Testimony of

Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr.
Director

National Institute of Standards and Technology
Technology Administration
U.S. Department of Commerce

Before the

Committee on Science
Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards

House of Representatives

United States Congress

“Homeland Security”

June 10, 2002

Representative Morella and Representative Barcia thank you for this opportunity to testify today about the contributions of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to strengthen homeland security. I would like to tell you about some of the many ways NIST works closely with people, companies, and organizations across the nation and here in Montgomery County to help protect our nation against terrorism.

A strong economy and a strong technology base are the nation’s greatest resources to protect our homeland. NIST has the unique mission of providing the measurements and standards that the private sector, universities, and government agencies need to develop new technologies, to create new products and services, to conduct research, and to effectively carry out their responsibilities. NIST measurements and standards and our cost-shared support of new technologies enable new homeland security technologies to be developed and effectively used, and help strengthen our economy in general.

Like other government and private sector organizations, NIST increased its focus on homeland security after September 11 and the October anthrax attacks. But NIST has a long and productive history of supporting national security since our founding in 1901 as the National Bureau of Standards. Our measurements and standards provided crucial support for the development of radar, nuclear weapons, aircraft instruments, and other key technologies that helped the U.S. succeed in past conflicts. And now NIST provides support for technologies to help win the war on terrorism and protect our homeland.

In addition to our long-standing support of national security, NIST responded to the immediate aftermath of last fall’s terrorist attacks, and NIST is supporting the technologies that will help prevent or minimize future threats. We conduct all our work in close cooperation with partners in industry, universities, federal and local governments, and other organizations, including many here in Montgomery County. I want to share some examples with you.

Initial September 11 Attack Response

NIST responded immediately to the September 11 attacks and October anthrax bioterrorism in many different ways.

NIST building and fire experts joined teams of scientists and engineers studying how the Pentagon and World Trade Center buildings failed in the attacks, laying the groundwork to learn lessons that could help save lives in future attacks or natural disasters. NIST experts presented a report to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in November, 2001 of recommendations for rebuilding and retrofitting the Pentagon that would improve the Pentagon’s resistance to similar attacks. In New York, teams of search and rescue robots that had been tested on a special NIST urban rescue course penetrated areas too small and too hazardous for emergency responders and located full and partial remains of several victims at the World Trade Center site. NIST served as the technical coordinator for the Law Enforcement Panel for a conference on “Protecting Emergency Responders: Lessons Learned from Terrorist Attacks.” This conference helped emergency responders learn how to better protect themselves and more effectively do their jobs in disasters such as the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks.

After the World Trade Center towers survived the initial aircraft impacts, the engineering community was stunned that the towers and other nearby steel frame buildings collapsed due to the effects of fire – that had never happened before to such buildings. NIST participated in preliminary investigations of the cause of the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and many other partners. And NIST is preparing to lead a more detailed investigation of the disaster to learn how existing and future buildings can be made safer against possible future attacks and natural disasters.

To help identify victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology used NIST measurements to test new DNA analysis techniques to identify attack victims that would not otherwise have been identified due to small sample size.

After the October bioterrorist attacks, NIST worked with federal agencies and the private sector to ensure that commercial radiation facilities could effectively sterilize U.S. mail contaminated with anthrax. NIST has been working in a task force with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, the U.S. Postal Service, and other agencies to solve this challenging problem. NIST worked closely with Postal Service workers from the Firstfield Post Office and the Suburban Postal Facility in Gaithersburg to assemble test boxes of mail for use in certifying that commercial radiation facilities could effectively kill anthrax in real samples of mail. The support of the local postal workers and officials was crucial to the rapid federal response to the anthrax crisis.

When the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington was contaminated with anthrax, NIST experts in ventilation systems and air quality modeled the different ways air flow in the building may have disseminated the anthrax spores. These models helped the Environmental Protection Agency plan the decontamination of the building.

NIST provided much additional support in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. I also want to tell you about some of NIST’s ongoing work to strengthen homeland security.

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Radiological, and Explosive (CBRNE) Threats

NIST measurements and standards help the nation detect chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) threats and prepare to respond to a possible CBRNE attack. The NIST Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) works with federal agencies to evaluate technologies used by the emergency responder and criminal justice communities. OLES works with industry and the emergency responder community to develop communications standards to help emergency responders from different communities and agencies work together effectively at a disaster site. OLES standards help protect emergency responders and enable them to do their jobs more effectively by certifying the performance of protective gear such as body armor and hazardous materials suits. After the attacks, NIST accelerated development of a series of Emergency First Responder Equipment Guides, in conjunction with the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). NIST also accelerated work with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the U.S. Army Soldier Biological and Chemical Command (SBCCOM) to develop the standard for Self Contained Breathing Apparatus to protect emergency responders.

NIST is working with the Transportation Security Administration to develop measurements and standards to ensure the effectiveness of new technologies to detect potential explosives at airports and other public places. NIST collaborates with Canada, Mexico, Russia, and some developing countries on radiation measurements and detectors to help safeguard dangerous materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs.” NIST is developing measurements to determine the geographical source of nuclear materials and analyze urine specimens of suspected terrorists to reveal if they have been working with nuclear weapons materials.

NIST is developing a Quality Assurance/Proficiency Assessment program for the “Chemical Counter-Terrorism Laboratory Network,” which will initially be comprised of the state public health laboratories of Virginia, New York, New Mexico, California, and Michigan, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This program would ensure that laboratories needed during a chemical weapons attack would be able to analyze urine and blood samples to determine what agents were used, who was exposed, and how much exposure occurred.

Cybersecurity

With information technology such a crucial part of our economy, national security, and critical infrastructures, we are vulnerable to cyber attacks as well as physical attacks. NIST has strong and diverse cyber security programs that are an increasingly important part of homeland security.

More than 20 million people enter the U.S. each year, and there is currently no way to effectively, accurately, and quickly verify the identity of visitors and visa applicants. Federal laws enacted since September 11 mandate the development of a national biometric identification system, using unique physical characteristics such as fingerprints, facial features, and eye patterns to identify people entering the U.S. or applying for visas. The law recognizes that many biometric identification technologies exist, but that standards and tests are needed to ensure that a nationwide system can accurately identify individuals and communicate key information throughout the system. The law requires NIST to work with other federal agencies to develop the standards and tests that will certify the performance of the national system.

Keeping sensitive information secure is a crucial part of cyber security. NIST works with industry to develop and certify security tools such as the Advanced Encryption Standard for encoding sensitive information. NIST operates a Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) to ensure that software to encode information meets national standards. All tests under the CMVP are conducted by third-party laboratories accredited by NIST’s National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program.

Utilities increasingly use information technology to control complex distribution networks and monitor the performance of the system. Electric power, water supplies, gas pipelines, and other utility systems are thus vulnerable to cyber attack. NIST is working with PEPCO, the Fairfax County Water Authority, and the American Gas Association (AGA) headquartered in Washington, D.C., and other utilities and organizations to develop cyber security requirements.

NIST co-hosts with the Small business Administration and FBI regional computer security workshops especially designed for small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Workshop participants explore practical tools and techniques that can help them identify computer security needs and implement the right security solutions we will be holding the next workshop July 11 in Washington, D.C. In addition, NIST has developed a diagnostic tool that small-to-medium sized businesses can use to evaluate the security of their information systems.

NIST is also preparing for the future of cyber security through its world-class programs in quantum computing and quantum communications. Quantum mechanics, the strange behavior of matter on the atomic scale, provides an entirely new and uniquely powerful way for computing and communications, potentially replacing the current binary computing and digital communications based on ones and zeros, and having enormous potential impacts in homeland security. A quantum computer using just 300 atoms could simultaneously store more than 10⁸⁰ numbers (1 followed by 80 zeros), which is larger than the total number of atoms in the universe. This enormous computational power would be particularly valuable in cryptography, making codes that are unbreakable by today’s best supercomputers, or breaking codes in seconds that couldn’t be cracked in years by the most powerful binary computers. Quantum information can also be used for perfectly secure communications, where the act of eavesdropping immediately alerts the other parties that the communication has been intercepted. NIST teams led by its two Nobel Prize winning scientists are working with other agencies to develop the science, measurements, and standards needed to turn quantum information from a research idea into real applications in cyber security and communications.

Local Emergency Preparedness

NIST has a significant police force and fire/rescue service at its Gaithersburg campus. NIST emergency responders train regularly with Montgomery County fire, police, and county emergency management personnel. NIST also monitors and responds to mutual aid calls using the county fire frequency and is leading a project to transition the county frequency to 800 MHz. NIST responded to more than 300 mutual aid calls during 2001, of which two were potential anthrax incidents and one was a HAZMAT response to a mercury incident. NIST police and county law enforcement personnel share appropriate information about criminal activities.

NIST works closely with Montgomery County emergency management on many different issues. For example,

• NIST is a member of the Montgomery County Local Emergency Preparedness Council (LEPC), and Chair of the Federal Installations Committee (FIC) for the LEPC. (FIC includes all the federal installations within Montgomery County)
• NIST is involved with Montgomery County planning for a test of the Emergency Operations Center to be held in February, 2003.
• Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Chief Ted Jarboe is a NIST guest researcher and is a co-author on a soon-to-be releasedNIST Special Publication entitled "Aid for Decontamination of Fire and Rescue Service Protective Clothing and Equipment After Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Exposures" and on "Aid for Fire and Rescue Service Operations Associated with Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Environments."
• Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Captain Robert Vettori works part-time at NIST in the fire program on his off duty hours.
• Montgomery County fire chiefs and other officials attend NIST’s Ionizing Radiation Safety Committee meeting where they are briefed on the radiation sciences work at NIST and the safety and training programs available for staff and emergency personnel.
• NIST has also been a member of the Montgomery County Chem/Bio Task Force since its inception and assists with county preparedness against chemical and biological terrorism.

These examples demonstrate NIST’s commitment to homeland security, across the nation and in the local community. They also demonstrate the base upon which NIST hopes to build an enhanced effort to support homeland security. It is an absolutely critical national need , and it is a fundamental element of our strategic plan.

I am grateful to Mrs. Morella for holding this hearing, and for her long support of NIST’s programs.

This concludes my prepared remarks. I will be pleased to answer your questions.