Now, when we built this house in 1972, we did not put in sprinklers, because I was not very smart in 1972, and I was not into sprinklers. Now we pay an enormous insurance rate, and yet I still drag my feet. I still have not done it, because of exactly what you said, it will not happen to me. Plus, I do not want my house torn up while they put these things in. Plus it will not work anyway, because often they do not.

So, in effect, I am a good case study. How do you get-I mean, if FEMA comes in afterwards and if the rest of you can do research and disseminate and come up with-some other things I want to talk about-new materials, composites whatever, do not we need some kind of-I mean it was like the speed limit. I voted for a 55mile-an-hour speed limit on the assumption that if you have a 55mile-an-hour speed limit, everybody will drive 64 miles an hour. I do. You do not get arrested. But if it is 65, you drive at 74. That is not safe for any driver on an interstate or any road.

I remember for years, as a Governor, I tried to get the limit raised. I tried to get the age limit for drinking raised to 21. In 8 years I got it raised 1 year, to 18-or was it 19, I suppose? Then I come to my first year in the Senate, and somebody comes up with a good idea: you get no Federal highway money unless you raise your drinking age to 21 years old. It was done like that.

Is it not necessary, if we are to take the problem of earthquakes seriously-that is react to them-we all take them seriously, but we do not really in the only way that counts, and that is reaction, public people making the tough political decisions, as opposed to asking for more research. Northridge shows that. You said it was 6.8. That is not major. Nevertheless, 67 people died, 6,500 injured. Then $6 billion in insurance payments and $9 billion in supplemental appropriation.

I did not know that until I simply read that. I mean I voted on that, but I had forgotten it. So we are not really moving on this, are we, in terms of getting people to accept responsibility?

I am all by myself here, and I am surrounded by ideologues. Bill is not one. But do not you have to force people to do this if you are going to get it done? Do not you have to threaten to withhold something, I mean if we really are serious? Otherwise, are not we going through a constant exercise in futility? And then, even when the big one comes, it will affect that-as you say, they are doing it well in California because that is where all the publicity is.

Mr. KRIMM. I just would give an analogy to the national flood insurance program in FEMA, which does require flood insurance as a condition of any federally guaranteed mortgage or loan, and now as a result of the National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994, lenders are penalized or fined if they do not require flood insurance. That has really helped a lot as far as the sale of insurance, and people protecting themselves.

But it is required almost like fire insurance is required if you take out a mortgage, and that is probably a weakness in the earthquake program that we do not have any way of getting communities to adopt the building codes and so forth, and that really is going to come back to haunt us.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Any other comments on that?

I have a series of other questions I want to ask on the thrust of my statement, that is the basic nonresponsiveness of Americans, the inability of Americans to think on anything but an extremely short-term basis, and only if they were directly affected, and anything prospective is strictly for somebody else.

Is there really any disagreement with that?

Dr. LEAHY. I would like to comment in terms of some work we are doing. I think that awareness is extremely important to get people to act, and I think that partnerships are extremely important.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. You have said that in your testimony. Tell me why that is true, and show me that it is true.

Dr. LEAHY. Well, I think the technology has advanced, and I think a good example is our partnership with Pacific Gas and Electric. We can now very quickly, within moments of the start of an earthquake, through some of our new networks, identify the location and the magnitude. A company that provides infrastructure, or transportation infrastructure, uses that moment's notice to stop traffic on an overpass, to shut down the electricity or the gas transmission lines. That converts into a real life savings. Now, it is not the actions of an individual citizen, but certainly of a group that has a strong vested interest in terms of maintaining that infrastructure.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Has this been used?

Dr. LEAHY. We have not had a sizable earthquake yet, but certainly the technology is in place.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Is the technology fail safe?

Dr. LEAHY. No, it is not, not yet. I think we will have to test it first.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Because there have been a lot of overpasses that have crumbled in spite of the new seismic technology, have there not been?

Dr. LEAHY. That is correct.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. So whether or not there was a car on them may be totally irrelevant, except for the saving of a life, which is a large event.

Dr. LEAHY. Exactly.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. But do not look self-satisfied.

Dr. LEAHY. No. There is much to be done.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. But who is driving this? I mean, as I actually look at all five of you, I do not know who is senior among you. You have got all of these different agencies that share in this, which is part of the problem. The money is cut up. Who is the primary person, in terms of agency, who is responsible for the dissemination and the enactment of increased safety against earthquakes? Who is that?

Mr. KRIMM. I think we all work together, but FEMA is the lead agency, and our role is working very closely with the States.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. By definition you arrive after the tragedy. Mr. KRIMM. Well, what I started to say earlier is that we are trying through a predisaster mitigation program to get communities to wake up and to start taking precautions before the disaster.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Let me interrupt you, Mr. Krimm. I am acutely attuned to floods. In fact, if floods do not happen, I wonder

what happened that year in West Virginia. You are swamped by every type of disaster that nature and nonnatural forces can cause. You cannot, it seems to me, by definition-you are also subject to budget cuts, and I assume you are being cut. I do not have those figures in front of me.

Mr. KRIMM. A small portion.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. But that becomes a bigger portion relative to the cost of living. You are not in a position to drive this, are you, really, and I am not being antagonistic.

Mr. KRIMM. I understand. If I could explain, this year in the President's budget there is a request for $50 million for a predisaster mitigation fund.

What we would do is work with the private sector-and Director Witt has already reached out and met with the insurance companies and other construction groups and so forth-work with the private sector, with State and local governments, in trying to target communities that are willing to become model communities for a disaster-resistant community concept, and building upon that, getting those communities to do the right thing, seeing that their insurance rates are reduced and so forth, and then hopefully other communities would start to follow suit.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Hopefully.

Mr. KRIMM. It is tough. It is going to be very difficult. I am very familiar with West Virginia and places like Parsons. Mitigation in Parsons, West Virginia is almost impossible, but there are other communities where you can do it. In Wheeling, West Virginia, you can do it. You have to eventually convince people to move off Wheeling Island.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. But you are talking about floods.

Mr. KRIMM. With earthquakes, probably our most difficult area is the New Madrid fault area, in the central part of the United States. Communities there are not ready.

They know there was a serious earthquake, or a series of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. Last year I was down at a meeting at the Central United States Earthquake Consortium, and there was a lot of momentum, but I find that Memphis and these other communities are slow to start enforcing proper earthquake standards. Senator ROCKEFELLER. Describe to me, amongst the five of you at the table, under what kind of circumstance, how often, and in what forum, and for that matter where do you all get together to discuss what needs to be done to make our country more resistant to earthquakes? How often do you meet? Do a couple of you meet? Mr. KRIMM. Yes. The four principal agencies meet on a regular basis, usually as frequently as once a month to every 6 weeks. We also meet with other Federal agencies under the national earthquake loss reduction program, and we do discuss problems and ways to improve the overall earthquake program.

I am not personally involved in those meetings. Bob Volland on my staff, who is head of the Office of Earthquakes, meets with people from the United States Geological Survey and the National Institute of Standards and the National Science Foundation, but there are regular meetings scheduled, and there are discussions.

We also work together in a lot of other collaborative efforts. Sometimes our staffs meet where we work on developing publica

tions on lifelines, or other types of measures. We sometimes with the United States Geological Survey have meetings in local and State areas to talk about the earthquake hazard and what can be done.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Who do you meet with at the State level, the EMS people?

Mr. KRIMM. We meet with the emergency managers and the State geologists and others, and sometimes in local communities. Senator ROCKEFELLER. But is it not true, really, that those folks in the pecking order of things in States are relatively obscure? Mr. KRIMM. Well, again, it depends upon the State.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Well, I am talking about 50 of them. I bet I am right in 48 cases.

Mr. KRIMM. We are talking about earthquakes primarily. I would say the State of Washington, for example, and the State of Oregon-I was just out for a meeting in Oregon with the Portland, Oregon metro system, and California and Nevada. All those States are doing really a good job.

I would have to say the State of Tennessee is doing a reasonably good job, and the States of Arkansas and Missouri, at the State level they have not been successful in getting the types of codes through that I would like, but they are working on them.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Let me try to do this in a different way. As each of you-and I might start with you, Dr. Gabriel.

As each of you look at what you know to be our circumstance in this country with respect to earthquakes and prospective earthquakes, and whether they are 15 miles down

I thought that was a very interesting observation by Dr.

Johnston, that we are great down to 5, 6, 7 miles, but 10 miles down we are nowhere.

What is the biggest frustration? What are your senses of frustration, or what is your sense of frustration about what you do and the lack of results? I am not blaming you for the lack of results, but blaming the American people and the localities for the lack of results. But what are your frustrations?

Dr. GABRIEL. As you know, the National Science Foundation's role is to support long-term research and education, so our frustration, I guess, would not really necessarily be focused on the shortterm, but our role is really not to lead the short-term emergency management or even to look at what people should do to mitigate disasters right now, today, but we should look at finding information that they will need to plan what they really ought to be doing. What you described earlier to me sounded like

Senator ROCKEFELLER. I did not understand your last statement. Our job is not to

Dr. GABRIEL. Well, the other agencies-each of us has a role to play based upon our own mission, and NSF's mission that we have been given is to look at long-term research and education, and so what we are trying to do is find a fundamental understanding of the things you need to know in order to develop the standards, in order to develop the mitigation strategies. They have to be based on accurate research.

The fact that something is 15 miles down was based on somebody doing some research to learn that.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Do you have a mechanism-and I do not mean to well, I am butting in, so I guess I do mean to, but do you have a mechanism wherein somebody at the NSF says, now, wait a second, a year-and-a-half ago we had a meeting in which we presented you, the rest of the three, with research on what could be done: where does that stand now?

Dr. GABRIEL. I think that is the kind of thing that happens at these meetings, and it is also the kind of thing that happens outside the Federal Government.

For example, in these centers, the one in Southern California that is supported jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey and NSF, that center will do some long-term research, and it will also do some gathering of information from satellites, gathering some of the information from the maps.

Those researchers work together to try and look at each of them doing their piece of the puzzle to be synergistic about what kinds of information you need to get those things done.

I am not trying to be evasive here, but I think what you were talking about earlier, when you talked about the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit and the drinking age, you are really talking about legislative solutions.

Our role in that process would be to do some case studies and some prototypes in model communities and so on to give you the information you need to draft the legislation, so you would know what the legislation ought to look like. What should we require of people? And in order to know what to require of people, you have to do good research to understand what the issues are. So that is what I think our role is.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Your frustration is that nobody is listening?

Dr. GABRIEL. Oh, no, I do not think that is true.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. I do not mean them. I mean back in the communities.

Dr. GABRIEL. Well, I think all of us over the past few years, I think the frustration of any Federal Government employee in the science and technology enterprise is that 1) science and technology issues are not as important as they ought to be in the whole scheme of things when people are doing planning for whatever happens in the country.

National security and economic policy does not usually look at science and technology to inform it. That is one thing.

But I think overall most of us probably have the frustration that as a Federal Government we are divided into too many small pieces, and Congress divides us because of the budget and we divide ourselves because

Senator ROCKEFELLER. That is what I wanted to hear you say. Dr. GABRIEL. I think we do our best to try and overcome those divisions, but structurally we have that problem, but I do not think it is an unsolvable problem.

I think we have made a lot of progress over the last 5 to 10 years in making it a lot better than it was, and so that is all I can really say. I think if you had asked this question of someone from NSF 5 years ago, they would probably be a lot more frustrated than I am today.