[Senate Hearing 117-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 
  DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
           Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
                                                    Washington, DC.
                                                    
    The subcommittee met at 2:03, in room SD-138, Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, Hon. Christopher Murphy (chairman) 
presiding.
    Present: Senators Murphy, Shaheen, Capito, and Hoeven.

                    DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

                  Federal Emergency Management Agency

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT J. FENTON, JR., SENIOR OFFICIAL 
            PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF ADMINISTRATOR

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER MURPHY

    Senator Murphy. Good afternoon, everyone. We call this 
hearing Subcommittee on Homeland Security to order. A general 
reminder from the onset, this is a virtual, a hybrid hearing 
where some of my colleagues couldn't be here in person, they 
will be appearing virtually. And so, we'll do our best to 
ensure that everybody is aware when it is their turn to speak.
    This is the subcommittee's first hearing of the 117th 
Congress, and my first meeting as chairman. I'm also a new 
member of the Committee, and so, I will cop at the outset to a 
learning curve and I'm very grateful to be able to have the 
advice, and counsel, and partnership of a ranking member and 
prior Chairwoman Capito. I'm looking forward to doing some good 
work together on this subcommittee.
    Let me welcome the Acting Administrator of the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, Bob Fenton. This is his second 
tour of duty in this acting capacity, and we are grateful to 
him for his willingness to shuttle back and forth from his 
responsibilities on the west coast to help us during these 
interregnum periods.
    We're going to examine today the Agency's response to 
COVID-19, and other challenges, in emergency management. We're 
thankful that you're here to testify before us in person.
    FEMA exists to coordinate the Federal Government's role in 
disaster preparation, prevention, and relief and we typically 
see FEMA serve as an emergency manager when there is a certain 
area of the country that's hit with a natural disaster. But 
COVID-19, it impacted the whole country and the size, and the 
scale of the Federal responses really have been like nothing 
we've ever seen before. FEMA estimates that obligations for 
COVID relief through fiscal year 2021 are going to be somewhere 
north of $115 billion. That's more than double the Department 
of Homeland Security's annual discretionary budget.
    And I want to acknowledge at the outset all of the great 
work that's been done by Emergency Management personnel at the 
Federal, State, and local levels who have just worked 
tirelessly over the past year to respond to and confront this 
pandemic. We all thank them. Your staff in particular for their 
ongoing work.
    When COVID-19 was declared an emergency back in March of 
last year, FEMA was directed to lead a whole of Government 
Federal response to the pandemic. But a coordinated Federal 
response for all intents and purposes did not materialize. 
Instead, the Trump Administration decided to outsource most of 
the disaster responsibility to states, to local governments, 
and to private health systems.
    On many days, my state's leaders will tell you, the Federal 
Government was sometimes more of a hindrance than help. There 
was a lot of confusion amongst non-Federal Governments and 
healthcare providers regarding overlapping roles and 
responsibilities of our Federal response agencies. Some days, 
it seemed like FEMA was in charge, other days it looked like 
the White House Task Force was in the driver's seat, other 
times HHS appeared to be calling the shots. GAO cited one 
Federal--excuse me, one local public health official who said 
the response was, ``Incoherent, confusing, and uncoordinated.''
    This was especially true with regard to the medical supply 
chain. Early on, there was a serious and damaging perception 
that medical supplies and personal protective equipment were 
not being distributed to the places in the country that had the 
greatest need, but rather based on other motives, whether they 
be political or personal. Governors and local officials who 
competed for months for lifesaving supplies often saw the 
Federal Government redirect those supplies without explanation.
    Now, some might say that with the COVID threat still real 
and present, that isn't the time to look backward, but we need 
to be learning these lessons in real time. We can't afford to 
just keep repeating the mistakes of the past. And while the 
Biden Administration has straightened out much of this 
confusion, this Committee obviously has the responsibility to 
fund FEMA in a way that doesn't doom us to the same failures 
the next time a pandemic hits.
    Of course, we also want to hear today about the Agency's 
present state of operations. We need to know how the Defense 
Production Act authorities are being used, what FEMA is doing 
to ensure an equitable distribution of vaccine support, and we 
need to know about the financial health of the Disaster Relief 
Fund.
    And while COVID-19 will obviously be the primary subject of 
this hearing, FEMA does face other challenges. Currently, the 
Agency is supporting 960 declared disasters across the country; 
at least 1 in every single state and territory. We spent a lot 
of time focusing on the emergency response, but we should also 
be talking about focusing on investments that make us more 
resilient.
    With that in mind, I'll have questions about FEMA's 
implementation of what's known as the Brick Program. That's the 
money we use to build resiliency in our communities.
    And we'll also want to look at how FEMA is assisting 
efforts at the southwest boarder. Senator Capito and I were 
there recently, and obviously, FEMA is deeply engaged in 
helping the Department of Health and Human Services find 
suitable facilities for unaccompanied children, and funding 
assistance to support local Social Service Agencies to provide 
humanitarian relief.
    There's a lot to cover today, and I look forward to your 
testimony, Mr. Fenton. And I'll now turn to the ranking member 
of the subcommittee, Senator Capito, for any opening remarks.

               STATEMENT OF SENATOR SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO

    Senator Capito. Yes. Thank you, Chairman Murphy, and 
congratulations on your first hearing. You're doing a great job 
so far, and I look forward to working with you and really 
getting to know you. We've already had, on our trip to the 
border, had an opportunity, even though we've served together 
for several years, to really forge a relationship that I think 
is going to be important as we move through fiscal year 2021 
and begin to formulate the Bill for fiscal year 2022.
    So, I thank you for scheduling this hearing. FEMA is 
exceedingly important, and their role in supporting our State 
and local partners in responding and recovering from a historic 
number of disasters facing our nation. I think all of us in our 
individual states get to know our FEMA regional and local reps 
very, very well.
    So, I want to thank the Acting Administrator, Robert 
Fenton, who I have learned obviously has very good sense 
because he's married to a West Virginian. So, thank you for 
that. Thanks for joining us here today.
    FEMA's mission is helping people before, during, and after 
disasters. These words are more important than ever, and the 
Acting Administrator Fenton knows, and we all know, he has a 
big job to ensure FEMA continues to live up to those--to that 
promise. We are keeping a close eye on the progress we're 
making concerning COVID-19, including many of the areas the 
Chairman talked about, the various Federal support mechanisms 
in place to distribute much-needed PPE, vaccines, and other 
necessary supplies and personnel to combat the pandemic.
    FEMA is playing an integral role in that effort, helping to 
support vaccine distribution centers, resupply our states with 
necessary PPE, and providing additional resources to ensure 
success. We have also been following the recent non-COVID-
related disasters, including severe winter storms, damaging 
tornadoes. We even talked about the situation in Texas a bit, 
flooding and fire events across the nation.
    FEMA is also playing an integral role in the current border 
crisis, working with HHS and other DHS components to identify, 
procure, and mange an array of temporary shelters and 
processing centers for the thousands of unaccompanied children 
crossing our southern border. Mr. Fenton, the men and women of 
FEMA are a vast network of responders coordinating the full 
spectrum; and we want to say thank you for what you do.
    Speaking of the border crisis, I would be remissive if I 
did not say some additional words on this topic. Last month, 
Secretary Mayorkas acknowledged that we are headed towards more 
southwest border encounters than we've seen in 20 years and the 
numbers are proving him correct. In March, CBP faced 172,331 
encounters at the southwest border, which is 66 percent higher 
than the march of the last border surge, which was in March of 
2019, where there were 103,731 encounters.
    We can't dismiss these numbers as a seasonal migration 
pattern. DHS has been forced to set up multiple influx 
facilities to deal with the surge at the border. HHS has 
already set up 10 emergency facilities to house nearly 20,000 
migrant children, spending $60 million a week, in conditions 
even HHS would admit amount to little more than crisis care.
    CBP was so overwhelmed that the Washington Post has 
reported that they are seeing 1,000 getaways per day. That's 
the folks we don't get, and we don't encounter on the border. 
That's tens of thousands of individuals who are now in this 
country who all we really know about them is a fleeting 
footprint or maybe an article of clothing they left behind. In 
addition, CBP has had to resort to releasing illegal immigrants 
from custody into the United States without a Notice to Appear 
in Immigration Court, which is what I can describe as nothing 
less than a failure of our nation's immigration system.
    FEMA, which we are here to discuss has been at the 
southwest border, and we appreciate that help because obviously 
describing what I am describing, it's very much needed.
    So, Mr. Chairman, I would ask, and I appreciate this 
hearing, I hope that we can, in the near future, have a 
discussion on this border crisis, as it is something that's 
staring us in the face that's going to have a lot of input into 
our jurisdiction in terms of funding. And I think that 
hopefully that we cannot continue to encourage by policies or 
others migrants to come in and enter our country, making that 
very dangerous journey.
    And so, I also think that we will need to make sure that 
CBP and ICE are fulfilling and executing their Mandate under 
the Law. Mr. Chairman, I hope you and I can work together on 
these goals in the future.
    Returning to the topic at hand, and I'll try to be briefer 
here. FEMA continues to see a high level of incident management 
workforce deployments with only 21 percent of the personnel 
remaining for deployment to future events. I thought this was 
an interesting fact: out of the 52 Federal Coordinating 
Officers that FEMA currently deploys for disaster management, 
there is only one remaining who is not assigned to an existing 
declared disaster. So, our manpower is getting low. The men and 
women of FEMA perform very diverse array of duties and I think 
that's something, as we're looking at funding, we should look 
at.
    So financially, FEMA executed an extraordinary level of 
funding because of the CAREs packages, and the COVID reliefs, 
and the great strain on the Disaster Relief Fund. Sixty-eight 
billion dollars for state, local, and travel assistance 
including National Guard deployments. Close to $60 billion 
remaining in the Disaster Fund. It would seem that our 
resources would be sufficient, but they're going out the door 
very, very quickly. And our data is giving us a different story 
in terms of how we're going to be able to maintain a sufficient 
level of funding for FEMA.
    On a personal note, as I'm sure you all--the three of us in 
the room here, have seen the impact FEMA has and can have 
during and after a disaster. The COVID response, reopening, and 
operating support FEMA continues to provide to West Virginia 
after our flood are much appreciated. In 2016, we lost 23 lives 
that day, hundreds of homes, millions of dollars in damages. 
And almost 5 years later, we still remember the things that we 
lost, and recognize the ongoing efforts.
    I would like to thank you and your now Deputy Acting 
Administrator MaryAnn Tierney, who I mentioned to you is our--
was our Regional Director for her and your continued attention 
to this recovery. So that's one of the--did you say 900 
disasters that are still ongoing. It's just--it takes so long 
sometimes to rebuild.
    So, thank you for appearing with us today, and I look 
forward to hearing your testimony.
    Thank you.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you, Senator Capito. By way of 
introduction, our witness is the acting FEMA administrator, 
well now serving as the Acting Administrator. Mr. Fenton is the 
FEMA Region 9 Administrator. It's a career position. He's been 
with FEMA since 1996, and he's been involved in a number of 
significant large-scale response and recovery operations, 
including Katrina, the Southern-California wildfires of 2003, 
and the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks.
    We appreciate you being before us today. Following your 
opening statement, each member is going to be recognized by 
seniority for up to five minutes for statement and question.

               SUMMARY STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT J. FENTON

    Mr. Fenton. Good morning, Chairman Murphy, and Ranking 
Member Capito, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for 
the opportunity to discuss FEMA's role in response to the 
COVID-19 pandemic. This is an unprecedented challenge that has 
claimed the lives of over 558,000 of our neighbors, friends, 
and family members across the country. It caused grave damage 
to the global economy and put a spotlight on inequities 
throughout our nation.
    At FEMA, we are committed to ensuring that everyone has 
access to vaccination. This is our highest priority, and its 
success is dependent upon the whole community being unified to 
achieve this goal. Our current work can be grouped into three 
broad categories.
    First, at the President's direction, FEMA is reimbursing 
100 percent of the costs of the Title 32 National Guard 
activations, as well as 100 percent of eligible emergency 
protective measures expenses incurred by states, local, tribal, 
and territorial partners in response to COVID-19 through 
September 30th. This includes reimbursement for vaccination 
efforts, screening and testing, and personal protective 
equipment.
    The President also directed FEMA to expand the eligibility 
of emergency protective measures from January through September 
of this year to support the safe opening and operating of 
public facilities. This includes, among other things, eligible 
schools, childcare facilities, transit systems of those that 
have been impacted by COVID-19.
    Second, FEMA is working to support state, territorial, 
tribal, and local government's lead community vaccination 
efforts, also known as CVCs. FEMA is doing this through the 
deployment of Federal personnel, the provision of equipment, 
supplies, and technical assistance, and the awarding of 
expedited financial assistance.
    Third, and finally, FEMA is teamed up with the Department 
of Defense and other agencies in establishing pilot CVCs across 
the country. These sites are stood up in partnership with state 
and local authorities to better reach under-served and 
historically marginalized communities. These CVC sites come 
with additional temporary, eight-week vaccine allocation, and 
is above and beyond the normal state allocation and some can 
administer up to 6,000 vaccinations a day.
    As of April 12, FEMA has obligated more than $4.53 billion 
for COVID-19 vaccination efforts. There are 1,567 federally 
supported vaccination sites and 357 mobile units including 
these 30 pilot community vaccination sites that have been stood 
up since January 20th.
    To date, 189.6 million vaccine doses have been administered 
across the United States with 172 million of those taking place 
since President Biden was inaugurated. Furthermore, the 
Administration has been able to provide states and territories 
with a three-week vaccination supply allocation. As of early 
April, this allocation stood at approximately 26.8 million 
doses. Over the last three weeks, close to 90 million total 
doses have been sent to states, tribes, territories, and 
through Federal channels.
    President Biden has made equity a cornerstone of the 
Administration's COVID-19 efforts. At FEMA, we've established a 
Civil Rights Advisory Group with our Federal partners to ensure 
equity is incorporated into all of our activities. Since its 
inception in January, the Civil Rights Advisory Group has 
supported the development of the methodology used to determine 
federally led community vaccine pilot site selections, worked 
with all 10 FEMA regions to collect and analyze demographic 
data, identified under-served communities, and collaborated 
with community-based organizations. As of early April, 58 
percent of all doses administered at the federally led pilot 
CVCs went to communities of color.
    We have reason to be hopeful in the months ahead. We expect 
that vaccine supplies will continue to increase substantially 
in the months to come so that everyone who wants a vaccine will 
have access to one.
    In closing, we greatly appreciate this subcommittee's 
steadfast support for FEMA's efforts throughout the COVID-19 
pandemic and for appropriating the resources our agency has 
needed to meet the historic mission requirements.
    I'd just like to end with saying how much of an honor it is 
to be the Acting Administrator and lead. In my eyes, the finest 
group of civil servants that I've had the opportunity to work 
with. Their ability to work tirelessly through disaster after 
disaster to help Americans when at the greatest need, just 
shows you how dedicated this work force is in the challenging 
times that you've all highlighted.
    So, thank you for taking the opportunity to testify. I look 
forward to answering your questions today.
    The statement follows:
                Prepared Statement of Mr. Robert Fenton
    Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member Capito, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, my name is Robert Fenton. I am the Senior Official 
Performing the Duties of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 
Administrator. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss FEMA's role in 
the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an unprecedented 
challenge that has claimed the lives of over 558,000 of our friends, 
relatives, and neighbors across America, caused grave damage to the 
global economy, and put a spotlight on inequities throughout our 
nation.
    At FEMA, we are committed to advancing access and equity in the 
COVID-19 vaccination program. This is our highest priority and its 
success is dependent upon the whole community being unified to achieve 
this goal. To accomplish this, we are executing the President's 
National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness 
with the help of our Federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial 
partners.
    As of April 12, 2021, 189.6 million vaccine doses have been 
administered across the United States with over 172 million of those 
taking place since President Biden was inaugurated. Furthermore, under 
the President's leadership, the Administration began providing states 
and territories with a new dashboard depicting allocation projections 
with a three-week forecast. As of early April, this weekly allocation 
stood at approximately 26.8 million doses, and over the last three 
weeks, close to 90 million total doses have been sent to states, 
tribes, and territories through Federal channels.
    For today's hearing, I would like to discuss what we are doing to 
respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, what we plan to do in the coming 
months, and what challenges lie ahead. Our current work can be grouped 
into three broad categories.
    First, at the President's direction, FEMA is reimbursing 100 
percent of the cost for Title 32 National Guard activations, as well as 
100 percent of eligible emergency protective measure expenses incurred 
by states, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners, and certain 
private non- profits, through September 30, 2021. This includes 
reimbursement for vaccination efforts, screening and testing, personal 
protective equipment, and emergency medical care. The President also 
directed FEMA to expand emergency protective measure eligibility from 
January 21, 2021 through September 30, 2021, to include the safe 
opening and operation of public facilities, including schools, child-
care facilities, healthcare facilities, non-congregate shelters, 
domestic violence shelters, and transit systems impacted by COVID-19. 
FEMA is coordinating with Federal partners to finalize the specific 
eligibility criteria for this expanded assistance.
    Second, FEMA is working to support SLTT-led Community Vaccination 
Centers (CVCs) through the deployment of Federal clinical and non-
clinical personnel; the provision of equipment, supplies, and technical 
assistance; and the awarding of expedited financial assistanceto 
states, tribes, and territories. We are also providing Mobile 
Vaccination Units (MVUs), which, when paired with staff and supplies, 
can each support administration of 250 or more vaccines per day. For 
example, our team worked closely with Connecticut to utilize an MVU to 
support jurisdictions in providing COVID-19 vaccinations to all those 
who want one. As a testament to the importance of public-private 
partnerships in delivering vaccinations, staffing for the MVU will be 
provided by UConn Health, Griffin Health, Hartford Healthcare, and 
Trinity Health of New England. The sites will also be supported by the 
Connecticut National Guard and municipal partners for non-clinical 
staffing. federally supported MVUs are currently operating in 17 
states. FEMA MVU's are currently operating in Connecticut, Maryland, 
Oregon, and Nevada to bring vaccinations to hard-to-reach and high-risk 
populations.
    Third, FEMA teamed up with the Department of Defense and other 
agencies to establish CVC sites. These sites are stood up in 
partnership with state and local authorities who are working side by 
side with faith-based and community organizations to better reach 
underserved and historically marginalized communities, which have a 
high risk of COVID-19 exposure and infection. The sites are selected 
based on analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 
(CDC) Social Vulnerability Index and other Census data as well as input 
from our partners. These CVC sites come with an additional temporary, 
eight-week vaccine allocation that is above and beyond the normal state 
allocation and the largest of these sites can administer up to 6,000 
vaccines a day. CVC Pilot sites are operating in California, New York, 
Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, 
Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, 
Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington with several more expected to be 
operational in the near future.
    As of April 12, FEMA has obligated more than $4.53 billion for 
COVID-19 vaccination efforts. Since January 20, 2021, FEMA has 
supported 1,567 federally supported vaccination sites, including 357 
mobile units. FEMA currently has 2,602 staff deployed across the nation 
to support vaccination missions. To further support this whole-of-
government effort, Secretary Mayorkas activated the Department of 
Homeland Security's (DHS) Surge Capacity Force for vaccination support 
operations, drawing on Federal employees from DHS Components and other 
Federal agencies to augment FEMA's workforce.
    President Biden has made equity a cornerstone of his 
Administration's COVID-19 efforts, and at FEMA we established a Civil 
Rights Advisory Group (CRAG) within the National Response Coordination 
Center to ensure that equity is incorporated into all activities. The 
CRAG is led by FEMA's Office of Equal Rights and includes personnel 
from the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC, the 
Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, and the Department of 
Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, among 
others.
    Since January 29, 2021, FEMA's Office of Equal Rights and its 
Federal partners have supported the development of the methodology used 
to determine federally-led CVC pilot site selections, and has worked on 
the ground in all ten FEMA regions to collect and analyze demographic 
data, identify underserved communities, and collaborate with community-
based organizations. We have also incorporated Regional Disability 
Integration Specialists into the CRAG to ensure that the needs of 
people with disabilities are integrated in all facets of vaccine center 
operations. As of early April, approximately 58 percent of all vaccine 
doses administered at the Federal pilot CVCs went to communities of 
color.
    While FEMA remains focused on supporting vaccination distribution 
efforts and the COVID-19 response, the agency also maintains its 
mission readiness and ongoing support for multiple emergency and 
disaster declarations. Recent examples include the severe winter storms 
that caused widespread damage in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and particularly 
Texas. FEMA actively coordinated with impacted state, local, and tribal 
governments to address unmet needs and support the distribution of 
critical resources such as generators, fuel, blankets, water, and 
meals. Following Texas's major disaster declaration and approval for 
Individual Assistance, FEMA continues to assist eligible individuals 
and households in Texas who have uninsured or underinsured expenses for 
serious disaster-related damages.
    As we look ahead to the late spring and early summer, FEMA has a 
particular interest in ensuring that COVID-19 vaccines reach as many 
people as possible before we enter hurricane and wildfire seasons. 
Climate change is making natural disasters more frequent, more intense, 
and more destructive, and we must be prepared for another challenging 
series of disaster events this summer and fall. Last year, FEMA faced a 
record-setting number of hurricanes and major wildfires. While the 
agency responded successfully to each of these natural disasters, 
COVID-19 makes any response and recovery effort more difficult. 
Widespread vaccination is essential to improving our posture to respond 
to natural disasters.
    We have reason to be hopeful in the months ahead. As vaccine 
supplies continue to increase substantially in the months to come, FEMA 
will continue to work with our Federal and SLTT partners to ensure that 
vaccinations can proceed as quickly as those increased supplies allow, 
so that every member of the public who wants a vaccine will have access 
to one. We are also working to amplify messaging from the Ad Council, 
which is coordinating with Federal partners to encourage vaccination 
for individuals who may be hesitant to get vaccinated.
    We greatly appreciate this Subcommittee's steadfast support for 
FEMA's efforts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and for providing the 
resources our agency has needed to meet these historic mission 
requirements. I would like to thank Congress for recently appropriating 
$50 billion to FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund within the American Rescue 
Plan Act of 2021 to cover
    the costs associated with major disaster declarations, including 
the ongoing battle against COVID-19.
    Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I look forward to 
answering your questions.

    Senator Murphy. Thank you again. Thank you very much for 
your service and your willingness to talk to us today. You 
obviously have had a unique seat managing a regional response 
to the pandemic. And as I mentioned at the outset, I do want to 
focus on present efforts, in particular the vaccination 
campaign. But I do think it makes sense to do some 
retrospective here to make sure that we are learning lessons in 
real time.
    So, I wanted to turn to this question about overlapping 
responsibilities. FEMA was given this lead role in the whole of 
government Federal response back in March of last year. But as 
you know, there was wide-spread confusion amongst policy makers 
and state-level implementers about who was in charge; whether 
FEMA was in charge, HHS was in charge, or the White House was 
in charge. We can't wait to do a year-long retrospective and 
inquiry before trying to make a mends for that confusion.
    So, I'd love your perspective, having sat in Region 9, to 
tell us what you think FEMA's role should be, let's say visa 
vie HHS during a nation-wide public health incident like a 
pandemic.
    How can we learn from our mistakes over the last year to 
make sure there are clear lines of authority for state and 
local public health officials, governors, members of Congress?
    Mr. Fenton. Thank you, Senator, for the question. 
Apologies. Let me start off by saying that the last year was 
the most complex event that I've ever had the opportunity of 
responding to in my 25 years of being in this field in 
Emergency Management. And it was really a maximum maxima event. 
Never did we anticipate that we would have such a large event 
not only impact the nation's capability but let alone the 
world's capability.
    And so, when you look at events like this, I think 
emergency management at all levels of government has a 
responsibility to be a coordinating function. Something that 
FEMA does really well is coordinate and communicate in all 
levels of government, both vertically and horizontally. And 
connect with not only government, but private-sector or private 
non-profits, and others to ensure that everyone is working 
toward a common set of goals and a unity of effort.
    It was difficult to do last year at the beginning of the 
event because of different authorities. The uniqueness of the 
medical event and starting off with the event being managed by 
HHS, and then eventually transitioning in March, to FEMA taking 
the lead of it. It took us a little bit of time to get the 
coordination mechanisms that traditionally haven't been 
involved in a medical-only event to come together and unify 
those efforts at all levels of government across private 
sector, private non-profit. And it's something that we continue 
to work on and improve throughout the summer in response to 
COVID.
    Senator Murphy. So, I spent about a month last summer 
trying to understand the emergency medical supply chain in 
trying to understand who from the Federal Government was doing 
what. I spent about a month talking to anybody that I could, 
and I think I left that month more confused at the end than I 
was going in.
    In fact, in the report that FEMA released in January, FEMA 
noted neither HHS nor FEMA understood the domestic supply chain 
at the beginning of this response.
    So, to what extent were agencies aware of this knowledge 
gap, and what's being done right now to identify and manage 
those gaps in advance of future incidents? And then, who really 
should be the lead with respect to this question of supply 
chain management? Should this be FEMA? Should this be HHS? And 
how do we make sure that we're not sort of caught unaware in 
the way that we were last spring and summer?
    Mr. Fenton. From an organizational standpoint, the National 
Response Coordination Center, when stood up nationally, is the 
overall coordinating mechanism. What they did was establish a 
supply chain task force to focus in on the medical supplies of 
this event and it took them some time to get a hold of and an 
understanding of that supply chain. It's very complex as far 
as, asking ``Who are the big manufacturers? Where is the 
manufacturing happening at? Where are the resources needed to 
do the manufacturing? What is the capacity of that within the 
United States, with outside the United States?'' And so, those 
were all things that took them time to wrap their hands around.
    At the same time, funding is going out to state and local 
Governments, so they're taking the necessary action to go 
procure the needed resources to be able to combat COVID. There 
is a little bit of complexity at the beginning to get unity of 
effort going and it's something that we continue to work 
through during the summer months.
    Going forward, there are a number of things that are 
happening right now. Not only does FEMA have a role to provide 
coordination and through Executive Order last year, had some 
responsibility to look specifically at some of the medical 
supplies. But, more importantly, we have now a much better 
understanding of our supply chains, and an understanding that a 
just in time supply chain isn't sufficient to meet the 
challenges of a worldwide pandemic. And so, what we've done 
over the last year is be able to understand that supply chain, 
understand where those manufacturers are, what their capability 
is within the US, outside the US, and where the resource 
dependencies are. What we're now doing is working to build 
capability and relationships to better be able to share 
information to include stockpiling resources, both within the 
Federal level, and at the state level; but more importantly, 
ensuring that private sector is part of that, and they are also 
building capability, and that medical institutions are doing 
the same thing.
    So, it's really a whole of community effort. Recognizing 
that everyone has parts and responsibility of that. Working 
through each organization's authorities with FEMA assisting and 
coordinating many parts of this.
    Senator Murphy. I'm going to turn this over to Senator 
Capito, but I do maybe on a second round, want to follow up 
with you with this question of how we learned from our 
experience in overlapping distribution systems and procurement 
systems, whether it's appropriate to have state systems 
overlayed with Federal systems, overlayed with private sector 
systems and how we can sort of learn from that duplication of 
effort. But at this point, I'll turn it over to Senator Capito 
to be followed by Senator Shaheen.
    Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank 
you for coming out. The first think I wanted to ask about is 
the Disaster Relief Fund, recognizing that you're acting, but 
we're getting ready to go into an appropriation season here. 
The Administration is going to be asking $18 billion to address 
major disasters through the Disaster Relief Fund. As you've 
probably done, as all of I have done, we've watched the Fund go 
down and go down, and back up, and then down.
    And I don't know--do you have any level--or what is your 
level of confidence that this balance that we have in the DRF 
is going to be sufficient to address these needs? I know it's 
hard to speculate, but I didn't know if you had an impression.
    Mr. Fenton. Well, I think that's what it is. It's 
speculation based on experience and history. We have a good 
team at FEMA that has gone back and looked at history. We've 
looked what the risks are and the current requirements that we 
still have left outstanding from either the COVID event or past 
disaster event where we have to provide funding for those? 
Right now, we project that we would be on a trajectory to have 
sufficient funding in the DRF by the end of the fiscal year.
    Senator Capito. All right. Another question, and I don't 
know if we can answer this shortly, but it's certainly a 
question that's going to come to all of us from our 
constituents on the COVID relief, which is the funeral 
assistance that was just rolled out. And I heard on the radio, 
actually, that you were inundated--FEMA was inundated with 
phone calls on the helpline or whatever line you set up for 
this.
    It's probably causing some confusion. I don't know if--they 
said that you'd gotten a million calls, and I don't know how 
that's rolling out. Just shortly, briefly, what your hope is, 
what the confusion might be. What can we tell our constituents 
here?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. What I would say is to get all of the 
necessary documents together before phoning that line. The 
first day we opened up there was definitely congestion on the 
line, and we had a couple of technical issues with the service. 
We cleaned that up by the second day. 60,000 calls, 58,000 
registrations, 1,700 have already come back with documentation. 
Hopefully, we'll start funding that next week. That represents 
about 10 percent of the deaths so far.
    The second day was much better than the first day and I'm 
sure today will be much better than yesterday. And we want to 
make sure that we empathically and compassionately help 
everyone that had a loss. And so, we look forward to working 
with you to phone that 1-800 number and take time to pull 
together the necessary information before starting your 
application.
    Senator Capito. Well, I know this is the first time you've 
administered something of this nature and so, I know--I wish 
you well on that. I do think it is good to reinforce that this 
is reimbursements for expenses that have already been incurred 
by families and others toward the burial assistance of a COVID 
patient. So, getting all of that documentation is really 
important.
    I would like to ask you about the southwest border crisis 
where FEMA is now in helping to identify and assist in 
sheltering and processing centers.
    You know, are you concerned about this? Do you think FEMA's 
role is going to get larger? What impact is this going to have 
on your FEMA resources? And, you know, talking about who's in 
charge here. I mean, that's a little bit of this kind of 
situation as well with so many hands on deck at the border.
    Do you have any impressions on that? What are you hearing 
from the field?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. So far, the impact on our staffing has not 
been significant. In all events, we help out other Federal 
agencies as they help us out through the Economy Act. I have 
now been in FEMA, as you said earlier, 25 years and through 
three Administrations. I've been involved in unaccompanied 
children in the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration, 
and now this Administration.
    One of our core values is compassion. We want to be able to 
help out HHS with setting up shelter capacity for the children 
and we're going ahead and doing that, which is something that 
we do very well.
    Senator Capito. Is that in any specific place, or is that 
all along the borders of Texas mainly?
    Mr. Fenton. Texas, California. We're looking at some other 
sites throughout the United States. But HHS is doing the 
contracting. It's their funding. What we're providing is 
technical assistance and personnel support to help them.
    Senator Capito. All right. Thank you. You mentioned the 100 
percent cost share for COVID for our National Guard and I'm 
sure all of us have been contacted as that 100 percent cost 
share looks like it's getting ready to be timed out. We're all 
getting calls from our National Guards to ask that--or from our 
Governors, really, to have that extended.
    I do think that, you know, there is a risk of this becoming 
the norm and I think that there has to be state, local, and, 
you know, disaster relief assistance at the same time, 
certainly through these Guard assistance and they've been 
fantastic with us.
    So, do you have an impression on that? On the 100 percent 
cost share? It goes to what, September 30th?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. It goes to September 30th. There should be 
sufficient vaccination to vaccinate anyone that needs 
vaccination, as the President laid out, by May. But through 
July, hopefully, we have everyone vaccinated. So as long as we 
stay, on that trajectory, that should lessen hopefully the need 
for additional support past September 30th. I think September 
30th is a good estimate right now and we can see what happens 
as COVID continues to progress and we continue to vaccinate 
America.
    Senator Capito. Well, thank you. And I'll turn it back 
over. I might want to have a question after we go through.
    The other thing I would say, as a grateful person as well, 
FEMA has probably the best network of volunteers that I've ever 
seen. Just really selfless people that have that compassionate 
and caring attitude and having interacted with them one-on-one 
during very difficult times, I just want to express my 
appreciation to them as well.
    Mr. Fenton. Thank you, ma'am.
    Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Fenton, 
thank you for once again stepping up and taking over the duties 
as Acting Administrator and please share our appreciation to 
everyone at FEMA for the work they're doing in these very 
challenging times.
    I want to follow up on Senator Capito's question about the 
Funeral Assistance Program, which I know is new to FEMA. But we 
are hearing from people who are concerned not just about how 
it's working, and it just rolled out, so that's understandable, 
but also constituents who have found out that they're 
ineligible to receive assistance because they prepaid for 
funeral expenses prior to the eligible date. And even though 
they didn't lose loved ones until after January 20th, 2020, 
they had prepaid those expenses.
    So, can you explain why the Policy would exclude those who 
may have prepaid funeral expenses before the date even though 
those in question who lost their lives, that didn't happen 
until after the 2020 deadline?
    Mr. Fenton. I'm not sure I completely understand your 
question. As I understand it right now, if someone already paid 
funeral expenses we will reimburse them for that cost if they 
submit the receipts for them.
    Senator Shaheen. What we are hearing from some constituents 
is that they had paid the funeral expenses. So, I could to 
today to my funeral home.
    Mr. Fenton. Right.
    Senator Shaheen. I can pay for my funeral, which may not 
happen hopefully for a very long time in the future.
    Mr. Fenton. I understand what you're saying now.
    Senator Shaheen. But if I lost somebody after that January 
20th deadline I'm not able to get reimbursed under FEMA's 
current rulings.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. Right.
    Senator Shaheen. So, can you explain why, and is FEMA open 
to changing that? Is that a legislative change that would be 
required?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes.
    Senator Shaheen. It seems to me that is not the intent of 
what we meant when we passed the Cares Act.
    Mr. Fenton. I'd be glad to look into that specific question 
and get back to you. Our intent is not to duplicate other forms 
of assistance, like insurance and other avenues of funding.
    Senator Shaheen. Sure.
    Mr. Fenton. But let me look into that specific issue, and 
I'd be glad to work with your office, and get back to you.
    [The information follows:]

    Any source of payment designated specifically to pay for a funeral 
in anticipation of a future death cannot be reimbursed under this 
assistance as FEMA cannot duplicate benefits provided by another 
source, per Section 312 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and 
Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5155. This includes burial or 
funeral insurance, a pre-paid funeral, a pre-paid trust for funeral 
expenses, or an irrevocable trust for Medicare. However, when funeral 
expenses exceed the funds intended to pay these costs, FEMA may 
evaluate the receipts and other documentation to provide the funeral 
expenses not covered up to the maximum amount per funeral.

    Senator Shaheen. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    Mr. Fenton. Now that I understand exactly what you're 
saying now.
    Senator Shaheen. I also want to follow up a little bit on 
Senator Murphy's questions about the supply chain. Because one 
of the things that we've heard from companies in New Hampshire 
is that they--many of them have altered their manufacturing 
capabilities to try and respond to the pandemic. And what they 
are concerned about is that the Federal Government gets these 
materials from foreign sources, and even though they've been 
asked to step up, they will then be in the position of having 
to shut down those manufacturing lines or do something 
different.
    So, can you talk about how FEMA is coordinating with HHS 
and other Federal Agencies so that you utilize the Defense 
Production Act to ensure that we have an adequate supply, but 
that we don't put companies in the position of changing their 
manufacturing facilities and then deciding to procure supplies 
from other places?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. There are many parts of the Defense 
Production Act. And FEMA shares Title I, which is setting 
priority orders. But there's other parts with regard to Title 
VII that looks at setting voluntary agreements, and Title III 
that looks at expansions of stimulating the economy and 
stimulus.
    I think to your point, what needs to happen is we need to--
and have been doing this for the last about 6 months--is work 
with different sectors, especially related to the pandemic to 
start understanding of what the capability is within the US 
manufacturing, where do the resources coming from, and start to 
have those discussions now and be able to share information 
from the private sector to the government sector, working with 
DOJ and Federal Trade Communication--Commission to share that 
information to make better-informed decisions in the future.
    I think that's where we're headed right now. That's what 
we've learned from this event. You know, I think if you go back 
to last summer, it was everyone trying to get whatever they 
could from wherever they could.
    Senator Shaheen. Right.
    Mr. Fenton. And it wasn't a coordinated, collective effort 
and continued to work on it through the end of the summer, and 
probably not until the end of summer did it really come 
together in some way.
    Going forward, I think we need to continue to do that, not 
only for a pandemic, but for other high-risk events that may 
impact the nation's supply chain in any one field. It could be 
an earthquake and that damages multiple homes. How do we bring 
back on 10,000 homes in a quick period of time?
    And so, we need to start having these discussions with 
private sector, and there is a way to do that through the 
Defense Production Act underneath Title VII and start to share 
information so that we're able to leverage everything the 
United States has.
    Senator Shaheen. And would you expect that FEMA would 
continue to be the lead agency on this? Or do you see that 
shifting?
    Mr. Fenton. Well, I think--Yes. I think we're one of them. 
You know, we're one of the key entities to this. We do 
deliberate planning for high-risk, high-threat events across 
the country. But there's other Federal Agencies that have key 
responsibilities within the Defense Production Act: Department 
of Commerce, Department of Transportation, Energy, HHS, USDA. 
They all need to have responsibility for their specific 
functional area, their portfolio.
    Senator Shaheen. Right.
    Mr. Fenton. But we definitely have a responsibility when 
doing the planning for whole of government to make sure there 
is a coordinated effort.
    Senator Shaheen. Yeah. And that was sort of the concern 
that I think Senator Murphy was getting to, is that if we've 
got a bunch of agencies who are working on this, who is 
actually in charge of prioritizing what needs to be done?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. So, we have responsibility to share the 
Title I side of things and the prioritization. We don't have 
authority to share Title III and specific expansion of economy 
or stimulus to each one of those department agencies. So, the 
Department of Energy does it within their organization, HHS 
within theirs. Now, we've gained a little bit through an 
executive order last year with HHS, but for the rest of them, 
we traditionally don't.
    And so, one of the things we do is catastrophic planning so 
we can identify those gaps so then those agencies can be 
responsible for building that capacity. So, I think through the 
planning efforts we do with state and local governments, we 
should work on identifying where those big gaps are, and those 
significant events that we face based on risks in our country 
to allow those Federal agencies, then, to take their authority 
and build capacity--or at least start the discussion with the 
private sector to make sure that we have a well-thought-out 
plan, and we're not doing it just in time when the event 
happens.
    Senator Shaheen. So, I'm out of time, but do you think the 
Defense Production Act needs to be changed in any way to 
address that concern?
    Mr. Fenton. I think it's a good question and it's one tool 
of many tools to get it to solution. Other tools are, let's 
deal with the risk in front and mitigate the risk. We talked a 
little bit earlier about BRIC and negation, and other things.
    Senator Shaheen. Right.
    Mr. Fenton. And there's many other things we could do, but 
I think it is one tool.
    You know, I think we can continue to look at it, but I 
don't see FEMA having oversight over, like, Department of 
Energy on energy. It's not our expertise.
    Senator Shaheen. Yeah.
    Mr. Fenton. So, I think Energy needs to do that and then be 
responsible for it. Or HHS and be responsible for it.
    As far as us coordinating the Committee for prioritization, 
I think that's something we could do and relates to disasters 
in doing that and being able to respond to events and do 
priority ratings.
    Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you, Senator Shaheen. We should have 
Senator Hoeven virtually.
    Senator Hoeven. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fenton, I 
guess my first question relates to the City of Washburn, North 
Dakota. On February 2nd, our Congressional Delegation sent a 
letter in support of the city's request for an extension on 
their Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant. Can you give me an update 
on that request?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. The applications for PDM are in the system 
and being evaluated. And I will go ahead and get back to you, 
specifically on that request. But I'm not aware of any 
decisions being made on the Brick program yet.
    Senator Hoeven. Yeah. If you could get me a timeline.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes.
    Senator Hoeven. I mean, if you could give me an answer that 
would be great. But if not, if you could give me kind of an 
estimated timeline for a response that would be okay. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
    Senator Hoeven. Can you further describe FEMA's role as it 
relates to migrants coming across the border illegally?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. FEMA's role is in support of HHS, and 
their authorities and role in CBP. We don't have any specific 
authority with regard to the border. We are supporting them 
underneath the Economy Act in providing them technical 
assistance right now.
    Senator Hoeven. Are you assisting with testing and making 
sure that illegal migrants that are coming across are being 
tested for COVID?
    Mr. Fenton. Anyone that is in the United States that is at 
risk for COVID would fall underneath our authorities right now 
as it relates to the pandemic and being able to reimburse state 
and local governments for testing and for anyone who tests 
positive to quarantine up to 10 days. Anyone within the United 
States that is symptomatic that local government or state 
government feels that they need to test, have that ability to 
test them and for us to reimburse them.
    Senator Hoeven. Is that being done at the border?
    Mr. Fenton. That's being done throughout the whole United 
States, including the border. And it's not specific to the 
border. It's specific to the communities in proximity. And they 
have the authority and the ability to do that if they elect to 
do that.
    Senator Hoeven. If they elect to do it.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. Right.
    Senator Hoeven. So, it may or may not be being done?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes it depends on each specific state health 
and local health laws, or any authority of the county or state, 
and it's up to each state or county. For example, I know, 
because I'm in Region 9, that California has a very robust 
testing program and testing. I do know that there are a number 
of non-government organizations down there that are doing 
testing of individuals at the border.
    But it's specifically up to a state. It's something that's 
100 reimbursable if a state or local government decides to do 
it. In addition to that, we've sent tens of thousands of test 
kits to Texas and other states that they can use, you know, 
within their state, whether it be in the southern part of the 
state or other areas.
    Senator Hoeven. So, your role is assisting if they elect to 
do it?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. Our role is to reimburse the costs of 
testing for the whole United States. Mandating someone to test 
within the United States is a decision up to the local health 
official or state health official. We can't mandate testing. 
That's their decision.
    Senator Hoeven. And in terms of manpower, do you have 
adequate manpower? Are you being strained because of the 
border?
    Mr. Fenton. No. The border is probably less than 200 staff 
deployed to the border, or to our headquarters into the 
shelters in the southern United States. And it's not impacting 
our deployments. We have about 10,000 people out of less than 
maybe 13,000 are available for deployment that are deployed 
right now. The majority of those are to COVID--to the 
vaccination effort or to other disaster activity.
    Senator Hoeven. My last question relates to how much COVID 
funding that FEMA has received, and then how is that going in 
terms of, you know, how much have you dispersed, and are you 
sure you are able to get them out expeditiously as needed?
    Mr. Fenton. We just received the additional $50 billion of 
funding. We are starting to implement the Funeral Assistance 
Program that we project $2 billion from last year, I think $2 
to $3 billion from this year.
    The part of the reopening of schools, public facilities, 
transportation, will be a significant additional portion of 
funding. Going back and changing the cost share to 100 percent 
will be additional funding. As I said earlier $4.5 billion 
already in the vaccination effort for the first 90 days.
    So, we have sufficient funding right now. I project, based 
on the new authorities we received and the appropriation, and 
the President's Executive Order that we should have sufficient 
funding to get us through to the end of the fiscal year, to 
include what would be normally projected disaster activity in 
that time of year, which includes hurricanes and fires.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Fenton. Thank you, sir.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you, Senator Hoeven. We'll go to a 
second round of questions. We appreciate you sticking with us. 
I've just got two.
    The first, I wanted to return to this question of 
responsibility for supply chain management. As you know, 
virtually every state in the nation scrambled to set up their 
own supply chain for PPE in particular in the early stages of 
the pandemic.
    And, I think a simple question that states are asking right 
now, is should they be preparing to have to stand up their own 
supply chain for the next pandemic? Because if that is the 
case, there are decisions, some of them very expensive, that 
states will make, for instance, to, you know, keep a 
manufacturer in state with the capability to be able to make 
certain types of masks or face shields. Or, do we expect that 
we are going to sort of solve for this problem, and when and if 
the next pandemic hits, states will not have to build their own 
supply chain, and there will be an adequate, complete Federal 
response, either through stockpiles or through the management 
of Federal and international supply chains to meet the need?
    What's sort of your advice right now for states as they're 
starting to decide how they want to spend money in advance of 
the next potential outbreak?
    Mr. Fenton. So, I think it's a collective effort. What 
we've asked and provided funding to state and local governments 
and you is to go ahead and build the capacity. Most states have 
built a 60 to some, up to 120-day capacity of personal 
protective equipment and other medical supplies that would be 
needed for a pandemic.
    In addition to that, the Strategic National Stockpile has 
built capacity within that. The medical providers--private 
sector providers are building additional capacity, and I've 
seen hospitals now start to increase their capacity.
    I think the reliance on a just-in-time logistics system, 
which we've gotten used to, in the United States because it's 
been so efficient on being able to deliver resources, works 
except when you have a catastrophic event that impacts that 
supply chain.
    So, you need to build capacity at all levels of government 
to withstand when there is a run on a specific resource. And go 
ahead and not only build the capacity to allow manufacturing to 
catch up, but also to ensure there's sufficient supply to do 
that. That's just part of the issue, is building that capacity.
    The second part is we need to be able to increase 
manufacturing, and how long does that take to do that? Where is 
the capacity to do that? Private sectors maybe can retool and 
do that quickly. And then, where do the supplies and material 
come from to do that?
    So, it's a complex decision. I think we all have a part in 
that. Private sector has responsibilities to that and we have 
to understand maybe where the gaps are within that system to 
make sure that we have contingency plans to respond adequately 
to that. So, it's a collective effort.
    Senator Murphy. So, I mean, I certainly understand that 
it's state's responsibility to build up reserves. I do think 
it's an important question for us to answer as to whether it is 
state's responsibility to build up that, sort of, slack 
manufacturing capacity. Essentially pay money to hold it in 
reserve.
    That is a very specific set of expertise that states prior 
to the pandemic did not have and would require every state to 
have a level of visibility into their own sort of state-based 
supply chain that we normally don't ask--you know, we don't ask 
states to get involved in that question in large part because 
it's kind of arbitrary what amount of manufacturing you have in 
your state when it comes to masks or face shields.
    It strikes me that that question should really be one dealt 
with at the Federal level. But are you saying--maybe you don't 
have an answer now? It's okay. But are you suggesting that the 
states are going to sort of--we're going to have 50 different 
strategies to create slack capacity for the manufacturing of 
medical supplies? Or will that question be more a function of 
Federal oversight and policy?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. I think to that specific piece, and in 
fact appropriation to HHS to provide that underneath Title III 
of DPA, that's where they should then work with private sector 
to be able to build that capacity.
    And I know that right now, we're working in a number of 
efforts, along with HHS, to work with private sector to how to 
build a capacity. So, DOD received a billion dollars in the 
last appropriation and HHS received, I think, it was $10 
billion underneath the Defense Production Act, Title III, to 
work with the private sector to build that additional capacity.
    And that's, I think, the best place for that to be done at 
unless there's something unique, maybe, to a local government 
or a role of government with regard to relationships to some 
private sector within that area.
    Senator Murphy. I just think we have to be as clear as 
possible with states as to what their obligations are and what 
their obligations aren't. Because they obviously got into the 
business of doing all sorts of things over the last year that 
they weren't expecting to do, and I think they want to know now 
whether those are, sort of, permanent new functions that are 
outsourced to them, or whether this was a one-time only 
request. So, I look forward to working with you, and HHS, and 
the Administration on delivering that clarity.
    With Senator Capito's--if she'll allow me, I have one 
additional question, which is on outreach with respect to 
vaccination efforts. So, we're getting to the point where we 
hope there will be an adequate supply of vaccination, and we 
will be in the position of a deficit of demand, and that we 
will have to be going out and doing outreach to harder to reach 
communities, or individuals who are skeptical about vaccines to 
convince them of the merits of that vaccination. That, of 
course, requires not just having the vaccination site set up, 
but having education and outreach efforts funded.
    And I want to just sort of ask about the ways in which 
states can apply to get that reimbursed. There's 100 percent 
reimbursement, but there may be circumstances in which you have 
an outreach worker who, for instance, is going out and trying 
to contact chronically truant students at school, but who will 
also do education on vaccination during that outreach visit.
    Do you foresee any difficulty in making sure that states 
get adequate reimbursement when some of the outreach efforts 
that are going to be necessary throughout the end of the year 
may be intermingled with other functions that public health 
workers are doing, for instance, that might not be eligible for 
reimbursement?
    Mr. Fenton. There's a number of efforts going on right now 
to ensure everyone has the opportunity to get vaccinated. And 
you bring up a number of issues, whether is vaccine hesitancy, 
whether it's availability to get individuals vaccinated. I do 
think there's specific resources available both in HHS' 
appropriation and our own appropriation. And I think those 
activities are covered between those appropriations. 
Specifically, depending on what the individual is doing, it may 
be our appropriation, or it may be HHS'.
    Based on your description, most of what we're providing 
reimbursement for is the protective measures; the N95 masks, 
any protective barriers, you know, testing, anything that is an 
immediate protective measure to reopen. And then the other 
Federal agencies are funding efforts to maybe do outreach and 
investigation. Plus, we are also assisting with a community 
outreach campaign right now with HHS, CDC, and state and local 
agencies. And we're bringing the vaccine through many different 
efforts, to include mobile units, which are anything to do with 
actually vaccinating would be eligible. So, all of the mobile 
units that we're providing support for, the National Guard, the 
vaccinators, all of those kind of things would be eligible.
    But I'd be glad to work with your community and 
specifically understand the specific issues to make sure we 
provide them guidance on the most appropriate funding 
mechanism.
    [The information follows:]

    The Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide (PAPPG) lists 
``dissemination of information to the public to provide warnings and 
guidance about health and safety hazards using various strategies, such 
as flyers, public service announcements, or newspaper campaigns'' as 
eligible as an emergency protective measure (see Chapter 2:VI.B, 
Emergency Protective Measures (Category B), of the PAPPG Version 3.1, 
the version applicable to COVID-19 declarations). Truancy visits fall 
outside the scope of this authority, and as such the cost of conducting 
a truancy visit would not be eligible for reimbursement. The cost of 
producing communication materials for vaccination administration (e.g. 
flyers, pamphlets) that may be provided in conjunction with such a 
visit may be eligible for reimbursement. The U.S. Department of 
Education is administering additional funding appropriated in recent 
legislation for other costs incurred by schools associated with COVID-
19 and may have assistance available for such costs.

    Senator Murphy. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. 
Senator Capito.
    Senator Capito. Thank you. I just have two quick questions. 
Looking to the future, obviously, hurricane and wildfire 
seasons are sort of around the corner. You and I talked, I 
actually asked you, being a native Californian if anything was 
on fire, and unfortunately--fortunately, no. And that's good.
    But I know that you--can you continue--are you concerned 
with the way you're spread out through COVID and everything 
else, anticipating fire and hurricane seasons? Or you've 
mentioned that you have adequate staffing availabilities for 
any disasters, but I was just curious and wondering to know if 
you're concerned about what could happen during these two 
seasons?
    Mr. Fenton. Yeah. Well, I'm in the business of risk 
management and prioritization. And so, if there's events that 
happen that require a life-saving response, I feel comfortable 
that we will always be able to respond to that event with the 
Federal Government's capability.
    In addition to what FEMA has right now, and still about 
2,500 personnel left that are responders that can go out to 
events, I'm leveraging right now 500 people from the whole 
Federal government to help me with the vaccination effort. So, 
I would leverage more on the rest of the Federal Government.
    Right now, we have about 9,000 people deployed to do 
vaccination and that includes about 4,500 or 5,000 DOD 
personnel.
    Senator Capito. Wow.
    Mr. Fenton. So, it's always a concern. It's something I 
watch, and I look at future threat, and I manage that risk to 
make sure that we have enough resources. But the response is 
bigger than FEMA. It's state and local government, and all of 
the capability they bring in. It's all the non-disaster grants. 
It's the $2 billion we put out a year to build that capacity.
    We continue to do that, to build that capability, so that 
collectively we can respond to those events.
    Senator Capito. Over the last several years, with your 25 
years of experience, I'm interested to know what situation has 
been your biggest challenge.
    Has it been the COVID response? Or were you--was it a 
particular other disaster event that you would say was probably 
the most difficult one that you've had--difficult challenge I 
would say?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. Well, obviously, the biggest impact I've 
ever seen is COVID. It just what it's done to our country, shut 
down our economy, the impact it's had, far beyond physical 
damage that we traditionally see in other disasters. It's just 
been far greater than any other disaster I've been to. So, in 
having the whole government, the whole country, and the whole 
world affected at once, it's just been significant.
    I would put that up there with, you know, 9/11 and Katrina, 
on my list of the biggest events that I've been involved with 
all for different reasons. And some, geographically unique, but 
all emotionally impacted. Or at least the whole country felt 
the impacts of those three events. And as far as challenge, I 
think we all collectively have the same goal, save people, help 
people. It's how we get there, and how we do that underneath 
unity of effort. And when we're not unified, it makes it that 
much more challenging.
    So, it's important that we use the systems, the National 
Response Framework, and all of the systems that exist, and the 
training that we provide to the whole government--to state and 
local government to private sector. How do we involve 
individuals, private citizens, involved in that? And how do we 
collectively get a unified effort is what needs to happen in 
those big events.
    Senator Capito. That's interesting. I wanted to ask a quick 
question on the Supplemental Firefighter Grants. We put a lot 
of money into, let's see--a total of 400 million was provided 
for assistance to Firefighter and Safer Grant Programs. Of this 
amount, 76 has been obligated in the AFG, the Assistance to 
Firefighter Grants.
    And I'm concerned about the volunteer firefighters. 
Apparently--well, I've gotten numerous anecdotal evidence that 
because of the lockdown and with COVID that our volunteer 
firefighters have not been able to raise the money that they 
would normally--like a boot drive, or a bake sale, or something 
else that they really rely on every year to raise a lot of 
their discretionary dollars. And apparently, it seems that the 
volunteer firefighters--we kept trying to direct them to this 
program that sometimes their applications are not either 
sufficient, or in a timely fashion, or something like that.
    Is there any way that FEMA could be more helpful, or we 
could be more helpful to FEMA to get information to our 
volunteer firefighters to know how, and when, the best way to 
fill out these applications? Because I believe some of the 
money has left, that was set aside for our volunteer 
firefighters was not actually able to be used in that manner.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. I'm not aware of funding that has not been 
used. I know that there is a focused effort of helping the 
volunteer firefighting organizations apply for assistance. 
We've just implemented our new FEMA Grants system that makes it 
a little bit easier to apply and track some of the funding 
requests. But I'd be glad to come back and brief you on some of 
the efforts that we're doing across the country to help, and 
reach out to those organizations to see what the issue is and 
if there's any gaps in assistance based on what we've seen in 
the last year.
    Senator Capito. Thank you. Yeah. We'll follow up on that.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes.
    Senator Capito. One last question is the Chairman mentioned 
in his comments that there is 900 ongoing disasters. And maybe 
four or 5 years ago, with the previous FEMA Director, one of 
the ideas that was put forward to me was some way to unwind 
these disasters to maybe state responsibilities or local 
responsibilities to get them off of the--I mean, that's an 
awful lot on a plate for FEMA.
    Do you have any ideas on that? Or what do you see that's 
worked to be able to close the book on some of these disasters 
that I know some of them have been on for probably decades?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. I think that sometimes when you take into 
account, all of the requirements that are needed to close out 
these disasters whether it be requirements for documentation, 
building and permits, environmental, and then all the auditing 
that sometimes it takes a while to close these disasters out. I 
think that looking at some opportunities, whether it be state 
management, which we've done in the past, or look at things 
that allow for greater estimates across and simplify the 
process. So, for example, our simplified procedures that look 
at large and small projects. Right now, that bar is a very low 
bar. And so, what happens is for large or small projects, 
underneath 100, and I think, $50,000. When there's a net small 
project underrun, they don't need to request that unless 
there's an overrun, right? Which makes the closeout much 
easier.
    So simply raising that bar would be less complexity in the 
closeout part of that, and give a little bit more flexibility 
to local governments on how they use any underruns, as long as 
it's used toward disaster. They would be able to use that.
    Senator Capito. So, an underrun would be like unspent money 
towards a specific purpose.
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. Let's say you had 10 projects, and you 
estimated $100,000 per project, and at the end of the day, you 
did it for $870,000 because of efficiencies. So, there would be 
some incentive there to local government to, you know, as long 
as they reuse that for maybe mitigation or something like that 
they'd be able to just end it.
    Senator Capito. Yeah. Right. And then close it out.
    Mr. Fenton. Right. And they close out much quicker--And 
that's the problem now, is that every project is to the exact 
penny.
    Senator Capito. Yeah. Okay.
    Mr. Fenton. And any time you have a program like that, 
we're incrementally adding dimes or dollars to close things 
out.
    Senator Capito. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you, Senator Capito. Let me finish up 
with one last question and that's on the Brick Program. 
Obviously, this has been a very popular account. In 2020, FEMA 
was only able to fund about 14 percent of requested demand for 
pre-disaster mitigation projects.
    I had an interesting meeting with some of my emergency 
management personnel in Stratford, Connecticut, during the 
break. And one of the concerns they raised was concerns 
regarding the competitiveness of smaller jurisdictions' 
applications for funds when you have this much interest and 
particularly a lot of interest from larger jurisdictions. In 
Connecticut, we don't have counties, so it's either the State 
of Connecticut applying or a municipality that may only have, 
you know, 10 or 20,000 individuals. And in fact, on the 
shoreline, where you've got some really important national 
assets like the Northeast Corridor Rail Line, the Interstate 
95. Some of those communities, again, only may have 15,000 
people in them and they worry about their ability to compete 
for Brick allocations, especially with these bigger 
jurisdictions putting together much larger applications.
    You shared, coming from Region 9, you've got big 
jurisdictions, small jurisdictions. Do you share that concern? 
Is there a way to make sure that small municipalities get to 
compete fairly alongside big counties for Brick dollars?
    Mr. Fenton. Yes. So, within the BRIC Program, there are 
some set-asides within there to ensure there's opportunity. A 
couple of them are they put aside $20 million just for tribes 
so that they're able to compete. As I understand, a little bit 
over 60 tribes have already submitted applications for this 
Brick Program. Also, for small communities underneath 3,000, 
there's an incentive for a modification of the cost share to 90 
percent to help them, especially small, impoverished 
jurisdictions in that. We are also providing direct assistance 
to subgrantees to help them with their application process and 
provide technical assistance in doing that.
    And so, there's a number of things we're doing right now to 
ensure there's equitable opportunity, knowing that if you get 
those small communities, they may not be aware of the program. 
They may not be knowledgeable on how to apply to it, so we're 
helping with the project scoping and setting aside funding to 
make sure there's some type of equitable opportunity for them 
to participate.
    Senator Murphy. Yeah. And you know the problem here when 
you're only funding 14 percent, that's a disincentive to apply 
in particular for jurisdictions that don't have an established 
grant-writing operation. Maybe not as big as disincentive for a 
city or a county that's pumping out grant applications on a 
regular basis. They just sort of build in a risk tolerance for 
grant applications in a way that small communities cannot.
    So that's not necessarily your problem. That's a problem 
that will fall to the subcommittee when it comes to looking at 
allocations for these accounts, but we frankly have exacerbated 
this difficulty by not allocating a share of COVID dollars into 
the Brick account, and it probably should be funded at a level 
closer to $4 billion than $500 billion, but a subject for our 
work.
    Mr. Fenton. One of the things I did in my region is I for 
fire, for example, which was very significant in my region, and 
I developed one-sheeters on different types of projects that we 
see done repetitively. So maybe special paint that helps with 
fire protection, and maybe clearing of brush, and maybe 
changing of roof material. And what we've done is created these 
to help them understand what these projects are and then 
provide the complexity with regard to environmental program 
legal issues that they would experience in California 
submitting those applications.
    So, we've helped them kind of scope these projects out, so 
they are repeatable. And then the State of California, through 
phased projects, can actually start building these projects. 
And my hope is over time that we have them on a shelf, and 
build a conveyer of projects and then we just keep on repeating 
those types of projects to build resiliency and a harder to 
infrastructure or make it more resilient to those threats that 
we face.
    Senator Murphy. Great. All right. All set. Great. Well, 
thank you, Acting Administrator Fenton, for your testimony 
today. Thank you for your service to the country.

                     ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

    The hearing record is going to remain open for one week. 
Questions for the record should be submitted to the 
subcommittee staff by the close of business on Wednesday, April 
21st.
           Questions Submitted by Senator Christopher Murphy
                          vaccination support
    Question. COVID-19 vaccination programs are primarily managed by 
state, local, tribal, and territorial governments (SLTTs) and supported 
by the Federal government. HHS purchases vaccines and makes them 
available to states and jurisdictions. FEMA supplements vaccination 
programs by reimbursing eligible costs and providing additional direct 
assistance such as supplies, personnel, and technical assistance at 
vaccination sites. President Biden expanded support for vaccination-
related costs by increasing the Federal cost share to 100 percent, 
initiated the opening of several federally run vaccination sites, and 
other sites operated at the state and local level. As of April 1, FEMA 
has obligated $4.5 billion for vaccination-related costs. Further, FEMA 
formed a Civil Rights Advisory Group to bolster equity considerations 
in SLTT vaccination programs, and FEMA reports that it uses the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention Social Vulnerability Index to inform 
site-selection of federally run mass vaccination sites.
    Please share metrics that show the benefit of these equity 
considerations? What adjustments have been made along the way to ensure 
vaccines are getting to all communities, including vulnerable and 
underserved communities?
    To what extent have FEMA programs been suitable to support a 
nationwide vaccination campaign? What obstacles has FEMA run into?
    Answer. FEMA remains committed to ensuring the impartial and 
equitable delivery of programs and services across state, local, 
tribal, and territorial (SLTT) vaccination efforts, as required by the 
Stafford Act and outlined in recent Executive Orders for Advancing 
Racial Equity (EO 13985), Ensuring an Equitable Pandemic Response and 
Recovery (EO 13995), and Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to the 
Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (EO 13994). FEMA uses the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention's social vulnerability index and 
population data reported in the 2019 American Community Survey to 
identify communities with greatest need to ensure everyone in America 
who wants a vaccine can receive one. FEMA supports outreach to 
underserved communities by disseminating the DHS statement on equal 
access to vaccine regardless of an individual's immigration status, 
which commits not to conduct enforcement efforts at operations at or 
near vaccine distribution sites or clinics. FEMA also offers language 
assistance services to individuals with limited English proficiency. 
FEMA continuously analyzes data to make incremental adjustments for 
successful and equitable vaccine deliveries. FEMA also measured 
progress to achieve various performance metrics across the Community 
Vaccination Center (CVC) pilot sites, ensuring the sites are 
successfully delivering vaccines to local communities. Each CVC pilot 
site is closely monitored for the following information:

  --Daily and cumulative vaccine throughput (targets range from 250 to 
        6,000 people per day based on the size/type of the site).

  --Vaccine dose wastage to maximize deliveries.

  --Equitable distribution of vaccines across race/ethnicity.

  --Ratio of appointments completed compared to appointments booked.

    During implementation of the CVC Pilot Program, FEMA increased 
race/ethnicity data reporting from 41.79 percent to 81.11 percent, 
which is higher than the national average of 56.00 percent. Further, 
57.45 percent of the vaccine doses are being administered to 
underserved communities.
    FEMA's programs are suitable to support a nationwide vaccination 
campaign. FEMA Public Assistance has worked with all of our state 
partners to ensure that expedited assistance is available specifically 
for vaccinations. FEMA has ensured that funding is not a barrier to 
vaccine administration by obligating nearly $4.9 billion in vaccine-
related funding to our state and local partners.
    FEMA has coordinated with Federal partners since the start of the 
public health emergency to identify overlapping authorities and 
potential sources of funding in order to avoid a duplication of 
benefits to the greatest extent possible and develop a guide to the 
sequence of delivery for state, local, tribal, and territorial 
governments.
    To address gaps in the original eligibility guidance for COVID-19, 
FEMA released updated policy documents which further outlined specific 
eligibility requirements that were to be met by the applicant. FEMA's 
Public Assistance Division has posted these guidance documents on 
fema.gov at https://www.fema.gov/media-collection/public-assistance-
disaster-specific-guidance-covid-19-declarations.
             fema financial assistance for pandemic relief
    Question. Background: FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund is the primary 
instrument to provide assistance to communities for pandemic relief in 
the form of emergency protective measures. FEMA's funding assistance 
programs generally operate following disasters like floods, hurricanes 
or tornadoes. These events typically take place over a certain period 
of time and in a specific area. However, for COVID-19, the assistance 
programs are being used nationwide for ongoing, long-term pandemic 
response and recovery activities. Under the Trump Administration, FEMA 
issued nearly a dozen policies, fact sheets, and guidance documents 
describing and modifying eligibility for assistance.
    This this is an unprecedented event and some evolution in program 
administration is necessary. The National Governor's Association, GAO, 
and FEMA itself noted persistent confusion regarding policies states 
had to navigate for assistance. How can FEMA reduce the complexity of 
program administration?
     President Biden issued an Executive Order the day after he was 
sworn in directing FEMA to reimburse eligible applicants for the costs 
of ``safe opening and operation of eligible public and nonprofit 
facilities'', such as schools, healthcare facilities, and transit 
organizations. On April 5th, an advisory was issued updating the 
implementation policy of the Executive Order clarifying courthouse and 
city halls and other entities that provide a public service are also 
eligible. Is FEMA comfortable with the current Disaster Relief Fund 
balance to accommodate these additional costs? If not, will the fiscal 
year 2022 Budget Request address any deficiencies?
    Answer. In response to the nation-wide emergency declaration for 
the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, FEMA has worked to streamline and 
simplify the Public Assistance Program for COVID-19 reimbursements. 
Actions taken to date include making direct applications available 
through the Public Assistance Grants Portal (grantee.fema.gov), 
simplifying minimum documentation requirements and eliminating most 
site inspections, expediting funding, and developing ``how to'' videos 
and quick guides to provide direct technical assistance to applicants.
    FEMA has also worked to develop streamlined trainings and guidance 
documents to help applicants navigate the process. All of FEMA's 
policies, Standard Operating Procedures, and Fact Sheets are available 
to the general public on FEMA.gov. In addition, guidance, job aids, and 
tools are available to all Public Assistance applicants via the Grants 
Portal at grantee.fema.gov.
    FEMA has also created several Resource Roadmaps to assist state, 
tribal, territorial, and local government in navigating some of the 
challenges and resources available to address the COVID-19 pandemic. 
These roadmaps are based on anticipated COVID-19 recovery challenges in 
key topic areas. The roadmaps:

  --Outline potential solutions and applicable resources, including 
        Federal funding support and technical assistance.

  --Describe how to use CARES Act and other Federal programs to help 
        solve recovery challenges, avoid potential duplication of 
        benefits, and reimburse associated costs.

  --Inform decisions on how to apply funding to maximize local recovery 
        outcomes.

    The roadmaps are for informational purposes only and are compiled 
with publicly available information or with information provided by 
sources that are publicly obtained. The roadmaps are available on 
FEMA's website at https://www.fema.gov/media-collection/resource-
roadmaps.
    The Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) has sufficient funding to support 
response and recovery needs for COVID-19 as well as other disasters 
through September 30, 2021. As of April 14, the DRF has a balance of 
approximately $60 billion. Absent any significant unexpected COVID 
requirements or multiple new catastrophic disasters, FEMA believes the 
current funding available in the DRF will be sufficient to meet fiscal 
year (FY) 2021 requirements. As always, FEMA will continue to monitor 
DRF resource needs and will update the Congress as needed/requested on 
the status of both DRF resources and potential funding needs for new 
disasters, as well as the continued recovery from previously declared 
disasters.
fema and covid funding oversight challenges identified by the pandemic 
                response accountability committee (prac)
    Question. Background: The CARES Act established the Pandemic 
Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) within the Council of the 
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. The PRAC, comprised of 
21 Office of Inspector Generals (OIG), was established to conduct 
oversight of pandemic funding. In a June 2020 report, the PRAC 
identified key challenges facing Federal agencies. These challenges 
include a need for FEMA to improve grant management, disaster 
assistance processes, and fraud prevention measures following findings 
of inadequate grant oversight for incidents that preceded the COVID-19 
pandemic:

    [T]he OIG identified a pattern of FEMA management failures in 
overseeing procurements and reimbursing procurement costs [prior to the 
COVID-19 pandemic], and continues to observe systemic problems and 
operational difficulties that contribute to FEMA not managing disaster 
relief grants and funds adequately. The OIG also found FEMA's disaster 
assistance programs are highly susceptible to fraud, waste, and abuse, 
which poses significant risk to taxpayer investment. In a climate where 
FEMA is already hard-pressed to take additional, proactive steps to 
create and sustain a culture of fraud prevention and awareness, the 
infusion of CARES Act funding will likely exacerbate these 
difficulties. Additionally, in the past 12 years, the OIG issued eight 
reports on FEMA's information technology systems capabilities for 
processing payments, coordinating with state and local governments, 
data reliability, and vast information sharing and reporting 
limitations.

    How will FEMA change or expand fraud risk management activities 
that were underway prior to the pandemic to account for pandemic-
related waste, fraud, and abuse?
    The DHS Office of Inspector General found that FEMA's longstanding 
information technology deficiencies have hindered response and recovery 
operations. Is this getting the right attention at the Department 
because FEMA's budget requests have failed to make the necessary 
investments in this area?
    Answer. FEMA's Public Assistance Division has begun to assess and 
improve the procurement review processes at their Consolidated Resource 
Centers by defining roles and responsibilities, as well as identifying 
criteria for procurement review escalation based on contract risk for 
current projects. While preliminary tools have been developed to 
facilitate, track, and document training for procurement reviewers, 
FEMA continues to adjust and strengthen processes for procurement 
reviews.
    For FEMA's Individual Assistance Division, minimizing fraud is also 
a critical element of FEMA's Coronavirus (COVID-19) Funeral Assistance 
Program. FEMA has adjusted processes to include additional controls to 
mitigate the potential of fraud and identity theft for COVID-19 Funeral 
Assistance applications. To date, FEMA has seen a decrease in the 
typical fraud and identity theft that we have seen in previous 
disasters. FEMA will continue to monitor and adjust processes, when 
needed, to ensure the ongoing effectiveness of fraud controls while 
providing financial assistance to those who need it and being good 
stewards of taxpayer money.
    The Department has continued support for FEMA in addressing its 
long-standing information technology (IT) deficiencies and has 
supported FEMA's prioritized investments in these areas. Through this 
support FEMA has been able to officially close out all findings of the 
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) 
Audit 16-10 ``FEMA Faces Challenges in Managing Information 
Technology''.
    Since fiscal year (FY) 2020, FEMA has developed its fiscal year 
2020-2024 IT Strategic Plan, as well as an associated implementation 
plan and an IT roadmap for modernizing FEMA IT. Additionally, the 
COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to have operable IT to 
support response and recovery operations. Using funding provided from 
the 2020 CARES Act, FEMA was able to quickly transition to a mostly 
remote workforce and has relied heavily and successfully on a suite of 
collaboration tools that were quickly implemented to support internal 
and external communication.
    As a part of FEMA's ongoing efforts to address these issues, the 
Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) recently stood up the 
FEMA Enterprise Cloud environment in January 2021 and continues to 
migrate enterprise services to the cloud ahead of plans to move other 
legacy and emergency management service programs in fiscal year 2021 
and fiscal year 2022. FEMA will use a cloud computing business model to 
deliver IT services (software, platform, and infrastructure). The cloud 
business model presents a compelling opportunity for FEMA to address 
critical IT issues, including increased cost efficiency, provisioning 
speed, flexibility, and scalability. Additional potential benefits from 
cloud computing, which support and accelerate existing DHS and FEMA IT 
initiatives, include increased data center consolidation, information 
sharing, shared services, innovation, and sustainability.
    FEMA's 2020 Capability Analysis Report (CAR) on IT Infrastructure, 
now validated by the DHS Joint Requirements Council (JRC), identified 
necessary capability categories such as optimizing IT service delivery, 
cybersecurity capabilities, rapid scalability, and continuity of 
operations that represent gaps, threats, and hazards impacting 
essential mission operations. The OCIO has identified and is 
implementing material and non-material solutions to address these 
shortfalls.
    FEMA has also been in the process of addressing legacy network 
infrastructure, as noted in the fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year 2020 
budget requests. The efforts started in fiscal year 2019 with replacing 
legacy network switching, continued into fiscal year 2020 by replacing 
voice and video infrastructure, and will continue in fiscal year 2021 
and potentially in the outyears as FEMA looks to replace legacy 
hardware by moving to the cloud. Finally, as the fiscal year 2022 
budget is released, OCIO believes you will continue to see the 
Department's priorities for addressing technology deficiencies, 
including FEMA's ongoing prioritization of addressing cybersecurity 
risk to protect national security information as well as survivor data.
    Both new and existing technological issues are taken very seriously 
by both the Agency and the Department, and we will continue to 
prioritize investments in areas that enable response and recovery 
operations.
        building resilient infrastructure and communities (bric)
    Question. Background: The BRIC program was authorized by the 
Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA) of 2018. It supports states, local 
communities, tribes, and territories as they undertake hazard 
mitigation projects, reducing the risks they face from disasters and 
natural hazards.
    Under BRIC, the President is authorized to set aside from the 
Disaster Relief Fund up to 6 percent of the estimated aggregate amount 
of funding awarded following a major disaster declaration. For fiscal 
year (FY) 2021, FEMA projects using $500 million for BRIC, the same 
amount as fiscal year 2020. However, if FEMA calculated the 6 percent 
from COVID obligations, a total of $3.7 billion would be available for 
BRIC projects.
    Is there anything FEMA can share with us about the Administration's 
plan to use the $3.7 billion it has the legal authority to set aside 
for mitigation projects?
    In fiscal year 2020, FEMA was only able to fund about 14 percent of 
the requested demand for pre-disaster mitigation projects. What is 
FEMA's long-term strategy to address this demand for mitigation 
funding?
    President Biden highlighted the BRIC program in the Infrastructure 
Plan announced last week and emphasized it as a program to ``invest in 
vulnerable communities.'' In addition, the President's fiscal year 2022 
Budget Blueprint includes an additional $540 million to incorporate 
climate impacts into pre-disaster planning and resilience efforts and 
will prioritize projects for vulnerable and historically underserved 
communities. No other details have been provided at this time. Please 
elaborate on the Administration's plans. What is FEMA doing to ensure 
mitigation investments are being made in vulnerable communities?
    Are state, local, tribal, and territorial governments ready to 
invest large sums in shovel- ready projects? What can be done to 
increase their capacity ensuring the most effective projects possible?
    Answer. Disaster activity and funding levels vary significantly 
every year. FEMA aims to avoid extreme funding variation in the 
Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program by 
capturing estimates from large disasters and subsequently allocating 
those funds over multiple years. FEMA's methodology to develop the 
program's annual funding amounts is based on an analysis of the last 10 
years of Disaster Relief Funds (DRF) to approximate a program baseline. 
Based on this analysis, FEMA plans to offer BRIC grants with the 
funding floor of $500 million per year. This approach is being referred 
to as stabilization; the intent of stabilization is to establish a 
stable and consistent level of base funding each year to provide 
consistency and surety of funding amounts for our stakeholders, making 
the program more predictable, and providing them a baseline of funding 
to plan against. Even if the National Competition amounts vary, 
consistent allocations will help applicants build capability and 
capacity--a critical program goal.
    FEMA intends to use the Coronavirus (COVID-19) funds as an early 
stabilization resource and not jeopardize future funding levels by 
expending it all immediately. $1 billion will be made available in 
fiscal year 2021 for BRIC. FEMA is now working to finalize the fiscal 
year 2021 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). Going forward, FEMA 
will continue to review future estimates to ensure that the annual NOFO 
amount is appropriate, and make adjustments to future year funding 
amounts to ensure that large unobligated balances do not accrue.
    Regarding the demand for mitigation funding, recent studies (within 
the last 10 years) have shown that there is a significant unfunded 
mitigation need across the nation. Many of FEMA's partner organizations 
and stakeholders, including the National Emergency Management 
Association (NEMA), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and 
National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), have conducted research 
into specific areas of need for mitigation investments, whether it be 
single hazard based or across multiple hazard spectrums. Stakeholders 
have frequently indicated that there is also a need to understand what 
the real capacity/capability of states, tribes, and territories are in 
order to manage the billions of dollars in funding necessary to address 
the gap.
    The Mitigation Framework Leadership Group (MitFLG) was established 
to organize mitigation efforts across the Federal government as a 
result of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. The 
MitFLG developed the National Mitigation Investment Strategy as a 
single national strategy for advancing mitigation investment to reduce 
risks posed by natural hazards and increasing the nation's resilience 
to natural hazards. The Investment Strategy's objective is to identify 
and measure the effectiveness of mitigation investments and inform 
decisions on when and where to make investments. The Federal Insurance 
and Mitigation Administration's (FIMA's) own strategic plan also sets 
the stage for FEMA to determine how best to align with state, local, 
tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners on how best to meet their 
mitigation needs. Strategic Outcome A (Catalyze community partnerships 
to promote sustained and equitable investments in risk reduction), 
combined with FIMA's Strategic Objectives A.4 (Align with states on 
priority investment for focused risk reduction outcomes) and A.5 (Build 
capacity to deliver mitigation grant programs) directly support FEMA's 
efforts to both leverage investments in mitigation and improve 
stakeholder capacity.
    To help build capacity at the community level, our stakeholders 
have routinely expressed the need for consistency in FEMA programs. 
They want consistency of funding, timeframes, application processes, 
and program requirements to the largest extent possible. FEMA 
understands that there is significant need for mitigation as 
demonstrated by numerous studies as well as the overwhelming number of 
applications submitted for the first year. This is not a new 
phenomenon: the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) and Pre-Disaster 
Mitigation (PDM) programs have traditionally been over-subscribed.
    To aggressively attempt to get additional funds into communities to 
meet their resiliency needs, FEMA is finalizing the fiscal year 2021 
NOFO in order to better get additional funds into communities that need 
the support.
    Additionally, there are more mitigation funds available across the 
Federal spectrum than those offered by FEMA. The most prominent source 
of funding might be from the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development (HUD), which has both the Community Development Block 
Grant--Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program as well as the pilot CDBG-
Mitigation program. Our Agencies continue to work together to ensure 
that our program goals, and our funding priorities, support each other 
and provide a cohesive set of mitigation funding for our stakeholders. 
Within FEMA, the Agency is making it a priority to ensure that 
stakeholders are informed of how the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program 
(HMGP), the FMA program, and the Public Assistance (PA) program can be 
utilized in concert with (or even in place of) the BRIC program. In 
fact, FEMA reports on the Agency's Federal mitigation spending under 
the Government Performance and Results Act and reported the largest 
Agency investment in 2019 at $2,045,325,231. These long-standing 
programs can do much of what BRIC can, and the stakeholders need to be 
informed as to the appropriate ways to utilize these funds. For 
example, hazard mitigation planning can be accomplished under the HMGP, 
freeing up BRIC allocation funding for smaller-scale projects or 
project scoping activities. Also, many small and larger-scale, 
lifeline-focused mitigation projects, while sought after by the BRIC 
program, may be funded after disasters through the PA program's 
mitigation funding. FEMA is dedicated to improving the training and 
education of our stakeholders to support them as they develop 
mitigation projects and navigate the various mitigation funding streams 
that exist. FEMA is currently developing an on-demand 30-minute 
recording about PA mitigation for our SLTT stakeholders. This includes 
offering technical assistance (either through Direct Technical 
Assistance under BRIC or in project scoping activities) to validate 
that applicants and subapplicants are maximizing the portfolio of 
funding available to them.
    Our Regions and our state applicants are critical to the success of 
this educational effort, and FEMA will rely on their participation to 
make this successful. A final piece of this puzzle is to develop a firm 
assessment of mitigation needs across the country, not just for 
funding, but also for investment in education and training. FEMA will 
be conducting a comprehensive study of mitigation needs to identify the 
needs across the nation. This study is anticipated to be completed by 
fiscal year 2023.
    Natural hazard disasters disproportionately impact vulnerable 
communities, exacerbating existing inequities. Consistent with the 
overarching principles of the National Mitigation Investment Strategy, 
FEMA and our Federal partners will prioritize the needs of vulnerable 
communities and align our efforts to reduce their future risk. This 
principle is captured in FIMA's Strategic Plan through the intent to 
``deliver our programs with equity'' and ``incorporate future 
conditions.'' In fiscal year 2022, FEMA will explore opportunities to 
invest in actionable climate change research that can be used by 
communities and states to design and build innovative mitigation 
projects that address the impacts of climate change. FEMA will also 
support and implement Federal flood resilience measures through 
Executive Order 11988, and any amendments to this order. These measures 
reduce flood risk for Federal investments, including infrastructure, 
structures, and facilities; help improve the nation's resilience to 
flooding; and better prepare the nation for the impacts of climate 
change.
    Furthermore, through implementation of Executive Order 13985, FEMA 
is undertaking equity assessments for a number of its programs, 
including Hazard Mitigation Assistance, and has established an 
Executive Steering Group on equity to coordinate efforts across the 
Agency. Meanwhile, we are actively addressing equity in our programs. 
For example, through our program principles and priorities (in concert 
with FIMA's Strategic Plan), the BRIC program encourages a culture of 
resilience, aims to increase state, local, tribal, and territorial 
governments' capacity, and promotes partnerships for funding larger 
infrastructure projects. BRIC provides a critical opportunity to invest 
in a more resilient nation, reduce disaster suffering, and avoid future 
costs to the DRF. Within the evaluation of subapplications, FEMA 
already provides support to vulnerable communities:

  --FEMA allows for reduced non-Federal share requirements, from 25 
        percent to 10 percent, for small impoverished communities 
        applying as subapplicants to the BRIC program;

  --In the BRIC subapplication scoring criteria, extra points are 
        provided to subapplicants that are small impoverished 
        communities, as well as points for populations impacted, 
        outreach and partnerships that all have equity components;

  --Within the BRIC program-eligible activities, the Project Scoping 
        activity exists to assist in project development for small 
        underserved communities; and

  --Direct Technical Assistance provides vulnerable communities with 
        support for understanding their mitigation needs and developing 
        strategies to address these needs. FEMA is supporting up to 10 
        communities in year one and intends to offer assistance to up 
        to 20 more in year two.

    FEMA is also developing a peer mentoring network to provide peer 
mentors to vulnerable communities. This network will be an opportunity 
for users of our programs to support each other, and participants will 
include previous recipients of Direct Technical Assistance.
    In order to be ready to invest large sums in shovel-ready projects, 
stakeholders have expressed need for increased funding for technical 
assistance and capability and capacity building activities as well as 
funding for the evaluation and performance monitoring of existing 
projects. They have also asked for the expansion of pre-calculated 
benefits to make the benefit-cost analysis easier and more predictable, 
consistency of programmatic requirements across mitigation programs, 
and support for the sharing of lessons learned/best practices from 
projects at all scales.
    Perhaps the most direct avenue that FEMA can utilize to support the 
needs of stakeholders is in the areas of hazard mitigation planning and 
project development, recognized by FEMA in the Strategic Plan, 
Objective A.1: ``Integrate disaster risk and mitigation into community 
planning processes''. Having a FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plan is 
a fundamental requirement for our mitigation programs, and our 
applicants and subapplicants understand this. Over 24,100 local 
governments have FEMA-approved or approvable-pending-adoption local 
hazard mitigation plans. An additional 228 tribal governments have 
current tribal mitigation plans. Together, these hazard mitigation 
plans cover over 83 percent of the population and represent a good 
start to understanding local conditions and mitigation needs. These 
plans have identified mitigation/resilience goals, objectives, and 
strategies. The next step is to provide lower-capacity communities with 
support in the development of action plans that connect their 
mitigation plan to the funding sources that exist.
    Specifically, through the BRIC program, FEMA currently funds 
activities that are designed to improve a subapplicant's capability and 
capacity. These capacity and capability-building (C&CB) activities are 
enhancing the knowledge, skills, expertise, etc., of the subapplicant's 
current workforce to expand or improve the administration of mitigation 
assistance. This includes activities in the following sub-categories: 
building codes activities, partnerships, project scoping, mitigation 
planning, and planning-related activities. FEMA intends to increase the 
funds available for these types of activities in the fiscal year 2021 
NOFO. FEMA intends to increase the state/territory allocation from 
$600,000 to $1 million (a 40 percent increase in funding) and the 
tribal set-aside to $25 million (20 percent more funding). This will 
provide applicants with significant sources of C&CB funding for their 
communities.
    One of the most useful activities that a community can undertake 
are project scoping activities. Formerly referred to as Advance 
Assistance, project scoping has been available under all of the Hazard 
Mitigation Assistance (HMA) programs for the past several funding 
cycles. Within BRIC, activities that communities can undertake with 
project scoping funds include scoping and developing hazard mitigation 
projects, including engineering design and feasibility studies; 
conducting meetings, outreach, and coordination with potential 
subapplicants and community residents to identify potential future 
mitigation projects; evaluating facilities or areas to determine 
appropriate mitigation actions; incorporating environmental planning 
and historic preservation considerations into project planning 
activities; collecting data for benefit-cost analyses, environmental 
compliance and other program requirements; and conducting hydrologic 
and hydraulic studies for unmapped flood zones or other areas where 
communities propose to submit hazard mitigation projects. Many more 
activities are eligible as well that run the range of contracting with 
external third-party services for data collection and validation, the 
development of multi-community hazard mitigation projects, and the use 
of third-party cost-estimation services to appropriately develop 
project budgets.
    Finally, through Direct Technical Assistance, FEMA provides 
additional project planning and development support to communities most 
in need of this assistance. The provision of this technical assistance 
is done with a focus on developing and expanding our stakeholders' 
capability and capacity. Recipients of Direct Technical Assistance are 
expected to serve as mentors for future Direct Technical Assistance 
communities in an effort to expand and share their experience and 
lessons learned, greatly broadening FEMA's training and Direct 
Technical Assistance reach.
    FEMA is committed to increasing the knowledge and training of our 
communities and intends to offer coordination of programs trainings at 
future training opportunities.
               preparedness grants and potential reforms
    Question. Background: After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, state, 
local, tribal and territorial governments were encouraged to ensure 
their communities have capabilities to respond to high probability or 
high consequence terrorist threats. To support these activities, FEMA 
administers a suite of preparedness grants which are awarded to states, 
urban areas, non-profit organizations, transit systems, and ports. FEMA 
also administers some grants that are not specifically focused on 
terrorism. These preparedness grants focus on specific hazards--such as 
floods--or first responders--such as firefighters.
    Administrations of both parties have proposed to consolidate, 
change the distribution formula, and/or reduce funding for these 
programs. Congress has not enacted these proposals in part because 
stakeholders have resisted change without a clear understanding of how 
their needs will be addressed.
    In lieu of larger grant reform, the Trump Administration required 
grantees to commit at least 5 percent of their terrorism grant funding 
to each of four specific priorities: cybersecurity, soft targets and 
crowded places, intelligence and information sharing, and emerging 
threats. The Biden Administration added domestic terrorism as a 
priority and increased the amount that must be committed to domestic 
terrorism and cybersecurity to 7.5 percent each.
    The FEMA grant programs have not changed much since they were 
created in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. 
However, the threat environment has changed significantly during that 
time. Is there room for reform to better align grant programs to 
current threats?
    Although many preparedness grants focus of counter-terrorism 
capabilities, FEMA's message in recent years has emphasized `all-
hazards' preparedness. Should DHS and FEMA reevaluate the purpose of 
these grants?
    Answer. At the direction of Department of Homeland Security's 
(DHS's) Secretary Mayorkas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
(FEMA) is undertaking a comprehensive review of grant program policies, 
processes, framework, and risk methodology, focusing on the State 
Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and Urban Area Security Initiative 
(UASI). The Department and FEMA are committed to engaging in a 
meaningful dialogue with SHSP and UASI stakeholders to ensure these 
programs remain relevant and effective in addressing the current threat 
environment, which has evolved greatly since the wake of September 11 
when the programs were first created. For example, DHS recognizes that 
domestic violent extremism, or DVE, poses the most lethal and 
persistent terrorism-related threat to our country today, particularly 
by white-supremacist, anti-government, and anti-authority extremists. 
We must combat domestic violent extremism in all forms. FEMA held a 
series of listening sessions with SHSP and UASI stakeholders in April 
2021 to solicit feedback on an individual basis specifically on the 
policies, priorities, and risk methodology to inform potential future 
changes to these grant programs. FEMA is compiling and analyzing all 
the individual feedback and might consider this feedback in preparing 
recommendations for Secretary Mayorkas. We will work to implement any 
recommendations and any potential incremental updates to the risk 
methodology in the future as needed. FEMA is also undertaking a 
separate, more comprehensive longer-term review of the risk methodology 
to ensure it continues to reflect the changing threat environment 
facing the Nation in future years.
             southwest border surge response and readiness
    Question. Background: FEMA is assisting with the latest increase in 
asylum seekers and migrants on the Southwest Border in two ways, mostly 
by assisting with unaccompanied children. First, FEMA has been asked to 
assist HHS in identifying and acquiring more space in order to move the 
children out of Border Patrol's custody into more appropriate 
facilities which are more suited to house children. Second, Congress 
has provided $110 million in the America Rescue Plan Act through the 
FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) to ensure asylum seekers 
and migrants released from Customs and Border Protection custody have 
food, water, shelter and transportation to their ultimate destination. 
EFSP is awarded to local non-profit boards to determine and serve the 
needs of asylum seekers and migrants.
    Increases in unaccompanied children have occurred before--most 
recently in fiscal year 2019 during the Trump Administration--when the 
capacity for HHS to take unaccompanied children was also overwhelmed 
because the Trump Administration's policies created more unaccompanied 
children by separating them from their parents and families. But this 
time the increase is happening in the midst of a global pandemic, when 
space at HHS facilities is nearly 40 percent less in order to follow 
CDC's COVID guidance. Recognizing the root causes of migration are 
complex and are partly motivated by the conditions in the Northern 
Triangle, it is likely that this will not be the last time we see 
increases on our southern border. While the Administration continues to 
move out on their plan to address root causes, which will take some 
time, improvements are needed in the Federal government's ability to 
respond to future challenges at the border.
    FEMA has been asked to assist the Department of Health and Human 
Services with identification and establishment of child appropriate 
facilities for unaccompanied children arriving on the South West 
Border. What is working in FEMA's partnership with HHS? What challenges 
remain?
    What steps can be taken to improve readiness and response for 
increasing numbers of unaccompanied children arriving at the border?
    Answer. FEMA was directed to support a government-wide effort, 
focused on safely receiving, sheltering, and transferring unaccompanied 
children who make the dangerous journey to the southwest border. FEMA 
has the experience and capability to bring together key resources and 
agencies.
    FEMA integrated and co-located with the Department of Health and 
Human Services (HHS) and with funding provided by HHS examined every 
available option to quickly expand physical capacity for appropriate 
lodging for unaccompanied children. The Department's workforce, 
including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal 
Protective Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and 
members of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Volunteer Force, 
are helping provide shelter capacity, security, and other support as 
needed.
    FEMA will continue to focus on its integration and partnership with 
HHS and DHS in order to support their mission of providing safe and 
timely reunification of unaccompanied children.

                                 ______
                                 

               Questions Submitted by Senator Jon Tester
                          disaster relief fund
    Question. Background: The Disaster Relief Fund has received over 
$100 billion in supplemental COVID-19 relief funding, including $45 
billion from the CARES Act, $17 billion in the fiscal year 2021 Omnibus 
funding bill, and $50 billion in the American Rescue Plan. FEMA is 
responsible for allocating this funding and reimbursing states, 
localities, and tribes for costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
    What additional oversight policies has FEMA put into place to 
ensure that all COVID-19 relief funding, including Disaster Relief 
Funds reimbursements, are allocated for appropriate purposes and in 
accordance with the law?
    Answer. FEMA manages and executes Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) funds 
received for Coronavirus (COVID-19) requirements in accordance with 
statutory, regulatory, and programmatic requirements. FEMA has 
established policies, procedures and eligibility requirements for the 
reimbursement to states, localities, and tribes to ensure funding 
provided complies with those requirements.
                           inspector general
    Question. Background: In March, the FEMA Office of Inspector 
General released a report entitled ``FEMA Needs Revised Policies and 
Procedures to Better Manage Recovery of Disallowed Grant Funds''. 
Specifically, it found that FEMA justified not recovering funds solely 
based on the cost, that FEMA regional offices did not track the 
collection debts, and that FEMA's internal guidance on the time limits 
for collecting debts does not comply with the Robert T. Stafford 
Disaster Relief Emergency Assistance Act. The Stafford Act created the 
Disaster Relief Fund and outlines the requirements for the allocation 
and reimbursement of funds, including those provide in response to the 
COVID-19 pandemic. The report made five recommendations, including 
requiring FEMA to update its policy for collecting disallowed grant 
funds, requiring regional office to track and maintain records relating 
to debt collection, requiring the Office of the Chief Financial Officer 
to provide updates on debt collection efforts, requiring FEMA to update 
its policies relating to the time limits on the collection of 
disallowed funds under the Stafford Act, and requiring FEMA to 
regularly update its internal policies.
    According to the report, FEMA has concurred with all five 
recommendations. What specific steps have you taken to implement these 
corrective actions?
    Is FEMA planning to take any additional actions to increase 
oversight of grant allocation processes, prevent the allocation of 
disallowed grant fund, or to improve the collection of disallowed grant 
funds?
    Answer. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is using an 
integrated approach involving our Office of Chief Counsel, Office of 
Chief Financial Officer, Office of Policy and Program Analysis, 
Regional and Program Offices, and Grant Programs Directorate to develop 
and implement sustainable improvements in our recovery of disallowed 
grant funds. Most importantly, we are revising FEMA Instruction 116-1-
1, ``Identification and Collection of Monies Owed from Non-Federal 
Entities'' to require program offices to maintain records and track the 
status of referred debt. As part of this guidance revision, corrective 
action plans for procurement related deficiencies will address--to the 
extent possible--the systemic underlying root causes of the 
deficiencies. In addition, the FEMA Finance Center has been tasked to 
provide regular updates to Regional and Program Offices regarding debt 
recoveries.
    To ensure policy uniformity, FEMA's Recovery Directorate and the 
Office of Policy and Program Analysis reviewed and updated the 
applicable policy to clarify FEMA's interpretation of the statute of 
limitations for debt recovery in order to conform with the Disaster 
Recovery Reform Act of 2018 (DRRA) (Public Law 115-254, Div. D).
    FEMA has taken several steps to improve grant management oversight 
over the past few years. Specifically, in May 2019, then FEMA 
Administrator Pete Gaynor directed non-disaster and disaster grants 
policy and procedures, as well as the Grants Management Modernization 
(GMM) program, be aligned under the Grant Programs Directorate (GPD).
    The realignment of these functions under one program office reduces 
complexity by simplifying and making more transparent both the non-
disaster and disaster grants management processes. By creating easier 
ways to coordinate all grants functions within FEMA, we are 
streamlining our grant processes, which will ultimately improve the 
grants experience for our disaster survivors, grant recipients, and the 
internal partners GPD serves. This new structure enables FEMA to 
operate efficiently and to effectively adapt to changing policies, 
business practices, and the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape in 
a cost-effective way.
    To implement this reorganization of grant management functions, GPD 
has developed a comprehensive set of policies and guidance for managing 
grants and assumed responsibility over FEMA's Grants Management Manual, 
which was originally created in 2018. Currently, FEMA is also 
implementing a systematic tracking system for questionable and 
disallowed costs to provide ``cradle to grave'' awareness and action on 
all debts owed to FEMA.
    With improved internal controls and management processes on the 
front-end of the grant lifecycle, streamlined processes during the 
grant lifecycle, and systematic method of tracking costs at the back 
end of the grant lifecycle, we are confident that the issues identified 
by the Office of the Inspector General will be resolved going forward.

                                 ______
                                 

             Questions Submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski
                      resources available to fema
    Question. Background: FEMA is a unique agency that is tasked with 
responding to complex, often overlapping missions during times of 
crisis. This past year was certainly no different. As a part of a 
whole-of-government approach to combatting COVID-19, FEMA has helped 
communities across the nation to address the pandemic, and has done so 
while continuing to respond to major weather events. That includes my 
home state of Alaska, where the community of Haines experienced 
devastating mudslides, which displaced several families, and where some 
areas are still rebuilding after the Anchorage earthquake a few years 
ago.
    As we move into the summer months, we know that concerning weather 
events such as wildfires will become more prevalent.
    Are you all planning for a big wildfire season this summer? How are 
you preparing to assist people who may be displaced as a result of 
fire, hurricanes, or more?
    Are there any additional resources that you may need?
    What did you learn last summer while balancing social distancing 
and providing housing that you will do differently moving forward?
    Answer. Regarding the wildfire season, FEMA is following the 
extreme and extensive drought conditions in some of our Western and 
Southwestern states and the abnormally dry conditions in Northern 
Alaska. FEMA is aware of the risk of serious wildland fires in these 
areas and is committed to providing funding in support of evacuations 
and sheltering for displaced persons within impacted state, local, and 
tribal jurisdictions. Additionally, the FEMA Regions are prepared to 
process any Fire Management Assistance Grant requests to ensure states 
have access to Federal funding for fire suppression services for any 
eligible fires.
    FEMA continues to review policy, doctrine, and staff readiness to 
ensure readiness to deliver mass care and emergency assistance services 
this disaster season in a COVID-19 environment. This includes 
additional offerings of the L0411 Mass Care/Emergency Assistance 
Support for Field Operations Course and the added capacity to offer the 
417 Shelter Field Guide Course virtually to community partners that 
include, but are not limited to, Civil Air Patrol and Community 
Emergency Response Teams.
    Lastly, for this disaster season, FEMA will continue to utilize 
existing doctrine developed in 2020, including the Mass Care/Emergency 
Assistance Pandemic Planning Considerations, along with supporting 
documents such as the Delivering Personal Assistance Services in 
Congregate and Non-Congregate Sheltering, which remain applicable to 
operations even with progress in the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination 
effort.
    The Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) has sufficient funding to support 
response and recovery needs for COVID-19 as well as other disasters 
through September 30, 2021. As of April 14, the DRF has a balance of 
approximately $60 billion. Absent any significant unexpected COVID-19 
requirements or multiple new catastrophic disasters, FEMA believes the 
current funding available in the DRF will be sufficient to meet fiscal 
year 2021 requirements. As always, FEMA will continue to monitor DRF 
resource needs and will update the Congress as needed/requested on the 
status of both DRF resources and potential funding needs for new 
disasters, as well as the continued recovery from previously declared 
disaster.
    Regarding lessons learned from last summer, FEMA Public Assistance 
provided policy flexibilities related to non-COVID-19 incidents that 
were affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As COVID-19 still poses 
a public health threat, FEMA is in the process of extending the 
flexibilities related to non-congregate sheltering through at least the 
end of the 2021 hurricane season. Pending the continuation of the U.S. 
Department of Health and Human Services national Public Health 
Emergency declaration and other factors, an extension beyond the above 
date may be considered.
    One major planning initiative FEMA took during the pandemic is to 
acquire a number of ``pandemic shelter kits'' to provide enhanced 
personal protective equipment and other safety measures in congregate 
shelters, as needed.
 fema assistance for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness
    Question. Background: I recently had the opportunity to visit the 
Sullivan Arena and the Ben Boeke Ice Arena, two facilities converted 
into congregate homeless shelters at the beginning of the pandemic. 
This is one of the largest homeless shelters in America, providing beds 
to more than 400 people every day. There are a variety of services that 
are located inside, including food services and an on-site medical 
clinic operated by key Alaskan organizations. These services go beyond 
ensuring that these individuals have a safe place to sleep in light of 
the pandemic, they assist individuals in creating a plan to transition 
from homelessness to being housed.
    Service providers agree that the old, pre-pandemic paradigm--a few 
packed day and night shelters concentrated along a single block of 
Third Avenue in Anchorage-- is not the path forward. My understanding 
is that FEMA is committed to working with the state of Alaska on 
providing continued assistance past September 1 to fund this facility. 
While I appreciate FEMA's continued resources in this effort, I am 
concerned with some administrative barriers in accessing these 
emergency funds, which are causing additional challenges for providers 
of these essential services. I have concerns that FEMA policy places 
unnecessary legal and reporting burdens for non-congregate sheltering 
(NCS) for the COVID-19 reimbursement process. NCS is typically not 
reimbursed by FEMA, but instead is offered and executed by FEMA when 
required as a result of a disaster. FEMA will provide reimbursement 
only if NCS is conducted ``at the direction of and documented through 
an official order signed by a state, local, tribal, or territorial 
public health official. A health order requiring residents to shelter 
or isolate is not the appropriate or necessary legal mechanism by which 
a state or local government may conduct NCS. The effect of the FEMA-
required order may be achieved through existing local or state 
mechanisms already in place under law or ordinance.
    Additionally, FEMA requires reporting of shelters by age group, 
disability status, meals provided, number of pets, and other 
information in order to be eligible for reimbursement. This requirement 
does not lend itself to FEMA's reimbursement eligibility standards with 
outline ``work and services to save lives and protect property'' 
(Stafford Act, Section 403) that are ``necessary to eliminate or lessen 
an immediate threat'' (44 CFR Sec. 206.225). Aid is needed in the 
immediate aftermath of an emergency.
    What can FEMA do to streamline its approval process for 
reimbursement?
    Answer. In response to the nation-wide emergency declaration under 
the Stafford Act for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and in an 
effort to streamline the approval process, FEMA, in March 2020, 
delegated authority to approve requests for non-congregate sheltering 
to the Regional Administrators for the duration of the public health 
emergency (see Fact Sheet: Public Assistance: Non-Congregate Sheltering 
Delegation of Authority). Further, in December 2020, FEMA waived the 
Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide's requirement that states, 
tribes, and territories seek time extensions for non-congregate 
sheltering operations every 30 days. Traditionally, FEMA requires 
states, tribes, and territories to request time extensions every 30 
days to ensure non-congregate sheltering operations are still necessary 
as an emergency protective measure and to assist applicants in managing 
their non-congregate sheltering populations. However, due to the 
ongoing nature of the public health emergency, FEMA eliminated the 
requirement to alleviate this administrative burden (see Non-Congregate 
Sheltering Delegation of Authority Public Assistance Program and Policy 
Guide Waiver (fema.gov)).
    Generally, FEMA continues to work to simplify the Public Assistance 
application process and documentation requirements for applicants. This 
includes making communications materials easier to understand so that 
programs are more accessible to the public, updating forms used to 
collect information from Public Assistance Recipients and Subrecipients 
as well as the processes the Agency uses to support these Applicants to 
include considerations for traditionally underserved or historically 
marginalized communities. Actions taken to date include making direct 
applications available through the Public Assistance Grants Portal 
(grantee.fema.gov), simplifying minimum documentation requirements and 
eliminating most site inspections, expediting funding, and developing 
``how to'' videos and quick guides to provide direct technical 
assistance to applicants. Additionally, when FEMA recently noticed an 
increase in Requests for Information (RFIs), FEMA established an RFI 
Task Force to solve why this issue was occurring. The Task Force 
successfully consolidated the review of RFIs, and over time, has been 
building stronger, independent capabilities at each Consolidated 
Resource Center to review applications.
                    disaster case management program
    Question. Background: Although limited ``Individual Assistance'' 
programs have been made available in Alaska, FEMA has made the Disaster 
Case Management program available. This program is authorized under 
Section 426 of the Stafford Act. We believe that making this program 
more widely available will provide localities with additional resources 
to wide varieties of our population, including low income, homeless, 
and other individuals and segments of our community disproportionately 
affected by the COVID pandemic.
    What can FEMA do to increase access to the Disaster Case Management 
program?
    Answer. The FEMA Disaster Case Management (DCM) program is designed 
to augment existing capabilities to support states, tribes, and 
territories in assisting survivors of a Presidentially declared 
disaster. Each disaster response requires a unique combination of 
assistance, and as part of disaster responses where DCM is authorized, 
FEMA staff works with state, tribal, and territorial partners to 
develop and formulate an approach to case management that addresses the 
unique challenges of the communities impacted.
    Available DCM-related resources for emergency managers and planners 
include the Individual Assistance Program and Policy Guide, which 
details application requirements, and the DCM Toolbox. This includes a 
model request for proposal template and guidance on conducting a needs 
assessment for case management services. FEMA's Regional Offices can 
also offer technical assistance and planning advice for developing an 
approach to DCM.
           vaccinations and resources for addressing covid-19
    Question. Background: The President has made it a priority to 
expedite vaccinations in the United States. In Alaska, despite facing 
unique geographic and logistical challenges, I am proud to say that we 
have been doing very well on the vaccination front. This is due in 
large part to the great leadership that we have at state, local, and 
tribal levels, and due to collaboration with FEMA and DoD, and the 
experience of the Alaska tribal health system. In Alaska, we are very 
familiar with the risks that a COVID-19 outbreak poses to small, remote 
communities who have limited healthcare capacity. We know that there 
are other states who also have rural communities, who face similar 
risks.
    I want to ensure we are making emergency aid available, with the 
least amount of burdensome administrative requirements possible. FEMA 
Policy #104-21-0004, published on March 15, 2021, places 
administratively burdensome reporting upon recipients and sub 
recipients as a condition of grant assistance, for vaccine 
administration. This policy contradicts the memorandum requiring FEMA 
to make ``advanced reimbursement . . . more quickly''. This policy 
places assistance ``focusing'' (rather than equity) requirements that 
may not be supported by FEMA's authorities in the Stafford Act, Code of 
Federal Regulations, or Executive Order. What can FEMA do to relieve 
the administrative burdens on recipients of FEMA funds for COVID-19 
vaccine administration?
    Answer. FEMA Public Assistance (PA) has provided $4.7 billion in 
Federal funds to applicants for Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination 
support. FEMA remains committed to providing aid to meet emergency 
needs and ensuring equitable provision of assistance during the COVID-
19 pandemic, specifically those critical actions that are necessary to 
save lives and protect public health and safety. In April of 2020, FEMA 
redesigned the PA application process for all COVID-19 events by 
developing a streamlined project application and direct application 
process, which consolidates and simplifies information and 
documentation requirements for applicants. This process is still in 
place to help relieve the administrative burden on Applicants.
    In accordance with the President's Executive Order 13985, Advancing 
Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the 
Federal Government, FEMA issued FEMA Policy 104-21-0004, Coronavirus 
(COVID-19) Pandemic: Medical Care Eligible for Public Assistance 
(Interim) (Version 2), requiring Recipients and Subrecipients of FEMA 
Public Assistance for COVID-19 vaccination efforts and associated 
activities to submit social vulnerability scores and summary 
information to substantiate an equitable vaccine administration 
strategy to FEMA. This policy emphasizes the need for Recipients and 
Subrecipients to confirm compliance with existing civil rights laws. 
Recipients and Subrecipients are asked to collect data and use it to 
identify target populations and determine whether they are being 
reached. FEMA is not receiving this data, and Recipients and 
Subrecipients should not submit to FEMA, personally identifiable 
information (PII) to demonstrate compliance with equitable pandemic 
response requirements. FEMA will consider the totality of the 
circumstances around equity prior to making any determinations and work 
with Recipients and Subrecipients as needed to ensure compliance and 
provide support.
               fema assistance to tribes during covid-19
    Question. Background: Tribes are disproportionately affected by 
COVID-19. FEMA has acknowledged this in their Initial Assessment Report 
regarding response to COVID-19, which was released in January of 2021. 
FEMA has reported that since the pandemic started only 15 percent of 
all tribes (91 tribes out of the 574 tribes) have been able access the 
billions in COVID-19 disaster funds through FEMA under the 2020 
nationwide Emergency Declaration or a Major Disaster Declarations under 
the Stafford Act. My understanding is that there are some tribes who 
had experience engaging with FEMA prior to COVID, who had experience 
with the processes of FEMA, while others had never made a disaster 
declaration prior to the pandemic and as a result has limited 
familiarity with what resources were available and how to receive them. 
Native communities have been devastated in the recent past due to 
preventable illnesses, such as the flu. Native communities are again 
experiencing hardship with COVID-19 and they should have the resources 
that they need to make it through.
    In FEMA's Initial Assessment Report, FEMA issued a recommendation 
(Recommendation 3.3.A), which states that FEMA should ``develop a 
tribal nation engagement strategy, supported by consistent staffing and 
training, that includes the desired outcomes and resources required to 
appropriately support the tribal nations, with flexibility for regional 
application. The strategy should identify an approach for the equitable 
distribution of personnel throughout each region dedicated to program 
delivery for all 574 tribal nations.''
    Mr. Fenton, could you please share where FEMA is at in developing 
this strategy and when does it plan to implement the strategy?
    Has FEMA entered into consultation with tribes on the development 
the strategy? If not, when does FEMA intend to consult with tribes to 
assure that the strategy can effectively serve all 574 tribes and 
address their on the ground needs?
    How is FEMA ensuring that all 574 tribal nations have equitable 
support and guidance to access the billions of dollars of COVID-19 
disaster funds through FEMA?
    Answer. FEMA has engaged with all 574 tribal nations to ensure that 
they have access to resources, including Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and 
Economic Security Act funds and American Rescue Plan Act funds to 
assist with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) response efforts.
    FEMA is working on a national tribal strategy and expects a draft 
to be completed no later than the end of August 2021.
    FEMA will engage in tribal consultation and use the draft National 
Tribal Strategy as a discussion point with tribal nations. FEMA will 
conduct this tribal outreach and consultation using both virtual 
engagements and in-person opportunities, when possible. FEMA has 
reviewed, updated, and implemented our Tribal Consultation Policy and 
Instructions. Over the past several months, we have engaged tribal 
nations in several tribal consultation sessions on a variety of FEMA 
policy updates. Most recently, FEMA participated in the Department of 
Homeland Security tribal consultation sessions pursuant to the 
Presidential Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening 
Nation-to-Nation Relationships of January 26, 2021.
    FEMA Headquarters and FEMA Regional Offices have provided expanded 
services in support of tribal governments across the country in 
response to the pandemic since the national emergency declaration on 
March 13, 2020. Each of the ten FEMA Regional Offices have dedicated 
tribal liaisons within their workforces to coordinate with tribes 
located in that respective region. Regional tribal liaisons and 
regional administrators serve as the primary point of contact regarding 
FEMA assistance, and they serve as the conduit to connect tribes with 
FEMA leadership and program subject matter experts, as needed, for 
information sharing, technical assistance and resource coordination. 
FEMA's Regions have hosted and participated in weekly meetings and 
conference calls with tribal leaders and tribal emergency managers to 
answer any of their questions throughout this pandemic response.
    FEMA is currently working with more than 200 tribal nations using a 
variety of funding mechanisms. Under the March 2020 nationwide 
emergency declaration, a tribal nation may choose to be a direct 
recipient or a subrecipient under a state. Alternatively, under a state 
major disaster declaration, a tribal nation may request assistance as a 
subrecipient or as a recipient. A tribal nation may also choose to 
request their own major disaster declaration. To date, three tribes--
the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Navajo Nation, and the Poarch Band 
of Creek Indians--have received their own major disaster declaration.

                          SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS

    Senator Murphy. And so, this subcommittee is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:18 p.m., Wednesday, April 14, the 
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at a time subject to 
call of the Chair.]