S. HRG. 107–891 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003 HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H.R. 5521/S. 2809 AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND OTHER ACTIVITIES CHARGEABLE IN WHOLE OR IN PART AGAINST THE REVENUES OF SAID DISTRICT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2003, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES District of Columbia Putting Families First: The Road to Reform of the D.C. Family Court Regional Emergency Planning for the Nation’s Capital Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 78–468 PDF WASHINGTON : 2003 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia, Chairman DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania TOM HARKIN, Iowa PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri HARRY REID, Nevada MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CONRAD BURNS, Montana PATTY MURRAY, Washington RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota LARRY CRAIG, Idaho MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas JACK REED, Rhode Island MIKE DEWINE, Ohio TERRENCE E. SAUVAIN, Staff Director CHARLES KIEFFER, Deputy Staff Director STEVEN J. CORTESE, Minority Staff Director LISA SUTHERLAND, Minority Deputy Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana, Chairman RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois MIKE DEWINE, Ohio JACK REED, Rhode Island KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia (ex officio) TED STEVENS, Alaska, (ex officio) Professional Staff CHARLES KIEFFER KATE ELTRICH MARY DIETRICH (Minority) (II) CONTENTS Page THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2002 Regional Emergency Planning for the Nation’s Capital ....................................... 1 THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2002 District of Columbia: Court ..................................................................................... 53 TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2002 District of Columbia: Education ............................................................................. 101 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2002 Putting Families First: The Road to Reform of the D.C. Family Court .............. 153 TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2002 District of Columbia ................................................................................................ 237 (III) DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003 THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2002 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, at 2:39 p.m., in room SD–192, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mary L. Landrieu (chairman) pre- siding. Present: Senator Landrieu. REGIONAL EMERGENCY PLANNING FOR THE NATION’S CAPITAL STATEMENT OF MARGRET NEDELKOFF KELLEMS, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR PUBLIC SAFETY AND JUSTICE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ACCOMPANIED BY: PETER G. LaPORTE, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERV- ICES AGENCY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA RICHARD A. WHITE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY MICHAEL ROGERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, METROPOLITAN WASH- INGTON COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS DONALD KELDSEN, ACTING DIRECTOR, MARYLAND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY MICHAEL CLINE, COORDINATOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT FOR VIRGINIA JAMES SCHWARTZ, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, ARLING- TON, VIRGINIA FIRE DEPARTMENT OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARY L. LANDRIEU Senator LANDRIEU. Let me begin by reminding our witnesses and everyone attending that the meeting is not only being covered in our usual ways, but Senator Byrd has—and we have agreed, to have this meeting covered on the Internet. So this is going to be live. And it is not the first time, but it is a new policy that we have adopted. So I just wanted to let you know that we are wired for sound. Welcome to the District of Columbia Subcommittee Hearing on Emergency Preparedness. At our last meeting last year both the ranking member, Senator DeWine, and I had committed to having as one of our first meetings this year an update of the Districts’ emergency management plan. We are all very familiar, too familiar, with what happened on September 11. And we are aware that it is our responsibility to do (1) 2 everything in our power to make sure that if there is another such attack, we hope that there won’t be, but we prepare as if there will be, that we would be ready, first of all, if we can, to prevent the attack. But if we fail at detecting and preventing an attack, then we must deal with the consequences of it as effectively and as pro- fessionally and as carefully and as thoroughly as we can. And none of us can do that alone. Therefore, the purpose of this meeting is to see how the District of Columbia, which is a rich tar- get, and surrounding areas, which are rich targets, emergency op- erations plans are coming along to work together in that way. Coordination between jurisdictions is essential. I hear this from many of my colleagues, from Senator Mikulski, from Senator Sar- banes, from Senator Warner, from Senator Allen, as well as from Mayor Williams, representatives of the District and Congress- woman Eleanor Holmes Norton about this issue. I have four specific goals and I’m going to submit my longer statement for the record. But I hope that our committee can help, with other committees of jurisdiction, to help create a seamless emergency response plan for the region; to establish rigorous train- ing under the plan for regional first responders; that the plan, once implemented and signed off on, must be communicated to the pub- lic in a way that they understand their role; that we just don’t un- derstand our roles, but the residents and the workers and the peo- ple who live in this region understand the plan and can respond appropriately should something happen. And the end result of all of this, I hope we have the highest level of security, but that we keep the welcome sign out in the District of Columbia and in the region that we are so proud of. So those are my four goals. After I hear some additional testi- mony I may add some additional goals, but just to get us started, I thought I would throw those goals out. Let me remind everyone here that this subcommittee appro- priated over $200 million, $175 million to the District of Columbia, $39 million to Metro, and $5 million to the Council of Govern- ments, and tasked those entities with coming up with a response plan and coordinating it with regional representatives. I look for- ward to hearing from the witnesses as to how this $175, $39 and $5 million has either been partially spent or is planning to be spent. We also have representatives from Maryland and Virginia, who we hope will comment about how the District’s particular ef- forts are either complementing or meshing or not, or conflicting, whatever the case might be, with the States plans. I am going to submit, without objection, a longer statement for the record, and also submit this fact sheet that was part of an as- sessment recently done by CNN when assessing resources for the District of Columbia. Washington was ranked seventh overall among the Nation’s 30 largest cities in a study of resources and training focused on dis- aster preparedness. In addition, D.C. was ranked second in the cat- egory of medical response resources, with 328.7 physicians per 10,000 people. It ranked second for Federal emergency prepared- ness grants, 19,613 per 10,000 residents. It ranked first for the ratio of police officers to the population, 63.4 officers per 10,000 residents, but it ranked 27th out of 30 of the Nation’s largest cities 3 for the efficiency of its transportation system in the event of emer- gency. I am sure Metro may want to comment. My question when I was shown this is that resources do not necessarily translate into readi- ness. You can throw a lot of resources at something, but if you do not have a good plan and those resources were not either invested or spent wisely, you could be no more ready except to have $100 million. So while I am happy to see that we are ranking in the top in terms of resources, I would be very happy when I am convinced, not to say that I am skeptical at this point, but I think the record is just open about, that we are turning our resources into readiness and into security. And that is the point of this hearing; in addition, we must determine if we are planning in a regional way that will result in a seamless regional emergency plan so our residents and our workers and our Nation can be confident that we are doing the very best we can. I would like to include in the record my full pre- pared statement and the statement of the ranking member, Sen- ator DeWine. PREPARED STATEMENTS So with that, let me just introduce our witnesses. We have Mrs. Margret Kellems, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, who’s taken a leadership role here; Mr. Peter LaPorte, Director of the Emergency Management Service Agency. We have Metro rep- resented by Mr. Richard White; we have our Council of Govern- ments represented by Mr. Michael Rogers; and we have Maryland and Virginia represented by the acting director of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Donald Keldsen, and Virginia represented by Mr. Michael Cline, the coordinator of Emergency Management for Virginia, and Mr.