effective. one of the differences between ballistic missiles and other kinetic threat for the homeland is timespan from war head arrival is shorter than other threats. cruise missile bombers are viewable in hours and days before arrival. you can take steps to crank things up. but once the first launch has occurred inbound is in less than 40 minutes. so we have to have a method of response that starts to apply effective pressure in hours to a very few number of days. the capabilities and actions across the spectrum of necessary responses and responders must be prepared equipped and trained before the threat situation develops to the point of requiring action. putting together all of the elements the dime elements. plan will need to consider plr particularly in the area of regional defense, the interaction with allies and

partners and how their actions decisions, capabilities might play in our assistance of their defense or how it may limit our ability, depending on what choices they have to make. nato, for instance has a very detailed bmd plan for the intercept of missiles for nato territory and europe. what are other elements that the nato alliance can bring to bear fence an antagonist. they are a military alliance after all. they are not the eu. what sort of connections and relations with the eu, the economic deciders of europe need to be engendered in order to come up with an effective response. in the interleaving of these capabilities do they fall under the nato command structure or some other entity. the eu council of governments, unclear. earlier we were talking about exchanging information. frank mentioned that.

how do you coordinate this with owe allies and partners. some of us can be very sensitive. but some of it needs to be planned and thought of ahead of time. do we need to extend the concept of the fazed adapt tif approach to the whole of ballistic missile protection and not just intercept capability? so having asked all of those questions and positived a challenge, i've a recommendation. i warned elaine about this before she had to leave. she smiled. i recommend that we extend the bmdr, the ballistic missile defense review not as a revisit but as an extension to encompass the whole of government approach to allocate responsibilities and tasks and to find the deter rent points that need tore made and demonstrated to all who might consider threatening our homeland, forces want allies and partners. in other words to provide a

ballistic missile protection plan. there have been and still are ongoing studies and plans addressing different elements of protection, including nonkinetic, nonmilitary. but i think it's time now to bring those desperate ideas and analysis together. and again as happened in the 2010 bndr, to use a cross-government interagency consultative approach. and it really was -- i had the pleasure of taking part in it, much more so than i had experienced at any other time in the government. to interlead the knowledge and capabilities of this reck sit approach. i do submit that the original premises and results of the 2010 bmdr remain valid. however i believe it is time now to extend its scope and erection to the whole ballistic missile protection. with that i'll close and look forward to your questions. thanks. [ applause ]

thank you, gentlemen. this was very thought provoking. i'll start off with a question for mr. matlock. you laid out -- in the news in the past week there is a discussion of mda. you laid out key technologies, space and other things. you talked about fast interceptors multiple kill vehicles, things like that airborne laser. first of all i was hoping you might address you know, what kind -- what has been the fruit of these past investments number one. speak to that. has this been experiments that we've yielded nothing from or what kinds of things have they given us that makes the future possible. and then, frankly, also, given the relative reduction of mda's

budget for rnd how are we going to do with the lower budget levels do these more oppressive types of capabilities. >> well i think that what you see in our -- as i mentioned a little earlier here what you see in our system today is essentially the results of the technology investments that we made in the '80s and the '90s. so much of the intercepter systems, the command and criminal system, the sensor network, all of those things are a result of investments that we made broadly in that time frame. elaine likes to use the seed corn analogy here. so we ate a lot of our seed corn to get that. and in order to respond to the capacity you know, the

requirement for greater capacity across the regions, we have had to transition that technology and make those investments. so what -- whenever you're faced with the sort of fiscal realities that we face today in terms of those -- that balance of technology -- chasty versus capability and the need to work across government for how do we do that and sequestration, then it tends to focus the mind a bit more on those things which have the most promise and perhaps leave those, the remainder to future investigations. so this road map that i laid out for you earlier here, tom, is based on some hard hard thinking and some hard choices that we made within the agency, as well as with our partners in

the war fighting community and in the acquisition community and with policy. we think that we've got a road map now that is going to get us on a path to make those improvements and enhancements in the missile defense capability over the next few years. i take his point in terms of we probably need to go beyond just that right of launch look. so we'll be looking probably with greater consideration this year at how we start to broaden beyond that. >> great. well, let me, i think turn to you admiral macy. i like your extend the bnr approach. it kind of remind me frankly, i think it was the 2002 national strategy for countering wmd which has the several pillars what have you. i don't think that was updated or has been updated.

it has been updated since then which dealt with consequence, management and response and all that sort of thing. this seems to be -- this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of really matureing how we think about it. how far along just so we have some clarity about, in terms of thinking and acting merely in terms of that missile sponge, the catcher's mitt as it were. how far along are we to integrating those missile capabilities and plans to everything else. we've heard all day in a way how this is just one piece of the larger national. i think the bmd ballistic missile protection plan that you articulate is a further step. first of all, how far along are we there? >> i don't think we're very far along which is why i positive itted the idea. it's a classic problem of how

you put whole of government approaches together. it's always hard to do. i tried to argue that in the case of responding to ballistic missile defense events, to ballistic missile events the timeline is much shorter than an occurrence factor when you have more than one launch. so you don't have days or weeks or months much less to say okay this is how i'm going to respond. the other end of it of such a thing would be the classic force on force event that occurred in desert storm. and we had the luxury of month to prepare or response. you're not going to have that here. so therefore, you have to build your capability -- exercise your capability, train the people in it much further ahead of time and maintain that level of training, that level of capability. my observation is we really don't have that. because this would encompass actions that certainly the

department of defense will take, which is what the general and others are responsible, rich is responsible to do, and north come norad a appropriate. but it's going to have actions from the state department, treasury, commerce because you're going to need to apply pressure in a number of different ways in order to change the behavior of our antagonist. and i don't believe we're very far along in doing that. if we had to do it tomorrow, it would be a significant pickup game. >> excellent. shall we go to the audience questions? question on the technology and you might say the full spectrum responses. i guess right here. >> good afternoon charles newstead state department. speaking just for myself as a physicist and not for the department or mr. kerry will fair me

fire me. he's doing a great job. two points. in terms of the technology, mr. matlock talked about the various systems we could have terrestrially or in space. and as he pointed out, developing a capability in the satellites to shoot things down would be certainly better if we could do it. now, in particular the laser interests me because those are coming along very quickly. one -- not quite there yet. we don't have a laser that we can direct and quickly take out an incoming attack. but the point is that you mentioned a dial pumped laser which are coming along very quickly now and may be what we need. now we've got to be concerned that this capability is being developed in a number of countries. the united states is doing it

and so are the french for their stockpile stewardship programs as you understand. but that doesn't have the strength that we need to knock out a missile. so the point -- >> what's the question. >> sorry. i'll get to the question. the question is this. because china and russia are both developing what the thigh niece call devine light and has the russians call -- i forgot the name. but these are supposed to be even stronger than what we had. so -- i'm sorry. i'll get to the point. it's a long road i'm trying to travel here. the main point is how do we defend against the chinese and the russians? because they may well have the capability of developing these lasers before we do since they can seem -- >> other people are directing energy as well.

do you want to speak to that? we're developing the systems but other folks are developing directed energy as well. any comment on that? >> well, i hope we're going -- i hope we're moving more quickly. no so i don't mean to be flippant. but i think what we see here in the last five or six years is we were very successful in the airborne laser in terms of proving the physics and proving that we could generate the power necessary to shoot down rockets. our big challenge there was that it was operationally impractical because of the nature of the system. so we're looking at the technologies that the gentleman suggested, the laser system which is primarily focused at our national laboratory in california. we're also looking at another concept, the fiber combined

laser along with air force teammates. and looking at scaling those up. so we're finding that the technology is moving along fairly quickly. we won't be at lethal capability for some years to come. but we're hopeful we'll be able to focus the research here along with bringing our industry into the picture very shortly to help us understand how we might transition that technology then into an effective missile defense system that could perform a number of missile defense functions. >> do you want to talk about the fy-16 uav proposal the proposal for a laser mount on a uav that was alluded to? >> yeah. we have -- we've asked -- we've seen in the last couple of years, as i mentioned great, great improvements in these two laser systems. we also know that our partners

at onr have been demonstrating lasers on ships for a particular mission. and the army has done some great work down at white sands missile range with lasers. so we want to take the research that we've got in the laboratory, as well as the research that's going on today in our industry and look at the possibility of whether or not we can transition more quickly to an aaron born laser demonstrator here over the next four years. so we've made we've made some bets in our budget and we'll be awarding contracts shortly with industry to look at what that -- excuse me. what that laser demonstrator might look like and how we might be able to put it together and on what timeline. >> great. other folks. mike. >> i was wondering -- this is

question is for mr. matlock. if you could elaborate about the sensor network and what you might gain from that and what kind of timeline there might be for that. >> which sensor? >> there was talk earlier about i guess -- >> space base snd. >> space based sensor. might be a little more elaborate than i guess what currently exists exists. >> what we're doing right now is looking at space for -- in the current fiscal environments, access to space for our research has been challenging. and so what we've been looking at is other modalities that we can use to demonstrate the technology that ultimately we might want to put in space. and so we have, right now, a program that we're working to modify some of our unmanned aerial vehicles with this new

sensor capability. and looking at doing that in the field we had some success just this past fall at the pacific missile range facility in conjunction with some of our ballistic missile defense tests in which we, we took a eori sensor that's being used in the field today for other purposes mounted it on the front of a unmanned aerial vehicle and moved the capability forward so that can could track missiles up in the atmosphere as opposed to looking at targets on the ground. with the stereo tracking capability with those reapers we found that we could skbren rate the kind of track quality necessary to launch standard missiles against targets, targets that were launched there. we have a tech plan now to look at increasing that capability over the next few years with the

primary goal of looking at the sensor capability as opposed to the platform and then making a decision down the road depending on the success of these sensor, whether or not this is something we would consider deploying in space or whether it's something that makes sense to deploy terraceres reial on unmanned aircraft. >> yes, sir. >> scott from inside the pentagon. i just wanted to go back to the airborne laser on the drones. how do you reconcile that it will be attacking the missiles in the booster phase and it will take a while there will have to be enemy air space to deal with fire and the lasers probably won't be powerful enough to destroy the missile instantaneous instantaneously. >> what was the question? i didn't catch the last part of

that. >> the laser won't be able to destroy it instantaneously when it's in the boost phase. it will take a little while before the missile is destroyed. how are you going to protect the drones in enemy environment while they're shooting down a boost phase missile. >> i'm going to leave that question up to my part ners in the air force. but what my job here, and what my goal is to prove that we can make the technology work at extended ranges. so you know, our goal would be, rather than tens or hundreds of kilometers to get much longer range capability out of these. that's why i'm driving at the more dpisht elect trick lasers to be able to scale them up to greater power so we can laser at atorat longer ranges. so the goal from a technology

standpoint is to get a more efficient laser that's more powerful at longer range over time. of course one of the challenges we're looking at here with this laser demonstrator then is taking it to the field and working with our war fighter come padres on what would be reasonable as we look at missiles that use directed energy. >> i have another question for admiral macy. as you talk about integrating these things and frankly thinking about integrating them for heavy ultimately to buy time. what's the role with working with our allies on that? to what extent -- the qdr, the one of the pillars being with working with our partners and allies on the missile defense mission. how reliant is the united states going to be on our own capabilities and how much are working and integrating with and

interoperable with other folks in the asian pacific and nato what -- >> i think it's -- >> -- envision there? >> it's a continual effort. get more and more reliant and capable of working together. nato has done this already. the decision was taken to make ballistic missile defense a mission of nato. and then further that the ballistic missile defense plans the rules of engagement the defendant asset list and everything were agreed upon at 28 in nato, which is as complete as you're going to get. that means that some areas get more protection than others but they all agreed to it. so you work with your allies and partners for a number of reasons. one is particularly in the cases where you have treaties, you have a responsibility to them. i mean nato is probably the most classic and the fullest one on article five. an attack on one is an attack on

all. we're fully reliant on our systems and you're reliant on other people's systems to the greatest degree they can provide them and you agree to it. there is certainly a matter of trust. you want your allies involved not only because you have a responsibility to them as they do for you for joint defense and cooperative defense but for whatever assets they can bring to the table whatever capabilities, not just military but economic and whatever. a completely off the wall but not necessarily idea have part of the declared response policy that if a launch comes from a nation that the other nations -- the other economic power nations, which would be the united states, europe, japan australia, so forth, would immediately shut down all banking transactions. that would render any modern country essentially inoperable

in the order of 20 hours because the world is interconnected on banking. that becomes part of what you would do. that would be part of a cooperative agreement where ally allies and partners could join in with providing this effect. >> other folks. let's mix it up a little bit. actually, you know, earlier you asked about the laser technology. i would like to go back and frankly this is for both of you. this was referred to earlier today, the memo about reassessing our strategy. i think you've spoken to that to some extent. >> i would like to comment on that. >> i'm giving you the opportunity to comment on that. comment on the memo. it said a couple of things. it talked about budget constraints. it talked about really the increasing stress on the services for the missile defense mission and we heard earlier

about of course sequestration. that affects everything. it affects northern command, homeland defense and it affects others. so go at it. >> the reason that i'm personally convinced that that memo was written by the two primary providers of bmd capability among the services is that those two officers were fulfilling their professional and legal obligation. when you are a commissioned officer in command, you're responsible to keep your superiors advised on your ability or lack thereof to perform an assigned mission. doesn't matter whether you like the mission or not. i didn't read that memo as saying that the bmd policy was wrong. i read the memo as the chief of staff of the army and chief of wags operations were telling secretary of defense, sir, i don't think i can do what you want me to do. something has got to change the mission or the resources. but they were doing what one has to do in that position.

in fact they would have been seriously at fault had they not done so. >> very good. very good. i'm going to keep going. i'd like to kick back to the mkv, multivolume kill and now the mokv. multiple object. what's the real potential, the long term potential of miniature rye zags of the kill vehicles whether it's on today's intercepters or something else? what's the long term potential for miniature rye zags there? >> well we've been through several cycles of miniature rye zags. i mentioned earlier that we had take thn refrigerator sized kill vehicle and shrunk it down to the size of a bread box. that was what got us the capability to turn the standard missile into a ballistic missile

defender. and that that system is probably about the right size for what we need to get done. the last time we looked at the mkv program, our goal then was to look at very large number of intercepters on a single booster. we were talking in the order of 24, 25. as we improve our sensing network and improve our capability to discriminate the need to have 25 kill vehicles on a single rocket is certainly less necessary than what we would have perceived before. and we weren't striving for that kind -- we don't need to strive for that capability now. so my perception is is that we will probably need some miniature rye zags this next go around. i don't think it's to the magnitude that we achieved from the ho experiment to the elite

project tile. but there's some work we need to do there. as we look at our rkv and the way that we formulated the new -- i'm sorry, speaking in acronyms. but the new kill vehicle improved reliability is we're looking at modular open architecture there that would allow us to bring new systems in to broaden the vendor spaces well for our contractors. in other words if you can design to this particular interface and have this set of -- meet this set of requirements then you're a new vendor for the missile defense integrator. that will allow us to bring more to bear on that challenge. and so i think it's a combination of how do we bring a little bit more capability perhaps a little more miniature rye zags. but i don't perceive it as going from one to 26. i perceive it going from one to some number much less than 26 in this next go around.

we'll probably be making investments this coming year looking at how do we go from an rkv to an mokv and we'll be looking at our partners to help us decide what's required to make that leap. >> good. any other comments from either of you folks or anybody else? [ inaudible ] >> twitter? >> for example going to poland. hi. you're going to poland right. who measures what? i'm looking at it from the host nation standpoint and who sells

that or are you rmd or the environmental assessment? >> i think these gentlemen are speaking to future directions mar than the political considerations for hosting and that kind of thing. any final thoughts things that haven't been brought out? you want to get off? >> i think it's been a very interesting conference. my only encourage would be from my obviously demonstrated viewpoint is that we continue to look at the fact that we have to do more than provide a kinetic answer to an inbound threat. >> hearing a lot about that. i think there's a lot of nodding heads on that. i think we've reached our conclusion. i want to thank both of you gentlemen for this. i also want to thank our sponsor, the boeing company for making this possible larger work on missile defense possible. hopefully we'll be continuing this conversation in the coming months. thank you all for coming out. [ applause ]

with congress in recess, book tv's afterwards is in prime to night with reporter april ryan and followed by authors william bennett. and here on c-span3 american history tv has a recent civil war seminar in prime time at

8:00 p.m. eastern. each night this week at 9:00 p.m. eastern conversations with a few new members of congress. >> when you raised your hand and took the oath of office, what were your mom and dad thinking? >> i knew my mom would be crying and my dad was proud. and it was funny, my dad is 82 years old. and she showed up to the capitol. he usually walks with a cane and he showed up and didn't have his cane. i said, dad, do i need to send someone to your hotel to get your cane. he straightens up real stiff and says, i'm in the capitol, i don't need a cane today and he walked without his cane for the entire day. i know they were super proud. >> five newest members of congress talk about their careers and personal lives and share insight about how things work on capitol hill. gin us each night at 9:00 eastern on c-span.

the blue ribbon study panel on biodefense held a meeting recently on biological and chemical threat preparedness in the u.s. the group heard from mike rogers who served as chair of the intelligence committee rile in congress. this is 45 minutes. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. on behalf of the blue ribbon study panel on biodefense we welcome you to the fourth public hearing related to our collaboration with the hudson institute. i think it's very important for us to publicly express once again our deep appreciation for the sponsorship of this panel and frankly the resource that they provided to us to take on

what we consider to be a very very critical mission as we take a lock at our ability to identify and respond to one of the more sinister threats that exist out there, whether it's thrown at us by mother nature or an isil or a nation state or whom ever that actor or actors may be. so again, we are deeply appreciative of the hudson institute. while this is the last public meeting we'll conduct here, there will be some private meetings as we develop a series of recommendations to submit to the congress of the united states for both short term and long term activities recommendations relative to the ability of this country to identify and respond to those kinds of threats. today we confront a very troubled world. and it becomes more challenging every week. while many issues threaten our nation biological and chemical threats are among the most sinister. al qaeda isil and other

terrorists groups have voiced their desires to obtain and use biological chemical weapons pep and lone actors crude attempts with agents like ricin are reported regularly. further the ongoing ebola crisis levels reveals significant gaps in u.s. public health and medical preparedness. last year's check call attacks in syria prompted serious consideration of our own ability to respond to domestic chemical terrorism an and influenza pandemic continues. we must defend against such threats and provide for the health and welfare of our citizens. i'm privileged to cochair this panel with senator joe leiberman who unfortunately will not join us today. he's a little under the weather. he's been involved with the first meetings and will be

involved as we develop a set of recommendations to send to the hill. just for the benefit of the audience and we're grateful that c-span thinks enough of this panel to be covering it today we would like to outline what we've tried to do in dividing our efforts along three, four four specific panels, issues that we late to our effort. the first panel we held several months ago was on threat awareness. we took a look at the potential risk associated with biological and chemical threats that can inflict potentially catastrophic consequences. and we discussed the risks posed by the nation states and individuals so that first panel was about the general nature of threat awareness. obviously the second panel was prevention and protection. and so we asked a series of panelists to give us their overview on everything from biological arms control in cooperation with bilateral,

multilateral agreement to first responder protection and agricultural defense. and we took a look and assessed our ebola and pan deckic influenza response. the third panel was experts to talk with us about surveillance and detection. and understanding of the biodefense requirements in this critical area. we took a look at the existing technology and its effectiveness. we kmamexamined the challenges the human and animal face as it relates to the charge on the blue ribbon panel. and today we've got a very, very lengthy group, a significant group of subject matter experts to talk with us about response and recovery capabilities. and so we think we've covered the waterfront from threat awareness to response and

recovery and everything in between. and it will be our mission -- we're joined today ken ne wainstein and donna shalala and jim greenwood will join us later, to submit to the congress of the united states a series of recommendations and hopefully we'll be in a position to be up there advocating for the recommendations on a personal basis as well. as we've done with every panel in every meeting, we normally begin with a unique perspective and and to this extent we have mike rogers, former congressman, obviously he's a fellow with the hudson institute itself. and given the work he's done in the world of international community were terrorism and the like we think his perspective to commence this final panel would be very helpful. congressman mike rogers thank you for joining us. the floor is yours. >> thank you, governor secretary. that's a lot to get on a card.

i will -- that's funnily really. it is. it's okay. you can laugh. it's a little different being on this side. >> you bet. i discovered that as secretary, mike. thank you very much. >> exactly. but i do appreciate the opportunity to be here and i appreciate the work of the panel. and i want to say i've been with hudson now for a couple of months and the intellectual fire power is both inspiring and i have learned a tremendous -- you think you come in fairly well-schooled and you realize you've got a long way to go when you hang out with my fellow colleagues at the hudson institute. they're doing really powerful work. i thought i would tell you our journey on how we in a bipartisan way got to the bar that pill and the poppa bill on issues we saw coming up that we didn't believe were going to be addressed. because it's really hard to get people's attention about something you can't see or can't touch necessarily.

but you know the devastating consequences. and there are many a nights as chairman of the house intelligence committee you don't sleep for things that you know. often centered around our threat matrix of bioterror attacks and our ability to respond in a way that i think would be completely appropriate. so we started in 2006 after a series of investigative is too strong, but at least inquiries into the status of terrorists at least attempting in their interest and obtaining bioweapons. and what we found was there was a high degree of interest in obtaining weapons but were in the middle of a conflict in iraq. we were obviously in the middle of a conflict in afghanistan at this point. and the focus was not necessarily where it needed to be. working back with the white house at the time the bush administration collectively

with democrat mike rogers, republican, working with the white house, we agreed that we needed to have a special fund or effort to try to produce counter measures in a market where there was no marketplace for it. and that was the biggest problem. there is only one single customer in reality for these counter measures. so i don't care if it's radiological exposure or i don't care if it's smallpox on a large scale, bubonic plague which we've seen strong interest in terrorists organizations trying to weapon niez the bubonic plague and trying to find delivery systems for them. we realized we needed to have something on a larger mag dude to have both stockpiles of this and try to push it out to our first responders or in communities where first responders could gain access. that's really how this started. and you can imagine with all of the other challenges facing the united states, it was hard to

get people's attention on this. so i credit, you know my partner in this in the white house for saying yes, this is something we're going to have to deal with given the level of tlelts that we see given all the other things we have. the one challenge we had subsequent to passage was trying to get funding for it. we got plenty of authorization money set aside for the counter measures and it was very tempting, as you know that that money was just too tempting tore moved somewhere else for what they would perceive bigger priorities. and again, because that enemy was not knocking on our door with the bubonic plague or smallpox or fill in the blank we know they were interested we know they had aspirations to use it we knew they had aspiration to put it together but we didn't have enough to say, you know within 30 days or 60 days or 180 days something bad is going to happen with these biological

weapons, it always became a bake seat issue. we'ved a successes along the way with the medical counter smushs. hhs signed a contract with the merchant who was about 31 pld for the new and improved anthrax counter measure. and a lot of attention paid to it but there was a lot of reason there was attention paid to it. we watched the terrorists pay a lot of attention to it. we wanted to make sure we had stockpiles of counter measures around the country that could address a problem if it happened. survivability rate is astronomical. that money will also be used to test the prophylactic capability of anthrax counter measures. there could be a prophylactic treatment and a response treatment to anthrax. in other words if somebody gets exposed, there's an opportunity that we could have a vaccine

that could save a person's life. all of that to me has been a slog it's been a work in progress. but i think we've made some progress progress. and i know anna with susan brooks a new republican from indiana signed a letter to the chairman recently requesting, i think 400-and-some million dollars in addition to the fund. i think if they get anywhere near it, it will be a success story. we're going to have to continue to do this to try to stay ahead of the threat. the last thing we want to do is have a successful biological attack in the united states or with our allies and not be in a position to respond. we saw the panic across europe across the united states and asia, the middle east, africa about ebola. and this is something that we knew had the possibility to happen but weren't willing to stand up and try to prepare ourselves for the event wall the

i event wallty that it might happen. the government was chasing their tail. and this was a bipartisan prop on full funding. it started in the bush administration. that money got yanked away and it's continued into this administration. and again it's just hard to get people's attention on something that sounds really bad when i can't see it. with that mr. chairman, i would be willing to take any questions with advice of counsel, of course. >> very good. you're surrounded by your lawyers. i know you're very reserved. >> my client has a fool -- my lawyer has a fool for a client. that's me. is that the old saying goes? >> i think we all have several questions. i would like to dig a little deeper with regard to the observation you made in terms of generating bipartisan support not on the authorization side but on the appropriations side. in other words chairman of the

house of intelligence committee, you obviously were far more familiar with the intent, the aspirations and the capabilities of the terrorists organizations just because of your role and i'm sure multiple briefings that you requested and learned a great deal from each briefing. and i guess our challenge is, is that in a democracy, we talked about this a little this morning, we're much more reactive than pre-emptive. your point being it's a challenge that people understand but since it's not immediate and it's not visual, rallying can congressional support around an issue or an organization that is critical to this biodefense counter measures and chemical counter measures is very very difficult. do you have any recommendations in that regard as to how this panel may take our recommendations and approach the congress of the united states to elevate not only their interest but also their ability and their

willingness to take some of these recommendations? because they're bipartisan recommendations, take them seriously and see if we can change relationships between entities, change certain funding streams, any thoughts on that regard. >> i think anytime a member is educated on the aspirational interests of terrorists that's a good day for an outcome of trying to get ahead of the curve. so i think the report will be important to that and i would use this as an opportunity to get senior staffers, to get members of congress clued in on to the aspirational interest of terrorists attempt. in some cases it's going beyond aspirational intent. we've seen the chemical weapons. we know people are committed to using them. we've seen the procurement from isis individuals in the east, we believe, of obtaining at least chemical weapons if not gaining access to what research may have been done on biological weapons. so that's a very dangerous

combination. in addition, any radiological material they may have -- a lot of people are afraid of the nuclear bomb. and we should be. but a radiological dirty bomb is much more in the capability of a terrorist organization than a nuclear bomb certainly at this point. that is concerning. and so i think if members get clued in and senior staff get clued in as to what the threat level really is, i think it's easier for them to make the decisions decisions. there's going to be a lot of priorities, especially on defense. we've been robbing maintenance programs on carrier groups and aircraft heavy machinery tank to pay for other things in the military. the pressure is going to be on on the defense side. we have to make this a public health issue i think here in america and try to get it out of the defense stream as best as we can. an activeity here of that magnitude, even small, the radiological bomb that has the impact of eight square blocks, a small amount of material bursts

in a way that produces an outcome that they desire. most of the impact of that is feesh and chaos. it's not actually damage. and so this is the problem that we confront. can we sustain psychologically in the united states or economically an i tack of even that small magnitude. or a small magnitude biological attack of smallpox. or we know that they have this strong interest in the bubonic plague, trying to weapon niez -- which is difficult to do but not impossible. and they have engineers and capability to be able to pursue that and now they have a little open space to pursue that. again that would keep me up at night. that kind of conversation with members outside of the national security committee space i think would be really valuable. remember, if you're in ag chul occur, you're worried about agriculture. if you're in commerce you're worried about commerce. ve to draw them in that that is a an american health problem that we're going to have to deal

with. >> congressman, we met first when you were a state senator in michigan. >> you have a great memory, madam secretary, my gosh. i think i had a mustache at that time too. i hope you don't remember that. >> the states have a role here. and if the governors and state legislators recognize that and made some demands on their own congressional delegations, it seems to me that would help. it's not just an federal infrastructure. could you give us some insight on how you think the states, we could mobilize the states to also see themselves as part of this overall infrastructure that we need? >> thank you madam secretary. again, great memory. that's shocking that you would remember that. i'm sure i looked exactly the same. i know you do. >> you were working on an education issue they was interested in. >> here's -- i think this is a great idea. most states are gone to some counter terrorism position in

their state governments. so that they realize that they had issues they're going to have to address if they were going to be a coordinating an effort with first responders, coordinating an effort with their systems and on ad infinitum. and even down in michigan to the county level. so county government was having folks committed and set in a room and thinking about these problems. i think getting them all engaged engaged. i see there are fighters here as well. they will be the first to show up. those are the ones you want engaged with the state legislatures and the state legislatures and the government can be coin joined. if it were successful it is likely an act of terror on a broader scale which is exactly why i think you need to bring to bear federal resources to help in preparation and the reaction to those revents. the only what i to have that

told by the legislature is have them engaged. and all of them have different titles but they are counterterrorism positions. and they should be engaged in the conversation and actively working out to talk to they are delegation and senior staff about what their needs are. it can't be just i need another fire truck. it has to be we need to be prepared when emts show up or firefighters show up to a scene where they may have had a biological weapon discharge. that's the different conversation and one that has to be had with the individuals who are really going to take the burden o that have first response enter so our recommendations ought to include a role for the states. >> absolutely. i think that is a great idea. >> because it is a different coalition when you add state government too. >> and they are not necessarily going to have the resources the federal government is going to have and they can be great advocates for allowing those

countermeasuring to be deployed. and one thing we found after 911 is everybody wanted everything all at the same time. it is not possible so you have to put a threat matrix together that is says, you know the upper peninsula of michigan is important place certainly for me but maybe it doesn't rise to the level of getting the first ten traunch of money for a terrorism event and he says now that he's out -- >> i can say that now. i couldn't have said that probably 3 months ago. what i really meant po say was upper wisconsin. so this is the challenge you all have as well as the legislatures is making sure that yes once there is a good idea that candidly if we're not doing new york city and los angeles and places we know are on the immediate hit list then shame on us. they shouldn't get it all but they should also be high on the

priority list. doesn't mean other areas aren't targets and wouldn't be but that is the challenge. >> i think that's a great comment. from time to time we need to remind people inside the beltway and we've all had opportunity to have significant careers from you can't secure the country from inside the beltway. you need to develop those relationships and there is no important relationships. i'm speaking as the governor former governor. but you can't secure the country from inside the beltway. so how we reach out to engage the governors and big city mayors and generals and the counterterrorism chiefs is critical. across the board. for all threats, not just this one. >> maybe going to some of these governor presentations would be really helpful to play a role both in the democrat version

the republican fergus,ubbleepublican version and the nga. i'd do them all. and having staff participate and drawing people in that way would be really effective. >> thanks for comments today and your long distinguished service. >> thank you. >> one of the panels later on today is going to focus on leadership in this area. and sort of assess what leadership has been in place and what hasn't been in place over the years. and you talked about the fact that there is sort of a lack of focus, a lack of sufficient level of concern about what is a real serious threat. and at the end of the day it really is the executive branch, at least at the federal level, that's got to carry that ball. executive branch sort of has to maintain the strategic focus on a threat like that that might not be one that is on the front pages every day. you have had a front row seat, you know, for a number of years watching the executive branch. and the function or dysfunction

of the executive branch as it relates to this issue. there have been a number of proposals over the years for a wmd czar at the white house. different positions in the interagency process to try to raise the profile of this issue and try to raise the level of coordination among all the stakeholders in the executive branch. do you have any thoughts about where there might be gaps right now in terms of leadership within the executive branch. structural, organizational changes you might recommend and an a assessment of what you have seen that's worked and hasn't worked in terms of driving this issue in the executive branch. >> anecdotely we had first decided we would get engaged in this early on based on threats we were seeing come across our desks. we said why don't we get the bio defense -- the administration -- the executive branch not the things. but the executive branch guru on bio terrorism. and that is the same look we got

back right there. >> right. >> they all went, well we know people who are experts on it. and we found those folks. but there really was no coordinating effort. and this is what i found really interesting. even in the bills we produced we still had one flaw we weren't able to get over and that was that. now you have people engaged every day in serious matter of the public health to do deal with something that has do with terrorism that is a little off, out of their lane. obviously they understand the medical consequences. but it was a little out of their lane to try to figure, you know i'm worried about keeping my hospital emergency rooms open. why am i worried about this again? it wasn't a bad thing. it just wasn't in their lane. so i do think there is some value trying to find some place you could coordinate all of the information of threat and integrate it with the public health side of it. because there is always going to be a difference of opinion. not necessarily a difference of

opinion. but just a difference attitude about it. if you are in the intelligence business and your design is to stop threats against the united states you see this as -- and this is your job to worry about this. you see it here. if you are a public health person worried about everything else this is probably pretty low. so how do you reconcile that? and i think there is probably a little cross-politlination could be good. to have the ability for hhs folks to have the exposure of some of the very sensitive classified information on threat matrix on bio defense and then having the opportunity for intelligence folks to be over there. i don't know if you need to great a new -- because every time we do this it comes with a whole organization that comes with it. and secretary ridge wouldn't know anything about that, would wow. you [ laughter ] so i get a little nervous saying let's do a single point of contact with with all the

authority. i think you can push it a different way. and ask the secretaries who they want to appoint as the point person on the issues. and that is a management function that works in the private sector. could work in the public sector. as long as somebody knows they have been appointed with the authority to cross-pollinate on these issue, they will do it. the problem is they always lack that bit of authority. even if it is a memo, saying you are the person on this and you are going to work with this person or this position because the people change. and this person will work with this position and fill in the blank. whatever department that makes sense. hhs. i think you can get much more out of it. and as a regular management structure have those briefings come back to congress. it forces them to go through the management process of making the relationships work. and i it would be a lot cheaper. >> we can't to struggle with that epicenter, that coordinating effort that you have mentioned. i can also speak from experience, one of the ways you

affect change in this town is you control the pursestrings. and whether or not this person should end up being part of omb as they go out and do it with course we're grateful on your thout thoughts in that regard. because the interagency collaboration is critically important. because there is so much jurisdictional overlap and the priorities depending on the jurisdiction vary dramatically. >> huge. and that is why we always have this problem of coming to a common. and it's really by the design of the departments. it is not -- they are designed to solve these sets of problems. and these are these nuanced problems that don't exactly fit in. >> in the congressional committee structure also doesn't lend itself to integrating funding. >> trust me, i know. >> the committee -- the congressional committee infrastructure doesn't lend itself to much productivity these days. >> i didn't say that. >> well it's just maddening to me that i think even the dni has

something on the order of 22 different committees he has to show up and testify in front of. and candidly, congress needs to get its act together. we're very good at telling everybody else why they need to get their act together. and if you want to be a bit bold in your report you may suggest -- not the fix this hole thing because that will get you in a lot of trouble -- but to limit to a reasonable number of the cross-committee reports. how much staff time do we spend in these departments trying to get ready for those briefings. 22 briefings. we lose the dni for a period of a month coming up to 22 different committees. some have direct jurisdictional impact and some you scratch your head and go why is he testifying there? what are we getting out of that? what productivity is happening there? that may be whole new blue

ribbon panel. >> dni only had 22? secretary of homeland security has over a hundred. so the dni is getting off easies. and you're right maybe we augment to look at the restructuring. >> it would be a great blue ribbon 357b8 panel in and of itself. but if you want to streamline how this gets done and forces the management structure of the relationship, i think you could do it. but you have to do wit a much smaller number of committees so you aren't spend aufgll of your time briefing the hundred committees. and by the way the hundred committees won't focus on that anyway. which is part it have problem because it's so broad. not that it isn't fun and delightful for you to do that. >> it's much more fun when you are on top of the dieias rather than being in that chair.

>>. [ inaudible ] only one customer and something you and i worked together with barta and when you were at were at hhs and top of the hill. can you talk about how barta is working? is it properly sensing the right countermeasures. i'm not really interested in the funding measure per se but whether they are doing the job they were designed to do and effectively. >> great to see you again. that's a difficult question. in the beginning we had countermeasures that existed that were looking for outlets. now you have this new funding stream and they are trying to plug in as fast as they can. and it's all good. and they have a lot costs in development of products and to your point is that the most sufficient way to get a countermeasure that is pretty sophisticated? and if you recall at the time there was a big debate on anthrax. and the next generation of anthrax that didn't require the number of shots -- i forget the

exact number now. i think it was 13, if i'm not mistaken. in countermeasure shots. which is a long, tough process. it was pretty difficult to convince first responders to go through this regime. the military didn't have a choice. you're told you are going to get it. you get it. first responders were thinking thanks but no thanks. that sounds like a problem and did that process in and of itself slow down the next generation of anthrax? i'm not sure i know that. i'd have to look at all the information. i do think we finally got over that hurled. and i think the last go round got the hint that they had to step up their game and it is a much more different, much more

proficient professorphylactic measure they can apply. and that is something we're going to always have to wap on the value of that money. you do want a slice of that money challenging the next generation of the countermeasures. much like the market would on its own. but without the market push it is not going to happen. so it has to operate if a way that takes a little money and say we are willing to bet on next generation and you are going to have to improve your product or we may go in another direction. without that pressure i worry the outcome will be mediocre countermeasures for 20 30 years. >> as researchers what percent would you assign to that? >> i'd have to think about that. you want that part right. one of the things we didn't have at the beginning was any stockpiling of countermeasures. it was pretty low and getting lower. so we had two problems facing us. us i mean the congress and the administration. you didn't want to not have the appropriate level of countermeasures stockpiled. in case there was an event. and we knew by the way that

terrorists were interested in this particular. anthrax is something they were interested in. it was something they could produce here in the united states. they didn't have to import it. all the problems that went with it were concerned. so that one i think you have to take an individual case. we needed stockpiled anthrax vaccines. when we looked at that we said if we don't do this yesterday we're making a the big mistake. then the push came in well there is this new generation of the recumbent anthrax vaccines and fill in the blank. that's when we ask okay when we hit the stockpile number is that the time to look at the next generation. that five year contract, now okay now you have to work on the next generation. and what that percentage is i don't know. and i would also baitse it on what the threat. is clearly i'm nervous about

this bubonic plague. they found it on isis computers not that long ago. and this is something they are thinking about and we better start thinking about how to react to it. and i'm not sure i'm qualified right now to sit here and tell you that and be accurate. thanks for your work by the way. >> scooter. >> thank you for your service -- >> dr. libby. >> yes. >> you said something that was quite important but i want to understand it properly. i believe you said terrorists now have open space to pursue this area. >> isis today own and occupy land the size of indiana. when you have that much open space -- and they did take government facilities -- that just presents opportunity for them to be more engaged in research and development than i feel comfortable with. so by owning that much space.

>> and as you can-- and as you can see that is not going well. they continue to hold ground and frustrate opportunities to disrupt their ability to have research and development centers right now. they have research and development centers is and i argue that is a dangerous combination for us and our allies. that's what i was referring to. they have that open space to do that. >> they have territory today and ability to do these things they haven't had since they were knocked out of afghanistan in 2001. >> i would say this is worse than 2001. because in afghanistan they didn't -- they had freedom of operation there in a way to plan events. now they have capability for the research and development part that they would have had to work really hard at in those areas just for capability. in other words the capability to do that in the tribal areas of

the both pakistan and afghanistan in the east didn't lend itself -- you could do rudimentary stuff. as dangerous as that in itself is. but here you have the opportunity do both. you have infrastructure. you have electricity 24 hours a day. you have access to engineering materials and chemistry in a way you wouldn't have had before. lab space. wet lab space. all of the things that make you cringe a little bit if you are thinking about what comes out of there and what its intended purpose so the longer they have freedom of operation in any space that contains those kind of elements i think that is dangerous to the united states and our european allies. europe first i would argue. >> anything else? >> we've heard before that members of congress who are interested in this issue sometimes have trouble getting a full picture of biological threats and the consequences. and sometimes they get very

different briefings from different parts of the government and hear different things. you have a deep knowledge and focused on this a long time. do you have suggestions how to get a more comprehensive picture of the problem before members of congress in a consistent way? or is that just a problem of structure? >> and i'm just going to be very candid here. the big administration briefings to the whole house i find -- and most members will tell you if they are being candid -- not valuable. because they are trying to hold back as much as they can and not answer certain pieces of questions. you have all been in those briefings. they are really hard do in a group that big. some people are interested in the issue. some people will get up to the microphone and ask you about, you know the bridge and fill in the blank and why haven't you protected that, you know governor ridge while you are -- some of these things you just kind of scratch your head. so you have to find a venue that is focused on aspirational interests of the terrorist

groups. as chairman we used to try do this when we had the nsa leaker issue to try to get members who were not in the national security space connected to the facts were about a, what happened? what does the government actually do? in a way that we could protect sensitive information. and i found that very valuable. so we cross-pollinated. we had briefers. -- and again you don't need collaborate level officials to do these briefings. you really need operational people giving these briefings who can answer really detailed questions, technologicalwise. in some cases it might be your cabinet secretary. in a lot of cases it will be well below any political appointed position in the government. these are working operators doing this work for a living. we found by putting them in a room and exposing members in smaller groups they felt comfortable in asking a question. half of it if i don't know anything about bio defense i

certainly don't want to look like an idiot while i'm in the meeting. which is why you won't see me asking serious questions about agriculture. i'll leave it to someone who knows better. you want the opportunity to asked questions in a meeting in a classified setting where they feel comfortable having walked out and known and exposed to that. and you can open up the security clearance a little bit in a way they will have a better understanding about why folks worry about the things we worry about in bio defense. you can also do it through the hudson institute. think tanks can play an important role in this. you just won't have the nitty-gritty classified portion of it. but you can get a strong historical look based on what we do know today on what this aspirational threat is for staff. and that to me, we shouldn't ignore that. staff and members who are willing to participate in a way that is easy for them to get there, short.

and impactful. i found it was valuable. i think members found it was valuable. big cattle calls don't work. i just don't think they work. >> one final question dr. alexander. >> yes. to follow up on your point about the role of educational institutions like the hudson institute, dealing with the perception of the threat, not only in terms of congress but in terms of the civic society. and my question to you is what for example the role of the media is in order to deal with that particular challenge? not only in terms of weapons of mass destruction but the cyber threats and some other threats. and the question of priority in terms of understanding what is really the top priority to deal with this issue and what

congress can do. >> yeah, gosh if someone can tell me how the media works. i'm a new member of that media for about 60 days. i'd really like to know. these are hard and complicated issues and it is very hard to fit into a 15 second or 30 second sound bite. i don't care if you are talking cyber or bio defense. and unfortunately the only way to say -- remember when the cloud got violated and people had their very personal intimate pictures. happened to be hollywood stars. that got people's attention mainly because they wanted to see the stars they liked naked. unfortunately. but you have the question of how that happened, what allowed them to crack into the cloud get into the secure server and get what should have been kept private. and that was the conversation we should have had publicly.

and we never had that. and the media never allowed it. the same with bio. it's not right in your face. it should be. remember the train station attack in japan with serin gas. scary stuff. took the lives of real people just commuting to work every day. the kind of activity we know they are interested in. the very vulnerabilityies we have in this country and larger cities about how would you react to something that bad? it's just really hard because it isn't something that's exactly happened here. think of the chemical weapon. we had a very difficult time getting their attention when i was chairman on the impact of the chemical weapons and what exactly that meant when they were starting to use these stockpiles and what those stock piles were and what was available for them to use. i thought that was a really important discussion to have in the media. we never really had that discussion. it was really hard to get it out. that's that terrible answer only because i'm not sure i know the

answer to that question. i do think it is just, you know you have to keep at it. and the best way you can make an impact is if you are making an impact with members of the congress and policy makers in the executive branch. then that starts to take on a weight of its own and when people get interested in fixing the problem that is how you get there i think. and it is a combination of all of those. legislative and the executive branch professionals. all saying yeah this is a problem and we need to do something about it. what is next? that is a long process. the media can play a part in that. you hope they do. i hate to say it i wouldn't count on it. it's really hard to have the hard conversations in the media today. >> thank you on behalf of the panel. thank you behalf of the hudson institute and for your thoughtful refreshing and candid assessment of some of these issues we brought before you. and i guess as the fellow of the institute we may be back as we pull the report together to get

the details right particularly in the yarts we talked about today. i can't thank you enough for your service. >> thank you for having me today. and i appreciate it. and when i said the media was not quite getting it right. i i didn't mean cnn. they are exactly getting it right. wink wink, nudge nudge. i just want to make sure they still let me in the building later today. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. [ applause ] so we invite the first panel to come to the front. i'm going to make the introductions brief. and please join us. on prevent activities and emergency response. chief keith bryant, fire chief of the oklahoma city fire department. president and chairman of the international association of fire chiefs. dr. matthew minson senior adviser health affairs, an

aggie, texas a&m university. and and dr. carter mecher. introductions could be a lot longer. we thank you for your service and contribution and chief, let's start with you. >> thank you governor ridge. >> yes, sir. >> it's an honor for me to be here this morning. and i appreciate the short introduction. that is just fine with me. but as president and chairman of the board of the international association of fire chiefs i represent over 11,000 leaders of the nation's fire rescue and emergency medical service and it's on their behalf i'm honored to be here and speak to you about the response issues relating to the threat of terrorism relating to the chemical and biological

agents -- >> can everyone hear in the back? check the microphone. i notice some people in the back having a difficult time hearing. all right? very good. >> as you stated in your opening remarks and as our previous speaker just mentioned also, the threat of terrorism using biological or chemical agents in the u.s. is very real. we've seen very events in recent years and certainly the availability of the industrial chemicals and toxic chemicals out there in society today represent also a very real threat. and obviously there are different levels of the vulnerability and in various communities across the country. according to the u.s. bureau of the transportation statistics u.s. census bureaus 2007 commodity flow survey, 2.2 billion tons corresponding to

billions of the miles hazardous materials are shipped annually. obviously hazardous chemicals are a vital component to the american economy and kwooflt life. we must realize that the extremists can take advantage of the weaknesses in the systems to obtain toxic chemicals for nefarious purposes. we see these things in media reports and on social media that there are projihadist groups isil isis that are commonly tweeting using chemicals for attacks in the united states. and the global islamic media front published a document known as the "explosives course" teaches to manufacture explosive. so the threat is reel and

something we have to be prepared for. in terms of the response for the terrorist attack and the as far as the fire and emergency medical services are concerned, initially that would be treated as any accidental hazardous material release. in that once a release of an agent is confirmed, the fire, ems department in an area would icesolate the area stabilize the area to minimize exposure to the agent, establish safe zones to make sure we limit the spread of that agent to unaffected areas. many cities like my city and oklahoma city would deploy their hazardous material response team. in other areas that might be more of a regional response team that would be in place. those teams would be deployed to use chemical detection technology to ascertain the type of agent released along with the personnel trained in the signs and symptoms of chemical and

biological agents and their effect on people. the hazmat teams and other specialized contractors would be in charge of decontaminating the scene. we auburn sclutly would be very reliant on local law enforcement to play a huge role in scene security and begin the investigating activities associated with that event once the incident is identified as the terrorist attack. during the response, depending on the nature and the complexity of it, the local joint terrorism task force and other state and federal authorities including national guard units would be alerted and brought in to assist. in the attack involves a weaponized or biological agent military support teams may be brought in to respond. also to prevent further panic, emergency responders would have to be cognizant and individual lant about the threat of a

secondary device. a importance difference between a accidental hazardous materials incident and the chemical terrorist attack is the necessity of the working with the federal state and law enforcement agencies to preserve evidence and maintain scene security for the criminal investigation. a little bit more complex situation might involved a infectious disease such as smallpox. in that event public health community would obviously play a large role in working with us to manage that incident. it would be important to track down whose exposed to the disease and who came in contact with these patients and that -- this type of event, again, this is where you see symptoms may not be present or may not arise immediately but in the ensuing days. although each of these incidents, dependent on the agent or chemical involved might have their own

intricacies, there are some commonalities within response to chemical or biological attack. accurate information is one of the most important aspects of that and as stated earlier, one of the goals of a terrorist attack is to cause public panic. it is important that accurate information be relaid to both the public and responding agencies to again eliminate as much panic and eliminate as much confusion as possible. obviously we are in the age of the social media. and initially there will be a rush of the inaccurate information and it will be incumbent on authorities to track that and process that properly. for the reason of trying to get as much accurate information out there as possible so that we can keep panic down to a minimum. during the recent ebola situation here in the country, you know, firefighters depended

on their leadership to provide accurate information about ebola symptoms, what precautions to take when treating possible ebola victims and what steps they should take to prevent them from exposing their families a at home. another common part of a response to chemical or biological attack would be a coordinated incident command structure be put in place. fire emergency medical services law enforcement, emergency management will have to coronet these efforts with other fields, including public health as i mentioned and possibly military or national guard units. the national incident management system on or nims is designed across all disciplines to work and operate together. again during the recent ebola scarce there were questions about which organizations would serve as incident commander and in some cases decisions were

made outside of that unified command system and that just tends to cause a little more confusion than necessary. -- >> nims as been dedesigned across the board to be deployed at emergency centers regionally and nationally. i hate to interrupt but the notion that off the turf fight continues to perplex me. what was the heartburn? >> i think again when you bring in maybe the public health community that ordinarily might not be involved in an emergency especially in the immediate stages of an emergence type of incident. and again when you are dealing with something such as ebola, if they haven't been used to it. and you haven't been exercising the nims program in a training environment, every component of

that, or everybody that might be brought into to manage that incident may not be used to operating in that type of structure. >> appreciate that. sorry. i won't interrupt you anymore. >> that's all right. and another important component of the response is training. it is essential local first responders train for potential acts of terrorism involving chemical or biological agents on a regular basis. these events are low frequency but very high risk which means there will be few actual veterans of these types of responses. again, from the ebola situation we learn that firefighters will have a better confidence in the response of their leadership if they have adequate information, high quality training and the appropriate personal and protective equipment. and as an example of maybe what i'm talking about there were a number of youtube videos recently about how to remove your personal protective equipment after exposure to

ebola patients, which are to be frank, dangerously incorrect and misleading. and obviously availability and having the necessary equipment as i led into that is essential that first responders have adequate amounts of necessary equipment to respond to these types of attacks. the international association of fire chiefs recommends the local fire departments will able to stabilize situation for at least 72 hours before federal assistance arrives. one concern from recent events is we found there were 6 to 8 week back order of the personal protective equipment necessary for ebola responses. in terms of preparedness for a chemical or biological attack, a few recommendations for ensuring effectiveness would be, one, that the federal government must provide accurate and timely thread information to local first responders. considering the multitude of potential threats and certainly

we still see budgetary constraints of local government local first responders neefd to know which threats they should prepare for. if groups are promoting violent extremism and publishing training materials on the internet or social media the federal government should provide information about tactics and techniques which are being taught again in order for local entities and agencying to be prepared. the local joint terrorism tacit forces are s are -- task forces are working to build experience to help locals with that information. >> chief i'll tell you what. i know you have lengthy testimony. i'd like you to submit it as part of the record here and weed be pleased to review it. i think your colleagues have significant statements to review as well. we'd like those submitted as part of the record.

and you would be kind enough to conclude chief, if there is anything you want to conditionally to add. this is a very important panel and i'd like to give everyone opportunity to really interact with you. >> i'll just wrap up by saying, you know, it is very important for federal, state and local agencies to plan, exercise for potential incidents using chemical or biological agents. the private sector obviously has a big role to play in that as well, as working with the same -- with the governmental and agencies both at a local state and federal level. and continued training obviously is vital component. the equipment again some local agencies are very reliant on grant programs that exist out there right now to provide them with that necessary equipment and training. so again just can't stress enough the collaboration that needs to take place from all levels of government from the

local level on up through the federal to be prepared for these types of incidents. and once again thank you for allowing me to be here this morning. i'd be glad to answer any questions. >> grateful for your participation. stay tuned. we'll come back at you. i got a couple of questions ss along with my colleagues. >> i'm matt minson. texas a&m university, i also have a private sector practice in environmental medicine. and they be germane to comments i'll have. i'm going to speak more specifically to the healthcare system vulnerabilities and issues maybe associated with it. first i'll say in most of these settings the first request is actually an advocacy for additional funding. a i'm going to focus away from that although they can use the

resources i would say. also absent adequate and appropriate have strategies for those resources i think it is very important we look at some of the issues taking place organically in the healthcare system and how that might actually effect what we do with these strategies. and so on that point i'm going to actually give a quick address to issues we know. healthcare systems are in general in competition. they are businesses. and we expect them to somehow uniformly and seamlessly integrate during an adverse event. this will be especially arduous when talking about things like infectious disease or bio defense issues. colesance of healthcare systems, it is important to understand how they came to be. they are corporations generally speak. and in that capacity they grow like that by having great practices and growing or by acquisition. in which case by a distressed

asset or company that is vulnerable or the asimulating their procedures and the policies. or they require a assessful entity that is doing things well and thus maybe resistant to taking on new policies. in any case we often see those situations allow more integration but incongruence. those become vulnerabilities when we talk about a event such as a bio disaster. and i think that is important to understand. so when we say why did it the electronic medical record transition or why didn't this happen? that may be why. and we lookneed to look at that in advance. nvnters that resources the hospital has gone to a just in time platform. this is good for business and not so good for disaster sometimes. there have been many government programs that have tried to address this with regard to resources of the strategic stockpiles and things of that

nature. but that is still an area and chief illustrated that with the ppe issue. that there are still gaps and vulnerabilities we need to think about when we talk about these things. i want to talk about the human resource issue associated with the healthcare. that's very important as well. one major breakdown is human error or human issue and it is to be understood and anticipated sometimes. but understanding the way that healthcare workers are going to integrate in the system now and how it is changing i think is instrumental to preparing appropriately. en one can think as recently as 10 to 15 years ago that the relationship that a physician might have had with a healthcare system was they were independent contractor. build insurance or the patient or something like that. and they were an advocate for the patient but then they they had a different leverages system with the healthcare system. nurses traditionally were employees of the healthcare system. that's inverted now actually. we're seeing in many cases nurses are actually part of a

group that actually practice and works on an agency basis. physicians more and more we're seeing out of the bureau of labor statistics analysis where their anticipation is really 75% of physicians may well be employees that. changes both the concept and compensation reward mechanisms associated with these groups. this is important. an economic organic reality that needs to be understood when we talk about the preparedness issues. similarly -- [ cell phone ] -- i like the background music. that's perfectly fine. like the issue with ebola. in canvassing with the nursing population and when nurses are involved, this stood out. when asked nurses for the familiarity or the having read the disaster or contingency plan for the hospital 8% acknowledged that they had. that is a disturbing number. that number was purported in the media. whether that is accurate or not. i think it was an informal

survey. but it blieelies on issue there. i've been trained and have been taught almost to punitive extreme i'm not supposed to bring problems to the table without offering solutions. so i'm going to try to do that now. i think what we really need to do with the human resource issue is think about in terms of the training associational and strategies with regard to personnel. the way to do that i believe -- and there's been a lot of support and discussion about this -- is to actually look at this in terms of the old military construct of other duties as assigned or battle stations. so if you are on the ship and you peel potatoes you also have a battle station during a bad time. the healthcare might well be served by that. there are state certifying agencies that actually allow these people to have the credentials necessary to go out and do the job they are going to do. there are state boards of

medical examiners or state medical boards and there are nursing pords similarly. where those are different if you will from the organizations of board certifications that we're talking about the licensure issues and that is instrumental to being function. they are excellent mechanisms. in many states there's been analyses, university of m.d. maryland did one of 62 jurisdictions with regard of the nurse practitioners provisions in their statutes sstatutes. and it was verying there to interesting to look amount there were similarities but a greater number of the dissimilarities. and a compulsion, if you will in terms of the cmes if you will, might be valuable. and it hasn't been fully explored. similarly with physicians we're seeing more and more specific cmes called out. such as ethics. this may also be a piece to be taken on.

and that would also engage the community to advise and you would get a better return on effort in that case. i'd mentioned the boards. i'd also offer for hospitals and the healthcare systems proper there has been a great deal of discussion how we would engage. healthcare coalition how they should be undertaken. i do support that. they are large, monthsry rymonstrous animals in terms of what they entail. many differentiate types of the mechanisms associated. it is valuable. the most successful mechanism and also the broadest one i think. so it is going to have a unique challenges. for hospitals and healthcare entities. we saw during ebola and we see under steady state consideration with a variety of types of the pathology, trauma, burn, heart attacks or cardiac care and strokes. we've seen there are stratifications within healthcare systems of different hospitals being a level this

versus a level that and how patients are transferred or handled. it doesn't make sense that we would depart from that for something like bio defense or an issue like this and ebola illustrated and supported that. we ended up ultimately with centers for care with understanding that hospitals would feed the patients to them if someone present, if you will, to to the emergency department. i think this is an area why things like the joint commission would be valuable. they have already undertaken this with specific types of the healthcare considerations or specialties. and so i think that that would be a great area for additional consideration to take place. the joint commission is wonderful in the way they execute this. i think that they could be of invaluable service in helping to bolster both the insensible and sensible aspects of the healthcare system. so i'm out of breath and i think i've exhausted attention. i'm going to yield the floor my

colleague at the point. >> thank you. >> good morning and thank you for the opportunity to address the panel. i'd like to focus my remarks by using the example of one of the more difficult scenarios a wide area anthrax release. this illustrates many of the challenges we face and prepare for in responding the bio threats. the wide area anthrax release scenario proposes complexities generally not seen. clearly definable areas would not be known and may be spread over a large area. because contamination levels cannot be known with precision, it follows everyone across a broad area would be assumed to be as risk. and as a result emergency responders would require immediate antimicrobial post exposure prophylaxis. in the context i'd like to highlight key issues for consideration. first, all though we tend to

focus on public health and medical consequences of large scale biological attack it would be much more than that public health emergency. it would be a national security crisis. by definition this fwhoultd be a navnl occurring disease outbreak. and not behaving as such. this would be the work of a thinking plotting and reacting enemy and that enemy could from cure multiple bio agents ek near it to be resistant to our countermeasures and even use other measures to attack other places. and due to the delay of the potentially more than 24 hours to recognize a convert attack with our current bio detection capabilities, consider the domestic and international travel into and out of our major u.s. cities in that time period that 24 hour period from the moment of attack to the moment of recognition of an attack. by the time an attack is recognized individuals who might have been exposed to anthrax could be scattered

across the country in fact scattered across the globe. moreover an attack anywhere would heighten concerns for major metro areas everywhere dur to consent of the reload and secondary attacks. so it could be international in scope by the time it is even recognized. second the immediate response of countermeasures in opening hours is the critical to prevent catastrophic loss of life. the challenges associated with the completed this time sensitive task are significant. in the event of the anthrax attack oral antibiotics would be needed well-being 48 eded within 48 hours of exposure. because there is inherent delay in detection system responders would have far less time to complete the task. third there is little that can be done after this initial

period to make up or recover from a failure provide post exposure prophylaxis. the response including the federal government's assistance must be immediate and cannot fail. that is why the preparedness and response efforts have been so front-loaded focuses really on opening moves of this immediate mission t rapid ind suspensing of the countermeasure. the challenge the government faces is how to assist cities within this narrow time window. and if response is not fast enough lives hang in the balance. there in lies the most pressing promise we face. an all of nation response, immediate access to life-saving medications and vaccines and the maintenance of public safety and security without which the distribution and dispensing of medications would be impossible. given these challenges the usual expectation that the local jurisdiction is on its own for

the first 48 hours during a disaster does not apply to the scenario of a bio attack. immediate challenges have been described it is the four ds. to simplify the challenge we face. detect, decide, distribute and dispense. improving speed of the detection and confirmation of attack informing a the acceleration of decision making in a setting that would likely been kootive or confusing and critical to moment a timely response to minimize loss of life. this all presumes we have the capability to detect an attack. we have the bio detection and bio surveillance capability and the means to motivate an immediate response and dispense with distribution of the countermeasures. and three we have the adequate splice of the effective countermeasures to give out in the first place. i'm focus on the third and fourth ds. in terms of the second d, decide

or decision making. the federal government has protocols for coordinating an all of government response to other rapidly evolving threats such as maritime and aviation threats. in 2011 the federal government established analogous protocol for responding to bio threats. the biological assessment and threat response or batter. the purpose of this was to ready the entire federal government to respond to a major bio threat by enhancing and accelerating bio situational awareness and decision making. and directing all resources of the federal government to support an immediate response. it is important that a batterlike process, i understand that the acronym has changed over time -- is regularly exercised and especially important for the triggers for activating that process include scenarios with uncertainty ambiguity and the indecision may delay the response. the last two ds, distribute and

dispense are among the most daunting. we face the challenges bounded by the physics of the reality. how quickly can we mobilize and distribute and suspense antibiotics to millions of the americans. how can we mobilize federal personnel and assets in time to assist with maintaining public safety and security as well as with assists with the countermeasure distribution and zpengs dispensing. i'm quickly mention one strategy. one strategy for mobilizing federal personnel assets and time is to make a difference is to leverage the personnel and assets already in place working in or near the impacted city. one federal agency with expertise in distribution is postal service. they are the second largest federal agency in the federal government with approximately 600,000 employees. nearly 1 out of every 4 federal employees work with for the u.s. postal service. and they are present in all communities across the united states. six days each week they have the

capability of the reaching every place. in 2009 president signed executive order 13527 for establishing the means. postal model was singled out and mentioned first in the executive order. postal service and five other federal agency sies account for nearly 3/4 of the civilian federal workforce and encompass the key capabilities needed in including security and public safety. work still needs to be done to integrate local or organic federal capabilities into the local response plans mobilizing even these local federal assets will take time during an event to minimize delays potential responders, federal or otherwise will want to have immediate access to the medical countermeasures for themselves

and their families. the executive order called for a mechanism provision of the koubt measures. this is a key component of the postal model and could be achieved for other responders for workplace pods or issuance of a home kit. this all underscores the importance of reducing time and distributing and dispensing countermeasures. it also highlights need to be flexible and prepared for surprise because the incident and response may not unfold as expected. and given how difficult it is to quantify the risk of bio attack and preparedness with the many responsibilities of the federal, state and local governments we must look for most efficient and cost effective and sustainable strategies to protect our nations. thank you again for this opportunity. >> thank you. thank you both very very much. let me just -- let me start if i could.

chief, one of the areas that emergency responders have i think, depending on the state, have built mutual aid capabilities, where you don't necessarily build up the capability within every fire station or every community to respond to every conceivable challenge. but within that region. and you talked about regionalization and so dr. meech mechem, you talk about that. i'm very interested in pursuing that concept. and you take a look at the resources and jurisdictions of the chief, how effective is the mutual aid concept in terms of gaining support national to respond to the variety of challenges either the physical attack of terrorism a the biological attack, a chemical attack? because we all know everybody likes to have all the equipment, all the toy, all the acute rimts

they need so they can be specialists. how embracing is the broader community in accepting the fact they can't have it all but they better regionalize their abilities. >> -- program is the best example of what you have just mentioned that we've looked at things on the regional basis. instead of just-- so these areas you have been identified as those areas you do see that. you see a collaboration and you do see that consolidation of resources. so you look across the region. you see what the vulnerabilities are. it is a threat-based type of system. and again those resources are staged in certain areas or within certain agencies. within that region.

and again if there is an incident, they are all brought to bare in a collective manner. beyond that you mention the mutual aid. that's something that's obviously been a big part of the fire service community throughout the towns, cities, and so forth with the resources pooled at times. we're a big part of natural response. >> i see that as something that is improved overtime. post 9/11. i think it has been very instrumental in pulling those resources so you don't have to have each community. and we know where they are and

we know how to pool those when necessary. >> to your point you talked about centers for ebola care. and once again it is very similar, too. it is a mutual aid kind of idea. you create a center of excellence. what is the -- is there a compelling authority, what is the initiative needed for the broader health care community which has you pointed out is very, very competitive, very competitive, so that individual hospitals and health care deliver ri systems will give up to a certain extent and surrender their ontonomy to develop. there will be funding going to that center of expertise which every hospital or ceo would like to have in their jurisdiction.

who decided these would be the centers for ebola care. i prefer the carrot to the stick in a situation like that. i think compulsion of behavior will be less effect i have. i mentioned the way we do the identification under joint commission considerations. there are advantages. there is marketplace competitive edge. there is sometimes deeming mechanisms that help with things like medicare presentation. it enhances the competence in the community that you have a hospital or health care facility capable of rendering a certain amount of care. i think those are the elements that will help. i think eventually if there was priorities or a funding stream or cooperative agreement that there was a designation that facilities that demonstrated they had a certain type of

capability would obviously have an advantage to some of those funding initiatives and that would be an inducement. not every hospital will be able to do the same thing and that is just reasonable and that is to be expected. we recognized a lot of different pathologies and disease processes. stroke is the most popular example where they have descriptors for a stroke center. these are -- they require both some equipment some training, some exercising, all of the things that one would want with a bio defense initiative, they have that for stroke capability. i think the templates are out there. i think the mechanisms that make those things stable that is what we would the to follow if we were going to design this. i could be here all day talking about the particulars of it. i think there are some pieces to that that we would want to

exploit if we want third-degree to be successful. i also offer for classification and to help illustrate this, my background previously was as a local preparedness director a state preparedness director, and a strategic medical officer. health and human services. and in that portfolio was counter measures first responder protection issues, and the health security strategy. i think that the cooperative agreements that we see for public health agreements and preparedness funding as well. i think the patterns are there. i think i don't want to point out where i think vulnerabilities might be but i think one thing that comes to find for me is urban search and rescue. we have regional collectives

called into play by states or areas and i think that is a good example of what might work. >> chief, 20 years ago oklahoma city had a terrible tragedy, the bombing of the federal office building. what have you learned since then and what kind of -- if that had a bio terrorism aspect to it and you didn't know at the time what it was, what is the difference between the training of your people now, and what happened 20 years ago? >> i think any time you have an event like that, and again, not only the bombing as i pointed out, we have very regular natural disasters. you learn lessons from those and what works well and what don't. i would say before there was the

national management system, that was a nims event because of the agencies involved being a federal building obviously. so as the doctor mentioned that was our first experience using the urban search and rescue teams sponsored by fema throughout the country. there was 13 that deployed during that event. we recognized in oklahoma city that we weren't as skilled and as equipped in urban search and rescue as far as building collapse and the technical components that we needed it to be. and that certainly, sense then and since we developed our own program in oklahoma city, that we collectively work with tulsa, the tulsa metro area for urban search and rescue in the state that we have become more proficient in that in some of

the natural disasters that we had to respond to overtime. i think with every event there is lessons learned and lessons to be shared. the oklahoma city bombing had a bio. i'm a little scared to think about it at that time because just as i mentioned in terms of technical rescue i don't know that we would have been as prepared for such a component as a bio agent. >> if i remember correctly you brought the fema people in, i lost a lot of employees at hhs at the time. >> yes, ma'am. >> dr. -- >> i'm dr. vincent. >> almost every hospital in this country has to deal with infectious diseases. if we're talking about certain centers, we're talking about highly infectious diseases like

ebola. we can't afford a health system in which we don't have a reporting system to state health departments. this country is dealing with infectious diseases every day. can you talk about that infrastructure? i want to be careful in seeing that not all of the diseases go to these small numbers. we're dealing with this not knowing whether it is a buy -- >> thank you, to elaborate on that, i think you're setting it up absolutely correctly. what we're not suggesting in this discussion is that anything different would be created. simply what we're saying is sort of what happened during the ebola response in this country is that we had facilities with

expertise, material, equipment and frankly the where with all to take care of the disease as it went through the arch of the decide. with the expectation that any hospital should be able to recognize it, report it do stabilization procedures, control it and if it was something when w specialization requirements that might be referred on to a center of excellent or specialization or however you want to describe it. i don't want to use a trauma analogy gi analogy, but i'm going to you. you control who comes through the door. we have laws that prevent that and rightly so. if a individual was to present with a traumatic problem that the hospital didn't have a surgeon or critical care support, that individual because

of arrangements and relationships already established would be able to transfer that individual after that -- >> yes, ma'am, absolutely. and that works that works very well. and that is really what i'm saying. we should not create something different. they still have the same requirements for reporting the trama statistics and everything. and some of the more esoteric type responses. >> i'm a big fan of the post office department. the last time i remember them implementing anything it was medicare. i don't remember them having refrigerators refrigerators. wouldn't we be better off using the pharmacy network in the united states for the distribution of vaccines or anything else? it seems to me we have a system it is private sector,