Lawmakers urge feds to take lead on first responder issues

While there is an abundance of information on the problems facing "first responders" to emergencies, the lack of leadership in addressing their concerns has hampered progress on the issue, two House lawmakers said on Thursday.

"At the federal level, there are too many cooks stirring the soup," Missouri Republican William Lacy said during a joint hearing of the Government Reform subcommittees on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, and on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census.

Lacy pushed for "greater commitment in this administration" to solve first-responder issues.

"No one seems very interested in taking full responsibility," said Republican Adam Putnam of Florida, chairman of the technology subcommittee. "Homeland security grants have very few strings attached that require [interaction] of equipment across regions and states or with the federal government, [and] SAFECOM managers have absolutely no authority to require the FCC to reorganize or designate additional bandwidth for emergency needs."

SAFECOM is the e-government initiative intended to improve the ability of wireless devices to communicate across jurisdictions, a program that Putnam said "is about the mission and role of our federal government."

"We must determine the role of each stakeholder and create an atmosphere of accountability and responsibility for performance and results," he said.

Lacy questioned whether it was wise to place SAFECOM under the direction of the Homeland Security Department. "As near as I can tell, the Department of Homeland Security is struggling to find its own direction; that is not a very good prescription for a leadership," he said.

"The fundamental barrier to successfully addressing these challenges has been the lack of effective, collaborative, interdisciplinary and intergovernmental planning," said William Jenkins, director of homeland security and justice issues at the General Accounting Office.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the key to solving the equipment problem is the allocation of additional spectrum. The lack of spectrum is the "Achilles heel" of first responders, she said.

Harman touted a bill that would close a loophole that currently stalls the Dec. 31, 2006, government-mandated transfer of spectrum allocation if more than 15 percent of households cannot receive digital television. "If Congress can't make good on its promise to provide the necessary spectrum for first responders, the other efforts will be wasted because radios need to be on the same frequency to talk to each other," she said.

Aldona Valicenti, Kentucky's chief information officer and a representative for the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), pushed "state leadership [as] essential to developing a coordinated approach to achieving interoperability."

Funding also is an issue. "There is insufficient funding in place to solve the nation's interoperability problem," said Karen Evans, administrator for e-government and information technology at the White House Office of Management and Budget. "Cost estimates are commonly estimated at over $15 billion and do not always include the costs of retraining, new infrastructure, or essential maintenance of new systems."