Chertoff defends remarks on security for ground transit
Says infrastructure to protect systems is at state, local level
By Kaitlin Bell, Globe Correspondent | July 15, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, facing sharp questioning from members of Congress yesterday, defended remarks he made earlier in the day implying that securing ground transit from terrorist attacks is the primary responsibility of state and local authorities, rather than the federal government.
The House and Senate Homeland Security committees had originally called hearings so that Chertoff could outline a massive restructuring plan of his department that he announced yesterday, but the secretary ended up devoting a large portion of his testimony trying to placate Congress members regarding remarks he had made to the Associated Press.
In an interview with the AP, Chertoff said: ''The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."
Asked whether this meant that communities should be ready to provide the bulk of the protection for local transit systems, Chertoff said, ''Yep."
Chertoff said during the hearings that his statement was a pragmatic appraisal of the differences in how the nation's air and ground transit systems operate. ''My point is, the aviation system is essentially a closed system, and frankly there's no one else positioned to put the boots on the ground, so to speak" other than the federal government, he said. With mass transit, ''a lot of the day-to-day responsibility is local," he said.
Committee members, especially those representing urban districts, wanted to know why Chertoff had identified aviation security as a higher priority for his agency than ground transport, especially in the aftermath of bus and subway bombings in London last week that killed more than 50 people and injured 700.
Chertoff emphasized that he had not meant to imply that securing ground transport is not important to his agency, only that the infrastructure to do so already exists at the state and local level. He said the federal government could help local agencies by supplying them with funding and specialized security technology.
But legislators grilled the secretary on what they said were insensitive remarks that reflect a naivete about the threat to ground transport, because of the transit bombings in London and the rail bombing in Madrid last year. On the floor of the Senate yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, demanded that Chertoff apologize. And during the Senate Homeland Security hearing that afternoon, two committee members read from the AP report.
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, engaged in a heated exchange with Chertoff in which he challenged the secretary to explain why his plan did not include provisions for securing nuclear and chemical plants, public transit, the shipment of hazardous materials, and the siting of liquefied natural gas facilities. Chertoff said his plan streamlines security measures so as not to inconvenience the public or duplicate policies already in place.
Virginia Miller, a spokeswoman for the American Public Transportation Association, condemned Chertoff's comments. ''To say that a terrorist attack on a subway is less important than an attack using a commercial airline is another example of how the federal government treats the millions of public transportation riders as second-class citizens when it comes to security," she said.
In Massachusetts, the reaction was more muted.
''We will never say that we have enough money to do everything that we would want to do in an ideal world," said Katie Ford, spokeswoman for state Secretary of Public Safety Edward A. Flynn. ''However, we don't live in an ideal world. I think you get to a point of diminishing returns by throwing money at public transit for anti-terrorist security. If everyone had to go through a metal detector and have their bags scanned, people would just not use the subway anymore."
Julie Teer, spokeswoman for Governor Mitt Romney, said the governor ''has made clear the state will bear any expense necessary to protect our citizens from terrorist attacks. Of course, we welcome any federal support that we can get. This is a shared responsibility."
Meanwhile, the Senate yesterday defeated efforts to spend an additional $1.2 billion to secure US mass-transit systems. While 53 of the 100 members backed the additional spending, 60 votes were needed to prevail because the money exceeded the Senate's self-imposed spending caps.
Mac Daniel of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Information from Reuters also was used.
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