WEBVTT 1 00:00:09.959 --> 00:00:11.509 SECRETARY JOHNSON: Good afternoon everybody. 2 00:00:11.586 --> 00:00:20.156 Over the last few weeks I have outlined the consequences of a failure to fully fund 3 00:00:20.348 --> 00:00:29.168 The Department of Homeland Security with a full-year appropriations bill for fiscal year 2015. 4 00:00:30.669 --> 00:00:38.409 We have stressed that shutdown of the department means that almost 200,000 people will be required 5 00:00:38.505 --> 00:00:43.835 to come to work without pay during the period of a shutdown. 6 00:00:44.177 --> 00:00:53.177 We have stressed that 30,000, approximately 30,000, DHS employees will be furloughed, 7 00:00:53.258 --> 00:00:56.518 including most of our headquarters staff. 8 00:00:57.247 --> 00:01:01.877 We have stressed that as long as the department is on a continuing resolution 9 00:01:02.467 --> 00:01:06.867 we cannot pay for added border security necessary for the southern border. 10 00:01:07.982 --> 00:01:13.442 Last week I issued a statement about the drawbacks of being on a continuing resolution 11 00:01:13.676 --> 00:01:17.676 to maritime security if we’re not properly funded. 12 00:01:19.008 --> 00:01:23.938 Yesterday I was honored to stand with former Secretaries Ridge and Chertoff 13 00:01:24.127 --> 00:01:29.667 while they talked about the importance of a fully-funded Department of Homeland Security. 14 00:01:31.141 --> 00:01:36.011 Today, I am sending a letter to our Congressional leadership outlining the real, 15 00:01:36.067 --> 00:01:41.657 concrete impacts to homeland security and public safety in the event of a 16 00:01:41.686 --> 00:01:44.596 government shutdown of our department. 17 00:01:44.752 --> 00:01:54.122 Today now I also highlight the impact of a shutdown of homeland security or an 18 00:01:54.191 --> 00:02:00.211 extension of the continuing resolution on the heroic men and women of state 19 00:02:00.253 --> 00:02:07.353 and local law enforcement, emergency managers, first responders, firefighters and their 20 00:02:07.361 --> 00:02:11.361 ability to protect and serve the public. 21 00:02:11.965 --> 00:02:16.265 I am pleased to be here with first responders from the Commonwealth of Virginia, 22 00:02:16.570 --> 00:02:22.550 including the Virginia state police and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, 23 00:02:23.256 --> 00:02:30.006 officials of police, sheriffs, fire departments, emergency management officials from Alexandria, 24 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:36.810 Arlington, Fairfax counties including Fairfax Battalion fire chief Chris Schaff. 25 00:02:37.544 --> 00:02:43.104 From here in Washington D.C., Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Lamar Greene, 26 00:02:43.163 --> 00:02:50.093 Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Chris Geldart and Washington D.C. 27 00:02:50.171 --> 00:02:54.171 Fire and Emergency Medical Services Chief Eugene Jones. 28 00:02:54.678 --> 00:02:59.108 Representing the International Association of Fire Chiefs, Chief Marc Bashoor 29 00:02:59.260 --> 00:03:03.550 of Prince George's County Fire EMS Department. 30 00:03:04.184 --> 00:03:09.274 Representing the Major Counties Sheriffs’ Association Sheriff Rich Stanek, 31 00:03:09.322 --> 00:03:13.792 Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota. 32 00:03:13.893 --> 00:03:20.703 Representing Police Executive Research Forum Executive Director Chuck Wexler and representing 33 00:03:20.768 --> 00:03:27.408 the International Association of Chiefs of Police Deputy Executive Director Gwen Boniface. 34 00:03:28.675 --> 00:03:34.815 Also, publicly supporting our position is the Fraternal Order of Police. 35 00:03:35.212 --> 00:03:39.962 I also appreciate the statement issued yesterday by the Commissioner of the 36 00:03:39.985 --> 00:03:42.565 New York City Police Department Bill Bratton 37 00:03:42.622 --> 00:03:46.622 about the importance of a fully-funded Department of Homeland Security. 38 00:03:47.761 --> 00:03:54.361 Much of the Department’s mission is fulfilled through grant-making activity at about 39 00:03:54.401 --> 00:03:57.371 2.3 billion dollars a year. 40 00:03:57.471 --> 00:04:03.941 Through our grants we assist the people you see on this stage in preventing, responding to, 41 00:04:03.977 --> 00:04:10.697 or recovering from, terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. 42 00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:18.220 For example, when I was at the Super Bowl late January for the security briefing I 43 00:04:18.291 --> 00:04:22.641 received just days before the Super Bowl, officials at the operations center 44 00:04:22.729 --> 00:04:26.559 pointed out to me that all of the communications and surveillance equipment 45 00:04:26.666 --> 00:04:31.286 that I saw was paid for by grants from the Department of Homeland Security. 46 00:04:32.338 --> 00:04:38.848 If you look at photographs of the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, 47 00:04:39.192 --> 00:04:45.612 much of the first responder communications equipment, portable radios, fire helmets, 48 00:04:45.685 --> 00:04:52.335 high-visibility vests, response vehicles, life-saving equipment and mass causality 49 00:04:52.392 --> 00:04:58.932 supplies were things paid for by grants from the Department of Homeland Security. 50 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:06.699 Our Emergency Management Performance Grants contribute 50 percent of salaries of state 51 00:05:06.739 --> 00:05:11.689 and local emergency managers in 58 jurisdictions. 52 00:05:11.911 --> 00:05:17.991 Our staffing for adequate fire and emergency grants, also known as “SAFER grants,” 53 00:05:18.112 --> 00:05:26.002 fund the salaries of over 1,800 firefighters throughout the country in places such as Detroit, 54 00:05:26.025 --> 00:05:29.125 Phoenix, Miami-Dade and Jersey City. 55 00:05:30.263 --> 00:05:36.053 None of this, because we’re on a continuing resolution, is being funded right now. 56 00:05:38.671 --> 00:05:44.091 This is not just an inside-the-beltway political jousting. 57 00:05:44.504 --> 00:05:50.504 A failure to fund the Department of Homeland Security fully has real impacts 58 00:05:50.616 --> 00:05:56.536 on public safety and the jobs of people like you see up here on this stage 59 00:05:56.590 --> 00:05:59.940 across every reach of this country. 60 00:06:01.121 --> 00:06:07.181 Every mayor, governor, police chief, sheriff and police commissioner, fire chief and 61 00:06:07.236 --> 00:06:11.366 emergency manager should be concerned about this. 62 00:06:12.498 --> 00:06:17.298 Every mayor, governor, police chief commissioner sheriff should be concerned 63 00:06:17.343 --> 00:06:21.343 about a failure to fund the Department of Homeland Security. 64 00:06:22.572 --> 00:06:26.782 There are just 34 hours left. Time is running out. 65 00:06:27.440 --> 00:06:33.520 Our grants are funded by FEMA, and to provide a little more detail about the 66 00:06:33.579 --> 00:06:38.289 impact of the failure to fund the people in this room I’d like to call upon 67 00:06:38.366 --> 00:06:41.616 Administrator Craig Fugate. Thanks Craig. 68 00:06:42.555 --> 00:06:44.045 ADMINISTRATOR CRAIG FUGATE: Thank you Secretary. 69 00:06:44.076 --> 00:06:48.556 It’s really hard to describe the impacts because it’s hard to show 70 00:06:48.648 --> 00:06:54.363 other than a dollar figure in Washington D.C., a top-line number that is being held up 71 00:06:54.363 --> 00:06:55.573 under the CR. 72 00:06:55.959 --> 00:07:01.419 The people here represent the reality that disasters happen. It is the local responders, 73 00:07:01.454 --> 00:07:06.864 properly prepared, trained, and equipped that make the difference in what oftentimes 74 00:07:06.943 --> 00:07:10.483 will be an emergency and not grow to being a disaster. 75 00:07:10.880 --> 00:07:16.053 The ability to prevent and interdict terrorist threats, the ability to 76 00:07:16.053 --> 00:07:18.203 manage emergencies at their level. 77 00:07:18.722 --> 00:07:22.872 There are events that have been occurring since we have made investments since 9/11 78 00:07:23.119 --> 00:07:29.349 in local response that historically required a much larger federal presence that they’re 79 00:07:29.421 --> 00:07:33.101 able to manage with the resources that they have built from this. 80 00:07:33.409 --> 00:07:39.329 But like many programs, when people look at dollar figures, they forget this is a 81 00:07:39.425 --> 00:07:46.185 perishable capability. You have to continue to train, equip, and maintain the capability 82 00:07:46.231 --> 00:07:47.461 we build as a nation. 83 00:07:48.034 --> 00:07:52.724 So while most people look at this top-line numbers, they forget it’s the people that 84 00:07:52.768 --> 00:07:58.148 are standing in here, that every day when 9-1-1 is called, respond, and that these 85 00:07:58.177 --> 00:08:04.577 funds have built capacity and capabilities beyond which we had when 9-11 struck. 86 00:08:04.617 --> 00:08:07.777 That is a perishable commodity. 87 00:08:08.024 --> 00:08:14.594 Delays in funding will begin to erode this capability and begin to erode the needs 88 00:08:14.630 --> 00:08:18.630 that communities have to be more self- sufficient with these dollars. 89 00:08:19.255 --> 00:08:22.355 So as the Secretary said, this is a timing issue. 90 00:08:23.035 --> 00:08:28.905 The longer we delay the funding, the more capability will begin to erode. 91 00:08:29.292 --> 00:08:32.462 We’ve spent a lot of money and time to build this 92 00:08:32.511 --> 00:08:35.931 we should not go backwards delaying the funding. 93 00:08:36.492 --> 00:08:38.632 SECRETARY JOHNSON: Alright we’ll take a few questions. 94 00:08:39.712 --> 00:08:42.012 QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, yesterday you said that you were confident 95 00:08:42.020 --> 00:08:44.340 and optimistic that they were going to be able to come to an agreement. 96 00:08:44.423 --> 00:08:45.553 Do you still feel that way today? 97 00:08:46.736 --> 00:08:49.096 SECRETARY JOHNSON: I agree things seem to be moving in the right direction, 98 00:08:49.461 --> 00:08:51.841 but there’s also a timing issue. 99 00:08:51.897 --> 00:08:57.347 There’s just 34 hours left before midnight Friday when funding for our 100 00:08:57.380 --> 00:08:59.560 Department runs out. 101 00:08:59.612 --> 00:09:04.922 I’m continuing to urge members of Congress to come together as quickly as possible 102 00:09:05.381 --> 00:09:08.891 and pass a clean appropriations bill for our Department. 103 00:09:08.968 --> 00:09:13.248 I was up there today, I’m going back to the Hill this afternoon, 104 00:09:13.313 --> 00:09:15.133 I was up there most of the day yesterday. 105 00:09:15.721 --> 00:09:17.771 I have to be optimistic. 106 00:09:17.971 --> 00:09:20.121 I have to be optimistic for our people; 107 00:09:20.325 --> 00:09:24.325 I have to be optimistic for the people up here on this stage with me. 108 00:09:24.797 --> 00:09:33.347 And so I do believe that Congress will come together and finally fund our Department. 109 00:09:33.439 --> 00:09:36.729 As I said a moment ago it’s not just a matter of funding our Department, 110 00:09:36.873 --> 00:09:42.803 it’s a matter of funding the important and heroic work of people like you see 111 00:09:42.881 --> 00:09:48.561 up here on this stage. I’m optimistic and I have to be optimistic. 112 00:09:48.629 --> 00:09:51.359 But I’m gonna keep fighting. Alicia? 113 00:09:51.990 --> 00:09:55.080 QUESTION: In the past we’ve heard Doomsday scenarios, with the government 114 00:09:55.160 --> 00:09:59.160 shutdown a year and a half ago, the sequester before that, that didn’t pan out. 115 00:09:59.273 --> 00:10:02.233 Whether it be line in airports, or security threats at the border, 116 00:10:02.287 --> 00:10:07.907 is there a tangible example you can point to where those previous incidents have hindered 117 00:10:08.042 --> 00:10:14.992 would it be a security or response you fear will be replicated should this go past... 118 00:10:15.027 --> 00:10:16.647 SECRETARY JOHNSON: Well, I’ll give you one example. 119 00:10:16.682 --> 00:10:24.982 First, let me preface this by saying that in my public statements and sessions 120 00:10:25.057 --> 00:10:31.897 like this and in my meetings with members of Congress I have endeavored to be factual 121 00:10:31.966 --> 00:10:39.536 about the impact of a shutdown, the impact of continuing to be on a continuing resolution. 122 00:10:39.915 --> 00:10:50.215 I don’t want to engage in demagoguery, rhetoric, flowery language, I don’t want to overstate things, 123 00:10:50.282 --> 00:10:51.842 but we have to be factual. 124 00:10:51.950 --> 00:10:56.498 So in a series of statements like today, I think it’s important for the American 125 00:10:56.558 --> 00:11:03.288 public to understand that this is not just an inside the beltway political debate. 126 00:11:03.509 --> 00:11:09.089 If we fail to fund this Department it has consequences well beyond what’s 127 00:11:09.135 --> 00:11:13.135 happening in Congress right now, well beyond the political debate. 128 00:11:13.452 --> 00:11:18.072 And so I’ve endeavored to be factual and I think I have been. 129 00:11:19.611 --> 00:11:22.521 One of the things that come to mind, Alicia, with your question 130 00:11:22.587 --> 00:11:26.627 is in 2013 our Department was shut down for 17 days. 131 00:11:27.786 --> 00:11:30.146 We had to furlough a lot of headquarters personnel. 132 00:11:30.232 --> 00:11:35.932 There are things that should have been done in those 17 days that we’re not accomplished 133 00:11:35.961 --> 00:11:40.841 that we have not been able to get back on track since that period of time. 134 00:11:40.865 --> 00:11:47.685 The other thing I’ll say is that any time you ask people to come to work without pay, 135 00:11:48.297 --> 00:11:52.537 even though they may eventually get paid, and they miss a paycheck or two, 136 00:11:52.611 --> 00:11:55.071 that creates anxiety within their families. 137 00:11:55.544 --> 00:12:00.684 It creates anxiety about the certainty of their jobs, I think a lot of people take that for granted. 138 00:12:01.321 --> 00:12:04.091 And so that has a lasting impact in my view. 139 00:12:04.156 --> 00:12:09.646 And so that’s one of the reasons why Craig and I and other senior leaders of the Department 140 00:12:09.661 --> 00:12:21.741 have been so forceful about the impacts of a shutdown because it affects our men and women, 141 00:12:21.807 --> 00:12:29.257 it affects the people who work every day to protect the homeland, to promote public safety 142 00:12:29.314 --> 00:12:34.344 and I think that they deserve a lot better from their political leadership in Washington 143 00:12:34.452 --> 00:12:39.882 then the plight that we’re in right now. Yes, ma’am? 144 00:12:40.028 --> 00:12:44.598 QUESTION: Can you explain your optimism when things in the House aren't looking as clear? 145 00:12:44.629 --> 00:12:50.059 I know you lobbied the Senate very heavily, but now there's a clean bill that might go 146 00:12:50.101 --> 00:12:52.341 through the House. So What’s the optimism there? 147 00:12:52.403 --> 00:12:56.403 SECRETARY JOHNSON: Like I said, I’m optimistic because I have to be. And because I believe 148 00:12:56.485 --> 00:13:00.014 that most members of Congress when they appreciate, and I think a lot of them do, 149 00:13:00.044 --> 00:13:05.703 when they appreciate the consequences of 150 00:13:05.793 --> 00:13:12.484 letting funding for homeland security in these challenging times lapse, 151 00:13:12.554 --> 00:13:18.129 the consequences to public safety, the consequences to homeland security, 152 00:13:18.129 --> 00:13:21.833 the consequences to our counterterrorism, border security, maritime security, 153 00:13:21.853 --> 00:13:28.339 aviation security efforts, cybersecurity efforts, that they will come together and figure this out. 154 00:13:28.940 --> 00:13:33.578 Very few people on Capitol Hill in Washington want this debate, 155 00:13:33.745 --> 00:13:38.021 very few people want us to be in the situation that we’re in. 156 00:13:38.082 --> 00:13:43.888 And for that reason I think, and I hope, that we will find a way out of this. 157 00:13:43.888 --> 00:13:50.862 But I’m gonna continue to stress every day the importance of funding this Department, 158 00:13:50.862 --> 00:13:57.001 the importance of funding the work of the people we see here on this stage. 159 00:13:57.502 --> 00:14:02.446 So I’m optimistic, but not without a fight. And so that’s what we’re doing today. 160 00:14:02.482 --> 00:14:04.578 One more question. Yes, ma’am? 161 00:14:04.609 --> 00:14:08.212 QUESTION: If you could address for a moment some concerns people have with this funding. 162 00:14:08.212 --> 00:14:11.883 Um, a federal court in Texas vs. United States has said giving an illegal alien a 163 00:14:11.983 --> 00:14:15.353 social security number is not an act of prosecutorial discretion. 164 00:14:15.353 --> 00:14:19.157 What specific law gives the President the authority to give a social security number 165 00:14:19.157 --> 00:14:21.759 to a foreign national in the country illegally? 166 00:14:21.826 --> 00:14:25.263 SECRETARY JOHNSON: Well, that’s a case that’s on appeal right now. 167 00:14:25.296 --> 00:14:30.836 We disagree with the district court’s decision, but that’s what appellate courts are for. 168 00:14:30.836 --> 00:14:33.871 We’ve appealed the decision, we’re asking for a stay of injunction. 169 00:14:33.871 --> 00:14:41.179 We went to the district judge first and the matter will be resolved in a few days. 170 00:14:41.216 --> 00:14:43.314 And so that’s in litigation. 171 00:14:43.348 --> 00:14:49.587 I believe that the injunction will be reversed in a matter of time. 172 00:14:49.587 --> 00:14:53.424 Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for attending. 173 00:14:53.424 --> 00:15:00.831 And thank you all very very much. Appreciate it. Thank you for the work that you do.