[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEMA REAUTHORIZATION AND CUTTING
THE RED TAPE IN RECOVERY
=======================================================================
(112-46)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 14, 2011
__________
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey Columbia
GARY G. MILLER, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri BOB FILNER, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
DUNCAN HUNTER, California RICK LARSEN, Washington
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
BILLY LONG, Missouri HEATH SHULER, North Carolina
BOB GIBBS, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania LAURA RICHARDSON, California
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida
JEFF DENHAM, California
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
_____
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management
JEFF DENHAM, California, Chairman
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Columbia
Arkansas, HEATH SHULER, North Carolina
Vice Chair MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
BOB GIBBS, Ohio DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BOB FILNER, California
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN, (Ex Officio)
Tennessee
JOHN L. MICA, Florida (Ex Officio)
(ii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Panel One
Fugate, Hon. Craig, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, Department of Homeland Security........................ 5
Panel Two
Berginnis, Chad, CFM, Associate Director, Association of State
Floodplain Managers............................................ 22
Griggs, Cline, District 4 Council Member, White Mountain Apache
Tribe.......................................................... 22
Hatfield, Jerome, Deputy Superintendent of Homeland Security, New
Jersey State Police, National Emergency Management Association. 22
Little, Phyllis, Director, Cullman County, Alabama, Emergency
Management Agency, and Member, U.S. Council of the
International Association of Emergency Managers................ 22
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hanna, Hon. Richard L., of New York.............................. 33
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia......... 34
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Berginnis, Chad, CFM............................................. 36
Fugate, Hon. Craig............................................... 51
Griggs, Cline.................................................... 69
Hatfield, Jerome................................................. 81
Little, Phyllis.................................................. 86
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Fugate, Hon. Craig, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, Department of Homeland Security, responses to questions
from the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings, and Emergency Management............................ 61
ADDITIONS FOR THE RECORD
BuildStrong Coalition, written statement......................... 96
U.S. Travel Association, written statement....................... 102
FEMA REAUTHORIZATION AND CUTTING
THE RED TAPE IN RECOVERY
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THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings, and Emergency Management,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in
room 2253, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Denham
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Denham. The subcommittee will come to order. First, let
me welcome FEMA Administrator Fugate and all of our
distinguished witnesses and thank them for testifying this
morning at today's hearing on FEMA reauthorization and
examining how we can cut the red tape in helping communities
rebuild and recover following a disaster.
At our hearing in March, we focused on how prepared we are
to respond to a catastrophic disaster in the wake of the
earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Today we will look at what
happens next. After the initial response, how do we help
communities pick up the pieces and recover quickly? So far this
year, we have had 48 major disaster declarations, from
tornadoes hitting communities in States like Missouri, Alabama,
and Tennessee, to flooding in Vermont and Mississippi and
wildfires in Texas. Thirty-two States so far this year have had
major disaster declarations, 9 States have had emergency
declarations, and 12 States had a total of 79 fire management
assistance declarations. And this is without any major
hurricanes yet this hurricane season.
After the initial response, communities are left with homes
destroyed, businesses and stores damaged and closed, roads
blocked, and lives lost. Cleaning up, rebuilding, and
recovering quickly from disasters is critical. We know from
experience the longer the rebuilding and recovery takes, the
higher the cost to the taxpayer, the longer people are without
jobs and schools for their children, and the more local
governments lose in revenue. A long recovery hurts everyone,
not least of which are the people who have lost everything.
Our subcommittee has held hearing after hearing to learn
the lessons from Hurricane Katrina and find ways to speed up
the recovery process. Many of FEMA's regulations and policies
have created so many hurdles and so much red tape that
communities devastated by disasters have often found it
frustrating to navigate the process. For example, in 2000
Congress enacted the Disaster Mitigation Act and included
provisions requiring FEMA to implement cost estimating to help
communities rebuild faster. By all accounts, this one change
could help streamline one of FEMA's key disaster assistance
programs. However, it is now 11 years later, and FEMA has yet
to implement those provisions.
I understand FEMA now is engaged in a Bottom Up Review of
its public assistance program, is in the process of finalizing
a national disaster recovery framework and is testing a new
debris removal pilot program. While I am pleased to see these
steps are being taken, I am worried these actions have taken
just too long. With high unemployment, budget deficits, and
everyone having to tighten their belts, we just simply cannot
afford to have these recoveries drag on.
I hope today we can hear from our witnesses on how the
recovery process can be streamlined and improved. I also hope
we can receive input on FEMA's reauthorization and what changes
may need to be made as we consider legislation.
FEMA was originally created in 1979 by Executive order and
operated for nearly 30 years without explicit authorization and
statute. FEMA was authorized in statute in 2006 through the
Post-Katrina Act, and that authorization expired last year.
While FEMA can continue to operate without explicit
authorization, authorizing FEMA in the law helps to provide
congressional guidance in the operations of the Agency. I look
forward to working with Administrator Fugate, members of this
committee, and other stakeholders on the reauthorization of
FEMA.
I, again, thank the witnesses for being here today to
address these important issues.
I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Norton from
the District of Columbia for 5 minutes to make any opening
statement she may have.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I very
much appreciate your calling this hearing. I apologize to you
and to Mr. Fugate that I will be running back and forth, after
this statement I must run to a hearing where a vote is soon to
be called, but this is a very important hearing to me and to
the American people. We are pleased to welcome all of our
witnesses today to discuss the need to improve and expedite
recovery efforts from disasters as well as to reauthorize FEMA.
During the 110th and 111th Congresses, our subcommittee held
hearing after hearing to ensure that FEMA would not repeat its
failures on the Gulf Coast.
Now nearly 6 years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck
our Nation, recovery efforts finally have progressed, in part,
because FEMA, pressed by our subcommittee, has addressed some
of the problems that impeded recovery. However, there remain
other areas for improvement to ensure quicker recovery from
disasters.
The recent tornadoes, floods, and wildfires that have
caused great losses in human life and property should push all
of us, once and for all, to improve the recovery process and to
ensure that we are not still talking about rebuilding efforts
in places such as Joplin and Minot 6 years from now.
FEMA's recent initiation of a Bottom Up Review of its
public assistance program, FEMA's primary program for
rebuilding infrastructure and public facilities following
disasters, reveals that FEMA understands what it can do and
knows that it must do it better. Not only does lengthy recovery
prolong suffering, but delays also drive up costs and impact
jobs. Particularly now as our Nation climbs out of the great
recession, we must avoid the experience following Hurricane
Katrina, when billions of dollars in recovery funds went
unspent for years, waiting to be used on construction of vital
infrastructure that would have helped restore jobs and economic
prosperity to the Gulf Coast, finally this subcommittee had to
move with a new process in order to assure that so much in
funds was not left on the table.
Although there has been progress in other areas, FEMA
continues to show some troubling signs. On September 22nd of
last year, this subcommittee held a hearing on lessons learned
from Hurricane Katrina. At that hearing I asked FEMA to move to
a system that pays State and local governments for repair and
reconstruction projects on the basis of cost estimates, as is
done in the insurance industry, and as mandated by the Disaster
Mitigation Act of 2000.
We must learn today why nearly 11 years after President
Clinton signed that bill into law, FEMA still has not
implemented a rule to institute a cost-estimating system which
would surely avoid the lengthy delays in recovery that have
characterized past disasters.
I am pleased to be working with Chairman Denham on his bill
to reauthorize FEMA's management and administration account,
along with two crucial programs administered by FEMA, the Urban
Search and Rescue System, and the Emergency Management
Assistance Compacts, or EMAC, which FEMA originally created in
1979. EMAC helped to centralize the Federal Government's
emergency response mechanisms and coordinate the Government's
response to disasters. In 2006, after Hurricane Katrina exposed
many of FEMA's weaknesses, Congress passed the Post-Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act to authorize FEMA for the first
time and to strengthen FEMA by providing the Agency with
additional authority to accelerate Federal assistance in the
absence of a State request to expedite payments for debris
removals and to use local contractors, among other reforms. The
urban search and rescue, first established by FEMA in 1989,
created a system of task forces, now numbering 28 in 19 States,
which respond to structural collapses resulting from any type
of disaster. We have been very proud of the work of these Urban
Search and Rescue teams. For example, teams from California,
Virginia, New York, and Florida responded to the Haiti
earthquake of 2010 that shook many of Port-au-Prince's
buildings to the ground. The American teams alone are credited
with rescuing 46 people from the rubble.
In addition to the Urban Search and Rescue, EMAC plays an
important role in disaster response by offering a method for
States to quickly and efficiently provide aid when disaster
strikes, when States do not have the needed personnel or
resources. Just this month, the California Emergency Management
Agency responded to an EMAC request from the State of Montana
for technical advice and assistance in responding to the oil
spill on the Yellowstone River. California personnel are
currently on the scene. I hope our subcommittee can act now and
reauthorize these important programs.
Again, I thank the witnesses for appearing today and look
forward to their testimony.
Mr. Denham. I now call on the ranking member of the full
committee, Mr. Rahall, for a brief opening statement.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you, Chairman Denham, and thank you,
Ranking Member Norton, for conducting these hearings today.
They are very important, and I know there are a number of
people in attendance that have been personally affected and
witnessed much devastation during this year, and they certainly
welcome FEMA's help.
Mr. Administrator, we appreciate your being with us as
well. I know the hearing will be important to making the
necessary corrections and refinements that are necessary to
deliver help to our people.
I do want to also say a special welcome to the Honorable
Cline Griggs, who is a District 4 Tribal Council member of the
White Mountain Apache Tribe. This is an important occasion
because it is possibly, Mr. Chairman, the first time ever that
a Native leader has testified before this subcommittee on
emergency management issues.
Today's hearing is on the reauthorization of FEMA and
expediting disaster recovery. I would assert that no discussion
about emergency management, whatever the focus, is complete
without Indian tribes at the table. Tribal governments provide
emergency response services such as law enforcement,
firefighting, and health care to their citizens and to their
neighbors in the same manner as any other governments. Like the
rest of us, Indian citizens in their lands experience
disasters. In fact, over the last several years, Native America
has suffered damages from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to winter
ice storms in South Dakota last year that cut off heat, water,
and electricity for several days in below-zero temperatures to
the recent flooding of the Yellowstone River in Montana. Many
tribal lands are also vulnerable to forest fires.
Unfortunately, the White Mountain Apache Tribe knows this
firsthand. Not only did the tribe suffer devastating losses
from a 2002 wildfire but tribal forests were also damaged last
month when the Wallow Fire, which burned its way across
Arizona, crossed on to reservation lands. So whatever the
disaster, Native America rises to the challenge to help
themselves and to help others respond and recover from the
disaster at hand, yet despite the courage, strength, and
resilience shown by Native Americans in their response efforts,
Federal law does not fully recognize tribes for their recovery
efforts. Under the Stafford Act, Indian tribes are treated as
local governments of the State and must rely upon State
Governors to request a disaster declaration on their behalf
when they are overwhelmed.
While this may work in some disaster situations, it does
not work in all situations. In those situations where it does
not work, Indian tribes may be left to bear the cost on their
own. So that is why I have introduced H.R. 1953, a bill that,
first and foremost, recognizes tribal sovereignty. By doing so,
the bill would allow Indian tribes to directly request the
President to declare a disaster for tribal lands. I believe
that is a first step in addressing some of the emergency
management challenges faced by Indian country.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for the
opportunity of making an opening statement, and thank those
witnesses that are with us today.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. I would like to welcome our
witnesses here today. On our first panel we have the Honorable
Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency. I ask unanimous consent that our witness's full
statement be included in the record. Without objection, so
ordered.
Since your written testimony has been made a part of the
record, the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral
testimony to 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. CRAIG FUGATE, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Fugate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Norton. When it comes to tribal issues, you are exactly right,
sir.
Mr. Denham. Can you scoot the microphone a little bit
closer.
Mr. Fugate. Yes. When it comes to tribal issues you are
absolutely right.
Mr. Denham. And turn it on.
Mr. Fugate. It is on. Is that better?
Mr. Denham. There we go. Thank you.
Mr. Fugate. When it comes to tribal government, the
sovereignty of those governments is not recognized in the
Stafford Act, as you pointed out. The one thing we have been
able to do is do a rule change that recognizes that once a
declaration is issued, tribal governments do have the option to
be the grantee, which has been another huge issue for the
sovereignty of tribes when they have to either serve as a
subgrantee of the State. Our understanding is that we are
working to provide technical assistance on this issue, but I
think the key thing for me with tribal governments is self-
determination and recognizing the sovereignty of them when it
comes to our Federal programs, and I am in full concurrence
with you on that, sir.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you.
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, getting back to FEMA, the red
tape in disaster recovery, there is always a challenge to
balance speed and efficiency and operations with maintaining
control over fraud and waste. From this committee is one
example, in individual assistance programs, our error rate in
the Katrina-Rita storms was running about 10 percent of
payments made inappropriately or to people who were not
eligible. Last year obviously not the same numbers we were
dealing with, that error rate is now down to about 0.3 percent
and below.
But that requires us to make sure we do due diligence that
when people register for assistance that we assure that, A,
they are actually residents in the area impacted, that they had
losses tied to the disaster, that we are not duplicating
benefits, verify if they have insurance coverage for their
losses. FEMA will also verify whether applicants may qualify
for low-interest disaster loans before providing grants for
essential personal property. SBA loans can also provide home
repair and replacement funds above the current $30,200 maximum
grant. But in the recent disasters, that process has only been
taking about 2 days from the time somebody calls and registers
until we get a housing inspector out to their homes until we
are able to get them a determination on assistance, and in many
cases, if they did qualify for the FEMA grant dollars,
literally direct account deposits occurring within days of
their registration.
So we do have a lot of red tape, but I think part of it is
to make it so that it is achieving the goal of containing fraud
and waste, but not necessarily delaying the assistance to the
survivors and local governments. That becomes particularly
challenging when you talk about public assistance because in
these types of disasters, the nonduplication of other Federal
programs, the requirement to ensure that if insurance was
available and was enforced that we see what the insurance
covered and then look at the uninsured losses. It means that we
still have to do our due diligence in determining what is
actually eligible under our programs and are we making an
appropriate determination on the assistance being provided?
Probably the first area that most local governments deal
with in any disaster is the emergency protective measures and
the extraordinary costs sometimes of responding to these types
of disasters as well as debris, and I think one of the things
that you brought up from the ranking member is the emergency
management assistance compact in mutual aid. In the most recent
tornadoes, floods, and impacts in the southeast across these
various disasters, the primary response was actually local
government, supported by instate mutual aid, supported by
assistance from other States through the emergency management
assistance compact. I don't know if that would have been
possible prior to September 11th of 2001, but given the
investment this Nation has made in building the capabilities, I
think we need to really recognize that what we have built is a
national system that leverages the resources at the State and
local level through their mutual aid agreements with the
Federal Government, oftentimes supporting recovery because the
response was managed with State and local government.
One of the things we have tried to do with debris, and this
was, again, something I think you will hear from some of the
folks that have dealt with this. This is a brand new program.
When we generally dealt with debris in most disasters, because
it is on private property, we have oftentimes said we need to
move it to the right-of-way before we can pick it up. The
problem is when you have a tornado strike and literally leave a
trail of devastation where you don't know whose debris is on
whose property, and property lines are not even visible, moving
debris to the right-of-way would definitely slow down response,
so we implemented a pilot program in Mississippi, Alabama, and
in Missouri looking at how we quickly go in to private
property, residential, noncommercial to remove debris from that
property to get the community back on its feet faster and
really focus on housing, which becomes the next big issue when
you have all that destruction.
The Governor of Alabama basically stated that we have moved
more debris in about 3 months, a little less than 3 months than
we moved in 6 months in Hurricane Ivan, so we are moving it
faster, but it is still a program that does require us to do
due diligence to make sure that we are accounting for that, and
because it was new, there were still a lot of steep learning
curves, so we are taking those lessons and working with our
State and local partners to look at how we improve it.
As one example of how we are trying to speed up the process
to get communities back on their feet quicker by getting debris
picked up so we can get housing going. With that, Mr. Chairman,
I will turn it back over for questions.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Fugate. First of all, as you
know, since post-Katrina, we now do reauthorization, we are
preparing that reauthorization now. What do you believe are the
key issues that should be addressed as FEMA is reauthorized?
Mr. Fugate. I think, again, it was pointed out that for so
long, FEMA had been a creation of Executive orders and
authorization for spending. The Post-Katrina Reform Act was
really the first time in legislation that we had a defined
mission statement. It described our structures and our roles
and responsibilities. Again, I think FEMA will be working with
the committee to provide technical assistance, but I think it,
again, is important that Congress defines what is the
expectations for FEMA, and that as we adjust to our changing
environment that you continue to provide what it is that you
expect from the Federal Government to provide in disaster
response, and so in drafting the reauthorization, we are more
than willing to provide technical assistance, but I think it
still comes back to the intent of Congress when we talk about
these disaster programs, our assistance we provide, and the
level of response that you feel the Federal taxpayer should be
responsible for and what we see as a shared responsibility with
State and local government in dealing with disaster threats.
Mr. Denham. And there have already been 48 major disasters
declared this year, and we still have another half a year to
go. Do you believe there is sufficient funds in the disaster
relief fund to cover the expected costs of these disasters and
any future disasters?
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, let me be factual. I cannot
foretell the future, so I don't know if I am going to have a
hurricane or a catastrophic event in the near future. Right now
the disaster relief fund is at $1.38 billion. That is actually
a little bit higher than it was last month, which is
counterintuitive given all the disasters, but we are also
dealing with a large number of open disasters that we are
working to close out and deobligate funding from projects that
are already completed and return funds back into the DRF, and
so that has been successful this year as we continue to work
with our State partners as the mission is done, the project has
been done, but we have perhaps written the project worksheet
for $200 million is the initial estimate, the work was only
$150 million is to return that $50 million back in.
Based upon that, we project with the current workload
perhaps getting to about a billion dollars to $800 million
sometimes the end of July, first of August, which would prompt
us to look at do we need to reduce funding for any nonmission
critical, particularly life-saving or protective measures and
human services, still projecting at the end of the fiscal year
some balance in that, but there is a lot of variables,
particularly the Missouri River flooding that is still ongoing
as well as do we have any additional disasters.
Mr. Denham. So you start off, I just want to make sure I
understand the process that you go through in funding all the
disasters. You start off more of a full funding projection at
the beginning of the year depending on the disaster. Assuming
we have another Katrina or some huge unforeseen disaster, you
could obviously utilize the entire pot of money on that one
disaster?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir, and that is why when we get down to
about a billion, $800 million, we look at where we are at in
our fiscal year and when we would expect to have the next
appropriations in the Stafford Act, and what we try to do is
not go below a limit that would preclude us from responding to
the next catastrophic disaster. So we try to maintain a level
of funding and balance there that we would be reluctant to go
below unless we knew our appropriation was right behind that.
That is why we look at about the end of July, first of August
as we start approaching about a billion dollars to $800
million. Do we need to slow down or stop some work that is not
tied to protective measures, debris or individual assistance
until our next appropriation?
Mr. Denham. You said that you cannot plan for--let me first
ask, is this a typical year that we are seeing right now? Would
you consider this an average year, below average year?
Mr. Fugate. It has been a very active year. What is
interesting is, as devastating as these have been to the local
communities, they are not the widespread type impacts we see in
hurricanes and earthquakes. Although the loss of life has been
extreme, none of these have really reached the point of what we
consider catastrophic disasters from the standpoint of a
financial of over $500 million.
As one example, individual assistance since the tornadoes
struck in North Carolina, which was a couple weeks before the
tornado outbreak in the southeast, all the way through this
process, including the ongoing flooding up in North Dakota,
individual assistance payments for both housing and other
programs has been about $170 million. So, again, as we look at
this, even though this is very localized and very devastating,
it does not quite reach the type of response cost you see in a
widespread disaster, so those costs are still--again, you would
think with all this activity, the DRF would be steadily going
down, but as we are recouping dollars from older disasters, our
fund balance actually went up a little bit.
So we are maintaining this. This is part of what we had
planned for is the level of activity is generally higher than
what we have seen, but, again, because we have had a lot of
older disasters we are closing out, we are almost--I would not
say we are staying even, but we are not seeing it go down
rapidly like you would see with a big hurricane or big
earthquake where we had large geographical areas that were
impacted.
Mr. Denham. Finally, I just wanted to follow up on one
piece. The thing I am going to be looking at very critically as
we go through this reauthorization is I am concerned, as we are
seeing this year with the $1.38 billion, 48 major disasters, I
am concerned that we are going to, especially in a tough budget
year, one that we are looking for cuts everywhere, I am
concerned that we are going to spend the large, the bulk share
of that money early in the year without any new monies being
appropriated, and I would disagree. I do think that there are
some areas that we can plan for disasters. I would assume that
we have got to have a greater amount of planning when we see
that our levees are getting old and starting to fall apart,
that we can anticipate that if States or the Federal Government
is not stepping in and fixing those levees, we are going to
have floods. If we are having a huge wet year, a huge snow pack
but we don't have the water storage, we can anticipate floods.
I think most critically in a State like California when we
haven't managed our forests, when we have not fully utilized
the timber harvesting plan, we have so much fuel on those
grounds that at some point we are going to see more fire
damage.
So my concern is, as we are looking at this budget, that
fire season is late in the year, at the end of the budget
cycle, so a State like California ends up having a natural
disaster, no funds left to expend, and as you have said,
nonmission critical, you are spending heavy on the beginning of
the year which is appropriate, but in a tough budget year, we
could have a huge shortfall in some of those other areas. If
you care to have a quick response.
Mr. Fugate. Again, Mr. Chairman, the variable is you take
all these different factors and project out. Our only real tool
basically is hindcasting what we have seen our activity on
average to be over 5-year periods, and look at the outliers of
large scale catastrophic disasters is not fitting that process.
I think that is part of the reason why there is a lot of
concern about what is the balance of the DRF, particularly as
we go in the more active part of hurricane season, and again,
to be upfront, if we have a large scale Katrina-size hurricane,
we have an earthquake of some magnitude, it will require
additional funds to provide the response cost.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And before we move forward, I would
ask for unanimous consent that Mr. Long of Missouri, who is a
member of the Transportation Infrastructure Committee, be
permitted to participate in today's subcommittee hearing. I
would remind everybody that Mr. Long has Joplin in his
district, and obviously we have certainly seen the devastation
that has been caused there. Without objection, so ordered. I
now turn to Ranking Member Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fugate, the
President, in his wisdom, appointed a professional. We
acknowledge your long experience in Florida. I think bringing
that experience from the field has helped you in your efforts
to change and reform FEMA.
I want to ask you some questions from my experience when we
were most concerned about FEMA. I don't believe that the way to
avoid problems is to have no regulations. I strongly object to
the kinds of regulations that willy-nilly come down from
Federal agencies. That is what makes people hate Government. So
I am a strong advocate of streamlining. When I headed a Federal
agency, I spent a lot of my time doing just that.
Now, I mentioned in my opening statement a notion that is
now in statute from 11 years ago and that is the kind of state-
of-the-art from private business bringing into Government that
is proven and that has not been, so far as I know, implemented
by FEMA, and that is the use of cost estimates for repair and
construction projects, even though that was mandated long
before you came actually 11 years ago.
What is the concern? Why hasn't that time-saving efficient
notion been implemented? Is it related to what you said in your
opening statement, that you are always looking for fraud and
abuse? What is the problem with using cost estimates?
Mr. Fugate. Well, I think it is a question about writing it
into a rule basis. I know that we do cost----
Ms. Norton. Did you use them in Florida?
Mr. Fugate. We wrote project worksheets, which was
basically we would try to get the most accurate figure for what
we estimated costs, and then we would go through the project
worksheet, and then if we required an adjustment on that when
we got true costs, we would adjust the worksheet. In Florida, I
did not really run into this issue. Probably the area, though,
probably the more tricky one is doing the cost estimates on
debris, which would, again, be the ability to write a project
for the debris, and do it on the upfront based upon cost and
estimates, and that is one that is more technically, you know,
tricky as to how do you do that in such a way that we ensure
that we are not way off mark.
But I would like to raise one issue you talked about, our
rulemaking ability. When I got to FEMA, I had zero attorneys
dedicated to rulemaking. I don't have a shop that does rules,
yet I am an Agency that has tremendous regulatory and
rulemaking authority, and I have a backlog of regulatory issues
that we should have addressed already. So one of the things we
did was we did not come back to Congress and ask for more
positions and more money. We found our savings in our budget.
We are for fiscal year 2012 authorizing eight new positions.
Ms. Norton. But Mr. Fugate, you could use cost estimates
not only in debris, even if you did not use them in debris, the
statute said that these lawyers that you have hired could be
doing a rule that allowed cost estimates to be used as an
insurance for repair and construction projects. Why are they
not being used in those projects?
Mr. Fugate. Well, again, as I was trying to point out, we
are working towards establishing a rule shop, bringing in the
attorney and the economist that we would have----
Ms. Norton. Are you intending to use cost estimates?
Mr. Fugate. I have no opposition to it. As it goes through
rulemaking, it is on the backlog.
Ms. Norton. When is it--since you have got a whole set of
disasters that you have had to deal with all at one time
virtually, wouldn't cost estimates have helped you in that
process, and cannot this be brought to the forefront if we are
11 years after the statute mandated it?
Mr. Fugate. In some States, no. In some States they will
not----
Ms. Norton. Let us talk about States where it can be done.
Let us talk about doing a pilot project. Let's talk about
implementing the statute. Can this rule be brought to have
priority?
Mr. Fugate. We can do it as our practices allow us to do
now, which is to a certain degree do it in the project
worksheet process, which we estimate what the costs are, and
then we allow for adjustments when true costs come in.
Ms. Norton. So are you doing cost estimates now? Is that
what you are telling me?
Mr. Fugate. We are not doing them in debris. We are doing
them when we write a project worksheet, it is a cost estimate
of what we think the costs are.
Ms. Norton. So you think you are in compliance with the
statute?
Mr. Fugate. Do we have a rule in place? No, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. I am asking you when a rule will be in place,
Mr. Fugate, for cost estimates.
Mr. Fugate. With many things with rules, there is a
rulemaking process that will take time, and my understanding is
that this is on one of the backlogs of our rules that we are
working on.
Ms. Norton. Well, Mr. Fugate, I would ask you, to within 30
days, submit to the chairman where cost estimates--understand
that this one is not a suggestion of the committee. This is a
matter of statute. Where it appears in your list of regulatory
priorities within 30 days to the chairman, and I would ask the
chairman to share that with me, and I would move on.
Another inefficiency we found was truly astonishing, Mr.
Fugate, and that was what I will call dual consultants. The
taxpayers would be amazed to know that they pay for a
consultant from FEMA, and a consultant from the State for
estimates, and of course, everyone goes out to get their best
consultant to provide an expert opinion on costs. This sets up
an adversarial court-like process, not mandated by the statute,
never conceived by the statute, costly because you have got to
pay for the State's consultant. I asked you and I have to ask
you now, what steps have been taken to move to a system where
appropriate which would allow the parties to get together and
decide to use a single consultant, saving the taxpayers money?
Mr. Fugate. I would not agree to any consultant, but what
we have agreed to and out of the arbitration hearings the judge
directed us to, if we have a PE engineer, a licensed engineer
of a State who is willing to sign on the record a loss or
finding, we will accept that without putting in a second
review.
Ms. Norton. Excuse me, does that mean that the State does
not have to--that the State has to abide by that choice as
well?
Mr. Fugate. It would be their engineer. But I will give you
an example. Let us say we have a hospital that is a heavily
damaged building. The question is, do we replace, repair or is
it destroyed? If they have a licensed engineer saying the
building is not repairable, we are going to take that. If the
engineer signs off on that that it is not repairable, we will
look at replacement versus trying to repair the structure
versus bringing in a second team to look at that.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, I take that to be that the
testimony here has been that they now operate with one
consultant if it is a licensed expert. If that is the case,
then that right there cuts in half what the taxpayers have been
paying. Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Meehan for 5
minutes.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fugate, thank you
for not only your time testifying here today but your long
service in the first responder community. I think America has
taken a new awareness of the significance and importance, and I
think, of course, we all had our eyes opened on September 11th.
There is so many aspects of that, but to me, one of the things
having served in the aftermath as a Federal prosecutor, and as
many observed, it was the remarkable difficulty of
communications in the aftermath of that incident. Naturally,
the unanticipated impact of what would happen once the
interoperability of our traditional systems and the
communications from towers to transmission lines went down. So
I think we as a Nation went back to the bucket brigades. In
effect, at that point in time, it was ham operators, radio
operators that were establishing central communications for our
system.
The frustration is that a few years later we saw the same
thing duplicated in Katrina in which, once again, although
there was a suggestion that we had interoperability and we
would be better prepared, there was physical damage done to
towers and in the immediate aftermath the inability to
communicate.
What have we done in that time so that if we have a similar
kind of incident which we can anticipate the infrastructure is
going to be significantly damaged we can have real-time
communications capacity that is better than the bucket brigades
of the ham operators?
Mr. Fugate. Well, sir, as it goes to the question of what
is different, several things have improved and changed. I think
one of the things is we are responsible as part of Homeland
Security for doing disaster emergency communications. If the
area of impact has lost their infrastructure and needs to have
equipment brought in, we have the capability to bring in and
set up communications and work across a wide range of systems
to get initial interoperability back up, but that means it has
to get to the area, so there is a delay from the initial
impact.
Mr. Meehan. What kind of delay would that be and how
significant is the communications capacity once it comes in?
Mr. Fugate. It is not more--it really comes back to drive
time to physically get in or do we fly the kits in? So it is
just the transport time, and these are resources scattered
across the country to get them in. Probably more important is
the investment that has been made in interoperability, as an
example in Congressman Long's State we had participated in a
national level exercise which was an earthquake a week before
the tornadoes hit, and at that time, the Governor was
demonstrating their statewide radio system which had used
Federal dollars to develop interoperability, and we did not
know a week later, not even a week later they would be using
that very system in Joplin when that city got hit to provide
backup communications to responders because of the impacts
there.
Mr. Meehan. But are they still built again on existing
infrastructure like cell towers and other kinds of transmission
lines that roll through?
Mr. Fugate. Well, again, when you look at the public
safety, those are generally Government-owned systems, and so we
bring the systems to augment that. We also work very closely
with the private sector through the national communications
system to get those systems back up. Sometimes it is damaged
infrastructure. A lot of times it is not only infrastructure,
it is bandwidth to provide communication. So in the initial
hours, our first focus will always be on the public safety
responders, getting them back up, but one of the other things
we have learned that is also important is getting the public
back up, and that is where the private sector really has, I
think, made improvements in their ability to bring in mobile
units, get communications up, and add capacity for cellular
communication, wireless communications in areas.
Mr. Meehan. That is critical. That is one of the things. I
am asking these questions for a variety of reasons, but not
least of which I have had the opportunity to visit within my
own district a group called the Ragant Corporation, who has
been at the cutting edge of communications for the military.
They have had the ability, of course, into areas in which there
is armed conflict, to quickly be able to enable there to be
communications. It is a system called Bread Crumbs. The
concern, as I asked them about, if they have had communications
with FEMA. They did. They talked to FEMA 6 weeks before Katrina
and were told we have all the communications we need, and then
obviously we found out the inability to do that.
So how do we keep certain that we are accessing the latest
technology and capacity that is available so that we know that
we can find communications capacity in that critical window,
not the 48 hours that it is going to take to drive or fly it
in, but in those 2 or 3 hours where people may be at peril?
Mr. Fugate. I think, again, one of the issues the Post-
Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act established was, we had
to do more than just talk about interoperability and provide
grant funding, we need to have States devise their plans, we
need to have deployable capability which was assigned to FEMA
for the disaster emergency communications, and we continue to
look at how do you start using things that, again, we still
face the fact that most smartphones have more capability than a
lot of our public safety radios.
So as we continue to transition to bringing that into the
public safety world, how do we continue to enhance wireless
networking, both for the public safety as well as the public?
Mr. Meehan. But we know--and I will close out, Mr.
Chairman, in a second. But that was the great frustration was
simply in New York the wireless network being overloaded with
family members trying to contact other family members, and so,
you know, we have got a very, very precarious network in the
immediate aftermath. Well, thank you, Mr. Fugate, for all of
your work, hard work in putting that together. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Long?
Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would first like
to thank you, Chairman Denham, for letting me sit in on this
hearing today and appreciate you, even though I am not on this
subcommittee. And I am from Springfield, Missouri, which is 70
miles from Joplin, Missouri, as you know, Mr. Fugate. Branson,
Missouri is also in my district. Two or three weeks before the
Joplin situation we had had terrible flooding in Branson, and
FEMA had started to set up shop down there, and I got a call
from your people a week or 10 days before Joplin saying that
they understood I was not happy with FEMA in the Branson
situation, and I said, well, it is not that I am not happy with
FEMA. I am not happy that the Governor waited a full week in an
obvious situation where people have 4\1/2\ to 8 feet of water
in their homes to have declared it a disaster area, and so when
Joplin then hit, I was kind of on FEMA's radar, I think they
wanted to make sure if I was happy. I stayed happy, and the
morning of the morning after the tornado that hit on a Sunday,
I was in Joplin at the light of day, walked in the firehouse
down there.
There was 400 to 500 first responders standing around
waiting to go to work. Unfortunately, we had weather move in
that morning, hail storm, 60 mile-an-hour winds, so they had to
kind of wait out a couple of hours while we knew there were
people that we could go out and rescue that morning. Shortly
thereafter, I got a call from the White House liaison for FEMA,
and they explained that FEMA would be on the ground shortly in
Joplin, and I said no they are not.
And they said, what do you mean? I said, well, they are
already here, they got here about 10 minutes ago. So you all
from that point on have been excellent in the Joplin situation.
Mr. Serino came in, I think, a day or two before you came in,
the President has been there, and it is truly, truly
indescribable, it is something that you cannot describe.
Representative Akin came down a week ago, and after
everything that has been on TV and the situation in Joplin and
everything, he still looked at me a couple days ago and he
said, when I went to Joplin it was 10 times worse than anything
I could imagine. And it is a town of 50,000 people. The
devastation is three-quarters of a mile wide by 6 miles in
depth, and it is clear cut. It is absolutely clear cut. Eight
thousand homes, one hundred fifty-nine people lost their lives
in a town of 50,000 people, 8,000 homes, 159 lives lost, not to
mention the ones who are still in hospital and have various
problems, 500 businesses destroyed, 54 percent of the school
capacity. They are going to start school here in a few weeks.
Fifty-four percent of the school capacity gone, and, but I
just, in those dire circumstances, I do want to thank you.
I was down there 2 weeks ago with the Army Corps of
Engineers which is in charge, of course, of the debris removal,
and they made a comment as I was driving around that they have
never seen HUD, FEMA, Army Corps, economic development, all the
different Government agencies that are getting along. I think a
lot of that has to do with the attitude of the people in Joplin
and southwest Missouri pitching in and helping themselves, but
I just cannot say enough. One of the city leaders, city fathers
of Joplin told me a couple days ago, you need to tell FEMA,
because I told them we are having this hearing this morning,
they said you need to tell FEMA they are damaging their
reputation here. So you are doing better than you are supposed
to be doing.
I do have one question for you. There has been--the city
leaders in Joplin are trying to find out on this 90/10 split
with the Federal Government, they have asked for 100 percent,
and I do not know, I am sure they want the 100, but the
question is, they would kind of like to know, and they have
been trying to get an answer on that. Do you have any idea when
they may have a yes-or-no answer on that?
Mr. Fugate. Well, there is two parts. The first part is in
the areas we are doing debris, that is at 90 percent for the
first 75 days, but for the rest of the cost, under the CFR,
that is actually based upon a per capita impact to the State of
$127, which I think for Missouri is over $700 million. Another
part of that is we look at the existing disasters that have
occurred in the past 12 months as additional factors, and as I
talked to Senator Blunt about this yesterday, I talked to our
Federal coordinating officer, and she thinks probably in about
the next 60 to 90 days, we will have enough of the project
worksheets written to have some idea what the total cost of the
Joplin impacts as well as some of the other disasters, and that
would give us an indicator whether we would be in the point to
make the recommendation of 90/10, but in our rules within the
CFR, we would only make the recommendation for all categories
of public assistance at 90 percent based upon a statewide per
capita of $127 statewide.
Mr. Long. OK, OK. Well, I appreciate. Again, I just want to
thank you and thank everyone that has come to see the Joplin
situation because to a person, when they see it, my chief of
staff included, which came down a couple of weeks ago, even
though I had been ballyhooing it ever since the day it hit and
telling how devastating it is, I do not know how many F5s have
hit this country, but the number is very small, and the ones
that have stayed on the ground over a quarter mile F5s are
extremely rare, and this F5 stayed on the ground for 6 miles,
and I also went out to with the Army Corps a couple weeks ago
to the vegetation, whatever they call it, but it is where you
take the big 100-, 150-year-old trees that are no longer there,
the huge, huge stumps, you see trucks going down the road with
huge stumps on them, huge big massive trees. They have chips,
chipper shredders set up, they have 20-, 30-foot high piles of
shreddings from all those trees lost over a tremendous area.
Again, I just want to reiterate how much we do appreciate
your efforts and your help and the fact that you came there and
saw for yourself. I know when Secretary Napolitano came in, her
comment was the same thing. She has seen a lot of disasters,
and she had never seen anything to equal Joplin, Missouri. I
appreciate it. Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for letting me
sit in.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Long. Mr. Fugate, we understand
the new temporary housing units that meet FEMA's new standards
will cost between $44,000 and $46,000, somewhat higher than the
costs for housing units used in earlier disasters. Under what
circumstances would FEMA provide temporary housing units as
opposed to some other less costly housing units?
Mr. Fugate. Well, Mr. Chairman, we have done about 400 so
far, and I expect some more in more recent disasters. Our first
goal is, again, providing renters assistance if there is
available housing in the area. If you go back to last year's
floods in Tennessee which impacted several thousand homes, we
were rather successful in that event of just doing renters
assistance. We did not have to do temporary housing. But with
these tornadoes, particularly in smaller or rural communities
there may not be available housing. Again, the preference of
the State is not to have people move long distances away from
their communities, so we will do that. Again, in the tornadoes
across the southeast, there were so many housing units
destroyed, there just was not enough rental hotels and motels
to provide a solution until homes could be rebuilt. So we do
this as a tiered approach, always looking at the quickest way
to help people is with renters assistance if there is someplace
to stay. In the absence of that, we will look at providing
relocation for people, and then our third option would be
looking at temporary housing units.
Mr. Denham. And how about as far as somebody whose home is
inhabitable, just doing the patch work to get it habitable for
a short period of time before the----
Mr. Fugate. That is a program that we worked with the Corps
of Engineers. Previously we had a program called Blue Roofs
which was a rather expensive program to put a tarp on a roof,
but that would not always dry out a home and get people in,
there may be busted windows, a door may have been damaged, and
we realized that for the cost of doing that, we could
incrementally increase some additional funds and get people
back in their homes if we do some expedient repairs. So we have
a program with the Corps where we will do expedient repairs,
this is not permanent work, but it provides enough repairs, if
possible, to get people back in their home, to get power back
on until permanent repairs are made. So we do have that
program. But as Congressman Long will tell you, there were not
a whole lot of homes in Joplin that were only partially
damaged. It was pretty much either destroyed or not heavily
impacted, but we think this would be a more viable option,
particularly in hurricanes where we do see widespread damages
that if we could do these expedient repairs it would reduce the
cost to the taxpayer as well as get people back in their homes
quicker.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. When do you believe the Bottom Up
Review for the public assistance program will be completed?
Mr. Fugate. The short answer is I do not think we will ever
be done. I think it is going to be a continuous process. What
we have run into as we started this process, and we asked our
subject matter experts, they were not quite grasping what I was
looking for, and they began incrementally looking at pieces of
this. So we reset it to go back and again ask the fundamental
questions. What does the Stafford Act say? What does the CFR
say? And then what do our rules and policies that conflict or
do not make sense or add layers? We have already eliminated or
have actually deleted a lot of policy guidance that we felt was
duplicative, not clear or not relevant, so part of this was
going through just the policy pieces and looking at what things
should be eliminated.
Then as we go through that, it is to look at some
fundamental structures such as cost estimates. Or the other
question is, right now we do debris literally in a manner that
is very costly to monitor, but it is done because it is not a
very easy thing to do cost estimates on, but is there a better
way to do debris as a lump sum versus doing it as a
reimbursement for the work being done?
Mr. Denham. Does the Bottom Up Review also include an
examination of the Stafford Act?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, it does. Again, I have been pretty
consistent with this, Mr. Chairman, and it sounds like a broken
record, but the Stafford Act has a lot of inherent flexibility
that it is our own policies that prevent us from doing things.
An example is going on private property removing debris is
permitted under the Stafford Act, but generally in our policies
and regulations we have precluded that, and we do not normally
provide that as a way of doing it. That is why when we looked
at the damage in some of these recent storms, we said, you
know, the Stafford Act says we can do this, we think there is a
compelling case to do this, we think it is the thing that needs
to be done to get on private property to get the debris
removed, so we authorized it. So we start out with what does
our policies and our rules and our oftentimes practices do that
we can adjust first before we look at the Stafford Act?
Mr. Denham. As you go through the Stafford Act, do you also
develop recommendations for legislation that is needed?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir, but again, I am finding less that is
specific to the Stafford Act that is more specific to our
internal, our rules, and to the CFR, and again in many cases,
there is inherent flexibility in the Stafford Act that has been
precluded because of practice or by policy or rules. So we
start there before we look at the Stafford Act. We are still
working through a lot of that, and again part of this has been
is to build a rulemaking shop to actually get up a team that
can make an effective calendar of the things we need to change,
get rid of the stuff--we actually have some of our policies
that date back from the 1970s and 1980s that have not been
updated and reviewed because we don't have a central shop doing
nothing but rulemaking, and so that is one of the things that
we are going to build in fiscal year 2012 out of our fund base
to have a rulemaking capability that gets us through a process
that has not been--quite honestly in many cases, it has been an
ad hoc process spread out through the Agency with no central
point of coordination.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Long?
Mr. Long. I don't have anything.
Mr. Denham. Another question, mitigation obviously can save
lives and money. By mitigating against disasters, there are
less casualties and less damage to people's homes and
businesses, however post-disaster mitigation funding often
becomes available well into or after the rebuilding process.
What steps have you taken to ensure mitigation is a meaningful
part of the recovery following a disaster?
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, I will talk about some sections
that your staff probably know very well. But when we have a
public assistance disaster declaration and we are in the
rebuilding process, there is a section of the Stafford Act,
Section 406, that provides that not only can we replace--let us
talk about fire stations. There were several stations in Joplin
that were impacted, one which was heavily damaged. The way that
we would normally go in there is if that was not an insured
building, we would provide a replacement cost and it would have
to be built to code. One of the things we can do is while we
are rebuilding it, we can actually mitigate with cost-benefit
analysis and upgrade the building beyond code. So one of the
things that we are really focused on is life safety in a lot of
these public infrastructures is making sure that as we rebuild
schools, we rebuild critical infrastructure, we rebuild the
safe rooms and other things to harden these buildings as we are
rebuilding them so that the other section, which is 404, which
is the mitigation dollars the State gets on top of their repair
and replacement costs, can go to other activities. But as much
as we have damaged infrastructure, we want to aggressively make
sure that as we rebuild them where the opportunities are and
where it makes sense and it makes--the cost-benefit analysis
makes sense and we are not spending a million dollars to save a
dollar but where it makes sense or particularly in critical
infrastructures like fire stations, that we don't just look at
merely replacement or building it back to code. We look at how
do we harden that building and use those mitigation dollars
under Section 406 to harden the building.
Mr. Denham. As you know, the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact that facilitates mutual aid among States is
up for reauthorization. EMAC has been funded up to $2 million
annually.
How critical do you believe EMAC is in our response and
recovery system?
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, in these tornados, again if this
was 2001, I think we would probably end up deploying about a
third of our national Urban Search and Rescue teams, which is
another part of what you looked at in reauthorization. Because
we had such strong intrastate and interstate, which is the EMAC
component where they are able to move resources across State
lines, we were not required to deploy any of the national
teams. Meaning that if there had been another disaster the day
after Joplin, 27 of those teams would have been available to
respond. The one team that wouldn't was Missouri 1, which was
activated under the Governor's authority. But they also brought
teams in from the neighboring States that allowed them to
respond quickly to that disaster. Those 500 responders that
Congressman Long talks about came from the area and it was all
done through mutual aid.
Again, this is why we look at these teams as national
assets, why we look at our local and State responders and our
county and city emergency managers as national assets. The
Emergency Management Assistance Compact gives us the ability to
leverage resources across the Nation, not just those that are
specific to the Federal Government. And that meant that in
these tornados, as bad as they were, the initial response and
search and rescue took place in hours in the first couple of
days. We were able to focus almost immediately upon going into
recovery and supporting that. And I think this is the strength
of looking at our State and local governments as part of
national assets and using tools such as the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact to share these resources by
Governors across State lines, independent of a Federal response
where oftentimes they are quicker, faster and the cost is
actually lower to the taxpayer and it is money we have invested
in our homeland security grant dollars to build this
capability.
Mr. Denham. And how about for preparedness grants? Which
preparedness grants leverage the most local funds and provide
the most capability for the least amount of Federal funds?
Mr. Fugate. That would be the emergency management
preparedness grants, which are the dollars that are provided to
the States and often times fund local emergency management
programs. This is a program that is a 50/50 cost share. So
there is a lot of local and State investment in these programs.
And to be quite honest with you, Mr. Chairman, without these
funds, I think we would have a less robust capability at a
local and State level. I think our response to these most
recent disasters would have been slower because we wouldn't
have had the base of the expertise at the local level managing
these responses. And it would ultimately cost us more in loss
of lives and the impacts of the recovery because we would have
to bring everything from the outside to begin the response
versus building upon the local expertise, the local community,
adding to that and speeding up that response and recovery.
Mr. Denham. And lastly, last Congress, members of this
subcommittee introduced the Integrated Public Alert and Warning
System Modernization Act, and we are working to refine that
legislation and reintroducing it again this year. In the
hearings last Congress, concerns were raised as to whether FEMA
was effectively developing this system with input from experts
and other stakeholders. You talk about what FEMA is doing to
ensure IPAWS not only stays on track, but also how key
stakeholders are involved in its development.
Mr. Fugate. Mr. Chairman, there is two key parts to IPAWS
this year. The first one is we are doing our first national
activation of the emergency alert system. This has never been
done in all the history of the program, which is a key
cornerstone of IPAWS. Because we are using the common alerting
protocol to do these activations, we have now, working with our
partners at the FCC, but more importantly working with the
wireless community, are moving towards the ability to now
provide notifications to cell phones that are based upon their
location without them having to preregister or sign up.
This program is being kicked off in New York. We are also
working in DC. And ultimately we want to expand it out so that
cell phones, as part of the emergency alert system, which is
part of IPAWS, would be able to receive alerts in areas based
upon your location. You do have the ability to opt out of it.
It doesn't track your location. We don't know where you are at.
But it does provide the ability to broadcast a warning to the
phones in the area and alert people of things such as the
tornados and floods we have seen this spring.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Carnahan, do you have questions?
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
the witness for being here and for what your Agency does. A
couple of things I wanted to cover. First starting out with the
disaster in Joplin, Missouri. I am glad to be joined here by my
colleague from Missouri, Congressman Long. And I appreciate all
the work he has done in this regard as well. But also the more
recent flooding emergencies up and down the Mississippi River.
I wanted to ask kind of a broader question to start with, in
terms of the lessons learned by FEMA in these recent disasters
and how can we incorporate those into this reauthorization
effort we are going through here in Congress. Again, to learn
from those lessons, you know, what went well, what didn't and
how we can improve.
Mr. Fugate. I think--and again, some very broad
observations is, what worked well was not building a Federal
centric response but building response based upon local and
State with Federal support and working as a team. I think that
in many of these responses the reason we--as devastating as
they were, we did not see issues that had been raised elsewhere
is a tremendous response not only from Government, but also
recognizing the value of the volunteer and NGO organizations of
the private sector. And that is one area since I have been at
FEMA we have been working on, is to expand a team and not just
look at what Government can do, but also incorporate and give a
seat at the table. We are not abandoning our responsibilities
as FEMA to do our job. We also recognize that there are many
members of the community that have key roles they can play. And
it is important that we provide at the Federal level a place to
integrate those responses as we see being done at our local and
State level every day.
Another one that I think is important--and this is a
mitigation issue--is reenforcing in those areas that have
significant risks to the tornados, the importance of safe
rooms. As was pointed out with the National Weather Service and
as you see the devastation, even with warnings, we had a large
loss of life, which points out the challenge. Even with
warnings, if people don't have somewhere safe to go, to get
there quickly, we may not always be able to reduce the loss of
life. So particularly in facilities such as schools and
critical public safety buildings, I think it is important that
we look at how do we harden those buildings and then also
provide to homeowners who rebuild their homes opportunities
either through Small Business Administration mitigation loans
or mitigation dollars the States have to provide safe rooms in
residential structures.
Mr. Carnahan. And to follow on that, we have had a lot of
discussion in the aftermath of these disasters in terms of
preparedness. The difference in cost in terms of--I have seen
several figures out there. I think maybe 7 to 1, the difference
in cost. If we can address some of these issues on the front
end in the preparedness area versus having to do things more
expensively afterward. Again, talk to me about some of those
strategies and how we can do better on the front end of
disasters.
Mr. Fugate. I think what it goes back to is what we look at
in our mitigation funding, I think the numbers that I--that
generally we use at FEMA is about a 4 to 1 return on the
investment for mitigating the effects of disasters. And again
it is--the challenge is if you always knew where the disasters
would be, it would be real easy to fund. This means it has to
be a more systemic approach. And I think it has got to be a
combination of not only our Federal dollars investing in
mitigation practices, but also recognizing that State and local
governments through land use and building codes can also
significantly reduce the impacts of disasters.
My home State of Florida, when we adopted more stringent
wind codes, we saw the difference in the 2004 hurricanes. Homes
side by side, same neighborhoods, literally built to a stronger
wind code had roofs; those that didn't, were heavily damaged
and not occupiable. And that drove the cost up for everybody's
response. And again--so we know that things like building code,
land use planning can reduce the cost of disaster as well as
strategically targeting our limited Federal dollars to mitigate
known hazards.
Mr. Carnahan. I have got one more if we have got time, Mr.
Chairman. The last issue I wanted to talk about was the Urban
Search and Rescue task forces that are throughout the country.
I understand we currently have 28 comprised of firefighters,
engineers, medical professionals with special training in
search and rescue. Obviously these folks are coordinating with
State and local resources.
How can we best improve that coordination? Are we
identifying best practices on how to do that? And you talk
about how we can--the status of that and are there steps that
we can do to even improve that?
Mr. Fugate. I think again we saw some unique opportunities
in the past year, both the response to Haiti. And we sent teams
to Haiti as part of support, USAID, as well as the teams that
went to Japan and bringing those lessons back. But the other
thing I think that the Urban Search and Rescue community that
we have been working in--although again the funds are--it is a
finite resource--is to continue to work with that. Because as
you point out, the teams themselves are local and State
responders. They are not Federal employees until we activate
the teams. What we provide is the equipment and training. So we
look at some of the unique issues they have raised,
particularly in dealing in WMD environments where we may have
toxic chemicals and other things. We don't currently equip the
USAR teams with that type of equipment. But we have another
program, the Preposition Equipment Program, that does have that
equipment.
So one of the things we worked out with the USAR teams is
the ability to deploy those preposition equipment caches with
the USAR teams if they need additional protective equipment. So
we are utilizing resources we are already having, that have
already been funded to meet some of those requirements. But we
do do an active lessons learned program with the USAR teams,
not only for the 28 that are federally recognized, but also the
vast number of teams that are out there at the State and local
level that are also USAR capable, and provide those lessons
back to that community from our lessons, particularly in Haiti,
some of the things we saw there.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. One final question before we go to
the second panel. Not long ago, FEMA signed an agreement with
the Red Cross to have the Red Cross to take the lead in
providing emergency shelters and other care. How is that going?
Mr. Fugate. I went to a shelter in Joplin that the Red
Cross was operating that was taking care of people that had
medical needs. They had a co-located pet shelter that they had
worked out with the local humane society to staff. They had the
Adventists and the Southern Baptists in there providing
programs for infants and children. And again, I think under the
leadership of the Red Cross, they have recognized that to be
successful they have to bring in more team members. So we are
seeing--and again are working with our Red Cross partners and
others that provide shelter services to continue to do that.
But probably again, this is always based upon people's
willingness to give and volunteer to the volunteer
organizations. So we also recognize that we have to work hand
in hand, whether it be supplies or the ability to support them
with resources.
But in the recent disasters, our Red Cross partners and
other volunteer agencies not only have been sheltering, but
they have been feeding and providing mass care. And it is
actually--Mr. Chairman, you kind of just have to go see it.
When you have got folks like the Southern Baptists with a big
cook truck cooking, putting meals into Red Cross containers and
having those Red Cross vehicles then take it out to a Salvation
Army canteen to feed people or to a church or other community
group, you get some sense of the capabilities the volunteer
community brings to the team and why we need to leverage those
resources and not duplicate, but be ready to support and fill
gaps if needed.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And at some point, I would like to
travel with you and see firsthand through the same eyes on some
of the challenges that you are facing. Thank you for your
testimony today.
Now we will have the second panel.
Mr. Fugate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
I now call our second panel of witnesses: Mr. Jerome
Hatfield, Deputy Superintendent for Homeland Security, New
Jersey State Police; Cline Griggs, Tribal Council member of
White Mountain Apache Tribe; Ms. Phyllis Little, Director of
Cullman County, Alabama, Emergency Management Agency; and Mr.
Chad Berginnis, Associate Director, Association of State
Floodplain Managers.
I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses' full statements
be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered. Since
your testimony has been made part of the record, the
subcommittee would request that you would limit your oral
testimony to 5 minutes or less.
Mr. Hatfield, as your seat becomes available, I would ask
you to begin your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF JEROME HATFIELD, DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY, NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE, NATIONAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION; CLINE GRIGGS, DISTRICT 4 COUNCIL
MEMBER, WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE TRIBE; PHYLLIS LITTLE, DIRECTOR,
CULLMAN COUNTY, ALABAMA, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, AND
MEMBER, U.S. COUNCIL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
EMERGENCY MANAGERS; AND CHAD BERGINNIS, CFM, ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION OF STATE FLOODPLAIN MANAGERS
Mr. Hatfield. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chairman Denham,
distinguished members of the committee, for the opportunity to
testify today on behalf of the National Emergency Management
Association, better known as NEMA.
NEMA represents the emergency management directors of all
50 States, Territories and the District of Columbia. Members of
NEMA are responsible to the Governors for many
responsibilities, including emergency preparedness, homeland
security, mitigation, response, recovery activities for
natural, human-caused or terrorism-related disasters.
The issues specifically surrounding recovery from large-
scale disasters are not easy to tackle, but we remain
encouraged on how the committee has continued to demonstrate
support to FEMA's programs. In terms of FEMA reauthorization
issues, the most pressing issue for NEMA at this time is the
much needed reauthorization of the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact. Since 1996, EMAC has helped States
coordinate mutual aid efforts and the compact has only grown in
size and grown in impacts.
For example, 2009 spring flooding in North Dakota and
Minnesota resulted in States deploying equipment, sandbags,
over 1,000 personnel to North Dakota. In all, 700 plus National
Guard personnel, over 300 civilians were sent to assist via the
compact. Recently, over 600 personnel have been deployed in
response to floods and tornados in Missouri, North Dakota,
Nebraska, South Dakota, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. The
investment in EMAC stands as a relatively minimal one for
maintaining a proven national emergency response capacity. All
members of EMAC rely on the compact as an asset in the response
and recovery arsenal.
The tools available to emergency management directors,
however, extend far beyond mutual aid. After the response phase
comes recovery. And over the years, recovery has proven to be
elusive and difficult to manage. While FEMA provides a great
deal of assistance as we make the transition from response to
recovery, there are still some issues which need to be
addressed.
NEMA remains optimistic in FEMA's Bottom Up Review of the
Public Assistance Program. After an original review, FEMA
restarted the process. According to the administration, the
goal is to reduce the administrative burden and overall costs
of the Public Assistance Program. To date, NEMA has provided
informal comments to FEMA which were discussed through the
National Advisory Council process. We believe FEMA is currently
conducting a Phase II review of this process. The Public
Assistance Program remains a vital tool to emergency
management, and we remain encouraged by FEMA's commitment to
this process.
A recently evolving challenge is in regard to the
functional needs, support services decisions made by the
Justice Department. Issued in November of 2010, the functional
needs, support services guidance laid out how general
population shelters must accommodate those with functional
needs. NEMA and States were concerned the requirements could
involve costly changes to general population shelters, which
could ultimately reduce the number of shelters available. In
today's economic climate, most State and local governments
simply cannot afford major and costly alterations to existing
shelters.
FEMA and the Department of Justice briefed NEMA members of
the status of the initiative at our annual conference, but the
agencies provided conflicting information. NEMA has requested
clarification and has been told FEMA General Counsel and
Department of Justice Disability Section continues working
towards a solution.
All the programs mentioned above are key components to a
viable effective recovery structure within FEMA, but
integration in the diversity of these programs and long-term
recovery planning is difficult. While FEMA has begun to address
this by putting together a Long-Term Disaster Recovery Working
Group, which facilitated the development of the National
Disaster Recovery Framework, there remains much unfinished
work.
As demonstrated during the recent storms throughout the
southern United States, recovery begins immediately and support
from the Federal Government must easily fit into the plans and
processes on the State and local level to ensure effectiveness.
Some of the programs outlined throughout this testimony
need reauthorization, while some simply require inquiries from
Congress. Hearings such as this represent vital steps towards
building a more effective recovery system.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look
forward any questions that you may have.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Hatfield.
Mr. Griggs.
Mr. Griggs. Good morning. My name is Cline Griggs,
Chairman, subcommittee members and guests. I am a member of the
White Mountain Apache Tribe. I live on the reservation. Due to
the limited time in gathering information for today's hearing,
some of the testimony I am providing today will follow up with
additional information.
The Fort Apache Indian Reservation is home to the White
Mountain Apache Tribe. A federally recognized Indian tribe, the
tribe's total enrollment is 15,500 with approximately 93
percent of enrolled tribal members. The majority of the
population lives in and around White River with the seat of our
tribal government, with others residing in other eight
communities.
Responding to emergencies is a total tribal effect. The
emergency response coordinator, under the provision of the
tribe's emergency response plan, mobilizes agencies and
organizations and communicates with external agencies. The
White Mountain Apache Tribe has its own tribal law enforcement,
tribal fire department, with forest fire response, capable with
firefighters, which is known as the what hotshot team who
recently joined State and national efforts in fighting the
Wallow Fire. The White Mountain Apache Tribe also has its own
emergency medical response and hospital. The emergency requires
a widespread response. Typical are the result of wildfires,
flooding and snow storms. Wildfires, such as the recent Wallow
Fire and the adjacent national forest, destroyed vegetation and
by denuding the land increased runoff and flooding from summer
monsoon rain.
The reservation, with the heavy snowstorm during the
winter, during the near record snowfall of January 2010, the
community of Cibecue, population of approximately 3,500, which
is 60 miles away from White River, was affected very
drastically due to no electricity which were without water,
electricity for a whole week. The Locust Fire, which was
involved, troubled forestry and the fire department and
instructive protection efforts. Eventually the snowstorm was
declared a State and national disaster. FEMA to date and has
notified the tribe that all claims were settled--has provided
$146,000 to reimburse the tribe for expense and damage to
property that occurred. The last payment was at the end of
April 2011. This was 15 months after the costs were incurred.
The Locust Fire was never declared a disaster, so all costs of
the fire was tribal.
The White Mountain Apache Tribe comments and recommendation
of FEMA's long-term recovery, individual assistance and public
assistance are included in the written testimony and will not
be detailed here. Additional information needed for these
sections will be forthcoming.
Lessons learned from these two disaster events are
important. The time required for the State to mobilize for
assessing the extent of the damage following by the delays of
the coordination between the State and Federal Government and
declaring a snow caused disaster are contributing factors in
the lengthy time between the disaster in January 2010 and
FEMA's payment received at the end of April 2011.
The Locust Fire was a result in a closer working
relationship between the tribe and Navajo County. Quick and
total response is required to save lives and alleviate
distress. Delays in the current system are in direct conflict
with the need to move quickly and enforce.
H.R. 1953 is strongly supported by the White Mountain
Apache Tribe and other American Indian tribes in Arizona. The
bill would amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and the
Emergency Assistance Act to authorize Indian tribes to directly
request the President for a major disaster or emergency
declaration. It has been a priority of Indian Country for over
a decade and upon enactment to treat Indian tribes as the
sovereign government that they are. In Arizona, a lot of the
FEMA Region 9 office, this new 2010 tribal policy seems to be
misguided in its implementation. States do not have
jurisdictional authority on tribal lands, but are encouraged to
be the entity to deliver grants, training and support as
authorization to the Federal agency that has the trust and
responsibility to American Indian nations. FEMA grant funding
shall be directly to tribes as a sovereign government, not to
the State.
The White Mountain Apache Tribe has become dependent on
grant funding as they struggle to recover from the effects of
the recent recession. When the recession hit America, the
reservation's unemployment went from 33 percent to an estimated
65 percent, leaving a bothersome 51 percent of the
reservation's population living below the poverty line. But the
responsibility of the emergency response to disasters, direct
funding from FEMA and other Federal agencies become impossible
when faced with the staggering cost of disaster relief and cost
sharing requirements.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Ms. Little.
Ms. Little. Chairman Denham and distinguished members of
the subcommittee, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to
provide testimony on this important topic. I am Phyllis Little,
Director of Emergency Management for Cullman County, Alabama. I
am a member of the International Association of Emergency
Managers and am providing this statement on their behalf.
We appreciate the support this subcommittee has provided
for the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, the
Emergency Management Institute, and for strengthening FEMA.
Cullman County has a population of 80,406 residents. The county
is located in central north Alabama. Primary businesses in the
area are agriculture based. The tornado outbreak on April 27th
impacted the entire county.
The cities of Hanceville and Cullman were hardest hit. The
National Weather Service mapped five tornado touchdowns across
the county, two being rated as EF-4s, with wind speeds up to
200 miles per hour. Approximately 500 homes and 100 businesses
were damaged or destroyed. Electrical power was lost to most of
north Alabama for 5 to 7 days. We were fortunate to have only
two lives lost. School buses would have been on their routes
when the tornados hit had school officials not postponed the
opening of schools. Collectively planning, training and
exercising together benefited us greatly when the event
occurred.
We owe a great deal of credit for our ability to respond to
the funding received from the Emergency Management Performance
Grant. Our EMPG allocation, which is cost shared 50/50,
provides funds to staff our office with two people, as well as
assistance to maintain half of our outdoor warning sirens.
Our two greatest challenges have been debris removal and
unexpected financial outlays. Debris removal is a life safety,
health and economic recovery issue. FEMA initiated a pilot
program called Operation Clean Sweep in Alabama. The program
has enabled affected property owners to apply for assistance to
remove debris from private property in an effort to jump-start
recovery. Given the extensive amount of debris, it is much
needed but it has not been without its problems.
These problems can be attributed to inconsistent and
inaccurate information provided early in the program. Better
coordination, along with clearly defined policies and
definitions of debris and areas of operation provided upfront
would be extremely beneficial.
The actual program to assist residents with debris removal
did not begin in Cullman County until approximately 10 days
ago. We still do not have a complete list of eligible
properties. The cost share changed as of midnight July 12th
from 90/10 to 75/25. The State's request for an extension was
denied July 12th. We urge reconsideration of this cost-share
extension.
Cullman County chose the Corps of Engineers to handle
debris removal primarily because of the magnitude of damages.
Getting a unit cost for debris removal from the Corps has been
extremely difficult. This has proven problematic to local
officials attempting to manage finances in these tough economic
times. Given the uncertain financial obligations, Cullman
County made the decision on Tuesday to terminate the Corps work
in their jurisdiction as of July 29th and terminate
participation in Operation Clean Sweep. This is strictly a
financial decision.
FEMA individual assistance has been delayed due to
confusion over the meaning of denial letters directing
applicants to complete SBA loan applications. Many did not
complete the process. The SBA deadline is July 17th. I received
the information late yesterday that FEMA has recognized the
problem and is sending community relation teams door to door to
assist applicants through the process. We applaud FEMA for
assigning a liaison to each county. Locating the joint field
office closer to the disaster and the creation of division
offices in the affected areas has aided in recovery efforts.
Local officials will be meeting with FEMA to discuss available
options, including possible assistance under the Community
Disaster Loan Program. Given the loss of tax base and financial
difficulties, this assistance could be vital to recovery.
In conclusion, we appreciate the improvements made by FEMA.
We urge the extension of the cost share on Operation Clean
Sweep since it had a slow start. We urge expediting funding and
decisions under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to allow
safe rooms to be integrated into rebuilding projects. We urge
adequate funding for the Community Disaster Loan Program for
our hardest hit communities. We urge better communication on
individual assistance eligibility. We urge consideration of
providing advanced funding to communities based on the
estimated costs of a declared disaster. And we urge recognition
that local officials are reluctant to incur financial
obligations of unknown amounts.
I will be happy now to answer any questions.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Mr. Berginnis.
Mr. Berginnis. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate
time for this hearing when we are debating what services the
Federal Government should fund while at the same time
experiencing an unprecedented number of disasters.
Mr. Chairman, you noted in your opening remarks the large
number of events that the United States has had in the first 6
months of 2011. In fact, those events have resulted in $27
billion in losses, which is double the 10-year average.
Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Norton, and members of the
subcommittee, I am Chad Berginnis and before you today on
behalf of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, an
organization of 14,000 individuals and 31 State chapters that
work to reduce flood losses and preserve the natural functions
of floodplains. As a former local official who administered a
mitigation project in a community devastated by flooding and as
a former State official overseeing hazard mitigation programs
in Ohio, I am particularly honored to be here to explain how
hazard mitigation programs that cut across the Federal
Government work to reduce disaster losses, result in better
economic vitality, and increase community resiliency.
What is hazard mitigation? The simple definition is that it
is any sustained action to reduce long-term risks from hazards.
It can be a number of things from the standpoint of flooding
during a disaster recovery. Hazard mitigation measures could
include such things as elevating buildings in place,
retrofitting them to protect against a certain level of
flooding, removing them from hazard areas either by relocation,
acquisition or demolition. It also includes enforcement of
building and land-use codes, recovery and mitigation planning,
natural restoration of flood storage areas, critical facility
protection and planning construction of flood attenuation
structures.
Let me make three statements of fact that will frame my
remarks. First, investments in hazard mitigation will always
reduce the cost and misery in the long term to individuals,
communities and the taxpayer. The widely cited 2005 study by
the National Institute of Building Sciences concluded the
projects funded by FEMA mitigation programs yielded $4 in
benefits for every dollar of investment. Now, there are now
instances where disasters are no longer declared in a community
after an event because of mitigation.
Second, mitigation is complicated, and in most situations
there is not one solution to fix hazard issues in a community,
and technical expertise is needed to understand the risk in
mitigation options.
Third, the window of opportunity to do the most mitigation,
the time that people are most receptive is after a disaster.
The two most common observations by our members about
mitigation during recovery are, one, that not enough funding is
generally available, the program is being oversubscribed; and
two, the development, review and approval of a project takes
far too long. To address these, ASFPM has the following
recommendations which are detailed in our written testimony to
result in more efficient recovery programs.
First, FEMA must develop a framework for delegating the
Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to capable States. Much like
other provisions of the Stafford Act, this authority has
existed now for 11 years, was part of the Disaster Mitigation
Act of 2000. HMGP projects in a disaster recovery environment
are developed by a community, reviewed by the State and sent to
FEMA for review and approval. We could eliminate one entire
step with true program delegation where FEMA's role is
oversight, training and auditing.
Second, State capability must be able to handle
catastrophic and multiple back-to-back events. This is not just
a FEMA responsibility. States also must have skin in the game.
From the FEMA standpoint, though, one way this can be incented
is to develop an ongoing funding mechanism similar to the
Community Assistance Program under the National Flood Insurance
Program.
Third, the Federal Government under FEMA's leadership must
have the ability to supplement State program capability with
robust and timely technical assistance in a post-disaster
environment. This expertise can help State staff develop public
assistance and mitigation project applications, assist home and
business owners on how to apply mitigation techniques, and
perform needed analyses to understand the hazards and develop
data so that appropriate mitigation techniques are used. Of
specific importance to this process is to allow for extra code
inspectors and permit officials to be reimbursed under the
Public Assistance Program. Also, a mitigation review under
Section 406 should be mandatory for every project worksheet. In
fact, our members report and I have experienced that this is
not consistently nor robustly done in every disaster.
Fourth, there must be incentives and requirements to use
and adopt best available data for reconstruction. One of the
real tragedies in the recovery process of Katrina is that on
the Gulf Coast today you can see rebuilt structures that with
almost near certainty will be destroyed in future hurricanes.
We can and must do better.
Fifth, there must be better Federal interagency
coordination before and during the recovery. Valuable time and
resources are wasted when agencies are not on the same page.
One promising program in this regard is the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineer's Silver Jackets Program.
Finally, all Federal recovery programs should incorporate
hazard mitigation to the greatest extent possible. There are an
array of programs in operation after a disaster and all of them
should have a mitigation element. Again, investment in
mitigation means reduced investment in future disaster recovery
funding and savings to the taxpayer.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. We are going to have one round of
questioning here. First of all, Mr. Hatfield. We are doing the
reauthorization legislation.
What do you think the key issues to be addressed in the
FEMA reauthorization should be?
Mr. Hatfield. We are going to reinforce the fact that the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact is critical and it is
essential. I think years ago, it was mentioned that the Nation
is best prepared when neighborhoods are prepared. And as such,
EMAC allows for intra- as well as interstate activities so that
emergencies are actually something that is taken care of
locally and not nationally. And so we would encourage that as
the national mutual lead initiative, EMAC be reauthorized so we
can continue to work in neighborhoods throughout the United
States.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And we talked earlier with Secretary
Fugate about the Bottom Up Review. From your experience, what
are some of the key areas FEMA should be looking closer at to
help expedite the recovery process following a disaster?
Mr. Hatfield. The one thing I would like to say is that we
are working very closely with FEMA. FEMA has developed working
groups and focus groups to go and entertain some of the changes
that are necessary in the Public Assistance Program. There is a
benefit-cost analysis, if you will, that is done in the Public
Assistance Program in that we do preliminary damage assessment
reporting, which gives us cost figures to take a look at the
potential overall impacts to a disaster.
With that said, I think previously FEMA had put together a
pilot program and it was a pilot program that focused on
estimates. And with that, we are actually going to work very
closely with them to--in hopes that they would actually re-
engage that program.
But front and foremost, I do believe that the payments that
have come out for public assistance have been improved. Can
they be streamlined? Absolutely. But I think a part of the
achievement at this point is actually working very closely with
all partners, to include nongovernmental organizations and the
public sector across the board.
I think the true achievement of the Public Assistance
Program and the revamping of that program is something that
FEMA has also embraced quite some time ago and it is called the
Whole of the Community. I think that with the potential impacts
to the Public Assistance Program across the spectrum, if we are
bringing all those stakeholders in to talk about necessary
changes with the program, if those changes are delayed, I think
it will be acceptable knowing that we are going to maximize the
greatest opportunity of efficiency by factoring in all
stakeholders that are available.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And, Mr. Griggs, will you talk about
the unique challenges tribes have faced following a disaster
and how you believe that those can be addressed?
Mr. Griggs. Some of the problems that we are facing not
only the White Mountain Apache Tribe but other Indian tribes
throughout the United States is the government-to-government
relationships that we see not being strongly honored. When the
Rodeo-Chediski Fire happened on our reservation, it wasn't
until it crossed the reservation borderline that other agencies
started to help with fighting the fire. When Hurricane Katrina
happened, the United Houma Nation in southern Louisiana did not
get the proper help that they would have to receive. When the
Wintco blizzard happened in North and South Dakota, the Lakota
Tribes did not receive generators and they were without
electricity.
Even our own community of Cibecue that I had mentioned,
they were without power for a week. While communities off
reservation when the same snowstorm hit, their powers were
restored within a day or so. But due to the lack of
cooperation, the lack of communication, and not having the
assistance there, it is my belief that the American Indians are
still not receiving the adequate resources that are entitled to
them or that are there available.
Once again, the community of Cibecue and McNary, when the
snow fell, it was our tribal elders who survived that week
without electricity. When they were growing up, they didn't
have electricity as they were growing up. Running waters were
not a part of their daily lives. It was through the teaching of
our tribal elders that brought our troubled youth through that
disaster that had happened. So we are a strong people. But when
our young ones are in need of help, it is through the strength
of our elders and through the knowledge of what we hold today
that can help us.
We do need H.R. 1953 to be passed not only for the White
Mountain Apache Tribe but other American Indian tribes
throughout the Nation. The government-to-government relation
needs to be established through FEMA so that it is the
President who will call upon or the tribal leaders to call upon
the President of the United States to declare their nation an
emergency area where as of now it is the power of the State
Governors to do that. So this is very strongly supported.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Griggs. I am out of time.
Ranking Member Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Griggs,
I understand precisely what you are talking about, where the
philosophy here is supposed to be that those closest to the
people are the ones who are best able to move in. Indeed FEMA
testifies that much that happened in the recent disasters were
first remedied by those closest. So I hear you. Tribes are
treated as sovereign when people want them to be and often not
when it is most important to tribes. I think we should look
closely at that.
Ms. Little, I was interested in reading your testimony and
what you had to say about the Emergency Management Performance
Grants because you gave them so much credit for building--for
allowing your county, Cullman County, to build a strong
emergency management system. That system apparently was
instrumental in helping to save lives. I would like you to
elaborate on how this grant, the emergency management grant,
helped you to rebuild that system when it occurred and how you
think the grant itself was instrumental.
Ms. Little. Well, the grant for Cullman County amounts to
about 24 percent of my annual budget. So we receive actually
around $49,000 a year through the EMPG grant. Without this
grant, I would be a one-person office. And as a one-person
office, it would be nearly impossible for me to complete the
plans that have to be done for disasters and to provide the
training to emergency responders under the incident command
system to elected officials about their role and
responsibilities in disasters and to provide the exercising and
training that we do as all agencies across our county. So I do
give the EMPG program a lot of credit for providing those
resources for us.
In addition, Cullman County has 42 sirens or outdoor
warning sirens on our system. My maintenance budget would be
rather low if it weren't for this funding. So as being
responsible for more than half of the sirens on that system and
their upkeep and maintenance, I can attribute a lot of that
assistance to the EMPG.
Ms. Norton. So if that funding was reduced----
Ms. Little. If that funding was reduced, I see that I would
be a one-person shop quite likely and the funding just would
not be there for the training and the exercising and the other
things that we do with the planning. I also see that we would
have to make choices and tough choices, do we provide this
training for our first responders or do we repair the sirens as
they go down. And those are quite expensive when you start
repairs.
Ms. Norton. I must say I congratulate you on your
efficiency. One person doing what you are doing and facing the
kind of disaster you faced, the grant allowed you to be far
more prepared than otherwise would have been the case.
Mr. Hatfield, I would like to ask you about the Urban
Search and Rescue Grants. As I indicated my admiration of
them--we always read about them in the newspapers. We are
amazed--we have one not in my own jurisdiction. There is one in
Fairfax County. And we read that these people go to every part
of our country and perform what seems to us to be miracles,
this kind of mutual aid that goes on. So I don't want--my view
comes from having called some of them before us after specific
disasters. But I would like your view as a State official on
the reauthorizing of the Urban Search and Rescue Grants as a
national resource. I don't know if you had one in New Jersey.
Mr. Hatfield. We do. First, I would like to say it is an
incredible capability that provides support to communities
throughout the entire Nation. NEMA fully supports the
reauthorization of dollars that will allow for the continuation
of efforts for Urban Search and Rescue teams throughout----
Ms. Norton. Instead of having each jurisdiction try to
somehow get the necessary ability to handle these disasters by
themselves, as I understand it these teams, regionally located,
form the expertise and the equipment. And they go and--so that
a local jurisdiction doesn't have to worry that because it
doesn't have the money, because it may be a small community
like Ms. Little's, that there won't be anybody there for them.
Mr. Hatfield. I think that we have seen a lot of the Urban
Search and Rescue teams travel not only within their State but
outside the State. And very recently we have seen them travel
overseas. It is an incredible capability, but what it does is
it really serves the interests of public safety in the best way
possible. We are looking at multiple disciplines that actually
member incredible capabilities that are served in our Urban
Search and Rescue, whether it is swift water rescue, building
collapse, what have you. The training, the requirements for
equipment are very strong. And as a result of that, the 28
Federal teams that support the Nation's interests are robust.
There are local teams and there are other teams that are not
federally supported, and they too have capabilities that
provide support to communities locally and regionally as well.
Absent the urban search and rescue capability, I couldn't
imagine taking a look at a catastrophe, cataclysmic events
absent that specialty, that expertise, and come through that
with the glowing colors that we have seen with the challenges
that they have been able to mitigate in responding to efforts
not only in Haiti but also throughout the United States.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but I do
want to say this is an example of Government efficiency writ
large that instead of duplicating these capabilities throughout
the country, we see that so often one State does the same thing
another State does or one agency does the same thing another
agency does. Here Government has done something really right
and I just want to go on record as indicating my strong support
for that part of the reauthorization.
I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Our time has expired for this
committee hearing, but we do have several other questions that
we want to get your responses on the record for this hearing.
Especially Mr. Berginnis. Still several more questions for you
as well. So we will submit those to you.
At this time, I would like to thank each of you for your
testimony. Your comments have been very insightful and helpful
to today's discussion. I would ask unanimous consent that the
record of today's hearing remain open until such time as our
witnesses have provided answers to any questions that have been
submitted to them in writing and unanimous consent that the
record remain open for 15 days for any additional comments and
information submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in
the record of today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered.
I would like to thank our witnesses again for their
testimony today. If no other Members have anything to add, this
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]