An emotional tribute to county “first responders” and a call from Attorney General John Ashcroft for cooperation among all levels of government in the struggle “to secure freedom” highlighted NACo’s Legislative Conference, dedicated to Homeland Security, which ended March 5.
More than 2,000 delegates were on hand at the opening general session, where President George W. Bush, via a taped message, thanked them for their response on Sept.11 and their actions to secure the homeland. He promised support to continue the effort.
At a packed luncheon, March 4, NACo honored the counties that directly assisted in responding to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Va. and United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Somerset County, Pa. Nine responders discussed their experiences on Sept. 11 in an emotion-packed video. Six responders were present at the screening and received a five-minute standing ovation from conference delegates.
In his remarks following the video, Ashcroft stressed the need for all government levels to work together. “Necessity is the mother of cooperation. No single agency, no single country, no county or citizen can do the job alone. We must work together. We must cooperate. We must integrate our operations.”
Although homeland security saturated the conference agenda, other issues also received the spotlight.
Delegates heard from two Capitol Hill co-sponsors of legislation significant to the nation’s counties: Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M).
Frist, co-sponsor of the Senate’s bill on public health and bioterrorism, the “Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2001,” urged delegates to educate their congressional representatives about public health infrastructure during their trips to Capitol Hill. “No matter how much vaccine we have stockpiled here in Washington, D.C., we can’t respond unless we have good public health infrastructure,” Frist said.
Bingaman, sponsor of the Democrat’s energy policy bill — the “Comprehensive and Balanced Energy Policy Act of 2001” — said he was confident that an energy bill would be passed this session. “We [the Senate and the House] have different bills, there will be a debate and literally hundreds of amendments, but I believe we can find common ground and we can pass a good energy bill and move on.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson laid out the Administration’s position on new welfare reform legislation due the end of this congressional session. Reauthorization of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Families in Need) is a major NACo priority. Thompson said welfare reform has worked so far because of the cooperation at all levels of government and urged delegates to contact him, via e-mail, if they were having problems with HHS.
The director of President George W. Bush’s USA Freedom Corps, John Bridgeland, took the stage Monday afternoon to promote the president’s call to volunteerism.
Business leader John W. Thompson, who heads the Internet security company Symantec, urged county leaders to appoint cyber-security chiefs in their counties to protect critical information technology infrastructure. Thompson said there were 50,000 attacks on the nation’s cyber-infrastructure in 2001, double the amount that occurred in 2000.
Policy action
The Board of Directors adopted 37 interim legislative policy resolutions. Among them were resolutions related to homeland security that were developed by the Homeland Security Task Force, which held its final meeting at the conference.
The resolutions dealt with water and watershed infrastructure security; a Homeland Security Tax Credit for contributions to a Local Homeland Security Fund; a national Homeland Security Fund; a federal commitment to rebuilding the nation’s public health system; and a proposal calling for the creation of a local antiterrorism block grant.
Policy positions associated with the renewal of welfare legislation also dominated the policy agenda. The Human Services and Education and the Labor and Employment steering committees submitted a total of nine resolutions that dealt with issues related to the reauthorization of welfare reform to the Board. (A complete report on NACo’s new policy resolutions will appear in the March 25 issue.)
Bylaws review
The Board also agreed to have NACo members vote on several proposed changes to the association’s bylaws at the Annual Conference in July. The proposed changes will be published at a later date in County News. In general, they are concerned with board and committee composition
Workshops
Two of NACo’s workshops — “The Role of FEMA in Promoting Countywide and Multi-County Strategies for Preventing Terrorism” and “The Congressional Outlook for Reauthorizing the 1996 Welfare Reform Law” — were broadcast live by C-SPAN, the public service cable channels sponsored by the cable industry.
Other workshops covered timely issues such as infrastructure security, public health surveillance of disease outbreaks, human services delivery in times of emergency and crisis communications in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
(An extended report on the conference, including photo coverage, will appear in the March 25 issue of County News.)
