[Senate Hearing 117-577]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-577
EXAMINING FEMA'S STRATEGIC PRIORITIES AND DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 22, 2022
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
50-848 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
Christopher J. Mulkins, Director of Homeland Security
Naveed Jazayeri, Senior Professional Staff Member
Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
Sam J. Mulopulos, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Clyde E. Hicks Jr., Minority Director of Homeland Security
Timothy Harris III, Minority Federal Emergency Management Agency
Detailee
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Peters............................................... 1
Senator Portman.............................................. 3
Senator Carper............................................... 9
Senator Padilla.............................................. 11
Senator Romney............................................... 14
Senator Ossoff............................................... 15
Senator Scott................................................ 17
Senator Hawley............................................... 20
Prepared statements:
Senator Peters............................................... 25
Senator Portman.............................................. 27
WITNESSES
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Hon. Deanne B. Criswell, Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 29
APPENDIX
Senator Peters Politico Article.................................. 34
Response to post-hearing questions submitted for the Record
Ms. Criswell................................................. 77
EXAMINING FEMA'S STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
AND DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gary Peters,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Rosen, Padilla,
Ossoff, Portman, Johnson, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\
Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the
Appendix on page 25.
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Administrator Criswell, welcome back to the Committee and
thank you for your absolute dedicated service to our country.
We certainly appreciate that.
From the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMAs) work
to respond to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic,
to helping communities recover from catastrophic storms and
disasters, I certainly appreciate your continued efforts, along
with FEMA's dedicated workforce, to address these serious
emergencies.
While this Administration has improved Federal preparedness
and response efforts, there is much more we can do together to
ensure our communities can stay safe and quickly recover when
disaster strikes.
Today's hearing is an important opportunity to discuss what
resources and authorities FEMA needs to address worsening
emergencies, including increasingly destructive natural
disasters. As we just saw from a damaging tornado in my home
State of Michigan, these natural disasters have only continued
to worsen due to climate change. There is no question this is a
long-term threat that continues to cause deaths and injuries,
destroy property and small businesses, and harm livelihoods.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), weather and climate-related disasters
cost the United States more than $300 billion dollars over the
past three years alone.
To ensure FEMA can effectively respond to these
increasingly frequent and destructive events, we must address
the alarming shortage of FEMA personnel who are instrumental to
response and recovery efforts. That is why Ranking Member
Portman and I have authored bipartisan legislation to help FEMA
recruit and retain Reservists, who ensure that FEMA can deploy
additional emergency personnel quickly. This bill, which has
already passed the Senate, will protect dedicated disaster
response workers from losing their full-time employment when
they are called up to assist communities that are facing dire
emergencies. I urge my colleagues in the House to send this to
the President's desk.
As we work to strengthen FEMA's ability to respond to
disasters, we must also ensure every community has equitable
access to Federal disaster aid before, during, and after
extreme weather events and other emergencies. We have all seen
troubling reports of minority, rural, and disabled communities
receiving lower quality, and less disaster assistance. These
communities, who are often disproportionately impacted by
disasters, need us to finally act and address long-standing
disparities in our Federal disaster response.
To address this issue, I introduced legislation to
establish a high-level office within FEMA that would be
dedicated to understanding and to advocate for the needs of
underserved communities, and coordinating FEMA efforts to
ensure the delivery of disaster assistance is equitable. I am
proud that, on a bipartisan basis, this Committee voted to
advance this important bill, and I am working to ensure it
passes the full Senate as soon as possible.
In addition to passing common-sense reforms, our nation's
response to worsening floods, hurricanes, storms, and coastal
erosion will not be complete without investing in
infrastructure that will withstand extreme weather events and
natural hazards for generations to come. Ensuring that
communities can fund resilience projects such as floodwalls,
breakers, and modern drainage systems will not only protect the
lives and livelihoods of small business owners and families,
but will also help save taxpayer dollars.
In fact, studies have shown that every $1 invested in
hazard mitigation or prevention saves an average of $6 in
recovery costs for taxpayers. That is why, through my
bipartisan Safeguarding Tomorrow through Ongoing Risk
Mitigation (STORM) Act that is now law, I worked to establish
revolving loan programs that local governments can access to
fund mitigation projects, and through the bipartisan
infrastructure law I secured $500 million to help kick-start
this important program.
I look forward to working with FEMA to swiftly implement
the STORM Act and ensure that it receives additional funding as
necessary.
Finally, while taking steps to strengthen our response and
mitigation efforts will help address disasters and energy, we
must also do more to combat climate change.
Administrator Criswell, I look forward to our discussion on
FEMA's strategic priorities and what more your agency needs to
respond to current and future emergencies. Thank you again for
being here today.
Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your opening
remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\
Senator Portman. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate it, and
we appreciate your service, Administrator Criswell. You come
with a lot of experience. I just joked with her and I said is
the Fed role easier than New York or the other States where she
has run their programs, and for the record she refused to
answer the question, which is smart.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the
Appendix on page 27.
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FEMA has a lot going on right now. You have such a critical
role in so many areas, including natural disasters. You have a
budget of $24 billion, and that seems like a lot, but you have
also got a lot of responsibilities.
One area where I think we are not doing enough is through
the Technological Hazards Division (THD). You can help
communities prepare for technological hazards from nuclear
power plants and from the last remaining chemical weapon
stockpiles. But that is a small percentage of the number of
communities in America that are facing potential problems here.
There are big gaps in the program. Hundreds of communities have
these hazards, such as a chemical plant or a radiological
research facility, and yet FEMA is only, again, able to provide
assistance to a small fraction of those, only those, again,
located near a nuclear power plant or a chemical weapon
stockpile.
Unfortunately, there are gaps in this program.
Given the ongoing threats and terrorist activities
throughout the world, I think expanding the scope of the FEMA
Technological Hazards Division is really important and would
enhance FEMA's national preparedness framework.
We have a big plant in Ohio, as you know. The uranium
enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, is an example of this. But
there are also over 1,000 chemical plants in Ohio. We really
want to have the Technological Hazards preparedness support for
these communities.
We have introduced legislation to do this with Senator
Sinema. It is called Technical Hazards and Preparedness Act--
very original name--and it expands support from FEMA to these
communities. I am pleased to say that got that bill out of
committee. I want to talk to you later about that bill. We
would love your help in getting it through the House and
getting it to the President's desk for signature, assuming you
agree that it is a good idea.
You also play a role in helping keep our communities safe,
not from natural disasters but from terrorist attacks and
violent extremists. Many people do not know that FEMA is
implementing responsibilities, including implementing the
Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NPSG), which helps community
organizations, religious organizations, faith-based groups in
general, to secure their facilities from this threat of
violence.
Ensuring there are enough resources to help these
synagogues, Jewish Community Centers (JCC), other faith-based
organizations has been a priority for us here in this
Committee, and mine personally. We have actually expanded this
program so it does include not just urban areas but all 50
States in different areas. President Trump signed our law that
actually reauthorizes that program, and we would love to have
your comments on that today as well, to talk about what you see
is working, not working.
My idea is not just for hardening these facilities but also
for providing best practices, which the new Pray Safe Act we
have also introduced would help on, and Senator Hassan is here
and probably will raise that as well. But we would like to have
your view on how you think that is going.
There is another issue that I want to raise today, which
is, we had a 2018 law to forgive debt when FEMA issues disaster
aid by mistake. FEMA gives somebody some disaster aid, they are
not qualified to get it, and they get it anyway, and then they
go back and try to collect the money. Senator Peters just
talked about the tornado in his State. All of us have had
natural disasters, and people make a commitment to a contractor
to fix something because FEMA tells them that they are able to
get the funding. There are protections, by the way, against
fraud, misrepresentation, or false claims, and if any of that
happens then the debtor is at fault and FEMA should be able to
get the money back, claw the money back. But if there is not
fraud, misrepresentation, or false claims or something along
those lines the concern is that you are going back to people
and telling them, ``We made a mistake. We need your money
back.'' This is really tough for people.
It is not a lot of money, we think, that is involved here.
I think the estimate is it is $350,000 a year. But we are also
trying to pass legislation called Preventing Disaster
Revictimization Act, meaning somebody is told you can spend
$10,000 to fix your roof and then later they say, ``No, we need
the $10,000 back because we blew it.'' I would love to know
your views on that as well. It really is a clarification, I
think, to this 2018 law, to forgive debt when FEMA issues
disaster aid by mistake.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing the
testimony, and again, thank you for your service.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
It is the practice of this Committee to swear in witnesses,
so Ms. Criswell, if you would please stand and raise your right
hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Criswell. I do.
Chairman Peters. Thank you. You may be seated.
Today's witness is Deanne Criswell, Administrator of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency at the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS). As Administrator, Ms. Criswell
coordinates closely with other Federal, State, and local
partners to provide emergency assistance and save lives in
times of crisis, and helps communities all across our country
rebuild and become safer and more prepared for the next
disaster.
Ms. Criswell has over 25 years of emergency management and
disaster response experience at the Federal, State, and local
levels. Previously, Ms. Criswell served as Commissioner of the
New York City Emergency Management Department, where she was
responsible for coordinating citywide emergency planning and
responses for all emergencies.
Ms. Criswell, welcome back to the Committee, and you may
proceed with your opening comments.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DEANNE B. CRISWELL,\1\
ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT
OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Criswell. Thank you. Chairman Peters, Ranking Member
Portman, and Members of the Committee, thank you again for this
opportunity to come and discuss our FEMA priorities, our
strategic plan, as well as the President's fiscal year (FY)
2023 budget.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Criswell appears in the Appendix
on page 29.
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The field of emergency management is at a pivotal moment in
our history. While our mission itself has not changed, our
operating environment has. Ten years ago, we managed an average
of 108 disasters per year. As of June 16th, we are managing
349. This includes our ongoing response to COVID-19.
The changing climate is the biggest crisis that is facing
our nation and makes the disasters more frequent and more
destructive. At the same time, structural inequities in our
society are compounding the impacts of disasters for
underserved communities. The budget request for FEMA ensures
that our agency can meet these challenges and continue to help
people before, during, and after disasters.
FEMA aligned its budget request to support three goals in
our strategic plan. First, as an agency we must instill equity
as a foundation of emergency management. We must recognize that
disasters affect individuals and communities differently. Our
strategic plan focuses our entire agency on putting people
first and reducing barriers to accessing our programs.
We have already made important changes in how we provide
assistance. For example, some homeowners had difficulty proving
that they owned their homes if their property had been handed
down through the generations. We expanded the types of
documentation that we can accept, including receipts for major
repairs or improvements, court documents, public officials'
letters, and even applicant self-certification for mobile homes
as a last resort.
In addition, we changed the way we calculate the threshold
for property losses to qualify for our Direct Housing Program.
This resulted in close to 3,000 families receiving assistance
who would not have been considered for direct housing in the
past. This means close to 3,000 families with a roof over the
head, a bed to sleep in, and a stove to cook with.
We also know that the more our workforce resembles the
Nation we serve the better we will serve it. We are adapting
our recruiting efforts to reach individuals from
underrepresented communities by partnering with organizations
like historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) as
well as other minority-serving institutions.
Second, we must lead the whole-of-community in climate
resilience. FEMA is not just a response-and-recovery agency.
One of my highest priorities has been hazard mitigation, and
Congress' investment in hazard mitigation has been strong. We
have seen it most recently through the appropriation of $6.8
billion in mitigation funds to FEMA in the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act, including funding to establish
revolving loan funds under the STORM Act. Thank you for your
bipartisan recognition of this investment in mitigation.
The budget request also includes $3.4 billion for further
investments including the Building Resilient Infrastructure and
Communities (BRIC) Program, our Hazard Mitigation Grant Program
(HMGP), flood maps, and the Federal flood risk management
standard. We must think innovatively and shift our projects to
those with community-wide impact, and we must eliminate the
barriers underserved communities face when seeking hazard
mitigation assistance.
Third, we must promote and sustain a ready FEMA and a
prepared nation. The increased frequency, severity, and
complexity of disasters has heightened the demands on FEMA's
workforce and on the broader emergency management community.
FEMA's request includes $19.7 billion for the Disaster Relief
Fund (DRF), to address current and future disasters. To reach
this number, FEMA worked shoulder-to-shoulder with disaster-
impacted States and localities to understand what their
recovery needs are from ongoing catastrophic disasters, in
addition to evaluating the historical cost average for non-
catastrophic disasters, the allocation of funds for the BRIC
program and a reserve to ensure that FEMA maintains the ability
to fund initial response operations for new significant events.
While natural disasters are at the forefront of our
discussions, we cannot overlook the other threats that are
facing our Nation, which FEMA is also charged with helping to
mitigation. Like natural disasters, terrorist attacks can occur
any time or anywhere. We saw this earlier this year during a
hostage standoff at the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in
Colleyville, Texas. I visited the synagogue and spoke to the
rabbi following this instance. He relayed to me the importance
of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and how it helped to
save lives. We are requesting a total of $360 million for this
program.
I would also like to note that tomorrow the Senate is going
to hear testimony about FEMA's proposal for a reauthorization
of our National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This proposal
has the full backing of the President and the Department of
Homeland Security, and I would be grateful for your
consideration of it. The proposal would go a long way to
ensuring that the National Flood Insurance Program is
affordable for homeowners and is put on sounder financial
footing so that it remains available for years to come.
The unrelenting pace of a year-round cycle of disasters and
crises place great demands on the FEMA team. We must look out
for the physical, the emotional, and the mental health of our
workforce. Their adaptability, dedication, and willingness to
do the hard work is extraordinary, and I believe that the
President's budget request will enable them to continue their
incredible work.
In closing, I would like to say how much I appreciate this
Committee's support of the FEMA workforce. The Committee came
together to pass the Civilian Reservist Emergency Workforce
(CREW) Act, legislation that will extend Uniformed Services
Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protections to
the FEMA Reservists. The full Senate then came together to
approve the bill. This is a hugely important piece of
legislation for our workforce and for FEMA's mission.
Thank you again for this opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Administrator Criswell.
Before I begin my questions, last month a devastating
tornado tore through Gaylord, Michigan, tragically resulting in
the loss of two lives. Forty-four others were injured among the
residents. This horrible disaster destroyed businesses,
destroyed the Nottingham Forest Mobile Home Park. It displayed
residents from their now uninhabitable homes and left
considerable debris in its wake.
The survivors, especially many of the senior citizens and
low-income individuals that reside in the area are still trying
to rebuild their lives. Governor Whitmer sent a request for a
major disaster declaration on June 8th. Senator Stabenow,
Representative Berman, and I sent a letter to President Biden
on the same day, asking him to quickly approve the declaration.
I know that this request is still being reviewed, but I
hope that if approved FEMA will move swiftly to provide
assistance to these disaster survivors.
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Chairman. We are in receipt of that
request from the Governor, and we are reviewing it currently.
We should have an answer soon.
Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
FEMA's new pre-disaster mitigation program, the Building
Resilient Infrastructure in Communities program, is funding
more hazardous mitigation projects than ever before. This money
has the potential to be transformative in improving the
resilience of our Nation. However, I am deeply concerned about
the problems that have plagued BRIC over the past year and a
half, including information technology (IT) mishaps with the
agency's grants management system, FEMA GO, application
complexity, and long delays obligating funds to projects,
including planning grants.
For example, Ann Arbor, Michigan, was supposed to be
awarded a BRIC grant to help the city update its hazard
mitigation plan, and it took FEMA a year and a half to approve
this simple planning project, and the city can no longer accept
the grant because they could not wait any longer to update
their plan that had already started.
My question for you, Administrator, is how do you plan to
address problems surrounding BRIC, because certainly we need to
reduce the program's complexity and we need to get money
awarded in a timely fashion for these communities. Tell me what
your plan is, please.
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Chairman. First I would like to thank
Congress for their commitment to the BRIC program. It is an
incredible tool for us to increase the resiliency for our
communities across the Nation.
We have just finished our first year. We are getting ready
to announce the second round of awards for the BRIC program. It
is certainly a work in progress. But my team has been dedicated
and committed to taking the lessons that we learned from this
first round of applications and obligations that we have made
and making sure that we are making corrections along the way.
I do not have the specifics on Ann Arbor, the specifics
that you talked about, but the hazard mitigation plan, what I
would say, is such an incredible part of a community's ability
to understand what their risks are and plan for how they are
going to become a more resilient community.
I will commit to you that I will make sure that those types
of grants specifically, where we are trying to make sure that
they can better understand their risks and prepare for the
future, that we are moving those along more quickly.
Chairman Peters. Great. Last year the STORM Act, a bill
that I authored, was signed into law and received initial
funding in the bipartisan infrastructure law. The law grants
FEMA the authority to work with States and tribal governments
to establish a revolving loan fund that local governments can
access to carry out mitigation projects that reduce natural
disaster risk, including flooding, shoreline erosion, and high-
water levels. These are issues that unfortunately continue to
plague my home State of Michigan, as well as States all across
the country.
My question for you is, it has been seven months since the
program was provided funding through the infrastructure law.
When do you anticipate launching this program?
Ms. Criswell. I am so excited about the STORM Act, and
again, thank you very much for your leadership. It is going to
be another amazing tool to help our communities become more
resilient. This is the first program of its type for FEMA with
a revolving loan fund, and my team has done significant
outreach and engagement with our stakeholder communities right
now to get a better understanding of how this program is going
to best benefit them.
I have challenged my team to push up their original
estimate of late next year to get the first notice out to early
next year. We are focused right now on getting that first
Notice of Funding Opportunity out in early 2023.
Chairman Peters. That would be great, and I appreciate you
moving that timeline up. Could I receive a commitment from you
that your staff will update my staff on a monthly basis so we
can follow its progress?
Ms. Criswell. Absolutely.
Chairman Peters. I appreciate that. Also I would like to
have your guarantee that you will notify us if you think
additional appropriations will be needed. Clearly the demands
are great out there.
Ms. Criswell. Yes. I expect that this, like many of our
other programs, will be over-subscribed, and so I would be
happy to work with Congress if we find that there is a greater
need.
Chairman Peters. Thank you. After a disaster there are
multiple types of Federal assistance that may be available to
disaster survivors, and this includes FEMA's Individual
Assistance (IA) Program, the Small Business Administration's
(SBA) Disaster Loan Program, and the Department of Housing and
Urban Development's (HUD) Community Development Block Grant
Disaster Recovery Program.
Each of these programs currently has its own separate
application, and the burden of these multiple applications,
often asking repetitive and duplicative questions, can
overwhelm survivors, causing many to simply give up on trying
to access desperately needed assistance. That is why I have
been working on a bill to require FEMA, SBA, and HUD to create
a universal disaster application, one application that a
disaster survivor can fill out to apply for all disaster
response programs, no matter what agency they may be seeking
help from.
Administrator Criswell, could you discuss how simplifying
the application process with a universal application would help
disaster survivors and improve equitable disaster recovery?
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Chairman. I believe that the complexity
that individuals have to go through as they are suffering the
worst day probably in their lives just adds to their
frustration, and anything that we can do as a Federal family to
simplify that process I think will be a real benefit to the
communities.
We have already started to have conversations and work with
SBA and HUD on how we can use a universal application. We do
have some privacy concerns that we have to work through, but we
are all focused on working together to make this a reality.
Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you for that.
Senator Carper, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks so much. Welcome. It is great to see
you again. Thank you for your work and your leadership and for
joining us for this hearing.
I want to begin by talking with you about rebalancing the
FEMA support model, and if I have time to also raise how do we
go about managing multiple disasters, so maybe two questions, I
hope.
In many cases, maybe too many cases, the Federal Government
looks at disasters and looks at storms in ways that discount
the impacts experienced by States like my own, Delaware. As you
may know or may not know, Delawares experiences prolonged
weather events--we call them Nor'easters or 'Easters--that can
have devastating impacts on property and on infrastructure.
Hurricanes generally move through fairly quickly. They do
not come to our State often, but when they do they are usually
there and they are gone. That is not the case with Nor'easters.
They come and they stay. They pound the beaches. They have high
waters and high winds and can have an extraordinary negative
impact on our State.
Not that long ago, in fact about two months ago, in May of
this year, Mother's Day weekend, as we recall, Delaware
experienced a week-long Nor'easter that caused significant
erosion on our beaches across our State, and both damaging
property and creating quite a few safety concerns.
Similar events have occurred in the last couple of years
across Delaware. Short-term weather events like hurricanes
often, and rightfully, qualify States for FEMA assistance. As
climate change-related weather events become more common, the
Federal Government needs to better account for short-term
weather occurrences like hurricanes and longer-term weather
events like Nor'easters.
With that said, what steps is FEMA taking, or could FEMA
take, to better support communities experiencing sustained
weather events that may be just as damaging, maybe more
damaging, than short-term, high-impact weather events, and are
there any policy changes that Congress needs to consider to
help FEMA support these efforts?
Ms. Criswell. Senator Carper, I think that I would answer
this in a couple of different ways. I think that what we are
seeing is an increase in the number and types of severe weather
events that communities are facing, sometimes events that are
breaking records that were only set a few weeks prior.
Our focus has really been to elevate the role that FEMA
plays, not just in the response and recovery side of what we do
but also in our resilience side, in what we can include or
improve on in our individual preparedness and our hazard
mitigation efforts.
Through our regional offices they have been very focused on
working with the States within their jurisdiction to help them
build their recovery plans, their response plans, as well as
identify areas for hazard mitigation so we can reduce the
impacts that these communities are seeing from disasters.
But I think it also goes to the individual preparedness
side, that we want to make sure that individuals understand
what their risks are, and they can make plans to appropriately
protect their families.
Senator Carper [presiding.] OK. Thank you.
I have just become the Chairman of the Committee.
Ms. Criswell. Congratulations.
Senator Carper. It is like deja vu. Who says you cannot go
home again, right?
All right. You will not have to put up with me for too
long. I am going to see if I cannot convince Senator Padilla to
relieve me in a little bit so I can run and vote, and he can
too.
Let me also ask you a question about managing multiple
disasters. As climate change continues to impact the weather
patterns, we are going to continue to see more extreme weather
events, whether we like it or not. This means that there is
also an increased demand for FEMA to respond to severe and
sustained weather events in multiple places, sometimes at the
same time.
What steps is FEMA taking to prepare the agency to respond
to multiple disasters that come at us at once? What more needs
to be done, and how can we help? How can Congress help?
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Senator Carper. This is a question that
I have been working with my staff since I took over in this
position. What we are seeing is a year-long operational tempo
unlike anything that we have seen in the past. Where we used to
have small spikes during the peak of hurricane season, we have
individuals that are deployed now year-round with just small
increases during different parts of the year.
That means we have to take a step back and understand how
we have approached our staffing decisions and our architecture
for how we are going to support these disasters differently. We
are taking a hard look at the number or the planning
assumptions of how we have recruited our staff and what we can
do to improve that so we can maintain this year-long cycle.
I related to a little bit of a military model where they
have a readiness cycle and we have individuals that are ready
to deploy, those that are in a reset status, and those that are
in a training status. I think that we can do something similar
to keep up with this policy.
I think one of the things that Congress can certainly
support, and I mentioned it in my opening remarks, is the
support of the CREW Act. The majority of our response force
that goes out to support communities in disasters is our
Reservist workforce. They are really the heartbeat of what we
do. The more tools we have to recruit a really strong Reservist
workforce will help us increase the number of individuals that
we have available but also the types of technical skills that
we need to face the types of disasters that we are starting to
see.
Senator Carper. Thank you. One last quick question dealing
with rebuilding resilient communities. As FEMA responds to
natural disasters and focuses on rebuilding those communities
that are affected, whether in Delaware or one of the other
States, how is FEMA working to identify communities at risk for
repeated severe or prolonged weather events? As FEMA helps
these communities rebuild, how is FEMA taking into account the
impacts of climate change for the focus on rebuilding in a more
resilient way in anticipation of the next weather event that we
know is coming?
Ms. Criswell. I think the biggest way that we are doing
that again is through our regional administrators who stay in
contact with our States to better understand what their needs
are and what their gaps are. We support the development of
their hazard mitigation plans where they are identifying what
their risks are for these types of weather events.
We are also providing direct technical assistance to
communities that perhaps have not asked for hazard mitigation
funding from us in the past, to help them navigate the system,
develop projects that can really have a community-wide impact
instead of an incremental approach in some of the programs that
we have had in the past.
We are going to continue to work hand-in-hand with our
partners like NOAA and National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) to bring in the data that they are using
to predict what the weather events might be in the future, to
help these communities make more informed decisions.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. Again, it is great to
see you. Thank you for your leadership, for your good work. I
hope you are enjoying your work. I know it is challenging, but
thank you for taking it on.
Senator Padilla, I think you are next, and I will just call
you Mr. Chairman, and I am going to head to vote. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA
Senator Padilla [presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate you being here. Let me jump right into it, because
it is the beginning of summer, and wildfire season in
California keeps just growing and growing. It is almost a year-
round concern these days.
Just last year, in 2021, California experienced more than
8,000 incidents, with more than 2.5 million acres burned and
more than 3,500 structures either damaged or completely
destroyed. The largest fire, the Dixie Fire, burned almost 1
million acres, and is the largest single fire now in California
history.
With 4.6 million properties in California, or about 40
percent of the State having at least moderate risk of burning
in the next 30 years, this is according to the First Street
Foundation, California is experiencing more frequent and more
severe fire seasons year after year. The situation is dire, and
it demands expanded and sustained Federal support.
The first area of questioning is this. The one issue that I
keep hearing time and again when I am out and about in
California, particularly for communities that are recovering
and rebounding from recent fires, is the delays in FEMA dollars
getting out the door and into the communities that have been on
the front lines of these disasters, particularly regarding
mitigation grants. These delays, I think, are unacceptable--you
probably agree; I would hope you would agree--and do not really
reflect the realities of those on the ground that are trying to
mitigate prior to an event, recover after an event.
My question is this. What steps would you suggest that we
take for FEMA to reach a decision on grant applications on a
more timely basis and keep the money moving, and if there is
anything that this Committee can do to assist in that regard I
would welcome your ideas.
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Senator Padilla. We have a couple of
different programs that can support the mitigation efforts,
especially to mitigate against this increased wildfire threat
that we are seeing. We did just talk about the BRIC program,
and that is a pre-disaster mitigation program, and that Notice
of Funding Opportunity does come out every year. We also have
post-disaster, hazard mitigation grant funding that comes out
after a Presidentially declared disaster, and we recently, over
the last few years, included hazard mitigation money for our
Fire Management Assistance Grants (FMAGs). We have several
different programs that are eligible for communities to use.
What I would say is that, one, we actually do not see a lot
of grant applications for wildfire mitigation, and what I could
really use help with Congress on is helping communities
understand that these are eligible programs that can be used
for wildfire mitigation. I would love to see more applications
come in to support those resilience-building efforts.
I will continue to work with my team on getting funding out
the door. Again, our BRIC program, we are getting ready to
announce our second year of awards. It is a new program for us
and more money than we have ever been able to give before. We
want to work with communities to make sure that they are in the
position to execute at the same time. We will continue to work
on getting that funding out sooner.
Senator Padilla. OK. I appreciate hearing that. It looks
like we have some follow-up already on getting the word out on
grant availability. So be careful what you ask for because you
are going to get it.
Let me also turn to a different incident from last year,
the Caldor Fire, which burned more than 220,000 acres and
destroyed over 1,000 structures, including the entire town of
Grizzly Flats, California. In Grizzly Flats alone, 594 homes,
and essential community resources such as the only elementary
school, the grocery store, the fire station, the medical
clinic, the post office, all destroyed.
President Biden came out to California to personally tour
the devastation, and the newspapers did not skip a beat. They
quoted his address to the community, including, ``There is so
much we can do. I really mean it, from the bottom of my
heart.'' So that left a lot of people feeling good about his
personal commitment to assist. Yet despite that commitment, the
Administration turned around and repeatedly--not just once, but
repeatedly--denied California's request for individual
assistance for the devastated residents of Grizzly Flats.
My specific question is in regard to the process. I
understand that FEMA's role is to provide a recommendation to
the President regarding granting individual assistance. Is the
President under any legal obligation or restriction to only
heed that recommendation, or is the President allowed to differ
from that recommendation if he concludes differently?
Ms. Criswell. FEMA does provide a recommendation to the
President for what we think should be the decision on any of
these different disaster requests that come in. The President
would have the ability to make a decision if he does not feel
that it would be appropriate, but we provide our justification
and our rationale to the President on why we would recommend he
not approve that declaration.
Senator Padilla. But it is not a binding recommendation.
Ms. Criswell. I do not believe so.
Senator Padilla. OK. In my limited time left I just want to
turn to a California-specific concern, and that this concept of
States' capacity. You have heard of the recent rule change.
When it comes to assistance determinations, I know Congress
directed FEMA to evaluate the factors with which to recommend
individual assistance in the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of
2013. Now Congress did not specify what factors should be
included in that review or determination. The new rule,
finalized in 2019, established a new factor called the State
Fiscal Capacity and Resource Availability to be considered when
evaluating the need for individual assistance.
According to my colleagues in State government in
California, this new State capacity criteria has resulted in
significant disparities and inequities in granting individual
assistance, and has left survivors, including those in Grizzly
Flats but there are many others, without the support that we
believe they need.
In the interest of time I will just ask this. Will you
commit to working with the Committee and my office to ensure
FEMA's process for recommendations is, in fact, more equitable
and fairer for all survivors, regardless of what State they
live in?
Ms. Criswell. Senator Padilla, I absolutely commit to
working with you. After I came into this position I have worked
with my team that came in with me to look at the factors that
we use for individual assistance. They are reviewing them now
and making sure that we are using all of the authorities and
the ability to use the Disaster Reform and Recovery Act as it
was intended to be used. I would be happy to continue to work
with the Committee and provide updates on our progress.
Senator Padilla. OK. Thank you. I look forward to our
follow-up.
I now recognize Senator Romney for his questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROMNEY
Senator Romney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Padilla. I am going to pass the virtual baton over
to Senator Ossoff.
Senator Romney. You have to go vote, yes.
Administrator Criswell, thank you. It is good to see you,
and I appreciate your work. I agree with Senator Padilla, and
that is that wildfire season is now no longer a season. It is
year-long.
There was an article recently, actually NPR ran it, that
said as Western States see worsening wildfires, FEMA is denying
most people who ask for help. They said no more than seven in
10 who ask for help receive that help. I do not know whether
you know whether that figure is accurate or not, but I am
wondering, how can you make sure that we do determine who is
eligible and who is not eligible for aid from these fires? Is
the standard different for wildfires than it is for floods or
hurricanes or other types of natural disasters?
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Senator Romney. I am not familiar with
the specific article that you are referencing but I will
certainly go look at that.
There are a number of factors that go into our
consideration. Some of them have to do with whether they are
primary homes or secondary homes, whether there is insurance in
the area, but also the capacity of the State to support
communities with their recovery.
But we also, right now, as I stated with Senator Padilla,
we are taking a look at those IA factors to make sure that we
are also understanding the impact to the community and not just
numbers. We cannot make our decisions based on numbers alone.
We have to understand that there are people behind those
numbers, and we want to be able to have assistance available to
those who are eligible and need our assistance. That is why I
have directed the team to take a look at that.
The factors are not different regardless of the type of
disaster. We do not look at them differently. It is all about
the impact of that community, secondary homes, insurance, and
so forth, that have an input into that.
Senator Romney. Thank you. One item you are probably not
aware of, but we are known around here for passing a lot of
legislation and then hoping it all gets acted upon. But last
year we passed a Wildland Fire Commission Act, and it
designated a number of agencies, including yours, the
Department of Interior (DOI), the Department of Agriculture
(USDA), to form Federal policy recommendations to deal with the
increasing number of wildfires. I note that your agency has
paid attention to this. It said that we will gather these
individuals in the Federal Government to review the policy.
But I would note that this commission specifically
indicates that it was to include outside voices as well, not
just governmental voices. I think it is really important for us
to recognize that the frequency and the severity of wildfires
is becoming dramatically more severe and significant and that
we need to develop new strategies to deal with them. I do not
know whether it means more fixed-wing aircraft, more
helicopters, more on-the-ground personnel, more monitoring
systems.
I do not know what the answer is, but I do know that we are
being devastated in many of our communities by virtue of these
fires and would strongly encourage FEMA and these other Federal
agencies to meet as soon as possible and to bring in
individuals from outside government who may have expertise, to
come up with the broadest array of strategies to deal with
these efforts.
Can you make sure that that occurs and to get back to me
and my office to let us know whether we are actually making
progress on that front, and when, for instance, the first of
these commission meetings would occur?
Ms. Criswell. Yes. Absolutely, Senator Romney. I am
familiar with this and I am really excited about this. The team
has been working. We received over 540 applications to be on
this commission, and the majority of the people that will be on
it are going to be from non-Federal Government actors. We have
finalized that list. It is going through the final approval
process, and we expect the first meeting to happen sometime in
August. But I will be happy to have my team update your office.
Senator Romney. Great. Thank you so much.
Chairman Peters [presiding.] Senator Ossoff, you are
recognized for your questions, and thank you for taking the
chair.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Administrator
Criswell, good to see you.
I want to follow up on a planning and coordination session
that I convened last week in Savannah, Georgia. Your Deputy,
Erik Hooks, was there. I appreciated his presence. I appreciate
the Federal support for disaster preparedness and strengthening
Georgia's coastal defenses, now that we have entered hurricane
season.
We discussed, at that meeting, steps that we need to take
to ensure that the most vulnerable people are taken care of in
the aftermath of a potential storm that could hit Georgia's
coast, and I want to follow up with you about a particular
action item, which is to ensure that we are prepared to take
care of infants and babies and nursing mothers, particularly
given the continued shortages of baby formula nationwide.
I would like for you to please brief the Committee on what
steps you are taking to ensure you have the supplies necessary
to support infants and babies and their parents in the
aftermath of a disaster, given these current conditions, and
then get a commitment from you to work with my office,
communicate with my office about what specific plans may need
to be made to ensure that mothers and babies in coastal Georgia
are taken care of in the event a storm hits that area in coming
months.
Ms. Criswell. Absolutely. I think there are two pieces to
that question, Senator Ossoff. I think one is on the breast
pumps and whether or not they are an eligible expense after
disaster, that they can get reimbursed for, and they certainly
are. It is not something that we have obviously made clear
enough, and we are making changes to that. When our policy gets
reissued next spring we are going to make sure that that is in
there.
But we have also updated our website. Our website now, when
an individual goes in to apply for assistance, it clearly
states, as that is an example of one of the types of eligible
expenses that they can get reimbursed for through our Critical
Needs Assistance. We will make sure that is clear, and we are
also going to work on promoting that when we go into an area so
individuals understand that.
I think on the infant formula side of things we do carry
enough infant formula to meet the needs within a shelter
population. That has been our planning model for history. We do
not keep a lot on hand. We keep enough infant formula on hand
to serve just under 4,000 infants for a period of seven days.
That is our target and that is from experience with the number
of infants that come into our shelters. We see a small number
of infants that end up in our shelter population, but we keep
enough on hand to support that.
Senator Ossoff. OK. I appreciate that, and I have joined
Senator Duckworth on her Delivering Essentials to Mother's Amid
Natural Disasters Act (DEMAND Act) legislation to ensure that
breast pumps are available through FEMA to breastfeeding
mothers in the aftermath of a major disaster. My office will
follow up with yours for some more detail to address both that
potential need as well as potential infant formula needs in the
aftermath of a storm that could hit coastal Georgia in coming
months.
I want to follow up with you on a bipartisan inquiry that I
placed with Senator Scott of South Carolina last year regarding
prior FEMA policies that discriminated against Black homeowners
and property owners, especially in the American South, owners
of heirs' property who may have lacked clear title to property
that they inherited. I was pleased by FEMA's response to our
bipartisan effort to undertake certain policy changes to ensure
that Black property owners are not discriminated against in the
aftermath of a disaster.
How are you working to implement those policies to ensure
that there are not discriminatory effects from other such
policies that FEMA implements in the aftermath of a disaster?
Ms. Criswell. Yes, Senator. This was a topic that was
really important to me. On my listening tour that I did in my
first few months in this position I had heard the same thing
from many of our States and our stakeholders in the
communities. We took a hard look at our policies and we found
that we were able to just make simple changes to our policy
that expanded the types of documentation that we will accept.
What we found is that some families had homes that were passed
down through the generations and they did not necessarily have
the exact paperwork that a home that was recently purchased
might have, and so we would typically then just deny them
assistance and force them to come back and appeal that
decision.
We made simple changes, and I would love to be able to just
share a few numbers. We implemented these changes in our own
policies in August of last year, and since then we were able to
help over 42,000 homeowners and 53,000 renters receive
assistance that we would have denied assistance under our old
system. That amounts to somewhere close to $350 million that we
would have made them come back to us through an appeal process
before.
This is just the start. We are going to continue to look at
ways that we can improve our policies and identify and better
understand the barriers that individuals have to accessing our
programs so we make it easier for them to get what they are
eligible for.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Let me thank you for your
commitment to ensuring that there is not racial discrimination
in the implementation of disaster relief and for your prompt
attention to the inquiry that I placed with Senator Scott for
ensuring that Deputy Administrator Hooks was available in
Savannah last week. I am looking forward to working with you on
a continuing basis to help to protect Georgia's coast and our
whole State from disasters that may impact our area in the
months to come, as well as further engagement with you to
ensure that Georgia's farmers are as resiliently situated as
possible. Hurricane Michael, obviously, several years ago, had
a devastating impact on our pecan orchards, for example.
So more work for us to do together. Thanks for your
efforts, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Ossoff. Senator Scott,
you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator Scott. So Senator Ossoff, one benefit you have is
you have a really good person in the Southeast, Gracia Szczech
at FEMA, and she does a really good job. I had four major
hurricanes plus flooding, plus tornadoes, and she always showed
up. They have a great FEMA office down there and they do a
great job.
Ms. Criswell. I appreciate that.
Senator Scott. Hurricane season, we are in it. It has
impacted, I am sure you personally, gas prices are up, supply
chain problems, baby formula shortage. In my State there are
still hurricanes. Now people have to make a choice between food
and gas, so now during hurricane season we try to get everybody
prepared to buy all their stuff. My wife actually has one of
the plans that--I think it is one that FEMA put out--of what we
ought to have.
Tell me what FEMA is doing to, one, how you are getting
prepared to know when we have this inflation, supply chain
stuff, how Florida families that are struggling financially,
how they are going to get ready.
Ms. Criswell. Great question. As we are seeing the impacts
of inflation on the communities across the country, we want to
make sure that we still have the ability to keep people safe.
Things that FEMA is doing is, even in the last few years we
have increased the amount of stockpile that we have in our
distribution centers, so we can make sure that we have enough
to support that initial response and the initial lifesaving and
life-sustaining operations.
We are able to predeploy that. One of the things that we
did last year is we worked really closely with our Governors to
ask for pre-landfall declarations so we could move the
resources into the area sooner and have them available for
individuals, if needed. We are going to continue to work on
making sure that our supplies are sufficient to meet the
potential needs that we can expect.
But on the individual size, we want to make sure that
people have the information that they need to protect their
families. In the plans that we work on through our regional
offices, through Regional Administrator Szezech, they work very
closely with our State directors to get a better understanding
of what they think their challenges and their gaps are going to
be and help them with their plans for how they are going to
approach that.
I have been talking to individuals about it. It is not
necessarily about having all of the necessary supplies that you
need. I think the most important thing is to know what your
risk is. I get concerned about the fact that we have a lot of
individuals that live in areas that have never experienced a
hurricane before or never experienced a wildfire before. I want
people to understand their risk.
Then I want them to know where they can go to protect their
family. I suggest that they go to their local emergency
management websites to find out where they are going to have
shelters, if needed, how they are going to be able to evacuate
if they do not have a car. All of our States have built their
preparedness plans on the premise that there is going to be a
large number of individuals that do not have transportation, so
we can use that model for those that have a new need for
transportation, to help them get to some of these centers.
We will continue to work closely with our State partners,
through our regional administrators, to better understand what
they anticipate their challenges are going to be, and making
sure that our supplies are ready to support those.
Senator Scott. Don't you think this year is going to be a
little bit worse, because in the hurricanes you worry about
running out of gas, and now you are hearing, at least, from
AAA, that people are running out of gas because they are not
filling up their tanks. Now you think you get to a hurricane, I
imagine there are going to be more people that are going to
have bigger problems now with that. I do not know what the
right answer is, but it is not getting better.
I want to talk about flood insurance. This happened while I
was Governor. FEMA dramatically increased the flood insurance
costs for a lot of Florida families. It never made sense,
because since national flood insurance has been created Florida
has been, my understanding, a 4 to 1 donor State. If you are a
4 to 1 donor State then your rates should not be going up,
right? They should be coming down as we get better data.
Then what we try to do is try to work with FEMA to get more
information out so we could get more robust private insurance
market, because it was not helping us through the National
Flood Insurance Program. Now there is a recent report by Redfin
that found that nearly 90 percent of flood insurance
policyholders in Florida will see price increases as a result
of Risk Rating 2.0.
First, that does not make sense if we are a 4 to 1 donor
State, right? That is one. No. 2 is, we still do not see FEMA
putting a lot of effort into getting a private flood insurance
market created. Can you talk about those two issues?
Ms. Criswell. Yes, I can talk about both of those. Risk
Rating 2.0 does a couple of things, and I understand that there
is a certain population that is seeing a more significant
increase in their flood insurance. But when you say numbers
like 90 percent are going up, the majority of those--and it is
about 70 percent, I had some numbers in here, about 68 percent
are going up the same amount that they would have gone up
before Risk Rating 2.0. The difference is that they are going
to reach a maximum threshold, and under the old program their
rates would just continue to go up year after year.
We are also seeing, in Florida specifically, 20 percent of
the policyholders have had a reduction in their rates. But
there is that percentage that are continuing to go up.
One of the things that we are working with Congress on is
the reauthorization of our National Flood Insurance Program,
that would put in place an affordability act that would help
support those individuals that cannot afford flood insurance
but still need to have coverage.
I think the biggest part about Risk Rating 2.0 is what it
does is it helps families understand their true risk, so then
they can take the right measures to protect their families from
the threats that they are going to face.
As far as the private sector, we would love to partner with
the private sector, and continue to partner with them on ways
that they can help us close that gap. Our goal is to close the
gap in the flood insurance policies that are out there so those
that need it, have it. I am happy to continue to partner with
you and your team on how we can make that happen.
Senator Scott. Do you feel comfortable that you are
helpful? Because when I was Governor, the issue that we had
then was that FEMA would not share the data. If you were a
private insurance company you cannot write it if you do not
have the data. Do you feel comfortable that FEMA now has given
all the private insurance companies enough data they have that
they can write private insurance?
Ms. Criswell. I do not have the answer to that
specifically, Senator Scott. I would be happy to have my team
get back to you on the data sharing. Data sharing is always one
of our biggest hurdles, because of privacy concerns, but I
would be happy to get back with you.
Senator Scott. Two things, which no one has ever been able
to explain to me. If we are a donor State, then why should any
of ours go up? If we have been a donor State for, what, now 40-
plus years, right, it does not make sense. And nobody has been
able to explain that to me.
Ms. Criswell. I will get back with my team and get a better
understanding of how that works with our NFIP program, and get
an answer to you.
Senator Scott. Yes, and if I am wrong, if somebody has
better data than what I have been told--and no one has ever
suggested I am wrong, by the way. If you could get back on both
of those, one, why, if we are a donor State our rates go up,
and two, what are you doing, and if there is anything else we
can do to try to build a bigger private market.
Ms. Criswell. Yes, sir.
Senator Scott. Thanks. And thanks for the people that work
there.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Scott.
Senator Hawley, you are recognized for your questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY
Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator, good to see you. Thanks for being here.
Let me ask you about the flooding in my State. We talked
about this at your confirmation hearings, back in 2019, the
Missouri flooding in the central and northwestern part, really
actually all along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, but
particularly serious flooding in the central and northwest
parts of the State.
We talked at that time, as you probably remember, about the
problems with responsiveness and delays that many Missourians
encountered, particularly as it relates to the Individual
Assistance Program.
I wanted to follow up on this. You said, in response to our
conversation, that FEMA has a strategic goal of reducing the
complexity of the agency and that you would work to streamline
this process, particularly the rewards of IA to the best of
your ability.
Can you give us an update on progress you have made related
to that goal, particularly as it relates to Individual
Assistance?
Ms. Criswell. Yes, sir. Specifically, we have done a couple
of things. One, we have taken a look at our policy and we have
adjusted our policy to make sure that we are understanding the
barriers that individuals have to accessing our programs, like
being able to prove home ownership or occupancy for renters
when they do not have the exact paperwork that FEMA has
required in the past. We have seen a significant improvement in
the number of individuals that have now been eligible for
Individual Assistance as part of that policy change.
But I think more specifically to your point, and one of the
things that we are doing, is I have directed the team to make
sure that we are taking our services to people instead of
forcing them to figure out how to navigate our system. One of
the other things that we put in place last year was that
anybody who still does not meet the requirements within our
computer system, we are actually doing a 100 percent callback
to talk to them and ask them and go through their case with
them so we can better understand or explain to them the type of
information, so we can get those approved.
We have seen a tremendous amount of, again, more
individuals approved through this process. There are still some
that do not meet our requirements, but we continue to see
improvements, and instead of forcing them to try to navigate
our system and appeal, we are coming to them.
Senator Hawley. That is great. That is encouraging. Can you
give me an update on other steps you have taken with regard to
communication and responsiveness, which is what you are getting
at there, I think, in the second part of your answer? What else
are you doing in terms of proactive communication to folks,
alerting them as to what FEMA is doing, alerting them to what
assistance they may be eligible for, alerting them to the
process and how they can apply, when they can expect answers,
and so on? Give me a sense of what you are doing there.
Ms. Criswell. I think there are a few things that we have
added into the way that we are trying to do outreach into
communities. First, we have always had our Disaster Survivor
Assistance (DSA) Teams, and what we are doing now, though, is
we are using data to look at where the damage has been and
where we have low levels of registrations, and these are teams
that can go out into the community and register them right from
their iPad. We are targeting where they are going.
The second thing that we are doing is through our External
Affairs and our Public Affairs Division, is just doing more
outreach to local media, and trying to make sure we understand
the demographics of a community and using the media that they
are used to listening to. We are doing a much broader outreach
on different types of media platforms to try to get to people
on how they get information.
Senator Hawley. Any obstacles that you have encountered so
far along the way, in terms of improving responsiveness, also
improving communications? Have you experienced challenges that
you have been able to overcome? I am curious what you have
found as you have gotten on the ground, so to speak, in the
agency.
Ms. Criswell. Honestly, I think some of the biggest
obstacles are getting out of our own way so we can make the
necessary changes that need to happen to help people. When we
come into this with a different mindset of putting people
first, then we are able to make a lot of different changes, to
really help the people that have been impacted in these
communities.
Senator Hawley. Good. Let me ask you about something that
FEMA announced earlier this year, February, to be exact,
February 22nd, the new Equity Action Plan. That plan says that
FEMA's goals including generating a FEMA-wide definition of
equity and a framework for implementing equity in all agency
programs. I have the definition of ``equity'' in front of me.
It is pretty long. It is 89 words. It references skin color,
references sexual orientation.
I also noticed in your written testimony you list as your
first priority, instilling equity as a foundation of emergency
management. What does that mean, exactly?
Ms. Criswell. What that means to me, Senator Hawley, is the
fact that we have a lot of individuals that have barriers to
accessing our programs. My focus, like I talked about with the
Individual Assistance Program, is better understanding those
barriers and targeting our assistance to help communities that
have had difficulty navigating our programs, whether that is
our Individual Assistance Program or our grant programs. We
want to be able to help those communities understand better the
services that we can provide so we can help them achieve the
resilience that they need to for the different threats that we
are facing in the future.
Senator Hawley. I am trying to understand, I guess, the
aims of the program and the scope of it, because it sounds like
it is important if it is your first priority. Is the aim to
better deliver FEMA's services and to improve responsiveness to
folks who have been affected by a disaster, or is the aim to
internally change the makeup of FEMA? Because you also write
that FEMA's Office of Equal Rights is now collecting data on
various internal categories, to actively build, and I am
quoting now, ``active build a robust civil rights program by
recruiting and hiring experienced civil rights subject matter
experts in the Office of Equal Rights (OER).''
I am trying to figure out what the priority is here.
Ms. Criswell. It is actually both. So equity is my No. 1
priority in the strategic plan, and each of the objectives
within my priorities, one focuses externally on how we deliver
our services to communities, one focuses internally on how our
workforce is going to support that, and another one talks about
how we partner with other stakeholders in order to deliver our
programs.
In this case, for me, on delivering services to our
programs, my goal is to not have a one-size-fits-all approach,
to better understand that every individual experiences a
disaster differently. Every community experiences a disaster
differently. We want to be able to understand their unique
situation to make the decisions on how we deliver our programs
and not use the same criteria for a large, urban area as we use
for a small, rural community.
Senator Hawley. Does your Office of Equal Rights, is this
different from a Diversity, Inclusion, Equity Office? Is there
something different about it?
Ms. Criswell. I do not have a separate Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion Office. My Office of Equal Rights----
Senator Hawley. That is what it does.
Ms. Criswell [continuing]. Deals with the civil rights
complaints, or civil rights issues as required by law. We have
an equity enterprise steering group that is made up of
leadership from across my agency to talk more broadly about the
culture of FEMA and the diversity of FEMA and how we can
improve that.
Senator Hawley. Finally, do you consider an individual's
race or gender when making hiring decisions, Administrator?
Ms. Criswell. We do not. We base it on qualifications.
Senator Hawley. Yes, good. Thank you for what you are doing
in terms of improving responsiveness, and I would hope that in
terms of your priorities, I hope that emergency management and
disaster responsiveness would always be your No. 1 top
priority, serving and responding to people in need.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hawley. And Senator
Hawley, if I could pick up on your questions, because you
raised some issues that you know that we have been working on
as a Committee, and I want to get clarifications from the
Administrator when it comes to providing relief to underserved
communities, which is legislation that we did pass out of
Committee here, looking at equity.
But it is about understanding, and the evidence is fairly
clear. In fact, there was an article in Politico\1\ that just
came out here I think within the last week, that talked about
how when disaster does strike it impacts all communities, but
those communities that are underserved get particularly
impacted because they tend not to get the resources
commensurate with the damage.
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\1\ The article referenced by Senator Peters appears in the
Appendix on page 34.
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In fact, this story and others show that wealthier
communities tend to get more money from FEMA than poorer
communities. In rural areas in your State they may not have the
resources to have grant-writers and do all the work that they
need that a wealthy community is able to get. We want to make
sure that every community has equal access to those FEMA
resources in an equitable way, not based on income.
Is that right? Is that an accurate reflection of how you
look at this thing? There are certain communities, for a
variety of reasons, oftentimes economic is what is really
driving it. Poorer communities, unfortunately, do not get the
same resources as wealthy communities, even though they have
suffered the same damage.
Ms. Criswell. I am familiar, Chairman, with the Politico
article that you are mentioning, and types of inequities that
it addresses are unfortunately a reality right now. What we see
when we are trying to get to a benefit-cost ratio, or a
benefit-cost assessment, that lower-cost homes have less
ability to get the same amount of resources than something that
is a higher-cost home.
We are going to continue to work on how we can either
adjust our policies, or if we need support from Congress to
make changes in how we approach this type of determination.
I will say, though, one thing that we were able to do on
our own is for Individual Assistance Program, just for the
Direct Housing Program, a number of individuals often need
another place to stay and we will active our Direct Housing
Program. Many of you will understand it as our RV, or mobile
home program. We used to have a set threshold of $17,000 worth
of damage, which disproportionately impacted people with lower-
value homes. We changed that, and we changed that to a price
per square foot, and as a result, during Hurricane Ida, we had
over 2,700 families that were able to qualify for our program
going forward.
It is these types of understanding of our policies and how
they are unintentionally having a negative impact on
communities that I am going to continue to work on and see
where we can make our own internal policy changes or where we
need to make legislative or rulemaking changes.
Chairman Peters. Yes, Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Peters. Yes, no, please.
Senator Hawley. This is to your good point, and I do not
disagree with anything you said, and if that is what the equity
effort amounts to, in terms of reaching communities all across
the board, particularly those that are historically
underserved, which includes, in both of our States, rural
communities often, I am fine with it.
If it means, however, much of what I read in the equity
report that FEMA is doing, perhaps I was not direct enough in
my questioning. Let me say for the record that huge amounts of
training in diversity, inclusion, and equity and basically, if
this is an effort to turn the agency into a social justice
outfit, I am against it, and I am very skeptical of it.
My only point is, Mr. Chairman, I hope that the agency will
continue focusing on the people who are in need and getting
services to them, in the way that you outlined. I am all for
that. Count me in for that. But count me out if it is going to
be about this internal social justice politics where we are
promoting a social agenda and we are using FEMA to do that.
That is my concern.
That is all I have to say. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for that
opportunity.
Chairman Peters. I appreciate that, and I look forward to
working with you on that, Senator Hawley, because I think that
is the objective that we are trying to achieve, is that we do
know that these patterns exist. In fact, I believe there was a
report out of Texas, that also a Director for Emergency
Management in Texas that brought up a point that it tends to be
poorer communities do not get the same relative to the damage
that they have had, relative to wealthier communities.
I know you do not support that. You believe there should be
an element of fairness involved. Folks who are of lower income,
it is a whole lot harder to recover from a natural disaster to
begin with. They are absolutely devastated and do not have
other insurance resources and others.
Hopefully we can come to an agreement as to how we make
sure that what we know is a persistent problem we can address
it in some way that is looking at the standard in an objective
way. I appreciate that.
Thank you, Ms. Criswell. I appreciate that. I want to thank
you, Administrator Criswell, for joining us today and for your
testimony.
As we begin what is expected to be a busier than normal
hurricane season and face continued wildfires in the West,
Congress certainly must do everything in their power to promote
a prepared FEMA and support FEMA's workforce, including by
passing my legislation, along with Ranking Member Portman's
CREW Act, to make sure we have folks on the front lines that
are able to help those people in need.
Administrator Criswell, we look forward to our continuing
work together to improve the Federal Government's preparedness
response and recovery capabilities.
The record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days,
until 5 p.m. on July 7, 2022, for the submission of statements
and questions for the record.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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