[Senate Hearing 111-454]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-454
NOMINATION OF RICHARD A. SERINO
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
of the
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOMINATION OF RICHARD A. SERINO TO BE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
SEPTEMBER 16, 2009
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JON TESTER, Montana ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Beth M. Grossman, Senior Counsel
Mary Beth Schultz, Counsel
Kristine V. Lam, Professional Staff Member
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Jennifer L. Tarr, Minority Counsel
Adam J. Killian, Minority Professional Staff Member
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Lieberman............................................ 1
Senator Collins.............................................. 3
Prepared statements:
Senator Lieberman............................................ 17
Senator Collins.............................................. 19
WITNESSES
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Hon. John F. Kerry, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 1
Richard A. Serino to be Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........ 5
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Kerry, Hon. John F.:
Testimony.................................................... 1
Serino, Richard A.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Biographical and financial information....................... 24
Responses to pre-hearing questions........................... 38
Letter from the Office of Government Ethics.................. 88
Responses to post-hearing questions.......................... 89
Letters of support........................................... 98
NOMINATION OF RICHARD A. SERINO
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I.
Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lieberman, Landrieu, and Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN
Chairman Lieberman. Good afternoon and welcome to this
hearing on the nomination of Richard Serino to be the Deputy
Administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA).
I am glad to see our colleague, Senator John Kerry, here.
And though I note, Senator Kerry, that you probably would love
to hear the opening statements that Senator Collins and I have,
I also know that you are on a busy schedule, so we welcome your
introduction first.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Kerry. Well, that is very generous of you, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate it. You will make sure you send me the
opening statements.
Chairman Lieberman. I will. [Laughter.]
Senator Kerry. Chairman Lieberman and Senator Collins,
thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to introduce
a terrific son of Massachusetts. Richard Serino is a 55-year-
old guy who has been at this for a long time, but he still
calls himself a kid from Dorchester. A lot of people there are
proud of him because of his many accomplishments throughout his
career.
He is sort of the pride of Massachusetts, in a sense, in
the way in which he has approached his job. I think President
Obama could not have made a better choice than to choose him to
be the Deputy Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency.
I do know that the call from the White House came as a bit
of a surprise to him. They asked him if he was interested in
the No. 2 job at FEMA, and he said he would like to talk to a
few people about it before deciding. And then he was still
talking to folks about the job when the White House called back
and said, it is yours if you want it. I think he may have been
surprised by the call, but those who know something about his
work were not surprised at all, and he has met with a
remarkable array of compliments and of support from across the
spectrum, from police chiefs, fire chiefs, the Mayor of Boston,
and everyone who has come in contact with him.
He has worked for the Boston Medical Services for 35 years.
He began as a paramedic, rising to Superintendent in Chief,
Superintendent for Field Operations, and for the past years,
Chief of Boston EMS. He is chief of a department, Mr. Chairman
and Senator Collins, that handles 100,000 medical calls a year,
coordinates safety for massive events like the Boston Marathon,
and the enormous celebrations we have had after the Super Bowl
and World Series. We obviously now have to find a replacement
to manage those celebrations since we anticipate more of those,
don't we, Mr. Serino?
Mr. Serino. Yes, we do.
Senator Kerry. He has been responsible for disaster
preparedness, and he literally helped to write the book on how
to respond to terrorism as one of the authors of a book called,
``In a Moment's Notice: Surge Capacity for Terrorist
Bombings,'' a blueprint for other major cities developing
disaster response.
He served as a guest lecturer on homeland security and
emergency preparedness at Harvard University, at Boston
University, as a national faculty member for the Domestic
Preparedness Program at the U.S. Department of Defense. He has
also participated in senior leadership programs in national
preparedness and homeland security at the Kennedy School of
Government and at the Naval Post-Graduate School Center for
Homeland Defense and Security.
Mr. Chairman, let me just share with you how he tests some
of his disaster preparedness. Rather than just running the
drills, as many choose to do, on an average day in a city,
which would make the drills difficult enough, he chooses to run
disaster plans during the major events in Boston, like the
Marathon or the Fourth of July celebration. That is the kind of
thinking that can make a difference when a disaster actually
does occur.
As Deputy Administrator of FEMA, Mr. Serino will be
involved in building, sustaining, and improving the
Department's capacity to prepare for, protect against, and
respond to and recover from all types of disasters. The only
challenge the folks at FEMA may have with him, I think, is
possibly the same one we have had in Boston as Chief of the
EMS. That challenge will be keeping him out of the ambulances,
Mr. Chairman. Once a paramedic, always a paramedic.
But he is grassroots. He understands the challenges, and I
think President Obama could not have made a better choice for
FEMA. I have worked with FEMA for many years, as you both have.
We know how it takes somebody who really understands what it is
like to be on the ground and be a part of the local community,
if you will, and who thinks the way that he does.
I congratulate the kid from Dorchester in this nomination,
and I think FEMA is going to do well with his stewardship.
Thanks.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Kerry. That was really
a very excellent, thoughtful, and obviously personally felt
statement, which is important for the Committee to hear. I
thank you for your time.
Senator Kerry. It is my pleasure to be here. I know his
wife and kids are here, and I know they share that thought.
Chairman Lieberman. It looks like a big crowd behind the
Chief here.
Senator Kerry. Absolutely.
Chairman Lieberman. Chief Serino, I appreciate your
presence here. I have just been informed that there are a
couple of votes in the Senate around 2:30 p.m. I am going to
have a little time after that, but I will see if we can go
through this and allow us to complete the hearing so we don't
have to hold you over and bring you back.
I am going to put my statement in the record as if I had
read it and just say, echoing what John Kerry has said, that
you have an extraordinary record.\1\ It seems to me that you
are a great complement to Craig Fugate in his role as
administrator, not just north-south, but to a certain extent,
his experience has quite naturally been in dealing with natural
disasters, particularly hurricanes that hit Florida. I don't
mean that is his only experience, but it is a primary one, and
that is very important to us.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Lieberman appears in the
Appendix on page 17.
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Your involvement in a big urban metropolitan area has not
only given you that experience, particularly with, for
instance, medical emergencies, but the kind of extra dimension
of responsibility to which Senator Kerry testified about being
ready in the case of an unnatural disaster, which is to say a
terrorist attack. I am really grateful that you have accepted
this.
Senator Collins and I, our Committee, have had a
longstanding interest in FEMA. We did, with Senator Landrieu's
very active support, for obvious reasons, a very intensive
investigation of FEMA post-Katrina, produced legislation, which
was enacted, which we feel has really put this agency into a
position to give us the kind of preparedness and response that
we really need.
So that is all I have to say at this point, and I will
yield to Senator Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to
follow your lead, given the upcoming votes, and put my
statement in the record, as well.\2\ I hope that is not the
first of the upcoming votes.
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\2\ The prepared statement of Senator Collins appears in the
Appendix on page 19.
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I just wanted to make one point, and that is during the
government's failed response to Hurricane Katrina, there was no
deputy leader at FEMA. There was no Deputy FEMA Director, and
that was a major problem as we looked at the flaws in
organization as well as in the delivery of the response. So the
position that you have been nominated to fill was created by
the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which we
authored, and it was specifically to ensure better management
and day-to-day direction of the agency. So this is an important
position. We know that well because we created it.
I am going to put my statement in the record so that we can
get to questions before the votes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins.
Let me say for the record that Chief Serino has filed
responses to a biographical and financial questionnaire,
answered pre-hearing questions submitted by the Committee, and
had his financial statements reviewed by the Office of
Government Ethics. Without objection, this information will be
made part of the hearing record, with the exception of the
financial data, which are on file and available for public
inspection in the Committee's offices.
Chief, as you know, our rules require that all witnesses at
nomination hearings give their testimony under oath, so I would
ask you to please stand and raise your right hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give to
the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Serino. I do.
Chairman Lieberman. I thank you. Please be seated, and you
are welcome now to proceed with your statement, including the
introduction of family and friends who are here, so long as it
doesn't take us past 2:30 p.m. [Laughter.]
Mr. Serino. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins.
I would like to introduce my wife, Doreen, who has given me
the opportunity to embark on this challenge, and I appreciate
that. There was only one condition, Senator Collins, and that
is that we can go to Christmas Prelude in Kennebunkport in
December, that we do every year.
Senator Collins. She is a wise woman. [Laughter.]
Mr. Serino. And next to her is my son, Bryan, who came. He
is Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan and a graduate of
Connecticut College.
Chairman Lieberman. Great.
Senator Collins. He is covering all the bases. [Laughter.]
Chairman Lieberman. This is a good move on the Chief's part
because we agreed that I wouldn't ask a question about the
Yankees or the Red Sox. [Laughter.]
Mr. Serino. And also, my son Peter, who is a high school
history and psychology teacher in Massachusetts, is here. And
unfortunately, my daughter, who is a high school English
teacher, Chairman of the English Department at a high school in
Honolulu, couldn't be here today.
Chairman Lieberman. Understood. Thank you.
Mr. Serino. Also, I just wanted to recognize a couple of
people who made the trip from Boston today. President of the
Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, EMS Division Union,
Jamie Orsino, and Vice President Bobby Morley, who is also our
President of the National EMS Alliance, Superintendent Brendan
Kearney, and Deputy Superintendent Shea, as well as a host of
first responders and people from the emergency management
community are here to support me, and I truly appreciate that.
So thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Chief, and thanks to them for
taking the time to be here.
You don't know this, but in the back, I have spotted Craig
Fugate, Administrator of FEMA, who is here to perhaps see how
you do. [Laughter.]
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD A. SERINO \1\ TO BE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR,
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Serino. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Collins, and Members of the Committee. My name is
Richard Serino. I am grateful to Senator Kerry for his warm
introduction and for his years of strong support of the
emergency responders in Boston, throughout Massachusetts, and
indeed across the country.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Serino appears in the Appendix on
page 21.
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I am privileged to appear here before you today as
President Obama's nominee for the Deputy Administrator at FEMA.
I am honored to have the opportunity to answer your questions
as you consider my nomination. If confirmed, I look forward to
working closely with the Committee, with Congress, to ensure
that FEMA performs at the highest possible level in supporting
our first responders and our citizens in this ongoing national
effort to protect against, respond to, and recover from all
hazards.
I began my career, as you heard, over 35 years ago as a
volunteer on an ambulance squad, and during that time, I rose
through the ranks to my current position as Chief of Boston
EMS. During my tenure as Chief, the paramedics and EMTs have
been nationally recognized for the quality of care that they
provide, and it truly has been my great privilege and honor to
lead such a dedicated, hard-working, humble, and accomplished
cadre of first responders.
FEMA's mission is critical to our Nation's security and
resilience. Your leadership and the work of this Committee
specifically on the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform
Act and other congressional initiatives have provided FEMA with
truly a much-needed compass to ensure that the agency can
succeed and bring a more common-sense approach to emergency
management in the 21st Century, and I thank you for that.
I believe I can assist Secretary Janet Napolitano and
Administrator Craig Fugate in aligning FEMA's personnel and
resources to support our citizens and the first responders so
that as a Nation we may work together to collaboratively
rebuild, sustain, and improve preparedness, protection,
response, and recovery capabilities. My operational experience
as a first responder and the leadership roles I have assumed
over the past decades have given me the tools needed to
successfully bridge the gap between the Federal, State, local,
and non-government officials who must work together.
As a senior leader in metro Boston's community of emergency
response officials, I facilitated preparedness, response and
recovery efforts, and worked to forge strong partnerships, not
just with the EMS, fire service, law enforcement, and emergency
management, but also with public health, volunteer
organizations, and business leaders throughout the Commonwealth
and throughout Boston.
A primary theme across all of my emergency preparedness
efforts has been a dedication to building partnerships, whether
they are in the businesses, faith-based communities,
universities, academia, or government departments. In my own
experience, these strong partnerships have time and time again
resulted in enhanced efficiency, communications, coordination,
response, and recovery efforts.
Federal, State, and local emergency response officials must
continue to reach out to build stronger relationships with each
other to ensure a properly functioning national system of
public safety and public health. These officials routinely
collaborate in Boston to prepare for high-threat, large-scale
events, unfortunately, such as the recent events honoring
Senator Kennedy that we were able to pull together.
I have led emergency medical planning and operations for a
number of high-threat events that the Senator has mentioned,
including the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which was a
national special security event. I know firsthand the type of
collaboration that ensures our collective preparedness. Each
time we all work together, Federal, State, and local, we
execute an operational plan for a high-threat event, increasing
our chances of full operational success should we be confronted
with a major incident.
In addition to serving as Chief of Boston EMS, I also
currently serve as the Assistant Director of the Boston Public
Health Commission, where I oversee public health preparedness
policy and programs, including city-wide preparedness efforts
on H1N1 as well as the DelValle Institute for Emergency
Preparedness. I have led efforts to prepare Boston's responders
to address the consequences of chemical, biological, and
radiological incidents. During my tenure, we have dramatically
expanded weapons of mass destruction (WMD) detection equipment
and training, as well as provided responders with critical
personal protective equipment and interoperable communications
equipment.
The vast majority of these new capabilities have come as a
result of crucial Homeland Security grant programs that FEMA
manages and Congress authorizes and funds. I have seen
firsthand the importance of these programs. They prepare our
responders for the threats our Nation faces.
In addition to my work in Boston, I have lectured on topics
in public health preparedness across the country. Like
Secretary Napolitano and Administrator Fugate, I understand the
challenges that State and local officials face, and if
confirmed, I am committed to strengthening partnerships amongst
government officials at all levels, as well as with members of
the business community and non-governmental organizations.
I am committed to galvanizing the dedicated professionals
that make up the FEMA workforce. We must continue to build
morale and recognize the contribution that the employees make
to our Nation's preparedness while ensuring they have the
training, support, and resources that they need to deliver on
FEMA's commitment to our citizens and our first responders.
If confirmed, I will also work with Secretary Napolitano
and Administrator Fugate to ensure that Gulf Coast recovery
remains a top priority at FEMA and DHS. The Secretary and
Administrator have visited New Orleans and announced detailed
additional funding obligated to the State of Louisiana for
ongoing efforts. Since January 20 this year, over $1 billion in
additional public assistance funding has been provided to
rebuild the public infrastructure across the State of
Louisiana.
In closing, I am anxious to bring the more than 35 years of
experience that I have to FEMA. If confirmed, I look forward to
working hand in hand with Administrator Fugate, the entire FEMA
team, and our partners here in Congress to help strengthen the
agency's ability to respond to all hazards, to expand its
partnerships with first responders, and to build relationships
and teamwork that is needed for the threats that our Nation
faces.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, and Members of
the Committee, for the opportunity to appear before you and
look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much for that excellent
statement, Chief.
I am going to begin by asking you the three questions that
we ask all nominees. First, is there anything you are aware of
in your background that might present a conflict of interest
with the duties of the office to which you have been nominated?
Mr. Serino. No.
Chairman Lieberman. Second, do you know of anything,
personal or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from
fully and honorably discharging the responsibilities of the
office to which you have been nominated?
Mr. Serino. No.
Chairman Lieberman. And third, do you agree without
reservation to respond to any reasonable summons to appear and
testify before any duly constituted committee of Congress if
you are confirmed?
Mr. Serino. Yes.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. You are doing really well so
far, Chief. [Laughter.]
Chairman Lieberman. We are going to do a 7-minute round for
each of us.
Let me ask you first about a public health crisis--I hate
to use the word ``crisis,''--but it is an emergency that we are
in the midst of with regard to H1N1 flu. Let me ask you to
reflect on the work you have been doing. As you know, the
Department of Homeland Security is actually the incident
manager for the Federal Government in a situation of this kind.
I wanted to ask you if there are any lessons that you have
learned from the work you have been doing to prepare the
greater Boston area for the flu that would be relevant and
useful to FEMA nationally and to other communities as they try
to prepare for it.
Mr. Serino. With the outbreak this past spring in Boston,
we were significantly hit with the flu in the City of Boston.
We had over 23,000 cases of H1N1 flu within the City of Boston,
and 11 percent of the student population, age five to 17, also
came down with H1N1.
Chairman Lieberman. Those are much higher numbers than I
was aware of.
Mr. Serino. Right. Boston was one of the more significant
places that was hit. And one thing that we learned from this
outbreak is that we have to do this together. We learned some
lessons during the spring, but over the summer, we did a lot of
outreach. We reached out to all of our partners, to the
business community, faith-based organizations, the unions, and
other governmental agencies. We worked with the schools, the
colleges, and the universities throughout the area to actually
put some plans in place, to actually work with them to develop
things that made sense for them because one thing that we found
early is that getting the right information out to the people
early on was extremely important.
We developed a medical intelligence center--it is called
the Lawlor Medical Intelligence Center--with different Homeland
Security and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
funding, and that is a place where we are able to bring people
together from across all the different disciplines to share the
information in a medical setting. That worked out very well. We
have weekly briefings that bring together people from across
the business community, voluntary organizations, the Red Cross,
and also Federal organizations, specifically the FBI, to share
information.
We found it is very important to have all the players at
the table. One of the stories is that we had a couple of police
deputy superintendents in the room as we were discussing this
and wanted to know how we could reach out to people, and they
came up with the idea, what about using crime watch groups,
another avenue to reach out to people. So I think the more
groups that you get together, the more ideas you get and the
more ways you are going to share the information.
Educating the public, I think, is absolutely crucial. The
simple things, like telling people if you have a cough, cover
it. If you have hands, wash them. Simple things like that, we
have the messaging. So I think it is a multi-prong approach
that you need to do.
And one of the things that, if confirmed, I can bring to
this position is the relationship that I have with people both
at CDC in Atlanta and at HHS, people who I have been working
with for many years, people I have published articles with and
who are now in other positions that we are going to be able to
work together with and continue to bridge the gap between the
health community and the emergency response community, as well.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks. Let me go to a related but
slightly different question. I am impressed by the writing that
you have done on what we all ought to be doing, including at
the local level, to prepare to respond to a chemical or
biological attack. We have heard testimony in this Committee,
and Senator Collins and I have just introduced legislation to
attempt to prevent a biological attack because the feeling is
growing increasingly here that, of the various forms of weapons
of mass destruction attack, it is probably the most likely
because of the ease of moving biological material into a public
place.
I just wanted to ask you to spend a couple of moments and
reflect from the position you had on what you take to be the
state of preparedness of our public health system, our
emergency medical system, in the words of the article, I
gather, to surge in the case of what we hope never happens but
we have to prepare for.
Mr. Serino. One of the things that we have been able to do
over the last number of years is bring together, again, a large
group of people across the different disciplines, and we worked
specifically with the hospitals to ensure that they were able
to deal with the surge capabilities and things that they could
do within their hospital and also within the community.
And one thing that we also did was work with the community
health centers. In Boston, for example, there are 26 community
health centers that see a large population of patients. And
what we want to do is ensure that they are part of the system
and able to handle any sort of problems that may come if there
is a surge because there isn't going to be one hospital that is
going to be able to handle it on its own. There isn't going to
be one system. So you are going to have to actually work across
many different lines to bring lots of different people
together.
And also, in a certain incidence, you have to look at other
policies that you may have to put into effect. For example, in
EMS and pre-hospital care, you may actually have a different
standard of care, and you should work through the regulatory
issues ahead of time in case we need to step back and say
rather than having two EMTs or two paramedics in an ambulance,
maybe you are only going to be able to have one and you may be
able to do something a bit different. One small example is
where you could deal with it. And also looking at different
places to take care of large numbers of patients.
And also, as we are seeing now specifically with H1N1,
another example is encouraging people to determine certain
times for who has to go to the hospital and who can actually be
taken care of at home. We have done a lot with H1N1, and it
actually can be applicable to biological incidents, as well, so
you can be prepared to take care of people at home and not put
as much of a stress on the system.
So it is a multi-prong approach. There isn't just one way
to address this. You have to do it in many different areas. And
as we prepare for biological incidents, actually, preparing for
H1N1 is going to help us as we learn across other areas, as
well.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, well said. I appreciate the
answer, and I hope that, if confirmed, and I certainly hope and
believe you will be, that you will be able to be proactive,
both within FEMA and with your colleagues in DHS, to push this
level of preparedness that you have strived for in Boston
throughout the country, particularly throughout the major
metropolitan areas, because my own impression is that we are
not fully prepared. It is tough to be fully prepared, but we
have a lot of work to do to develop that surge capacity. I
thank you.
Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, I am very encouraged to hear you talk about the need
for strengthening collaboration with all your partners. That
was so missing in the response to Hurricane Katrina. There was
not that kind of collaboration. There hadn't been joint
exercises. And the people of the region paid a real price
because of the lack of collaboration and previous training.
I have seen FEMA really improve in this area. I have
attended joint exercises in New England and have seen State,
local, Federal, county, emergency management, first responders,
everybody gathering together, and that is exactly what we need.
But another area where FEMA needs to improve its State and
local outreach has to do with FEMA's ongoing initiative to
modernize flood maps. Now, I completely support FEMA's efforts
to use the latest technology, to gather better data, and to
produce more accurate maps. These new maps are designed to more
accurately portray flooding risks. But FEMA must do a better
job of working collaboratively with State and local officials
who are in the best position to know their community strengths,
the vulnerabilities, and what the impact is going to be.
Contentious litigation-style appeals are no substitute for
the cooperation that FEMA should be fostering with State and
local officials in the first place. As an example, FEMA is now
revising the flood map for portions of the State of Maine,
including that of its largest city, Portland, Maine. And FEMA
and Portland officials disagree on the accuracy of these new
maps. It has been extremely frustrating to try to get FEMA to
sit down and work with local officials and try to go through
these issues.
I am now hopeful that FEMA is going to propose a more
cooperative approach for dealing with this particular case, but
my point to you would be that Portland's complaints are not
unique. They are not even unusual. And in fact, I remember
Senator Landrieu bringing up the issues of the impact of
designating an area as a V-zone many times. It has a huge
impact on local economic development.
So that is a long introduction, but the problem is a very
real one. If you are confirmed, will you commit to establishing
a more collaborative process when FEMA is updating its flood
maps?
Mr. Serino. The short answer to that is yes. I think that
you hit on some very important points and things that I have
believed for many years. There was a gentleman who was a member
of the House from Massachusetts, a number of years ago, who had
a saying, ``All politics are local,'' a gentleman by the name
of Tip O'Neill.
Senator Collins. Tip O'Neill.
Mr. Serino. Not only are all politics local, all disasters
are local, as well, and I think that is important, and you have
my commitment because I firmly believe that it is important to
deal with the locals, it is important to build those
relationships at the regional level, at the State level, and at
the local level, and to do that on a consistent basis because
when a disaster happens, those are the first people to be
there, and then later on, after everything else is over with,
the locals are still going to be there when everybody else has
gone home.
Senator Collins. Absolutely.
Mr. Serino. And I have been in that position. I understand
that position. And FEMA is there to support, as Administrator
Fugate has said, we are there to support, not supplant, the
locals. One of the functions I see is to really continue to
build those relationships across the country with the States
and the locals.
Senator Collins. Thank you for that commitment because that
is absolutely key. These are our partners, not our adversaries.
You have been the Chief of a Boston EMS Department that
represents one of the few major metropolitan EMS departments
that is not affiliated with the local fire department, and that
is unusual. You have historically been a strong proponent of
keeping EMS systems separate from the fire service. Yet fire
service-based EMSs currently serve 67 percent of the American
population and provide more than 90 percent of the emergency
medical service to jurisdictions with populations of more than
50,000 people.
Since your background is not typical, then, of what we see
in most parts of the country, and since you have been a
proponent of keeping them separated, I am asking for your
assurance that you will recognize the importance of the fire
department-based EMS and that you will be impartial as far as
supporting both models.
Mr. Serino. I have been a proponent of EMS for many years,
and I have said many times that I believe that the decision on
how EMS is provided is a local issue, as we just discussed.
There is not one set way to provide EMS across the country. It
is going to be provided best in different cities by different
agencies. The fire department has some great systems. The third
service has some great systems. And that is a local issue.
But the key part is to provide very good patient care
quickly and effectively, in a timely manner. That is what is
essential and to do that with the local input of the local
government, and I have been a big proponent that it is a
medically based system regardless of who is the provider,
regardless of which patch you wear, and I am a supporter of
EMS.
Senator Collins. Great. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins.
There is actually a quorum call, not a vote yet, so maybe
we will do a couple more questions each.
Looking at the statute about the role of the Deputy, it is
interesting. One thing that we did do that we are pleased about
is we put some statutory qualifications in for the
Administrator. I note that we didn't put them in for the
Deputy, but you more than satisfy whatever qualifications we
would have put in.
My point that I want to get to is that we also did not
specifically spell out areas of responsibility for the Deputy.
That in itself is not unusual. But I wanted to ask, to the
extent that you may have discussed this with Administrator
Fugate or you have ideas yourself, what your priorities and
goals will be and whether Administrator Fugate and you have
talked at all about specific areas of focus and priority that
you will carry, if confirmed.
Mr. Serino. If confirmed as the Deputy Administrator at
FEMA, I would first be supporting certainly Secretary
Napolitano and Administrator Fugate's priorities, and
specifically two of those have been ensuring that we are ready
to respond to the next disaster and supporting our first
responders and citizens. And I believe those are the very two
top priorities.
In addition to that, we haven't discussed this
specifically, but I see some areas where I have an opportunity
to be supportive--one is around H1N1, which we discussed
earlier, some of the experiences I have had with that, some of
the relationships I have with people in the medical and the
public health community and helping to bridge those gaps.
Also, developing citizen preparedness and looking at how
citizens become not just prepared, but more resilient in the
community, where it is not just making sure that they have
their supplies, which everyone should have, but going to the
next step. If there is an elderly neighbor next door, checking
on him. If there is a single parent with three kids on the
other side, to check on them. So now if everybody were to do
that, that helps build a resilient community where they are
taking care of themselves and taking care of the others, as
well. I think those are a couple of key areas.
In addition to that, I am looking at, as I also mentioned
briefly, developing relationships. One thing I am going to look
at is visiting all the various regions throughout the country
and spending time in the regions and getting to know the State
directors, visiting some of the cities and some of the rural
areas and really developing those relationships, how we can
build a better team. This isn't going to be just about FEMA.
This just isn't about local administrators. We have to do this
together as a team.
And one of the other priorities I see is looking at the
workforce within FEMA. There are some very dedicated,
wonderful, passionate people who work at FEMA, and I, if
confirmed, really want to look at how we can encourage people
to make FEMA a career. There are a lot of people who have been
there who are passionate. There are a lot of younger people who
are trying to get into FEMA, trying to get into the Homeland
Security arena. And how can we mentor new people and partner
them up with some people who are more experienced?
I had the opportunity to talk with a fairly new employee.
He didn't know who I was. We were sitting outside, grabbing
something to eat, and I just talked to him and asked him why he
got involved. And he said, ``I tried for 4 years to get to
FEMA. I worked for a contractor. and I finally got in,'' and
now he has been at FEMA for about a year, and he is thrilled to
work here. He has his master's in homeland security. He is
really, truly dedicated.
But one thing that bothered me is, I said, ``Do you wear
the FEMA shirt?'' He said, ``No, I stopped wearing that on the
Metro as a contractor a while ago.'' One thing that I would
really like to do is for people to be proud to wear the FEMA
shirt and the FEMA jacket and the FEMA hat again. I think that
is going to take a lot of work, but that, to me, is a priority
because without having good people at FEMA, without giving them
all the support, all the training and guidance, and all the
work that goes into that, if we don't have good people and
support and train them and recognize them when they do well,
FEMA isn't going to be able to do its job the way it should.
Chairman Lieberman. Well said. A final question. One of the
aspects of the Post-Katrina Act that I think was most important
was the establishment of 10 regional offices of FEMA. I would
be interested in your overall reaction to the regional offices,
if you have any anecdotal responses to your own experience with
the regional office in your area, and any thoughts about what
you might do to improve the capabilities of those regional
offices.
Mr. Serino. If confirmed, there are many things that I
would do. First, in the Region I area, we actually have a good
relationship. I worked with many of their staff for many years,
whether it was with the Democratic National Convention, which
was a national special security event, I worked closely with
their staff. They were supportive.
And I think that also as we continue to move forward, we
should be actually pushing more to the regions. The regions
know what is going to work in their region better than anybody
else. A lot of things cannot be managed from Washington, DC.
The regional directors, the staff in the regions know their
regions. They should know and they will know all their State
directors if they don't. They will know their governors. They
will also know a number of the people in the local areas, and I
want to continue to work with them and to really develop the
regional administrators to actually be a key, integral part.
Chairman Lieberman. Excellent. Thank you very much. Senator
Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, in your response to the questions that we submitted
prior to this hearing, you indicated your belief that the FIRE
Act grant program had been successful and efficiently run, and
I certainly agree with you. I think this is an example of a
program that has made a tremendous impact with a minimum of
bureaucracy. It is peer reviewed. My fire departments in Maine
love the program, and I gather that the Boston EMS, which you
lead, has received FIRE Act grant funding in the past.
Could you explain from your perspective on the EMS side why
you think the program has been successful?
Mr. Serino. The FIRE Act grant program for us has been
successful. What has been successful about it is the fact that
it is less bureaucratic than a lot of other programs, and we
have applied many times. And even the times we didn't get our
grant, we got a response quickly, and we got a response as to
why, and that, to me, was just as important as when we did
receive the grant. We were able to outfit, in fact, all of our
staff with personal protective equipment through that grant,
which we otherwise wouldn't have been able to do.
So I think that grant is actually--I don't want to say it
is simple, but it is user friendly, and the fact that it is
peer-reviewed is helpful, as well.
Senator Collins. I think it is a terrific program. The
authorization is due to expire at the end of September. We are
working on a reauthorization bill.
I would note, and I am not going to ask you about this
because I don't want to put you in a difficult position with
the Administration that has just nominated you, that the
President's budget, unfortunately, slashed the FIRE Act grant
program below the funding level that we had in the previous
year, and I think that was very unfortunate. I hope that you
will be an advocate internally in the budget deliberations and
that you can bring the personal experience that you have had to
the budget deliberations. I doubt a lot of the people who are
making the funding decisions have actually seen firsthand the
tremendous good that the FIRE Act grants can do, so I hope that
you will be that voice as the next budget is put together. And
you don't have to answer that.
Mr. Serino. Thank you. [Laughter.]
Senator Collins. But I will assume from the twinkle in your
eye that the answer is yes. [Laughter.]
I want to follow up with just one final question, and that
is about other grant programs within the Department. I think
that FEMA's grant programs, the Homeland Security grant
programs, have done a great deal of good. They have allowed
countless areas throughout our country to build interoperable
communication networks. That is of great interest to the
Chairman and me because we saw not only in Hurricane Katrina,
but in other disasters that have occurred that the lack of
interoperable communications has worsened the disaster and
impeded an effective response. But we have seen the funds go
for that.
We have seen the Homeland Security grant programs being
used to develop detailed response plans that otherwise would
not exist. They have been used to train thousands of first
responders. I have seen in Maine the funds being used for
Regional Emergency Operations Centers, for interoperable
communications, hand-held radio devices, command and control
vehicles, mobile vehicles that can be used in an emergency.
Nevertheless, the experience with these programs is not
perfect, and last Friday, the Sacramento Bee in California
published a story that exposed wasteful expenditures by the
State of California with money that it had received from DHS
grant programs. In some cases, equipment that had been
purchased was still in boxes years or a considerable time
later.
So it is imperative that FEMA have strict controls to
ensure that the money is being used to achieve the baseline
emergency preparedness that we all agree is necessary
throughout the country, in big cities and small, and it is
imperative that there be a way of auditing and checking to make
sure that funds are not wasted.
As Deputy Administrator, if confirmed, what specific
actions would you take to ensure that these dollars are spent
wisely and not wasted or lost to fraud?
Mr. Serino. If confirmed, one of the things that I would do
is commit to getting more specifics on that particular event. I
have read the article. I am going to commit to getting back to
you with more information as we work together with
Administrator Fugate to look more in depth at this issue.
Senator Collins. You can, indeed. I would suggest to you
that working very closely with the Inspector General in your
agency is one way forward. It is my understanding that the IG
has published a report with some 21 recommendations that
address many of the flaws and problems that are outlined in
this news story. So that is a path forward for FEMA to
implement. But fraud in FEMA programs has been a problem. We
saw rampant fraud in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, sadly, but
we also saw it in previous hurricanes, after the Florida
hurricanes, as well.
It is evident that FEMA needs better internal controls,
that it needs a better system, and that we not let the urgency
of responding cause a lapse of internal controls and the
suspension of internal controls. That is a false choice. You
can deliver the aid, whether it is emergency assistance in the
wake of a disaster or a Homeland Security grant, in a timely
fashion without making the programs vulnerable to waste, fraud,
and abuse.
Mr. Serino. And if confirmed, I will make a commitment to
working to ensure that the taxpayers' money is spent properly,
wisely, and to avoid fraud, but at the same time meet the needs
of the citizens when they need it the most.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins.
The vote has begun, but this timing worked out well. I
think we had a really good discussion. I must say, I am very
impressed by your answers. Beyond the record that we see in
your biography of your experience, you are obviously familiar
with all that you will be asked to do, if confirmed for this
position.
I certainly hope you are confirmed. I think, together with
Administrator Fugate, you will constitute really a first-class
team to head this agency, and you will do it in a way that will
lead that employee to be proud to put on that T-shirt with FEMA
on it.
Without objection, the record of the hearing will be held
open until the close of business tomorrow for the submission of
any written questions or statements for the record. We will
give them to you by then, tomorrow, and ask you to respond in
writing to the questions.
With that, I thank you very much for your willingness to
serve your country. I thank your family for backing you up and
doing that, and now I adjourn the hearing.
Mr. Serino. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 2:50 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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