Official Remarks & Reports

STATEMENT BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, JUSTICE, STATE AND THE JUDICIARY JOHN J. FANNING CHIEF OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS OPERATIONS THE NEW YORK CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT

MAY 10, 2001

Mr. Chairman, I am honored to appear before you and the member of this Committee.

My name is Jack Fanning. I am Chief of Hazardous Materials Operations for the New York City Fire Department. My duties include supervising first responding firefighters at major disasters in the City of New York. I responded, along with other firefighters, to the World Trade Center explosion and fire and, as a member of New York City's Urban Search and Rescue Team, operated for the first eight days at the devastating explosion and collapse of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. I have spent thirty-one years responding to fires and emergencies in the City of New York.

In the last few years the Fire Service as a whole has made much progress in our preparations for responding to the consequences of terrorist acts - but there is much more work to be done. We have not made these advances alone, however. We have accomplished many of them with the help of our federal partners.

In the larger cities, with your help, we have laid the groundwork for response to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) incidents. However, the efforts thus far established must be maintained and built upon in order to be effective. In many of our smaller communities, however, domestic preparedness efforts have been minimal or nonexistent.

In all parts of the country the major emphasis of domestic preparedness initiatives must be placed upon the ability of the first responders to effectively and safely do their jobs, to have properly equipped and trained rescuers arriving immediately to perform their life saving functions in the first "golden" hours of the incident.

To this end, the following are two excellent examples of the federal/first responder partnership in the area of WMD response:

First, are the Department of Justice Programs. The DOJ, Office of State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support has provided outstanding training opportunities, equipment grants and exercise support. This type of support has been invaluable because it addresses the issue "where the rubber meets the road" - our first line response personnel - improving their effectiveness and addressing their safety. These are excellent programs with real world results.

The second example is the Interagency Board for Equipment Standardization. This group is tackling a difficult issue in coordinated emergency response - the standardization of response equipment. It is important that this group continue as an independent consensus building body of first responders and their federal counterparts. This diverse group has shown that our goals are indeed common.

There are other fine examples of this partnership as well, including broadening cooperative efforts with the International Association of Fire Fighters and the International Association of Fire Chiefs. It is critical for us in the first responder community that efforts such as these continue and their benefits made available to a greater number of communities.

The concept of pre-positioning equipment is deserving of greater attention as well. This involves establishing stockpiles of emergency response equipment around the country to be readily available to an impacted community. This would do much to bridge the gap between the initial response to the incident and the arrival of federal assets. It would provide not only much needed equipment in a short time frame but also present a standard to a jurisdiction for both training and procurement. It would also allow a community to reconstitute itself immediately for subsequent events and normal day-to-day operations.

In summary, the effective resolution of a major WMD event will involve all of our efforts. However, the primary emphasis must be placed upon the most important aspects of the equation - the first responder and first responder teams. If lives are to be saved and suffering reduced it will be up to them to do it. At a WMD incident, whatever the scale, firefighters and other responders will be there within minutes, some quite possibly becoming victims themselves. They will do what they have always done - act to protect the public they serve. Knowing this, let us provide them with the tools they need to perform their duties safely and effectively. Your continued endorsement of worthwhile programs targeting the needs of first responders will ensure this.

Thank you for this opportunity and for your obvious concern.