and an operationing budget of $28 million. responsible for developing national marine safety, security, and environmental protection doctrine and policy and regulations as well as ensuring policy alignment through the federal government and with international maritime partners recently serving as the federal on-scene coordinator for the deepwater horizon incident in the gulf, and we appreciate your service for that horrific incident in our nation as well. while there, he directed federal, state, local agencies in their response efforts as well. mr. steve caldwell is the director and maritime security coast guard government accountability office, the gao, with recent reports and testimony covering issues relating to protecting critical infrastructure, the implementation of the maritime security transportation act and the safe port act, port security

exercises, maritime threat information sharing, maritime domain awareness, container programs, and risk management for critical maritime infrastructure as well. the chair would now recognize mr. heyman for his testimony. >> thank you, chairwoman miller, ranking members, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. i'm pleased to highlight the department's work in the area of supply chain security in maritime security. this is an issue of great importance to us. international trade is the engine that has now has the power of economies all around the world, billions of dollars of commodities and merchandises move between trading partners every month by land, sea, and air, and the modern international trading system, or the global supply chain that undergirds the exchange of goods between countries is a system that's evolved over decades, and we experienced a dramatic transformation over the past

import of a century with the interconnection of buyers, sellers, supplier, and manufacturers all over the world. information and communication technologies enabled this transformation creating jobs, wealth, and opportunity. today, that supply chain provides food, medicine, energy, and a myriad of other products that sustain our daily lives. this is true around the world. it is a model of economic efficiency enabling just in time deliverly, but it also means the economies are more interdependent. the expansive nature of the global supply chain system leads it vulnerable to disruption. we saw this in terrorist acts, a volcano in iceland and recent tsunami in japan. disruptions impact our national economies, and as such, governments and businesses around the world have a vital interest in transforming the old model of efficiency adopting a new model on the integrity and relittle of supply chain. that is precisely what we seek to achieve with the

administration's new national strategy for global supply chain security. two weeks ago, secretary napolitano announced the strategy to have the resilience global supply chain seeing the importance to the economy and the security for the approach to foster a transformation from just in time to just in case. this country's safety and security will always remain paramount concern of the department and the supply chain is an integral component. we strengthened the chain that we talked about today and specifically on the administration strategy incorporates and builds upon prior to efforts. there's two goals promoting the flow of legitimate commerce with protecting the supply chain from exploitation and two, fostering the global supply chain system prepared for and can withstand evolving threats and hazards and

recover rapidly. the strategy aligns international security resilience efforts to foster systems to resolve threats early, improve verification and detection and reduce as a rule inerts. we do this by having a all of nation approach in managing risk by utilizing layered defenses. we'd like to especially thank the congress for its foresight in this committee in particular for the need of the work that form the basis of a strategy under the safe port act of 2006. again, safety and security of the american people paramount importance to the department, the strategy is a significant step forward in the process and evolution. over the next six months, significant outreach will be conducted to foreign and domestic stake holders as part of the implementation efforts building on ongoing efforts. in particular, worth noting that as a result of secretary napolitano's supply chain security initiative last year, we made progress in implementing

the strategy through new efforts and in some cases new partnerships such as with the world customs organization, the international maritime organization, international civil and aviation organization, and the universal postal union. we are leading efforts to help improve the security of operations across the global supply chain, to raise international standards, and foster systems for trade recovery globally. the written testimony outlines these efforts in greater detail. let me close with the final thought. the global supply chain system is an interconnected multisystem highly complex. it encompasses foreign and domestic ports, transportation systems, conveyances, and infrastructure. its stength is its ability to deliver goods and sustain our daily lives on a near realtime basis. that system continues to grow in scale and importance, and so we must recognize today that without a doubt disruptions to this system will happen, and we

must think anew on how to best build in not just efficiency, but security and resilience as well. our new national strategy for global supply chain security presents a blueprint for change while building on efforts and infrastructure that's been in place for some time. we encourage other countries and organizations to adopt similar efforts. we thank you again for the opportunity to testify and look forward to answering the questions you may have. >> thank you very much, appreciate that testimony. the chair now recognizes for his testimony. >> rnging member, members of the subcommittee, it's a privilege and honor to appear before you today to discuss border protections work to balance maritime facility and trade facilitation to protect the country from dangerous shipments and enhance the global supply chain. customs and border protection or cbp is charged with managing the physical access to our economy

and our nation at ports of entry. at the core of the responsibility, we're on the front lines to protect threats including those that could be in cargo shipments. just as importantly, cbp is on the front line to protect the economic future by facilitating trade through the ports by the use of better information, technology, partnerships, we've been able to form the most effective supply chain security structure in the world helping to reduce transaction costs for u.s. business and provide an environment where u.s. security and vision interests can work together towards our common mission. to meet our responsibilities, we work to identify and address potential threats before they arrive at our ports. this requires we secure the flow of cargo at each stage of the supply chain, the point of origin, while in transit, and when it arrives in the united states. to accomplish this, the cbp pursues a multilayered approach to security. segments cargo by potential risk and examining it as early as

possible in the process. although often presented as being intention or conflict, the security and trade missions are supporting. by utilizing risk based strait jis, we focus time on resources on the small percentage of goods that are higher risk that we can expedite trade about which we know a great deal. the multilayered approach is based on the following core elements, retaining information about cargo shipments as early in the process as possible, using sophisticated targeting techniques to assess each shipment for risk, partnering with the private sector, working with foreign governments and international organizations like the world customs organization to harmonize and enhance approaches to supply chain security, and maintains a robust inspection regime including nonintrusive inspection of equipment and radiation detection technology at the ports of entry. the elements are familiar to the

subcommittee and especially in lite how they are fundamental to the approach of the new strategy. dhs and cbp works closely with you and the staff achieved advances on cargo security and trade afghanistan. with your support, we implemented the filing or ten-plus-two. we can identifying these to identifying these in the processes. we have the unique capability advanced cargo information with the targeting system allowing us to take action before shipments are loaded on to vessels and aircraft destined to the united states -- >> your microphone is off. >> the shipper program, the customs trade partnership or cp pat is recognized as the model

for government and business. there's over 10,000 members representing over 55% of the importing value into this country. while terrorism remains the primary focus, we will explore ways to collaboratively address other threats vane the potential to compromise the supply chain including drug smuggling, weapons trafficking, and trade and import safety violations. under the container initiative, cbp works with the partnerrings to mitigate the threat before it leaves the foreign ports and operated 58 ports in 32 countries screening approximately 80% of the cargo being shipped to the united states. we are continuing the deployment and use of advanced images systems and radiation detection equipment. this nonintrusive technology allows us to work first timely in recognizing the -- efficiently in recognizing

potential threat. we remain at the fore front of supply chain management and confident the approach laid out in the national strategy represents an effective way forward building on the existing programs. thank you, again, for lay lowing me to -- allowing me to testify on trade resilience, and we look forward to working with the subcommittee on these issues, and i'm happy to tyke -- take your questions. >> thank you very much. >> good morning, madam chair and ranking members of the subcommittee. i'm here to talk about the approach of protecting our ports, maritime commerce, and securing the global maritime supply chain. from up acception, the united states has been a maritime nation considering that high concentrations of our population live in and around port areas and 95% of the international trade is done via the sea. the consequences of any attack or disruption on maritime

transportation system are potentially severe. backed by the national transportation security act of 2002 and the security and accountability for every port act of 2006, the coast guard led a joint federal state, local, tribal, private sector and international charge to implement a robust layered security approach that starts in ports abroad, carries across the high seas, and culminates in the waterways designed to identify any threat long before it reaches our shores. our oaforts start abroad under the os miss of the overseas assessments of over 900 port facilities and 153 of the 157 countries that can potentially conduct maritime commerce with the united states. for example, in 2010, two

companies commenced the shipment of liquid gas from yemen to the united states, due to the increased risk of the origin, the coast guard conducted additional assessments in yemen and use technologies to screen arriving crude members before they depart yemen. the vessels are inspected with an undersea investigation well in advance in the mediterranean sea before they make arrival in the u.s. ports. offshore a cutter fleet maintains a vigilant presence conducting fishery enforcement armed with the authorities of 41 bilateral agreements and simultaneously maintaining an agile posture to respond to humanitarian disasters and threats 20 maritime security and the global supply chain. the coast guard's planned fleet of the national security cutters and offshore patrol cutters august -- augmented by border patrol are

essential to maintaining the offshore response capability. the coast guard in cooperation with border protection ensures that u.s. bound vessels pose a potential risk are identified and inspected before they reach u.s. shores. specifically, the coast guard and cbp share and jointly screen manifest 96 hours prior to the apriefl in the u.s. to identify crew, cargo, vessel documentation, and route anomalies providing an appropriate lead time to mar shall a response to any threat well offshore. in 2011, the coast watch program run by coast guards intelligence coordination center screened 28.5 million people and more than 121,000 ship arrivals as well as their business practices and associations and generated 120 advanced warnings on arriving ships, cargoes, and persons posing a potential security or criminal threat.

the coast guard leads the international maritime organizations work group three focusing on combating piracy on the high seas. this effort resulted in several best practices like the use of private armed security teams on board commercial vessels transiting the high risk waters. in 2011, the teams repelled over 120 attacks that would have otherwise impacted the global supply chain. a final level of security resides in the waterways and we have have security plans for more than 11,000 u.s. vessels, 3200 port facilities, and through the use of area maritime security committees fostered an extensive inner agency collaboration to bolster security of layers infrastructure. this was highlight the in 2010 when the motor vessel carried 500 illegal migrant smugglers

tied to sri i lanka and intelligence sources. this was our capability to track and intercept a potential threat on the high seas and mitigate risk to the home lan. it was also a prime unitlyization of the operational threat response plan, a presidential directed inner agency process establishing protocols for realtime, communication, coordination, and decision making among inner agency principles. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and for your continued support of the coast guard. i'll be pleased to answer your questions. >> thank you very much, admiral, and the chair now recognizes mr. caldwell. >> thank you very much for having us up here to talk about supply chain security. it's important to recognize that the issues and programs we're talking about today didn't start with secretary -- or the president's strategy from last

week. these things go back ten years, they go back to 9/11, and they go back to the maritime transportation security act passed in november about ten years ago. the maritime transportation security act among other things called for a secure system of international, intermodal transportation with systems to screen cargo while in transit. since 9/11, go conducted about two dozen reports on some aspects of supply chain security everything from the programs discussed to the technologies that have been used some successfully and some attempts not adds successful. many of the programs jump started right after 9/11, so i think it was important to understand some of the warts they had initially. go made a number of recommendations through the years for dhs to improve strategic planning, work force management, internal controls, cost estimates, and performance measures. as the programs developed, a lot of go's recommendations were

implemented and to that in the programs, they have improved over the years. i'll be happy to discuss any of the individual programs during the q&a session. regarding the 100% scanning, the new strategy itself does not mention the existing statutory requirement. we completed a thorough review back in 2009, and we cited a number of challenges bringing into question the feasibility of whether we can do that as called for in the law. in the report, we made a number of recommendations. for example, recommended that dhs develop more accurate cost estimates, conduct a cost benefit analysis, conduct a former feasibility analysis, and after all of these, provide specific alternatives to congress including special legislation. unfortunately and despite the issue of the recent strategy, little has changed in terms of our recommendations in the last two or three years.

while dhs partially concurred with the recommendations at that time, they have not implemented most of those, and they now indicate these recommendations are largely overcome by events. we think that if dhs implemented these recommendations awhile back, the department would be in a stronger position to talk what those alternatives to be with 100% scanning and have specific legislative things, and they would be in a stronger position to justify the waivers that the department will obviously have to be providing and notifying congress about relatively soon. in fact, i think if these recommendations had been implemented two to three years ago, we might already have legislative compromise and be quite a bit ahead from where we are right now. here we are. we are still at an impasse in terms of the legislation of the 100% scanning. our industry and trade partners are concerned about the uncertainty this creates for them, domestic and international

industries. dhs will soon have to implement their chosen path in terms of doing a blanket waiver for all ports providing congress with advanced notification of that. there are substantial reporting requirements to that waiver, and those will continue as long as dhs uses the waivers as preferred tools 20 meet the requirements of the 9/11 act. in closing, gao provides analysis to congress on the issues, and i thank you, and i'm happy to answer questions along with the rest of the panel. >> thank you very much, mr. caldwell. that was an interesting testimony, and leads to the obvious question, i guess, and the reason for this entire hearing as we listened to the first three witnesses talk about all of the various things that have been ongoing in the efforts to make sure that we secure the global supply chain giving us

statistics, ect., which are very impressive based on the workload and the resources available to be able to accommodate 100% mandate that this congress has passed. i guess i would just start by -- you were mentioning, mr. cladwell, saying you made recommendations to do cost benefits and analysis and perhaps if they had taken those recommendations and done some of those kinds of things we would be further ahead, but overtaken by events, and believe me, we all understand that. totally understand that. the purpose of this hearing is just to have a belter idea of what kinds of events have overtaken us, but whether or not we have any realistic expectation of ever getting to the 100% or even -- if it's even that is not achievable as the secretary has made testimony to this subcommittee on a number of

occasions. where do we actually go from here? i guess i'm, first of all, just trying to understand from a cost -- let's just -- well, recognize optimal, but perhaps not realistic from a cost perspective. we have 55 ports in our country of which there are, i think about 700 ports of origin, countries of origin, goods coming into our country. do we have any idea at all what kind of costs we may be looking at? a ballpark figure in order to -- i don't know who i'm directing the question to -- gentlemen, do we have any idea, at all, what kind of costs we're actually looking at understanding the budgetary constraints that our nation is facing, but the goal of secures our nation, being our priority as well. who might answer that -- start with answering that question? >> let me start by just talking about what the costs are that we have to include in that and then go to specific operations.

there are a number of things that we've looked at in terms of the entirety from end to end questions about security and resilience. the implementation of going back to the supply chain to the manufacturer and things like ct pat require auditing of facilities and partners to ensure that they are adhering to the security requirements of ct pat. the ports require coast guard to go and ensure that the code, the international codes, have been adhered to, that safety and security procedures are in place. the counterterrorism programs are in place. the actual scanning of material and cargo and containers that cbp has and other programs within the federal government

requires that partnerships in foreign countries, with foreign governments, requires advanced targeting capability, and then also we have the capability at home for screening, so there's technology costs, there's operational costs, and all of those things are -- have -- are so broad and so large that estimates have been in the as cargo accurate as people would like. >> i'm not looking for an accurate estimate, just a ballpark. >> so this is in the billions and billions of dollars, but i'll turn to the cbp colleague who has the operational arm of that to go into the operational costs. >> from an operational perspective, we have significant experience in terms of the costs of these programs. from the pilots that we've ran. over the course of the two and a half to three years those pilots were active, and, of course, we still have one additional active

location in pakistan. the dhs, alone, spent about $68 million on the scanning equipment, on the deployment of it, on software upgrades, and all the relevant costs associated with that. at the same time, the partners at doe, responsible for the radiation and nuclear detection capability aspects of the sfi program, they spent over $50 million. the total government expenditures was almost $120 million on those six ports for the short time it was in operation. based on our estimates from that experience, we estimate about $8 million per lane to establish the sfi type 100% screening sweep of technology. now, that technology might be improving over time, and we're still studies that, but if you multiply that by the 2100 lanes at the 700 ports globally that ship directly to the united

states, that is quite cost prohibitive, up to the $20 billion range. the other aspect -- >> $20 billion? >> correct. >> $16.8. the other aspect of that mentioned is the cost to the trade, and to estimates have been very high both in studies from the private sector partners and the european union and others. >> okay. i guess i would also ask you, you were mentioning, i was taking notes when you talked about the risk assessments and the modeling that you're doing, and one of the things you mentioned if you could brush off for me a little a how you gather the information, and then you look at technology from the port of origin, ect.. can you talk a little bit more about what kinds of things targeting technologies you utilize to make the risk assessments? >> yes. i'd be happy to cover that.

that's an area of excellence we think that cbp has in coordination with the intelligence community and other dhs and law enforcement partners. we take information on cargo shipments as early as possible in the process, both through the 24-hour rule established after the trade act of 2002 as well as the isf, the importer security filing, the ten-plus-two, and the have that information with shipments combined with the information we know from the supply chain, the ct pat as well as historical data on shipments from certain routes and countries, and manipulate that data using the automatic telling system in sophisticated ways. one of the most common talked about is the intelligence based rules. these are specific rule sets designed to address each mode. we have different rule set, for instance, for maritime sprier sus land, air, and -- veer sis land, air, and rail to

identify potential security risks. we're using advanced analytic technology techniques and it's called machine learning in the field to help us model risk more effectively beyond the base process. we use what we know about the supply chain with the trusted partners to help reduce potential for risk on those shipments as well as the procedures used at the foreign port, so all 6 that is factored in in an automated fashion to give us a sense of the risk of individual shipments, and we do that both international targeting center for cargo and with other csi teams deployed abroad. >> thank you. my time expired, but i appreciate the candid response want best estimate on cost. it's our job as congress to ask you how much it costs for you to implement mandates we pass. we have to have a clear understanding of what it is and understanding the budget constraints we deal with here and it's for us to determine

from a priority standpoint where we go with the budget from here with national securities perspective as well. with that, i recognize the ranking member. >> thank you, madam chair. mr. caldwell, you're with the gao; correct? okay. you have been with the issue for some time and know the legislative requirement and challenges of scanning 100% of containers, but in hindsight what different courses could have been taken to comply with the law? >> i think in terms of actually setting up the pilot, there could have been more metric setup to measure how long it was taking, the cost, what impact it had on trade at the individual ports. in addition to this, there could have been better and validated data on cost, still an issue as we discussed, and i think again, feasibility analysis, cost

benefit analysis had been done earlier in the process, and it's unclear if it will be done at this appointment. i think that would have had given them position to engage with congress perhaps earlier and perhaps, you know, very awkward, obviously to do this before the deadline approaches in july 2012. >> the two -- did you -- the gao communicate those recommendations to the department of homeland to cbp coast guard? >> yes, we did. particularly they went to dhs geared towards cbp with the leads in terms of the container program, and they were recommended in october 2009 report, and we tacked to dhs earlier, perhaps spring of 2009 about the need for these. >> okay. ..

and i agree there is a deadline that's coming up in july of this year and we are coming out to that. what did you all actually do with those recommendations? and keep in mind as we are going through this discussion on a former businessman. certainty is important and in the international business community, not knowing what cbp

is going to do, what is going to happen it affects the certainty and that affects our economy. what did you will do specifically with the recommendations? >> let me answer the general question first which is what we do with the gao report at the process of adhering to them or not. we actually have instituted about two and a half, three years ago a very synchronized effect with gao we are trying to get in early to understand the problem, so we are working very closely together. there's a whole process where we are working with them to get as much data as possible. on the back and when you are implementing, when the gao is finishing its recommendations we've given an opportunity to concur and not concur. we do that in every report with all the things recommend but we usually provide what kind of corrective action were steps that will be taken into gao then follows up with what we've done

that or not so there's a process that we do and the cost estimates for how we can do better. the time that report cannot most of the pilot project have been completed either government said they were not going to continue to implement it or they actually included for other reasons and so getting books cost estimates that's the best we have right now from that original data. spearman out of the recommendations that you all made on the one to 100 scale, what percentage do you think they implemented? i know there's give-and-take they are not going to accept everything 100%. but the way the gao or the inspector general, somebody could that comes up with ideas i see it as a way to improve so how do we make it better not accepting everything 100% what would you say on the one to 100

scale? >> i will say our goal engaging in the executive branch and this is true with the dhs as well with 80% of our recommendations implemented. >> what do they get roughly? >> this year we are not doing very well. we have five recommendations. we maybe have two of them partial and the other three. i think also one of the recommendations we made that they do a feasibility study was a statutory requirement in the cord act it wasn't just the gao recommendations. >> so you are saying on that recommendation of the recommendation from you all a statutory requirement and they haven't done it yet? >> that's correct. >> there's pieces of it but they need to put together and i think the important thing is for some of that analysis that feeds that will be important even if we do the blanket wafers because under

the waiver procedure there's still the reporting requirement dhs talk about how they plan to achieve what they are doing still trying to achieve the scanning and if not why not so bad as some of the justification they're going to need in that analysis. >> and i think madam chair and members this is a difficulty when there's a recommendation is a statutory requirement. how do we get your body and into this? one more question that you don't remind in regard to the interim final supply chain strategy by the statutory act emphasized the 2007 strategy the interim is 128 pages long on the topics such as finding the problem, strategic objectives, the role of technology, the responsibilities, implementation of a scheduled prayer these milestones, recovery and training exercise requirements

but the report we just got last month and only six pages which means there was little discussion. i don't understand, usually when you do an interim report to build on it and this one you build and took away and i just don't understand and i give my time of but how do you explain discrepancy or not discrepancy but how do you go from details to now a six page executive summary how do you explain that and build down instead of sort of building up? >> it's a good question, and i would just no to -- >> this is the interim report and then the interim report,

127, 128 pages you build on the other one and again i'm not saying maybe this is a perfect example of streamlining how do you go for men and from that report and then come up with this report here? >> i made to get a lot more time on the answer. there's a couple of things that we've done differently here than the interim report that should be noted. first of all, the scale of the report goes beyond the maritime and goes into all modes of transportation to and it includes resilience as a critical element and it also looks to international engagement on a wave that has frankly unprecedented. what we've done in the strategy document is to talk about building on these previous documents. so rather than regurgitate all of them we've tried to make it a simple and straightforward as possible. that doesn't mean that there

isn't behind, there are implementation things we are working on. we have a report to the president and i hope we wouldn't get lost in the length of it and i think eisenhower's strategy for world war ii was two words which was europe's first and we have a lot of things that go beyond that. we are in fact actually and plunging down things like the supply chain security initiative the circuitry put forth that sits in to the global strategy the president puts forward and all these things come together. >> i can summarize to words into one, wind. but this is something that should be a guideline to what we are doing. and i am disturbed by what i'm seeing here especially recommendations from mr. caldwell and not meeting a lot of them, but madame chair,

think you for indulging me on this important issue. thank you. >> the chair will now recognize the ranking member of the full committee mr. thompson. >> thank you very much, madame chair. mr. mcaleenan, the goal of this congressional law was to give us within a reasonable period of time 100% scans on the container shipments coming into the u.s. at 100%. >> in terms of the total percentage, sir? >> yes. >> our csis program covers 80% of the global trade to the u.s. in terms of the actual scanning. we do about 45,000 inspections

last year through our ports prior on the vessels. that is a little bit less than 1% of the total cargo headed to the u.s. and then we scan an additional 4% upon of rival domestically in the united states. >> all right. in layman's terms, what% of cargo that's coming to the u.s. right now is not stand? >> in terms of physical scanning that would be the vast majority come over 95%. >> why not? >> well, we've been discussing with you and your committee for several years the complexity to this process and the test that we've undertaken with ssi to

examine the feasibility of the physical scanning in particular. at the same time, we've been aggressively pursuing the lawyer approach focused on the coordination at the csis with our former partners on the high risk working with the international community on the standards. >> taking whatever you are doing to the high risk shipments or anything like that at this point in this hearing today, is there any shipment using your pravachol that's come into the u.s. that we don't know what's in it? >> it's not as complex as what you are saying was the leader approach whether you're scanning are taking high-risk. i didn't want to know what the number is.

>> we have stated content on all shipments to the united states and through the isf we also have the carrier explaining the location on the vessel of the container as well as the container status message where it is in the process. the combination of the two data element allows us to identify any and manifested identity eight containers and address those upon arrival. >> so your testimony to this committee is no container shipment come into the u.s. that we don't know what's a in it? >> that is too strong a statement. we have requirements -- >> i anderson and requirements. i just -- are you doing 90% or doing 85 for several you are

doing 95%? i want to know where we are towards the 100% standard and whatever protocol you are using, that's fine, but i want to know where right now. >> there are very little gaps on information. we have very high compliance. >> give me a little. some of the 24 compliance is over 99%. isf compliance is a relatively new program that 92% but that is where we get the information on the cargo shipment in the environment. so very high compliance on both those. >> mr. heyman, do you agree? stila almost 100% of things coming to the united states are known to us in terms of what's -- what is in the manifest, what is relating, and we then use that information to our risk analysis. stomachs we are at 99% at the container shipment that come to

the u.s. is your testimony before this committee meets the requirement at least in and the 07 wall? >> that's not what i was saying. when i was answering the question is whether we knew about all of this stuff that was coming to the united states, and the answer is generally yes. >> when you say new about -- >> i'm not saying all this stuff. >> you know what is in the containment? >> yes. >> you do? at 99%? >> yes. the question the law puts ford is whether that information -- the information that we've received is accurate, and whether in fact somebody has tried to fraudulently put material into a container or misrepresent what in the container, and that's what we try to identify, and in fact we've done it to great success to read about 11,200 narcotics seizures last year. >> i'm not asking for that kind

of data. i'm just trying to give the public confidence that the law that congress passed saying we want 100%, that you tell this committee from what i understand that you are 99% there to risk in terms of the 100% scanning mandate,,, that mandate as the testified over one a number of times poses significant operational financially and difficult challenges. >> that's fine. where are you to do the 100%? what percentage along the way are you? >> my colleague just testified that we are doing approximately 5% -- >> you are 5%? >> approximately. >> so, what are we doing for the other 95%? >> so, those are what we've done -- the go through the advanced targeting system to get to be identified as not part of the high risk containers that

require additional inspections. the inspection process, remember, is first to look at whether the manifest is accurate and second to look at whether there is any threat information and third, to look at the opportunity for the non-intrusive inspection and ultimately we may have to open that up. that is the most difficult of course. >> but that is the process that dhs put together. that was not the process that converts to elected. >> actually that was the process that was put in place for the pilot projects the congress asked us to do. estimates and so you have now taken that and made that the policy based on where you just said to the >> i'm not sure i understand, sir to the estimate mr. caldwell, let me ask the question of the gao. are you comfortable with the responses that you heard that

99% of the cargo on the container shipments come into the u.s., you know what it is coming you know what is in its? >> let me interpret the line hearing here. >> no, don't interpret. just stick with the facts. >> you're not -- why are you not cracks >> for the majority of the containers, we have the manifest the it doesn't look suspicious. that's where the scrutiny stops. and in many cases this may be a standard shipments of manufactured overseas and to a target store here in the united states, towels, textiles, anything else. but as far as assurance of what is in there we have a manifest and the manifest only. >> so other than the manifest we don't know?

>> that's correct unless there is a scam. estimates before. at this time the gentleman will recognize the gentleman from south carolina, mr. duncan. >> thank you, madam chairman. let me pause to say thank you for arranging a tour of the port of baltimore with the coast guard to read recently where i and you had the opportunity to witness some of the things the ranking member is talking about. the scrutiny of manifest, looking at the country of origin, scoffs of the shift that's carrying the containers, possible interdiction to read multiple places along the way, and then the active screening in the port for the radioactive material chemical and biological issues. and so when you think about the number of ports in this country and the number of containers that come in and i am amazed that we are able to do as well of each other as we did. and i commend the gentleman that are doing that implementing the policy of this country every day to keep us safe.

so thank you and thanks for educating me. i guess the question i have is mcaleenan -- >> mcaleenan, sir tristram thank you pittard i wasn't here for the introductions, madam chairman, so i apologize. kim cdp effectively screen high risk shipments in a way that expedite a legitimate commerce? because from what i saw there's a stop and go process, and i know that we targeted certain containers and certain countries of origin when we are trying to do a very good job there but i am very concerned at the speed of commerce and expedition on that. so can you screen high-risk shipment in a way to expedite legitimate commerce while at the same time ensuring the security of the united states if he will touch on that? >> yes, i believe we can come congressman. and it is to do precisely that. for the vast majority of cargo that we determined to be low risk based on our analysis of

intelligence and information provided on the cargo shipments are to the supply chain and the knowledge of the parties involved in that transaction, those are released instead to their destination in our economy right away. usually for a rifle. for those very small percentages of cargo that we think might be risky or we don't have enough information on them and we wanted to give further look at we do try to address the potential risk of the earliest possible time in the supply chain. 45,000 times last year that was done before the cargo was on the vessel in the foreign port. another 5% of cargo ase examine the the u.s. port of a rival, and we try to those examinations of the most efficient way possible. we use the non-intrusive technology which is again an imaging device that you probably saw the part of baltimore. to do the initial exams on the cargo that we determine might be high risk that is a very quick process that we can scan the cargo e efficiently. if we don't see any anomaly, the

picture looks consistent with the commodity that we expect to be in that container we are able to allow that to proceeded to the commerce and is only a very small percentage to read a very small percentage that remains of concern that we actually do a full examination and what we call emptying the container and looking at all the content. so that leader approaches designed to do precisely what you asked about,, this time, in terms of facilitating that trade while securing it to get stomach and i appreciate those efforts and you clarifying that. it seems like there was went be a gotcha moment a moment ago asking for the 99%, and there is no way that any country in the nation were in the world can fill the screen every container based on the number coming in this country. sliding scrutinizing the manifest, understanding the country of origin, understanding the history of that particular ship or that particular manufacturer, that particular in

porter is critical. so watching you all implement those different steps and saying this container came from xyz country but stops at the country ze and why before it came to the u.s. and maybe it was offloaded there and held for a while and put on another container shipping and trucking at the whole way and understanding we need to pull that out of the line and scrutinize it a little bit further even to the point of possibly on packing it is an amazing undertaking. and so, trying to see the gotcha moment of the containers and we know everything that's in there that's ridiculous. we don't know how many are in their other than with the manifest says. but you do a tremendous job and madame chair, we saw looking for threats, assessing those threats -- the question that i have for mr. caldwell is in your estimate what do you think it would cost

the government to implement the 100% cargo screening? what is the dollar figure on that, sir? >> we talked earlier of a figure of 20 million dollars and that is the same vigor that we reported in 2009. some 20 billion? >> 20 billion to get it's a little unclear who would pay this in the 9/11 act not specify who would pay it which is a large issue of course. as to the consumer is right to be because the import/export is going to pass the cost on and that is obvious to most folks in and out of time and i yield back. >> thank you gentlemen and at this time i recognize the gentle lady from california ms. sanchez. >> thank you, madame chair. and again, you've done a good job. >> thank you. so have you. [laughter] >> i have had the privilege of being able to go and look at having chaired the committee before the subcommittee before to many of the points abroad to

see what conditions they were under and i would just say that i think as i from trying to take a look at some of the major ports that we have here, this committee might think about taking a look at the major ports that actually export to us to see what conditions there are. there's a difference between mumbai for example and singapore and that allows us to understand how is a difficult to get into this 100% scanning issue and that is 5% or so that peace can. and we understand the approached the evidence that is one of the people who pushed the past for example. but there is the uneasiness at least for me for what is going

on for the abnormal patterns with the risk analysis and then taking a look at that. so i think that we are -- i think it is very difficult to get to 100% screens, but at the same time there is still a lot out there that we are missing. for example, it is my understanding that of the cargo containers security initiative port determined high risk the customs and border protection scans or otherwise the result of 96% of the shipment that goes overseas. that means 4% of those in fiscal year 2011, a little under 2,000 shipments were high risk cargo that were not examined before they arrived to the u.s. 20 minutes away from long beach. that is a big concern if there is a dirty bomb or something else in there. i really do want to push it out and have that happen out there.

so, that's one of the questions i have is can you please discuss that particular issue and then my second question would be secateurs in a public, has testified that the requirement of h.r. one recommended by the 9/11 commission could not be met for several reasons including that the technology does not exist for 100% effective and efficient cargo screening. so is that the department's position today but we don't have the technology to do an efficient and effective fast 100% screening? and it's also my understanding that the domestic nuclear detection office is developing a plan for evaluating and testing the new one tomography as part of the advanced technology demonstration program. this program is being installed in the street part, but, to demonstrate as the private

public project in the operational environment, so it has the department taken a look to see if they want to participate in this test to see if in fact that technology works and whether we can get it put in here to the u.s. cracks so those would be my questions, madam chair. i will give you a chance at those. >> okay. i will take your first, congressman. your numbers are correct on the 96% of exams are accepted in the see if i ports of examination. the 4% as there are challenges sometimes in the timing of the request. some of our partners are not able to respond during the hours that we need them to be for the container is laden. >> it does mean it gets lead in without an expression even though we've asked for it. >> the rise in long beach let's say could stomach correct that happened about 1780 times out of

10.5 million total cargo shipments to the u.s., so it is a very tiny percentage that we've targeted with sesir to foreign governments are not able to respond. >> but it's still 2000 and if it happens to be one of those that get put on a truck that goes through the freeway in my neighborhood -- >> understood to be the definition of high risk doesn't necessarily mean that it is a risky shipment. in fact, we have not found a terrorist weapon in all the shipments that are targeted. these are based on all these in the chain based on intelligence factors and most of all the vast majority of no concern. so, you know, to your point, we would like to get to 100% of the response, the 96 level is our highest historic plea that we've achieved. we continue to work with our partners to try to get to that 100% level on the part. >> to get to the other two questions first let me just agree. i think that i would recommend

to the ports of you seen one part you have seen one port. they are so different and one of the things that's been challenging to us is that the diversity of a terminal operation and the one part can be different from another operation on the same quarter, and so in terms of the cost of the technology and things like that, it's not just that but it's also how you configure your operations on the terminal is the footprint, all of those things may be affected and they are all problematic. >> report was made in a different way, you have a different footprint and you can't put the same standardization and. stomach and they were not -- they were not designed for screening. >> the challenge that we were looking to do this in foreign countries and the diplomatic challenges we have to think in the pilots if you look at them we had labor issues, we had what i just described the operations from the terminal operations

challenging in the other parts of the u.k., so there are foreign diplomatic challenges, not just the technical ones. and i really don't want to belabor the point and i will get the second question about the technology really have to look at technology as a possible solution down the road. we always want to look at that as a possible long-term solution that helps drive down cost and increase efficiency and may increase also the speed at which we have a good flows through our ports. so we are looking for that and we are partnering with other agencies and within their own strategy looking to do additional investments in technology and technology development and we will see where that goes in the long term. >> is it still the department's official position that the technology does not exist to do the 100% screening? >> the technology that we have -- well, no, there's technology that exists today that has challenges come all the ones i

just described, and including july descendant described such as false positives. >> could you answer for the record and in writing the third question that i have about the shreveport situation and what you know about it and whether you think you're going to get involved in that. thank you, madame chair. islamic thank the gentlelady and now recognize mr. brown from georgia. >> thank you, chairman. this hearing as well as many as a point about something i've long said here in this committee that is that the department of homeland security has a totally wrong. we are spending billions of dollars and wasting billions of dollars looking for object instead of looking for those who want to harm us. we would be much better off as a nation from a much more secure as a nation if we would spend the money and human intelligence focusing on those who want to harm us. we have to stop patting down by ground ma and children and start looking at airports for those

who want to do us harm through the sector. we need to stop looking at all the technology to try to get to 100% when we can only get 5%. i really focusing on those entities throughout the world that want to harm us and we are not doing that. we are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. we've given them a false sense of security. we are giving them a message that this country is going to be free from having dirty bombs as ms. sanchez was talking about. wasting the tax payer money and it is actually a posture is to continue looking for objects. we need to totally change our focus on whether it is with shipping and ports across the country around the world will need to start focusing on those who want to harm us. having said that, the questions, just a couple of questions. why is there such a lack of

specifics in the administration's the five new national strategy? global supply chain security cracks anybody? >> the strategy represents the highest level of fidelity for what we need to do to accomplish our interests in ensuring the security and resilience of the supply chains. there's obviously a much richer and deeper problematic implementation that goes underneath that and what the strategy tries to convey is the idea of all of the proceeding programmatic and strategic efforts that have gone before but the strategy builds upon. it might have been bea labor and oftentimes in the strategies to talk about all of the authorities and everything that goes before that we tried want to do that because we wanted people to read it. that said, we would be happy to give you a more detailed brief at some point of all of the things we are doing and have been accomplishing in the last year. >> please, do.

there's been a great difficulty dealing with your lack of specifics. why is the administration going against the 100% scanning and in some cases have even played the mandate but hasn't requested that congress repeal the mandate? >> at this point, we are looking -- one of the things we've done in the last several years which i think is important for people to recognize is put in place programs that actually allow us to do much better risk-management, and if you look at the atf that my colleague of eskridge, the advanced jargon center and the information, the ten plus two that allows us to do much better analysis, we are probably -- i don't know they yawn but much further, the road in terms of our ability to identify high-risk and interdict high risk cargo than we were five years ago.

and so in many regards, we are moving in that direction which allows us to be practical and responsible of the implementation of the law. >> in the kennedy we've looked at a number of the technologies that have been developed. you've utilized some just sitting in warehouses. i would like to have from the department a rundown of how much money has been spent on technologies that have been used and discarded as being affected and how much money has been even spent not even to utilized and houses. if you please provide those the data i would be interested to see those because i know from the science committee perspective there been a lot of technological proposals that the department as purchased and have never been deployed.

but i encourage the department to change tracks to but we have to focus on terrorism instead of focusing on objects. tsa takes great pleasure in talking about how many weapons have been found in airports and talking about the success that we have had the effect of service on their plans. we are not doing our job to keep america's a. the department is looking the wrong direction and we're looking at objects. we need to look at people. those people and groups that want to destroy us and i'm not talking and looking at every muslim and at every person from miller eastern descent to me to get terrorists instead of looking for the objects that the department of homeland security is doing now. we are wasting billions of taxpayers' dollars in doing so.

as a, i encourage the department to change the tracks. i told the secretary that she is wasting money and whole philosophy of the department is totally wrong. we need to look at terrorists and the people who want to harm us instead of trying to look at objects and people in this country are getting on airplanes and ships and we aren't even looking at those other things from just the aircraft. i you back. >> the chair now recognizes the gentle lady from texas ms. jackson lee. >> thank the chairman and the ranking member. and to the witnesses at me ask this first question of every one. i was trying to catch the gentleman from georgia's comments of wasting money but i know that you can't put a price on the loss of life.

obviously the issue of property can sometimes generate enormous catastrophic impact on communities. so let me ask the members of this panel representing a number of entities that are involved in the believe requirement of the mandate of the 100% cargo screening that was supposed to take place january of 2012. secretary heyman, do you have the resources, and please don't tell me this is not in my area you are here to talk about the cargo screening etc., and it is your impression that the department has the resources, the money right now to make good on the mandate of the 100%

screening. >> no, ma'am. >> we are always getting this, mr. mcaleenan? >> thank you. >> my good friend >> that works, congressman. a distinguished name and your answer to that, please, sir. ischemic my answer would be the same. >> admiral? >> we are not in the container screening and i don't think that was introduced was the for an assessment system of 153 nations but we don't to trade with and another piece of it and then we are in that it with the cbp and screen 28.5 million people last year getting back to the congressman from georgia's question is looking at those

people one or their holes in the fence to say in the form where there are not good access control point where someone can enter the facility and then introduced an object into a container that isn't in the manifest. and then screaming people on the vessel that me to the same looking at history and then impose history on the vessels that may enter the u.s. port. and that will only comes down to what stopped the threat before it enters the u.s. parts and what isn't stopping at term. so we currently have the resources to do these assessments. we have roughly 60 individuals that are dedicated to do the and formed part assessment to read our to alleges the resources that would take to actually stop the threat before it enters the u.s. water. so that is where as you heard our comment time again that is where the rubber meets the road. >> so you have the personnel right now and the resources. is there a time when you expect those resources to run out?

>> we've been able to advance those objectives working with foreign partners, particularly in the european union to the estimate and this is under the coast guard funding? >> it is. >> mr. caldwell, you are likewise with the government accountability to read to you think dhs may need an assessment of the resources they have to meet the mandate that was given to them? >> not 100%, no, ma'am. >> is anyone in your shop looking at that issue? that is part of what may be the potential problem treat stomach every year we do analyze the budget provided by congress and the committee such as this. islamic the most recent budget that you've analyzed. what is your guess on that? nicoe recent, the most recent one we may have cut because we don't have a budget as we speak. >> can i be very specific? >> yes you can, sir.

>> the 2012 budget versus 2011 was a 50% reduction in the international progress requested in the administration. >> thank you very much. what we've requested from the administration and then ultimately what occurred paid do you have a next step on what they actually received? >> part of this was a shifting of the funds from the people like d.c. yes i back to the national targeting center and from our perspective the gao. some people need to stay in the parts to have relationships with those countries that in general for the targeting purposes it would be cheaper and more sufficient becerra the national targeting center. >> if you would indulge me for one last question i would appreciate it, madam chair. the study produced by the panel's indicated authority day closure of the part of the

jersey would result in the economic impact of the u.s. gdp of over almost $5 billion loss of 50,000 jobs. whether in new york, in my home town of the port of houston, houston port or any of the other major ports across the country and the terrorist incident that closes the nation's port would have a devastating economic effect in the u.s. and around the world. understanding these potential economic growth impacts, potential economic impact can we afford not to increase the security of the maritime cause on the shores, and i want to point that to the assistant secretary of the commissioner. >> thank you for that, congressman. that's right. this is one of the reasons the strategy is being put forward. the disruptions to the ports, the disruption to commerce and the supply chain is going to happen at some point. we've seen it recently with the tsunami and we've seen it recently with the volcano last

year and terrorism to read one of the things we tried to the strategy that is different and is important to recognize is the international solution that is to say we've gone around and are going to multi level organizations, world customs organization like the universal union. we are working bilaterally and saying we need to raise the standards. no one government, no private sector, nobody's going to be able to solve it on its own credit has to be a community effort and that is why one of the things we are going to be working on and have been working on is the international deutsch >> have you given up on the 100% screening? >> we are continuing to operate on the wall. >> can the commission finish the answer to those? >> i would say we must maintain a robust approach as to enhance the cargo security and you to continue to improve and we take the gao very seriously and as testified to improve the program

over the course of the past five or six years and deduct the scsi recommendation that they remain $35 million a year without the security with the program so that is maintaining our structure and expanding and improving it is absolute essentials. >> i thank the chair and the ranking member and the witnesses and yelled back. >> the chair now recognizes the gentle lady from california ms. richardson. >> thank you. first i would like to start my comments by thinking ranking member for supporting my participation today in the hearing. second of all, for the record i would like to note that the representative rohrabacher this the one that represents the port of los angeles and long beach which is known as the complex and it is the largest port in the united states of which i will be focusing my comments today. i also want to know for the record that out of the full homeland security committee hearing on february 25th, 2010, i questioned secretary

napolitano on the progress of the 100% container screen buhle june 16th, 2011 as the chairman of the subcommittee on the emergency communications prepared this response, myself and committee members submitted a letter to the secretary regarding the impending deadline of the screening and then again on march 3rd of 2011i asked secretary napolitano about the 100% cargo screening. so this has been a concern of mine for quite some time and with all due respect to some of the folks here who are testifying for those of us that live in these communities, the port complex itself is in mr. were looker's district however all of the land portion and all of the impact of the port meaning trucks and activity for the simple the port of long beach is in my district. so i take it pretty seriously. madam chairman, for the record i would also like to point out not speculating ideas, but according to the university of southern california homeland security

center the preliminary economic report was performed back in 2003 due to the strikes we had, the labor strikes in 2003, and it was recorded at that time that $1 billion a day was lost based upon the closure of the port. so, with respect to the people who are testifying when we say a number of 16, 20 billion, what ever it is, when you keep in mind that we lost 11 billion in 2003, and that was a labor issue, that wasn't even if there were infrastructure damages, so i'm not putting aside the cost that we need to consider these costs which leads me to my first question and if you can do yes or no as much as possible as i would appreciate it. mr. heyman come to your knowledge, has the department conducted a feasibility analysis based upon cost as mr. caldwell has referenced? have you guys dennett? yes or no? >> we haven't done the full capability study.

>> okay. thank you. my next question would be mr. heyman, to your knowledge of any steps been taken or are any steps being taken at this time to achieve the act of the 9/11 recommendations of the 100% scanning in the department? >> yes. we have submitted the report to make sure you get a copy on that. >> let me make sure you're clear on the question asking. this will directly reflect what steps you are taking to achieve the 9/11 recommendations of 100% scanning. >> this report reflects all of the sea port requirements and how we are implementing it. >> and how you are working to achieve 100% scanning? >> the report talks about what we've done to achieve the 100% scanning to this point. >> okay. commissioner, is it true cbp relies upon the host governments

with their customs personnel in relevant from countries to resolve issues of containers that are deemed high risk? >> yes, we work with authorities that are sovereign in those parts and often times observe the anticipation. >> is it true the cbp doesn't require scanning of the parts? >> is it true that you do not require scanning of the high risk containers out of these areas? >> our csis folks are operating with request as opposed to the requirement authorities. >> so it is correct as my question that you do not require scanning at the ports; is that correct? >> we do not have the authority to take action on our behalf. >> okay. again, building upon ms. sanchez, it's true 4% of the cargo identified the parts have been identified as high risk and have a right in the u.s. without

being scanned; that's correct? >> that's correct, 750 shipments last year. >> mr. heyman, you testified about these wonderful international relationships. however, when i asked the secretary, when i also asked ambassador kirk in these trade agreements that we've recently approved, was there any effort to work with these foreign countries to establish a scanning process and the answer in both of those was no, it didn't, no, would get back to us. do you know anything on that? >> i do not, but i could get back to you if you like. >> finally, madam chairman, i would like to build upon mr. brown's request of not only requesting the information of the cost of some of the technology of what is being done, but to supply the request of the folks here who are testifying to supply to us details on what steps have been taken, what technology is currently being considered, when has that last been reviewed, and

what future technologies are they considering to meet this request which may require a classified briefing? >> thank you, chairlady -- >> did you accept -- >> without al-awja action d'aspin okwu concluding? okay, without objection from certainly. the chair now recognizes. >> thank you, madame chair and ranking member really am appreciative of this hearing as i mentioned to you yesterday on the floor. my friend, congress member and i have found the report caucus and we actually sent a letter to the chair of the homeland security committee asking for a hearing such as this. and i am very pleased that we are holding of a spirited and i've been very interested in the testimony. but i think sitting here this full-time and listening to the question and answer i'm not

feeling any better about where we are in this country in terms of the port security. and i echo many of the comments that my colleague ms. richardson just made, and while either one of us actually represents the port of long beach los angeles, those ports we call them america's the five ports because it's about 44% of the trade that comes into this country comes through those port complex, and both of our districts border ports. many of our constituents live minutes from the ports, and any attack and natural or man-made would be devastating, and to the national economy has ms. richardson said in 2002, we had a labor dispute. everyone knew it was happening. there was already efforts under way to divert cargo from the west coast ports and yet we were able to determine that it was to

2 billion-dollar a day hit to our national economy. so, and it lasted ten days. do the math, and we know what i did. also, not to the national economy, but the global economy. we heard that many businesses throughout asia actually were extremely impacted by the loss of cargo moving in attendees. some of the businesses we even heard never recovered from that. so i think the threat to our national economy, the global economy is severe, and i have real concerns. i've always felt like the most vulnerable entryway into this country is through our seaports. and after 9/11, i feel we've focused in this country rightly so on securing our airports. you know, and we didn't really take into account the cost.

we didn't really take into account the inconvenience of i think the traveling public knew exactly what it was going to entail to make it through security. they would have probably balked at what we were recommending that it was important to the safety and security of the travelling public as well to our commerce to it i don't feel like we've done the same our ports, and i know there's a lot of vulnerability still. i'm one of those the would like to see us get to the greater percentage of scanning. that's also imperative. also a lot of what you are seen on is a lawyer approach, knowing what is in the manifest, be leaving with the manifest, and the bleeding when it reaches our shores nothing has happened across the ocean to have tampered with any of that cargo

recently if implemented design a to the port of los angeles there has been twice on the anniversary of 9/11 the national media company actually shipped deflated uranium through the port, and it was discovered in los angeles. also now since we've implemented this there has been a couple of containers that have come in that harbour folks from other countries. one was the 19 chinese in a container that was discovered by the choreman in los angeles, not any of these efforts that are under way. and in terms of cost, you know, the cost that would impact a recall me if something were happening at one of these major ports is significant. but, you know, we were sending a lot of money on our war per month it was 12 billion per month for both of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. so, and we believe that was worth it. we believe it was worth it for

the national security. l.i.e. really think this is at that level to read and i feel like we are vulnerable. i think we've all talked about how much we want a greater percentage of screening, and i think you've answered where we are at. and i think that you've heard this morning from a lot of members of this committee that we really are interested in seeing you get a higher percentage of scanning. let's talk about not -- if something might happen, let's talk about when something happens and the port disruption. it was touched on in terms of recovering. and i know that i am going to be introducing legislation that talks about all of the ports in the country having a recovery plan because i think i would make the ports less attractive to an attack if we knew that they could get up and running to get in the port caucus we are going to talk about the recovery plan for all of the parts. what would you suggest that we

look at in terms of what would be important for our major ports to get back up in business after a major disruption? >> thank you, congressman, for your thoughts on this very important subject. we take this very seriously and appreciate your seriousness as well. on the resilience and recovery site, it is something that is not -- it hasn't been embraced or has thought through as the prevention side. that is because largely we are very concerned about prevention, and we have done less on the resilience site. in the united states, that is why we are taking an initiative and building in the resilience internationally on the strategy. in fact we have led the way partly through the apec forum ensuring that the trade recovery procedures are put in place. and one of the main things people will do, and frankly the port should consider is having

the appropriate information to know where and when things can opens of the businesses can rely on the real understanding of the timing and the recovery and the disruption. the sharing of reformation as one of the things we can do a lot more on as it retains to the resilience of the courts. >> let me ask about the point of origin where we've got the manifest a right to the point of destination where we are hoping for the best but nothing has happened on our wide open seas. can any of you speak to that issue? are you 100% sure that when these containers leave the point of origin and when the right to the point of destination nothing has happened and what are we doing to ensure that?

>> we try to make it as certain as possible, and to that that is part of the ten plus two filing. it includes information on where the containers reside on the vessel. it allows us to see if they might be accessible while on the high seas and to determine whether they could be compromised during a lot of under way. so we do the checks when they arrive and are able to compare the seals submitted by the importer and the shipper to this because those? >> u.s. borders and protection of a point of entry. so, in other words, this is a concern and something we take seriously. we work with our partners on the coast guard at the dessel's approach of the u.s. parts, but -- >> do you do checks on all the containers? >> nope. we do targeted field checks and also random operations to ensure the integrity. >> and that is what makes me nervous, too to read again, keeps me a bad night -- keeps me

up at night. you're kind of best guess and it's more and more of the ports are going to go automated. i am concerned that the loading and unloading of the cargo by automation as opposed to real folks is also i think presents a bit of a rest. >> thank you. >> i want to thank -- term my microphone on. i certainly want to thank all the participation from the members today. it has been i think one of our -- well we've got a great hearings but this has certainly been a good one. i think a lively one. a good discussion. i certainly want to thank all the witnesses for your testimony and thank you all for your service to the nation and i know i speak on behalf of all the members as we are obviously working in very extremely bipartisan fashion about the national security.

and my staff get sick of me saying this but i say all the time and try to remind certainly myself that the first, with all the issues the congress faced first and foremost responsibility of the federal government to provide the common defense that is actually in the preamble of our constitution. .. >> this subcommittee is very, very interested in assisting you with the resources that you all need to do your jobs and the mission that we have tasked you

with, and you're out there every single day, and it really is, for us, as i say to prioritize our spending here, and i say that from a bipartisan stand point because it's interesting the administration is proposing a 50% reduction, but yet i understand the makeup of all of that was, expensive to have officers oversea, ect., so we have to -- we're not looking for a sound bite here. we're really trying to understand how we prioritize our spending and do what we need to do to keep the nation safe, particularly to the points. again, i appreciate all the witness, their testimony, and with that, i would mention also that the hearing record will be open for 10 days. if there's additional questions, we'll get those as well, and without objection, the subcommittee stands a-- adjourned. thank you very much.

[inaudible conversations]

>> when i first started the book, i thought this must be an american story. this is about a country that worships the religion of self-reliance and individualism, but it turns out we're laggers when it comes to living alone. it's much more common in european nations and especially in scandinavia, and it's more common in japan. >> on "after words" in going solo, eric looks at the growing trend of american adults choosing to live alone and what that means for the country. also on booktv sunday at three, the second cousin of

condoleezza rice, connie rice, starting a dialogue between gang leaders and police, and georgetown university on the one-woman play and book of the same name, "revenge of the women's studies professor." >> next, a hearing on expanding gps technology in the aviation industry. this house aviation subcommittee is looking at plans to use gps to replace radar in the air traffic control system. this is an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> the subcommittee will come to order. we meet today to discuss a critical part of the global

infrastructure, the globalling positions system, commonly referred to as gps. i thank the witnesses for their participation in today's hearing, and i'd like to say a special welcome to deputy secretary, the witnesses from the united nations international civil aviation organization, a very important frame work for the global aviation industry. your participation in today's hearing speaks to the importance of this issue, not only here, but around the globe. for this committee, for this subcommittee, aviation safety is the top priority. according to the department of transportation, the global positioning system has served as a critical component of aviation safety improvements that the aviation community embraced. moreover, they are critical to the safety and efficiency improvements planned as part of next gen that we're in the

process of rolling out here in this country and other countries as well. our aviation infrastructure and efforts to update it with the department of transportation's next gen program are a platform for growth in the u.s. economy. next gen is a catalyst for the innovation industry. it's important for government to avoid constraining that growth by limiting the efficiency gains and job creation achieved by next gen which is reliant on gps. as important as gps is to transportation safety and efficiency, its signal straint is very weak, and therefore, gps is susceptible by interference by other transmissions even if the other transmissions are constrained within their own spectrum allocation. over the past years or so, the subcommittee has watched with interest the developments of issues related to radio spectrum within the l-band. as the federal communications

commission deliberates the issues before it, we recognize the potential impacts on the transportation community and hence today's hearing. however, out of fairness to the parties involved in the fcc proceedings, i'd ask the witnesses to focus comments today on the question at hand regarding the importance of gps as an element of transportation infrastructure and the public policy considerations of the transportation community to protect that infrastructure. today's hearing serve as an opportunity to hear ideas for the best way forward given what we've learned about gps. where there's good engineers, there could be a variety of solutions, and it's helpful for technologies to co-exist because given the spectrum demands, the problem of interference between competing uses and various points along the spectrum is not going away. i'd encourage the agencies and industry to find a way to safely

co-exist, if possible, and belief that we can and must find a way for us to continue to encourage innovation in both the broadband and gps industry. before i recognize you for opening statement, i recognize there's five days to extend your remarks after the record of this hearing. without objection, so ordered, and i now recognize mr. costello. >> mr. chairman, thank you, and i thank you for calling the hearing today. i'll submit my statement for the record. i welcome the witness, and i look forward to hearing their testimony, and with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> did you have -- >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to thank chairman petri and ranking member for holding the important hearings on a critical importance of gps to our nation's infrastructure.

i'd like to welcome the witnesses and i look forward to hearing your testimony on the importance of the issue regarding the future of gps. gps is the corner stone, as you all know, of aviation systems that is in our country and any threat to gps needs to be handled with the utmost care and ensure our skies are safe. one of my key concerns has been the light squared project and how it affects gps devices. i'm very concerned the reliability of gps might be put at risk. i'll be interested to hear opinions or solutions to the situation because we need to solve all concerns before they become a problem and put lives at risk. i look forward to hearing from the witnesses, their thoughts on gps and their role in the aviation system. thank you again, and i look forward to hearing your testimony. i yield back. >> thank you. we turn now to the first panel which consists of the honorable john, deputy secretary of the united states department 6 transportation, the deputy director air knave gages bureau

national civic organization of the united nations. gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, and thank you for your prepared statements, and we invite you to summarize them, if possible, in about five minutings and then we'll have some questions i suspect. thank you very much, and we'll begin with you. >> thank you, chairman petri and ranking member, and members to the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. the simple fact is the global positioning system applications have vital to transportation safety and efficiency. tens of millions of drivers across america use gps to navigate every day. in the department of transportation's federal aviation administration, we estimate that by 2013, 60,000 aircraft will be equipped with gps to navigate the skies over america. this is what we refer to collectively as next gen.

on the ground, positive train control, which is an improved safety application for rail transportation, relies on gps as well. the intelligent transportation systems will depend on gps as a key technology for vehicle collision warning and crash avoidance systems. what's more, gps is essential for the operations of first responders, search and rescue, resource management, weather tracking and prediction, earthquake monitoring, and other critical national security functions. from there, the list goes on and on. now, as you know, the light squared corporation proposed to create a wireless broadband network. in the obama administration, what light squared is attempting to do is make the interpret more accessible to all people across the country. this is an urgent national priority. after comprehensive testing, we concluded the current plan to provide such services adversely affect gps signals, and i can delve into the details in the

examination as i have in the written testimony. in short, about light squared's original plan concern harmful interference with gps. the researchers could find no obvious mitigations to solve the interference issues. i'd also point out the substantial federal resources including over $2 million from the faa has been diverted from other programs in testing and analyzing lightsquared's propose proposals. if they were resolved, we still have to design fixes with known interference with high receivers for science and surveying. in the operating plan, it leaves open the opportunity to broadband and there's only a standstill on broadband use of the upper ten megahertz band. the national committee of the space based knave gages and timing group have now

unanimously concluded that lightsquared's proposal are incompatible with gps use and no additional testing is warranted at this time. going forward, the agencies continue to support president obama's directive to make available a total of over 500 megahertz of spectrum in the next ten years suitable for broadband use. we recognize we have to do our part in spectrum use, making it as efficient as possible. we propose to work with the telecommunications administration in the department of commerce to draft new gps spectrum interference standards. these standards inform future personal commercial operators let them know in advance what bands would or would not be compatible with gps and we'll ensure the national policy protection evolves through clear communications with stake holders and that it's implemented without affecting existing and emerging uses of

space base knave gages and timing services vital to economic, public safety, scientific, and national security needs. in sum, our gps system is one of the more vital, if less visible, parts of our national infrastructure. with that, i'll be happy to answer any question, and, again, thank you for permitting me to testify. >> thank you. >> thank you, and good morning, mr. chairman, ranking member, and subcommittee members, it's an honor to be able to testify before this subcommittee, and i thank you for the opportunity. the -- my testimony today will focus on the importance of what we call the global navigation satellite systems to civil aviation. russia has a system that's had reliability and maintenance problems over the years, although the government now committed to a next generation system. there's the european system, not

yet operational, and china is in the process of launching its compass system. because of the reliability and continued upgrading of the gps and the commitment of the united states government, gps has evolved into the most fundamental and important piece of supporting infrastructure for the global aviation system. just at the beginning, i'd like to mention that the united states is one of the primary contributors in terms of technical expertise and knowledge and in support of consensus building and excellence in international standards and policy development for which we are grateful. most of the technical work we do is accomplished by groups of experts nominated by the member space. the faa is the major contributor in this respect, and i believe it served the u.s. extremely well. icao's involvement goes back to the work of future air knave gages system known as the fans

committee. the u.s. was a major contributor and participant to that committee. in adopting the committee in 1991, a conclusion was reached that the exploitation of satellite technology is the only viable solution to overcome the shortcomings of the present system and fulfill the requirements of the foreseeable future and that satellite base systems are the key to improvements. the timing point and acknowledgement by the world community of the importance of gnss which was highly dependent on is on the u.s. gps president clinton formally offered the gps standard positions service to the global aviation community by icao to support civil aviation. this commitment was reaffirmed in 2007 under president bush as follows. the u.s. government maintains its commitment to maintain gps signals on a continuous worldwide basis free of user fees enabling worldwide civil

services and provide open, free access to information necessary to develop and build equipment to use these services. even before the work of the committee and offices of clinton and bush, the valet of gps, the civil aviation first came about when president reagan authorized itself use for international civil aviation after the shoot down of korean 007. following the u.s. offright, icao developed standards to satellite knave gages system -- navigation systems and with the availability it was recognized by the national civil aviation community as the central element. icao and the entire community are completely reliant on the long standing u.s. government policy and its commitment as a key enabler to international aviation. i just want to go over a few of the important ways that gps

supports international aviation. there are many areas in the world where the conventional terrestrial navigation and infrastructure is inadequate and often it's the only reliable source of navigation information. before gnsf, navigation in high air and sea was crude. it was used by air traffic controls were as much as 100 miles laterally and 15 to 20 minutes in trail. the inaccuracy when integrated with flight management systems enhanced improvements which are the foundation of the concept of performance based navigation or pbn. in pbn stair space, it increases capacity while bringing safety, efficiency, and environmental benefits. the united states provides air traffic control services over vast expanses of high speeds air space. in the north atlantic, there's over 2,000 crossings a day.

the transpacific passenger traffic expected to grow by 4.2% in 2009 and 2030. interasia traffic will grow by 1.1% and there's approximately 8,000 flighteds a year that operate on cross polar routes, and they are totally reliant on gps. until they recently, the final approach is to land at major airports accomplished by means of instrument landing systems. this is okay in states that can maintain them with the infrastructure to support that. in many parts of the world, maintaining such systems are prohibitive because of the cost and expertise. using pbn approach procedures using gps, more and more approaches are used by the mean was of the commitment in the aircraft only with little or no reliance on ground equipment bringing enormous safety benefits and airports previously with no instrument approaches now have pbn. today, when u.s. airlines fly

into nigeria, kazakhstan, ecuador, and georgetown to name a few out of hundreds, they are more assureed of safe operations because the gps. it is important for next generation aircraft surveillance, and you're aware of automatic surveillance broadcast, but over oceanianic space, contracts allows air traffic control to have surveillance where this was impossible. timely, two of the most significant air traffic improvements that have become available are the dissent operations and continues climb operations, a major initiative and gps allows this extremely efficient flight routeing to be enabled. now, just a few words about the spectrum, major issue that has much to do with the importance

of gps as anything else. i'm referring to the problem of frequency spectrum, available radio frequency spectrum is the life blood of aviation and the protection of spectrum used by aviation radio systems is absolutely essential for safety. icao supports the protection of spectrum for decades in all international forests, especially the world radio conferences and there's one going on in geneva right now. against that background, i urge you to consider any decision by the united states that affects frequency spectrum with impacts on gnsf impacts the safety record, the investments made in gnsf, the international standards, and the recertification of equipment. in summary, mr. chairman, i'd like to appeal to you and the committee that icao continues to benefit from leadership and cooperation in many ways including valuable support through the sharing of technical

information and expertise, support of consensus building and excellence in international standard and policy development and concrete projects to assist those in need of strengthening programs. it's among the most important ways to provide technology, humanitarian, and political leadership. icao looks further into deepening this relationship and working to the. thank you for this opportunity to share icao's views with this important subcommittee. >> thank you, thank you, both. at previous hearings, this subcommittee's been informed as we gain momentum in deploying the next generation technology, it will have an enormous return on american government's investment in it, reduce fuel use for the industry by some 20 #% or 30%, expand the capacity of the system without having to build additional runways and so

on, improve the safety of the system, standard mortality stanf flights and on and on and on and reduce the sound foot print as planes glide down more at many airports where that's been a problem. a lot of benefits from this new -- not that new technology, but for using this technology in the aviation industry as other industries have found. i do have a couple of questions. you mentioned that you proposed the department of transportation work with the national telecommunications and information administration to draft new gps spectrum interference standards to strengthen existing national policy protection of adjacent band spectrum. could you elaborate on what that all means? >> i'd be happy to, mr. chairman, and one thing that i think recent events has showed

us is that gps is not only a national asset in infrastructure, but that protecting that asset, we're going to have to be much more sophisticated in the future in how we do that, and in layman's terms on both sides of the gps frequency, there were mobile satellite-type applications that were also quiet, as it were, that did not interfere with gps's ability to hear what is a very weak signal from space. basically 50 watts 22,000 miles up. the spectrum interference standards, and we would take a whole of government approach to this working through our position navigation and timing executive committee, the idea would be to identify before anyone puts capital at risk or major projects at risk, what are

compatible uses to gps. in general terms, the more precise the gps receiver, for example, avionics in the aircraft, the more precise they are, the more they are likely to have a wide band receiver that, in fact, needs to be able to listen beyond the gps frequency. acknowledging that in building a policy around that would be, we think, a very good use of staff time and from a policy perspective, critical to protecting gps as an asset. >> proposing to set interference standards, how is the proposal set interference standards different from setting receiver standards? >> there's currently no receiver

standards and the idea of spectrum interference standards would be to get everyone involved, the industry and others, confidence in the long term that as they build more and more precise gps devices and i know our focus is on aviation where gps is absolutely critical to operations today, but will be more so in the future, but other applications, precision farming, construction, and others, spectrum interference standards would be clear guidelines for all users, both within the gps spectrum and adjacent spectrums. we think if we can build the consistency and predictability for the gps users and adjacent spectrum users, that that will serve everyone's interests well. >> yeah, i understand there's some -- a garfunkel about who

interferes on whose turf in this particular area and that, in fact, it was allowed for a little broader use of spectrum because it didn't interfere with adjacent use, and then when the type of use was changed somewhat at the staff level, that has created a problem, is that what you're trying to avoid? >> yes, mr. chairman, that's exactly it. gps by its very nature is a very weak space-based signal. it's very faint when it's received by gps receivers in the atmosphere or in terrestrial applications. i think of it in zoning terms because that's probably the way to think about compatibility of uses. gps was, the spectrum was originally put in a quiet neighborhood because it needed a quiet neighborhood with quiet neighbors to be able to have

accuracy and receivers. the adjacent pieces of spectrum for were mobile satellite service, another quiet use. what happened with the specific proposal is essentially you went from a mobile satellite service proposal with limited ground augmentation to a ground-based service with limited satellite augmentation, and that really changed the fundamental nature of signals and how they would be received, but it's, i think, really important to point out that gps was put in a quiet piece of the spectrum on purpose because fundamentally, it has to have quiet neighbors. >> so this was well-known at the technical level at the time this strategy was put in place? >> yes, i believe that the physics and the technical parts have been well-known all along, and i also point out from an international perspective harmonizing that use of the

frequency internationally was important as well so that the same kind of safety of flight avionics that were using today and as we build a larger next generation system of systems can be used around the world. >> in your testimony, you referred to gps spectrum use being under some threat and it being discussed at past world radio conferences, and i think some current or upcoming conferences as well. could you elaborate on that and what role u.s. representing the global aviation industry play in those conferences and how are you able to work out resolutions in the past? >> the international telecommunications holds a world radio conference every three years, and it's a huge event. it lasts for four weeks.

the states go with very powerful representation, and also industry goals with incredible force. telecommunication providers are, as you can imagine, have the most to gain, and they putt -- put a lot of pressure and work around the clock from getting e-mails from # my people at two and three in the morning. icao is an observer, but during the three years in between, we meet with all of our member states, and we develop, prepare an icao position that at least the member states agree to so we get just about unanimous decision on the icao position for radio freak sigh spectrum. it doesn't always pan out that way at the event itself because again there's a lot of lobbying, a lot of pressure, a lot of jobs at stake, but as observers

there, we do have a lot of close contracts with the states, and with friends in the aviation industry, and we have been very successful in working with the member states and the united states have been strong supporter of protecting the gps spectrum from other uses. >> thank you. >> mr. chairman, thank you. to deputy secretary, to follow-up on the chairman as question, he asked the same question that actually i was going to ask, but i'd like to have you clarify a point. my understanding is that you are proposing that dot work with other agencies to develop a policy. does that mean for radio transmission standards in the spectrum? is the interference now between the agencies? are we talking about transmission standards or what are we talking about?

>> what we're really talking about is more generically and more broadly spectrum interference standards where we could establish by consensus and with input from everybody with equity in this industry, interested observers and others, the kind of standards that would protect the gps spectrum both today and in the future, and 23 you look at the evolution of gps, just in the last 10 or 15 year, for example, the gps uses, especially in aviation, have gotten more and more precise, and they are now safety of flight issues which requires spectrum interference protection. >> we're talking primarily about transmission standards? >> we're talking about primarily the requirement for precise navigation devices 245 use gps -- that use gps to be able to

utilize a brand -- broad of a band as possible, which they have been to date, and they were acknowledged in the original approval of mobile satellite services on either end of that spectrum so i say this because in fairness to all of the potential users outside of the gps band, establishing those standards would give them a good sense of what kind of uses would be compatible and which would not. >> you mentioned in the testimony that the obama administration that their goal is to free up federally owned spectrum making it available for mobile broadband especially providing access to underserved rural communities. i support that goal, and i think many members of the committee would as well, especially for underserved communities for wireless service and where consumers benefit from competition between service providers. let me ask if the mobile satellite service band is not

compatible with the high speed wireless transmissions, then what can the administration do to provide greater access to high speed service? >> well, the administration -- the department of transportation and every part of the administration is, again, committed to identifying those 500 megahertz of additional spectrum over the next ten years. we strongly support the -- what you've underlined which is the need for rural broadband and broadband competition. there are some features of the recent proposal that are very valuable from that perspective, but we think that working across the government with our position navigation and timing executive committee with ntia, will ultimately be helpful. obviously, we would not presume to what actions the federal communications commission and independent agencies would take.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. there are immunity standards for military gps receivers that protect them from transmissions from outside the gps band. >> congress mapp, my understanding is that, and i believe general shelton testified on this before the house armed services committee, that there are not, and i believe in some cases the department of defense aircraft use commercial, off the shelf avionics, faa certified for commercial use opposed to military. >> thank you, sir. i have another question. what standards are currently in place to make sure that the receivers and equipment purchased pick up only signals using the gps frequency band?

>> there are no current standards in place, and that is part of the reason for the discussion, and, again, we think going forward, having the consistency and predictability of standard interference will help all parties involved. >> thank you. i put this question to each of you. what impact might protections for gps have on the marketplace for radio spectrum, a, and then b, how does this bear on the question as to whether or not gps warrants protections? either of you is fine. >> thank you, congressman. i guess, there are various figures that exist as to the number of jobs and the value of

spectrum, and as i said earlier, there's tremendous pressure from the telecommunication providers that have significant figures on jobs, but on the other hand, aviation globally, i believe the number that is out there is worth about $3 trillion to the global economy a year when you consider the economics, the tourism, the aviation industry itself, the business, carriers of goods, and other things so probably a good case could be made that economically aviation is critical, but there will be more and more pressure from the telecommunication providers. >> particularly from who? >> the telecommunication providers. >> sorry, i didn't hear you. >> that's fine. >> i don't know the values of the spectrum in itself, but i would point out that the national investment we made in

gps, first from a military-only perspective and now from a combined military civil perspective has been enormous. it's one of the more precious and important pieces of national infrastructure that we have even if you can't see it and feel it. it's also a u.s. national leadership issue. i would point out in the aviation context, i'd argue that one of the single best safety advances we made in the last 20 years, which is the terrain avoidance warning system, 20 years ago controlled flight of terrain for both commercial and recreational aircraft was the leading cause of accidents. the leading warning systems that are gps enabled have taken controlled flight into terrain from a leading cause of accidents into something that's way down on the list. another example is as of today, part of the next generation system is operational in the gulf of mexico where we have no radar coverage, and we have

thousands of flight operations a day, for example, serving offshore petroleum rigs via helicopter that had no radar coverage before that are now served by adsb so it's important to ensure we understand the value on both sides of equation including the enormous national investment made in gps which has gone far beyond military use, far beyond aviation uses, and for precision farming, construction, safety of our train systems, those are not possible today without gps. >> thanks. mr. chairman, my red light is about to illuminate, so i'll yield back. >> thank you. mr. duncan. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and this is my first real involvement with this, so there's much that i really don't understand, but mr. secretary, i have read this statement from

this assessment by the deputy secretaries of the department of transportation and the department of defense, and i assume that's from you? >> yes. >> and it's a very strong statement you put out about three and a half weeks ago, and you say there that you mention that lightsquared had an original proposal, and then they modified it. can you explain to me in layman's terms how much of a change was made in their original plan, and it also tells us in the briefing papers that they're disputing your findings or your assessment. >> i'll be happy to, congressman, and layman's terms is all i'm capable of here, so i'll try to do it in that sense. the original lightsquared proposal of roughly 5 year ago,

january of 2011, proposed up to 40,000 ground based transmitters that would effectively blank out the gps signal in large stretches of the u.s. and in some very critical areas. there was some early testing done, both by the department of defense and the faa. it was clear from that testing that there was an interference issue. the forum for this is a relatively obscure group that position navigation and timing executive committee, which is deputy secretary of defense and i co-chair, deputy secretary carter representing the military users, and myself remitting the civil -- representing the civil users. through that committee representing all the branch agencies that include others including the federal communications commission as an

observers receiver -- observer, that it was clear that additional testing of a different proposal was in order. we worked with lightsquared. they were part of developing the testing protocols. they were part of the testing itself, and the results, i think, are very clear cut. i would point out that those -- the testing results from both the npef work and separate federal aviation administration work are currently within ntia and will be transmitted to fcc shortly, but those results were independently verified by both the idaho national engineering laboratories and then the lincoln laboratories at mit, and from my layman's perspective, the result, especially with the precision safety of flight avionics that we use in aircraft, the results were unacceptable. >> well, and let me ask you, as

i said, it was a very strong assessment, and what i'm talking about says based upon this testing and analysis, there appears to be no solutions or mitigations that permit the lightsquared broadband services proposed to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with gps. i understand the dangers or the concerns or the problems, but a fascinating thing to me that you can say there's nothing they can do within the next few years, and that tells us, and i have no connection whatsoever with lightsquared. i never even talked to these people, but it says they dispute these findings. how do they dispute them? do you know? >> first, i believe the lightsquared representatives should -- can and should, better explain how they dispute the findings. i find out that the statement,

congressman, is strong, and i believe it's warranted given the circumstances. when we talk about in the next few months or year, remember, there's a large installed base of gps receivers. just focusing on aviation for a moment, there's about 60,000 gps receivers out there used for safety of flight things like terrain avoidance warning systems, and each of those is about $40,000. if you look on average, if you look at the life cycle of aircraft and avionics, they serve for decades, and the reason for that part of the statement is to point out that there's no easy retrofit or filter or any other kind of retrofit that would -- from a safety of flight perspective, make the proposal as currently proposed by lightsquared compatible with aviation. >> well, i'm not saying it was not warranted, but i just said it was a fascinating thing that

there's a statement that nothing can be done even in the next few years when technology advances as fast as it does, so it's an interesting thing. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your testimony today. i can truly tell you as a pilot, there's a difference in the cockpit when you have terrain avoidance systems using gps. when you fly that approach coming in from the east going to salt lake city, and you know you are skirting the top of the mountains, it's really a comforting feeling to have the gps in the cockpit, but lightsquared has agreed to a standstill, as i understand it on the use of the upper portion of the spectrum, and it's the portion that's actually closest to the gps signal, and lightsquared would like to work

in the gps community to help mitigating strategies as pay put it in order to have commercial spectrum up in two or three years. in your opinion, i understand when your testimony, you said there is no mitigating situation or conclusion here in that do you really think two or three years to be able to find some type of strategy is in that window? two, from what we know, even though we really can't identify the strategy, the cost to general aviation to implement that strategy as well, so -- >> thank you, congressman. first, i'd point out, i'm not sure what a standstill means on the upper ten megahertz. there's no time limits to that and no technical triggers that i'm aware of on that. there is a fundamental imcome pat the between the lightsquared -- incompatibility with the lightsquared as proposed and the

used gps as a precision air navigation use, and, again, i would point out that this has been built over decades now where more and more, we are dependent on gps for a much higher standard of safety than we are able to achieve with the old instrument landing systems without the terrain avoidance warning systems, without wide area augmentation systems, and all of those are significant safety advances. i can't speculate on the cost because i'm not sure anyone can quantity my the cost even if it could be done of retrofits if they were technically viable to existing avionics uses. >> just to be clear then, there is no plans at this time to retrofit or reconfigure any systems to work lightsquared into this bracket; is that

correct? >> that is correct, congressman. i would say in contrast, mobile satellite service use is on the adjacent frequencies which is what they were originally zoned for, if you will, have been and will be compatible. >> thank you very much, and i'll yield back. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, and i'm troubled that a terrestrial based system like lightsquared has the potential for interfering with gps. i'm afraid it points out the actual delegate nature of the gps system and its potential as a -- vulnerability for attacks. you hear a truck driver with a jamming device degrading the system near newark airport. suppose someone not friendly to

this country were to intentionally put up high powered jamming stuff, we would be in trouble. historically, it is considered a backup to gps, but that's currently being dismantled. i'm concerned that we have all of this reliance on gps on everything from my car to my cell phone to landing a 777 aircraft in the future. it seems to me we're recruiting a vulnerable system with no backups. can y'all comment on that? >> yes, congressman. first, you brought up a very important point. there are, by its very nature, there are vulnerabilities for the gps. you pointed out one specific incident where a commercially bought over the internet $99 jammer caused real issues at one of our major airports in the

country. the -- one of the things we've done at the national position aviation and timing architecture study on following that, the national aviation administration is committed to a research program where just as today with our terrestrial navigation system, we have vulnerabilities and you build defense in-depth with backup systems. we know as we move with the implementation of next generation and move forward with that that it will be more and more important to have back ups to the gps based system. they will only be short term backup systems and it's important to point out that we're miewfing aggressively -- >> can you define "short term backup"? >> i mean, in other words if we were denied the use of gps

systems for air navigation today for an extended period of time, it would have severe impacts on the national air space system. if it was ten minutes, that would be a little bit different. >> minutes opposed todays? >> minutes opposed todays, but, again, you put your finger on a vulnerability in the system that -- >> seems vulnerabilities are easy to exploit. >> well, it can be, and part of this is the architecture and design going forward of how we design the system of systems that is next generation. we are focused on this. there's an important enforcement side. there's no legitimate commercial use for a gps jammer. >> all right. for my information, i've seen press reports about other countries developing their own gps satellite arrays. do you have -- do we know where that's going?

>> thank you, congressman. the russian federation established this system in the 1990s, and when the soviet union dissen grated, it was not maintained, but in november of 2011, they have a system similar to gps 3 and hope to have that in place by 2014. the europeans have galileo which two satellites are up. i think the total consolation is 18, and china is putting in place what they call compass with two satellites in place and plan to launch six in 2012 and full compliment by 2020 initially for east asia and china and parts -- >> if you allow me just to geek out for a second, we've got a massive array of radio transmitters in the form of our cell tower networks to contain

longitude and latitude information of the cell towers. any research going into tapping into those to create a system as a fallback to gps? >> i don't know. i'd be happy to research that and get back to the committee. >> just curious. seems like if there's infrastructure in place you might be able to develop a fallback system. >> i appreciate the question, and i'll find out. >> okay. my time expired and thank you. >> well, i'm sure we all have a lot of other questions, but i will leave it there for the purpose of this hearing at this point. thank you very much. it's been very, very informative. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the second panel consists of the seep your vice president of safety, security, and operations, airlines for america, captain sean cassidy,

airline pilot's association, craig fuller, president and ceo of the aircraft owners and pilot s association, john fulley, director of technology of garmin, and dr. scott pace, the director of space policy institute elliot school of international affairs of george washington university. i thank you for making, all of you, for making the time to be with us today on this very, somewhat technical, but very important subject for sectors of our economy and our safety and competitiveness as a country, and we'll begin with -- beginning with captain cassidy and waiting for mr. hendricks.

[inaudible conversations] >> still morning -- good morning, mr. chairman and members of the subcommittee. i'm captain sean cassidy, and i represent more than 53,000 professional pilots based in the united states and canada. it is an honor to appear before the subcommittee to underscore the tremendous contribution that the satellite based navigation system makes to ensuring efficient and safe operations in the united states and around the globe. given the vital importance of the global positioning system as a key component of this country's transportation infrastructure, it is appropriate and indeed essential for the house transportation and infrastructure committee and the aviation subcommittee to be fully engaged in protecting this system. as the members of the subcommittee know, over more than two decades in the valuable navigation information available through gps has enabled air transportation to make tremendous gains in safety and efficiency. since 1983 when gps was

available to the public at no cost, the system evolved to become a vital tool for aircraft navigation, all-weather approaches, landings, surveillance, required separation between aircraft, and pilot situational awareness. gps awares pilots to fly aircraft using the safest and most efficient routes benefiting all airlines and on long range routes where diversion options are limited. the advanced accuracy allows us to operate independently, safely increasing arrival rates. in major metropolitan areas served by several airports, we are able to analyze the entire air space and operate flights based on regional strategy rather than by airport by airport. these improve possible only through gps reduce fuel burn, decrease nose, and cut e -- emissions while making the safer, more efficient, and

better equipped to meet future demand. the airport in alaska at the state capitol is situationed on high terrain. before gps, we had two choices for approaching landing, and they are both very challenging. the approach from the east and the west both required high cloud ceilings and low altitude to line up for landing. without gps, the terrain and weather conditions forced many flight cancellations. in 1996, alaska airlines pioneered a gps instrument approach to alaska. this approach allows me to fly directly over the center of the channel as depicted on the screen staying clear. this result is safety and reduces delays and cancellations. since then, alaska airlines expanded the approach to other airports in the country, and in 2011, the airport completed more than 1500 flights that would have been canceled and the net result was $19 million worth of

saved revenue and over 200,000 gallops worth of fuel not burned. across the united states, the faa published more than 11,000 gps approaches 20 thousands of airports including our own backyard here at reagan national where highly accurate gps approaches reduce flight delays, diversions, and cancellations. gps signals are low powered by design to allow them to be based on satellites; however, this low energy environment also makes them susceptible to interference and for this reason, only low powered satellite based signals have been permitted in the radio frequencies closest to the bandwidth. one recent proposal to have transmitters in the radio frequency spectrum adjacent raised alarm as a result of the risk it posed to the safety of air transportation as well as to emergency services like first responders. rigorous industry and government testing demonstrated if

lightsquared proposal was allowed to go forward, gps would be unaccessible across the u.s.. were this allowed to proceed, there's a navigational tool important in mountain terrain, bad weather, and that supports safe and efficient air transportation system helps with the u.s. economy and secure tens of thousands of jobs. looking into the future, gps is critical to the efforts to modernize the u.s. traffic control system through next generation. ..

summit chairman, ranking member and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to appear at this time we have an important hearing and i do apologize for my slight delay on my pushback for my testimony this morning it's good to speak with you again. the continued integrity of the global positioning system is critically important to the customers we fly everyday as well as to the tens of millions of other people in our country who rely on that. gps will be the backbone of the medication but domestically and internationally in the coming years. interference with the success ability and reliability would be catastrophic for civil aviation and the communities that depend on air transportation. we deeply appreciate a subcommittee's recognition in the reauthorization bill and the importance of this technology and particularly your support for the continued advancement of next-gen. with respect to the proposal the incontestable fact is that it will create widespread gps

interference which will have ruinous effects on aviation. experts have repeatedly three to -- reach that conclusion. therefore it should be withdrawn. this matter needs to be put to rest once and for all. to be clear we do not oppose the expansion of wireless broadband services but in the expansion cannot be permitted to interfere with existing or anticipated aviation gps use. many of which will significantly enhance safety. we are dependent on that technology. there is no substitute for it. one obvious lesson of the convoluted experience with the white square application is the need for the government-wide policy that protects the aviation gps spectrum. without such an offer to the policy, spectrum encroachment will remain a threat. as the subcommittee knows all too well, we have historically relied on a ground-based air navigation system. it's a system that has become increasingly defined by its limitations. users of the system have for the most part had to fly from one

ground navigation aid to the next often resulting in fortuitous routings. this inefficiency wastes time and fuel and also restricts the number of ridings aircraft can use which in turn constricts capacity growth. gps is a part of the ongoing multibillion-dollar nexgen program that will shift air navigation from that outmoded terrestrial system to the modern satellite based system. this is a transformational change. all who are involved in it, congress, the federal aviation at immigration, airlines, general aviation and the department of defense recognize the need for the transformation. this massive effort will result in more precise navigation, safer operations, for more direct aircraft readings from better air space utilization and airspace capacity growth. because of these operational improvements, there will be substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. one in six existing application gps has produced a breakthrough in the safety of airline operations as referred to earlier here.

the elimination of the controlled flight in the accidents were large aircraft in the united states enhanced ground proximity warning systems aboard the aircraft, the information on foreign terrain databases to provide the crew with a look ahead mornings in the dangerous terrain. this has made air travel far safer than it was only recently and illustration of the remarkable benefits that leveraging gps with other technologies can achieve. the introduction of the coming decades of the capabilities will be the game changer. its integration of gps with other technological innovations will create a satellite based system of air traffic management that we all realize is necessary. gps is the indispensable element of this long needed overhaul. given the central role of gps, the federal government must develop a comprehensive safeguards for aviation's use of it. the stakes are 200 passengers and shippers that rely on the transportation, the communities and businesses that depend on the air service and airlines and

their employees to lead the jets are the continued devotee to utilize gps to the great disadvantage. consequently we need the government's wide policy that guides the federal agency responses when potential interference issues emerge. the policy must make clear that interference in the aviation spectrum is prohibited and other users cannot be permitted to encourage in the spectrum. domestically the most obvious place to begin to strengthen the government policy against gps interference is the national executive committee for space-based positioning navigation and timing. the tnt is a government organization established by presidential directive to advise and courtenay federal for apartments and agencies on matters concerning gps. tnt is chaired jointly by the secretaries of defense and transportation and includes equivalent level officials from the part of homeland security, state and interior, agriculture and commerce. the federal communications commission chairman participates in this as a liaison.

at the very least, the fcc should be required to consult with the pnt before taking action on any application to operate the terrestrial based communication network that may affect the spectrum which is the band of gps. on the international front, u.s. government positions express at international conferences at which the spectrum issues are considered such as the world radio communications conference that is currently being held in geneva must reflect the importance of protecting the gps spectrum throughout the world. we appreciate subcommittees' interest in this vital issue and we are prepared to assist you in any way we can and i would be happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you. >> good morning mr. chairman and ranking member costello, craig fuller, president of the aircraft, orders and policies and it's always a pleasure to be before the committee. i want to start with a statement i don't always get to make and that is that we are an absolute full agreement with the obama administration. on the question before you today, i thought the statements

by the deputy secretary of transportation were right to the point. we agree with every point that was made to date indeed, the other members of the administration, other the preference and agencies that have looked at this hour of the same view. there is only one somewhat reluctant regulator out there that seems not to have gotten this message i know this is a topic may be for another day. i have a statement filed for the record that makes many of the points that have been made. i thought i would give just a couple of comments a little different perspective. we all say gps is extremely important. we certainly believe that. but in a way that gps is pretty simple. i took of history from frederick maryland in an aircraft as soon as it was airborne before it was even airborne. a small box in the plan received multiple signals from gps transmitters in space. all that did initially was identify the signals and

determine precisely where it was. that's gps. the genius of gps is what enables the fact that gps has been around for a long time as the technology that determines precisely as in space doesn't mean they are all that exciting because the excitement in gps is what it enables. the fact that that box as i traveled kept determining exactly what an airplane was in space didn't have two points. the box calculated might air speed. the box calculated my hitting. the box calculated that there's towers on the hills near frederick maryland i was within 500 feet of. if i had an emergency of some kind, the box would tell me exactly where the nearest airport was, what route was, how one would take me to get there. simply because it could receive this very small signals from space from the gps transmitter. and i guess i would submit that

while some may say it was time to look to new technology for greater benefits we've just begun to tap this genius of gpa said the debt to ntia as it would can enable and its epicenter of the nexgen technology. we have 5200 public airports in this country. we couldn't possibly afford to put instrument landing systems and all those airports with equipment on the ground and every one of those airports can have a precision approach to it to every runway on the field using gps capabilities. that is what it enables. it enables emergency helicopters to go precisely to the scene of a crime, to a mountain climber that needs to be rescued and know exactly what the closest landing site is for the helicopter. all these things are enabled by the gps signal. so, i guess from where we sit, lie for entered thousand members to fly the general aviation

airplanes see this as absolutely essentials. >> by the way, you have heard from the two respected members of the industry that fly larger planes. their plan i was in was a two-seater, and it has the same gps capability that airliners have. i think when we talked about this issue before i said its -- there's nothing wrong with the government agency looking for work and seeing an opportunity and letting it be explored. and indeed, the food and drug ed ministration does that all the time with miracle cures and medicines, but sometimes they don't work. and i think with the agency and the federal government have said we embrace the concept of that that was being considered, but the approach simply doesn't work, and it puts at risk all the gps enables which is not only what we experienced for the last 20 years we've been using it, the promise that it holds for the future. as we very much appreciate community's interest in this and

we certainly embrace, as i said what the statements made by the administration. we strongly urge the federal communications commission resend waivers that keep this cloud over us on this important topic and until further research can be done. thank you, mr. sherman. >> thank you. mr. foley. >> i'm grateful for the opportunity to participate in this hearing. i am director of aviation machinist technology garmin. the people of garmin are devoted to building gps devices for millions of users worldwide improving their lives and safety. the gps industry in this country alone accounts for over 130,000 direct jobs. what was once a government only technology is now woven into the fabric of our infrastructure. that did not happen overnight.

it's taken two decades and hard work to maturity from the technology into the reliable force for safety and efficiency that we have built together now threatens. today virtually all types of aircraft utilize the gps for navigation approaches. lots of even a fraction of the gps reliability would pose significant danger to the aviation safety. a theory as i am particularly worrisome. the gps while on the approach would unsafely increase the pilot workload in this phase of life. the gps would deny coverage of their parts like in the ground-based navigation. without gps the system wouldn't work. gps means the situational awareness for the displays of trafficking and weather information including on the ground to prevent the incursions'. last but not least reliable gps

is essential from the proposed system. we can sum up the last year and forewords: brandt first past leader. grant first test leader seems to stand the process of the public decision making on its head. this approach places a burden on everyone's time, attention and resources. the burden that should have been placed on those taking something from the fcc. everyone concerned about gps reliability had to devote six months last spring and millions of dollars to tester you the proposals and had extensive interference. anyone aware of the tremendous difference in the street to train gps and the terrestrial network could have predicted this result. yet despite all this, another round of extensive government testing occurred last fall the pnt concluded in a letter to the

ntia that would cause harmful interference to many of the gps receivers to read the letter noted that the faa's separate analysis similarly concluded such proposals are not compatible with several gps dependent aircraft safety systems and no practical solution exists to prevent significant interference. the stated no further testing was necessary. why does the fcc mickey far reaching if eda -- decision without testing results? should an applicant of the burden of demonstrating the market readiness? why were objections ignored? we believe that the pnt has the right structure, the right sticklers including the liaison for the fcc and on paper should be effective.

however, the coordination must be improved. the fcc should contain pnt when it would interfere with the gps reliability. the level of the liability of the customers come to expect. going forward, if the pnt believes that the creation of this is akin to the national gps officer would help to ensure the coordination, we could support that. we think such an officer should come from the department of defense and transportation. in the recent letter to the ntia, they said they opposed to the vacca proposed a draft of the spectrum interference standards. in response, we simply know that in the last year parts of our government seemed unaware that at least for the certified aviation devices, the faa and the department and the losses in the future should recognize to build on that work. they have been disrupted by the failure of government to

coordinate and the thousands of hours that could have been better spent. the businesses and consumers in the nation have innocence been a trial run. we've learned a lot but the threat is still there and we need to continue to help to this before and i look for which answering questions. >> thank. doctor? >> thank you mr. chairman and to the committee for the opportunity to discuss this topic. as you heard, gps global utility has drawn important to all modes of the nation's transportation infrastructure. but i would like to do is provide a little historical or policy perspective as some of the issues of the threat to the gps are not new. there have been and continue to be many policy and legal risks for gps from the funding constraints, the transition to modernize sophos, international trade barriers and domestic regulations. the serious threats however are

not to bg pss off but this spectrum environment upon which it depends to the foundation upon which all of these applications reside. every type of threat from the band sharing, sedimentation cut out of band emissions mummeries increases, relocation of adjacent bands have been attempted over the past 15 years. to date all such threats have been real moved or mitigate in through the cooperation and bipartisan support from the multiple, grass and other ministration's who protected the spectrum in which the gps operates. for prisons, to republican and two democrats to issue statements regarding gps to read the statements recognize the dual-use nature of gps as more and a military system. crucial to the broad range of u.s. interests, somberly congress passed the worst bills related to the protection of gps and federal statutes can be found under the title ten armed services and title li meshaal and commercial leasing programs. a regulatory process eisel the rulemakings are defined in the administrative procedures act. i would say the united states

has a sufficient policy on the books to protect gps. what is missing it times is the willingness to enforce them in the procedures and follow the basics of good government. given the high stakes involved in preventing the risk to gdp is attempting to look at a special policy. given as a rate of attrition however that doesn't report to the president any special policy will require congressional action in a very complex area. receiving standards have been mentioned as a possible way of allowing the higher power emissions in the vans adjacent to the spectrum or at least creating a more predictable real tree environment for the new entrants. i do not believe this will be a useful approach and would suggest instead focusing on defining u.s. spectrum could. it is a settlement but in part from. the government german design standards out of those necessary for the public safety can stifle innovation. the standards can also be a

saddle river ran by sacrificing and rapidly evolving markets. on the other hand, transparent protection for the gps spectrum environment can provide better predicted the for the new entrants while not conceding the jeep his supplications. finally i would like to mention two areas of risk not related to spectrum. in today's environment may be attempting to slow or cancel the acquisition to the satellites will hope to rely on a foreign systems to fill the gap. this is a very dangerous idea given the nation's reliance on gps and the lack of demonstrate the reliability of the fornes systems. the second risk area would be to the gps users as an unintended result of modernization. is there this is the need to the gps or backward base at mother can be the transition plan that is developed weather needs to be a transition plan developed with physical present government industry and even the non-governmental organizations such as the treasury committee,

the scientific societies. we have a resource installed that needs to be protected. finally the spectrum and radanovich gps should be reserved as you've heard from other witnesses. s tell modernization perceives the aforementioned ensure we suffered disruptive and they come on line. for the aviation community is not an overstatement to say that internal vigilance is in fact the price of safety. thank you for your time and i live be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you and the entire panel for your contribution. ted. with any more advantages i was thinking in my own area we have a manufacturer now that has a gps to push a button and what will say perfectly still without an anchor in the ocean, and of

course john deere and these people know can apply fertilizers to the fields based on the characteristics that. meek agricultural more productive and less wasteful and all the rest and it's all gps and this is only the beginning of how we can refine the application of technology for the changes in circumstances. on practically. i really wonder if mr. foley would care to comment on it. you have and you're prepared remarks, but we find ourselves in a rather peculiar situation

that i'm sure many people live spend billions of dollars to help achieve the national objective which is a good way of making the farby and -- broadband across the country, and it we had a gps system set up for a number of years that needed to be in a quiet area. that spectrum was acquired at the previous purpose was to broaden the the stuff local at the fcc leading people they could do something and that's several of savings. people invest in and technology. so is this a staff failure to

people leaving some the half, how. obviously the spectrum price and some knowledge not the investor loveless to what was going on. but is it a failure of the technical advisers of these investors? i guess it's speculation but it may be looking for how we can avoid this waste of resources in the future for us to the situation we find ourselves. do any of you have any ideas? >> thank you. i think the main thing we highlighted on that is we need to make sure that we protect the spectrum that we have come and looking kind of backwards i think from my perspective as the

receiver manufactured there are some standards for interference that have been in place for quite some time back to 1996i believe so it was a bit of a surprise to see we missed the new proposed system it was putting all the signals time except for those of the receiver or the limits. we would want to build on those existing limits, and i think of is what the pnt said and the dot said to the extent that we do that i think that is the best way to move forward. and as i stated in my testimony, improved coordination between the pnt and the fcc and the government ensure all of this to cultures get implemented when policy decisions are made to the stomach just looking at it, the fundamental error was in not not really applying mabey the intent of the practices of the of

minister of procedures act. it's a proposed rule making the involves a reallocation of spectrum. our argument was made that this was not a real vacation from the mobile satellite services to a high relaxation of some outdated constraints and maybe leave kuwait first be applied and now we efficiencies could be found to it i think in retrospect was clever by half. it was a realization that the proposed rule making should have been done. then noticed it would have generated and a technical data. that one would have quickly seen that this is a nonstarter. when this originally started back in october 2003, the idea of an ancillary to come through was a low-power systems. no one was talking about the

40,000 high-powered sell towers blanketing the country. no one was talking about having an independent system satellite by the cell phone services. there were clear over the years that they would not allow a separate standalone service that in fact it always had to be tied to the federal service and no interference in the satellite service. these terrestrial broadband systems would interview with services in their own band, with a >> caller: channel interference which is the biggest in. so i think that the position of people at the time was to try to find someone to make these ancillary systems work. there was good technical efforts. barras bhatia and then people trying to change it into something else, the reallocation, and they didn't do the rulemakings and tight people were surprised when i found out when the of the day the those a much different.

i don't know how you prevent someone from making tough decisions to it i do think we have rules and procedures that followed would have protected us. >> any other comment? >> i just have a quick one. one of the reasons for my enthusiasm about the clarity of the obama administration statement today is that should send a very clear signal to in the agency even an independent agency. and we really don't have to speculate. there is no one, no one who has done the work. there's plenty of people that have issued press releases and plenty of representatives making cases but no one has done the hard work of testing that's come to any other conclusion in this won't work. i would hope that the administration would have to clear the testimony out of the omb at the office of the president i would hope the

administration would provide an equally core message to its appointees and an independent agency to say if you have some special knowledge none of us have been able to uncover them bring it forward, bring it to the congress and the industry. but so far we've had press releases but not nearly the kind of certainty experts and technical experts in this field have read in the think the process that led to the testimony today is sound and solid and represents the clear thinking of this administration the product shouldn't go forward as proposed. >> thank you mr. chairman. for the great testimony there's so much information that you can just -- i really appreciate it. one of the things you said, mr. foley i want to make sure the committee understands could with the gps system their needs

to be no terrestrial navigation systems at an airport so you can be flying and if you have an emergency just as you diluted to, you could create an approach to go into an airport to fly into it and wouldn't have any of the national tecum navigation putative you can expand upon the with the would be helpful and also talk about the minimums you can bring the aircraft back to if you needed to. the interesting thing is -- and they will speak for themselves but letting this is a topic on which we are in absolute agreement wrote the aviation community.