A Look Ahead: House Committee on Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, announced the following Committee events:
Tuesday, September 11
Subcommittee Hearing: Eleven Years Later: Preventing Terrorists from Coming to America
10 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11 in 311 Cannon House Office Building
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security
Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), Chairman
Invited Witnesses Include:
Ms. Kelli Ann Walther
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Office of Policy
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Kevin McAleenan
Acting Assistant Commissioner
Office of Field Operations
Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. John Woods
Assistant Director
National Security Investigations
Homeland Security Investigations
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Charles K. Edwards
Acting Inspector General
Office of Inspector General
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Edward Ramotowski
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Consular Affairs
U.S. Department of State
Chairman Miller on the hearing: “Curtailing the ability of terrorists to travel to the United States can be one of the most effective counterterrorism tools. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the 9/11 hijackers passed through U.S. border security 68 times, highlighting the need to strengthen border security and visa issuance policy. The relative ease with which past-terrorists evaded detection by presenting fraudulent documents and passports, and the failure to add known al-Qaeda operatives to terror watch lists became missed opportunities to stop the attacks.
“As the 9/11 Commission Report noted, ‘For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons.’ Building on the lessons learned, we have strengthened our outer ring of border security to conduct more rigorous checks overseas, collect biometric data, and continuously check visa holders against the terror watch lists. Although progress has been made, the 2009 Christmas Day Bomb plot exposed additional weaknesses in our efforts to prevent terrorists from obtaining a visa, or board a plane headed for the U.S. Our hearing will examine the progress made since then to strengthen this outer layer of border security.”
Tuesday, September 11
Subcommittee Hearing: Eleven Years After 9/11 Can TSA Evolve To Meet the Next Terrorist Threat?
2 p.m. on Tuesday, September 11 in 311 Cannon House Office Building
Subcommittee on Transportation Security
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman
Invited Witnesses Include:
Panel I
Mr. Geoff Freeman
Chief Operating Officer
U.S. Travel Association
Dr. James Jay Carafano, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies
Director
Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies
The Heritage Foundation
Mr. Sam Gilliland
Chief Executive Officer
Sabre Holdings
Panel II
Mr. John Halinski
Deputy Administrator
Transportation Security Administration
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Stephen Lord
Director
Homeland Security and Justice Issues
Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Chairman Rogers on the hearing: "This hearing will help lay the groundwork for reforming TSA into a smarter, leaner organization. Since TSA's creation after the devastating terrorist attacks of 9/11, TSA has gone down a troubling path of overspending, limiting private sector engagement, and disregarding passenger privacy. At the hearing, our Members will shine a bright light on TSA and identify opportunities for meaningful change."
Wednesday, September 12
Subcommittee Hearing: The EMP Threat: Examining the Consequences
10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 12 in 311 Cannon House Office Building
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), Chairman
Invited Witnesses Include:
Panel I
Hon. Trent Franks
A Representative in Congress from the 2nd District of Arizona
Panel II
Mr. Joseph McClelland
Director
Office of Electric Reliability
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Mr. Brandon Wales
Director
Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Chris Beck
President
Electric Infrastructure Security Council
Chairman Lungren on the hearing: “The Washington D.C. area was recently impacted by a deadly fast moving storm called a derecho, which was one of the most destructive and deadly thunderstorm systems in North American history. It resulted in 22 deaths, widespread damage and millions of power outages from the Midwest to the Middle Atlantic States. This derecho provides a glimpse of the destruction that could be unleashed by an electromagnetic pulse attack where our digitally-dependent economy and military would be severely degraded. As America’s digital dependence grows, our vulnerability increases to the EMP threat. Our hearing will examine the consequences of an EMP attack and whether we’re adequately protecting our critical infrastructure from this growing vulnerability.”
Wednesday, September 12
Subcommittee Hearing: Resilient Communications: Current Challenges and Future Advancements
2 p.m. on Wednesday, September 12 in 311 Cannon House Office Building
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Chairman
Invited Witnesses Include:
Panel I
Ms. Bobbie Stempfley
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Office of Cybersecurity and Communications
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. David Turetsky
Chief
Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau
Federal Communications Commission
Panel II
Mr. Brian Fontes
Chief Executive Officer
National Emergency Number Association
Mr. Kyle Malady
Senior Vice President
Verizon
Mr. Terry Hall
President
APCO International
Chairman Bilirakis on the hearing: "We learned many important lessons about the need for resilient communications from the September 11th terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. While great progress has been made since those disasters, the 9-1-1 outages in the National Capital Region after the recent derecho highlight significant challenges that remain. This hearing will provide Subcommittee Members an opportunity to examine efforts to enhance the resiliency of our communications capabilities, including the implementation of Executive Order 13618, the allocation of the D Block to public safety, and efforts to implement next generation 9-1-1."
Thursday, September 13
2 p.m. on Thursday, September 13 in 311 Cannon House Office Building
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Chairman
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), Chairman
Invited Witnesses Include:
Dr. Alexander Garza
Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs
Chief Medical Officer
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Hon. Raphael Borras
Under Secretary for Management
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. William Jenkins
Director
Homeland Security and Justice Issues
Government Accountability Office
Chairman Bilirakis on the hearing: "The Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies have conducted extensive oversight over BioWatch throughout the 112th Congress. This hearing continues this important oversight of the Department of Homeland Security's biosurveillance capabilities, and will pay particular attention to the capabilities of BioWatch Generation 1/2 and the procurement of the next generation of BioWatch, known as Gen-3. With an estimated life cycle cost of $5.8 billion, the Gen-3 procurement is one of the most costly at the Department of Homeland Security. We must ensure that the development and procurement of the next generation of BioWatch is based on sound science and that we are getting an appropriate return on our investment. This hearing will provide Members of the Subcommittees an opportunity to consider the efficiency and effectiveness of BioWatch, particularly through the lens of analysis prepared by the Government Accountability Office at the request of Chairman Lungren and myself."
Friday, September 14
Subcommittee Hearing: Lessons From Fort Hood: Improving our Ability to Connect the Dots
9 a.m. on Friday, September 14 in 311 Cannon House Office Building
Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairman
Invited Witnesses Include:
Mr. Michael Leiter
Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
Mr. Douglas Winter
Deputy Chair and Editor-in-Chief
The William Webster Commission
Professor Irshad Manji
Director of the Moral Courage Project
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University
Mr. Kshemendra Paul
Program Manager
Information Sharing Environment
Office of Director National Intelligence
Chairman McCaul on the hearing: “Can we improve our ability to connect the dots? The 9/11 attacks, which happened eleven years ago this week, required our government to review how we share intelligence information among relevant agencies and with state and local law enforcement. The 9/11 Commission report stressed the importance of full scope intelligence analysis that draws from all relevant sources of information, and concluded the biggest impediment to all source analysis is a systemic resistance to sharing information. Since 2005, the Government Accountability Office has also designated terrorism-related information sharing as high-risk because challenges exist in analyzing key information and sharing it among security partners. Based on factual reports, it appears, in the case of the Fort Hood shootings, accurately analyzing a threat is still problematic. In this case, accurate information was not shared between the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies, which led to an incomplete picture and a less-than-robust investigation of someone who was, as his peers have referred to him, a ‘ticking time bomb.’ Our hearing will examine the human and systematic elements to get a better understanding of the facts of the Fort Hood case as we now know them - to better understand how these facts that seem so obviously alarming now were missed by seasoned professionals - and to understand how the Intelligence Community as a whole can benefit from the lessons learned from the tragedy at Fort Hood.”
***See www.homeland.house.gov for updates.
***Coverage note: All Committee on Homeland Security proceedings are webcast live at www.homeland.house.gov/live-video-feed
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