Transcripts For CSPAN Homeland Security And Defense 20140222

Is all happening at the government level. They will participate in a roundtable discussion on Prescription Drug abuse. We have been working tirelessly in each one of our states to try to slow that growing epidemic of Prescription Drug abuse. Robert bentley at alabama, myself really looked at what the problem is in prescribe some solutions. That weapplied measures can really begin to slow down this epidemic. Vermont gave and devoted his entire state of the state address in january. Were going to leave the opening News Conference and take you live now to the room where they are meeting for the second session of the day. That is life here on cspan. Homeland security security and Public Safety, taking a look at responses to natural disasters. Good afternoon. As chairman of the Public Safety committee, i now called the meeting to order. I think everyone for joining us. By ricked to be joined schneider. We appreciate the work he does. Lets take care of a couple of minutes straight of issues. These were sent to the governors in advance. Susan next amicus the deputy rector for policy and lead staff on this committee. Sitting next to me is the Deputy Director for policy and committee. On this communit our legislative director, we appreciate his great help. There is a lot of great work to get done. Recently taken over as chairman of this committee. I will try to be respectful. We are going to start on time and finished on time and we will get our work done. I appreciate everybody being here. This is the first time this committee has made as an official standing policy. A longterm of the governors association. As thegnize this longterm jobs. Lets take a couple of the issues. Our National Guard and all of us at home respond to national disasters. We have National Security threats which we will talk about. We have all sorts of terrorism issues that come up. We lead in these areas is extremely important. It is often important to learn lessons from each other. And in the new governor straining at the end of the year to make sure the wisdom and learning of all of our Committee Members and senior staff is moving forward. We have learned a lot from katrina, Superstorm Sandy. It is important we take those lessons and make sure that they are used appropriately in the Disaster Management of all types. In our state, we have worked hard to bring folks together on a number of fronts, unifying command on the Public Health site, working hard to consolidate highway and water control. Would say tong i all governors as well as everybody here in one of the reasons our second presentation is here, we have worked very hard to take our faith these community in and engage them directly with us in Disaster Response. I would say that they provide an incredible help in extremely difficult times. This is played out by helping your fellow man. There are countless examples that enhances recovery. We have a full agenda today. The median the media today is divided into two sections. We will speak of the National Guard bureau. Will follow a Senior Leaders from the coordination was dates and strengthening Disaster Response. Discussions are important. Both of these organizations are essential for responding to these challenges. Guard has been tasked with more than ever before. We had to discussions over the last couple of hours about a number of those issues. Im not i know we all have our own examples. Each one of us also have deployed as well as been to funerals of our citizens soldiers who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We have deployed over 500 arts and into afghanistan, one of which was from what he served in when he was young and did not have quite as many stars on the shoulders and was out there. Face a number of issues with the department of defense, making decisions about budgets. We will be involved in that. Two years ago they would have cut back the response capabilities. Mey of which are behind today. Many of which we will see later today. They Work Together collaboratively. The vast majority was preserved. A commission was established to analyze this across the total air force. It now poses a similar potential threat. We are working together. I do not want to carry one meeting to the next but i can guarantee you the government are working in context to send a very clear call that the nations oldest military forcing us to stay strong and capable and be able to deliver a guard and reserve mission. As the army debate grows more heated, the air force commissions conclusions and recommendations will become extremely relevant. It is no surprise that there is a movement afoot on our side for some a commission for the army. I think you will find a growing sense very quickly that we need to play a significant role. We would appreciate more consultation. You can rest assured that those of us on the council will reflect the intensity as well as the importance of these issues. Executives, we know what it is like to face tough budgets. We do that every day. We have one advantage that none of our federal partners have. We actually have experience of balancing budgets. I think our voice should be heard. We understand budgets will get balance. We are among a small group of 50 people in america that actually ever signed one of those. Consequently, we are well aware of budget issues and not exceptionally excited about being lectured. We went about making sure that our strength maintains what we need. I want to thank them for their active engagement. Effort thate the they give them the access they on to us into the tags behalf of our country. We had a chance to talk previously about this committee. You are passionate about this as. Topic or i think there is a lot that can be accomplished. I also want to recognize we have general that is with us we have a great general with us today. Governor here feels that way about their tag. These are outstanding individuals who deserve recognition. They represent the entire force of the National Guard. Dealing with disasters and emergencies within our state. Thank you for all of your service. It is also great to have the opportunity to have the red cross here. They have been an invaluable aid for decades. It is going to be a continuing role they need to play. I know many of us are facing challenges this year in particular. We have had record snow and cold in michigan. Common future crisis is giving coming given the what are we a. The other issue i would mentioned, and i will give a shout out to governor omalley, we have done a lot of good work through the nga that ties right into this topic of cyber security. At is an interesting situation that we do need to do more work on. We put out a call to action to the governor. Xcept they can take i cursed the governors and their staff to get on board with that into embrace those things. Case another great of the National Guard. One of the true frontline places inre going to need help increasing landing the role of the National Guard. It is a great honor to be vice chair. I look forward to the discussion. Thank you. Enqueue you for your leadership. We look forward thank you for your leadership. We look forward to your leadership. Introduce him. To general grass serves as the military adviser to the president and secretary of defense. It is nice to see the four on his chest and have him a part of the joint chiefs of staff. That boy sitting right there is extremely important to all of us. He also provides direct to medication between the department of defense and governors. Missourian. Ve you will be able to tell that by his great personality, incredible intelligence, hard work ethic and show me state intensity. He actually grew up 30 miles north of my hometown. Missouri National Guard in 1969. After being commissioned in 1981, he served in command and staff positions as traditional National Guard soldiers. And on active duty. Prior to his current assignment, he served as Deputy Commander and also served as Vice Commander of the north American Aerospace defense command. Us at our state fair or we start military appreciation day. I would recommend that your state fair has been an unbelievable thing. We have thousands of folks we let in to the state fair. He was our speaker that year. He was the highest civilian award. He did a great job not only being there and his home area and helping missourians realized the commitment that guard members may throughout the world. We are fortunate to get your perspective not only as the chief of the National Guard but as someone who has moved his way up all the way from the bottom to the top. A fourstar general, frank grass. Thanks so much thanks for allowing me to be here today. Thank you for what you do. In the homeland is so important to the National Guard. It is our Number One Mission for 377 years. We will continue to do everything we can to make sure that our citizens of the United States are taking care of. They represent you very well. We talked at least every two weeks by phone call. We have a unique opportunity where we will spend most of the week together. It is a prime time right now with a roll out of the budget coming on the fourth of march. To hear from secretary hagel this week, i think he is going to be at the council of governors. I want to applaud governor ramstad and omalley for their support. They have accepted an invitation to be there as well as secretary mckie and emily james. What i wanted to roll out to you is our new moniker. Were seeing it for the first time. At, having been on thed after the roll out of nda a that allowed us to serve as a member of the joint cheese and serve, we have been on about a year and a half and decided lets review the Strategic Direction of the National Guard for the future. Core see on the mono on the moniker is our mission. And in our global partnerships which are both domestic and overseas. In the middle of all that is the most important part. It serves every day. In your communities and overseas. Let me walk you through a little bit about that. Future inded for the each. Seven capability we bring hundred 60,000 mobilizations have occurred since 9 11. This is army and air combined. Of that, they range in length from about four months up to as long as 16 months. Are in the 16 month range. They really put in more time than that. The average is closer to about a year. 11,000 still deployed in 11 countries around the world. Many of the governors have been out to see the troops. As they get ready for the military commissions, detainees that are there, and looked at a team out of kentucky led by a Staff Sergeant in kentucky. Coordinate all the media for that event. You think about that, here is a College Student that leaves the hometown when does one of the most strategic. Everywhere i went i saw that. I see this everywhere. Let me talk a little bit about the future. I talked at length. As the budget rules that we will continue to deploy. The numbers will come down a bit. Thank goodness. We are coming out of hours. We will be engaged in the future. Federal reserve of the army and air force in a combat support reserve. I have been committed to that. We have told the message all along to the budget deliberations. We bring capacity and our units both at home and away. The capability we bring. We have the most we have ever had. Theres more work to do. We are talking about j model one 30s. We are talking not modernization of our fleet. And also into the fighters for the future. And this constrained budget environment it is very difficult to add programs. We are going to continue to rest the new equipment. Roll to the next one. The homeland. 3000 89 soldiers doing missions in the homeland for you. For the governors. And for the federal government as well. Alertare fighters setting around the nation including the city that are there. Since 1958. En there missions that are flown every day in support of the homeland are done by the interNational Guard as well as the fighters that do that critical mission. To look to the future for that mission. Theo want to continue to capitalized so we have the best. We also have a number of states. Inknow a number of state ohio and mississippi all have rotated to the region over the last couple of years to do the National Airspace control over the capital region. On a oneyear deployment. If you ever have a chance to see them, they are the best. They have created a capability as a last line of defense from someone you might take this and decide to fly into our capital. When you roll it up of a number of folks who have deployed out of your state every day to do missions, the number is averaging about a thousand or 4000 a day. If you look at the most recent star, 3100 guardsmen in 11 states. The greatest thing about it is how you support each other in that mission. I watched it. He was impressed. Rollback you little bit before that in West Virginia and water contamination. There were seven states that some of their Civil Support Teams there. Some had to adjust schedules because they had other missions like it ready for the super bowl. I met simon washington, d. C. That as they finished their mission got to d. C. , set up with the armory for the state of the Union Address to be on call there. Across the state. The nicest thing for me as i get to be the guy that walks around and see what these folks are doing. It takes no federal involvement to make that happen. And i talked a lot about this. They are spending some time on this. We are concerned about the worst night in america. I think our states and our first and our parish managers, state Emergency Managers, fema, has gotten very good at anticipating what the thes of our citizens are in type of disasters regionally that you might encounter. When general jacoby and i get abouter, we are concerned the worst night in america. And a. 0 on the new maverick. 8. 0. Nd a zone up in washington state. In anchorage 1960s type. Are we prepared for that . President ial policy directive eight gives titans for national preparedness. We are working in that direction. We have been working very closely with fema, with north, thatith the state banners reside within the National Guard as well as your State Government. At what areng now the things you plan for. We will unfold those into an exercise. We are going to do three exercises this year including my good friend richard. We will be a part of that on private and public partnerships. Our intent is to break the system in an exercise, to know where the weaknesses are in responding so that our focus will be you as governors. Bringing the troops in to assist First Responders at the local level. Additional forces will flow into these disasters. At first it will be on paper but hopefully we will be able to do it live. They will roll in under Emergency Management contacts. We will push to see where gaps are. The intent is when a government calls under the National Response framework for Additional Support of some capability, our capacity that he or she cannot get from either the civilian side of the government, the State Government , interNational Guard, then a federal asset would be called in. We work closely with them on that. A want to be able to have force prepared for the worst night in america that can roll in and be there and have little time between the time the governor calls the president and says i need help to the time the close on the disaster. That is our goal. We never planned at that level before. We have all 54 state plans. This is an area i think that you will see more in the future. I think this year we will be working through with the exercise. We will work through with california and in anchorage alaska. The other area in the homeland that i think needs attention is cyber. Conference hosted a at the department of Homeland Security. The fbi was there. The operations chief of the ciber, was there as well as about 12. We work issues through Cyber Attacks within the homeland that have an impact, whether on the grid, transportation systems, banking system. We work at all the way through the national and international chain. What we walked away with after four hours as there is a lot of work to do. He also walked away with the idea that governors have an awful lot of capability in their state through private companies. How do we protect the proprietary piece of that . Had we get inside and try to provide assistance when the military may have a capacity that can help in the worstcase scenario. Alexander was very interested in the authorities of the National Guard can bring. Whether it is under state control or under the governor. Whether it is under state control but federally funded. And then the third is under a title x response. We are looking at that. We are ready employees. In the air guard today we have about 12 units. We will get a few more in the future. Defense in support of ciber, and in support of a number of other major commands. On the army site, we have some units we have put a positions in eight states in every state to see our cyber expertise. We stood up our first Cyber Protection team which will be positioned around the world for the army. They will be supporting this around the world. We are positioning now within the state. This is a 39 person team. Be ready to be on orders for a year. Trained,et them eventually break them off and send them back to 39 states. Build 10 39p is to person teams. Up where most of them come from civilian organizations. We bring them to the National Guard. Network defense. Is about 20 fulltime every day and the rest will be traditional. Militarybring into the both the training dollars. We can train and certify them. In. The expertise the bring a lot of opportunities for the future. Capitalize. The last part of the moniker, i want to thank you for your support. Many states have two partners now with countries around the world. 65 state partners conduct did ofr 739 missions in support an commands. Ine would be engaged by you helping the countries, especially the newer partners, getting them ready to be tied in with academics, business, governing. Were looking at adding for more partnerships. I think three of them could be rolled out by the end of next it is an outstanding program. In the middle of the budget crisis, it is the one program no one wants to touch. In addition to stay partnerships, the Youth Challenge program, we have 35 programs right now. Outs have22,000 drop graduated from the Youth Challenge Program Since it started. About 12 years ago. It was longer than that. At riskgrams take youth. The National Guard runs the program. Then they get a ged in they move on into society. Folks who stories of are on a path end up in our prisons that are now productive members of our society. Our youth partnerships were really proud of. Counter drugs and narcotics is another partnership we do domestically. The budgets have been a challenge. We start a budget based on a plan. It gets cut before the fiscal year starts. I want to apply the general for managing that program. It is difficult in the Fiscal Department to run that. They do an excellent job. The last thing i want to talk about is in the middle, the guardsmen and women. The today. Go to the next slide. They come out of your towns and communities. They serve our nations. When the sexual sasol on subtle harassment. They call the joint cheese over one day. He says i need to know what i can do to help. Book fromkling this the victims advocacy site as well as the criminal prosecution. I know they have talked about some of the difficulties they have had in rescuing some of the cases. We have set up a team of special investigators we make available. They want us to bring someone in. We will do an administrative investigation and provide that act to the general for action. What that allows them to do, sometimes you may have a case and home time america. Because alcohol is involved in local prosecutor may not take the case but we believe there has been a wrongdoing. Action ifl can take he can get the right information. Some of that may be counseling. Some that may be discharge. We provide that now. Were also getting very close to standing up special victims advocate, to have someone away from the hometown that a victim can reach out to and talk with and get help. We are very committed to that. Under suicide prevention, the army National Guard experienced their worst year in suicides last calendar year. That. Very concerned about 50 of our suicides have never deployed. It is hard to figure this out. I reached into health and Human Services. I have met twice with them. We already have medical Health Professionals in every state. Were going to put more and because Congress Gave us another 10 million to put into our armories in our state headquarters in wings to get after this problem. When somebody is distressed in some way, that they can reach out. We have to have contact with them on weekend drills. We have to have people available insulin is distressed. We are committed to it. Health and Human Services is committed. We look to the future and even partnering with the department of education on that. Behavior, youscal just heard secretary hagel talk a little bit about that. He is appointing probably a three start to look at ethical issues with in the military. It is a small part of the population. That does not make it any better. Offered their that we will put either a colonel or a inside his organization that will look at behavior within the military. We are committed to cleaning up any problems we might have. I think i will stop there. I do not want to take up all the time. Thank you very much. Well open it up to your state commanders in chief who appreciate this and the security you give each of us as we go to bed at night. I will now open it up for discussion. Thank you for your leadership. Governor omalley and i, when wes was a temporary thing, worked on this. When they learned who the new chairmen were they had greater confidence in your leadership. We appreciate your work. One of the great religions of serving governors is getting to know the men and women in the work they do is tremendous. I recently gave my state of the state. Sure, you know for have to have great applause, introduce your tag and the men and women of the guard. They appreciate all that you do. Here is my thought. Visiony appreciate your on how you do it the worst line in america. If you have a flood or a fire any day, it could happen to anyone of us, but it is their worst night in america. If theyre getting flooded out, that takes a unique training to respond to that. At the same time, the men and women serving overseas, that also takes unique training. Andng traveled overseas seeing the men and women in the garden action, to me theres not active and guard folks. Theres an expectation that everyone is trained to the highest level. Not only as individuals but equipment they have to use. The nature of my question is, how do you see the future in terms of making sure men and women in the guard art training training on are equipment that will be relevant when they go overseas and have the training necessary for floods and fires and earthquakes. Inc. You so much. Thank you so much. First let me say in these challenging fiscal times, what is amazing to me about the National Guard, and part of this is because of who we are coming from our communities and the local of our ones are traditional, but they are ready to come out of the gate. We also do not pay for their retirement right away. Of usingnsation piece and having a strong National Guard is a smaller slice of the total defense budget. Guardsmen andur women are trained to the same standard. When i talk about the deployment timelines and the 760,000 mobilizations, every one of the troops were validated by the opponent they were prepared to deploy. Have committed to continue to keep that validation and process as we go back to our traditional roles. We want to continue to partner with the active component as much as we can. He is responsible for deploying forces of the whole United States army. He has reached out to was. We have outlined some of our brigades active. At peace time they will train together like they never had before. Vermont will be going to a large joint training to size the summer. They will be assisting them in filling in with the intelligence support. Those partner shares i think are huge for the future. If you look at some of the partnerships we have incited the air force, today it is phenomenal. When you look at the New Hampshire unit, that has the kc 135 and have a squadron that flies the same aircraft and they were together every day to the same standard, they learn from each other. Our mechanics have been there. Some have been there 20 or 30 years. In have young airman coming right after School Working with someone like that. It is a great relationship. Bb to unit out of my home state, it is amazing. You cannot tell who is who when he walked out there whether it is a mechanic or a bomb loader for somebody preparing the pilots or a pilot. We have to keep that going. Some of the things we are committed to, even as the money draws down, this trying to make we are in armories where our soldiers can train and that we do modernize. Trying toalance is figure out what structure we can retain and still continue to modernize and recapitalize. One thing i did not say earlier. As a title x federal officer, im very cautious right now about what i say about the budget. You that our budget , about 12ional guard years ago was about 8 billion for the army guard. Over 14 billion. To an Operational Force. We will never go back to where we are. We are already training at a much higher standard than we are ready have. This is higher today than when the war started out. We can just keep it going for the next 10 or 20 years and get beyond the budget control act, we will be in very healthy forest. We have a little bit of racier and the bipartisan budget agreement. By 1617 we are back in the budget control act. That is what concerns me. I appreciate that. It should be seamless. They do not distinguish. We know we have got the best for them. Both in training and equipment. That is difficult for everyone. We appreciate your leadership on that. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to acknowledge the pedestal you the put him on. We appreciate the fine work you did. As we seek the seriousness of the conversation, this is extremely important. This is at the forefront now. Thank you, governor. Thank you and the men and women who serve under you for the service to our country. As a former Pennsylvania Army guard, i have to tell you im very pleased that what i heard coming from you and continue to hear on a regular basis from my tag. I would reiterate what you have been saying. We had a opportunity at lunch among the governors to talk about this. I guess im going to use two analogies. We are in the foxhole with you or were giving you air cover. I am not a title x person. Budget of Governor Nixon has done. I look for what is the best return on our investment . When i look at our National Guard troops that have been deployed for the snow and ice storms that hit pennsylvania, many troops have served over in the midease. The cruise just came back from the mideast. The training they have received from you, when i look at thecost, i best return on investment. I think we are all ceos of our state. We are looking for the best return on the investment. We are going to give you air cover. We are going to be in the foxhole with you. Thank you very much. Let me also thank you when i was talking about the West Virginia response. Your Civil Support Team was one of the ones they are. They had to pack up and get to where the super bowl. We thank you for the great work. Keeps me where you are all the time. I wanted to come back just one second. I hope i made that clear. Sometimes people hear the number. It was 8 million. 8 billion. This year is 14 billion. We have had growth in our budget since 9 11. One thing i did want to point , as you look at that, a lot of the money that goes into our acquisition some of the bulk of our acquisition dollars, come from the service. We have to make sure that the will help us in our ability to recapitalize. It the air force is not eyeing additional equipment and were not getting updated simulators and weapon systems on the army site, we will all fail eventually. Governor garcia. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership. Of course, thank you, general. Has in a greatty help. Securitynents of the of great help. You have been a great help for puerto rico. Us appreciate your work with the National Guard of puerto rico. Theyre sending i want to point out. Have been that we delivering to the border with mexico has been a success. Now 40 of the cocaine tickets to the United States gets through the caribbean border. Able to develop strategies that have been able to help us fighting back. Only 8 or 10 of the cocaine or ,rug they get to puerto rico the rest comes to the mainland. Is something that is very important for us in the island and very important for our colleagues here in the mainland. It is very hard for us to know ust the problems for any of are confronting here in the states because of Illegal Drugs they get here through the caribbean. We understand and the caribbean. Order we have only 300 miles miles ofre with 2000 border with mexico. You compare the resources. We have been developing in the border with mexico and those 300 miles and the caribbean. There is no match. You see theres almost half of the legal drugs. Conclude that we need to put a little more in the caribbean border and that will help the east coast. It is very simple. The coast guard there knows what they need to close that gate. We can do better. We have been able to improve. Have been able to improve 300 through the drug we intercept. That is good. Not enough. That toto transform 1000 just to have a real effect. Even though we have been having more. S, we should do i wanted to raise that issue here. It is important for governor malloy and others. It is important for all of us that are reaching that from other receiving that poison. We havet say that talked about this issue. Im going to be down at Southern Command reading with general john kelly. General jacoby and i have talked about this, how do we bring both your assets and synchronize with what you want to do in the islands to what we can bring from the federal site as well. One of the things that we see right now is exactly what youre talking about, that shift in working with the task force south. We hope to maybe look at an ability to come up with Additional Resources in a way to experiment we have done on the southwest border which seems to have been very successful. Within the next few months we will be providing some feedback on that. I applaud your efforts. Thank you. Again, the National Guard and Homeland Security, coast guard is working. President obama has been a great help. I know everybody is working a lot, just to raise the bar to see that there is always more. Thank you. They key to the administration for the help. We are happy to receive it. You raise a point about 12 years going back to 2002. I am sure you will agree that prior to that the role of the National Guard altered considerably starting in the 1990s. It is not a republican or democratic issue. Moving from a reserve to an Operational Force with regard started taking place in the 90s. Olde are probably some buskers and know what we are talking about. The role of the guard began to change. Up,reason i bring that speaking not so much of governor and as a former chair of the air and land subcommittee, i can say the some authority that congress and National Guard experience these changes together. The council of governors exists as an arm of the National Governors association with the we are to work in a collaborative fashion here. It is important for the public to recognize and for the pentagon to recognize that in order for that to take place in regular order that there has to views thatnge of comports with what the security interest of this nation requires. So long as the National Guard is anng to be seen as Operational Force, if only by default rather than by design, then the support both in terms of material and personnel has to be confident with that mission. That is not the situation right now. The only reason the National Guard deployments were able to congress, the congress earmarked that infrastructure. Time to go into the stupid policy of denying members of congress not only their obligation but their right to decide what is required for their district and state but particularly where the military budget was cut in. The congress provided invaluable inport to the National Guard the new role that it had to assume in terms of deployment. Commentary ismy that i am very concerned when i hear the word proportional. Hope and i urge that before this budget is presented on march 4 that there be a dialogue established with the council of governor acting as an agent of the National Governors that has no ideological differential and taking place regarding our security interest. Ofope before the idea proportional cuts or actions in this report comes on the fourth, that there will be a dialogue and a thorough discussion as to what exactly that means. President hat the and ther situation military with regard to the military will undermine the capacity of the National Guard to cheer he out its duties under this new operational regime. Were going to have serious difficulties. I understand and appreciate and commend the fact that youre on the joint shes now in carrying joint chiefs now and caring the burden. I think it is very important thateveryone understand they are not passive observers in this process. Right presentation to what the necessities are in regard to the National Hard will be followed in on by the nga. They key for clarifying that with me. Aneed to come back on it, comment. Www. Cspan. Org i do not think there is a wrong path. I do think there is a key point. The nation needs the capacity of the National Guard in these budgetary constraint times. Capacity being our units. We have to get that right balance between the act of and guard the what we can maintain. Because we are a Federal Reserve of the army air force. We provide each of the states in our communities to the units that do the Disaster Response. The proportionality of equipping under capability that we need what i wasure, getting at about proportionality, as we get additional j models off the line. The guard ought to have the same pork shouting proportionality. That is what we are working toward. They just set up a total. Ntegrated task force a love of the commission report, some of those he is ari put into action. A one star National Guardsmen. They are building a future budget for the air force. We get a boat right in that. I would like to thank general rast for sharing his death. I can guarantee that governors will continue to work to wreck we with you with to work directly with you to make sure they receive the necessary training, necessary to succeed in a difficult missions. We thank you. You look forward to joining you in just a little while. You are welcome to stay. I anticipate with the four other folks out there that you are is on school for getting into one might want to move out if you did. Thank you for your service to our country. [applause] we will now turn to the second portion of our session, strengthening public and private partnerships. With thereat strides nongovernmental agencies. Topred cross stands at the of this in many ways. The American Red Cross has helped create the modern model providing Critical Service supplies and funding to communities with disasters both large and small. We all have examples. Within two hours within the tornado, 600 cots were set up that bedded 550 people and had to be cleared up the next he was the second group of traders were headed our way. Next to date when the second group of 20 does are headed our way. Theseto be put up had to be put up in advance. We are looking to strengthen public right of partnerships. Public private partnerships. First i want to turn it over to the vice chair for any remarks he may have before i introduce our two red cross visitors. Were i will move on. I will move on. I hope to be vice chair at some particular point. [laughter] thank you. Introduce thed to chief obligate Affairs Officer of the red cross. In her current role, she oversees all communications, Government Relations and Strategic Partnerships to advance the mission of the red cross. Prior to joining, she serves as Deputy Assistant to the president for communications at the white house. She developed communication strategy, outreach for a wide range of domestic and International Policy issues. As an assistant secretary for Public Affairs at the u. S. Department of health and Human Services also serving at hhs. Saw all over cancer and all over education. Mr. Richard is reid. The Senior Vice President for Disaster Cycle Services and red cross. He leads the execution of red cross disaster programs which help americans are bent, prepare and respond to disasters nationwide. Asor to his role, he served Deputy Assistant to the president for Homeland Security and the current white house. While there, he covered a broad thatand Security Portfolio included all hazard preparedness, Community Partnerships and domestic incident management and transportation security. His federal service exceeds 20 years with positions in the department of veteran affairs, the management agency. Thank you both for being with us today. Thank you, governor, and all of you for attending. Gail mcgovern is very sorry she cannot be here but is recovering this week from surgery. Nixon, she spent a great deal of time with you after joplin and had an opportunity to meet with many of you. Im very fortunate to be here because im a great admirer of governors. I have worked for three of them. Leavitt of utah, president george bush. Are very muchu can do, problemsolving people and you have enormous responsibilities. That is why we are here to help strengthen and deepen that relationship and be sure we can be a help to you during the worst nights in america. I thought i would give you an overview of the red cross attorney over to richard reid to talk about disasters, and finished with a discussion of how we raise money and spend money during disasters. The mission of the red cross is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies. With hundreds of thousands of volunteers and the generosity of our donors. We are congressionally chartered. Our charter dates back to 1905. Mission, toines our maintain a system of the mistaken International Disaster relief. Onare a colead with fema the mascara portion of the National Responders framework, the only nonprofit to have such responsibility. Despite our government responsibilities, we are not a government agency. Do not receive federal funding for our Disaster Response and relief work. Rely on the charitable contributions of individuals and corporations and foundations to do that. A number of other services in your states. We collect and distribute 40 of to nations blood supply hospitals and patients. We are the largest single supplier of blood in the u. S. We do a lot for our serviced armed forces. I am the mother of a marine corps captain and have seen many times when we have gotten a call from a family here at home in the u. S. , having problems reaching their loved one because of an emergency at home. We get those messages to the servicemembers overseas. We also verify for their command that a death or some other kind of emergency has taken place, and that allows the command to let that soldier come home. A number of lifesaving skills. Maybe some of you grew up with red cross swimming. E do cpr i dont know if you saw on the news about the infant child just who was in florida administered infant cpr. Bystanders, fellow citizens can save lives. We have all that training on free apps in the app store, red cross. It is laterally in your hand, how to save a life. Internationally with International Disasters, and i think its important for all of you because many of you have populations in your states the come from other countries. We saw during the typhoon in the philippines, the filipino population in the u. S. Is one of the largest and during that time they want to know how to get in touch with loved ones overseas and how they can help people in their home countries. We are there to provide that. One thing i did not know until i got to the red cross is that the red cross response to 70,000 disasters a year. Most of those are home fires. You see them on the news every night in your states. There, withs is volunteers, to give people a place to stay for the night, clothing, food, money to get by for those next few days. The bige than just disasters you see on the media. It is every night in america, the red cross is responding. Now i would like to turn it over to richard reid, our Senior Vice President. Thank you, susie. Governors, thank you for the invitation to be there with you. Wonderful to see you again. We cannot do our job without your help. We see that every day in america. Its appropriate to talk about of relationship, in terms the partnerships for the red cross to be able to leverage the volunteer, 90 of the workforce and the red cross are volunteers. Unnoticed that many of them are in the National Guard and reserves. Many of the work in our school systems, many of them participate within our communities. We are primarily a volunteer organization, made up and executing our mission by volunteers. Some of the things we are able to do, we provide food and shelter. We provide relief supplies depending on the nature of the event, whether flood or hurricane or earthquake or tornado. Help services, Nursing Service from our volunteer nurse corps, to the Mental Health side. Newtown comes to mind. Every disaster we have seen, were paying attention to that. Atactually had conversations the pentagon in terms of the armed forces, recognizing there may be a role for red cross to partner where Service Members may be less inclined to work through their own chains of command and systems, but working through neutral third party, an organization that can provide capacity. Those are the kinds of opportunities we are all in a resource constrained environment. Thinking need not be constrained. Having conversations across, between and amongst the military families, the governor of the state and local families is where we can find opportunities for additional partnerships to increase our capacity overall. We have an infrastructure in the red cross. I will walk you through what that looks like. Have 320ally we Emergency Response vehicles. You have seen those rolling through your communities, providing support and relief supplies to citizens. That infrastructure is distributed across the country. It is managed at that level. We have warehouses, at least five National Warehouses across the country able to respond. Our volunteers and folks we can mobilize and deploy when and where needed. Superstorm sandy, you all have seen and heard of the things the reason i want to show this is to give you an idea of scalability. Red cross is able to respond to that single or multifamily house fire in the middle of the night, and spin up per day quickly leveraging our volunteer workforce. Relationships at the state and local level to provide those things you see right there and do it for a sustained period of time. You can see the math here. We have about 500 red cross communitybased chapters. Are 96 regions across the country that make up seven divisions. Our seven divisions are similar in function to the 10 fema regions. There is some overlap between relationships at the state and local level. It does give us a capability to task organize based on the threats unfold their abilities in these geographies and design the capabilities we need. If were in the middle of the country, we need not spend time thinking about hurricane response. We spent the better part of 2012 taking a hard look at the red cross. It was one of the most intense yearlong efforts we had ever spent looking at how we execute our mission, how we provide our services. The reason we did that is because satisfaction at all levels with our clients, customers and partners was trending downward over some period of time. Was it was our processes. The organization that existed in this country suffers the tyranny of the bureaucracy. We needed to do something about that, and we did. We reengineered our Disaster Cycle Services and focused on the needs of our clients. Ask the question about what are the processes necessary to meet those needs, and we said what is the right structure to enable those processes to work. Have three primary missions within disaster, to help communities prepare, respond, and recover. We dont do it by ourselves. We work closely with fema, Emergency Managers in the state and local levels. We work with your tags. We spent a lot of time working with the corporate communities within your states to leverage their expertise and skills. Theobjective is to push pallet to the edge, to empower the local level to make decisions. My job at headquarters, to give them the rules and tools to help programs operate. Their job is to execute. We are doing pretty well. After seven months, we take a look back and think about i think it was february 13 through 18th during the big freeze we had operations going from louisiana up to maine, supporting shelter operations, warming centers, providing relief to people stuck on the highway in the middle of the night, and we were able to do that in a timely fashion within hours of being requested from Emergency Managers at the city level. We have oriented ourselves to be more nimble, predictable and reliable around the services we provide. Now were working on trying to establish the metrics of efficiency for those operations. At the state level, susie and i work closely together. She has a team of relations representatives, i have disaster representatives. We provide the leadership, we spent a lot of time mapping up Emergency Operation centers and making sure we dont just have a warm body and your operation center, but someone with an ability to make a decision and commitment resources of our organization. That goes back to governor abercrombies point on the training side. It takes resources to train these folks to make sure theyre able to respond appropriately and make good decisions. The red cross volunteer hours are countable hours for you as governors in your state with regard to your 25 cost share on public assistance under the stafford act o. In Superstorm Sandy between new jerk and new jersey volunteer newotaled 184 plus york and new jersey, volunteer hours totaled 184 million dollars. Some of the Homeland Security grants on the hospital preparedness side of the house, these red house contributions can help defray some of the cost that states would have to make. In summary, our job at is to support the field. After trying to do that 132 years of history and doing it in a slightly different way. Im reminded of governor omalleys comments that i echo off into our staff. Best second, not second best. Andle have found efficient effective ways of doing business and replicating that across the rest of our infrastructure, learning from ourselves about how better to prepare, respond and recover. That, governor omalley. I will turn it back to susan. This operation richard just described, on a typical year we must raise about 345 million for moral normal disasters. Wildfires,california sandy, we will have to raise even more money for that. We raise funds primarily for Disaster Relief. We always allow donors to designate and we honor that donor. Sandy, two thirds of the money required for those needs came in designated. People would write on their checks, new jerk, new jersey, hurricane. We put it in the separate accounts so it was spent in those communities. We allocated 100 million to general Disaster Relief for sandy. Thus the money stay local . Funds raised at designated for specific communities stay there. After the Emergency Needs are money than more longterm recovery begins that money will stay there. Sandy, 309 million. Million are spent and committed. We have given 78 million in grants to 60 plus partners. We do a lot of sharing and working together, giving them grants for operations they can do better than we can do. It is very much a community effort. Oklahoma, another example of the money we raised and will spend in that community. In most instances, we do not raise enough funds specifically for a community to cover all the cost, which is why we dip into our general Disaster Relief fund. Examples here on the screen you , the cost was about 551,000. The red cross had designated funds of 114,000. The rest of the money came from our general Disaster Relief program. The same with the other states you see there. September, at the bottom, flooding in colorado cost 7 million. The remaining amount of money will be spent for relief and Recovery Services in colorado. Our goal is to meet the needs, whether we do it with the designated funds first or the money in our general Disaster Relief program. What is our overhead . An average of . 91 every dollar. We work very hard to keep our overhead very low. I have been at the red cross seven years and we have been through three streamlining and wensizing to be sure that are as efficient as we can be and make the best use of those donor dollars. Finally, were very proud of the fact that the red cross has a very high public trust rating. It is continually around 70 or greater. We have to earn that trust every day. We work very hard to do that. That concludes our presentation, governor. We are happy to take questions. You not putting public elected officials on the last part. [laughter] the first question, the red cross has a unique role in , and a longponse history. Can,us some sense, if you any advice you have to us in coordination of nongovernmental organizations together. Outpouring you have of help afterwards, and making sure we organize that as well as we can. A local church, a Boy Scout Troop any Lessons Learned or as the red cross that is the longest standing and most significant in this area. I will tell you that at the end of the day the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. There are a lot of organizations out there that spent a lot of time. Volunteer organizations active in disasters. What i have challenged our staff to do is think about being the leader and convener within communities. We have seen it in places like weren and other places bringing the coalition of the willing and the able together, to at the National Level have a conversation about, what are your capabilities, what are , philosophicals and organizational purposes and intent and how do we Work Together to optimize that across not only geographies, but the organizational capacities . We have partnerships as an example with the Southern Baptist Southern Baptist for us at the red cross is a key partner. They cook the food we provide. We provide grants to other organizations. What we need to guard against is trying to be all things to all people. , but wet rebuild homes can empower organizations that do, a. K. A. Habitat for humanity. A lot of these Community Organizations that are in your states and providing services, we are able to help and partner with to leverage our resources to support them. Theres a lot of organizations that are looking for guidance and support. Not necessarily enough coordinating mechanisms to make it happen at the local level. This is where our 500 chapters at the local level can be that sort of rallying point for leading and convening these organizations, helping to at least plan on the front end about how we will Work Together and execute back on the backend. Joplin was a fine example. We have pulled together multiagency Resource Centers so it is onestop shopping for the client. See all thee in and various organizations there, services represented, and go around and get that help. That is a model we would want to replicate. Right now in oklahoma we are seeing it be very effective. That would be one way to help bring together all this goodwill. Thank you. A question from the vice chair. One of the things we did and joplin was not only work with ngos, but ourselves to set up and offers for the various government offices for the various Government Agencies. Just establishing an office there was helpful. Work is tremendous. One thing i dont see that often, which i would appreciate you sharing with us, how do you go about getting your volunteers and getting people to sign up and participate, what trend training do they get . Im sure you have more and more needs in different parts of the country. We are blessed in america with a population of americans who want to volunteer. We see huge influx is in volunteers after a big disaster like katrina or sandy or 9 11. People come forward and they want to volunteer. We do offer training for our volunteers. We are trying to modernize that make it more available to them to do that. We have people to offer to volunteer all the time. We have a volunteer website that with the help of Grainger Corporation we build so that people can go on and match their skills and interest in issues with the type of work that we do. It is called volunteer connection. The other thing were beginning to see is social media. More and more people using social media tools to give and get help, whether it is people who are posting on their Facebook Page that they are in a community that has not had held for five days and they need help, or it is people who are saying, come and volunteer. Theres a lot of interest out there and a lot of new tools by which to not only i dont say we need to recruit, because volunteers tend to come to us, but to organize them and get them to the right places where they can assist. One thing we noticed during sandy was that we dont always have to train people in a threeweek course. They just want to, and hand out water. We have to be more flexible in making that happen. That,ould just tag on to if all you have is a hammer, everything quickly becomes a nail. For the red cross, we focused primarily on that response mission. We haveisaster services roughly 400,000 volunteers that support the red cross, whether through biomedical services, preparedness, health and safety teaching classes. Have identified themselves as disaster volunteers. They will spend weeks away from home during the holidays to provide support. We have done a less good job at identifying those folks on the left and right of them in terms of preparedness volunteers and recovery volunteers. Triple thetentially volunteer workforce focused on those three Mission Areas and engaging whole lot more. Were working on that every day. Help usthe systems to get it there, but its really a function of the training, how are we identifying these job skills and validating the requirements and executing the mission. One thing we are seeing more and more of is more companies that support us want to have ways for their employees to volunteer. We have developed a program around that where we can train them in advance. I want to thank the red cross for being here today, for what they do all across the world. The very last part of her presentation about the finances, i have a lot of experience, in the heartland we have had our share of disasters. . 91a state perspective, being spent, the dollar staying local and the big brand of the red cross we have had Government Agencies who can be helpful in helping you meet your budgets by promoting, the fact that how you use your money and keep that money local we have tried to get your contribution button up. It helps when people are trying to help to focus those gifts and generosity around the country, around the world sometimes. The American Red Cross is up and operating instantaneously and able to receive those dollars, account for them and when you come back months later, tell you what was done with it, moving dollars towards the red cross from that private sector is something that is very important to their budget. To their important mission. For those folks around the state and country watching, whether you are in county or City Government or State Government, when things happen where you know theyre going to be called up, just putting it on your helps run up those numbers when people really have that emotion on the front end of disaster and help them meet their shortterm and longterm obligations. On behalf of the National Governors association i went to thank mr. Reid for what you do everyday. [applause] we have five minutes and we will stay on time here. Directed the Homeland Security and public deputy shorton and has a presentation for us about things were doing best practice wise. If you would . Thank you, governor. There are two things i want to talk about today that are relevant to this committee, the first being cyber security. It continues to pose one of the greatest threats to this countrys Homeland Security. To provide a brief update on firstnet. With respect to cyber security, i had the pleasure of supporting Governor Snyder and governor omalley and overseeing the work of the stata center state Resource Center on cyber security. As Governor Snyder mentioned, we released in september a called action for governors on cyber security. It is a short but elegant document i would urge all governors to take a look at. It provides a roadmap for governors Getting Started on cyber security. 2014,cus for this year, will be implementation of that call to action along with other items as well. We will be working with your offices with your Homeland Security advisers, Emergency Managers, cios begin to implement that as well as other things. If states are interested in pilot testing, we have resources within my shop to assist you in doing that. The second thing i want to update you on his first net. It was a legislation that authorized first net was passed with the support of nga and the First Responder community along with other groups of state representatives. They spent the last year beginning to develop a business plan. To be working over the next several months to begin the initial round of consultation with your governors offices. Thenot going to start with governors directly. Theyre going to start with some of your key staff, including the state point of contact. They are beginning to step up and it is looking to be a promise. One of the concerns raised in this community, governor, you raise the issue about a representative of states, state former governor on the first net board. We have a gentlemans agreement with firstnet that that will happen when the first appointment comes up. Happy to take any questions. [indiscernible] [laughter] we appreciate the hard work being done in these vital areas, and the best practices effort. The paper may be short and elegant, but your presentation was equally short and elegant. Mead . Estions for governor i want to thank you for being responsive to that. Its important to have the governors involved at an early stage and in a meaningful way. The states are so different, and the design is going to be different. You will have been very responsive to that and i appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything on the federal side youd like to update the committee on . Three things. Even in a year when congress is not doing much, theres a lot that has to be done. First and foremost, watching the budget with regard to the National Guard. Discussions about the governors desire to promote and protect and enhance the role of the guard moving forward, a debate we will