements,
based upon a negotiated work plan between
the States and FEMA Regional Offices. Under
the agreements, each State identifies needs,
develops proposed projects to meet those
needs, requests funds, and disburses those
funds at the State level and to local
governments.
Budgeting for the CSEPP is
done according to the Department of
Defense’s Planning Programming and Budgeting
System (PPBS). The budget for off-post
emergency preparedness is based in large
part on Life Cycle Cost Estimates (LCCE)
that are prepared by the States in
conjunction with FEMA, and updated
regularly.
At the Federal level, FEMA
and Army Headquarters are responsible for
CSEPP policy and program development, while
the FEMA regions and the Army’s Chemical
Materials Agency manage day-to-day
operations. Site-specific issues are dealt
with through site-specific Integrated
Product Teams. These teams (required to be
established by Section 1076 of P.L. 104-201,
the Department of Defense Authorization Act
for FY1997) serve as the primary local forum
for identifying site-specific operational
issues, proposing solutions to those issues
to the appropriate level decision makers,
and implementing programmatic and
operational decisions.
CSEPP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
CSEPP focuses on providing
the personnel, equipment, and training
necessary to establish a response
infrastructure that enables emergency
managers to quickly alert the public, manage
the response, and communicate with the
public, the media, and emergency
responders. Equally important is public
awareness of what to do in the event of an
incident. CSEPP programmatic benchmarks
define a level of response functionality
necessary to protect the public (benchmark
compliance) and provide resources as needed
to eliminate preparedness weaknesses.
Fiduciary requirements
dictate that FEMA carefully evaluate
requests from the States and communities to
achieve "maximum protection" capability
within the limits of funds provided. As
such, our goal is to deliver maximum
available resources to the local communities
in relation to the level of risk faced by
the community.
As of March 31, 2004,
approximately $645 million had been
allocated to the States under the annual
Cooperative Agreements. In addition, $80.2
million more has been applied to FEMA-managed
contracts that support the States. The
allocation of resources is tracked according
to the jurisdiction that spends the funds
rather than the jurisdiction that benefits
from the service. Therefore, funds spent at
the State and county levels do not reflect
the true picture of the benefits the
counties have received through the program.
For FY2005, FEMA has
programmed $96.3 million into the budget to
cover off-post CSEPP-preparedness.
CSEPP BENCHMARKS AND
PREPAREDNESS COMPONENTS
FEMA and the Army continue to
manage CSEPP through the 12 benchmarks.
These benchmarks date back to 1993 and
capture the outcome-oriented methods
necessary for public safety. The Program
continues to develop metrics and strategic
plans to ensure the environment, public, and
personnel are protected.
The benchmarks are the
primary system by which we manage
performance in CSEPP. The eight CSEPP
communities evaluate and update their
benchmark status quarterly at IPT meetings.
The FEMA Regional CSEPP personnel then
report benchmark status at quarterly In
Progress Reviews (IPRs) held at FEMA
headquarters. CSEPP has made significant
strides in improving benchmark compliance
during 2003. In fact, during that year,
compliance increased from 93.3 percent in
2002 to 95.4 percent.
CONTINUED SUCCESSES
The partnership between the
Army and FEMA is very strong and getting
stronger. Our two organizations have worked
well together resulting in numerous
accomplishments. Building on those
successes, we are working on other
initiatives that are designed to enhance
public protection, to streamline budgeting
and administrative tasks, and to continue
the use of Integrated Product Teams (IPTs).
IPTs are working groups comprised of
stakeholders from all levels of government
to resolve issues and implement the program.
Since my last testimony, the
program has achieved many notable
successes. On March 23, 2004, both FEMA and
the Army renewed their outstanding
partnership as signatories to a new
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between
the parties. The new MOU captures
organizational changes and reaffirms our
commitment to cooperation and public safety.
We have developed Cooperative
Agreement (CA) Tools 3.0, an automated CSEPP
financial management software for budget
application, review, approval, award,
reporting, and closeout of CSEPP grants and
cooperative agreements. Thus far, we have
installed the software in seven of our ten
CSEPP States and it has received rave
reviews. One State’s financial manager
deemed the CA Tools software a “godsend.”
Other Federal agencies and
organizations have adopted CSEPP’s
outcome-oriented exercise process for
national implementation. Our emergency
exercises are jointly conducted with the
full cooperation and involvement of the Army
installations and the off-post communities.
Army and off-post personnel routinely train
together, participate in integrated process
teams, and meet to share ideas at meetings
and workshops. This relationship has
solidified communications between the
on-post and off-post communities that is
critical to the effective implementation of
an emergency plan.
Our comprehensive Reentry
Recovery Workbook now has a computer-based
interactive planning and training tool for
recovery planning. This tool will help our
communities develop first-rate recovery
plans. Our Medical Quality Improvement
Teams continue to rely on the expertise of
our state and local partners. Observers
have noted that our CSEPP medical
preparedness exceeds that of most
communities and is an outstanding example
nationwide.
Since last October, we have
updated and refreshed our outstanding CSEPP
Portal at
www.cseppportal.net. We have made the
site more user-friendly and incorporated a
“My CSEPP” feature so that users may tailor
the site to their needs. Portal use is
growing exponentially and is a
highly-effective mechanism to share
information and best practices.
Our Protective Actions IPT
continues to develop a Workbook to aid State
and local governments in the development of
protective action decision strategies. We
make concentrated efforts to share the
results of our research and science with
others who can benefit. For example, much
that CSEPP has developed can be of value in
protecting against toxic industrial chemical
hazards, and we have worked closely with the
President’s Chemical End-2-End Working Group
and the National Institute for Chemical
Studies to ensure that CSEPP best practices
are exported to other hazardous materials
preparedness programs.
We are extremely proud of the
public safety efforts FEMA and its partners
have accomplished in Alabama. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers performed the Herculean
task of completing collective protection
construction projects at 20 schools by
October 1, 2003. This task allowed
demilitarization operations to begin. To
date, more than 50 percent of the sarin (GB)
rockets have been destroyed with a
concomitant reduction in public risk. The
Alabama IPT successfully resolved extant
protection issues and, thus, ultimately
increased the safety of the community by
destroying the hazard. Also, at the request
of the Alabama community, FEMA has developed
an automated protective action decision tool
that takes data from the Army’s CSEPP hazard
analysis model and rapidly develops an
optimized strategy to minimize exposure of
the population at risk.
CSEPP has continued its
history of developing valuable training and
public education materials. In fact, on
March 26, 2004, our Chemical Preparedness
Section Chief, Dan Civis, accepted an award
from the Society for Technical Communication
for our Residential Shelter-in-Place
video. This video is in great demand from
many federal, State, and local agencies and
is used to assist them in WMD training and
public awareness. A companion video,
Shelter-In-Place for Businesses and Industry,
has also been completed and is ready for
release. Since my testimony last October,
over 100,000 additional CSEPP training
courses, job aids, technical reports and
public education tools were downloaded from
the CSEPP training web site and are
regularly used for training first responders
to deal with weapons of mass destruction and
toxic industrial chemicals. Total training
downloads now exceed 326,000.
We are in continuing dialogue
with our State, County, and Tribal Nation
partners to resolve outstanding issues and
to sustain the high level of preparedness
that exists within our program.
CONCLUSION
CSEPP continues to accomplish
its mission of protecting the environment,
general public, and workers at the eight
chemical weapons stockpile sites. Nearly
all-major CSEPP systems are in place and
operational. Improvements to protections in
all communities will continue. We continue
to strive to increase our preparedness and
readiness with our goal of 100 percent
benchmark attainment reachable in the very
near future. Our efforts to improve public
safety, however, will not cease until all
the chemical weapons stockpiles are
destroyed.
Once again, FEMA is committed
to ensuring the successful implementation of
CSEPP and protecting the health and safety
of our citizens. "Maximum protection" is
the most stringent requirement of any
emergency preparedness program directive,
but we are confident that the Federal, State
and local emergency management community is
up to the challenge.
Since the Program’s
inception, CSEPP communities have made
quantum leaps in emergency preparedness.
Today, our communities are included amongst
those best prepared in the nation to respond
to a WMD incident. Again, we thank our
CSEPP communities for their commitment and
dedication to this important program and
renew our pledge to work with them until the
risk of a chemical stockpile incident no
longer exists. Just as we, FEMA, and the
Army, reaffirmed our commitment to each
other and to further public safety through
our signing of the March 23, 2004, MOU, FEMA
recommits itself to ensuring the public’s
safety at the chemical stockpiles. Most
importantly, just as Alabama has reduced its
risk by 12 percent in the last few months
since my last testimony, the other
communities can see the same reductions once
they begin destruction of the chemical
weapons stored in their communities.
Finally, we all look forward to that day
when the last chemical weapon and warfare
agent is destroyed. |
