TESTIMONY OF
DANIEL DUFF
VICE PRESIDENT - GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION
BEFORE THE
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
ON
THE 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS
(Download
in Adobe PDF format)
*******
August 3, 2004
SUBMITTED BY
American Public Transportation Association
1666 K Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: (202) 496-4800
Fax: (202) 496-4324
APTA is a nonprofit international association of over
1,500 public and private member organizations including transit systems and
commuter rail operators; planning, design, construction and finance firms;
product and service providers; academic institutions; transit associations
and state departments of transportation. APTA members serve the public interest
by providing safe, efficient and economical transit services and products.
Over ninety percent of persons using public transportation in the United States
and Canada are served by APTA members.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to testify on
the security information and other security related needs of the public transportation
industry. We commend the House Committee on Government Reform for holding
this hearing today on the 9/11 Commission Report and Recommendations.
ABOUT APTA
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is a nonprofit international
association of over 1,500 public and private member organizations including
transit systems and commuter rail operators; planning, design, construction,
and finance firms; product and service providers; academic institutions; transit
associations and state departments of transportation. APTA members serve the
public interest by providing safe, efficient, and economical transit services
and products. Over ninety percent of persons using public transportation in
the United States and Canada are served by APTA member systems.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SECURITY
Mr. Chairman, America's public transportation services are by design and necessity
an open environment. Over 9 billion transit trips are taken annually on all
modes of transit service. People use public transportation vehicles over 32
million times each weekday. This is more than sixteen times the number of
daily travelers aboard the nation's domestic airlines and over 450 times the
number used by Amtrak intercity services. The vast numbers of Americans using
public transportation each and every day create ongoing challenges for enhancing
security within our transit environments.
In addition, transit employees are on the front line in our nation's effort
against terrorism. Public transit is, in fact, a first responder. They are
the first responder evacuation teams who will assist in getting the public
out of critical incident areas and our cities in the event of a terrorist
attack. This was evident on September 11, 2001, when public transportation
in New York City, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. helped safely evacuate citizens
from center cities. Indeed, this same story was true around the country as
transit systems quickly and efficiently evacuated people from closed airports
and downtown areas. We remember that the interstate highway program was begun
by President Eisenhower as a national defense interstate highway program.
It is clear now that public transportation, too, has a significant national
defense component and is a fundamental element in responding to community
disasters and emergencies.
In that connection, APTA is honored to play a critical role in transportation
security and works closely with a number of federal agencies in this regard,
notably the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Railroad
Administration (FRA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA), the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP),
and the Directorate of Information Analysis & Infrastructure Protection
of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. At the program level, APTA works
closely with the FTA and FRA to administer an industry audit program that
oversees a system safety and security management plan for transit systems
around the country. Our safety audit program for commuter rail, bus, and rail
transit operations has been in place for many years and includes elements
specific to security planning and emergency preparedness. In connection with
Presidential Decision Directive Number 63, we are pleased to have been designated
a Public Transportation Sector Coordinator by the Department of Transportation,
and we have established a Transit Information Sharing Analysis Center (ISAC)
that provides a secure two-way reporting and analysis structure for the transmission
of critical alerts and advisories to transit agencies around the country.
Since the events of 9/11, state and local public transit agencies, like all
state and local entities, have spent significant sums on police overtime,
enhanced planning and training exercises, and capital improvements related
to security. In response to a 2004 APTA survey, transit agencies around the
country have identified in excess of $6 billion in transit security needs.
These include both immediate capital investments and recurring operating expenses
related to security.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Chairman, prior to and following September 11, 2001-the date of the
most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history-APTA has played a key role
in addressing the safety and security issues of our country. American public
transportation agencies have also taken significant measures to enhance their
security and emergency preparedness efforts to adjust to society's new state
of concern. Although agencies had a wide range of security initiatives in
place at the time of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and already
had developed emergency response plans, the September 11 incidents focused,
strengthened and prioritized security efforts throughout the industry.
Transit agencies have had a solid safety record and have been working for
many years to enhance their system security and employee security training,
partly responding to government standards, APTA guidelines, and by learning
through the attacks on transit agencies abroad. For example, the 1995 saran
gas attack in the Tokyo subway system caused U.S. transit properties managing
tunnels and underground transit stations to go on high alert. The San Francisco
Bay Area Rapid Transit District, for instance, responded to the possible threat
of chemical weapons attacks by sending a police team to Fort McClellan, Alabama,
to learn response tactics from U.S. Army chemical weapons experts.
In the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, transit agencies
of all sizes worked to identify where they might be vulnerable to attacks
and increased their security expenses for both operations and capital costs.
The agencies subsequently upgraded and strengthened their emergency response
and security plans and procedures, taking steps to protect transit infrastructure
and patrons and increase transit security presence while giving riders a sense
of security.
- Some initiatives around the country include:
- Increased surveillance via closed circuit TV.
- Increased training for employees.
- Hired more police, K-9 units added.
- Chemical detection systems being tested.
- Infrastructure design to eliminate hiding places.
- Drills are routinely held with first responders.
- Encouraging riders to be vigilant for suspicious activities or items.
After September 11, many transit organizations worked to prevent unauthorized
entry into transit facilities. The need for employees and passengers to stay
alert and report suspicious occurrences became a key goal of many agencies.
All transit system buses and trains are equipped with two-way radio communication
systems that are connected to their respective operations control centers.
Many transit systems have been in the costly process of upgrading these systems
to ensure their reliability. While many transit agencies are more secure than
prior to September 11, more needs to be done.
Since the attacks, APTA and the FTA have emphasized the need for effective
transit security and emergency preparedness. FTA has sent security resource
toolkits to transit agencies; completed security-vulnerability assessments
of the nation's largest transit systems; and provided technical support and
grants of up to $50,000 to fund agency emergency drills.
FTA continues to provide emergency preparedness and security forums nationwide.
In emphasizing the importance of enhancing transit security, FTA Administrator
Jennifer L. Dorn noted that thousands of lives were spared on September 11
in New York City and Washington "because of the quick action of first
responders and transit workers."
APTA has launched many additional efforts to further transit industry security
and preparedness, collaborating with FTA in developing emergency preparedness
forums, and sponsoring and organizing security-related conferences and workshops.
Moreover, APTA developed a list of critical safety and security needs faced
by the transit industry, which it has provided to the Department of Transportation
and the U.S. Congress. Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to submit this and
other data discussed in my testimony for the record.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION SHARING ANALYSIS CENTER (ISAC)
Presidential Decision Directive Number 63 authorized and encouraged national
critical infrastructures to develop and maintain ISACs as a means of strengthening
security and protection against cyber and operations attacks. Public transportation
is recognized by the federal government to be one our nation's critical infrastructures.
APTA is pleased to have been designated the Public Transportation Sector Coordinator
by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and in that capacity, in January
2003, APTA received a $1.2 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration
to establish and fund a transit ISAC for its initial two years of operation.
As the designated Sector Coordinator, APTA serves as the primary contact to
organize and bring the public transportation community together to work cooperatively
on physical and cyber security issues. Upon receipt of that grant, APTA formalized
an agreement with a private company to implement the ISAC and make it available
to public transit systems around the country. Unlike many other ISACs that
have been established for private industry, the Public Transit ISAC has been
created for a public domain.
This ISAC for public transit provides - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -
a secure two-way reporting and analysis structure for the transmission of
critical alerts and advisories as well as the collection, analysis and dissemination
of security information from transit agencies. It collects, analyzes and distributes
critical cyber and physical security information from government and numerous
other sources. These sources include law enforcement, government operations
centers, the intelligence community, the U.S. military, academia, the International
Computer Emergency Response Community and others. Best security practices
and plans to eliminate threats, attacks, vulnerabilities and countermeasures
are drawn upon to protect the sector's cyber and physical infrastructures.
The Public Transit ISAC also provides a critical linkage between the transit
industry, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security
Administration, and the Department of Transportation as well as other sources
of security intelligence. In addition, the Public Transit ISAC is connected
to the other Sector ISACs as formalized through an agreement with the ISACs
Council.
Transit systems are public agencies and rely upon federal, state and local
funding. Consequently, the Public Transit ISAC is available without cost to
all transit systems. There are currently over 130 transit systems participating
in the Public Transit ISAC and these numbers continue to grow. Funding for
this ISAC will, however, end by February 2005. We agree with the recent GAO
report on ISACs where it identified as a challenge requiring further federal
action the funding of ISAC operations and activities. Consequently, as the
Department of Homeland Security has been made the federal agency responsible
for security, including public transportation security, a request for funding
to continue the Public Transit ISAC was submitted to the Department of Homeland
Security's Directorate of Information Analysis & Infrastructure Protection
in January of this year and we currently await their support to this request.
Failure to fund this project on an ongoing basis would mean that public transit
systems would be without the very resource that the federal government has
encouraged for our nation's critical infrastructures.
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: TRANSPORTATION SECURITY
As The 9/11 Commission Report notes in its section on Transportation Security,
"[a]bout 6,000 agencies provide transit services through buses, subways,
ferries, and light-rail service to about 14 million Americans each weekday."
And: "[s]urface transportation systems such as railroads and mass transit
remain hard to protect because they are so accessible and extensive."
The Report further notes that current federal security efforts do not reflect
a forward-looking strategic plan systematically analyzing assets and risks,
and recommends that the U.S. government identify and evaluate the transportation
assets that need to be protected, set risk-based priorities for defending
them, select the most practical and cost-effective ways of doing so, and then
develop a plan, budget, and funding to implement the effort.
We urge that this be done, and are pleased to offer any support we can provide
to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation
in this effort. APTA works closely with a number of federal agencies in this
regard, notably the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Railroad
Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Transportation
Security Administration, the Office of Domestic Preparedness, and the Directorate
of Information Analysis & Infrastructure Protection of the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security.
Our nation's transit systems have a direct and cooperative working relationship
with DOT's Federal Transit Administration which allocates federal capital
investment quickly to the local level, and we believe this is an excellent
model that we would like to see developed over time with the DHS. In that
regard, we think it would be very useful for DHS and DOT to develop a Memorandum
of Understanding to specify the responsibilities of each agency with respect
to public transportation security. DHS clearly is the lead in that regard,
but DOT has years of experience in working with local public transportation
entities, and DHS should utilize that experience.
OTHER ONGOING TRANSIT SECURITY PROGRAMS
Mr. Chairman, while transit agencies have moved to a heightened level of
security alertness, the leadership of APTA has been actively working with
its strategic partners to develop a practical plan to address our industry's
security and emergency preparedness needs. Shortly after the September 11
events, the APTA Executive Committee established a Security Task Force under
the leadership of Washington Metro's CEO, Richard A. White. The APTA Security
Task Force has established a security strategic plan that prioritizes direction
for our initiatives. Among those initiatives, the Task Force identified the
critical need of public transit systems to be able to access and receive security
information. That identification led to our actions to develop the Public
Transit ISAC.
The APTA Security Task Force also serves as the steering group for determining
security projects that are being implemented through over $2 million in Transit
Cooperative Research Project funding through the Transportation Research Board.
Through this funding, APTA held four transit security workshop forums for
the larger transit systems with potentially greater risk exposure. These workshops
provided confidential settings to enable sharing of security practices and
applying methodologies to various scenarios. The outcomes from these workshops
were made available in a controlled and confidential format to other transit
agencies unable to attend the workshops. The workshops were held in New York,
San Francisco, Atlanta, and Chicago.
In partnerships with the Transportation Research Board, the APTA Security
Task Force has also established two TCRP Panels that identified and initiated
specific projects developed to address Preparedness/Detection/Response to
Incidents and Prevention and Mitigation. The Security Task Force emphasized
the importance for the research projects to be operationally practical.
In addition to the TCRP funded efforts, a generic Checklist for Transit
Agency Review for Emergency Response Planning and System Review has been developed
by APTA as a resource tool and is available on the APTA website. Also through
the direction of the Security Task Force, APTA has reached out to other organizations
and international transportation associations to formally engage in sharing
information on our respective security programs and directions and to continually
work towards raising the bar of safety and security effectiveness.
Within this concept of partnership and outreach, APTA also continues in
its ongoing collaboration with the Federal Transit Administration to help
in guiding and developing FTA programs. Among these are regional Emergency
Preparedness and Security Planning Workshops that are currently being delivered
through the Volpe Center and have been provided in numerous regions throughout
the U.S. The primary focus of such workshops has been to assist particularly
smaller transit systems in building effective emergency response plans with
first responders and their regional offices of emergency management. Also
within this partnership, APTA has assisted the FTA and the National Transit
Institute in the design of a new program "Security Awareness Training
for Frontline Employees and Supervisors." This program is now being provided
by NTI to transit agencies throughout the nation.
Collaborative efforts between APTA, FTA, Volpe Center, and the National
Transit Institute are also underway to establish a joint website that will
specifically gather and disseminate effective transit practices with initial
emphasis on safety and security.
SECURITY INVESTMENT NEEDS
Mr. Chairman, since the awful events of 9/11, the transit industry has invested
over $2 billion of its own revenues in enhanced security measures building
on the industry's considerable efforts already in place. At the same time,
our industry undertook a comprehensive review to determine how we could build
upon our existing industry security practices. This included a range of activities,
some of which I discussed earlier in my testimony, including research, best
practices, education, information sharing in the industry, surveys and the
like. As a result of those efforts we are now at a phase where we know what
we can most effectively do in terms of creating a more secure environment
for our riders and have accordingly identified critical security investment
needs. Without question, the on-going access, availability, and sharing of
security information through the ISAC remains a critical need.
Our latest survey of public transportation security identified needs of
at least $5.2 billion in additional capital funding to maintain, modernize,
and expand transit system security functions to meet increased security demands.
Over $800 million in increased operating costs for security personnel, training,
technical support, and research and development have been identified, bringing
total additional transit security funding needs to more than $6 billion.
- Responding transit agencies were asked to prioritize the uses for which
they required additional federal investment for security needs. Priority
examples of operational needs include:
- Funding current and additional transit agency and local law enforcement
personnel.
- Funding for over-time costs and extra security personnel during heightened
alert levels.
- Training for security personnel.
- Joint transit/law enforcement training.
- Security planning activities.
- Security training for other transit personnel.
Priority examples of security capital investment needs include:
- Radio communications systems.
- Security cameras on-board transit vehicles and in transit stations.
- Controlling access to transit facilities and secure areas.
- Automated vehicle locator systems.
- Security fencing around facilities.
Transit agencies with large rail operations also reported a priority need
for federal capital funding for intrusion detection devices. To this extent,
we are seeking $2 billion in funding for transit security in the FY 2005 Homeland
Security Appropriations bill. Within the $2 billion in funding, we are seeking
$1.2 billion for capital investments, and an immediate $800 million in operational
expenses.
To date the DHS has allocated some $115 million for public transportation
security through its Office of Domestic Preparedness, and we appreciate this
support from the Department. We trust that we can now begin to build on those
initial investments and address the $6 billion in critical needs the transit
industry has identified. The Administration's FY 2005 budget, however, does
not specifically call for investment in public transportation security. We
think it should. Currently ODP grants for transit systems are made available
through the states, which means that our transit systems do not have a direct
relationship with DHS, and which also means that the process of getting the
funds to the local transit systems can be lengthy.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, in light of our nation's heightened security concerns post
9/11, we believe that increased federal investment in public transportation
security by DHS is critical. The public transportation industry has made great
strides in transit security improvements since 9/11 but much more needs to
be done. Public transportation clearly requires security funding support through
the federal government and the funding support to sustain the Public Transit
ISAC. We look forward to building on our cooperative working relationship
with the Department of Homeland Security and Congress to begin to address
these needs. We also look forward to a Memorandum of Understanding being finalized
between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation
to delineate security responsibilities between these two federal agencies
on the issue of public transportation security. We again thank you and the
Committee for allowing us to testify today and your commitment to addressing
the security information needs of our nation's critical infrastructures.
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