[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 170 (Monday, October 28, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H8484-H8487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FEDERAL DISASTER ASSISTANCE COORDINATION ACT
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill
[[Page H8485]]
(H.R. 1306) to amend the Disaster Recovery Reform Act to develop a
study regarding streamlining and consolidating information collection
and preliminary damage assessments, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 1306
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Disaster Assistance
Coordination Act''.
SEC. 2. STUDY TO STREAMLINE AND CONSOLIDATE INFORMATION
COLLECTION AND PRELIMINARY DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS.
(a) In General.--Section 1223 of the Disaster Recovery
Reform Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-254) is amended to read as
follows:
``SEC. 1223. STUDY TO STREAMLINE AND CONSOLIDATE INFORMATION
COLLECTION AND PRELIMINARY DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS.
``(a) Information Collection.--Not later than 2 years after
the date of enactment of this section, the Administrator, in
coordination with the Small Business Administration, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Disaster
Assistance Working Group of the Council of the Inspectors
General on Integrity and Efficiency, and other appropriate
agencies, shall--
``(1) conduct a study and develop a plan, consistent with
law, under which the collection of information from disaster
assistance applicants and grantees will be modified,
streamlined, expedited, efficient, flexible, consolidated,
and simplified to be less burdensome, duplicative, and time
consuming for applicants and grantees; and
``(2) develop a plan for the regular collection and
reporting of information on Federal disaster assistance
awarded, including the establishment and maintenance of a
website for presenting the information to the public.
``(b) Preliminary Damage Assessments.--Not later than 2
years after the date of enactment of this section, the
Administrator, in consultation with the Council of the
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, shall convene
a working group on a regular basis with the Secretary of
Labor, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget,
the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Administrator
of the Small Business Administration, the Secretary of
Transportation, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for
Economic Development, and other appropriate agencies as the
Administrator considers necessary, to--
``(1) identify and describe the potential areas of
duplication or fragmentation in preliminary damage
assessments after disaster declarations;
``(2) determine the applicability of having 1 Federal
agency make the assessments for all agencies; and
``(3) identify potential emerging technologies, such as
unmanned aircraft systems, consistent with the requirements
established in the FEMA Accountability, Modernization and
Transparency Act of 2017 (42 U.S.C. 5121 note), to expedite
the administration of preliminary damage assessments.
``(c) Comprehensive Report.--The Administrator shall submit
1 comprehensive report that comprises the plans developed
under subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) and a report of the
findings of the working group convened under subsection (b),
which may include recommendations, to the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of
Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs of the Senate.
``(d) Public Availability.--The comprehensive report
developed under subsection (c) shall be made available to the
public and posted on the website of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency--
``(1) in pre-compressed, easily downloadable versions that
are made available in all appropriate formats; and
``(2) in machine-readable format, if applicable.
``(e) Sources of Information.--In preparing the
comprehensive report, any publication, database, or web-based
resource, and any information compiled by any government
agency, nongovernmental organization, or other entity that is
made available may be used.
``(f) Briefing.--Not later than 180 days after submission
of the comprehensive report, the Administrator of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, or a designee, and a member of
the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency, or a designee, shall brief, upon request, the
appropriate congressional committees on the findings and any
recommendations made in the comprehensive report.''.
(b) Technical Amendment.--The item relating to section 1223
in the table of contents of the FAA Reauthorization Act of
2018 (Public Law 115-254) is amended to read as follows:
``Sec. 1223. Study to streamline and consolidate information collection
and preliminary damage assessments.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Meadows) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon.
General Leave
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.R. 1306, as amended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Oregon?
There was no objection.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be standing on the floor here with my
colleague, Mr. Meadows, at this time, perhaps a bit more in agreement.
So this bill, H.R. 1306, the Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination
Act, was introduced by Representatives Meadows and Peters. It amends
the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, DRRA, so-called, to help Federal
agencies streamline and consolidate information, collection, and
preliminary damage assessments following disasters.
When a disaster occurs, Americans don't have time to wait around for
the bureaucracy to get the assistance that they are entitled to. Today,
there are too many barriers that stand between emergency response and
Americans in crisis due to a disaster, whether it is a flood, a
hurricane, a wildfire, or an earthquake. Whatever the disaster might
be, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other Federal agencies
are supposed to be there to help.
Currently, the implementation of those recovery efforts and that
disaster assistance is hampered by inefficient information collection
and assessments conducted by multiple agencies. Some of them even come
in like a year after the fact and say: Wait a minute. We didn't
authorize that. That kind of thing has got to stop.
So this will remove information collection barriers that currently
impede disaster aid. It creates a working group to identify duplicative
assessments--we don't need to waste money on those--and it proposes
getting rid of them by administrative rule or, if necessary, by
legislation.
Further, it would streamline Federal disaster recovery efforts by
concluding that a single agency is sufficient to conduct damage
assessments to account for the needs of disaster victims.
Again, we have multiple agencies with conflicting opinions and
numbers, and sometimes they come back to communities and want money
back. Really? The other agency approved the money. Oh, but you didn't
think--this has got to be done better, more efficiently, in
coordination with a single lead. So I am pleased that this bill is
before us today.
Mr. Speaker, I obviously recommend an ``aye'' vote, and I reserve the
balance of my time.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kind comments. I have
often wondered, on the pharmaceutical commercials that you see on TV,
who is the individual who can speak as fast as the narrator and puts in
the disclaimers. I have now found the gentleman from Oregon to be that
individual, so it is a good day for me.
I thank the gentleman for his support. Certainly, I rise in support
of H.R. 1306, the Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act.
As the chairman was noting, this is a bipartisan, commonsense piece
of legislation that would amend the Disaster Recovery Reform Act and
establish a process to identify ways to streamline it and consolidate
the collection of certain disaster information.
I would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if I didn't mention the work of the
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), along with the gentleman from
California (Mr. Peters), in terms of really trying to make sure that,
when we allocate dollars, they get to those people who are suffering
most. The last thing we need is for them to be caught up in a
bureaucracy that was not of their own making.
Following a disaster, many times, damage assessment needs are to be
done quickly. In North Carolina, even most recently, some of those get
into a lot of finger-pointing back and forth, Mr. Speaker.
Just last week, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
received testimony from State and local
[[Page H8486]]
emergency managers on how that cumbersome process is and what it is
now.
So, while FEMA is certainly the lead Federal agency on disasters,
there is often an alphabet soup of Federal agencies that have to get
involved in the disaster response, and it is the local Federal
coordinators that actually have to work in this recovery.
So it is critical that we look throughout all of our agencies to
minimize the overlap, certainly as it relates to assessments, and
consider the use of newer technologies and how to streamline the
process.
Specifically, this bill will establish a Federal working group, led
by FEMA, that would work with the Council of the Inspectors General on
integrity and efficiency to determine how the damage assessment process
can be streamlined and whether new technologies can be used to speed up
the process.
Mr. Speaker, this is just a good-government bill that will improve
disaster recovery. As the gentleman knows, being from the great State
of Texas, as well as I do, when people are hurting from disasters, what
they want are fast, efficient recovery efforts. Hopefully, this
bipartisan effort will do that.
I encourage support of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I don't see any additional speakers, so I
am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Louisiana (Mr. Graves).
Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman
from North Carolina for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, there are two sorts of Members: There are Members who
have experienced and been through the devastation of disaster and the
constituents they represent, and there are people who will. Those are
the two types of Members we have in this body.
The gentleman from North Carolina is one of those folks who has been
through this. The people he represents have been through this. The
current disaster process that we use oftentimes revictimizes the very
disaster victims that we are trying to help, that we are trying to
save.
This legislation is very important and it is insightful. It is
insightful because, number one, it brings newer ideas and newer
technologies to the table on how we are actually going to quantify the
damage associated with disasters.
Let's not use these technologies and these techniques from the 1950s
and 1960s when it is 2019 and 2020. We need to be taking advantage of
these new technologies.
What that does, Mr. Speaker, is it results in better, more accurate
damage assessments where we are not contributing to the debt and
wasting money, as we discussed in previous legislation; it results in
faster recovery, faster response to those disaster victims who are out
there.
This legislation helps to ensure that instead of--we have had it in
my home State of Louisiana. We have had our assessors out there doing
work. We have had our State Homeland Security officials out there doing
assessments. We have had SBA, we have had HUD, and we have had FEMA,
and they all come up with different numbers, which is shocking to
learn.
The most efficient thing to do, the right thing to do, is to come up
with a common set of principles: use new technology, quantify the
disasters, inform how much money is needed and where it is needed, and
let's help get response and recovery activities moving much faster,
much better, and much more efficiently.
Let me say it again. We have got to continue to stay focused on these
disaster victims. So the faster, better, cheaper, that ends up
benefiting them. We have had all of these disconnects in different
programs because they are using different metrics and milestones.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina and I
want to thank my friend from Oregon for working together on this. It is
an important, insightful piece of legislation that is going to result
in saving taxpayer funds; a better, more efficient response; stopping
the tripping over each other; and, ultimately, moving in a direction
where you have seamless sequencing of response and recovery activities.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this legislation.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana for his
comments. When you think of disaster recovery and think of a champion
who has been wanting to address this, not just on this bill, but each
and every bill that he looks at, there is no greater advocate that the
American people have than the gentleman from Louisiana.
In closing, I want to thank the chairman. Many times we can have
different opinions on different particular pieces of legislation, but
the gentleman has always been thoughtful, and certainly, under his
leadership, in his chairmanship, he has worked in a bipartisan manner
to advance legislation.
I appreciate the gentleman's willingness to allow this bill to come
to the floor, and I urge its adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, just in reference to what the gentleman said earlier,
once, when Barney Frank used to serve here, I was friendly with one of
the recording clerks, and she would rate how many words per minute
people could talk. Barney was faster than me. Sometimes I would be
sitting here and people would say: What did he say? And I said: Oh, I
can translate that. So I grew up in that era.
But, returning to this bill, this is important, and this is not the
end of our reforms. As the gentleman from Louisiana pointed out, just
think of it this way: We had a very rare, bizarre snow event last
winter, and I had five trees fall on my house. The insurance adjuster
came out and said okay. We agreed on what it would take to fix the
house.
Now, imagine if that company had sent five different adjusters on
different days and they all came up with different figures. The house
was just finished last weekend. It took 9 months, but I would still be
waiting, probably, for the repairs to start.
That is what happens to people in some of these disasters. They are
still waiting for the approvals they need to go forward and do the
repairs, or they got funding from one agency for emergency housing
assistance and then they are being told they can't get housing
assistance or they can't get their home repaired because they took that
money, even though no one told them when they took that money that that
was going to disqualify them from some other agency.
It has got to get straightened out. The Federal Government needs to
coordinate this response, and this is just, I believe, the beginning of
reforming these disaster assistance programs.
And, oh, by the way, the National Flood Insurance Program is broke,
and we have got to do something about that, too, including some
reforms.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of
my time.
Mr. PETERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman DeFazio, and thank
Congressman Meadows, for working with me to improve the federal
government's transparency on disaster assistance spending and the
government's efficiency on providing communities with relief funding.
As fires burn across California and hurricanes continue to hit the
Southeast, it is clear that disasters are becoming larger, more
dangerous and frequent, and significantly more expensive. According to
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there have been more
than 2,400 federally declared disasters since 2000, totaling hundreds
of billions of dollars in federal relief aid.
Multiple federal agencies help communities recover from these
disasters. However, they do not coordinate when conducting damage
assessments, which creates duplicative work across agencies.
That's why I joined Congressman Meadows in introducing the Federal
Disaster Assistance Coordination Act. This bill is commonsense: it
requires FEMA to create an interagency working group to determine any
areas of overlap across agencies when conducting assessments used to
administer disaster assistance. It also requires the working group to
assess new technologies that may accelerate damage assessments
following disasters.
This bill, in coordination with two other disaster assistance bills
Mr. Meadows and I introduced together--the DISASTER Act and the Post-
Disaster Assistance Online Accountability Act--allow the federal
government to efficiently provide communities with disaster relief aid.
[[Page H8487]]
I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation today, and I look
forward to the Senate acting on all three of our disaster transparency
bills.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 1306, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to amend
the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 to develop a study regarding
streamlining and consolidating information collection and preliminary
damage assessments, and for other purposes.''.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________