[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16182-16183]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  FEMA

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, to follow up on one of the 
things we did accomplish in the Senate, passing last night the 
Department of Homeland Defense appropriations bill, I want to call to 
the attention of the Senate three amendments this Senator from Florida 
had attached to the bill which were passed. They regard FEMA, the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency. This, of course, has been 
extremely important to the Nation, but particularly to my State of 
Florida, having gone through the experience of four hurricanes last 
year within a 6-week period.
  Originally, FEMA did a very good job. A lot of that was as a result 
of the lessons we had learned from a decade previously from the monster 
hurricane of 1992, Hurricane Andrew, when one level of Government was 
not talking to another level. Those lessons learned were applied. 
Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of those four hurricanes that hit 
Florida within that 6-week period, FEMA responded, and responded well, 
working with the State of Florida and the local governments, which in 
this case for those four hurricanes included most of the counties of 
Florida. Little did I know, going into August a year ago, I was going 
to end up visiting almost every emergency operations center in the 
State of Florida. But that is the fate that befell our State.
  But then, in the long run, FEMA started dropping the ball. It was not 
because they did not have enough money. We appropriated $13.5 billion--
that is with a ``B''--for hurricane relief. Of that $13.5 billion, $8.5 
billion went to FEMA. It was not that it did not have enough money. But 
they started sending it to the wrong places. They sent over $30 million 
to Miami-Dade County, when in fact the hurricane winds never blew in 
Miami-Dade County.
  So one of the amendments has to do with them being required, under 
law, to report back to the committee in the Senate and the committee in 
the House on all of the changes they have made in response to the 
recent inspector general's report that named all of these deficiencies 
in FEMA. One of them was sending millions of dollars into a county 
where the hurricane winds did not blow.
  Another example was they paid for over 300 funerals, but the number 
of deaths directly attributable or even indirectly attributable to the 
hurricane was about 125. Why are we paying for that?
  Over and over--I cannot tell you how many county commissioners and 
mayors were calling us, pleading: Why won't FEMA reimburse us for the 
debris removal? Over and over we had people saying: FEMA is not sending 
us any relief.
  What is the purpose of FEMA? It is to help people when they are in a 
time of need and it is authorized under law.
  Well, lo and behold, do you know what the most recent one is? It is 
exactly the reverse. Just a month ago, FEMA sent out $27 million in 
payments to people; and now, as of 2 weeks ago, it is demanding the 
people send it back. They said they made a mistake, that they were not 
eligible for that--$27 million?
  Well, thank goodness the Governmental Affairs Committee of the 
Senate, at my request, had an investigation and a hearing. They allowed 
the senior Senator from Florida to be the leadoff witness. Of course, I 
chronicled a number of these instances.
  So we attached to the legislation that passed last night--the 
Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill--amendments that 
will require FEMA to report back to these committees on the changes 
that have been made in response to these deficiencies that were noticed 
by the Inspector General's report.
  But we also put on an amendment that will require FEMA to issue 
consistent and uniform guidelines for the

[[Page 16183]]

local governments regarding their reimbursement for hurricane debris 
removal. This was what was so frustrating to our local governments 
because in one county FEMA would reimburse the local government for the 
debris removal and in another county it would not. You had this 
inconsistency. So in our oversight of the executive branch, it is our 
responsibility to make it. I am happy to say we passed this on this 
bill.
  The third amendment was just a commonsense amendment. Do you know 
what happened? Last year, they were hiring inspectors to go into homes. 
The inspector general's report pointed out that those inspectors did 
not have very much training. Therefore, they were just writing checks 
left and right, not knowing what they were doing. They would write, for 
example, a reimbursement for a demolished house and all the 
accoutrements and complete furnishings, but, in fact, that house did 
not have any furnishings. If the inspector had asked, FEMA would have 
known. Well, that is going to be dealt with, with the amendment, with 
them coming back and reporting on the inspector general's report.
  But do you know what else happened? FEMA allowed inspectors to go in, 
examine a house, and make a determination. But, lo and behold, they 
then came back, and those inspectors bought those houses at bargain 
basement prices, when the homeowner was desperate for cash, at below 
fair market value. The inspector was profiting as a result of the 
inspector having been hired, representing the U.S. Government, FEMA, to 
go in there and help the people, and then coming around and taking 
advantage of the people in their depleted condition.
  So we added an amendment, last night, that is going to prohibit those 
inspectors from entering into contracts with people when they inspect 
their property. It is common sense.
  There is one thing more I want to inform our colleagues in the 
Senate. When I arrived at the emergency operations center in the State 
of Florida Sunday afternoon, just before the hurricane hit--at the time 
when it was about 3 hours out from landfall, it was a category 4--we 
thought the poor people of Pensacola were going to be absolutely 
devastated again from the effects they had 10 months ago with Hurricane 
Ivan, when it hit with such ferociousness. Well, in those intervening 
hours, by landfall, it had come down from a category 4 to a category 2. 
By the way, the differential between 145 miles an hour and 125 miles an 
hour does not sound like much--that is 20 miles an hour--but the 
differential is exponential in its destructive force. When I arrived at 
the emergency operations center--and we were so apprehensive--
immediately, several people in the State of Florida EOC came up to me 
and said: Senator, we want to thank you for standing up and opposing 
legislation that has been filed in the Senate.
  It is legislation that was referred to our Senate Commerce Committee, 
legislation that would require the National Weather Service to take 
their Web site off the Internet, under the legislation filed, if there 
is a competing weather service offered by a commercial entity.
  In this particular legislation, it is a commercial entity in the 
State of the Senator who offered the legislation called AccuWeather. 
What those people in the Florida EOC wanted me to know was that 
AccuWeather, on Saturday before the hurricane hit on Sunday, had been 
predicting it was going in to New Orleans or Mississippi, whereas the 
National Weather Service, through the National Hurricane Center, had 
that track coming straight to an area between Pensacola and Ft. Walton 
Beach, exactly the track where the hurricane hit.
  If we had not had the National Weather Service accuracy available to 
the public of Florida--and they were getting their information from 
this other entity--the people of the gulf coast of Florida would have 
let down their guard and then, all of a sudden, they would have gotten 
hit. There was a lot less destruction this time and, thank the good 
Lord, no loss of life because people heeded the warnings: Get out. The 
day before the hurricane, there was a massive evacuation, very orderly. 
We did not lose one life.
  Here again is another reason why we can be thankful we do have such 
experts. And never, under the guise of privatization, should we say a 
governmental service that often is the difference between life and 
death in my State of Florida should be knocked off the Internet. To the 
contrary, I can tell you last year, the National Weather Service Web 
site got 9 billion--that is with a ``b''--hits in that 6-week period. 
It is a governmental service I am proud of, and I am proud of all the 
people at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. I have called Max 
Mayfield, the director, to tell him how proud I am of all those people. 
They were right on. We never want to focus on that centerline of the 
track because Mother Nature has a mind of her own. We want to focus on 
that cone of possible landfall. But in this case, the National 
Hurricane Center was right on track. My congratulations to them.
  I thank my colleagues for the passage of these amendments regarding 
FEMA last night on the Department of Homeland Security appropriations 
bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.
  (The remarks of Mr. Dorgan pertaining to the introduction of S. 1412 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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