Captain SEEBALD. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me and it indeed is a great honor to be here today to tell you a little bit about what we have been doing in this area and especially what my troops have been doing, because I am very proud of them.

If you would have seen our office this morning, you would have seen an office where very few people were there, because the majority of our work is actually preventative in nature. We go out every day people are deployed to our vessels and to water-side facilities to inspect both security and safety areas.

Right now, there is a security patrol going on. Petty Officer Corpus is on board his vessel looking in areas that we have pre-identified as high risk areas, and he is looking around for potential terrorist targets, people that might be observing those facilities and a whole host of activities. But he is also looking for whether the lights are properly watching on the buoys, whether the other boaters are intoxicated, whether our commercial vessels that we also inspect from initial days of inspection, whether they are operating properly and carrying passengers, more than six people and some are up to 900 passengers, whether they are operating properly. So we are a multi-mission service.

We are also a military service and a civil service. Those different avenues and the way we can switch back and forth really suit well with our new role in homeland security, protecting the homeland, because one, we are already quite integrated into the police departments, the fire departments and the other local responders. We are a local responder indeed, along the water side area and in the ports of the United States. But we are also able to surge during emergency operations. So we have a preventative side, but we also have a response side as well.

In Washington, DC, there is a national response system that entertains calls from around the United States for oil, hazardous chemical and potential terrorist attacks and immediately, within minutes, will notify a Federal coordinator if there is a threat to the coastal zone. When I get that call, I dispatch my teams and if I am overwhelmed, I can immediately call on our special forces, which is our strike team forces, and we have three of those strike teams and I am very honored and privileged today to say that joining me is Gail Kulish, who is the Commanding Officer of the Atlantic Strike Team. She is sitting right there in the front row and she will be helping me with some of the more technical questions that might come up later on. But we are very happy with that capability. That capability, that special strike team capability, was employed for the anthrax scare and actual discovery of anthrax. Their teams were used to go into the area and conduct decontamination operations.

So all of these activities actually take place without any Federal Presidential mandate or emergency declaration declared. This is under the National Contingency Plan. Each Captain of a port is empowered and essentially carries a blank check from the President to immediately respond. There are a lot of conditions, to make sure it is all legal and we have a bunch of lawyers that help us make those decisions. But it provides, and we are very empowered

to immediately respond and to act in the event of oil or hazardous chemical and potentially biological impacts as well.

Now what are we doing on the planning and prevention side? I think you would have been very happy to see us as we both initiated and facilitated a meeting of all the local responders about 2 weeks ago, as we begin stepping through what we believe are the most likely scenarios for attack in the Chicagoland area and the region. You would have been very happy to see FEMA, and most people at this table, at that meeting, including the Chicago Fire Department, Police Department, FBI and all the local responders. We are not only facilitating those exercises, but we are training everyone in what we think is the most effective method of approach to these types of incidents and it is called the use of the incident command system.

At the very top of that management system is the unified command system and it is a management group at the top that includes Federal, State and local representatives. So we have, from the Federal entity, Deputy Governor Matt Bettenhausen from the Illinois area; from the city of Chicago, Cortez X. Trotter, who is in the Office of Emergency Planning, and myself. And we all agree on where we should deploy the resources, the amount of those resources, in this whole area. And that alone has created just a very smooth relationship in terms of how we interact at all levels of government.

And then how to use our resources. If you walked on the waterfront, that petty officer that I mentioned earlier, after his 4 hour tour on the boat is finished, he would then pass on what he observed to the Chicago Police Department, who is out there as well in their boats, they are patrolling the same areas. After that gentleman finishes, he then briefs the Illinois Department of Natural Resource boat that is patrolling the exact same area. That is just one operation where we are really working closely with local and other State agencies.

We are also involved with the ATTF and as mentioned earlier, the Chicago Terrorist Task Force and we are very integrated with all those task force organizations.

I think I will close and we will be happy to answer any questions later, both myself and Gail Kulish. Thank you very much.

FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL RESPONSE PREPAREDNESS TO BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL AND NUCLEAR INCIDENT

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
STATEMENT OF

CAPTAIN RAYMOND E SEEBALD

ON

FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL RESPONSE PREPAREDNESS TO BIOLOGICAL,
CHEMICAL AND NUCLEAR INCIDENT
BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL
MANAGEMENT, AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JULY 2, 2002

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. My name is Captain Raymond Seebald and I am the Coast Guard Captain of the Port Chicago. In that role I am responsible for the safety and security of vessels and waterfront facilities in the area of Eastern Lake Michigan including the City of Chicago and approximately 150 miles of the Illinois River. I am also the pre-designated Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) for responding to oil and hazardous materials in the coastal areas of Illinois, Indiana and Western shore of Michigan. With me is Commander Gail Kulisch, Commanding Officer of the Atlantic Strike Team. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss how effectively we in the Chicagoland area are working together to prepare for the threat of a biological, chemical or nuclear attack.

The Coast Guard is the FOSC under the National Contingency Plan (NCP) for chemical or biological incidents in the Coastal Zone. In this role, the Coast Guard is responsible for coordinating all federal, state and local resources (both public and private) to protect public health and safety, and ensure the threat from a release is effectively mitigated. For radiological incidents, the Coast Guard in cooperation with other federal agencies under National Response System, would be utilized to support the state and the Lead Federal Agency. As for incidents involving explosives resulting in the release of hazardous materials Coast Guard response is very similar to a purely hazardous material incident.

Likewise for disasters under the Federal Response Plan, the Coast Guard serves as Regional Chair of Emergency Support Function #10 (Hazardous Materials) for disasters impacting only the Coastal Zone. As Regional Chair, the Coast Guard would coordinate all federal support to the State for the hazmat portion of the disaster response.

The existing National Response System, established by the NCP provides the foundation for our response and through the use of the National Response Team, Regional Response Teams, and NCP's Special Teams, the expertise and availability of national resources to aggressively respond to these events. As the On Scene Coordinator the framework under the NCP has served me well and provided all of the tools necessary to not only restore the environment but also restore confidence in our national capacity to respond effectively

Another important aspect of Coast Guard responses to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) or any other incident is how we manage these disasters. The early adoption by the Coast Guard of the Incident Command System has placed the Coast Guard in a benchmarking role among other federal agencies and we are sharing this experience in local and regional training exercises. The management techniques structured in the Incident Command System allows the OSC to ensure local, state and regional issues are considered before response strategies are deployed. It also ensures the best use of our combined resources. This structure based on its use in past oil and hazardous materials spills and exercises will fit well into a response to potential biological, chemical or nuclear attacks for it allows the expansion of the response and management teams from local to regional and then national if necessary.

Here in the Chicagoland area we have established a Unified Command for considering all response and preparedness issues. This Unified Command is the leadership entity in the Incident Command Structure. Deputy Governor Matt Bettenhausen of the State of Illinois Office of Homeland Security, Mr. Cortez X. Trotter of the City of Chicago's Office of Emergency Preparedness, and I make up the Unified Command for the Chicagoland region. In the event of an actual WMD incident or release, our response community has a plan in place incorporating the deployment of preventative strategies to make us well prepared for working together to ensure a unified and successful response.

In addition, as we look to enhance our overall response capabilities, we have actively been testing our joint response capability through multiple exercises directed primarily at the most likely terrorist scenarios. We have made significant progress in addressing command and control, communication, public notification, news releases, medical care and evacuation issues to name just a few. We are working jointly to improve every aspect of our response capabilities. Because of the Coast Guard's significant responsibilities for responding to an incident in the coastal regions, we recognize the need to be fully integrated with other federal, state and local response agencies.

The Coast Guard's multi-mission assets, military role as an Armed Service, and maritime presence and authorities bridge security, safety, and response capabilities between federal, state, local, and private organizations as well as other military services. We have been the leader for the non-DOD maritime security needs of our nation since 1790...it was the reason we were formed 212 years ago. We possess extensive regulatory and law enforcement authorities governing ships, boats, personnel, and associated activities in our ports, waterways, and offshore maritime regions. We are a military service with 7x24 command, communication, and response capability. We maintain, “at the ready", a network of coastal small boats, aircraft, and cutters, and expert personnel to prevent and respond to safety and security incidents; and we have geographic presence throughout the country, coasts, rivers, and lakes, both in large ports and small harbors. We are a formal member of the national foreign intelligence community. We partner with other

government agencies and the private sector to multiply the effectiveness of our services. The Coast Guard is the recognized leader in the world regarding maritime safety, security, mobility, and environmental protection issues. These characteristics form the core of our organization and enable a unity of effort among diverse entities whether preventing or responding to incidents.