cause once we have a department getting its funds through you, yet the department remains in one agency, how is that going to work?

So you have a daunting task ahead of you, and I want to commend you. And I assume you are part of the wellness preparedness program the President has in running every day and making sure you are not stressed out here. Godspeed to you and thank you for testifying.

Mr. GREENWOOD. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and the Chair recognizes for 3 minutes the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And welcome, Governor Ridge, to this hearing. I am very glad to have this opportunity to further examine the Bush Administration's proposal for the Department of Homeland Security.

The proposal raises many questions of importance to this committee as well as other committees. I am very concerned about the proposed transfer of important public health functions of the Department of Health and Human Services. I believe that the transfer of these functions may undermine the rebuilding of core public health capacities that is now under way. If our public health system is structured and viewed exclusively through the lens of fighting terrorism, it may seriously weaken our ability to respond to other threats to the health of the American people.

It appears that several HHS offices are to be transferred. These include Office of Emergency Preparedness, the National Disaster Medical System and the Metropolitan Medical Response System. With these offices may go significant authority to oversee our Nation's response to public health emergencies.

Such a transfer may also shift to the Department of Homeland Security the power to make bioterrorism and emergency preparedness grants to State and local public health systems. These grants were the cornerstone of the recently enacted Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act. Their purpose was not only to fund specific preparations for bioterrorism. Just as critically, the grants were intended to turn around decades of neglect of our Nation's public health infrastructure.

It is beyond argument that our public health system is in disrepair, and we cannot protect our citizens from bioterrorist attacks if our public health system is not working. Detecting and responding to a bioterrorist attack is just like detecting and responding to other emerging epidemics. It requires fully functioning and coordinated public health systems at the local, State and Federal levels. For this reason, the bioterrorism bill directed HHS to coordinate the repair of Federal, State and local public health systems as part of bioterrorism and emergency preparedness. The expertise to establish priorities and coordinate this effort lies with the public health experts and scientists at HHS and CDC. If priority-setting, coordination and/or grant-making functions are transferred to a new department, focused on terrorism, I am very concerned that the necessary rebuilding and upgrading of our public health response system will take a back seat.

If we attempt to protect ourselves against terrorist attacks at the expense of our Nation's public health system, we may find that we have undermined rather than enhanced our Nation's true security.

And I thank you for this opportunity for an opening statement, and I look forward to working with you, Governor Ridge, on this very important issue.

Mr. GREENWOOD. The Chair thanks the gentleman.

[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TED STRICKLAND, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Let me start by thanking Chairman Greenwood and Ranking Member Deutsch for holding this hearing today. All Americans are aware of the need to rethink how we defend our country, and so I thank Governor Ridge, as well as the witnesses who will follow him, for being here to answer our questions about the president's proposed Department of Homeland Security. I am pleased that the Administration has attempted to put together all the ideas for increased domestic security that have been raised during the past eight months, many of which have been discussed in hearings like this. Now Congress must fulfill its role to balance the power of the Executive Branch and question the president's proposal. It's our responsibility on this panel today to ask questions of our witnesses that will allow us to flesh out the skeletal suggestion put forth by the president as well as to create a new department that will best serve the constituents whom we represent here in Washington. When we talk about protecting America, we should be thinking in terms of what's proactive and preventative instead of only what's reactive and responsive. While we all understand the need to formulate "countermeasures" and to devise plans for "emergency preparedness and response," I am concerned that the president's proposal may not give the secretary of the new department enough authority to prevent disaster. We have learned from the news media in recent weeks that we might have averted the terrorist attacks on September 11th if our federal agencies had been configured differently or had communicated with each other more effectively. In other words, we might have been able to prevent disaster.

In my view, we have two main strategies at our disposal: we can deter future attacks with our brawn, or we can halt them with our brain-with our intelligence capabilities. We can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on star wars, or we can spend a couple hundred dollars on language courses so that we have linguists who can translate the mountains of raw intelligence data that we collect but never analyze. But, even if all the data are analyzed and packaged in a form that is presentable to the secretary of the new department, what assurances do we have that one intelligence gathering agency, be it the CIA, the NSA, or the FBI with its new powers, would share its reports with the others? Will the new secretary have any authority to ensure that information is shared and that our intelligence operations are working together to prevent disaster? These questions are among many that we will be seeking answers to in the coming weeks.

In particular, last Fall I wrote to Secretary Abraham to express my concern for the safeguarding of our federal nuclear facilities and the nuclear materials stored at these sites. Substantial quantities of nuclear materials, including highly enriched uranium and plutonium, are stored in chemically and physically unstable forms across the Department of Energy complex. Some of these nuclear materials are stored in outdated containers that often sit in deteriorated facilities or even outside, exposed to the elements. In either case these storage facilities were not built with the intention of protecting nuclear materials from terrorist attacks. At the DOE facility in Piketon, Ohio, for example, the majority of the 16,000 depleted uranium hexafluoride canisters stored onsite are out in the open.

I think it is tremendously important that we have an understanding of how the Department of Homeland Security will protect America and its citizens from acts of malice against the physical structures and containers holding special nuclear materials, by-products, and source materials, especially in those cases where the physical structures may be vulnerable to significant radiological and other consequences. I anticipate hearing from the witnesses about how such drastic governmental restructuring will affect-good or bad--the ability of the different agencies to fulfill their objectives. I look forward to a thoughtful and candid discussion of the proposals to protect our nuclear assets, in addition to plans for safeguarding Americans if terrorists were to strike at nuclear facilities. I thank the Chair and yield back the remainder of my time.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this initial hearing on the President's proposed new cabinet agency for homeland security. I have made no secret of my skepticism that mere reorganization can solve the problems we face, or that reorganization would not create significant new problems. That is why this hearing, and others like it across the Congress, are so necessary. They cannot simply be "check the box" exercises.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce will need to address several questions in the coming weeks about the proposed new structure. First, I note we just passed, and the President just signed, a carefully crafted comprehensive bioterrorism measure. It established programs to rebuild our public health infrastructures at the state and local levels, which are where responses to terrorism occur, as well as strengthened the federal capacity to address possible threats. Will the new Department actually increase fragmentation in the largely cohesive federal effort against bioterrorism and other public health emergencies? Will the new Department undermine the state and local public health focus of the new law?

Second, will the Department's security activities undermine the enforcement of existing environmental, health and safety protections, or be otherwise detrimental to such safeguards developed over many years after full and open consideration by the Congress? Will the Department be given broad authority to override existing statutes and regulations? Will the accelerated and superficial treatment accorded thus far to this proposed reorganization provide an opportunity for major mischief? Third, and more broadly, will this reorganization result in more confusion, more expense, more bureaucracy, more people, more harm to the civil service, more harm to public employee unions and less work? Will the country actually be more vulnerable during what will likely be a lengthy transition period? Will the Department remain fully accountable to the people, and to the Congress, for its security mission as well as for the non-security functions it may inherit?

Our constituents will expect us to know the answers to these and many other questions before we act. Today's hearing is a small step towards developing the kind of understanding we will need to address this matter responsibly.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Governor, you are aware that the committee is holding an investigative hearing and when doing so has had the practice of taking testimony under oath. It is my understanding that you have no objection to offering your testimony under oath. Mr. RIDGE. None.

Mr. GREENWOOD. The Chair also advises you that under the rules of the House and the committee, you are entitled to be advised by counsel. My understanding is that you don't feel the need to be advised by counsel.

Mr. RIDGE. That's correct.

Mr. GREENWOOD. If you would stand and raise your right hand. [Witness sworn.]

Mr. GREENWOOD. Thank you Governor, you are under oath and we look forward to your testimony and please begin.

TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM RIDGE, DIRECTOR OF TRANSITION PLANNING FOR PROPOSED DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR HOMELAND SECURITY

Mr. RIDGE. Chairman Greenwood, Ranking Member Deutsch and subcommittee members, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to testify-with the microphone on-in support of the President's historic proposal to unify our homeland security efforts under one Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, all of America has risen to the challenge of improving the security of our homeland. In partnership with Congress, with States and localities, with law enforcement, with the private sector and academia, America has

made great progress in securing its borders and preserving its way of life and the security of its citizens.

The President believes our Nation must now take the next critical step by unifying our efforts under a single Department of Homeland Security. Only Congress can create such a department, and I am here today to personally convey the President's deep desire to work with Members to accomplish this goal. The President believes that the creation of a single department with a single, clear line of authority, as quite a few of the members of the committee have discussed, would not only improve our preparedness for future attack, but also strengthen these partnerships, thereby helping to prevent a future attack.

Earlier this month, the President signed an executive order appointing me as Director of the Transition Planning Office for the Department of Homeland Security, to be housed within the Office of Management and Budget. While I will still retain the title of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, my testimony today will be given as Director of this new entity.

This proposal was the result of a deliberative planning process that really began with an effort led by Vice President Cheney a year ago, in May of 2001, and continued as part of the mission of the Office of Homeland Security when it was created on October 8, 2001, as well.

My staff and I have met with thousands of Government officials at the Federal, State and local levels, with hundreds of experts and many, many more private citizens. Throughout these discussions, we have constantly examined ways to organize the Government better.

The President's proposal also draws from the conclusion of many recent reports on terrorism, reports by blue ribbon commissions such as Hart-Rudman, Bremmer and the Gillmore Commissions, as well as a variety of reports from the many think tanks who have really investigated the issues relating to international terrorism and homeland security over the past several years.

It also draws, admittedly-and proudly I might add-from the legislative proposals of Congressmen and Congresswomen, including Mac Thornberry and Jane Harman, Ellen Tauscher, Jim Gibbons, Saxby Chambliss and others, along with Senators Joe Lieberman and Arlen Specter and Bob Graham.

This historic proposal would be the most significant transformation in the U.S. Government since 1947. The creation of this department would transform the current, rather confusing patchwork of Government activities related to homeland security into a single department whose primary mission-whose primary mission is to protect our homeland.

Responsibility for homeland security is currently dispersed among more than 100 different Government organizations, and the President believes-and I sense that it is a belief shared with many Members of the Congress of the United States, both Chambers, both parties that we need a single department whose primary mission is to protect our way of life and our citizens; a single department to secure our borders, synthesize and analyze intelligence, combat bioterrorism and direct Federal emergency response activities.

The proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security is one more key step in the President's national strategy for homeland security. Like the national security strategy, ladies and gentlemen, the national strategy for homeland security will form the intellectual underpinnings to guide the decisionmaking of planners, budgeters and policymakers for years to come.

From securing our borders to combatting bioterrorism to protecting the food supply, most of the initiatives of the Federal Government in pursuing excuse me, the majority of the initiatives the Federal Government is pursuing as part of our strategy to secure the homeland have already been discussed publicly. We will certainly refine them with the national strategy. The strategy will pool together all of the major ongoing activities and new initiatives that the President believes are essential to our long-term effort to secure the secure the homeland.

Now permit me, if you will, just a few comments with regards to details of the President's plan.

Preventing future terrorist attacks must be our No. 1 priority. Because terrorism is a global threat, we must have complete control over who and over what enters the United States. We must prevent foreign terrorists from entering and bringing in instruments of terror, while at the same time facilitate the legal flow of people and goods upon which our economy relies. Protecting our borders and controlling entry to the United States has always been the responsibility of the Federal Government. Yet this responsibility is currently dispersed among more than five major Government organizations in five different departments.

The new department would unify authority over the Coast Guard, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture and the recently created Transportation Security Administration. All aspects of border control, including the issuing of visas, would be informed by a central information-sharing clearinghouse and compatible data bases. It will be greatly improved in that process.

The new department would unify government's efforts to secure our borders in the transportation system that move people from our borders to anywhere in this country within just a matter of hours. Although our top priority is preventing future attacks, Mr. Chairman, we cannot assume that we will always succeed. We cannot assume it would be perilous to assume we could create a fail-safe system. Therefore, we must also prepare to recover as quickly as possible from attacks that do occur.

The Department of Homeland Security will buildupon the Federal Emergency Management Agency as one of its key components in this effort. The new department would assume authority over Federal grant programs for local and State first responders, such as fire fighters, police and emergency medical personnel, and manage such critical response assets as the nuclear emergency search team and the national pharmaceutical stockpile. It would build a comprehensive national management system that would consolidate existing Federal Government emergency response plans into one genuinely all-hazard plan.