STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER S.
BOND
EPW Hearing with Director Tom Ridge
Wednesday,
Thank you, Director Ridge,
for joining us today before the Environment and Public Works Committee. I have
known you for many years and I do not envy the position you are in now.
But we, and the Nation, are
greatly indebted to your service to get America back on its feet after the
terrible tragedy of September 11 th. We know that you will do your best to
protect us from ever experiencing such a horror again.
The President's leadership
on September 11th and since has reassured the nation that we are doing
everything possible to protect our health and safety.
The President's bold
action, and now your responsibility, continues with the most far-reaching
reorganization of the federal government in 50 years. The new Department of
Homeland Security will eliminate barriers between the government's critical
intelligence and security functions. We will better protect our borders and our
communities. The President deserves the support of Congress.
I hope we will not be
slowed by politically-motivated second-guessing by his opponents. We need to
protect people, not turf.
That turf includes both
this committee and the VA, HUD appropriations subcommittee. VA, HUD, like EPW,
includes both EPA and FEMA in its jurisdiction.
I can assure you, as
someone who might otherwise be fighting to protect their turf, that I am fully
supportive of the President's plans to move all of FEMA to the new department.
With the creation of the
new Department of Homeland Security, I also support the President's plan to
transfer DOJ's Office of Domestic Preparedness and the FBI's National Domestic
Preparedness Office to the new department.
Hopefully, you will soon
have additional tools to accomplish your mission. The First Responders
legislation voted out by this Committee last month includes language based upon
my Urban Search and Rescue bill. The legislation provides $3.5 billion for
first responders including $160 million for urban search and rescue task
forces.
Emergency workers are the
21 st century equivalent of the Minute Men. For too many years, the federal
government has given our local first responders a dime for every dollar they
need to be ready to respond to terrorist strikes. This legislation will fix
that chronic lack of funding.
Our public health and
hospital networks also need our support to respond to increased threats. Last
year, 2,300 Missourians died from infectious diseases, almost the same number
as the World Trade Center tragedy.
Infectious diseases of the
future may be the result of bioterrorism attempts. I will continue to fight to
get you additional funds for antibioterrorism activities, including much
needed funds to upgrade state and local public health and hospital
infrastructure.
Getting back to the
environment committee, we are also greatly concerned about protecting our
drinking water from intentional acts of terrorism. I appreciated you joining
the President and EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman last month on a visit
to our water treatment plant in Kansas City. You know that every family in
America depends upon clean and safe water. We depend upon water to fill our
fire engines and put out our fires. Every
business depends upon water for its employees and many for their operations.
We must make sure that the
infrastructure we use to collect water, make it safe to drink and use, and send
out to every home and business is protected from an intentional attack.
Likewise, we depend upon
chemicals, like chlorine, to clean our water and make it safe to drink. We
depend upon chemicals, like anhydrous ammonia, to make fertilizer to provide
plentiful agricultural products to the nation and the world.
However, the government
makes public information which terrorists can use to target vulnerable chemical
facilities for attack. I have a bill, the Community Protection from Chemical
Terrorism Act, that will protect communities surrounding chemical facilities.
I would be curious to hear
your comments on how the new department will protect communities from the
misuse of sensitive information from all our critical infrastructures.
We also have a commercial
nuclear power plant in central Missouri, not more than 25 miles from where I
live in Mexico, Missouri. These plants are probably the most heavily regulated,
best defended, and most robust facilities in our nation's industrial
infrastructure. We will explore ways to make them even more secure.
Part of that review will
also include an evaluation of emergency response and evacuation requirements
communities surrounding nuclear facilities. So, we will be interested in your
views on that subject as well.
In this time of war, the
President and his national security team deserve our full support. As part of
the war on terrorism, I believe that you deserve our full support as well. I
hope that our relationship in launching this new department will be a
partnership. Congress will have many concerns over the makeup of the new
department.
My sole concern will be
what will it take to keep Missouri, and the nation's, families and business
safe from harm and help them to recover from disasters. I hope my colleagues
will do the same.
Thank you.