Segment 1 Of 2 Next Hearing Segment(2)
SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS Tables
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DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 1999
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1998.
CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATION BOARD
WITNESSES
PAUL L. HILL, JR., CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
JERRY POJE, BOARD MEMBER
OPENING STATEMENTS
Mr. LEWIS. We will call the meeting to order. Dr. Hill, I have an opening statement, and then we will hear from Mr. Stokes. Both of us probably briefly. And from there if you'll introduce your guests.
Mr. HILL. Certainly.
Mr. LEWIS. Dr. Hill, this is the first hearing on the President's Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Submission for Departments, Agencies, Appropriations and Boards under the jurisdiction of the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Subcommittee.
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Perhaps it is fitting that the first agency at our first hearing this year should be the first United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which is appropriately testifying before the subcommittee for the first time.
The Chemical Safety Board was created by Congress through Section 112 of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Minimal funds were appropriated for beginning the operations of the Board in fiscal year 1995. Those funds were later rescinded.
During portions of fiscal years 1996 and 1997 the administration has attempted to provide certain services meant to be the responsibility of the Board through an interagency agreement between OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency.
In part because of recognition that this EPA–OSHA alternative was not working satisfactorily, the Congress provided $4 million for beginning operations of the Board in fiscal year 1998, Public Law 105–65.
And then for fiscal year 1999, the Board's initial request was for $7 million. However, that request has subsequently been modified upwards to $8,261,000. We hope to discuss this and other matters in some detail in a few minutes.
Before introducing our witnesses formally for the record, I would like to recognize my friend, the former chairman of this Subcommittee, who is thinking seriously about not returning this next Congress. We may work on that.
Mr. Stokes, it is my sincere pleasure to welcome you this morning for the beginning of what I truly hope will be a rewarding and meaningful year for you and me.
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Mr. STOKES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do have just a few comments I would like to make. This hearing formally starts the Subcommittee's efforts to craft the annual VA, HUD, Independent Agencies appropriations bill.
This fiscal year will mark the 24th annual bill that I have worked on in this Subcommittee. Of the 16 terms I will have served in the Congress by the end of this session, 12 of them include service on this Subcommittee.
When I first joined the Subcommittee I sat way down at the end of the table where Mr. Wicker sits now.
Mr. LEWIS. Where?
Mr. STOKES. No. Mr. Frelinghuysen, I guess, is in that spot now. I was further than Mr. Wicker.
But I sometimes used to wonder how long it might take to reach the Chairman's seat, and serving under the able leadership of Eddie Boland of Massachusetts and Bob Traxler of Michigan, it never occurred to me that after attaining the chairman's gavel that I might continue moving down the table on the minority side. [Laughter.]
Mr. LEWIS. Never occurred to me either. [Laughter.]
Mr. STOKES. And it looks like you don't have to worry about it.
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But I can say that there is no one that I enjoyed more giving the gavel to than Chairman Jerry Lewis.
This year will be the 16th year that he and I have served together on the VA, HUD Subcommittee. So we have been through both thick and the thin. We have seen some partisan skirmishes, and bipartisan cooperation. We have seen agencies come and go, budgets rise and fall.
We have seen great legislative victories in the Committee and on the Floor, and we have seen our share of defeats, too. Through it all there have been at least two major themes: constancy and change—change in the agencies, the people, the fascinating and complex issues with which we have had to deal with constantly, and the courtesy, the professionalism, dedication and loyalty to the Committee and the Congress demonstrated by the members of the staff of this Subcommittee.
I look forward to this year's cycle for many reasons. If the economy continues at its present pace, we have the opportunity for a balanced budget for the first time in 30 years.
We have an opportunity to deal with many difficult and exciting issues, all the way from the Aeronautics and Space Administration's International Space Station to the Climate Change Technology Initiative, to adequate funding levels for our nation's veterans, to operations of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
I look forward to working closely with Chairman Lewis, and the other fine members of this Subcommittee this year.
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With that I will take this opportunity to welcome you, this being your first opportunity to appear before our Subcommittee. We want to welcome you and say that we look forward to working with you also.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Stokes.
Before we proceed from here, I would like to mention to those members who are present that in working with our staff we have developed a rather intensive schedule for our hearings between now and roughly the early part of June.
We would hope, pending some possible interruption by other legislative matters, such as appropriations supplementals, et cetera, we would hope to complete our hearing process very early in the year in order to go to mark up some time in June, and perhaps have our work entirely completed on the fiscal year discussions before we recess in mid-summer.
That is an ambitious schedule, and already on the horizon there is some indication of supplementals. But I would hope that we would try to work through regardless of supplementals and continue with our effort.
So with that it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Paul L. Hill, Jr., to the Committee as our first witness. Dr. Hill, if you could introduce our Board members and other guests who you might have brought with you.
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MR. HILL'S OPENING STATEMENT
Mr. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is certainly my pleasure to be here on this auspicious occasion of being the first, and having it be our first opportunity to speak to this Committee directly.
We do appreciate what you have done for us in the past in initiating this agency.
With me today is Dr. Jerry Poje, also one of the Board members. And behind me are several members of my initial, although fledgling staff, as this agency begins.
Again, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Stokes, thank you for the kind words that you have offered this morning. This is certainly an opportunity for us to provide to you some comments on our budget, and I'd like to just give you some of the highlights of what we have been doing in the short period we have been in operation.
Indeed, I think we have a very positive story to tell. I think we have accomplished several things in a very short period of time. I would like to give you some of those highlights, and then ask your guidance on some of the additional issues, and any thoughts that you might have in those areas.
First, as you are well aware, this agency received its first appropriation less than four months ago. On January 5th we opened our doors for business as an agency in temporary offices here in Washington.
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SPARKS, NEVADA EXPLOSION
On Wednesday of that same week we had an explosion in Sparks, Nevada that took the lives of four individuals. By Friday of that week I had seven technical staff on site conducting an investigation of the cause of that tragedy.
Out of this experience we have not only completed the site work investigation in 30 days, but we have also developed insights into fiscal, procedural, technical and logistical matters that will dictate much of the Board's future.
Also out of this effort, working relationships with the State of Nevada, as well as Federal OSHA have been formed and are proceeding.
In addition, we have pursued various statutory and non-statutory relationships with NTSB, EPA, DOE, FEMA and many others. For example, the FEMA agreement to share accident reporting efforts will cost the Board a fraction of the cost that would have had we developed this capability internally.
Also with the collaboration of other agencies, we have developed a first rate communications capacity, including a Web site. And I have copies of our Web site, which becomes operational today.
This will allow public access to this Board, to its findings, and to its day to day functions that we hope to allow greater public access to the Board by all of the parties who are interested in this particular arena to access our functions.
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BUSINESS PLAN
In essence, we have followed the business plan that we submitted to you last fall. That plan described a business philosophy with respect to our budget submission, responsible expenditure of our funds, effective and informative investigations and a flat organizational structure.
Our goal is and will be an efficient, flat structure that builds on existing resources within the Federal system before suggesting that we might need to build additional capacity.
The Congress has challenged us with the statutory authority to seek out opportunities within the government itself, and to make recommendations about how more effective and productive response to chemical accidents and their prevention may be made, encompassing the entire Federal effort.
This is no simple challenge. A few modifications to our authority could make very real differences in our fiscal budget and corresponding capabilities.
First, we have noted that the NTSB has specific authority to use volunteer assistance during the course of their accident investigations. This saves the agency untold millions of Federal dollars by enhancing its ability to conduct its activities.
Similar language would assist the Board also if we are allowed to use volunteers, rather than paying for all the assistance that we gain at a site like Sparks or others around the country.
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A second opportunity may be realized in the reserve model that FEMA and the Forest Service and some other agencies use in having those types of expertise available as reserves to the agency, and used only, as FEMA does, when there is a disaster or a need to use those employees.
That would be another cost saving opportunity that we would suggest should be considered.
Finally, the mandatory requirements in the Act to investigate certain accidents is often difficult to budget. Various accident investigations vary widely in their complexity and their cost.
A provision for no-year funds, or an emergency reserve fund to deal with this issue would greatly increase the Board's fiscal ability to respond to the unpredictable nature of our Congressional mandate.
We intend to take up these issues with our oversight committee, but because they have fiscal ramifications to our budget we wanted to bring them to your attention today and ask you further guidance on those types of issues.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my brief remarks. I'll be pleased to respond to any questions that the committee may have on any of the material that is before you or anything that I said today.
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[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Dr. Hill. I appreciate very much the summarization of your remarks, and I know there is more detail that will be added for the record.
I note we have joining us Mr. Wicker and Mr. Frelinghuysen, and you probably should make special note of the fact that Mr. Mollohan, who does come from West Virginia—I am not sure you live in his District, but I know you are close by otherwise.
Mr. HILL. Yes. Hello, Alan.
AMENDED BUDGET REQUEST
Mr. LEWIS. I was going to raise the question regarding that problem in Nevada, and so I am pleased that you highlighted that. Would you give us kind of a feel by way of discussion here what lessons you think you have learned that would be of interest to the committee in this first experience, in terms of the way you might respond to future events.
And did any of these lessons have an impact on your decision to submit an amended 1999 budget request? And, if so, we would like to have you provide some specific budget details that impacted your decision in connection with that.
Your original fiscal year budget, as I mentioned earlier, was for $7 million, and late Friday afternoon you submitted an amended budget including $8,216,000. I am aware, of course, that you are still in the very early stages. setting up your office and so on.
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But if you would relate a little bit more of that, and perhaps expand upon your experience working with FEMA. I am concerned that your agency could find itself in the same king of circumstances FEMA has over the years, where they have an established base budget and then an emergency arises and there are requests for supplementals that of late have been the whole budget for all intents and purposes.
And the same thing, I think, could occur here, and careful coordination, of course, will be important with that prospect. Any response?
SPARKS, NEVADA INVESTIGATION COORDINATION
Mr. HILL. Yes. I appreciate your remarks, Mr. Lewis. The Sparks incident, I think, gave us first hand observation of an incident that required quick decision making in order to respond to what was otherwise a tragedy in the very early stages of our ability to do so.
We called upon the U.S. Department of Energy and the fact that that agency has a cadre of existing investigators that are used only at DOE sites. So in the government, that was good place for us to find that kind of expertise.
I called the Secretary's office, and we were able to, over the phone, decide on using those individuals to conduct this investigation.
The other very positive thing about using the DOE personnel at the national laboratories is that, again, an existing capability. But they also have developed a defined technical protocol to how one goes about conducting an investigation.
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That was, indeed, one of the problems and one of the criticisms of the other fledgling program in this area that you mentioned in your opening comment, that there must be a very defined procedure for industry, for effective public, all to understand how these investigations will occur.
Indeed, we gained a lot of insight, even using the DOE protocol, applying it to this site, because obviously it is a private site, it is an explosives manufacturer for the mining industry.
In addition to conducting an investigation, we also assessed that protocol, and are using the information learned out of that to achieve a better understanding of what our overall protocol will be for the Chemical Safety Board.
We have looked at the expense of the employees, what it takes to get a technical team organized on site at a command center, with phone lines, and equipment. That, we found, is more expensive than we probably estimated in our original budget.
If you look back at our original budget, we had no history at all to base those budgets on, other than bits and pieces of information that we gathered from EPA and other agencies.
So we felt that our original estimates were low, based on no experience. The Sparks experience gave us further insight, that indeed these situations can have costs that we have not identified at that point; and I think that is what we tried to explain in the budget amendment.
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Your question about the FEMA relationship, we simply were looking at FEMA. The thing that we really accomplished at this point is using their response notification system to cut our own costs.
If we had to hire three employees, for instance, much less buy equipment to get those types of notifications, we felt that that was indeed a big cost savings at FEMA.
We are still looking at those three items as far as which would be the most appropriate for us to respond to the variety of accidents, and not knowing the extent or cost of those.
And I am not prepared today to make a recommendation as to which approach is best for us. I simply wanted to throw that out to ask your advice and consent and thoughts about how we might proceed in the future.
But we are looking at all of those things as a means of trying to meet our mandate.
Mr. LEWIS. In this environment in which we are making a serious effort to examine existing programs and responsibilities, reduce the rate of growth of government, creating new agencies is a delicate business, to say the least.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
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Mr. LEWIS. And, indeed, there is great hesitancy on the part of the House in general to move in the direction of presuming that more is better, when the Committee has been stressing very strongly that we can do more with less effectively if we will.
And so it is within that context, and recognizing we are dealing with a very delicate area that some of these initial questions are developed.
INVESTIGATION PROCESS OF CSHIB
Last fall, the Congress determined to fund the Board, in part, because we were concerned with the process that was developed for EPA and OSHA in lieu of the Chemical Safety Board, to undertake accidental investigations.
It has been stated that the independence of the National Transportation Safety Board in investigating transportation accidents was to be your model for chemical accidents. At the same time we might concur with the NTSB as a model in the context of how investigations might be accomplished, we certainly do not expect for you to view the NTSB as a model in context of how to grow a Federal bureaucracy.
You may or may not be aware that there was a significant train accident in the San Bernardino Valley in California some months before.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. LEWIS. That happened to occur not in my District, but in Congressman George Brown's District, which is adjacent to mine. A big part of the circumstance was about 200 yards from the home where I was raised, so I was somewhat interested in that problem.
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We cannot begin to provide you with the kind of financial resources, of course, that NTSB has experienced, over $40 million. That has been provided over time. At the same time, I believe it is our responsibility to provide you with the resources that are necessary within reason to allow you to perform your statutory mission.
EXECUTION OF THE FY 1998 BUDGET
Having said this, we now find ourselves approximately four and a half months into the 1998 fiscal year for which you have been provided $4 million. Please give me a feeling generally where you are in the execution of your 1998 budget.
Mr. HILL. We have provided some detail in the attached documents that we have provided today on our current expenditures.
We have committed, of course, such items in the budget as our costs for personnel and rental. Many of those things will stay static throughout the year, and those funds are already committed.
We see the expenditures going throughout the year, having many investigations which are likely to take our funds. We indicated that we would do up to ten investigations this year. That's what we budgeted for, and at the current rate we have indicated just from yesterday's calls to the National Response Center, and to the FEMA line, that there are many, many more investigations than we were likely to be able to get to.
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As far as staffing, we have brought on five staff at this point. As you know we have a total of 14 staff positions to fill this year that are non-Board members. So we are proceeding as expeditiously as possible in working with the existing budget—not trying to get ahead of ourselves, but trying to stay on track with our projected expenditures throughout the entire year.
I would like to comment also on your reference to the NTSB. In my comments, we do compare ourselves to the NTSB. That is the easiest concept for most of the public sector to understand who we are and what we do through that comparison.
But our philosophy, as described in the budget plan, is along the lines of what you indicated, Mr. Chairman, and that indeed is a flat organizational structure trying to take advantage of existing resources that are already in the Federal system, trying to use volunteers as I mentioned.
We do not intend to grow this agency into just another bureaucracy. And our goal—and what I think we have accomplished in a very short period of time demonstrates that we are moving in that direction.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Dr. Hill. Mr. Stokes?
Mr. STOKES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Dr. Hill, for your testimony. You mentioned this first incident which occurred in Reno, Nevada, which I guess occurred about two days after you had opened your doors.
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Mr. HILL. Yes.
STAFFING THE SPARKS INVESTIGATION
Mr. STOKES. At that time how much staff did you have?
Mr. HILL. We had two people on staff at that point.
Mr. STOKES. And you went yourself.
Mr. HILL. Yes. And Dr. Poje, as well.
Mr. STOKES. And you mentioned that on January 9th you were leading a team of six individuals.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. STOKES. How did that come about?
Mr. HILL. Those individuals were the DOE professionals that we pulled in from the Department of Energy.
After I called the Secretary of Energy's Office, they agreed to let us use their personnel at the Federal laboratories. Those individuals came from Oak Ridge National Lab, and Pacific Northwest Laboratories. They were industrial hygienists. They were process engineers. One was an explosives chemist that we brought in to analyze the chemicals that were on site and what had occurred.
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They were a professional team that were from the national laboratories.
Mr. STOKES. Have you hired a chief investigator yet?
Mr. HILL. No, I have not. I am looking to hire a chief investigator. In fact, that is a difficult thing, where you've talked with several people—in fact we found one who is retiring from NTSB. But he is taking retirement, so we could not get him.
He has offered to provide us some level of assistance, as has the agency. But we do not have a chief investigator at this point in time.
STAFFING THE CSHIB
Mr. STOKES. Now, your legislation calls for five Board members, I believe?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.
Mr. STOKES. How many are currently confirmed?
Mr. HILL. We have three confirmed currently. And I just spoke with the White House last week about the potential nominations of two additional individuals whose names were put forward back in 1994 when ours were, but they were never officially nominated.
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The White House has indicated they are going to pick up that process, and have indicated that they would try to expedite getting those confirmations up here to Congress were that to occur.
Mr. STOKES. In terms of a three member board as opposed to a five member board, what is your assessment?
Mr. HILL. Five members are better, in that we need the broad expertise. As I look at the statute, I think the Congress fully intended that there be a variety of expertise as well as backgrounds, talents, interests in a variety of issues that could render the decisions of this Board.
Certainly I have expressed to the White House that I am extremely supportive of a fully staffed Board.
AMENDED BUDGET REQUEST
Mr. STOKES. Dr. Hill, let me ask you this: the formerly submitted budget request for the Safety Board was $7 million for fiscal year 1999. And then I guess about a week after submission of that request you modified it to $8.2 million. Is that correct?
Mr. HILL. Correct.
Mr. STOKES. Now, I guess the legislation for the Board does not permit any review of budget estimates by the Office of Management or any other government agency. In terms of your two budget submissions, is the modified submission the last submission by the Board?
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Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.
CSHIB PERSONNEL
Mr. STOKES. Two elements, the personnel compensation and ''other services'' make up more than 72 percent of the Board's budget. Proposed average salary of $100,000 is nearly 30 percent higher than the average salary of NTSB employees of $77,000.
Tell us why the salaries of Chemical Safety Board employees exceed those of the NTSB workers by $30,000.
Mr. HILL. We looked at, again, with the flat organizational structure of not having a lot of middle management, and trying to take advantage of as much assistance at the site, if we were given the types of relief that we had talked about in getting volunteers, most of those salaries, the reason they are high, would be first of all that they are the prime management.
It is a smaller number of people, if you look at the overall consistency of this Board. It is a small number of top managers, as well as being highly trained in the technical arena, as well as being managers.
We also looked at the Defense Nuclear Board which asked for relief of the General Services Pay Scale simply because they felt they could not get the types of technical expertise to come to work for the government that those individuals could get working in private industry.
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Now, admittedly, we are not hiring nuclear engineers, but we are looking for very senior engineering individuals who may have had many, many years of service, both in the technical arena and in the managerial arena.
Mr. STOKES. I would like to ask you to submit to us a detailed staffing plan, showing job titles, salaries, et cetera, and so forth. Would you do that for us?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.
[The information follows:]
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Congressman Stokes requested that the Board submit to the Committee a detailed staffing plan, showing job titles, salaries and other associated information. Included in the Board's business is a section describing the Board's projected organizational structure. Since the entire business plan has been provided to Committee staff, only select pages addressing the Congressman's request are appended.
The Board is following its business plan to the maximum extent possible. As indicated therein, during the first year the majority of personnel will (and do) consist of Board members and senior staff. Consistent with the CEO's directions, the latter are charged with (1) establishing the policies, procedures and programs of the Board, (2) writing job descriptions for and hiring junior members of their respective functional areas, and (3) securing the external support needed to efficiently, effectively and economically perform the Board's mission. Accomplishment of the operational objectives set forth for the first year is directly dependent upon the senior Board staff.
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To date, the following positions have been or are scheduled to be written for FY98 in order to provide a skeleton staff. However, not all the positions have yet been classified (i.e., assigned an official title, series and pay-determining grade level) by GSA's personnel staffing specialist who is servicing the Board.
Classified and Filled: GS–15—Program Manager; Public Affairs Specialist; Attorney Advisor. GS–13—Public Affairs Specialist. GS-–11/12—Program Analyst.
Written But Not Yet Classified: Targeted at GS–15—Special Assistant (Research); Special Assistant (Investigations); Special Assistant (Technical Operations). Targeted at GS–14 (but may be approved for higher pay if OPM concurs with Board's request for special ''pay band'' typically used in recruiting for hard-to-fill technical positions)—Accident Investigator (more than one job will be filled).
NOT YET WRITTEN: Targeted at GS–12/13—Information Management Specialist. Targeted at GS–9/11—Administrative Assistant (more than one job will be filled).
Ten additional positions have been requested for FY99, the second year of the Board's startup phase. This figure includes the six senior executive service positions which have been requested from but not yet approved by the Office of Personnel Management (which will replace the current GS–15 positions). It does not count the one position requested to provide dedicated support to four Board members (other than the Chairman/CEO). The job descriptions (which will dictate both job titles and grade-dependent salaries) will be written by the senior manager in each functional area and will reflect determinations of needed expertise. Nevertheless, based on the work to be performed and objectives to be accomplished, we anticipate assigning positions such that the resultant staffing pattern looks similar to that shown below. Note that the absence of significant numbers of lower graded staff reflects the Board's intent to outsource administrative operations, permitting it to focus more of its resources on mission-specific operations. The effect of this strategy is to have less (albeit higher paid) on-board staff and lower costs for support services, but a higher average salary structure due to the smaller personnel base on which to compute average pay.
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FUNCTIONAL AREA AND STAFFING: Office of the Chairman, Chairman, 2 professionals and 1 support; Board Members, 4 members and one confidential assistant; Investigations, 4 professionals and 1 support; External Relations, 4 professionals and 1 support; Research, 3 professionals and 1 support; Legal Operations, 2 professionals and 1 support; Technical Operations, 2 professionals and 1 support.
Mr. STOKES. Your justification material indicates that the $750,000 requested for personnel benefits was based on 25 percent of salaries for people covered under the Civil Service Retirement System, which most Board employees are expected to be under.
On what do you base this statement?
Mr. HILL. The 25 percent on retirement system?
Mr. STOKES. Under your justifications, you indicate that $750,000 is requested for personnel benefits——
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. STOKES. You say that's based on 25 percent of salaries for people covered under the Civil Service Retirement System, quote, which most Board employees are expected to be.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
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Mr. STOKES. Could you tell us what you base this statement on?
Mr. HILL. I'm sorry, Mr. Stokes. I would need to assess how that figure was arrived at. Obviously it came from an assessment of looking at other agencies. Since indeed our history is so short, we no doubt pulled this information from some other example in the Federal Government.
I would have to get back to you as far as where that came from, and we would be glad to give you details.
Mr. STOKES. You can elaborate on that in the record for us.
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.
[Response from Mr. Hill follows:]
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
''Mr. Stokes, to clarify that 25 per cent figure—that figure is the 'load factor' which federal agencies use to estimate the cost of all federal employee benefits—for example health and life insurance—plus the Government's contribution for employees' retirement. The 25 per cent figure is used for Civil Service Retirement System—CSRS—covered employees, versus 20 per cent for Federal Employee Retirement System—FERS employees. That's because typically CSRS employees are that much more expensive to Agencies than FERS employees, because Agencies must contribute more to a CSRS employee's retirement than to an employee covered under FERS. Our budget projections are based on CSRS costs because our more senior employees are—or will be—primarily covered under the more costly CSRS.''
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ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL CONTROLS
Mr. STOKES. Dr. Hill, what accounting and financial controls does the Board have in place to insure that expenses do not exceed resources available to the Board?
Mr. HILL. We fully intend, and have described in our business plan, operating with having an internal accounting as well as our General Services Administration agreement. In fact, they are handling most of our personnel and accounting capabilities right now, as they do uniformly with many other agencies.
So General Services Administration is handling that on our behalf, and we have an agreement with them.
FY 1998 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS
Mr. STOKES. Let me ask you this: in terms of the financial obligations incurred to date, does it appear to you that you are likely to submit a supplemental this year?
Mr. HILL. No. We don't intend to do that. You never say never in the accident business, unfortunately, as we see with other agencies. But the reason we responded after speaking briefly with Committee staff last week is that we felt we could make some justification now, when we had the opportunity to speak directly with you, rather than coming back later.
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Mr. STOKES. Thank you, Dr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Stokes.
Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Dr. Hill. I come from the State of New Jersey, which by its industrial history probably has more chemical operations past and present than most States. And am certainly supportive of what you are doing.
I would just like you to address the issue of expectations. I mean, to a certain extent, by our giving you these taxpayer dollars, we anticipate that you will have a full plate. From what I can gather you have a large plate now.
EXPECTATIONS OF THE CSHIB
Is there not a real potential here for raising expectations that may not be met? I am supportive of what you are doing, for selfish and parochial reasons, and I do have a specific site, the Lodi site in New Jersey.
But there could be a hundred Lodi's. I am just wondering how you are dealing with the issue of raised expectations?
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Mr. HILL. I agree with you. I think that is indeed something that can occur. We are trying to deal with that issue, both in the information that we are putting out, as well as the initial plan.
In fact, what we said was this first year we would investigate only those accidents where there was a death involved. As you are aware, the statute is very broad. It gives us authority to look at a lot of different situations.
We are trying to exert some fiscal responsibility on that as well internally, and communicate that to many others, that we cannot investigate all these sites.
The other language in the statute talks about cause to be investigated, if we do not investigate a site with our own staff employees.
The incident last week in York, Pennsylvania, we followed that very closely. There was a death involved, but we made the decision, after about 30 hours of deliberation, and following all the information that was coming in about that particular incident, that it was being investigated at the local level.
There was not a release in that particular situation, so we decided not to investigate it. I think there is a chance of raising the expectation, but we are trying to put forward the concept that in these first years, especially, we are trying to make assessments of what the actual needs are, and what should be, and we would like to bring that back in future years as further guidance.
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Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. We are here to wish you success. This is a beast that we created. Some good people like yourself are going to the mat for good purposes. But in reality you are in the court of public opinion. You have Congressional demands, and there is going to be an expectation that, you know, when I call Dr. Hill people over there are going to jump, at the Board.
And I noted in your statement here that you put yourself down as a scientific investigatory organization.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
RELATIONS WITH PRIVATE INDUSTRY
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You better have a full complement of public relations or you are going to have some sort of a public relations disaster.
I would like to have a clearer idea as to—what your relationships are going to be with the Chemical Manufacturers Association, American Petroleum Institute, which is also referred to in your testimony.
As I read your comments—and I don't want to read things in there that were not—we have had productive meetings and discussions with representatives of those groups.
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Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. To the lay person or somebody up here, I am not sure what that means, but I would think that you would have to heavily count on their knowledge of their industry. Obviously their need to get after members that in fact are not abiding by proper safety rules.
Because the bottom line, by your own comments here, your motto is public safety is key.
I would like to know what you literally are doing to cement those partnerships, because I would assume some of those corporate resources inevitably would have to be used in a lot of these investigations and solutions.
Mr. HILL. Yes. In fact, we have worked very closely on those partnerships, and indeed one of the previous questions from Representative Stokes about members of the Board, one of the oncoming members is a former industry retiree who would bring another complement to the Board.
The industry has expressed very strong support of that individual, in making sure that his concerns are noted in Board decisions, and we are hopeful that that will occur.
There has been a lot of the discussion with the Chemical Manufacturers Association and API to this point, that those agencies, those organizations want to make sure that their interests are taken into account as you have indicated.
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I have spoken with them. I think the leadership of those associations, I think they feel very confident that this approach is one that is, because it is independent, it is a fair approach to these industrial tragedies.
They have said to me privately, look, we want to know what goes wrong as well. In fact, the industry has wanted to know for a number of years, but because of liability purposes, which are dealt with in our statutory authority, they have not compiled the kinds of information to look at long range trends, except internally, in individual businesses. Not as an industry as a whole.
So our relationships with them have been—they have been extremely supportive as well as discussing with them the eventual procedures, protocols and things that we would utilize in our day to day investigations.
In fact, we said, look, we are developing a draft protocol; we would like not only the industry but other constituent groups to tell us, is it technically accurate, and have welcomed their participation in developing that.
In fact, I think, very telling, the attorney for CR Chemical, the accident in Nevada, indicated that he felt that the Chemical Safety Board was the most fair and objective approach to dealing with an industrial tragedy.
FUNDING WITH OTHER AGENCIES
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Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. And a comment, the other agencies that you contact, DOE, FEMA, are you making sure that they are not dumping some things into your lap? In other words, I know you used the term in your statement here, that you are the lead agency, but sometime people assume that if you are the lead agency, you have deep pockets.
I assume you are putting up some barriers.
Mr. HILL. Absolutely.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Besides the fact that if there is a death involved, putting up some to make sure that DOE is not shunting off all sorts of investigatory work that they perhaps should be funding?
Mr. HILL. No, In fact, one of the first things we'll tell them is, look, we do not have a lot of resources. That is why we are calling you. In fact, we knew that DOE had this type of expertise.
They already have their Congressional defined arena that they operate in, which we would not. We simply borrowed their expertise and applied it to the public sector, private facilities.
But no, there is not a transfer in any way of authorities, and we are very mindful of that.
LODI, NEW JERSEY EXPLOSION
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Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. The chemical explosion in Lodi, New Jersey, is there somewhat might be anticipated relative to a report? Is that one of those areas you are looking at?
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. That's my local question.
Mr. HILL. Yes indeed. In fact, one of the things that we want to do and are already building the information to be able to assess what has happened in the past few years, is accident reports are available, and the Lodi report has now been released by EPA and OSHA.
But there are records and documents that we would like to review in building our own data bases, in building our own programs to say what should be done differently.
Will we reinvestigate that site? No, I do not think we have the resources to do that. But that does it rule out that in reviewing the information we might not have recommendations coming out of it.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Good luck. Hold on tight.
Mr. HILL. Thank you.
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Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Mrs. Meek.
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
WORKING WITH OTHER AGENCIES
Mr. Hill, I have listened with interest as you made your presentation and to the other members ask you questions. It appears from your business plan that you plan to hold all this together by what seems to be just the cooperation of a multiplicity of agencies helping you.
And I am just wondering very strongly how you will be able to do that with the budget that you submitted here. And you have already said, by your own admission, you do not want to build a big mega-agency.
But you do want the reputation of your agency to be accountable, I am sure. It appears to me that is going to be difficult to do.
I have read your relationships with these assisting agencies, and the memorandum of understanding that you have with some of them. How much confidence do you have that you are going to be able to, in case things get tight, and they will get tighter, that you are going to be able to fulfill the obligations which you have promised this committee and the American public you are going to do. That's my question.
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ORGANIZATION PLAN
My second concern is that even though you have everything on paper planned here, you do not have any middle managers, anyone who is going to go out and really watch these people.
What big master plan do you have in the back of your head that is going to help make all of this work? Because organization is ad enough when you have middle managers to help you.
DEVELOPING M.O.U.'S
Mr. HILL. To respond to you first question, Representative Meek, I do have confidence. I met directly with the OSHA Assistant Secretary, and spoke with him about developing this MOU.
A lot of it is built on personnel relationships with those other agencies in describing a memoranda which will then be implemented about our relationship, about who will provide what.
Much of what we will be doing at the site is also relationships. A lot of discussion has gone on about what happens at an accident site. EPA and OSHA already have enforcement capabilities. Those will not go away. Those agencies have their own Congressional mandate to be there to do certain things.
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What we have mostly indicated in those memoranda have been working relationships, where there is not a lot of transfer of resources or even individuals necessarily.
In some cases, however, as you pointed out, we have found that we can take advantage of existing infrastructure, and as far as reporting accidents. Those agencies are already mandated to do that, and have been doing it for a number of years.
That was the reason for trying to take advantage of it, and not build another agency which I think would cost us more and would be even, perhaps more nebulous in its early stages in its ability to respond for the American people as you indicated.
Mrs. MEEK. Good luck.
Mr. HILL. Thank you.
Mrs. MEEK. Did you have something you wanted to add?
Mr. POJE. I was just going to say, I think the issue of coordination at the Federal level is crucial.
Mr. LEWIS. Excuse me. Would you spell your last name? It's Poje?
Mr. POJE. Poje. P-o-j-e.
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Mr. LEWIS. Thank you. Excuse me for that.
Mr. POJE. We are aiming to build a technical, scientific organization with full knowledge that there is technical, scientific aspects to the rest of the Federal Government.
For example, on scene, we want to have some investigation capacity into medical related issues that might be associated with this. We have already begun discussions with the Assistant Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
All of those agencies have some great technical competencies, and some degree of relatedness to our mission. It is our belief that we can hone a memorandum of agreement with them that explicitly defines where the overlap of our agencies would be, and how best to apportion those responsibilities to assure that the end product of our investigations are the most technical competent that any Federal agency would be able to accomplish.
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mrs. Meek.
Mr. Wicker.
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Mr. WICKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LESSONS LEARNED IN NEVADA
Dr. Hill, what did we learn on this first investigation in Nevada?
Mr. HILL. Well, we have not—it is primarily procedural at this point. We have not concluded the investigation. This is, the report has not come to the Board for a final decision at this point.
All the field work has been completed. The team left the site last Friday. They are now compiling an internal analysis of all of that data, and will be presenting a report to the Board members in the next few weeks.
At that point, we would then disclose the findings of that investigation and make any recommendations about that particular type of operation.
For instance, the Governor of Nevada put together a task force to look at regulatory controls within the State. They are very interested, because there are other similar facilities within, just within the State of Nevada, they may be using the same equipment, that may be using the same practices, that indeed we can make recommendations.
But we are not at a point of making recommendations on the findings right now.
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NATURE OF THE NEVADA EXPLOSION
Mr. WICKER. But surely you can share with the Subcommittee what the nature of the accident was and what you preliminarily think caused it.
Mr. HILL. Certainly. The nature of the accident, what occurred, this was a facility that used a material called PETN, which was shipped in from China. It is shipped wet, and it is a powder, and it is a highly explosive powder—the reason it is shipped wet.
It is put in a drying building which used only to take the water out of it. Then it is mixed with TNT in large metal stainless steel vessels, which in this case, by the way, were purchased several years ago—they were ex-military equipment that this company bought.
Those vessels then have a large stirring device. That powder is mixed with some other powdered chemicals heated to a certain level where it becomes liquid. And then in the bottom of the vat, the material is taken out as a liquid.
These workers were pouring it into cardboard tubes such that it looks like sticks of dynamite. Then at the site, of course, it becomes explosive when a blasting cap is placed in that material.
Now, what happened, there were 12 Hispanic workers there. There have been lots of allegations that there may have not been clear training. There may not have been proper instruction in their native language.
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There are lots of issues that have been raised. Now, we do not have any determination as to the full extent of those at this point in time. In fact, that will be many of the parts of the final assessment.
But one body was recovered—actually two bodies were recovered, and then the other two, there was nothing to recover.
NEVADA ON-SITE INVESTIGATION
ATF was at the site and helped the local sheriff's department recover the bodies, and after that portion was done, we took charge of the site to do this long range investigation.
What we have found is that there is potential contamination of materials. There are a variety of things that we are looking at right now as to the causation of the explosion.
ATF was able to determine that one of the mixing buildings blew first, and then the PETN building blew second. It measured 2.2 on the Richter scale, and was heard twenty miles away.
We have lots of photographs of the site, photographs of evidence, that indicates that indeed there was really nothing left at the site.
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We know there was some indication that the material, the initial explosion took place at a site within that first building. And we have isolated our investigations on that site. But I cannot go into any further detail subsequent to the actual report coming out.
Mr. POJE. If I could just augment that, though, Mr. Wicker. I think the things that we are learning are several that relate to the functions of the Board, and building our own technical competency.
The conduct of an investigation, the gathering of several different types of evidence, whether it is testamentary evidence, whether it is documentary evidence, or whether it is physical evidence of the facility and what had happended, we are learning from this experience the kinds of procedures that we will need to engage in the conduct of that.
And in addition to the collection and the examination and the determination of the accuracy and the adequacy of the evidence, we are also attempting to evaluate multiple procedures of analysis.
There is a well honed and developed technological basis to the conduct of investigations of chemical failures. That includes a number of different analytical techniques.
We will be applying multiple techniques to a single incident as a way of verifying that we are getting to the best determination of the root and contributing causation to that incident, and from that will emanate the findings and recommendations of this investigatory body.
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OTHER AGENCIES IN NEVADA
Mr. WICKER. How many agencies were involved in this Nevada investigation? You had some folks from DOE to help you in a tight spot.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. WICKER. Do you anticipate doing that again?
Mr. HILL. In this interim stage, we very well may. In fact, we've developed from DOE a list of the investigators and their particular expertise, such as whether they are chemists or metallurgists or whatever.
But in this interim period, until we have our own staff, we may well do that.
Mr. WICKER. What other agencies showed up?
Mr. HILL. The other agencies that were on the scene included the local sheriff's department, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire Arms, because in a situation like this where there is an explosion the presumption is that this may well be sabotage or some sort of the an intentional act, and until that is rule out—that has to be done, of course, first. So ATF was there.
The State agencies. There was the State OSHA. We were assisted in working with them by Federal OSHA, although Federal OSHA did not have an on site presence.
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We also worked with even the county health department which was securing the site for environmental clean up after the fact.
M.O.U. WITH ATF
Mr. WICKER. So the only other Federal agency that was actually there on site was ATF?
Mr. HILL. That is correct.
Mr. WICKER. And are you going to need to develop one of these MOUs and ATF?
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. WICKER. How is that coming?
Mr. HILL. That, we have not gotten to it yet. We have two that are mandated by our statute—the one with OSHA and the one with NTSB. We are working on those first, and they are in draft right now.
The one with ATF, in fact, as they were turning over the site to us at the press conference in Reno, they said here is a Federal agency that conducts the long range investigations. We are leaving. We are probably going to see more of the Chemical Safety Board, and we will probably need a memorandum with them. And indeed we agree.
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M.O.U WITH EPA
Mr. WICKER. Okay. And the EPA, also. You are expecting to complete your memorandum of understanding when with EPA?
Mr. HILL. We are beginning to work on the one with EPA. That is not required in the statute. But it is one that we thank is necessary. In fact, I wrote to Administrator Browner last week and told her I felt one would be very appropriate, and we needed to pursue that.
In fact, we have met with EPA at different levels, and I am meeting with the Administrator next week to initiate that MOU. EPA was not at the Nevada site.
Mr. POJE. and I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow with the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at which this will be a topic of discussion.
Mr. WICKER. Let me say I am sorry I have to leave and go to another hearing, since I have three subcommittee hearings scheduled on top of each other.
NUMBER OF FY 1998 INVESTIGATIONS
Let me just ask, if I might, Mr. Chairman, you expect, Dr. Hill, to do ten investigations this year. Is that this calendar year?
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Mr. HILL. In essence it is.
Mr. WICKER. I notice in your overview that that would investigate not even all of the accidents which you termed major catastrophic, which involved—well, what is the definition of a major catastrophic?
Mr. HILL. Well, what we have indicated is that we would investigate those where there is a death. And the statute does not allow us to not investigate if the death is off site of a facility. What we would hope to do is those we could not cover, we would use the clause about causing to be investigated.
In indeed there was a detailed capability within a State, for instance, that the investigation was occurring, we would probably work with them to insure that our information was gathered, but would no send our own team if we felt it was being appropriately handled.
Mr. WICKER. And that statement also applies to the 6,500 non-catastrophic annual accidents?
Mr. HILL. There are many, many small ones that all come into the National Response Center. And what we try to do is screen through those to determine which ones constitute major catastrophes. That is, major property damage, off site impact, or death, as the statute outlines.
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We said this year in the first budget plan that we would only focus on those where there is a death in this first round, and it would move to others with the Congress's approval.
Mr. WICKER. Well, I agree with Mrs. Meek and Mr. Frelinghuysen, that you're in for an interesting time.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Wicker. Mr. Mollohan?
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. I might mention before Mr. Mollohan begins, members are going to other meetings were they have conflicts. Defense is meeting down the hall, et cetera. The bells begin to ring and we start having votes, and we are going to go through three agencies this morning.
So there will be a number of questions that are submitted for the record, and we would appreciate your responding to those.
Mr. HILL. We'd be glad to.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Mollohan.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Dr. Hill, welcome to the hearing, and I join the Chairman and Ranking Member and the members of the Committee in welcoming you here. I hope that you are getting going on the right foot, and that we are able to provide you with the resources to enable you to do a good job.
A couple of the members have explored the issue of industry cooperation which is kind of a basic principle with regard to this whole initiative.
Mr. HILL. Yes
Mr. MOLLOHAN. You have undertaken one investigation.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
INVESTIGATING VS. NOT INVESTIGATING
Mr. MOLLOHAN. And you have had the opportunity to undertake more than one, and you have looked at them and decided not to go in?
Mr. HILL. That is correct.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. How did you discriminate between going in and not going in and investigating? What are one or two that you decided not to undertake?
Mr. HILL. The most recent one, I think I mentioned earlier, was the York, Pennsylvania one that occurred just last week.
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That situation, we learned from the local officials who were on the scene, who we kept in touch with all day, the day of that event, that there was not a chemical release.
And we felt that given our statutory mandate, we would need to look and see if the chemical was indeed the problem that caused the fatality at this site.
There was a fatality, but we understand that that person was farther away, and it was not caused by the chemical itself.
So we chose not to investigate that particular one. In addition, there was a level of investigation going on by the State of Pennsylvania that we thought was sufficient.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. So you are going to be investigating cases that you feel will establish some basis of knowledge that will be important as an example for industry, or as a case study for industry? Is that it?
Mr. HILL. Yes, indeed.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. You are not investigating everything.
Mr. HILL. I think that is what we are limited to in this early stage.
INDUSTRY COOPERATION
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Mr. MOLLOHAN. Industry cooperation, how do you secure it? I guess using the Nevada example. Did you have industry cooperation in the Nevada case?
Mr. HILL. Yes, we did. We had very good cooperation with the company. They felt that they truly wanted to understand why this happened, why they lost four employees, why they lost their entire facility.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Do you think you are in any better position to achieve that cooperation, and therefore get at the underlying cause than they say OSHA or BATF or any other investigative regulatory organization?
Mr. HILL. Yes, indeed. In fact, as the industry has indicated, they had a problem with the last approach, with the EPA/OSHA approach simply because those agencies are enforcement by their very nature.
And they felt how can you come in and do an objective causal analysis if you are also trying to enforce some section of a rule that may have been violated. That gets into some legal contention as well about those agencies perhaps exceeding their authority.
So there are lots of problems, and the industry felt that it was an unworkable situation, is what they have said.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. But your investigation is going to uncover the same basic facts, are they not?
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Mr. HILL. It will uncover the facts of the case, and those facts, as in the Nevada case, will be shared with the agencies. The State of OSHA is there uncovering facts right alongside of our people, and sharing that information with ours.
However, it is the Board's assessment, analysis of those facts, the assessment and the recommendations that you have provided in the statutory language that is protected. And I think the industry feels that that is a very positive initiative or influence for them to be more proactive in welcoming these investigations.
AMENDED BUDGET REQUEST
Mr. MOLLOHAN. You have amended your budget request, $1.2 million. What is that for?
Mr. HILL. That is primarily based on the information that we have gathered over the past four months that indicates that some of our estimates were low for some of the other budget items.
We have simply increased those particular items.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. You need more people? You need more office space? You need more resources?
Mr. HILL. We need more resources, and we need additional space for those individuals. We also need to increase the level, because we're finding that the types of expertise that we need to conduct these investigations are probably not people that we could find at very low salaries.
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Indeed, they are expensive to get.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Mollohan.
We, as I indicated, have a number of questions that we will be submitting for the record. Mr. Hobson normally asks a number of questions relatives to space and the square footage cost and——
Mr. HILL. We have all that.
Mr. LEWIS. He would suggest that it is very important that we recognize that everybody wants to work downtown even though they live in Maryland or Virginia. For some reason they like to travel to the center of the city and get in traffic and otherwise, and of course the rental space is much higher there, et cetera.
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. LEWIS. Those questions will be a part of the record.
CSHIB HIRING ISSUES
Mr. LEWIS. You indicated earlier that attracting people of high quality when you have a tight ship can be difficult. There is not any question that GS limitations are very real.
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I note that you are talking about looking to a potential personnel pool as a source for people, who are a part of CSRS, which would indicate that many of those people are 15 or 20 year employees.
Reaching out and finding excellence is a difficult process. And I would hope that especially the Board members are looking very closely at whether we are actually performing a new and important service, versus redoing what is already being done elsewhere.
The reason I raise this point for your consideration beyond this meeting is that this Subcommittee involves many an agency and commission. It involves fundamental needs that involve the lives of children, housing for the poor, et cetera, and every dollar that goes to one location takes away from another, because we only have so much in our total pool.
And it is very important that you help us with that, and a tight ship, of course, is critical. I understand that some of the challenges you face also are critical.
So we welcome you to this first hearing. We tried to be relatively light and soft in this go round, but this is only the first time. And so we appreciate your being with us.
We have a vote on, by the way, and then we will come back and start hearings on the DOD Civil Cemetary expenditures. Essentially that's Arlington Cemetary.
Mr. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. LEWIS. We will be in recess. [Recess]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Thursday, February 12, 1998.
CEMETERIAL EXPENSES, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WITNESSES
JOHN ZIRSCHKY, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, CIVIL WORKS
CLAUDIA TORNBLOM, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, CIVIL WORKS
JOHN C. METZLER, JR., DIRECTOR, ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
RORY D. SMITH, BUDGET OFFICER, ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Zirschky, appreciate your being with us. We will call upon you after a brief outline that I will provide on the pattern of your request to introduce your guests with you and then, after you summarize your statement, we will try to go to questions and move along as quickly as possible.
It is my pleasure to welcome John Zirschky, the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, to present your proposal for the year ahead of us.
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The 1997 actual appropriations for your expenditures were $11.6 million and 121 FTEs. 1998 appropriations were $11.815 million with 117 FTE. The 1999 request is for $11.666 million and 112 FTEs, a decrease of $149,000, and 5 FTE.
A lot of discussion in the public media has swirled around your agency. I want you to know that this is the Appropriations Committee and while we are very concerned about oversight of the way funds are used, while I will have some questions for the record, and may lightly touch on some questions regarding the way we make some of these decisions, this is not going to be a forum for a media consumption kind of discussion, I would hope.
You have had plenty of that and you will have plenty ahead of you, I am sure. In the meantime, we are talking about the dollars, and I want to see them used to serve those people who served us by their past work for all of us.
So in the meantime, Mr. Zirschky, we would appreciate it if you would give us your statement, with summary, and we will proceed from there.
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the Arlington budget. Working with Arlington has been probably one of the greatest honors that I have had in my career.
It is a very special place, and it is very special to be associated with America's premier military cemetery.
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With me today is Jack Metzler, the superintendent of the Cemetery, Rory Smith, the budget officer for the Cemetery, and a new person, Claudia Tornblom. Steve Dola, who was our Deputy Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget retired after more than 30 years with the Army at the end of December.
Mr. LEWIS. I intended to mention his retirement. I hope you will communicate to Mr. Dola and express our appreciation for his service, and we will miss him. And there is little doubt that his able replacement establishes goals early, and they are probably the right goals.
EXPANSION
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. There are two things I would like to talk about today: expansion of the Cemetery and the budget request. First I will briefly hit on the expansion.
Space in the Cemetery has been a big issue of late, and unless we take action, today's heroes by the time they pass away, will not be able to be buried in Arlington Cemetery.
The Cemetery is projected to close for new burials in the year 2025, which may sound like it is a long time away, but for example, we still have Medal of Honor winners serving in the military today, from the Vietnam era, and if they live to the average life expectancy, the Cemetery will close before they pass away, and they will not be able to be buried in the Cemetery.
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We have worked hard in my office and with Jack to expand the Cemetery and develop a new master plan, going back to the early 90s, to give us the chance to, for the first time, expand the Cemetery.
We believe we can keep the Cemetery open through the entire next century, but we need your help. There are three ways we will need your help: first, the budget request includes a half million dollars for a concept plan for expansion. We have identified three areas where we would like to expand the Cemetery, and now we need to go the next step and analyze how we would use those sites, whether it would be for columbariums, or internments, in other words, grave burials.
So we have asked for a half million dollars to initiate that study in fiscal year 1999.
Secondly, I would like to offer an invitation to you, Mr. Chairman, and your committee to come visit Arlington Cemetery. I would like to show you the three areas that we are talking about. Some have misrepresented that we are going to destroy the Custis-Lee Mansion because some of the lands are associated with what we call Section 29, which includes the Mansion. The specific lands we want, however, are not actually near the Mansion.
So we would like to take you there and show you the actual property. In many cases much of it is on the other side of a maintenance area and not located near the Lee Mansion at all.
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You would also be welcome to lay a wreath at the Cemetery in honor of the veterans and the men and women who are buried there. Any of you would be welcome, at your convenience, to come over.
Third, after you have seen the land, we are going to need your support to make the land transfers that we are talking about a reality. The Administration supports expanding the Cemetery, but you know sometimes bureaucratic resistance can be a bit of a problem.
We believe legislative help would insure that future of the Cemetery.
BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS
To talk about the budget, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we have asked for $11.6 million for fiscal year 1999. In addition, they have done a thorough review of our books for the past decade. We found about $633,000 of unobligated money that we would like to recover and propose to use in fiscal year 1999.
That gives us a total request of about $12.3 million, or a total budget for the Cemetery of about $12.3 million. We want to use $9.4 million of that for operation and maintenance, the grounds keeping, mowing, general maintenance activities; for the administration of the Cemetery, will need about $914,000; and for construction about $1.985 million.
Some of the new construction we are proposing is $800,000 for a new wash stand/fuel island, to wash and fuel our vehicles in full compliance with environmental regulations. We want to expand our maintenance work done by contract by about $253,000.
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We would like another $250,000 to restore Old Memorial Amphitheater. Last, we are also asking for about $80,000 to fund, by contract, an environmental manager for the Cemetery.
Briefly, Mr. Chairman, those are the highlights of our budget request. Last, we have submitted a strategic plan for the Cemetery as required by the Government Performance and Results Act. One of our primary goals is to maintain the dignity of the Cemetery and to keep the Cemetery open through the next century, and we won't be able to do that without the help of this committee.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Introductions
Mr. LEWIS. Ms. Zirschky, would you care to introduce your colleagues who are with you?
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. The ones behind, sir?
Mr. LEWIS. Yes.
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. Okay. We have Colonel Sharon Volgyi, who works with the Military District of Washington, Steve Grames, and chief of program and budget is Sue Pfeiffer.
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Mr. ZIRSCHKY. And Stacey Brown is with my office.
Mr. LEWIS. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. General Foley, the Military District Commander of Washington and , for example, a Medal of Honor winner that I mentioned has unfortunately been required to accompany a head of state. So he could not be here.
Mr. LEWIS. We welcome you all. And I must say it is a part of our understanding of our responsibility here, but often times not stated directly that there are men and women who served the country very well who happen to be getting older and older.
And in our work, the reality is that one piece of the commitment we have made involves interment and cemetery use, here as well as across the country. And that is a piece of our budget that in the future we will be adjusting upward for a period of time, at any rate.
And I think we have to deal with that as it is, and deal with the authorizing committee realistically in connection with that.
Nonetheless, the pressure is on in terms of budgetary requirements, and I hope that we can work together in a positive way.
I may very well want to take up your suggestion that some of us come to the Cemetery and look at the specific property that your are talking about. Lots of questions about the environment and other issues that do affect all elements of change within our society, including government agency proposals for change.
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So we will deal with that as we move forward, and hope to work closely with you.
I think I will submit a number of these questions for the record.
It is important to me that we have some feeling from you, Mr. Zirschky, relative to proposals that are out there that involve some changes in the guidelines relative to those who might use the services of the Cemetery.
POLICY AND GUIDELINE REVIEW
Do you feel that there is a need for you to review past policies and implement new guidelines? Would you discuss that with the committee for the record?
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. With respect to——
Mr. LEWIS. With respect to those who are qualified for burial or for other services.
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. I believe we just finished a master plan that we have discussed with the Committee for many years, and it is currently before the National Capital Planning Commission.
And in that master plan we recommend that every five years a review of the eligibility requirements be conducted, so that if we are not able to expand the Cemetery, and we want to keep it open, we will need to restrict even more who is eligible to be buried there.
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So my office recommended that every five years such a review be conducted.
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
Mr. LEWIS. Okay. So you are suggesting that there may be a need for tightening criteria, and that very much is linked to your proposals for expansion and attempting to find a guideline in terms of space available and otherwise that seems to make sense and works?
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. Yes, sir. Our goal is to keep that Cemetery open as long as is possible. And with our expansion we can keep it open for another hundred years. If we are not successful, and we still want to maintain the ability to keep the Cemetery open, because it is a very special place, we will have to restrict who is eligible to a much smaller group of people.
Mr. LEWIS. The House Veterans Affairs Committee has held a hearing on this matter recently, and this is an area of their responsibility from the authorization perspective. The Appropriations Committee is very sensitive to that and I appreciate the work that they are about, and we hope we will have their cooperation and exchanges at a staff level that reflect all of our interests in connection with those matters.
I am going to submit the balance of my questions for the record. If you would respond, I would appreciate that.
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Mr. LEWIS. Mrs. Meek.
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have any questions. Thank you. Good to see you.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Frelinghuysen?
WASH STAND/FUEL ISLAND
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Not too many questions. You have a wash stand fuel island? I remember last year the National Park Service took a lot of heat up in New Jersey because they spent $900,000 on some sort of toilet facility.
I would suggest that you reconfigure the wording there, for what it's worth. Or just make it clear what you are doing. I'm not sure I need to know the answer.
Mr. METZLER. I would just answer a little bit about what the wash island and fuel bay is all about.
Currently, we do not have an approved facility to wash our vehicles. We are just washing them in the street, and the water is going into the storm system. This fuel island wash bay will allow us to have a closed loop system so that the water will be captured and then properly filtrated.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. It's vehicles?
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Mr. METZLER. It is vehicles. Yes. And then of course, this also gives us a modern gas station, if you will, where we are able to dispense our fuel for our vehicles.
VISITOR STUDY
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. And last year you requested $35,000 for the study of a more accurate method of counting visitors?
Mr. METZLER. That is correct.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You are continuing that study? And what does it all mean?
Mr. METZLER. Well, we have not actually proceeded with that study yet. We are in the process of getting ready to do that. We have been consulting with some other government agencies about the process.
We have been requested to get a better understanding about what are the demographics of the visitors who visit Arlington Cemetery and come to visit from around the country.
That will be tied into our strategic plan as well. This will be the first of a number of requests that we will have over the year to continue looking at the demographics of our visitors.
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Mr. ZIRSCHKY. It is the second most visited site in Washington, D.C. About 4 million visitors a year, which is difficult because it is also a place where we would like to maintain not a tourist atmosphere for those who are burying their loved ones.
So that is one of the challenges we are facing.
CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Understood. And this may not be an appropriate question, but have any of you ever visited the Congressional Cemetery along the Anacostia?
Mr. METZLER. I have.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You have. In many ways the people who are buried there have probably served their country every bit as well and with distinction as many of the people buried at Arlington.
But some of you have been there to see that site?
Mr. METZLER. Yes.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. ZIRSCHKY. I understand that a church or someone was interested in operating that cemetery.
Mr. METZLER. It is a church owned facility. It is not a government facility.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I'll bet in the old days it was probably cleared by the Army Civil Works.
Mr. LEWIS. As a matter of fact from time to time there is interest in the House, and those people who surround the House, past members and otherwise, express interest in that Cemetery. It is a church-owned location, and there is a conflict there in terms of our ability to impact that facility. Sometimes there are serious problems with care and otherwise.
Perhaps separate from this meeting we might have a discussion regarding that to try to figure out how we can make sense out of a long-term plan in connection with that cemetery, which is a pretty important national location.
Mr. Mollohan.
DEFERRED MAINTENANCE
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of questions here with regard to deferred maintenance.
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I am just wondering if I might ask one question, a bottom line question. Has your budget in the past reflected a deference of maintenance to say within an overall OMB total so you can fund your administration accounts and other accounts?
Mr. METZLER. We have not actually listed a deferred maintenance column, if you will.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. I am not asking that.
Mr. METZLER. Okay.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. I am asking you have you deferred maintenance.
Mr. METZLER. Yes. We have deferred maintenance.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. What kind of problem is that creating? You are going to have to address it sometime.
Mr. METZLER. Well, we are addressing it right now on a priority basis. The most needed items in the Cemetery are getting corrected.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. In this budget you are addressing it?
Mr. METZLER. This budget, for instance, the Old Amphitheater, this structure is over 100 years old, and we were finally able to partially fund it last year, and we are going to fund the rest of it this year.
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Mr. MOLLOHAN. That is one structure.
Mr. METZLER. That is one structure.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Overall.
Mr. METZLER. Our master plan has identified a great need for the infrastructure to be looked at at the Cemetery, and the process of the master plan was to give us a logical process to repair the Cemetery on a long-term basis.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. To ask for increased budgets?
Mr. METZLER. That is correct.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. And does this budget request reflect that at all?
Mr. METZLER. This request only reflects the study for the additional lands.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. So you are still not asking for enough money to keep up with maintenance in this budget?
Mr. METZLER. That's correct.
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Mr. MOLLOHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
QUALITY AND LEVEL OF MAINTENANCE
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Mollohan. To supplement Mr. Mollohan's question, I presume, you indicated there may be a request for reprogramming coming forward, and I assume that is a piece of your effort to try to maintain the quality and level of maintenance that we expected in the past.
Mr. Metzler, with the 1999 Budget request, I will submit this for the record, but I would like to have you be very specific when you respond. We are attempting to maintain the Cemetery in as good or better condition than in 1992, and there are more people being interned, et cetera. In shrinking budget circumstances, even reprogrammings don't last forever.
So I would like us to really be as specific to the committee in terms of our priority problems as you can be.
Mr. METZLER. We will. We will take a real close look at that.
[The information follows:]
Specific Maintenance Items Addressed and Deferred
Establishment of a graveliner program and headstone cleaning program are relatively new, expansion of the tree and shrub maintenance contract and headstone raising and realigning are also currently underway. The graveliner program prevents significant maintenance problems of sunken graves in the future. Cleaning headstones enhances the overall appearance of Arlington National Cemetery. Our goal is to clean at least one third of all the government marble headstones each year and our level of funding was doubled from 1997 to 1998, the second year of the program, to attain that goal. We are increasing the amount provided in this budget for aligning headstones which is another overall appearance enhancer. In 1996 we began to contract tree and shrub maintenance that was previously performed by civil service staff, since that contracting effort began we have added additional work that we had always wanted to perform but did not have the manpower to complete. We have recently started an annual maintenance fund for the eternal flame at the Kennedy gravesite and have upgraded the old electrical system there and throughout the northern portion of the cemetery. We recently completed a significant clean up of Section 27 and installed upright headstones in that section that was the only area of the cemetery that had flat grave markers. The repair of rainwater leaks at the Memorial Amphitheater and replacement of marble that had deteriorated there has also recently been accomplished. Repair of the McClellan gate to restore it has also just been done. A reprogramming request is forthcoming that will request funds to repair a broken stormwater sewer line in section 33 and we hope to be able to proceed soon with the much needed replacement of the historic Custis Walk.
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The 1999 budget request includes $100,000 to repair roads and $50,000 to repair flagstone walkways. Roof repairs are planned for the ceremonial shelter at the Columbarium, the lodge at the Soldiers' and Airmen's Home cemetery and the reception building at the Memorial Amphitheater. Replacement of old and worn carpet is scheduled for several areas. $50,000 for repair of the irrigation system in the parking facility is funded. Restoration of the Logan Mausoleum is planned for $28,000 and upgrade of the kitchen and bathroom at the Soldiers' and Airmen's Home cemetery is planned. The electrical system at the Memorial Amphitheater will be upgraded for $50,000 and $10,000 is planned for replacement of shrubs. The restoration of the Old Memorial Amphitheater has proceeded for $175,000 and an additional $250,000 is included to complete this maintenance project.
While more funds could always be utilized at Arlington we have received more than the initial guidance level over the recent years and have made conscious decisions on what to defer. A careful effort in developing the new master plan categorizes the specific maintenance needs in a logical order instead of taking a band-aid approach. We will continue to expand contract efforts where they make sense and enhance the appearance of Arlington. We will also do our part to remain within the overall caps established by the Congress and Administration.
PLANNING LEVEL ESTIMATE
Mr. LEWIS. And as an indication of concern that gets very specific on our part, I note with interest your testimony about a $500,000 figure relative to the planning for the expansion. I found over the years that, kind of like members of subcommittees, planning will take up as much time as we have available regardless of the subject, that architects will spend as much money as there possibly is available regardless of the real need.
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I would be interested in some detail for the record on how well you might do on $300,000 rather than $500,000 and let us use that as a base for some discussion.
Mr. METZLER. Okay.
Mr. LEWIS. Do members have any additional questions?
[No response.]
Mr. LEWIS. If not, we have CEQ up ahead of us, and I know how much time we want to spend with the gentle lady.
So with that, Mr. Zirschky, Mr. Metzler, I appreciate your being here, and ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be with you. Look forward to working with you.We are all in this together.
Mr. ZIRSCHKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. We will be in recess for a few minutes as we change subjects.
[Recess.]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
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Thursday, February 12, 1998.
COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
WITNESS
KATHLEEN A. McGINTY, CHAIR
Opening Statements
Mr. LEWIS. If we can come back to order.
I am very, very appreciative of a witness who comes to us. She has written out her notes last night, rather than having staff prepare it three days ahead of time. That's very interesting. I am sometimes better off the top. [Laughter.]
Ms. MCGINTY. This was in the cab on the way here.
Mr. LEWIS. Very important. Before I begin my own introductory statement, Ms. McGinty, as you may know, the Chairman, among other things, comes from the West.
Ms. MCGINTY. Yes.
Mr. LEWIS. And there is a group of people out there, members who are concerned about Western issues that sometimes have environmental implications. And they were concerned that sometimes when they communicate directly to you that you may or may not—sometimes staff gets in the way and they do not let you see those wonderful and important communications.
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And so they asked me to present this to you personally. And since they had me sign it last, they were afraid I might not sign it. I told them I would do that.
Ms. MCGINTY. Thank you very much.
Mr. LEWIS. And I would like you to examine that carefully on the way back in the cab.
So we are now going to turn to the Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Environmental Quality, whose fiscal year 1999 budget request is $3,020,000. This figure represents an increase of $520,000 over the 1998 appropriated level, and is identical to the President's fiscal year 1998 request.
Testifying on behalf of the Council is the able Chairwoman, Kathleen McGinty, with the Office of Environmental Quality.
Ms. McGinty, we welcome you again this year. It is a delight working with you and yours. As in previous years we would invite you to summarize your opening statement as you see fit. Your written statement will, of course, be included in the record, and members would like to spend time in personal exchange and questions.
Ms. MCGINTY. Terrific.
Mr. LEWIS. So, Mr. Stokes very likely has an opening——
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Mrs. MEEK. He has a Subcommittee meeting.
Mr. LEWIS. I'm just thinking he probably has a statement that we will make sure is in the record. I know you will pay very careful attention to Mr. Stokes' questions as well.
Ms. MCGINTY. Always do. Yes.
Mr. LEWIS. Ms. McGinty.
Ms. MCGINTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am particularly happy that I did the following. Since I didn't know I was going to receive a gift today, let the record show an official bribe for the Chairman, the ''I Love NEPA'' Valentine's gift for you.
Mr. LEWIS. I love NEPA. Let me say, you realize we are under severe restrictions regarding gifts. Is this edible?
Ms. MCGINTY. You better have Frank take a bite first.
Mr. LEWIS. Frankly, I was thinking about making it a bipartisan bite. [Laughter.]
Nonetheless the gift is welcomed. We do accept things from California, if they are made in California. Otherwise only if they are edible. [Laughter.]
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Ms. MCGINTY. I think it is Whitman's Chocolates from New Jersey.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Ah.
Mr. LEWIS. Frank tells me, quickly, that it is government to government so it is okay.
Ms. MCGINTY. Oh, so it is okay.
Mr. LEWIS. We'll have to examine what is okay government to government.
Ms. MCGINTY. I was just going to say, just imagine then the reciprocity there could be.
Mr. LEWIS. Almost endless, as a matter of fact. Do you scuba dive, by the way?
Ms. MCGINTY. I do.
Mr. LEWIS. I thought you probably would.
Ms. MCGINTY. Dangerously.
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Mr. LEWIS. Ms. McGinty.
MS. MCGINTY'S OPENING STATEMENT
Mr. MCGINTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to spend some time with you today. I wanted to share with you a little of what we have done in the last year.
We have been busy. For better or for worse we have been busy. And I think we have accomplished a lot. Also I would like to share with you some of the things we would like to accomplish in the year to come.
To place in some context in terms of what we have tried to accomplish, I wanted to go back to what is our charge, and our charge is the National Environmental Policy Act. I want to start there, because I think the charge of NEPA actually states as succinctly as can be stated that we have been trying to do.
As the Committee, I think is aware, NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, actually does not charge us with protecting the environment per se. Rather, in a much more creative and poetic stroke, it charges us with creating productive harmony among our environmental, economic and social objectives.
Now, especially in Washington, D.C., the idea of harmony is a bit of a challenging thing to have to shoot for, but I think it is exactly right. The reason I think it is exactly right, Mr. Chairman, and we've discussed it before, it does seem to me that for far too long we have made something which is a common ground among us all, and that is our care and commitment to the environment, into a battle ground.
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So what have we done towards this achievement of productive harmony? We have tried, first and foremost, to try to build partnerships, to try to serve as mediators of disputes, to try to create win/win approaches that reflect and respect the variety of our values—not just the environment, no just the economy, not just social concerns—but the multiplicity of those taken together, and to try to create the space for us to move forward together.
PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
So some examples of what we tried to do in that regard: First, public/private partnerships. We have now set the stage to launch a major new clean water initiative. Last year was the 25th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. We have tried to build a new partnership to set the course for the next generation of clean water.
That partnership will bring together the agricultural community and State and local and Federal Government in a new initiative that on the one hand sets new standards for things like nitrogen and phosphorous that were implicated in the pfiesteria outbreak in the Chesapeake, but also provides new money, new tools, new resources for the agricultural community and for urban communities to get at that next major stage of clean water issues, which is non-point sources of pollution.
SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
Second, we have seen the fruits of one of our earlier public/private partnerships. This one is particular with the Big Three automakers. Instead of just rewaging the battles over CAFE, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, we said isn't there a way for us to move forward together?
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And what we have done, primarily, is to open the doors of our national laboratories, and have our researchers working in partnership with the Big Three. A lot of folks thought it couldn't be done when we in 1994 set a goal that by the year 2003 the automakers would produce a car that achieved three times the fuel efficiency of current vehicles with no compromise of safety and performance.
And lo and behold, just this last year, in December, we saw the Big Three come forward and announce that they will do it not in 2003, but in fact in 2001. That research, that productivity resulted from this partnership that the Congress has supported and that we launched in 1994.
ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY MARKET
Third, in terms of public/private partnerships, each of you in your Districts has an endless number, almost, of environmental technology companies. Across the board nationwide environmental technology is an $180 billion market employing 1.2 million people.
The problem is that most of the most innovative companies, they are small companies who are having a very hard time in accessing Federal resources, accessing technology programs, and, importantly, accessing export opportunities abroad, because of how small they are.
In my office is housed an inter-agency task force to promote environmental technologies. We are beginning to see the benchmarks of progress there. By last year we had increased the exports of environmental technologies by more than 50 percent since 1993.
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We also hosted an event where we brought companies from Europe to the United States and partnered those companies with small U.S. companies so that joint ventures could be formed.
So we are moving forward in public/private partnerships.
BREAKING GRIDLOCK
Second, in terms of achieving this productive harmony, we have been trying to break gridlock over issues that have been in gridlock for a long time. Just last month we worked with the EPA, the Federal Department of Transportation and the Georgia State Department of Transportation who were at significant loggerhead about five pending highway projects that had been proposed.
EPA was poised to prohibit all five of those projects. We jumped into the equation, brought the parties together with the upshot that three of the five were approved to go forward immediately.
The remaining two are conditionally approved, the condition being that we will finally insist that Atlanta, which is far behind in its Clean Air Act requirements, to in 18 months time put together a Clean Air Act conformity plan.
Broke the gridlock. Allowed that to move forward.
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Dredging in the ports of New York and New Jersey. Congressman Frelinghuysen can certainly speak to this. he has had this as one of his concerns. We have worked very hard there, where environmentalists, the courts, State and local government at loggerheads in terms of keeping those ports competitive, which means dredging them and deepening the channels, but also not seeing additional contaminated dredge spoils go into the ocean.
The upshot of that work is that last year we permitted more dredging activities than had been permitted to go forward in three years time before that. And, on the environmental side of that equation, we closed what was known as the Mud Dump Site, which was an ocean dumping ground for contaminated dredge spoils, and the public had spoken loudly that they didn't want contaminated materials being dumped in the oceans.
But by bringing the parties together, we enabled the dredging to go forward, while attending to that ocean pollution concern.
In the budget this year, CEQ also made sure that we had a new initiative. The next piece of insuring the competitiveness of that port is to dredge to the port's main antery to 45 foot draft. And with the budget initiative that we have launched, it is a $10 million commitment to start that work and to get the dredging done.
Along with that comes a new Federal commitment to support that dredging project.
INTER-GOVERNMENTAL COOPERATION
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The third area that I wanted to highlight, Mr. Chairman, is in addition to the breaking gridlock, and in trying to form public/private partnerships, we also work assiduously to try to insure inter-agency coordination and inter-governmental cooperation.
Inter-agency coordination, I think that Everglades Restoration is a terrific example of that, where we have five, six, seven different Federal agencies. They have come together with one coordinated vision of how Everglades Restoration should proceed.
We now have the full backing of the State, the local water management district in working with us on that.
Further, to insuring inter-agency coordination, CEQ co-chairs, the Administration's effort to put forward our policies on reauthorities of the highway bill, the ISTEA bill, which we have sent to the Congress for your consideration, and also now co-chairing with the National Economic Council, the Administration's efforts on electricity restructuring, and to put forward a proposal there.
Finally, in terms of insuring inter-governmental cooperation, I share especially with the Chairman something I am sure you will be interested in. We have been working very hard on new arrangements under the Endangered Species Act, and hopefully within two weeks we will be able to announce a new partnership with the State of California, as we have previously done with the State of Oregon, which in the case of steelhead salmon will avoid a Federal listing.
I do not want to prejudge the conclusion of that but that is where we are heading. And just months ago we entered into a similar partnership with the State of Oregon on both coho and shortly on steelhead salmon as well.
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With some of these accomplishments, Mr. Chairman, we have also had some disappointments, areas where we are not above to move forward as productively as we would like.
There are specific instances of that. Certainly Congresswoman Meek has been a leader in looking at the Homestead Air Force Base situation, and there we are working together, because we did not accomplish all that we would like to have accomplished there last year.
NEPA REINVENTION
But