home > by publication type > news releases > Nearly Two Years After 9/11, the United States is Still Dangerously Unprepared and Underfunded for a Catastrophic Terrorist Attack, Warns New Council Task Force
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June 29, 2003
Council on Foreign Relations
Overall Expenditures Must Be as Much as Tripled to Prepare Emergency Responders Across the Country
Full Text and the Executive Summary of the Council-sponsored Independent Task Force Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared.
June 29, 2003 - Nearly two years after 9/11, the United States is drastically underfunding local emergency responders and remains dangerously unprepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil, particularly one involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-impact conventional weapons. If the nation does not take immediate steps to better identify and address the urgent needs of emergency responders, the next terrorist incident could be even more devastating than 9/11.
These are the central findings of the Council-sponsored Independent Task Force on Emergency Responders, a blue-ribbon panel of Nobel laureates, U.S. military leaders, former high-level government officials, and other senior experts, led by former Senator Warren B. Rudman and advised by former White House terrorism and cyber-security chief Richard A. Clarke. This report marks the first time that data from emergency responder communities has been brought together to estimate national needs.
The Task Force met with emergency responder organizations across the country and asked them what additional programs they truly need— not a wish list— to establish a minimum effective response to a catastrophic terrorist attack. These presently unbudgeted needs total $98.4 billion, according to the emergency responder community and budget experts (See attached budget chart.)
Currently the federal budget to fund emergency responders is $27 billion for five years beginning in 2004. Because record keeping and categorization of state and local spending varies greatly across states and localities, the experts could not estimate a single total five-year expenditure by state and local governments. Their best judgment is that state and local spending over the same period could be as low as $26 billion and as high as $76 billion. Therefore, total estimated spending for emergency responders by federal, state and local governments combined would be between $53 and $103 billion for the five years beginning in FY04.
Because the $98.4 billion unmet needs budget covers areas not adequately addressed at current funding levels, the total necessary overall expenditure for emergency responders would be $151.4 billion over five years if we are currently spending $53 billion, and $201.4 billion if we are currently spending $103 billion. Estimated combined federal state, and local expenditures therefore would need to be as much as tripled over the next five years to address this unmet need. Covering this funding shortfall using federal funds alone would require a five-fold increase from the current level of $5.4 billion per year to an annual federal expenditure of $25.1 billion.
“While we have put forth the best estimates so far on emergency responder needs, the nation must urgently develop a better framework and procedures to generate guidelines on national preparedness,” said Rudman, who served as Task Force chair. “And the government cannot wait to increase desperately needed funding to emergency responders until it has these standards in place,” he said.
The Task Force credits the Bush administration, Congress, governors and mayors for taking important steps since 9/11 to respond to the risk of catastrophic terrorism, and does not seek to apportion blame about what has not been done or not done quickly enough. The report is aimed, rather, at closing the gap between current levels of emergency preparedness and minimum essential preparedness levels across the United States.
“This report is an important preliminary step in a process of developing national standards and determining national needs for emergency responders,” said Council President Leslie H. Gelb, “but the report also highlights the need for much more work to be done in this area.”
The Independent Task Force, Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared, based its analysis on data provided by front-line emergency responders— firemen, policemen, emergency medical workers, public health providers and others— whose lives depend upon the adequacy of their preparedness for a potential terrorist attack.
The study was carried out in partnership with the Concord Coalition and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, two of the nation’s leading budget analysis organizations.
Jamie Metzl, Council Senior Fellow and a former National Security Council and Senate Foreign Relations Committee official, directed the effort. The Task Force drew upon the expertise of more than twenty leading emergency responder professional associations and leading officials across the United States. (A list of participating associations is attached below.)
The Task Force identified two major obstacles hampering America’s emergency preparedness efforts. First, because we lack preparedness standards, it is difficult to know what we need and how much it will cost. Second, funding for emergency responders has been sidetracked and stalled due to a politicized appropriations process, slowness in the distribution of the funds by federal agencies, and bureaucratic red tape at all levels of government.
To address the lack of standards and good numbers, the Task Force makes the following recommendations:
To deal with the problem of appropriated funds being sidetracked and stalled on their way to Emergency Responders, the Task Force recommends:
The Task Force on Emergency Responders is a follow on to the Council’s highly acclaimed Hart-Rudman Homeland Security Task Force, which made concrete recommendations last October on defending the country against a terrorist attack.
Established in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is a nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank, dedicated to increasing America’s understanding of the world and contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy. The Council accomplishes this mainly by promoting constructive debates, clarifying world issues, producing reports, and publishing Foreign Affairs, the leading journal on global issues.
Full Text and the Executive Summary of the Council-sponsored Independent Task Force Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared.
TASK FORCE MEMBERS
Warren B. Rudman (Chair)
Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison
Former Senator, New Hampshire
Charles Graham Boyd
Chief Executive Officer and President, Business Executives for National Security
Former Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command
Richard A. Clarke (Senior Adviser)
Senior Adviser, Council on Foreign Relations
Chairman of Good Harbor Consulting, LLC
Former Senior White House Adviser
William J. Crowe
Senior Advisor, Global Options
Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
James Kallstrom
Senior Executive Vice President, MBNA America
Former Director, Office of Public Security for the State of New York
Joshua Lederberg
President-Emeritus and Sackler Foundation Scholar, Rockefeller University
Nobel Laureate
Donald Marron
Chairman, UBS America and Chairman, Lightyear Capital
Jamie Metzl (Project Director)
Senior Fellow and Coordinator for Homeland Security Programs, Council on Foreign Relations
Former National Security Council aide
Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee official
Philip A. Odeen
Former Chairman, TRW, Inc.
Norman J. Ornstein
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Dennis Reimer
Director, Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism
Former Chief of Staff, USA
George P. Shultz
Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow, the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University; Former Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, and Director, Office of Management and Budget
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Dean, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
David Stern
Commissioner, National Basketball Association
Paul Tagliabue
Commissioner, National Football League
Harold E. Varmus
President and Chief Executive Officer, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Nobel Laureate
John W. Vessey
Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
William H. Webster
Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Former Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Steven Weinberg
Director of the Theory Group, University of Texas
Nobel Laureate
Mary Jo White
Partner and Chair of the Litigation Department, Debevoise & Plimpton
Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Emergency Responders Five-Year Unmet Needs Budget (FY04-FY08)*
Response Area | Need | Estimated Five-Year Cost |
Fire Services | Strengthen hazardous materials preparation and response, and EMS, including equipment and training. | $36.8 billion |
Urban Search and Rescue | Prepare fire departments and EMS for technical rescue and enhance FEMA’s national search and rescue teams. | $15.2 billion |
Hospital Preparedness | Upgrade communications, personnel protective equipment, mental health services, decontamination and training for hospitals. | $29.6 billion |
Public Health | Enhance CDC and epidemiological services; upgrade state and local public health department capacities to respond to terrorism. | $6.7 billion |
Emergency 911 Systems | Implement a national emergency telephone number system with effective first responder deployment capacity. | $10.4 billion |
Interoperable Communications | Ensure dependable, interoperable communications for first responders. | $6.8 billion |
Emergency Operations Centers | Provide physical and technical improvements in emergency operations centers. | $3.3 billion |
Animal/Agriculture Emergency Response | Develop regional and state teams to respond to emergencies and enhance lab support capacity. | $2.1 billion |
Emergency Medical Services Systems | Improve state and local EMS infrastructure including mutual aid, planning, and training. | $1.4 billion |
Emergency Management Planning and Coordination | Enhance basic emergency coordination and planning capabilities at state/local levels. | $1 billion |
Emergency Response Regional Exercises | Fund annual regional exercises. | $0.3 billion |
SUBTOTAL | $113.6 billion | |
Undesignated offsets from federal grants** | ($15.2 billion) | |
TOTAL | $98.4 billion | |
* These budgetary figures are based on estimates provided by the Emergency Responders Action Group. Where possible these figures have already been reduced to account for anticipated federal spending in relevant response areas.
**This assumes a thirty percent match by state and local governments.
Emergency Responders Action Group
Participating Organizations
American College of Emergency Physicians
American Hospitals Association
American Veterinary Medical Association
Century Foundation
Council of State Governments
County Executives of America
International Association of Chiefs of Police
International Association of Emergency Managers
International Association of Fire Chiefs
International Association of Fire Fighters
International City County Management Association
Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organization
National Association of Counties
National Association of County and City Health Officials
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems
National Emergency Numbers Association
National Fire Protection Association
National League of Cities
National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism
National Sheriffs' Association
National Volunteer Fire Council
Trust for America’s Health
United States Conference of Mayors
Contact: Lisa Shields, Vice President, Communications, (212)434-9888
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