For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 23, 2002
Gov Ridge Addresses U.S. Conference of Mayors
Remarks by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to the U.S. Conference of Mayors
Washington, D.C.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Thank you very, very
much. Well, first of all, let me thank you again for the
opportunity to spend some time with you. You have been more than open
and generous with your time in working with the Office of Homeland
Security.
We have a mutual interest in making our communities not only safer,
but better. And I'm convinced that the new partnership and relationship
we are developing with the group of seven will get us
there. And I'm reminded not only by that wonderful video
that you've put together, but also in my continuing discussion with
Mayor Morial, that you are the domestic troops, that you are front
line. And that is very consistent with the president's point of
view. (Applause.)
The President has made it very, very clear that the war against
terrorism has two fronts: one is in Afghanistan, and the
other is in the United States. And in his directive to me to
create a national homeland security strategy, it was pretty clear that
the effort that we have to undertake together has to be a federal,
state and city partnership, perhaps unlike anything we've seen in the
past, as we build a safer and stronger 21st century.
So I'm very pleased to be here. I want to acknowledge -- at least
they're registered; they've heard me speak many times, so I'm not sure
all of these mayors from Pennsylvania will be here -- they say, oh,
I've listened to him before -- but I know they're
registered. I would like to say hello to my friends, men
with whom I've worked for seven years as governor, Tom Murphy from
Pittsburgh -- I don't know if Tom is here -- and John Street from
Philadelphia.
I am hopeful that I have to be with your leader down in New Orleans
on February 3rd, and this is going to break your hearts in Missouri and
in Massachusetts when the Steelers play the Eagles in the Super
Bowl. I just thought I'd throw that out
there. (Laughter.)
And Mayor McGroarty from Wilkes-Barre, and Don Cunningham from
Bethlehem. And I would be remiss if I also didn't pay public
acknowledgment and a debt of gratitude to the leadership that Mayor
Williams has provided to the capital city. We've begun to
work with him very, very closely. And I appreciate the
relationship we are developing with him, as well.
On September 11, America's mayors became a symbol of strength
worldwide. Mayor Giuliani's commanding response in the face
of the terrible tragedy that befell upon New York City helped calm a
nation's fears. And now this country is counting on you to
help ensure that our cities are prepared and our citizens are safe.
Now, the President has asked me to develop a national strategy for
homeland security, but I need your help to do so. And I
underscore that: I need your help to do so. Our office may
be based in Washington, but the effort will begin in the big cities and
small towns that you lead.
An important milestone will be on February 3, the Super Bowl in New
Orleans. Last year we designated the Super Bowl as a
national special security event, placing the United States Secret
Service in charge of security. This is the first time a
Super Bowl has been so designated. And Mayor Morial, working
with Governor Foster, has provided invaluable support and coordination
in order to get the job done.
Five days later, the Winter Olympics take place in Salt Lake City.
It, too, is a national special security event. I toured the site two
weeks ago, and was thoroughly impressed with the work that's being done
to keep those 900 square miles safe, including all those extraordinary
venues that the athletes will be performing on.
Mayor Anderson and Governor Leavitt have done an outstanding job
helping to secure these games. And as Mayor Anderson
commented, our first priority is to make the games safe and
secure. Our administration has done and will do everything
possible to ensure we meet this challenge with abundant preparations
for the expected, as well as the unexpected.
Obviously, there are no guarantees, but I believe Salt Lake City
will be a very safe place to visit in February. Once again,
the world will be watching America, and I think what they will see is
the extraordinary accomplishments, the good that can come from working
together.
We have two Democrat mayors working with two Republican governors,
two impressive partnerships, two levels of government and two of the
best planned, best coordinated and best prepared events in our nation's
history. That theme of partnership --partnership -- is an important
one as the President gets ready to announce the homeland security
initiatives in this year's budget.
It includes unprecedented support for our nation's first responders
-- the police officers, the fire fighters, the medical personnel who
died for their country on September 11th. But you know, you
know that these men and women risk their lives
everyday. They did so before September 11th, and they've
done so everyday since. They work around the clock to
protect their communities, one home, one block, one neighborhood at a
time. And for them, the potential of a new challenge, a new
battle is with them every, single day.
Now, this unprecedented support that I'm talking to you about in
this year's budget isn't a one-year-and-out initiative. This
is a major investment. We want to empower cities and states
to build upon their first-response capability, and then we want to help
you sustain it in the future.
We're asking you to work with your governors and with us as we
implement a seamless national strategy on terrorism. It's
only possible through partnerships. And I'm not talking
about the old Washington definition of partnership, which goes
something like this: I'll tell you what to do or I'll tell
you what you need, and then you'll do it. This isn't about
what Washington wants anymore. It's about what our cities,
our communities, our regions and our states
need. (Applause.)
New hazmat equipment, bioterror training, new emergency
communication system. The list is fairly
long. And, depending on your own individual assessment of
your needs within your cities and regions, we need to give you the
flexibility to meet those needs.
The approach we will take will enable communities to build capacity
so that cities and regions are similarly equipped to combat the widest
possible range of terrorist attacks. In the process, making
our cities more secure and safer, we will make them
better. And by helping to meet your needs, we hope to change
the old relationship -- cities-state-federal model -- into one based on
mutual cooperation, collaboration and partnership.
I think we can all look back -- I certainly can look back to my
time in Congress, and even the seven years I served as governor -- to
know that that sometimes the city, state and federal relationship was
not seamless; that sometimes the three jurisdictions struck out on
their own, all well-intentioned, all with mutual desires and mutual
goals to be accomplished -- but there wasn't the harmony and the
coordination that we really needed in order to affect maximum change.
I believe the terrorism -- the threat of terrorism gives us an
opportunity in certain areas to restructure that relationship and to
create a lasting partnership that ensures that the resources that we
provide at the local, state and federal level are put to their very
best use. Now, the President will have
considerably more to say about this tomorrow.
Now, this is just one part of our emerging national
strategy. We will also work to build up our nation's immune
system to bioterrorism. We'll provide more money for
research and increase hospital's ability to respond to a bioterror
emergency.
One of the opportunities the President has given this office, and I
think it's an opportunity that this country should embrace, as we take
a look at ourselves through the lens of security, we may find that if
we look a little bit beyond just security, we'll find ways to
dramatically improve our communities, our states and our country, as
well.
Clearly, we want to ramp-up our support for first-responders in
anticipation of a terrorist attack. But just as clearly, if
we do a better job in supporting our police and firemen and emergency
service personnel, we'll enhance the quality of life in our
communities. We will be a safer community, surely, but we'll
be a better community.
Surely, we want to ramp-up our support for bioterrorism initiatives
and combating bioterrorism at the federal, state and local
level. Surely, we want to beef-up the public health system
in response to the potential of a bioterrorist attack. But
don't we all agree that in addition to looking at the possibility of
attack through the lens of security, we say to ourselves, that
infectious disease is a challenge to our individual citizens, to our
families, to our communities, whether Mother Nature brings it to us or
terrorist event imposes it upon us, so why not build up our public
health infrastructure not only to combat terrorism, but also to enhance
the quality of life in our cities and in our states.
And the list goes on and on. So as we take a look at
where we want to invest to make ourselves more secure, we look beyond
just security and find wonderful opportunities to make ourselves a
better country, as well.
We are working with Canada and Mexico to institute smart borders
that will keep terrorists out, while letting the flow of commerce
in. Again, mayors on bordering communities, bordering cities
to Mexico and Canada understand it's not only about making your borders
more secure, but we have to facilitate the flow of goods and services,
and people across those borders, because it has economic
implications. It means jobs to our
communities. So, again, by building better borders we make
ourselves not only more secure, but we make ourselves better, because
we enhance our economic capacity for growth. This is a
national, not just a federal effort.
We will work -- we are working with your organizations and others
throughout this country to find ways to share information with you in a
more timely way. And I'll tell you, we're making great
progress working on instituting a more effective threat assessment
system.
We've been working with your organizations representing your law
enforcement community, the International Association of Chiefs of
Police, state police, others across the board, so that we can put some
context or texture around the threat information that we share with you
locally or on a statewide basis in the months and years ahead.
We have met with many mayors from around the country, and we'll
continue to do that. We certainly appreciate the enthusiasm
and the dedication and the commitment that you bring to our
discussions, as we prepare a different kind of relationship, a 21st
century partnership among the state, local and federal entities that
all have a responsibility to help improve security around this
country.
I believe that by working together we will provide not just a safer
and more secure America, but clearly we will be a stronger and better
country because of it. I look forward to building this kind
of country with you in the months and years ahead.
If I might just make one final comment. I understand as
a governor -- former governor, that mayors of cities have a great
concern that the federal government may authorize and appropriate large
sums of money, that there may be delays or impediments to the money
flowing to your individual communities as you try to deal with
ramping-up the capacity of your first-responders in dealing with your
public health system. And I will assure you that we are very
mindful of the need to get these dollars to you in a way that gives you
some flexibility to meet your individual needs, but in a timely way so
you get those dollars and put them to use as soon as
possible. (Applause.)
I want to, again, thank you for the extraordinary cooperation that
you've extended to the Office of Homeland Security. I will
look forward to returning or seeing you tomorrow with the
President. He'll elaborate in greater detail some of the
ideas that I've shared with you. But to the extent that
you're willing, we have a few minutes, I'd be happy to respond to any
questions you might have.
Q I have a question about the proposed
partnership that you're talking about. In California, we
have a master mutual aid agreement that's statewide. It
basically governs how resources get sent from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction in time of crisis. It's all based on the notion of local
control, because what we found out over the years is that all disasters
are local.
And the people who are best able to marshal resources and point
them in the right direction are local folks. So I'm
intrigued by your description of this seamless partnership amongst the
different levels of government. It sounds great, but I -- my
question is, will it be based on the notion of local control?
GOVERNOR RIDGE: In one word, yes. Let me
elaborate. First of all, to the point you made, one of the
opportunities I think we have as we develop this partnership -- the
21st century security partnership, the federal government and the state
and local government -- is to see to it that all 50 states have
statewide plans and have local plans and have mutual aid plans. And you
can well-imagine as you survey the 50 states that some states have been
more aggressive in adopting these mutual aid pacts and really thinking
about their local and regional needs and others.
So, clearly, one of our goals in creating this partnership is to
have the cities and the counties and the regions, particularly the
smaller communities, develop mutual aid pacts. You're going
to see that -- as a governor, I realized that the governors need
resources to do what they need to do at the state level, but the bulk
of the resources have to be driven down to the local
level. And I think you'll be pleased with the manner in
which we're seeing to it that the bulk of the resources get to you and
that you're given some flexibility to deal with them.
As you know, the Department of Justice, FEMA -- you work with them,
I mean, you've helped us do a national inventory and a need's
assessment. And what we're trying to do is build up the basic capacity
in just about every region in every city around the
country. So we envision flexibility for you to help build up
that capacity, and we also understand that the bulk of the resources
have to go in your direction. And I think you'll be
comfortable with how it flows to you in a timely way.
Q Ninety percent of the lettuce comes out of
our community in the winter months. When 9/11 occurred we
had a major problem in crossing the border. All of the field
workers that come over to harvest a billion dollar crop were taking
anywhere from four to six hours to get across the border.
Our governor helped by sending in the National Guard, reduced that
time to an hour and a half to three hours. That goes away in
just another month. We are very concerned, because we still
have a crop out in the field to get out of the field. And it's going to
be -- when you go to McDonalds they're going to ask, do you want that
hamburger with lettuce for an extra $2, instead of hamburger
with fries. And so we're very concerned about getting that
crop out of the field.
And we want to know what is the plan at the federal level to
beef-up our borders? We understand the need for security,
but we also need to get that crop out of the field.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: You're question raises a couple of very
critical elements in our discussions with Canada and Mexico. First of
all, in the supplemental that was passed by Congress and signed into
law by the President in December, we're going to build even more
capacity with Customs and INS to put additional agents on both
borders. That still won't be enough, because we think, again, as we
look for safer borders, we need to devise ways with our Canadian and
Mexican counterparts to make it easier for people and goods to flow
across the borders without compromising risk.
And we've got a couple of experimental programs we're working with
up in Canada. I'll be going with several representatives
from different executive agencies to Mexico the first part of March to
try to streamline and harmonize on both sides of the border, means with
which we can facilitate goods and services, but at the same time reduce
risk.
We're very sensitive to the economic impact of tight border
controls. We don't want to compromise security, but we think with the
deployment of technology and collaboration between the two countries,
we can really facilitate this. And that's a very high
priority, I might add, for the President of the United
States. He understands.
Q Governor Ridge, let me thank you for your
leadership, particularly in the area of the national security special
events. Louisville, Kentucky, where I'm mayor, I'm delighted we host
First Saturday of May, one of the great sporting events of the
world. We have a lot of outstanding international leaders
and a lot of wealthy individuals who come from around the world to
gather in Louisville, Kentucky.
As its mayor, we've always been concerned about the threat of
terrorism because of the number of people who are there and
assembled. I might add, I'm an applicant for such a
designation.
I want to thank you for the collaboration, but I want to point out
something that you've already mentioned here. The
collaboration and the test ground, if you will, for cities like
Louisville, Kentucky, the state of Kentucky and the federal government
to come together as a working unit is a real opportunity to learn more
about how we can handle events of this nature, because international
events are going to be the thing of the future, not of the
past. So it's my hope, Governor Ridge, to have the
opportunity to work very closely with you and your office as we move
ahead.
Thank you very much.
GOVERNOR RIDGE: Thank you, Mayor. To that
point, because I know it affects so many of your colleagues, we have --
it's unique to our country, unique to our culture -- but we have so
many high-profile events throughout the country in all 50 states, where
we literally have thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people,
attracting both domestic and international visitors.
And I had a conversation with several Cabinet members, and one of
the things that we will do in the future -- because we can't designate
every major event as a national special security event; I mean, just
think of the NCAA, think of the NFL, think of the horse racing
industry, think of NASCAR, and the list goes on and on, where we
literally have hundreds of thousands of people -- but we do think that
there are certain practices and lessons and there are models that we
can work.
And one of the things I assure that we will do for you as governors
and for these organizations that put on these events, on a fairly
regular basis host seminars. We're going to bring in some of
your security personnel and sit down and talk to you about planning and
preparation and coordination.
The mayor has done a terrific job -- Mayor Morial -- with Governor
Foster. Mayor Anderson has done a great job with Governor
Leavitt. But if you take a look at those two experiences and
you see how the federal, state and local agencies coordinate their
activity, that's really what a national special security event is all
about. And we think there are plans and models that we would
share with you as how you can go about seeing to it that you maximize
security at the events in your communities, as well.
We're going to continue to recognize some as national special
security events. But, frankly, if you have a
widely-attended, highly visible athletic event, recreational event, or
the like, you need to know what the model is and you can apply
it. It's about collaboration and the partnership. And there
are a couple of models that, I think, are working rather successfully.
Q Governor Ridge, I just want to echo the
sentiments of many people that stood and said thank you for your
leadership in this area.
I'm from the city of Detroit. As a major point of entry
to this country -- and you've heard of our specific problems that we've
had on our border, and actually Secretary Mineta mentioned the
eight-mile backups of trucks, which affects the entire economy of the
United States of America with the just-in-time delivery -- even with
the spirit of civic responsibility, with the new patriotism, with this
new spirit of renewed volunteerism, our police department, even in a
coordinated effort, has spent an enormous amount of money and time on
those borders -- people volunteer their time. Since Sept
11th -- from September 11th to December 31st, our police department
spent about $3 million. If we keep that current pace up,
we'll be at $11 million by December 31, 2002.
Referencing your earlier comments about those initiatives to
actually push money down to the local level, are we talking about
retroactive money making police departments whole, or are we just
talking about prospective money? (Applause.)
GOVERNOR RIDGE: It's a good point. We would be -- as we
prepared -- two things. One, as we prepared the budget --
and we'll be sending it up to the Hill -- there is some flexibility in
that for you to use money for overtime. All
right? I'm just going to tell you, it won't cover all your
cost and you'll have to make a decision. But there are
substantial dollars in the budget that's going to the Hill for
equipment and training.
But there's a portion of those dollars that we say to you, because
you may incur unanticipated costs in a particular period of time, that
we want to give you a little flexibility to defer some of those monies
to those costs. And the details you'll see in the course of
laying out the budget, and I'm sure we'll have continuing discussions
about the kind of flexibility that's in that budget. But it
would be prospective -- prospective.
Secondly, to your point, it will be incumbent upon us, I think, at
the national level to work with Canada to make sure that your burden,
in terms of policing those borders and facilitating commerce, is
reduced and hopefully one of these days even eliminated. And
one of the many initiatives that we have with our Canadian friends
involves the use of technology to form an EZ-PASS system between Canada
and the United States, where people predesignated can basically flow
through quickly.
We want to extend that to commerce, as well, so that companies that
have historic relationships -- you have so many subcontractors on both
sides of the border, so many companies that have been doing business on
both sides of the border -- they can be checked and pre-certified on
either side of the border so they don't have to wait either.
So the short-term answer is, we're going to give you a little
flexibility to deal with some of these costs. The
longer-term answer, particularly at the border, is an agreement --
we're working both with our Canadian and Mexican counterparts -- to
deal with the flow of people, as well as the flow of goods, in a more
orderly, 21st century manner, which includes, I think, pre-certifying
people and commerce far away from the border so you can move across
quickly, reducing and, hopefully, long-term, eliminating the need to
put local law enforcement to help secure the
borders. (Applause.)
END
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