Transcripts For CSPAN2 Acting Homeland Security Secretary Wo

Im behalf of the Auburn University president and the board of trustees of our university, i i would like to welcome you to a conversation with the acting secretary of the department of Homeland Security, chad wolf. Todays event is brought to you by the Mccrary Institute for the cyber and vertical infrastructure security here at Auburn University. We have likely over the past few weeks used the term unprecedented more than any other time in our history. The covid19 pandemic have brought about many changes in our country, and affected virtually every aspect of our daily lives. As an institution we here at Auburn University have tried to respond quickly with our researchers and scientists directing their expertise towards fighting the covid19 pandemic and its impact on our health, our economy, and on our way of life. The department of Homeland Security that youre going to hear from today plays a lead role in the nations response. We are honored to have secretary wolf join us today to discuss the Department Priorities and future direction in confronting the pandemic. Economic security and cybersecurity are two critical concerns raised by covid19, and the secretary will address off of those. Secretary wolf will begin todays conversation and then will be joined by frank who leads auburn Mccrary Institute. With that, secretary wolf, on behalf of a grateful nation i want to thank you on campus at some point in time in the future. And with that, i will turn it over to you. Thank you, general burgess. I appreciate the introduction and let me start by thanking Auburn University and the Mccrary Institute for hosting the event today. Sometimes point the Virtual Event off recently is quite an undertaking, so really appreciate everyone at auburn and institute, the team for pulling this together. Let me also thank frank. Frank has been a stalwart Homeland Security and cybersecurity and really helping the Department Think through all of tough issues over the years. So very excited to be here today to talk about the departments response to covid19, some other challenges that we are currently facing. Let me just finish my introduction in thanking alabama. The department has number of resources in the state of alabama both from a fee next appointment also from a cybersecurity standpoint zmax standpoint. We find Great Partnership meddling with private institutions in the state but also with Governor Ivey and others, alabamas been a great partner to the department of Homeland Security over the years and im happy to be here this morning and talking about some critical issues. Let me jump over and talk specifically about the departments response a little bit regarding covid19 and theres a right of ways i can go about this, the department is doing of right at Different Initiative i start off most discussion on covid19 focus on three priorities that ive had from the onset. Thats really to respond, to recover, and didnt to restore are responding currently. The department along with hhs, femas fema leak that chordata response. We are responding to the pandemic. The tenth and we need to make sure the departments able to recover and utilize its Mission Essential functions and fulfill those functions every day not only during this crisis but odyssey when the crisis in as well. Of course restore, enjoyable to restore trade, travel, commerce to the American Economy as a move out of the pandemic and the country begins began to open un various stages. Thats my priority. Its been my primary of the Senior Leadership of the department that the framework of which we are operating under. I also like to talk about medication. Medication works. We talk about it a lot in the Coronavirus Task force that meets daily. We talk about social distancing, we talk about cloth face coverings. If you cant keep the social distancing which i would like to emphasize that. Its critically important we continue that social distancing, that social mitigation well beyond the end of this month, well beyond the end of next month. I think these nations and procedures and with us some time. Simple things, washing your hands, not touching the face, these things work. A are not high tech but theyre absolutely critical and weve heard that repeatedly from the doctors on the task force. Let me talk to you about fema and i could spend many hours talking about what fema is doing. Doing. On the response, as you know all 50 states, all five territories are under major disaster declarations. We are also working with the 38 individual tribes as well, all receiving assistance from fema regarding covid19. To date fema is allocated about 5. 8 billion in covid19 related efforts. They are also again with hhs looked at probably about another 51 billion in support of covid19. A lot of hard work being done. Were also looking at over 100 million in Grant Funding to the cures act the president signed in an Congress Passed to help supplement and help local communities and jurisdictions as the respond. What i want talk was present nature of the response that fema is going through. Fema a very good at what they do. They usually do that on a very specific basis, very targeted basis if the responding to a hurricane or tornado and they usually do that and a handful of states at a time. What were seeing today is the responding to all 50 states all at the same time, all looking for the same amount of equipment, the same type of resources and supplies. Its a challenge but its one that fema is up for. Id like to describe a little bit to say every state again at the same time is experiencing anywhere from a a category five hurricane to a category three hurricane and some in between. Its up to fema to coordinate the response and theyre doing that and can change with 26 other federal agencies come with hhs at the lead using the medical resources and medical professionals at hhs, cdc, and others provide to that fight and theyre doing that very well. We have a number of lines of effort that fema is pursuing. Various task forces that theyre looking at, anywhere from ppe, making sure we get ppe to the right place at the right time. We do that for a variety of different ways. I was a fema facilitates that are a bright active from new acquisitions to an agency donations, to private donations and the like. We are restocking the National Stockpile and really pushing out ppe took right of different hotspots around the country. The one task force of like to focus on is the supply Chain Task Force thats been set up. Thats been critical because its looked at hadley emphasize or had reenergize the supply chain that existed out there to get ppe, really from asia, into the u. S. When we talk about that, we talk about four lines of efforts. We talk about preservation of ppe. How do we preserve the quicker we have today. Fema working with hhs has put at different guidance on how hospitals, Nursing Homes and others should preserve that ppe. In making sure your treating maybe that 70 cents pair of glove like they are 100. Hide we reuse that if we can we talk about accelerating that ppe supply chain, and thats the air bridge thats been talked about quite a bit as the Task Force Briefings youve seen a tv and elsewhere. Using that air bridge and the energizing supply chain that takes place in asia and getting those supplies here in the u. S. In the matter of hours instead of the 37 days it would normally take on a maritime cargo ship. Weve partnered with those medical companies that continuously supply the u. S. Domestic market. What we try to do is trying to energize those, trying to speed this up, speed those lights up in the like. Weve had over 90 flights today. I will go to all the numbers on whether we talk about surgical mask, we talk about downs, facemasks, over all our closing of some sort, those are continuing to be surged into the usni think what fema and dod has done there is quite remarkable. We looked into that supply chain, the photo, now has a view into that supply chain which is a private supply chain, Rudy Anderson were all the women is going down to the individual county level, which then gets distributed out to those Critical Healthcare facilities where they are, public hospitals, private hospitals or Nursing Homes. All of that is going very well. Third line of effort when we talk about supply chain is making sure we can build up our domestic capabilities here in the u. S. We see a number of different private or i would say Domestic Companies here, retooling the supply chain, retooling their line of effort, their business and producing a lot of ppe the probably have never produced before. In some cases were using authority to facilitate that but in most cases they are doing this voluntarily and we continue to see a lot of goodness out of that. The fourth line of effort is making sure that we supply, we surge of those resources to the right place at the right time and to the right area, and we doing that. Fema has a task force that is looking at this on a 96 hour basis making sure we are surging those resources to hotspots, whether thats new york today and perhaps chicago tomorrow, new orleans and a lot of other hotspots appear were seeing the larger metropolitan areas still a concern but now were seeing small areas that become hotspots because we have outbreaks in the Agricultural Industry or another industry so we need to make sure were surging resources there as well. Really proud of what fema is doing along all efforts of the supply chain. We also are working fema is what you close with the army corps of engineers which has number of folks to point in support. They are building up hospital beds throughout a variety of different communities. Fema is handing out Mission Essential or Mission Assignments to the army corps of engineers who as to what they help build the javits and as well as a few others, major metropolitan areas. Doing assessments across the country to look at what else these individuals, communities need and dont need. A lot of other supply chains sorry, a lot of other task forces are being worked everyday from ventilators across the board. A lot to talk about there. Let me stop there on fema. A lot more i could talk about. Let me transition over to what cdp as well as some of our other Border Security Border Control equities are doing. Were under and all travelers in the u. S. Are still under level iii travel warning travel advisory so that means any individual, into the u. S. Today is getting a medical check. Being asked to suave quarantine for 14 days. We will continue those to keep those measures in place as we continue to face in opening the u. S. I think those are critically important. We have another 30 countries still under travel restrictions thats china, iran and mainly europe. We also have travel restrictions with mexico and canada over our land ports, land ports of entry regarding essential and nonessential travel and those of an working very well. We see nonessential travel drop anywhere from 6070 will keep the legitimate trade travel and cargo operating. We have been very successful with that and hats go off, thanks goes to cbp for the efforts we also doing very strong measures at both the southwest border and northern border making sure we dont introduce folks who are trying to come here illegally into our facilities, whether their Border Patrol facilities or ice facilities knowing those are made, not wellkept to treat individuals regarding covid19. So a lot of what were doing on border, or security control. A shift to a third bucket which is our Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency theyre doing a lot of good work on our Critical Infrastructure workers, guidance. This is a list of about 16 different sectors that people together along with private industry providing that guidance to governors. As governors make decisions on their pandemic plant and a shell to place orders that have guideline, they have guidance to save these industries, these workers are critical to the supply chain, critical to the economy of the u. S. We need to make sure they continue to go to work and have access to do that. We are on i think version 3. 0. Its working very well. We seem 34 different governors either reference or link directly to that guidance as they put their plans out in place. Also look at the sight effects of covid19. Look at the very malicious activity that they see on a variety of different fronts. They parted with uk putting at joint alerts for this malicious cyber activity, and well continue to look at that. We do see a bit of an increase of that but they are on under leadership of director krebs as well. So very happy about what theyre doing there. Ill talk about it perhaps later about what theyre doing with telework. Everyone is working remotely these days making sure the networks, the systems are able to continue to keep pace with the bandwidth thats needed, but also any nefarious, malicious cyber activity that goes along with that teleworking. They are looking at it from that perspective as well. Theres lot of what the department is doing. We have a lot of other efforts going on from some research and Development Using the virus on the effects of sunlight of both service as well as aerosol environments. We have our immigrations and Customs Enforcement actually bring hope americans from central and south america on air flights. Theres a lot of what the department is doing sort of behind the scenes. A lot of what you hear about now is testing, which we are over 5 million tests that have been completed the focus needs to again remained remain on testin on ppe, making sure we get it to splice out there. A lot of what we do in the background is making sure we continue to keep the supply chain open. We continue to keep those not only the ppe flowing, but also the everyday goods and services that everyone in the u. S. Uses. We are involved in keeping the Agricultural Industry open, making sure we have pieces in place of those workers. I could go on and on, a little rambling that a lot of this to say the department is doing a lot regarding covid19. Let me perhaps turned back over to frank and we can get come dive into a bit more issues. Awesome. Thank you, secretary wolf. That was a phenomenal overview of the vast missions based at the department of Homeland Security is engaged in. The breadth and depth is incredible, and to echo general burgess thoughts, thank you for leaving the women and men who are working day in and day out. Not only responding to covid but the Department Homeland to get has to be open 24 7, regardless of what crisis were facing right now, so thank you for that. And before i jump in to a couple specific questions, i want to remind our viewers, whether youre watching on you tube or facebook or twitter, please questions, put in the comments section. We had someone tracking some of those and what i do get some of these questions as well. Secretary wolf, wanted to jump on one of the point you make. You talked about the supply chain issues and i thought that their efforts that you are taking our immense here i want to look to some of these Economic Security issues, and covid did expose both the shortterm and longterm challenges in this particular space. I would be curious how dhs is realigning and adjusting to meet this challenge. If im not mistaken you recently stood up a new office, and they dont mean thats a leading question but im helping an effort with you on defining some of the Mission Space there. Can you talk about some of the shortterm and also some of the longterm priorities around Economic Security . I think the department plays a Critical Role here, and i would be curious what your thinking is here. Thanks, frank. I have talked about this for the past several months, that Economic Security is Homeland Security. And we do mean that. The department has been involved in Economic Security for some time. I dont think we been very articulate about how we talk about that, how we address that. We usually stick to maybe all Traditional Missions of counterterrorism, whether its tsa, or others but really a lot of what we do is, in fact, Economic Security come when you look at cbp looking at trade, look it imports, exports in the work theyre doing there, tsa, how we keep travelers moving in the air environment. Whether you look at coast guard. 90 of all consumer goods we use in the country come into force and waterways and making to the coast guard continues to keep that legitimate trade and travel flowing is absolutely critical. What weve seen here really highlighted by covid19 is really the supply chain and now its under an immense amou