we ask the nasdaq stock has questions. in fact, i specifically asked them, who is in charge? do you have enough money to purchase what you need to get this system moving. the answer was yes ma'am. we have seen all these budgets, funded everything under the sun. it is baffling. the thing that i lead is interesting, did you not have any idea based upon mr. griffin's comments from 2005. eighteen months and that have heard the ig report after gao report. i know that there is problem. you said you are the business side, the engineering side, to those reports never make it to you? >> i agree with the report.

april of 2013. in response to that report we went back and looked at how we computed the wait times for veterans. if you're not a star systems. podiatry. >> we change the performance measure from using the desired date. we switzer the creativity. give us a much more valid measure. we started measuring veterans who were waiting longer routes of time that's ever tried to change that. >> can you say that today? that is a failure? you guys did it at the intermediary level? >> we did not know at that point in time. >> the two things that i came away with the mother has to be criminal investigation. one breaking news to the american public. i agree.

back nine hoosiers will have the same questions. well, what do i do? i guess i will take that on the record. we will get information when we get it. i have a question. i am sensing that where we are going to end up in one of these grand revelations is that this i tea department, this id system is unbelievably must about. we have asked the question, but we have not been provided truth and it has come to those kinds of things. as you know, only authorized to use one electronic list. according sieur written testimony officials piloting another system stated that revaluating decided not to use this approach. to you know if that is vetted by the whole idea of this? >> we found that when we spoke with va that they had not done a system-wide check.

and this is related to the super care. >> would you identify that -- with the program be legitimate? >> it may not be legitimate. one of the problems, the data does not end up in the consul data that is going to be used as a monetary system. can be problematic. >> could that not also be considered a separate electronic system? the system out there. >> we have seen in the last few months that the business rules for the council, the medical centers that we have been speaking with, they are changing their process these. they start out with something and change their processes. it is confusing, and i think that all of the different ways of the medical center's a using, you know, tracking those future care consols has not really been

vetted with al qaeda -- va. >> i yield back my time. >> you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chair. i guess everything in washington comes full circle. waste, fraud, and abuse, going back through my brain, housing group tonight. a couple of questions. by the way, mr. griffin, unannounced. i am delighted that you went in there. the last time we had a hearing she asked the question about the individuals on the panel that came down to phoenix. i believe it was on a friday. did not work on the weekend. it is any one declaring a state of emergency, let's work weekends, let's work maybe six to six? if we are going to send a striker teams or -- people are

dying on our watch to has this ever occurred to people to, hey, we have to do something about this? >> absolutely. we are encouraging and requiring our staff to work longer clinical hours, nights, weekends you know, we are all -- >> maybe i am missing something feet. encouraging to my am looking for a better action verb. can they go down there? asked. >> we have put folks on the ground. they have been on the ground working fix and the problems on the ground at my direction. they're working hard enough finding ways to improve the practice. we are bringing folks in. they are on the ground. >> let's go back. you know, in the military we are

there, that units, fully combat ready or not combat ready? i have to ask myself, some of the hospitals fully mission capable and some not mission capable. others partially. do we have revaluate that? i am getting the feeling that each hospital does their own thing because the policies are different and open, ambiguous and that was the word that i heard correctly and open to interpretation. anyone? >> we have some great facilities think we also released today data shows quality, efficiency,

and others and provide quantitative comparisons. there are some of lower. >> you hit it on this. what you are talking about, trust and all those things which i think some of us all believe in. but unless you have standardization coming from washington and verification of the outcomes, are we working at cross purposes if it is open to interpretation? >> i think the expression trust but verify. >> absolutely. you are stealing my -- holy cow. >> in our organization we get to 50 medical centers a year for a one week review of specific areas of interest. we go to 100 outpatient clinics a year and the role of the results and can tell the under

secretary of veterans health administration that x percent of your facilities are not measuring up in these two categories. then we would expect there to be corrective action on those. >> i am sure you have whistle-blowers. after i get out of the marine corps and became a college professor high. every student has a thing called rate your professor. you want to find out how good, bad, different your to read that ? i am wondering. i was trying to go through a look at different hospitals, sometimes it's eye opening. sometimes you need that self evaluation. i am looking for a more standardized evaluation process and how they are completing the mission. i have begin do that we will have bad results in the future.

>> if i would respond. combined assessment program where we go to those of the facilities, one of the last documents in the back of those reports is a vh a document called the sale report, and it ranks every hospital on about 100 different report it to outperform its metrics and is published in those reports. the data is corrected and available. someone needs to act upon the ones that are not measuring up. >> can i respond to your -- >> yes. >> yes, just, you know, what we found is great reluctance on the part of va to standardize policies and procedures. that leads to also complications when you're trying to do oversight. i think there are issues there. >> the only thing i wanted to say, this came up this year with the cost of the military units. they're is a deficiency in

training, this report would have those deficiencies that could be corrected. all i am saying is i would hope that that va looked at more standardization. >> a cute. you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just to confirm, you said there were 69 cases where you are now following up to review possible criminal implications. >> there are 69 separate facilities beyond phoenix that we have sent rapid response teams to as allegations have come into us. >> specifically criminal allegations? >> first of all, they are just allegations. >> short. >> criminal investigators are said to take sworn testimony and try and get to the ground truth. in some instances your only as good as your source. >> i understand. and allegations have to be vetted out. you use the term critical to a criminal. this is different from the

follow-up visits that are required as of the institutions. >> that is correct. >> totally separate. okay. the timing -- and i know it has come up for additional information go weeks or months? >> putting together a plan which we started. i agree we need to make sure that it is quality care and what we have identified is questions a practice integrity. >> congress gets frustrated. the some of the problems in the viejo. he spoke about non va care in your terms being the veterans joyce. this is one of the issues that i have raised repeatedly now.

within the current system the ability to get to non va care sometimes is obstructed by process where a patient has to go to the very same medical staff said they did not needed. has that changed? basis choice, has that changed? >> it is. it will take time. in conjunction with accelerating tariff provided training to roughly 1900 and none of our facility and regional staff. that was over about six days. in addition to that we have delivered training to about 2700 staffer appropriate use of the scheduling package and how they manage no-shows him how to schedule appointments. it's going to take a lot of that. if we have seen delays and not use of non va medical care, it is incumbent upon us and the network and a facility to ask the question why. >> has there been a change in

the same medical staff and initially said no having the sun often not saying yes? >> changes the degree of business that we have the communication of our objective the venture must be offered a choice. >> okay. i think each of you have agreed there is problem within management as opposed to the staff and some of the doctors. currently in some facilities private sector of this systems provide management. different than just seeing a non va physician. is there value in expanding the use of regional health care system providers to provide the management? so i understand from a number of the veterans i speak to, they want to stay within that va

system. the idea of using the voucher program is not something i believe the community would embrace. can we expand the use of private sector health care systems? providing management for facilities, what would your thoughts beyond that? >> in some cases we do do that. with contracts community health patient clinics we do have some partners in the private sector that help us manage and some of our outpatient clinics. >> those are really smaller facilities, right? what about the very large hospitals where peer to peer -- and lead is be honest. there simply cannot be private-sector efficiencies and a large va osbourne currently. is there value in looking at larger facilities? >> sure. we can look at it. the one thing i am telling you. this is taught me to question everything. >> has there ever been a

comparative study performance based upon management from private sector? >> periodically. one thing that i would -- just one moment of concern. a lot of our measure is a revenue-based metric which is to generate revenue. so i would say that, you know, other agencies, medicare and others, have had issues with that. our version of productivity, to have some measure of skepticism in the interpretation of that productivity data is tied to revenue. >> i wanted thank you again. i really do appreciate your candor and will tell you, two weeks ago we were asking for urgency. i think we have heard that from you tonight. the acting secretary has demonstrated that his approach is one of urgency as well. thank you very much. i yield back. >> i ask unanimous consent that the former chairman of the subcommittee of oversight and investigation be allowed to ask questions. without objection you're

recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. thank you to my colleagues for allowing me to participate. some of want to focus on the ideas you as subcommittee chair one of my very first request of that va was to show me the i t architecture for the va. i don't know what your tea -- i t background is, so i do not mean ted be insulting. do you know what and i t architecture is? >> i do. >> do you realize it is now going on for years and we still did not have the i t architecture? you know, i sat with the secretary in his office and gave him an analogy. an analogy that he is familiar with. as a battlefield commander you

would not go into a conflict -- i mean, our young people that we are now trying to take care of and their veteran years when they were serving depended upon leaders to make good, strategic decisions and know what the enemy at out in front of us, know what our capabilities or offset those risks and threats. they have the same expectation now of the va to understand what their needs harbor and with the capabilities are that are required to meet them. that va has hundreds and hundreds of i t systems. you made a statement a little earlier ago. you said, i think, to my colleague, one of the systems you said you would not approve it until it was proven to integrate with auerbach current system. ..

as you are looking and investigating into what the problem is. part of the reforms that the va needs to get to is coming into the 21st century with i.t. not only in terms of systems but in the systematic processes and current state-of-the-art methodologies for managing those systems. mr. murkowski when are we going

to see what the va plans to do with its information architecture? >> sir i will have to take that back. >> i heard that three years ago and i'm not trying to be disrespectful but that's the same old question. it's like a dog race. we come out every two years and we chase the rabbit around the circle and then we put the dogs up and so we ask it again. >> i think we have to ask what do we want. in this case for scheduling we want to be able to abide timely accurate information about one veterans want to be seen in what capacity we have in her system. i would rather buy with the industry has an knows it works. health care industry has something called hl seven which is interface language. most modern systems speak that language so does frankly our old legacy vista system and i would like to add complicated interfaceinterface s but leverage with the industry can show us. >> i would agree with you

because i suggested to the secretary in 2012. he said there are three priorities for laminating the homeless problem reducing the backlog and getting an electronic health record. i would not approve a single new dollar of new i.t. spending until someone in that i.d. to -- i.t. department could show me the current architecture and how these systems fit together and how i.t. spending will affect that and make me -- let me make one more point. talked about the electronic health record in the mid- positive comments. i confess that i don't know where the status is of today but i can tell you at the 2012 we had a joint hearing with secretary shinseki and secretary panetta and they were proudly saying that we were going to have a single transparent electronic health record for military from start to finish

within the next five years. he had been working on it for 10 years. this is not a matter of can do. it's a matter of want to and the department does not want that electronic health record because the i.t. technology to get it is there today if they really wanted to do it. mr. chairman i yield back. thanks for giving me the opportunity. >> thank you very much mr. johnson. members the clock says 1010:00 and we will stand in recess for five minutes. screeria -- niger.

later, delayed medical treatment at v.a. facilities. next, a house natural resources subcommittee hearing on the latest technology being used to study earthquakes. an official from the u.s. gee logical survey is among the witnesses as well as the director of the pacific northwest seismic network. this is a little over an hour. s. >> the committee will come to order. the dhar command noets the presence of a quorum. the subcommittee is meeting

today to hearing testimony on an oversight hearing entitled advances in earthquake science, 50th anniversary of the great alaskan quake. it is the practice to allow either the ranking member of the full committee or the chairman of the full committee to make statements if they are here at the subcommittee meeting and i would ask unit nous consent to include any other members opening statements submitted to the clerk today. hearing no objection. >> no objection. >> no soared. i ask that mr. don young be allowed to participate in this hearing. hearing no objection? so ordered. i now recognize myself for five minutes. today mark the 50th anniversary of the good friday great alaska earthquake. it was a massive 9.2 magnitude

quake, making it the secondest largest earthquake ever recorded with modern seismic equipment and the largest in the u.s. the earthquake aoccurred along a 580 mile stretch of the fault and the aleutian trench fault and lasted between four and five minutes. the earthquake caused the greatest amount of vertical uplift ever measured, almost 34 feet, and southern alaska moved more than 65 feet sea ward. the earthquake also caused the largest tsunami to ever hit the west coast of the united states and canada. the largest wave, 222 feet high hit valdez at the bay. all theering quakes and ensuing tsunamis caused deaths.

the town of valdez was destroyed and 30 people lost their lives. many of them children who had come down to the dock to meet a freight ship. as tradition would have, the crew would toss fruit to the children that had come to meet the ship. two crew members were filming when the earthquake hit and they captured the tragic destruction on film. i would ask the film now to play by staff. >> at valued did he see, the jean comes in. always a red letter day. for the men, it means the first day of spring, working cargo in the hold and down on the dock. for the women it brings fresh fruit and vegetables to valdez,

the first they have seen since winter set in. and for the kids, it's always a little like christmas. it's dusk. almost too dark for good photographiy but aboard the ship crewmen take some pictures of the grinning youngsters and their dogs at the dock below, then at 5:36, a dozen miles deep, under the mountains north of prince william sound. the earth shivers, begins to move. suddenly the whole harbor at valdez begins to empty, drains

almost dry. a subterranean chasm opens along the ship. the dock splint erb's goes down with it, while crewmen try to reach the people on it. out in the gulf of alaska, the ocean bottom plunges and heaves up ward a full 50 feet and a wave starts racing to shore. it smashes it down where the dock had been and drives it into the heart of town. fred holds on for dear life and keeps its camera running.

no one on the dock at valdez will survive, the long shoremen, the kids, or their dogs. the great alaskan rth quake is one of the most studied natural disasters. the federal response was significant not only in economic relief and reconstruction but also in research. geologists from the u.s. gs were some of the first scientists on sight conducting field mapping, surveys and taking core samples. their findings were published in a series of six professional papers. research on the quake made significant contributions to the emerging theory of plate tech ton iks.

according to the u.s. g.s., knowledge gained from the research conducted open the alaska quake has provided the geologic framework for assessing the earthquake and tsunami hazards at couldn't ver jent plate margins around the world. many other contributions to earthquake science and hazard reduction were also made that provided geo scientists with tools they could use to identify other plate boundaries that had ruptures in the past and future ruptures. hazards caused by movement on secondary fault structures, a better understanding of liquefaction, a better understanding of earthquake hazards in general and tsunami hazards, asexts and warnings, these are all things we've learned more about since the

great alaskan earthquake. as was evidenced, death and destruction from the tsunamis can be greater and more widespread than the damage caused by the shaking. the tsunami can happen thousands of miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake. in recent years, massive earthquake and tsunamis have wreaked devastation across indonesia, japan, chile and hate at this -- haiti. earthquakes in haiti and chile of nearly the same magnitude have caused massive differences in death and damages. much of the differences are as a result of efforts to establish standards. in japan, the trans sit system was shuttle down -- shut down. today, we are here to remember

those who lost their lives in the great alaskan quake. we are to remind ourselves that we cannot be complaisant in proelking against hazards and to remind ourselves that the advance many of science depends on our vigilance. i would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. i look forward to hearing their thoughts on what we know about advances in earth quake science over the last 50 years. i would now like to recognize the ranking member, mr. rush holt of new jersey. >> thank you, mr. chairman and i would like to thank tower very distinguished panel for being here today on the 50th answer verse -- anniversary. >> it's sobering to think that when the earthquake happened, we weren't even familiar enough with the theory of plate tectonics to understand what was really going on. that takes us to the point of this hearing.

we needed it then and we still need now significant research and scientific development in geological sciences and earthquake sciences. the past half century has seen some impressive advances, but there is quite a bit more to learn. i'm a little surprised, mr. chairman, that you didn't originally invite the u.s. geological survey to testify at this hearing and i thank you for allowing us to invite the u.s. g.s. to be here. it is one of the world's leading authorities on the topic. and in addition to the general knowledge of the u.s. g.s. about earthquakes, i'm interested to hear more today about other aspects of earthquake science and in particular i would like to hear more about induced earthquakes and the connection between hydraulic frarkting, wastewater injection and so

forth and earthquakes. i understand fracking itself doesn't cause earthquakes, at least not large ones, but fracking creates a lot of wastewater. there are now numerous examples of earthquakes that appear to have been induced by injection of this wastewater back into the ground. i understand u.s. g.s recently reported that injection of fracking-related wastewater was the likely cause of the largest earthquake recorded in oklahoma, magnitude of 4.7. >> the impacts by fracking induced wastewater arntd limited to oklahoma. so this is certainly a concern for people who live in these

areas, who maybe thought that fracking was just a mom and pop operation like drilling aw water well but it turns out to be a major industrial undertaking. in some cases, i think establishing the link between wastewater injection and earthquakes to the untrained person might seem obvious, new injection wells start up and all of a sudden an area might have -- that's never had an earthquake, might have some of these shakes, and then the injection stops and the quakes stop. but i understand that it's not that simple, and so i will be interested to hear what we do know, what we have yet to learn in that area. it's a topic we might devote an entire hearing too. ranking member defazio

previously along with then -- well, with ranking member waxman of energy and commerce requested such a hearing on induced seismicity. i'm pleased they have called such a hearing. we can touch on that subject in this hearing and that might be helpful. i'm glad that dr. leeth is here and able to answer questions about what the u.s. g.s has been doing on the subject of introduced seismicity, and i'm sure there were other points that all the witnesses can make about what we have yet to learn, what research we have yet to sponsor, what studies yet need to be done to understand earthquakes that continue to

happen in usually unpredictable ways and very -- with very important consequences. so thank you. >> all right. as i said earlier if either the full committee chairman or ranking member are here, they are invited to make a statement also, and i see that we have the ranking member, representative peter defazio of oregon and you are now recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank for calling this important hearing. as the testimony today points out, the impact of the good friday earthquake 50 years ago was not limited to alaska. though it was particularly devastating in alaska. the tsunami that was generated killed four oregonians in part because there was no early warning system to alert people that a tsunami was bearing down on the oregon coast. the tsunami early warning system 50 years ago could have saved lives and giving people some warning, even a few minutes can

save lives. we can build an earthquake tsunami early warning system with the potential to save lives. oregon doesn't just face a threat from tsunamis generated elsewhere, we have our own fault, it turns out with some of the research that came subsequent to this quake. a rather big one it turns out. the same type that generated the great alaska quake. the 2011 japan earthquake and the indonesia earthquake and according to geologic history we're overdue for a major quake in the northwest. it has been fairly quiet for a few hundred years, but as i said it is being judged to be overdue. you know, some day it's going to wake up, and our coastal residents, not only oregon, washington, northern california and potentially we'll be sending a wave north like the wave was sent south from alaska and we need that early warning system

finished and deployed, in the motion, and -- in the ocean and as needed on land. dr. vidal and the u.s. g.s are developing that system, and, you know, we know we're not going to be able to predict a quake days in advance, but just those few minutes you can stop the trains. we have evacuation plans everywhere on the coast, and warning everywhere on the coast. practice drills and schools open the coast. we have measured impacts and found safe havens and we would benefit tremendously of with a little bit of heads-up if this was coming. dr. holt made an excellent point. i have asked for a hearing on induced seismicity, you know. i think it should have an individual hearing of its own although i believe we'll able to touch on it a bit here today.

it is relatively recent, you know, phenomena, which is not yet well studied or well-known. there have been swarm of quakes in areas where they have not been before, and it's attributed to the reinjection of waste which includes lubricants, oil, and proprietary chemicals which we're not allowed to know about. this is all regulated under the safe drinking water act. our initial thought was we wanted to protect the water table but it turns out there are other assets that need to be protected. if you have induced seismicity in an area that has dams, or has a nuclear plant, or with other above ground, you know, developments, bridges and other things that are potentially at risk, we need to know about that. we need to know a lot more about that to avoid these problems.

i'm going to ask u.s. g.s a number of questions today, to see whether their budget is adequate to research this and whether or not congress i believe should be paying direct attention to it. i don't believe the safe drinking water act is adequate. we're not talking about saying we're going to bring a halt to all oil, gas, and fracking in the u.s., but we've got to decide whether or not the reinjection of the waste is wise in certain areas and whether alternatives should be developed to prevent these problems, so thank you for holding this hearing, and i appreciate the opportunity to hear from the witnesses. >> thank you, and i would now like to ask you unit mouse consent that the gentleman from alaska be able to make an opening statement. >> so ordered. >> i thank the chairman and i thank the members. i'm not on this committee. as one who lived through the great earthquake in alaska, i'm very interested in what's going

to be testified to here today, primarily the assume -- tsunami warnings. we lost 148 lives, not through the earthquake, it was the tsunami. it was a 9.2 earthquake. i believe it's the largest one that ever occurred in the united states, being on the ground when it occurred, it was an awesome experience because of the length of the quake. it wasn't a sharp jolt. this thing lasted ten minutes. it was a puddling effect. that's why the -- all the houses and landslide et cetera that slipped into the inlet, in kodiak, that is a rock island, and it won't tip upside down by the way, but it nearly very

tipped upside down. it dropped eight feet on the south side and raised eight feet on the north side and thus flooding houses and homes before the tsunami on the south side and then the north side, any of the docks or any place to have boat landings was prohibited, and it stayed that way. it was a massive quake, but if we continue and i'm disappointed in the congress, very frankly, because we've lacked the money, we've cut back on the tsunami warnings. that's the biggest danger. i do believe we can identify whenering quakes can occur and if you have to buy a pheasant, it always worked back in california, a pheasant will tell you when an earthquake is going to happen about five seconds before they happen. i want to thank you, again, for holding this hearing. it is an awesome experience of the power of a quake and how helpless mankind can be.

there's nothing you can do. we can be warned aheadive time so we can avoid that tsunami and i think save a lot of lives. so thank you, mr. chairman. >> and i thank the gentleman. i would now like to introduce our four distinguished witnesses. dr. william leith, senior science adviser. dr. lisa grant lewd -- ludwig. dr. john vidal director of the pacific northwest seismic network and professor of earth and space sciences, the university of washington and dr. reginald desroches. like all of our witnesses, your written testimony will appear in full in the hearing record, so i would ask that you keep your

oral statements to five minutes. our microphones are not automatic so you need to press the button when you are ready to begin. i would also like to explain how our timing lights work. when you begin to speak, our clerk will start the timeer and a green light will appear. at that time, you should begin to conclude your statement. at five minutes, the red light would come on and i will ask that you conclude at that time. dr. leith, thank you for being here and you may begin. >> mr. chairman, members of subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the significant advances in earthquake science that have been made over the past 50 years. the u.s. g.s is proud to be a partner with our state university, private sector, and other federal colleague in ongoing research and monitoring that are needed to strengthen the nation's resilience to earthquakes and related hazards. as you mentioned, the magnitude 9.2 great alaska earthquake that

struck southern alaska 50 years ago today, it's the largest earthquake in u.s. recorded history and the second largest ever recorded. it's also maybe relevant to understand that the earthquake shaking lasted for five minutes, about the length of time that i'll be speaking with you today. so consider that. anchorage sustain heavy damages. tsunamis caused death and damage as far away as oregon and california and the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis resulted in 129 fatalities. >> sir, could i ask you to speak a little closer into the microphone. >> certainly. a major leap in scientific understanding followed the 1964 earthquakes, including break throughs in earth science research worldwide that have continued overthe past half century since. the '64 alaska earthquake provided compelling evidence for

example for the then new theory of plate tectonics. it also had national influence. first, it showed how disruptive a earthquake can be on a modern society and its infrastructure. it also showed the complexities that need to be addressed in any national mitigation policy. third, through the iconic scenes of houses broken apart by landsliding. the '64 disaster showed the importance of taking it into consideration for urban development. the national institute for science and technology, the other partners are the federal emergency management sgs and the national science foundation.

within this partnership, u.s. g.s provides scientific information and assessments necessary to reduce deaths and injuries and economic losses from earthquakes and inter -- induced tsunamis, land slides and liquefaction. u.s. g.s is the only agency that routinely and continuously reports on current domestic and worldwide earthquake activity through our advanced national seismic system. the u.s. g.s and its university partners monitor and report on earthquakes in all 50 states, u.s. territories and around the globe. the program has four components. monitoring and reporting of activity, assessing and characterizing earthquake hazards, conducting and supporting targeted research into earthquake causes and effects and conveying earthquake safety information for loss reduction. all these components rely heavily on federal state university and private sector

partnerships. we're also looking into the future for opportunities to apply science to reducering quake losses. for example, the next step in public safety, earthquake early warning is already under development by the u.s. g.s and our partners and a test system is successfully operating now in kral california. another important opportunity that we're pursuing is to incorporate into the nasf, the seisometers that are employed across the united states. giant earthquakes like the one that struck alaska 508 years ago produced -- 50 years ago

produced grou produced major damage. so modern earthquake and tsunami planning scenarios give emergency responders and community planners much needed improved visions of what can be expected in a future disaster, such scenarios are being played out today in the alaska shield disaster response exercise. but rapid earthquake loss assessments are still unacceptably uncertain because of sparse network coverage in many areas. also a limited inventory of the built-in environment. and how buildings and infrastructure respond to send -- extended strong ground shaking. if you are keeping time, anchorage has just stopped shaking. i will conclude by saying i appreciate the opportunity to

discuss the vital research that the u.s. g.s and our partners are doing. it has made the nation and world safer and more resilient offering quakes and i'll be happy to take any questions you have. >> thank you, dr. ludwig. >> chairman lamborn, and members of the subcommittee. as a professor at university of california irvine, i live with earthquake risk every day. i'm speaking primarily of the president elect of the seismological society of america. the core purpose of ssa is so advance the understanding of earthquakes for the benefit of society. my message today is three fold, first in the 350 years since the great alaskan earthquake there has been a scientific revolution in understanding earthquakes. federal investment has been

directly responsible for these investments. i want to start with an account of the great alaskan earthquake on good friday 1964. i've heard the stories from extended family many times. donna grant was shopping in downtown anchorage when the earthquake struck. as the buildings collapsed in front of her and chaxs opened in the street, she grabbed a parking meter and hung on for dear life. she had time to think it must be the beginning of world war iii and the end of the world as she knew it. her experience is important because it illustrates the link between earthquake science and national security. when downtown anchorage was collapsing, no one knew it was being caused by the plate. the data was critical to the

discovery of plate tectonics. donna experienced the most powerful in u.s. history. it was so big that seismologists had to develop a new scale to measure it. the recent japanese tsunami provides the vivid devastation that can happen following an earthquake. the greatest earthquake hazard occurs at the plate boundaries. they have been imaged by seismologists and mapped by geologists. the locations offering quake can be precisely determined. the methods in technology are similar to ultra sound commonly used in medical imaging. the locations reveal active faults. some can be gratd by geologists like myself to determine their

history and potential for future quake. research on the san andreas fault has shown occurred. it is important to prepare for the next one. i've become so concerned about this problem that i joined uc program in public health. earthquakes are not just a california problem. research has shown the potential for large earthquakes in many areas. for example, along the coast of washington, oregon, and california, earthquakes have occurred every few centuries and the last one was way back in 1700. the old saying those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it should not apply to earthquakes in the u.s. because we know as a direct result of federally supported research and seismic monitoring that we have an earthquake problem. we know the areas that are most likely to be affected, and the

types of earthquakes that are most likely to occur. scientists are developing scenarios that can be used for planning and preparation, advanced computing has enabled calculation of expected shaking. the 2008 shake-out earthquake preparedness exercise has expanded into an annual drill throughout the u.s. and other regions of the world with approximately 25 million participants last year. unfortunately, earthquake cannot be prevented. we can trigger them but we cannot stop them. in my opinion, we must protect ourselves from this natural terrorist beneath our feet and congress is our first line of defense. how? through support of realtime earthquake early warning system, through continue funding of the advanced national seismic system, and through reauthorization of the national earthquake hazard reduction program. earthquake early warning is a proven technology and these systems have already been developed or deployed in japan and mexico. created by congress in 1977, it

led to significant advances inspect understanding earthquake risk and the best ways to mitigate it. as chairman lamborn said in his statement, march 9th, 2011, earthquakes can and do kill hundreds of thousands of people. in the case of haiti, a magnitude 7 earthquake killed over 732,000 people. the tragedy in haiti was surprising to many but not to seismologists. i'm here to tell you that the federal investment in earthquake science has given us the knowledge we need to protect ourselves from the type of tragedy we saw in haiti. in science as in life, you get what you pay for. it is in the best interests of the american people to invest in earthquake science and to continue to work toward becoming

an earthquake resilient nation. >> dr. vidale. >> is this working? okay. good morning, chairman lamborn, ranking member holt and members of the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this morning about a proposed path forward to for the i fie the west coast against earthquakes. while many earthquake are great in the sense of the tranlic to the public, other only those with the magnitude 8 receive the titles of great from the experts. the magnitude of the one in alaska is one larger. these magnitude 9 earthquakes threnlt only two places in the u.s., alaska and the pacific northwest coast. puerto rico is prone to smaller

and similar earthquakes and hawaii and california get the tsunamis from the great earthquakes. the magnitude 9 might not come for a long time or it could come th tomorrow. when it comes, it will extend from northern california, up the coast of the canada, including the coast lines of oregon and washington. to prepare for this devastation, i'll highlight two opportunities. earthquake early warning and sea floor morning and discuss why the zone needs to be a special focus and why the program must be strengthnd. one new advance in earthquake research is the development of early warning. these monitors to recognize an earthquake within seconds and broadcast a warning of shaking that's coming to vulnerable areas. it would provide key advances and mitigate earthquake risks for life safety and early

warning will forestall, train, car, and airplane accidents. it will warn schools and the population in general. in the private sector, companies can mitigate losses by battening down factories, protecting computer operations and critical life lines. emergency responders can jump start emergency operations while mass communication can work and maps of predicted devastation can be more quickly and effective disseminated. we expect one to five or more minutes of warning time prior to the arrival of severe shaking and gain valuable extra minutes in accuracy of tsunami warning. many other countries exposed toering quakes have already built early warning systems including japan, taiwan, mexico.

theering quake in japan provided evidence of the strong benefits of early warning. u.s. g.s has a detailed plan. in the meantime, the regional networks run from kal tech, uc berkeley and the university of washington are experimenting with prototype early warning systems. in the pacific northwest the performance of the earthquake early warning system would be bolstered by adding sea floor instrumentation. this information would increase the warning time and make warnings more accurate. the off shore instruments would also watch for long term signs of tectonics unrest. the university of oregon, oregon state university, and the university of washington have the right scientists and technicians to move forward. the u.s. g.s should devote sufficient resources to identify

and quantify earthquake risks. the realization of this risk has come in just the last 25 years and much of the evidence is still hidden in thick forests or under miles of ocean or wiped clean by glaciers. our most frequent strong earthquakes are tied to know fault of the surface that can be mapped. it needs more dedicated study within the region. reauthorization is needed to assure continued effort to characterize poorly understood risks. our cities in america have not been tested since the relatively mild 1994 north ridge earthquake which only hit suburbs. the funding level should be high enough to accommodate new developments such as earthquake early warning and sea floor monitoring. in summary, the great alaska

earthquake of 1964 is a forerunner of the eventual great earthquake in the pacific northwest to prepare we should build an earthquake early warning system and place sea floor monitoring, maintain within the pacific northwest a vigorous earth quake science and engineering effort. thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> thank you. dr. desroches. >> thank you. the 50 years following the great alaska earthquake has launched an unprecedented period of great progress in our understanding of earthquakes and how to build to minimize the impact of earthquakes. as a result, we are much more prepared, much safer, and much more resilient. however, much more can and should be done to protect our infrastructure. let me highlight a few areas where we've made significant progress. building codes were woefully inadequate at the time of the 1964 alaska earthquake.

buildings designed 50 years ago would likely sustain damage. some of the most significant changes have occurred after major earthquakes have identified structural insufficient sis. advances in structural dynamics by the late 1960s, end kurnled structural engineers to consider the movement that a structure goes through during an earthquake. studies and tests by researchers indicate this. these structures are highly vulnerable to damage and destruction and earthquakes. seismic retrofitting or

rehabilitation strategies have been developed to reduce the vulnerabilities of homes, buildings and other infrastructure exposed to earthquakes. significant efforts from the research community have been focused on developing and testing effective retrofitting approaches. many of the approaches for retrofitting used today were developed using nerp resources. we know that it works. the impact to improvements can be scene in a number of recent earthquake, namely 1994 north ridge earthquake. l.a. city officials say more than 200,000 people were living in retro fitted buildings, not a single death or injury was reported from the more than 37,000 units in 1,300 strengthened the buildings. the structures that were built and designed under the new stricter codes experienced

limited damage. significant progress has been made in the area of public policy as it relates to earthquakes. policies regarding the performance of hospitals, emergency operating centers, city halls and schools didn't exist 50 years ago. the lack of safety and hospitals became a prominent policy consideration following the 1971 san fernando earthquake. 44 people died in the v.a. hospital alone. as a result, the 1973 california state hospital safety act mandated that new hospital structures have higher seismic safety structures. according to recent legislation by 2030 all hospitals are to be retro fitted to a level capable of providing services and continued operation to the public after a major disaster. in the area of education and training, in 1964, the only earthquake engineers were primarily located in california,

japan, and mexico. now earthquake engineering is taught over the country, including schools and states that are not traditionally thought of as being in a seismic zone such as my institution, georgia tech. in fact, just this week, researchers at georgia tech are leading one of the largest seismic retrofitting studies ever conducted right in the middle of down ton atlanta, to develop cost effective retrofit for concrete buildings. it would not be possible without continued support. the program had made a number of unique studies a reality. from large scale testing of the california levy system. it has provided the research community with the opportunity to test the range of systems in a fashion that we can only dream of 50 years ago. finally, i would like to reiterate that we still have a lot more work to do to prepare for the impact of earthquake,

particularly large earthquakes, however the american people are safer and our cities are more resilient, socially and economically than we were 50 years ago. this is a direct result of the funded research, knowledge transfer, and education and outreach programs. thank you again. >> all right. thank you, and i want to thank you all four of our witnesses no your enlightening testimony. we appreciate your being here. we're going to go ahead and start with questions now. i will recognize myself for the first five minutes, and this is for any one of you. the trans alaska pipeline was designed and engineered to accommodate movements of a major fault but there are many types of infrastructures across the other fault structures in the pacific northwest and alaska such as transmission lines, railroads, highways, pipelines and so on. what is the status of efforts to retrofit existing infrastructure and what are we doing to require

enhance the protection from earthquakes on future projects? i know you've touched on that some, but who could best summarize that for me? >> a lot of effort has been focused on lkds. the majority of casualty occur in buildings but there's been a major effort recently to look at what we call life line systems and those are highways, buried pipelines, utility systems. i think we've made a significant amount of progress. i think a lot more can be done in this area. >> in the pacific northwest, you know, it's a real mix. we have the roads, we have infrastructure. we have the critical life lines and we saw this week landslides. if there's a bigering quake, we

need to be ready for landslides. so there's not really a single answer. we're trying. things are very expensive, replacing the bridge in downtown seattle, there are $5 billion projects. we've identified a lot of the problems but it's going to take a long time to fix them. snchts one thing that's important to point out is that underlying all of thee efforts to construct earthquake resistant structures is the scientific understanding. engineers have to design to something for something. so the more we know, the more we understand scientifically, the more we can help the engineers design to be earthquake resilient. and that was something i think we saw in the 2011 japan earthquake that their bles were very earthquake resistant but

they didn't expect the size of the tsunami and so really underlying that is the scientific understanding. >> two comments, we just started a project with the city of los angeles that's directly focused on identifying solutions to the problem of life lines that includes the water system, the communication system, power system. allows any user to quickly get an assessment of potential damage at any site. we run that system for all the

nuclear power plants for the united states and around the world. thrr ways of also very quickly using the data reported through the networks, analyzed and processed within tens of minutes to get a damage estimate at life line facilities. >> okay, thank you, and dr. leith, while you are on deck here, what would you say about what's been touched on by other witnesses in earthquake early warning system. how important would it be for the u.s. to have a policy to newt -- institute such a program? >> we've been -- we at u.s. g.s have had this an objective since 1999 when we put together our plans. and we've invested nearly $10 million so far in the research and development and modernization of the network so they can provide earthquake early warnings. we have a test operating system

that's worth now in california. it's not a public system yet because it doesn't have the sort of robustness and resiliency and 24 hour operations that would be needed. it is testing out very well and with further investment it could be made public in either a part of the statewide or west coastwide. >> thank you. i would like now to recognize the ranking member, representative holt. >> thank you, dr. ludwig, you said a moment ago that in order to prepare for, to set standards forering quakes, we need to understand the science and i wanted to first get a sense of how good the science is. in 1964 geologists spent the previous half century either

denying or ignoring that continents move and that there's collisions and slippage. let me turn it into a budgetary question. if you -- usgs got additional money for fy 14, how -- this was specifically for reduced -- if you had more funding or any such thing, how would you use it? and the more basic question is how mature is this science? are there great unknowns or lot of pieces to clean up? lots of bits and pieces? because i did want to goat the point of budget and what we might be doing in response to

any inadequate si in the science. i would answer that, you know, i tend to -- my style is to focus on opportunities. and what i see is a number of opportunities for advancements. and we are -- as the science progresses along, and we learned new little pieces about how the earth works and earthquakes are generated. there are always opportunities to move that forward. and many gaps in our understanding that need to be addressed. and there are gaps in the reporting on earthquakes that need to be addressed. and all of those could be addressed by additional resources.

we have documents and published on an significant increase in earthquakes in the central part of the united states. we need to understand that better in order to map out the hazard posed by the earthquake and inform decisions about land use planning. >> i meant my question to be a softball. >> yeah. >> for do you tell us your needs. maybe the others will have comments in the brief time remaining here. >> our understanding is only as good as our data. with the earthquake problem, it's a little bit different from some of the other sciences, because we can't take the earth and put in the laboratory and run controlled experiments. so every earthquake especially the large ones, is essentially an uncontrolled natural experiment. and we have to kind of chase it. we have to have the infrastructure, the physical infrastructure, the seismic networks and the human infrastructure, the human resources, the scientists to be

able to collect the data. also, you know we have to learn from what is happened in the past, i'm a pal owe seismologists. i look at past earthquakes to see if it happened in the past. it could happen again to kind of get an idea what we can expect and use that data for forecasting. so you have to have a pretty robust infrastructure physical and human to be able to do this kind of science and to make these sort of breakthroughs. like plate tech tonic. it took a long time and the data. the alaska earthquake really helped. that was an opportunity. >> in the remaining less than a minute. if either of the other witnesses would like to take a -- maturity of the science. >> i have a couple of points. one is that we don't understand subjections on earthquakes that well.

japan had a tremendous one in the fault we didn't expect was loaded. we would benefit from knowing how our sub ductions of earthquakes might have better. another issue is, you know, how are the basins under the city amplified. seattle is over a big basin. san francisco is a basin. we need to feed the engineers the right motion to build the buildings to be strong enough. those areas need research. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to recognize the ranking member of the full committee, representative de blasio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. fir first. i didn't understand the 1 billion figure you used in the northwest. >> it's the fema estimate from a few years ago. 800 million for oregon and washington annual losses.

i guess maybe i rounded up. >> i don't know what you mean annual. i mean in the event a 9.0. i'm assume it would exceed the -- >> i didn't give the number for nine. gave it a year. and for a magnitude 9 the estimate is 50 to 100 billion. >> right. okay. so is anybody on this panel think that the federal government given the potential for 50 to 100 billion calamity which could be partially mitigated we're investing enough money in either research or development and deployment of technology for to provide early warning. anybody think we were spending enough? anybody? okay. no one. good. i would be surprised if you did. so the issue, it seems to me,

spent $10 million! wow, since 1999! we're looking at $100 billion problem in the pacific northwest we spent $10 million. you talk about countries like --tlike -- ic i think you said romania, mexico. they have deployed early warning systems and the united states of america hasn't. we have a prototype. do theirs not work? do we have to develop new technology. isn't there technology that would mitigate the loss of life in the northwest with the advent of a tsunami that we could deploy? we might improve it later? >> is that a question. >> it's a question to either of you. to the two of you. >> no. i think we should build the early warning system. the physics is simple. we know how to do it. t a bit of a challenge to make sure we don't get false alarms and we have to adapt the emergency broadcasting system to react in seconds. >> right.

if romania can do it. can't united states of america? i don't know i guess we have fallen so much the republicans have disinvested so much we can't. >> in these other country, japan, mexico, turkey that have either existing systems or developing systems, those decisions were all made after major earthquake disasters. >> so we have to wait until -- >> for example the japan earthquake in 1995. it was after that disaster and there was a national political will to install an earthquake early warning system and bring up the base of earthquake preparedness country wide. that paid off heavily in the earthquake from 2011. the tsunami damage was, of course, horrible. but the earthquake related shaking damage was less and as mentioned the system performed. there seems to need to be a

national political will in order to make investment. >> okay. and i want to emphasize the magnitude of the investment. it's probably another billion for the sea floor instrumentation they're putting down now. and china launched into a multihundred million dollar seismic monitoring system. they're planning early warning quite sophisticated as well. >> right response if the united states could as much as japan it could be $2 billion toward $100 million and thousands of lives potentially lost or saved. thank you. quickly on to another subject. we don't seem to know a lot about it. do you have the -- are you getting dat it you need or the resources you need to investigate into seismic. it's another issue of probably prevention. not cause the problems in area that could provide tremendous

risk near nuclear plants or other facilities. >> on the data -- on the resources side, congress provided us an extra million dollars this year which is put to good use and administration is requested in addition in the fiscal '15 budget. on the data side, we don't have all the data we need. in particular, there is a shortcoming in the data on the injection activities themselves. the waste water disposal wells are regulated under the safe drinking water act. i don't think it was considered when it was put together. and so most of the epa and most of the states don't require the kind of precise data that is necessary to both understand that as a national problem or to do the kind of forensics one would want to do to connect a particular damaging earthquake with a particular injection activity. >> okay. thank you. my time is expired. thank you, mr. chairman.

>> yeah. i want to say to the ranking member. i would like to work with them in finding -- like major earthquake research or have the agency shift money within its budget from lesser priority objectives to this. this is a -- this is an important issue. i agree with you on how important this is. >> right. i appreciate that. i had spoken to former chairman young on the way out. he was going join me. maybe we can work out something together. thank you. >> i would like to recognize for another five minutes of questioning. mr. huffman of california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i wanted to be at the hearing because i represent earthquake country, tsunami country. i think it's an important subject with some helpful testimony. i want to thank the witnesses for their contributions. mr. chairman, i also wanted to be here to thank you. as a new member of cons,