[Senate Hearing 113-705]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-705
NOMINATION OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
NOMINATION OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH TO BE DEPUTY
ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
__________
JULY 24, 2014
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK BEGICH, Alaska MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
Gabrielle A. Batkin, Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Deputy Staff Director
Deirdre G. Armstrong, Professional Staff Member
Jason T. Barnosky, Senior Professional Staff Member
Robert H. Bradley, Legislative Assistant
Keith B. Ashdown, Minority Staff Director
Christopher J. Barkley, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Andrew C. Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel
Daniel P. Lips, Minority Director of Homeland Security
Natalie K. Fussell, Minority U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Office of the Inspector General Detailee
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Lauren M. Corcoran, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Begich............................................... 1
WITNESSES
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Joseph L. Nimmich, Nominee to be Deputy Administrator, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security
Testimony.................................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Biographical and financial information....................... 15
Letter from the Office of Government Ethics.................. 36
Responses to pre-hearing questions........................... 38
Responses to post-hearing questions.......................... 70
Letters of support........................................... 77
NOMINATION OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH
THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2014
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:46 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark Begich,
presiding.
Present: Senator Begich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BEGICH
Senator Begich. Thank you very much, and welcome again to
the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, we
appreciate you being here. We will call the Committee to order.
We are here today to consider the nomination of Joseph L.
Nimmich to be Deputy Administrator for the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA). As a former mayor, I know how
critical it is to have leadership positions filled by capable
people. I also understand the gaps in productivity and
innovation and overall progress that can occur when key
positions are vacant. It is for that reason I wanted to express
my frustration with the situation we find ourselves in today,
not due to you being here, or FEMA, but to the White House and
how they operate on their nominations.
I am just very frustrated that for months people have been
aware of this position, and now suddenly we are given your
position to be nominated and move forward in the Committee, and
we are being asked to move it very quickly--which I am happy to
do. My frustration is not with you or FEMA. It is with the
White House and their ability--or inability. So those who
represent the White House here, please take note, and I hope
you present that back over there.
Again, we have waited 6 months. We knew this was coming,
and now we need to rush it through.
I know the nomination process is subject to many delays and
consideration, but vetting and confirming nominees is one of
the most important functions of this Committee, and we must be
able to do our due diligence.
Committee staff on both sides of the aisle have worked very
hard to expedite this process, and I appreciate their hard
work. And I appreciate your hard work, Mr. Nimmich, during the
prehearing phase, as we worked on such an expedited timetable.
I spoke with FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate earlier this week,
and I could hear his enthusiasm for your nomination, which I
hope we can get completed very quickly in a favorable manner.
While some of your answers to the prehearing questions were
encouraging, especially with such a needed focus on workforce
improvements, similar to the Committee hearing we just had, I
remain concerned that FEMA may be stuck in the mud on some of
the most critical challenges facing the agency.
We have already heard your testimony and questioned you in
our previous hearing, so we will not rehash those issues. But I
wanted to be sure you recognize the many FEMA issues we have
concerns about.
As you transition into your new position and better
identify the role you will play implementing Administrator
Fugate's vision for the agency, we hope you will keep open
lines of communication with this Committee. I look forward to
addressing my various concerns in the question-and-answer
period, so I will conclude my remarks here, and if we can, we
will go ahead and start. If I can have you stand, the rules
require that all witnesses at nomination hearings give the
testimony under oath, and so let me go ahead. Mr. Nimmich,
would you please stand and raise your right hand? Do you swear
that the testimony you are about to give to the Committee will
be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
help you, God?
Mr. Nimmich. I do.
Senator Begich. Please be seated.
Since we already introduced you, Mr. Nimmich, in the last
one, I will just let you introduce your family members, which I
had the great pleasure to meet several of them as we were
getting ready, and then we will go into your opening statement.
Please.
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH,\1\ NOMINEE TO BE DEPUTY
ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Nimmich. Thank you. Thank you, Senator, and my
statement has my introduction of the family, so if you do not
mind, I will go through it so they can hear the way I have
written it. [Laughter.]
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Nimmich appears in the Appendix
on page 11.
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That way I get it right.
Senator Begich. That means they wrote it to make sure you
said everything right. [Laughter.]
Mr. Nimmich. Good afternoon, Chairman Begich. I also would
like to acknowledge Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and
Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today.
I come before you as the nominee for the Deputy
Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I am
humbled by the President's nomination and honored by the
opportunity to continue to serve my country. Before I begin, I
need to thank my wife, Cindy, and my children Lizzie, Abby, and
Mallory, who are joining me here today. I would also like to
thank my daughters Katie and Becky who are unable to be here
due to scheduling difficulties, but I am told they are watching
it on the Web. I would not be here without their love and
support and the patience that they have for the times that my
job has taken me away from home, and undoubtedly will again in
the future. I also need to take a moment to thank Administrator
Fugate for his leadership, his counsel, and his trust that he
has afforded me.
Sir, as a Coast Guard officer for over 33 years, I have
developed the leadership skills, management expertise, and
strategic and operational decisionmaking ability to help lead
FEMA. I would like to take a moment to tell you how I believe
my experiences have prepared me for this opportunity.
As former Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Key West, I am
personally aware of the challenges facing local communities as
they work hard to prepare for, respond to, and recover from
disasters. During that assignment, I worked closely with city
and county officials. I have seen firsthand the issues facing
local emergency managers as they balance the many competing
requirements of local government.
As Director for Joint Interagency Task Force-South, I
worked with interagency and international partners and
navigated the opportunities and challenges involved in the
interagency coordination process. I served tours at Coast Guard
headquarters, where I managed the Federal budget process,
developed strategic plans, and instituted performance-based
management tools. If confirmed, I will continue to leverage
this experience to help FEMA improve on its core capabilities
and build on FEMA's interagency disaster response processes.
I have also shouldered great responsibility--not just for
budgets and plans, but for the well-being of men and women in
uniform. My proudest and most humbling experiences with the
Coast Guard were providing for the safety and well-being of my
crew through three afloat commands and three ashore commands.
When in command you must be able to rapidly and correctly
assess the situation and effectively make critical decisions.
My experience in the Coast Guard helped me develop quick
decisionmaking capability based on the best information
available. I will continue to use that skill set to achieve
FEMA's missions in support of disaster survivors and States and
local communities as well as tribes.
Over the past year as FEMA's Associate Administrator for
Response and Recovery, I have overseen a number of disaster
responses across the country, including the tornadoes in Moore,
Oklahoma; the floods in Galena, Alaska, and across Colorado;
and the mudslides in Washington State. Throughout these
operations, I worked with my team to hone FEMA's ability to
employ both traditional recovery capabilities and alternate
procedures, cutting through bureaucratic challenges to help
disaster survivors and communities recover and rebuild. In
every case, I have looked for lessons to improve FEMA's
performance in the next disaster.
If confirmed as FEMA's Deputy Administrator, my focus will
be threefold: to steady FEMA's disaster workforce; to stabilize
FEMA's policies; and to develop the data analytics to support
rapid, effective, and efficient decisionmaking. To this end, I
will focus on effective management of FEMA's processes,
particularly human resources, information technology (IT)
systems and their security, and contracting and acquisition--
all of which form the foundation necessary to reinforce a
strong workforce that can effectively respond to and support
the Nation in a time of disaster. We also need to better define
FEMA's policies, simplifying and streamlining them whenever
possible. Finally, we must harness geospatial technology to
more swiftly respond to the impacts of disasters in real time.
Developing FEMA's critical analytic capability will allow us to
more effectively utilize existing information systems for swift
and sound decisionmaking.
I believe that fostering a close working relationship with
Congress is critical to delivering the highest level of service
to the American people. If confirmed, I will continue to build
relationships with you and your colleagues to ensure Congress
has access to the information it needs to fulfill its oversight
missions. I will also continue to work with the full spectrum
of Federal agencies within the Executive Branch, particularly
the Office of Management and Budget, the Inspector General
(IG), and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Providing States, survivors, and communities with the
resources they need in an efficient and effective manner is my
primary focus. Based on our conversations during previous
hearings, I have no doubt that this Committee is focused on the
same. The American people deserve an emergency management
workforce that is capable, competent, and prepared to meet the
challenges of the future. It is my hope that, if I am
confirmed, I can continue to help strengthen FEMA's workforce
and develop and improve its core capabilities, sustaining the
organization into the future as a well-managed, performance-
focused agency able to meet the expectations of the Nation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to appear
before you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Senator Begich. Thank you very much. I have three standard
questions in regards to your nomination, the first question is:
Is there anything that you are aware of in your background that
might present a conflict of interest with the duties of the
office to which you have been nominated?
Mr. Nimmich. Sir, I have no known conflicts of interest for
the office to which I am looking to be confirmed.
Senator Begich. Do you know of any reason, personal or
otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from fully and
honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to
which you have been nominated?
Mr. Nimmich. Sir, if confirmed, there are no reasons,
personal or otherwise, that would prevent me from fulfilling
the requirements of the office to which I am nominated.
Senator Begich. Do you know of any reason, personal or
otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from serving the
full term of the office to which you have been nominated?
Mr. Nimmich. Sir, if confirmed, there are no reasons that I
will not be able to complete the full term for the office to
which I am nominated.
Senator Begich. Thank you very much. I also have several
letters that I will make sure are entered into the record\1\
from different groups recommending you for this position.
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\1\ The letters of support referenced by Senator Begich appear in
the Appendix on page 77.
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I just have some basic questions, and because we had a very
good conversation on the Committee hearing just before this, I
am not going to go into a lot of broad issues. I will have some
specific Alaskan issues.
But, first, what do you believe--and you kind of said it in
your opening on some of the things you wanted to work on, that
you believe your principal responsibilities will be for this
new position? And again, you are in a unique position because
you are already in the system, but give me your thoughts on
that, if you could.
Mr. Nimmich. Yes, sir, and I think they warrant to be
reiterated. Our workforce is our keystone. It is what makes us
successful or not successful. We owe the workforce the ability
to give them the training and experience and the equipment
necessary to do their job. And then I need to hold them
accountable that they do their job.
Much of what we have heard from the IG and the GAO go back
to information provided very early in a disaster that has not
supported the subgrantee or the grantee in making the right
choices. And then the IG comes in afterwards, much later in the
process, and we are in that debate as to how do we rectify that
situation.
I want a workforce that does not create those problems,
that rectifies the situation right from the beginning. I need
to give them the ability and the tools so our IT systems and
our information systems, will give them better analytics to
understand the situation.
Finally, a lot of our policies are overly complex, overly
difficult to interpret, even for our own workforce, and we need
to make sure that we stay within the letter of the law and the
spirit of the law, but that we make them as clean and as clear
and as deliverable as possible to our customers, which are the
citizens of this country.
Senator Begich. Your last comment there, it made me think--
I had a note here on how long it takes some of the regulation
process to move through FEMA. One, for example, is 8 years to
get through, which also, as you can imagine, you are a disaster
relief agency, so you have immediate needs every day, and yet
if you cannot do a regulation, it can take up to 8 years.
What are some of your thoughts on how to--and these are my
words, and I am not sure it is the right words to use, but
streamline the process so you can get these regulations in
place when there is a need to have guidelines, maybe, for
example--I know you are working on the tribal regulations now.
I would hate to see that take 8 years. But give me a thought
there.
Mr. Nimmich. So I want to delineate between two, sir. One
is our policies, and then the others are what are really
regulatory. The regulations do require an awful lot of effort,
and you know that we will be looking at the factors in terms of
declaration, not just for tribes but overall for States also.
Those are going to be some of the challenges, and we need to
stay focused on them, and we need to move them as quickly as we
can, realizing that there are issues that are not always within
our control.
But you have my commitment to move those as quickly as
possible, particularly tribal, because we opened the existing
State criteria for disasters for tribes, but those do not take
into consideration cultural issues and the capabilities of the
tribes. So we are working very diligently to try to come up
with a set of criteria that are more appropriate for the
tribes.
The other side is policy, and sometimes it is the policies
that we create and make overly restrictive in terms of what the
regulations actually allow us to do. We need to make sure that
we continue to look at those policies in a way that we, in
fact, enforce that regulation, but do not necessarily make it
more difficult--or easier on us rather than easier on the
survivors, the subgrantees, and the grantees, sir.
Senator Begich. What would you consider--obviously you are
moving to a different job. What would you consider your
weakness that you know you have and know that in order to be
successful in this job, you have to work on it? What would you
say? I should try and ask your wife. [Laughter.]
Mr. Nimmich. You might get a whole different set.
Senator Begich. I saw her smiling back there.
Mr. Nimmich. Sir, I have the zeal to solve problems, and
often the weakness is we try to take on too many and,
therefore, we do not resolve those.
When I came to FEMA, I really looked at three imperatives
every day, and those imperatives can become overwhelming in and
of themselves. But that is the workforce. We have to keep focus
on the workforce, and that is one of the reasons Administrator
Fugate has asked me to take this job. We need to get that
disaster workforce trained and the tools that they need to do
their job. The policies, and then the ability to use the data
that we have, those three imperatives--the analytics and the
data capabilities, stabilizing our policies, and steadying that
workforce are three things that I look at every day. And by
using those, I try to remain focused as opposed to allowing
virtually every problem to become a challenge and, therefore,
get nothing done.
Senator Begich. Got you. In Alaska we have over 200 tribes,
and there are obviously tribes all across the country, and we
want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make
sure they have the knowledge, the training, the expertise, and
so forth. But I am concerned that FEMA may not be able to
handle this at this point. Tell me how we--and I say ``we''
collectively, to make sure that FEMA can ensure that there is
sustainable levels of training for tribes and others within the
tribal community, not only in Alaska but throughout the
country, as they are entering into this kind of new potential
process. How do we make sure that happens with the resources
you have?
Mr. Nimmich. So, sir, initially when the Sandy legislation
was passed, the Administrator made it very clear we were not
going to wait until we received new resources to implement
these. We have carved resources out of the agency. In every
region we now have a tribal liaison. We have just hired the
tribal liaison here at headquarters. Mr. Booth, who happens to
be an Alaska Native, brings to us some of that expertise. But
we need to start taking those discussions and that counseling
that we get from the tribes as to what do they really need and
how much do they need. And then we need to come back and find
whether we can identify additional resources inside FEMA or
whether we need to ask for additional resources to do the job
right.
What I can commit to you is we have started to build a
tribal liaison corps and that we are going to continue to focus
on tribal issues with the expedience that we can have.
Senator Begich. In a broader issue, the issue--and I have
had a hearing on this and some other discussion regarding
mitigation, what is happening with climate change, the impacts
it is having on more severe storms, more costly storms, or
disasters, I should say, in a broader sense, weather related.
But one of the things I have noticed within FEMA, the pre-
disaster mitigation (PDM) funds have gone the wrong direction
in funding. And my concern is: Is it better to do pre-disaster
or post-disaster investment? To me, obviously, it seems like,
well, why wouldn't we want to--we recognize this is happening.
Why are we not spending more time? But yet, when I look at the
PDM program, it seems to be going the wrong way.
Mr. Nimmich. Sir, I think that most of the studies indicate
if you can mitigate the disaster or mitigate some of the
impacts of the disaster before it happens, it has a much larger
dollar value. But we also cannot sacrifice our ability to
respond to disasters. That is the first and foremost. So you
are correct that there has been a declining PDM budget. The
President has asked for above-the-line authority to continue
the PDM process.
What we are trying to do inside FEMA is look at the
mitigation money that we have in other areas, in our recovery
program, in our insurance programs, in the Federal Insurance
and Mitigation Administration (FIMA)--the Federal insurance
management part of FEMA--and how can we associate those and
correlate those in a much better way to be able to do some of
that mitigation, albeit after the fact of the disaster, but in
a way that when we repair something or we make it so that it is
insurable, we make it so that the risk is reduced dramatically
by the works that we do rather than not having a correlated or
a coordinated response.
Senator Begich. You have done a good job last Committee
hearing and this one here, but let me ask you, this was one
that just drives me crazy, and it is the flood mapping and how
to get these accurate.
I was in the Matanuska Valley recently, which is just
outside of Anchorage, and 40 percent of the maps are
inaccurate, which, of course, means people are paying for flood
insurance they should not have to pay for, or vice versa, they
should have flood insurance but they are not in the mapping
zone.
Then we have different agencies that have different
technology for their maps and different requirements for their
maps. This seems to be a never-ending problem and an expensive
problem probably to solve.
In your list of responsibilities, is this one that you
recognize as an agency we need to get after? Because it seems
like with all the resources of mapping, maybe the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or FEMA, you
guys, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), and the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT), we will re-map an area seven different times from
different agencies, and yet for some reason we are not sharing
this data, and it seems like there should be a baseline data
sharing that should be going on to help make this job a little
bit easier.
Can you give me some thought on that? And it is something
that you will hear a lot on a regular basis from me.
Mr. Nimmich. Yes, sir. There is no question that flood
mapping and risk mapping are key focal points for the oversight
committees, as they should be. We go to look at mapping and use
the resources we have for creating the flood maps. Then the
follow-on to that is the risk maps, how much of the risk that,
in fact, creates, we do use experts in those fields. Those
experts often look at all of the different factors that you
have taken in. That is part of what the expense of the program
is. We try to look at as many pieces of information and as much
data as possible to be able to put the most correct map in
place.
The world is a dynamic and continually changing
environment, and simple things like, a flood that goes through
Colorado completely changes the way that the watershed looks
and drives a lot of our decisions. Fifty-two percent of our
maps have been looked at and are accurate and can be used. We
know that we have a lot more work to do, and we are continuing
to do that. We are prioritizing based on where those maps will
produce the most results in terms of the potential risks the
country faces, sir.
Senator Begich. I am going to end my questions at this
point. Just a couple things.
One, you heard in my last commentary how important it is
that we believe our role here is oversight and constantly doing
analysis and research regarding FEMA's work, talking to the IG
and the GAO to make sure that we do our job here so we do not
look back 5 years from now and say why didn't we ask this
question, or we did, but they had a report, but no one
responded to it. That is something you will feel from us. I say
that in a polite way. You will feel that on a regular basis. It
may be in a room like this or with staff in conversations. And
I hope you will be receptive to that and that is not something
that as an agency person you will hesitate to respond. Any
thought on that?
Mr. Nimmich. Yes, sir. If confirmed, I intend to continue
to work very closely with you personally and with your staff.
We have had great conversations over the last several months in
terms of working toward producing the report that you released
today. Your staff has been very inquisitive, digging very
deeply into the challenges we face. And, sir, the oversight
helps us do a better job for the public we serve, and you are
the voice of that public. So we look forward to continuing to
work, and if I am confirmed, sir, I will answer your questions
wherever you have them.
Senator Begich. Fantastic. Let me pause for a second.
[Pause.]
I would like to thank you for your appearance here before
the Committee, and your family, because I know it means--you
thought he spends a lot of time at work now. He will spend more
because, by that design, he will be dragged down here when
probably you do not want to be. But I appreciate it, your
willingness to serve in this very important job, but also your
public service, because that is what it is. And you will be
part of running an agency that is delivering services in times
of need where people are at a crisis state. So thank you for
your willingness to do that.
For the record, the nominee has filed responses to the
biographical and financial questionnaires. Without objection,
this information will be made as part of the hearing record,\1\
with the exception of the financial data, which are on file and
available for public inspection in the Committee offices.
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\1\ The biographical and financial questionnaire for Mr. Nimmich
appears in the Appendix on page 15.
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Without objection, the record will be kept open until 5
p.m. tomorrow for the submission of any written questions or
statements for the record.
At this time the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:11 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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