| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Cash Pattell, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were on Capitol Hill for a second day to testify on global threats. | |
| They'll also face questions on the use of a group chat app by senior officials to communicate information about a recent military strike, which was only made public after a journalist was mistakenly added to the conversation. | ||
| Watch the House Intelligence Committee hearing live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| Also on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app or our website, c-span.org. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea, it's a process, a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Next, recommendations for improving the Federal Emergency Management Agency with state and local officials. | ||
| The House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee hearing runs about an hour and 45 minutes. | ||
| Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management will come to order. | ||
| Chair asks unanimous consent that the chairman be authorized to declare a recess at any time during today's hearing without objection. | ||
| So ordered. | ||
| Chairman also asks unanimous consent that members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at today's hearing and ask questions without objection. | ||
| So ordered. | ||
| As a reminder, if members wish to insert a document into the record, please also email it to documents TI at mail.house.gov. | ||
| The chair now recognizes himself for the purpose of an opening statement for five minutes. | ||
| I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss reforming FEMA and how we can bring common sense back to federal emergency management. | ||
| After witnessing the federal government's response to Hurricane Helene last year and the recent Los Angeles wildfires, I, like many Americans, were shocked by many of the stories I heard coming from these communities. | ||
| I know members of this committee have proposed and Congress has enacted reform after reform to make FEMA and the federal emergency management system work better. | ||
| Despite these efforts, it seems that nothing improves, and this is not meant to be a beatdown of FEMA, but we can't just keep going the way we've been and expect different outcomes. | ||
| In fact, the Bureau correction, the bureaucratic labyrinth seems to have only become more complicated, causing unnecessary delays when disaster strikes. | ||
| Taxpayers fund FEMA grant programs for states and local governments to invest in mitigation, preparedness, and response, yet many of these programs move too slow, preventing timely and effective action when it is most direly needed. | ||
| I mean, for 46 years, individual regions should have been reducing risk, the impact of emergencies, and the number of emergencies themselves. | ||
| And unfortunately, the metrics, including the cost and impact, have all gone in the wrong direction. | ||
| What we saw in the case of Hurricane Helene is demonstrative of the fact of that fact. | ||
| FEMA was ill-prepared to support the response and recovery in the mountains of North Carolina. | ||
| In California, we saw a lack of preparedness by state and local officials, from a lack of water for firefighting to disorganization on the ground, despite literally billions of taxpayer dollars going to California for mitigation, preparedness, and firefighting. | ||
| On top of all that, there are still over 1,000 open FEMA disaster declarations dating back to Hurricane Katrina, which is over 20 years ago, and well over 5,000 open projects. | ||
| This raises serious questions about the federal government being the best institution to respond to localized disasters. | ||
| Federal disaster assistance was created to support state and local governments when absolutely necessary, when the resources required exceed the ability of local agencies to respond. | ||
| Unfortunately, the result has been to utilize FEMA as the first responder to every disaster occurring throughout the nation. | ||
| This almost absolute reliance on the federal government is dangerous and costly. | ||
| FEMA was not designed to be the first responder in disasters. | ||
| States and local governments are. | ||
| They know their communities best. | ||
| They understand the risks, what their communities need, the terrain, and how to navigate it quickly, responding to emergencies. | ||
| It is critical, therefore, that state and local governments make disaster preparedness a priority and that they budget for it. | ||
| Let me say that again, and that they budget for it, have the right people and training in place, and ensure that they have the capacity and capability to respond. | ||
| The current system creates a perverse incentive for states. | ||
| States are mostly off the hook for meaningfully investing in their own emergency response and preparedness plans because they know they can rely on FEMA stepping in every time, even if it is inartful at best. | ||
| Meanwhile, FEMA is stretched thin and is so weighed down by self-imposed bureaucratic requirements that they can't respond effectively when called upon or even close out projects going back 20 years. | ||
| FEMA's ability to function effectively was further undermined as the previous administration pushed its open border equity and climate agenda onto the agency, resulting in disaster funding being diverted to ridiculous projects like planting trees to address urban heat islands. | ||
| It's no wonder that President Trump created the FEMA Review Council and issued an executive order on state and local preparedness. | ||
| I am hopeful that this hearing will provide valuable insight as TNI is the lead House Committee on FEMA and federal emergency management because meaningful reform is obviously, absolutely, urgently needed. | ||
| With that, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on these topics. | ||
| And the Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, Representative Stanton, for five minutes for his opening statement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. | |
| Thank you all for attending this important hearing titled Reforming FEMA: Bringing Common Sense Back to Emergency Management. | ||
| I am the new ranking member of this subcommittee, and I take federal disaster assistance delivery very seriously. | ||
| And I look forward to conducting oversight on FEMA's important work. | ||
| FEMA is where Americans look for help, critical help, after what is likely the worst day of their lives. | ||
| So it is critical that the agency be postured to respond at all times. | ||
| For most of its life, FEMA has been an apolitical entity, red state or blue state. | ||
| It didn't matter. | ||
| FEMA stayed focused on the mission to help all Americans and kept out of the political frame. | ||
| Sadly, that is no longer the case today. | ||
| Following the recent catastrophic disasters in California and South Carolina, President Trump has focused more on spreading misinformation than helping Americans in need. | ||
| Specifically after the tragic wildfires in Los Angeles, He threatened to condition disaster relief on policy matters that have nothing to do with emergency management. | ||
| This is simply wrong and shakes the trust that Americans have in their government to come to their aid after catastrophe. | ||
| That's what FEMA is all about. | ||
| We should have a discussion about how to improve FEMA, but we should have a baseline, the need that we, as a baseline, we should acknowledge the need that we have in a federal emergency management agency specifically there to help states and localities when an emergency goes beyond their ability to immediately deal with it. | ||
| Yesterday, DHS Secretary Noam added to that uncertainty facing disaster survivors when she said that we're, quote, we're going to eliminate FEMA, unquote, in a presidential cabinet meeting. | ||
| President Trump responded by saying, quote, great job, unquote. | ||
| I will never support eliminating FEMA or conditioning aid for emergency disaster assistance. | ||
| Whether a state is red or blue, they are American and they are entitled to the support of their federal Americans on their worst day. | ||
| So I condemn calls to condition emergency disaster assistance in the strongest possible terms and urge elected leaders to never make such comments again. | ||
| Unfortunately, threats to conditioning life-saving assistance is not the only partisan game happening at FEMA. | ||
| In February, Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency, entered FEMA and has been wreaking havoc ever since. | ||
| They've accessed secure government systems that include disaster survivors' personal information and slowed the delivery of FEMA assistance. | ||
| I'm deeply troubled to learn that all FEMA grants are now subject to additional review to ensure that they are complementary to President Trump's political agenda. | ||
| And federal employees are living in fear that they will be fired if they approve the wrong grant payment. | ||
| Federal employees should not be concerned about approving grant disbursements approved by this body, Congress, in a bipartisan way. | ||
| In fact, it is a law that FEMA disburse payments that are mandated by Congress. | ||
| Plain and simple, I will not stand by quietly if we see illegal action related to the disbursement of FEMA grants. | ||
| The agency cannot violate the Empoundment Control Act. | ||
| I'm deeply concerned that the influence of DOGE at FEMA, which contains no emergency management experts at DOGE, and that they're going to steer the agency in the direction of another Katrina. | ||
| Prior to Hurricane Katrina, FEMA was overhauled and tucked into the Department of Homeland Security without proper consultation from professional emergency managers. | ||
| FEMA was weakened by being subsumed in the DHS without proper consultation with emergency management professionals. | ||
| The result was unnecessary catastrophic loss of life, the worst in modern disaster history. | ||
| We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. | ||
| That said, reforming FEMA thoughtfully does not mean we should avoid change altogether. | ||
| In Arizona, we know that FEMA can do better. | ||
| Last summer, extreme heat caused temperatures in my district that were nearly unlivable. | ||
| We lost over 600 of our fellow citizens to extreme heat and extreme heat islands. | ||
| We experienced unending 100-degree temperatures for over a month. | ||
| In the past, a break from the heat could be enjoyed during the night, but that is a luxury we no longer have. | ||
| The heat in our state literally caused roads to crack, cars to melt, and hundreds of lives lost. | ||
| However, FEMA was not to be found in Arizona because the agency is not yet adapted to emergency disasters like extreme heat. | ||
| Heat is a silent killer. | ||
| It advances quietly and lingers. | ||
| The longer it lingers, the more devastating the impact. | ||
| So we must reform FEMA to address extreme heat. | ||
| I look forward to working with the agency to ensure that they have the resources and authority they need to respond to disasters all across the country. | ||
| So I look forward to this important hearing, hearing from my colleagues. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Chair, thanks. | ||
| The gentleman, the chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Representative Larson, for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Subcommittee Chair Perry and Subcommittee Ranking Member Stanton for convening today's hearing. | ||
| Emergency management in the U.S. today stands at a crossroads. | ||
| As the nation grapples with devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the wildfires in LA and other disasters across the country, FEMA's role has come under intense scrutiny. | ||
| The combined damage and economic losses from Hurricane Helene and the L.A. wildfires alone exceed $200 billion. | ||
| Successfully managing recovery efforts for such catastrophic events will require robust congressional oversight, supplemental funding, and presidential leadership. | ||
| Instead of uniting the nation, though, to rebuild what has been lost, the administration has unfortunately exploited and politicized these disasters. | ||
| The president has spread misinformation in the wake of these tragedies, threatened to condition disaster aid, and doubled down on his suggestion to eliminate FEMA altogether. | ||
| Just yesterday, Secretary Noam said, We are going to eliminate FEMA, end quote, during a Cabinet meeting. | ||
| No, we are not. | ||
| These actions are harmful to disaster survivors and the women and men who work at FEMA and have dedicated their lives to helping fellow Americans respond to and recover from disasters. | ||
| FEMA's mission is clear to assist people before, during, and after disasters. | ||
| States turn to FEMA when they have exceeded their capacity to respond to a disaster. | ||
| As Pete Gaynor, FEMA administrator during President Trump's first term, aptly stated, emergency management is locally executed, state-managed, and federally supported. | ||
| FEMA provides a critical backstop when all other options and resources are exhausted. | ||
| Eliminating FEMA would not make communities safer, would not reduce insurance premiums, would not improve outcomes for disaster survivors. | ||
| Instead, it would shift the burden of disaster response and accountability from the federal government to state and local governments. | ||
| Democrats have long championed improvements to the delivery of disaster assistance. | ||
| It isn't new to us that FEMA needs to be reformed. | ||
| And last year, many bipartisan FEMA-related bills were discussed in this committee, and we attempted to pass them out of the House. | ||
| Representative Titus' Disaster Survivor Fairness Act to reform FEMA's individual assistance program. | ||
| Representative Stanton's Wildfire Response Improvement Act to make FEMA's programs better equipped to address impacts of wildfires. | ||
| And Representative Nagus' Disaster Management Costs Modernization Act to build state and local emergency management capacity. | ||
| Democrats remain committed to pursuing bipartisan FEMA reforms, and getting reform right, however, requires careful consideration and input from emergency management professionals. | ||
| For example, the President has suggested that disaster assistance could be fixed by simply providing block grants for recovery to impacted states. | ||
| FEMA already offers a block grant option through the Public Assistance Alternative Procedures Program authorized by Section 428 of the Stafford Act. | ||
| However, States rarely use this authority due to the perceived risks involved. | ||
| The Department of Housing and Urban Development's long-term disaster recovery block grant program has faced challenges in Delivering outcomes and similarly has been the subject of bipartisan scrutiny. | ||
| If we want these reforms to Federal emergency management to succeed, the reforms must be informed by the challenges faced by existing programs and built on recent progress. | ||
| For instance, in 2019, Congress authorized the creation of a pre-disaster mitigation grant program known as BRIC to enhance community resilience against disasters while reducing recovery costs for individuals as well as state and local governments. | ||
| This is passed as part of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act. | ||
| And I want to thank the Trump 1.0 administration for advocating for this and for the President for signing that bill. | ||
| So any reforms to FEMA should focus on expanding the agency's capability to support resilience projects and not diminishing them. | ||
| So I look forward to discussing possible solutions to improve FEMA and outcomes for disaster survivors with the panel of qualified experts that we have before us today. | ||
| I want to thank you all for being here. | ||
| I look forward to your testimony. | ||
| Yield back. | ||
| Chair, thanks. | ||
| The gentleman, I'd like to welcome our witnesses and thank them for being there, especially being here, especially the ones who have traveled great distance today. | ||
| Briefly, I'd like to take a moment to explain the lighting system to our witnesses who may not have been here recently or maybe ever. | ||
| There are three lights in front of you: green means go, yellow means you're running out of time, and red means to conclude your remarks. | ||
| Chair asks unanimous consent that the witnesses' full statements be included in the record without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair also asks unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in writing without objection. | ||
| So ordered. | ||
| Chair also asks unanimous consent that the record remain open for 15 days for any additional comments and information submitted by members or witnesses to be included in the record of today's hearing without objection. | ||
| So ordered. | ||
| As your written testimony has been made part of the record, the subcommittee asks that you limit your oral remarks to five minutes. | ||
| With that, Mr. Curry, you are recognized for five minutes for your testimony, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Stanton, and other members of the subcommittee. | |
| It's an honor to be here today to talk about GAO's work on FEMA. | ||
| I think the hearing and the discussions around reform are a great opportunity to address many long-standing challenges that we and many others have identified for years and years. | ||
| We have looked at federal response and recoveries for years, going from Guam to Puerto Rico and everywhere in between. | ||
| And what we have seen is an increasingly complicated, fragmented, inflexible, and lengthy process that seems to get harder and harder by the year. | ||
| FEMA and the rest of the Federal Government have spent over $500 billion in the last 10 years on disaster aid. | ||
| There are currently over 30 Federal agencies that are involved in disaster assistance. | ||
| And many of these programs, which pay for rebuilding the same types of infrastructure, have overlapping or duplicative requirements. | ||
| Just as an example, the Department of Transportation, FEMA, and HUD programs can all be used to build similar infrastructure, but they may require completely different paperwork, different environmental reviews, have different rules, and most difficultly are on different timelines, which makes it virtually impossible to synchronize those programs for recovery. | ||
| This is a major reason why recovery takes up to 20 years, as you said, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Two years ago, we actually issued a report outlining this systemic problem and came up with a number of options that Congress could take to reform the system. | ||
| These were range from simple options to better streamlining current programs, registration websites, things like that, all the way to more significant changes like complete reorganizations and overhauls of disaster agencies themselves. | ||
| On top of this, as you said, FEMA's workforce is overwhelmed. | ||
| There are over 600 major disasters, and as you said, over 1,000 fire disasters and all types of disasters going back many, many years that require staffing to address each one of those and thousands of projects. | ||
| Last we looked at it, FEMA was 35% short of its staffing needs based on the expectations on the agency, and there is now a never-ending disaster season. | ||
| The workforce structure was created at a time when large disasters were very rare, and it needs to be reformed. | ||
| And it's not just about the numbers, but the whole structure needs to be reformed to be more responsive. | ||
| Also, I want to talk about individual survivors. | ||
| We have to shift to programs that are not government-centric, but are survivor-centric. | ||
| And when I say that, I mean they have to be geared towards helping a person get the assistance they need at the worst time of their life. | ||
| A big problem at FEMA are antiquated technology and financial management systems. | ||
| These need to be fixed in order for FEMA to be able to deliver the technology solutions that we already have in the private sector to try to intake people and get them the assistance they need. | ||
| Last thing I'd like to talk about are just a few cautions to consider for this committee as you look to reform the system and for the administration. | ||
| First is the national response framework. | ||
| I think we have to be really careful not to break what's not broken. | ||
| We have to not forget Hurricane Katrina and what we fixed after that. | ||
| The national response framework provides steady funding and coordination mechanisms that all levels of government understand at this point, and I think the structure works well. | ||
| We also have to remember the capacity differences across the country. | ||
| Some states and counties and cities have the resources and the capacity to manage disasters. | ||
| Many others we see just don't. | ||
| And that's not going to change anytime soon. | ||
| These are always going to need state and federal support to provide the response that we need to help those citizens. | ||
| And then last, it's not just about FEMA. | ||
| If we look to reform FEMA but don't fix the whole disaster response or recovery system, it's not going to fix the problem. | ||
| And I think that's very important to consider as we move forward. | ||
| So I look forward to your questions and the discussion. | ||
| Chair, thanks to the gentleman for his testimony. | ||
| The chair now recognizes Mr. Guthrie for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Stanton, also Ranking Member Larson, and other distinguished members of the committee for the invitation to testify today. | |
| I'm Kevin Guthrie. | ||
| I'm the Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. | ||
| Throughout my tenure, I've led the division through numerous major events, including hurricanes such as Ian, Michael, Dorian, ECIAS, as well as wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and the surfside building collapse. | ||
| I've also assisted in national immigration efforts like Operation Vigilant Century in Florida and Operation Lone Star in Texas. | ||
| In my 30-plus years of experience at the local and state level, I've responded to over 50 major incidents. | ||
| Under Governor Ron DeSantis' leadership, FDM has become a model for the future of emergency management. | ||
| This is due to our professionals' dedication and the lessons learned from our experience in a disaster-prone state. | ||
| Florida looks forward to working with you and President Trump's administration to improve the Federal Emergency Management Agency. | ||
| We have learned the importance of effective coordination across all levels of government. | ||
| FDM allows the philosophy that emergencies are federally supported, state-managed, and locally executed. | ||
| We emphasize collaboration with local governments, supporting their response efforts instead of dictating them. | ||
| This approach has allowed us to build on local best practices and continuously improve Florida's emergency management capabilities. | ||
| This collaborative model is enhanced by the critical support that the Federal Government provides. | ||
| FDM operates year-round, requiring funding even for non-disaster periods. | ||
| While federal grants help maintain our capabilities, we need to focus federal support on expanding state and local capacities. | ||
| States must have flexibility to build their systems without relying on federal funding during a non-crisis period. | ||
| One way to solidify this approach is through federal block grants for emergency management. | ||
| Block grants will allow states to quickly allocate funding for response and recovery operations, reducing bureaucratic delays and staffing needs at the federal level. | ||
| As we look to future improvements, one key area, as mentioned, is the integration of modern technology into our response systems. | ||
| Florida has led the way and has modernized emergency management by digitizing workflows and improving data input processes. | ||
| This has improved our efficiency, reduced delays, and expedited payment processing, cutting the time it takes to process invoices from 61 days during Hurricane Ian to just 16 days in recent hurricane season. | ||
| Our use of technology has also reduced administrative costs and helped streamline disaster response. | ||
| Data sharing among federal, state, and local agencies is essential to improving response times. | ||
| Leveraging advanced analytics, machine learning has empowered decision makers in Florida to act faster and be more accurate than ever before. | ||
| Another critical component of Florida's success has been our ability to collaborate with our other states through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, known as EMAC. | ||
| EMAC, which is financially supported by the Federal Government, has been essential in States receiving aid that they need when they lack the necessary resources to respond and recover independently. | ||
| Since 2022, Florida has leveraged EMAC in six major disasters, receiving crucial support from 39 states. | ||
| While collaboration has been effective, there are still areas where federal processes could be streamlined to enhance disaster response. | ||
| There are several ways the federal government can improve disaster response, such as creating a combined federal disaster declaration process. | ||
| This would eliminate delays caused by separate declarations for separate agencies. | ||
| Additionally, streamlining disaster case management. | ||
| And last, grant closeout procedures would accelerate recovery efforts and reduce displacement for survivors. | ||
| All three of these have impacted me directly during my tenure with the State of Florida. | ||
| As we continue to enhance our capabilities, Florida also emphasizes the importance of operational readiness. | ||
| FDM maintains a network of strategically located warehouses for rapid resource deployment and implements emergency standby contracts to ensure fast access to critical resources. | ||
| Routine communication with State, local, and Federal partners through the State Emergency Response Team in Florida keeps Florida prepared for disaster. | ||
| Sir, in conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to testify before you today. | ||
| Emergency management is a public safety entity that is essential for protecting lives and property. | ||
| By improving Federal support, we can strengthen our Nation's disaster response capabilities and ensure faster recovery for all Americans. | ||
| I look forward to continued collaboration with you, the committee, and the administration to improve these systems. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Chair, thanks to the gentleman for his testimony. | ||
| The chair now recognizes Ms. Lauder. | ||
| You're recognized for five minutes, ma'am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman and members of the committee. | |
| Nine days. | ||
| For nine days, my county's emergency responders and I bore witness to the aftermath of the most devastating natural disaster to hit our community in over 100 years. | ||
| We witnessed a family's terror when their little boy was injured in a landslide taking their home off its foundation. | ||
| We witnessed a very pregnant mother desperately trying to dry out her empty trailer with dehumidifiers that she would have somewhere to bring her baby home to, all of her possessions in a dumpster nearby. | ||
| We witnessed the elderly man in his home too overwhelmed to start the process with mold creeping up the walls around him within days of the flood. | ||
| For those nine long days, our community was trying to grapple with the destruction of Helene, trying to chart a path forward, searching for answers to questions, and without the key partner who was supposed to be at our aid, without FEMA. | ||
| And it would be two weeks after the storm before more than a single worker arrived, despite repeated pleas for help. | ||
| Locally, we knew housing was going to be one of the greatest challenges. | ||
| Immediate needs post-storm are the basic necessities we all understand, clean water, food, and shelter. | ||
| FEMA temporary shelter assistance is ill-fitted to meet the needs of rural America. | ||
| Our citizens who qualified for TSA found hotel choices to be in Greenville, South Carolina, or Charlotte, North Carolina, both two hours outside of our county, leaving untenable options to stay in damaged homes, bunk with family and friends, or leave their jobs, school, and community behind for an unknown time. | ||
| Appalachians don't leave our home, our land, or the fabric of our community, so the TSA vouchers may as well have been monopoly money. | ||
| Even after FEMA's arrival, the negative impact of delay in FEMA response was compounded by ongoing communication challenges, changing FEMA staff assignments, and contradicting information and directions that stalled progress for my community. | ||
| In the written testimony, you will even see where our sheriff and I were repeatedly given opposite updates on door-to-door response by FEMA representatives that could have resulted in conflicting public messages, except for the fact that in my community, the sheriff and I worked side by side in emergency response, communicating regularly. | ||
| At 21 days and with tireless advocacy, we were granted a meeting with FEMA housing mission leaders. | ||
| We received an overview of the housing options coming along with identifying some obstacles that we would face. | ||
| For instance, we were able to explain the inadequacy of HUD's fair market rent methodology in our rural community and how that would hamstring any possibility of rentals being an option if the FMR was used to establish allowable rents. | ||
| We were heard, and a request was elevated immediately to approve an increase in the allowable FEMA rate. | ||
| Even with the increase, rental assistance could not meet the needs of those whose homes were destroyed, and more options would be needed. | ||
| Ultimately, we found that housing process requirements under FEMA are too rigid to apply effectively in our mountainous community. | ||
| For those who could leverage the assistance options, progress was only made after establishing weekly FEMA and state EM calls with us locally to cut through miscommunications and establish accountable discussions. | ||
| At times, our county would face contradictions from different FEMA silos, as you will also find documented in the written testimony. | ||
| While putting our county resources to task trying to support the FEMA mission, we would also feel the sting of the deep conflict and contradiction of FEMA being both disaster response and regulator of local flood plane management programs. | ||
| Threats of losing NFIP status and future disaster funding in our community made it harder to assist families in repairing their homes to meet immediate human needs post-disaster, while at the same time, other FEMA workers were working with us to support housing among limited solutions. | ||
| Contradicting guidance and unclear processes were also frustrating to vulnerable survivors, and lack of answers led to terierating public trust and faith in FEMA, but not because the people deployed were not genuine and service-oriented people. | ||
| It was because the workers themselves were stuck in a system designed to prioritize process and policy over common sense and responsiveness. | ||
| We saw these workers hamstrung to help us with the lack of training across functions and a system difficult to navigate even for them. | ||
| While there were genuine attempts to be responsive to the local needs like approving private roads and bridges for assistance in Western North Carolina, the decisions on requirements attached were made in bubbles far away from our community that did not engage local leadership, meaning that guidance is still fraught with concerns about the ability to meet the requirements that will be imposed. | ||
| Transylvania County lost homes, infrastructure, and possessions, but somehow we did not lose lives at Tolene. | ||
| What I can't imagine is how our sister counties who lost whole towns are navigating these processes when the recovery is far more complex and the sting of loss so much deeper. | ||
| Communities facing recovery need assistance, with our counties representing the frontline response needed and needing realistic solutions and meaningful engagement before a disaster. | ||
| The stated mission of a response at FEMA can be achieved, but only when the local voice is not just heard, but is also involved in the solution building so that practical boots-on-the-ground insight can be engaged upfront. | ||
| Only then can we effective and efficiently support our survivors. | ||
| My community, all of our communities, our people across the country, and the FEMA workers themselves deserve better. | ||
| Together, we must do better. | ||
| Thank you for the opportunity to share about my community's experience. | ||
| Chair, thanks a gentlelady for her testimony. | ||
| The chair now recognizes Mr. Garcia for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Staten, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for having me today. | |
| My name is Adrian Garcia, and I am a county commissioner in Harris County, Texas, and I'm here on behalf of the National Association of Counties, where I serve as the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Disaster Reform Task Force. | ||
| Among the many responsibilities entrusted to counties, we are on the front lines of disaster mitigation, response, and recovery. | ||
| Nearly 900 counties each year receive at least one disaster, presidential disaster declaration. | ||
| This results in major economic losses, serious effects on communities, and immense pressures on local resources. | ||
| Following a disaster, local elected officials and emergency managers are the first on the scene and play a key role in recovery and rebuilding efforts so our residents can return to their lives as quickly as possible. | ||
| As major owners and operators of public infrastructure, counties are uniquely positioned to mitigate the impacts of disasters. | ||
| America's 3,069 counties-owned parishes and boroughs own 44% of public roads, 38% of the national bridge inventory, over 900 hospitals, and directly support a third of the nation's airports. | ||
| I'm here today to underscore the county role in strengthening our nation against disasters and to discuss how we can best work together to meet the challenges of today and the demands of the future. | ||
| First, FEMA is crucial for communities before, during, and after disasters. | ||
| That said, inefficiencies in the agency do demand urgent reform. | ||
| Disaster response, recovery, and mitigation starts local and absolutely ends local. | ||
| However, these efforts would not be possible without the support from critical federal programs. | ||
| One such program that counties rely on is FEMA's public assistance program. | ||
| PA is crucial for helping communities rebuild after disasters, but the lengthy process to receive reimbursement can delay recovery efforts and hinder our ability to restore critical services post-disaster. | ||
| Last year, NACO conducted a survey of its members that concluded that one in five counties' longest open PA claim had been in process in between four and six years. | ||
| Counties urge Congress to take decisive action to expedite funding from this PA program, ensuring communities receive the critical resources we need for timely disaster recovery and rebuilding. | ||
| Second, removing barriers to funding and resources for underserved and disadvantaged communities is absolutely critical. | ||
| Requiring the completion of complex and burdensome paperwork by communities who are unfamiliar with the process during the most stressful times of their lives can significantly impede progress when it is most needed. | ||
| Populations that feel the biggest impact are often our underserved and disadvantaged communities who lack the resources and capacity to complete applications and meet critical deadlines. | ||
| Implementing plain language into applications, reducing bureaucratic red tape, and identifying resources available to assist applicants is paramount to improving the overall resilience of our nation. | ||
| Counties are supportive of bipartisan legislation like the Disaster Survivors Fairness Act and the Disaster Assistance Simplification Act, which would streamline the application process and reduce redundant paperwork. | ||
| Finally, counties understand that improving our nation's disaster system relies on a strong federal, state, local partnership. | ||
| Counties are not merely stakeholders in this conversation. | ||
| Rather, we are a part of the federal, state, and local partnership of governments that target, that together can work together to share the responsibility of protecting our nation and its residents from disasters. | ||
| While disasters are inherently local, counties rely on our state and federal partners for critical disaster recovery tools like funding, human capital, and technical assistance. | ||
| Rebuilding our communities and making them more resilient is only possible with the support of our federal and state partners. | ||
| Counties stand ready to work side by side with you to improve our nation's disaster response, recovery, and mitigation capabilities to ensure the health, well-being, and safety of our nation and our residents. | ||
| Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Staten, thank you again for the invitation to discuss this critical issue on behalf of America's counties. | ||
| This concludes my testimony, and I'm happy to take any questions. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Chair, thanks a gentleman, as well as thanking all the members or the witnesses for their testimony. | ||
| We will now turn to questions for the panel, and the chair recognizes himself for the first round of questions. | ||
| I'm going to start with you, Ms. Lauder. | ||
| I read through a bunch of what you submitted. | ||
| I'll admit I didn't read through every single bit of it. | ||
| It's voluminous, emails and correspondence. | ||
| And as the county manager, I'm not sure maybe you never thought about the mission of FEMA, but it's to coordinate between the federal agencies and, of course, state and local agencies. | ||
| But it was never designed to be the command in control and do all the work, right? | ||
| But that's kind of what's expected of it now. | ||
| And it seems to me as the person that's trying to figure that out, you know, in the aftermath of this devastating disaster, like you don't have time to figure that out. | ||
| You're just trying to deliver, right? | ||
| I remember the two times we were flooded out of our home. | ||
| One time we stayed in the fire hall before we moved to a neighbor's house that wasn't affected. | ||
| Somebody we didn't even know just offered to come take us in. | ||
| And then the other time was at the township building. | ||
| And I'm thinking about it, but it seems to me as I read through your correspondence here, much of your county didn't even exist, right? | ||
| There wasn't any, there might not have been a township building, a fire hall, or a neighbor's house to go to. | ||
| And so I'm just wondering from your experience, I mean, you couldn't get answers even about a federally owned property for which to place temporary housing, and you couldn't get any answers on that, let alone the housing. | ||
| If you were going to give everybody here, which I think are very interested in trying to figure out how to make this work, what would be the one message, you know, As a person who has lived through it and experienced it and been frustrated by it and seen people like you like you described living in trailers filled with mold and having no prospect whatsoever of anything changing anytime soon. | ||
| What would be the one message regarding what FEMA? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How it would be different in your eyes if it were gonna work at local government? | |
| We were looking for resources, we needed assistance, and what we could not find were how to leverage those resources. | ||
| The resources that we were offered, like TSA, were very clearly not suited for my community, and so I think the message that I would have is that number one communication. | ||
| If there's resources being offered, we need to understand what those terms are up front, so that we can even evaluate whether or not they're going to be effective in a community. | ||
| The second is, there has to be some responsiveness. | ||
| If, whenever we identified issues, whenever we identified resources like the federal property, we had to follow up on that ourselves, we were living a disaster in our own lives. | ||
| We were living a disaster with our community, and yet we were having to come to follow up repeatedly in order to try to get any progress or any answers, or even find out if our requests were being heard anywhere. | ||
| I submitted that property no less than four times in four different ways and still, when I got on a call in November to ask about housing, they pulled up a database and none of those requests managed to get into the database. | ||
| So I think the two messages are that the communication structures have to be robust. | ||
| They need to happen before the disaster so that we know who even to call, and we also need to know upfront how to use these resources or make those resources more flexible so that whenever we identify what the needs are and how that's going to play out in our community, we can use them. | ||
| Is there any? | ||
| Do you have any indication at this point why it took so long for female even show up? | ||
| Right, you're like right after this happened. | ||
| Obviously everybody knows what's happened, but it took days and days. | ||
| And then I think it's my understanding when they finally did show up, they were headquarters like 90 miles away, which is a fair drive right, especially in bad condition. | ||
| Do you have any indication now? | ||
| What took them so long? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have never been given a reason I can hypothesize. | |
| I think the fact that we are on the edge of of the disaster was part of it. | ||
| It's hard to get through the mountains. | ||
| You don't get places very easily. | ||
| The only other thing I can imagine is that our numbers, like for a TSA, did not look like they were high, which could indicate on a data front point that we didn't need help, but they weren't high because they it wasn't an applicable solution for Translania County. | ||
| Okay, I got a lot of questions and a little bit of time here for each one of you. | ||
| Mr Guthrie, you uh perfected, I think, or at least Honed, a fraud prevention program in your state. | ||
| Can you briefly outline how that might be applicable to FEMA? | ||
| Because there is a huge amount of fraud in the FEMA dollars that are spent, and we'd obviously like that not to be the case. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman Perry, for that question. | |
| In Florida, we knew that there was the propensity to have fraud, waste, and abuse. | ||
| And what we did starting about two years ago is we built a program that we want to get good structured data into our system. | ||
| That helps us get good structured data, and it allows us to utilize large language modeling, machine learning, and to a certain point, some generative AI to predict when we may have a duplicate payment, or the payment doesn't actually check the box for the contract. | ||
| In other words, a vendor has charged us more than what they should have. | ||
| So, again, it focuses from a standpoint of getting the good structured data into the system, and then we use machine learning on the backside to do that. | ||
| And we are detecting just in the recent months, we had three situations for about $600,000 that we flagged for potential fraud, waste, or abuse, and then we put eyes on that to then investigate it and correct the anomalies that were in the invoices. | ||
| And it was just that. | ||
| It was an anomaly in the invoices where we were charged a different rate when we should have been charged a lower rate, but it did end up saving taxpayer dollars just in the last three months $600,000. | ||
| I appreciate the response. | ||
| I'm way over my time, so I yield, recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Ranking Member Stanton. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. | |
| My first question is for Mr. Guthrie, Florida's Executive Director for Emergency Management. | ||
| Florida is arguably one of the states most capable of responding to disasters on its own, but you do rely on Federal assistance from FEMA and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact EMAC system when responding to catastrophic events. | ||
| At yesterday's Cabinet hearing, Secretary Noam did indicate her desire to eliminate FEMA. | ||
| The President indicated support for that plan to eliminate FEMA. | ||
| From your perspective, how would post-disaster outcomes for Floridians be impacted if FEMA were eliminated? | ||
| Thank you for the question. | ||
| At the end of the day, we need federal support. | ||
| I go back to what you mentioned in your opening statement, sir. | ||
| Federal support, state-managed, locally executed. | ||
| We need to focus on the state-managed part. | ||
| That has been a part of that phrase since Brock Long was a FEMA administrator. | ||
| But we haven't focused on the state-managed piece. | ||
| We keep going back to the Federal Government. | ||
| We need to focus more on that state-managed piece and actually make sure that we're managing disasters at the State level. | ||
| We are allowing local levels to execute in a common sense approach while we need Federal support. | ||
| Now, if that looks like a FEMA of the future, which I think all emergency managers nationwide would agree, FEMA needs to be reformed. | ||
| That's a task that takes, obviously, presidential and congressional action to eliminate FEMA. | ||
| So we want to work with the Federal Government. | ||
| We want to work with the President. | ||
| We want to work with the legislature on what that looks like in the future. | ||
| But to the point, we do need Federal support. | ||
| Florida can probably handle 95 to 97 percent of what we do on a day-to-day basis. | ||
| But for example, in Hurricane Helena-Milton, we needed a million gallons of fuel. | ||
| We went to FEMA, who went to the Department of Defense and the Defense Logistics Agency to meet that need. | ||
| So, again, even a highly capable capacity state like Florida, from time to time, needs federal support. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Mr. Curry, the federal law is very clear about the qualification requirements for the FEMA administrator. | ||
| The President has named Cameron Hamilton, the senior official performing the duties of administrator. | ||
| In your opinion, does he possess the qualifications that are legally required to run the agency? | ||
| Well, we've actually been asked to look at this and the legality. | ||
| I'm serving in that role under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which GAO has a role in that. | ||
| And so we'll do that and have that result pretty quickly. | ||
| But I will say that the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act is pretty clear about the requirements for FEMA administrator. | ||
| It requires two things. | ||
| One is the person to have significant emergency management experience, and the other thing is at least five years of executive experience. | ||
| So that's what the law says. | ||
| But I want to be very clear that the ideal state is to have a Senate confirmed administrator. | ||
| The Senate confirmation process is the process for vetting a candidate's experience and their ability to do that job effectively. | ||
| We saw in Katrina just how horrifically wrong can go if you have someone who's the head of FEMA who doesn't have experience in emergency management. | ||
| It is critical. | ||
| So we want to get that done as soon as possible. | ||
| Ms. Curry, in your role at the GAO, you understand the risk of overhauling federal programs without proper consideration. | ||
| FEMA underwent significant reorganization without proper input for emergency managers before Hurricane Katrina, and that did contribute to those tragic outcomes. | ||
| What should this administration and this Congress consider to ensure that we don't cripple FEMA's lifesaving responsibilities when attempting to reform this critical agency? | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Yeah, like I said in my opening statement, we can't break what's not broken. | ||
| And the only people that can tell you that are our first-line emergency managers and responders. | ||
| There are things that work well in the current system. | ||
| The problem is you don't hear good news often. | ||
| There are things that work. | ||
| We want to keep those. | ||
| We want to fix the things that don't work. | ||
| The other thing I'll say is we have to fix the root causes. | ||
| If we just move agencies, rename agencies, rename programs, but don't fix the root causes, none of this is going to change. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| I want to go next to our local elected official, Mr. Garcia. | ||
| Can you also explain how disaster response in your county would be impacted without access to federal resources or support after a disaster? | ||
| Ranking Member, without access to federal resources or funding, our county's disaster response would absolutely be severely compromised. | ||
| Local governments simply don't have the financial capacity or staffing to manage large-scale recovery efforts, meaning vital services like debris removal, infrastructure repairs, emergency sheltering would be delayed or inaccessible. | ||
| Federal support is essential for ensuring a coordinated and effective response, allowing us to restore public safety and meet the needs of our residents as quickly as possible. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman yields back, and I recognized the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Easel, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| That's easy, and I appreciate that. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today. | ||
| Mississippi is no stranger to storms, most notably as we've talked about Katrina, where we lost the lives of over 1,300 people and $125 billion in damage. | ||
| In 2005, Congress enacted the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which reestablished FEMA as a distinct entity within DHS. | ||
| As we approach the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I'm still waiting for FEMA to respond to claims in my district associated with this devastating storm. | ||
| It's unacceptable and a perfect example of how the federal government has let our people down. | ||
| I'm proud to have led, co-led, and passed several bills that seek to improve FEMA. | ||
| Bills like H.R. 2254, the Don't Penalize Victims Acts, H.R. 152, the Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act, and H.R. 153, the Post-Disaster Assistance Online Accountability Act. | ||
| I was thrilled when President Trump recently announced the creation of FEMA Review Council to evaluate FEMA bureaucracy and disaster response. | ||
| FEMA has spent $30 billion in disaster aid each of the past three years, yet many disaster survivors and taxpayers still lack the resources they need. | ||
| I've been working closely with FEMA to address outstanding issues in my district, and I look forward to seeing how we can improve the process for future disasters because we know they're going to happen. | ||
| Before I get too far, I want to enter a document from St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, reflecting some of the reforms that we've discussed for the agency. | ||
| I want to ask Mr. Curry without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Curry, the GAO has done a great job, has done great reports on the problems with risk rating 2.0. | ||
| Each community across the nation has invested many resources to manage its membership in the NFIP. | ||
| The primary issue with risk rating 2.0 is a lack of transparency regarding the algorithm. | ||
| This results in communities being unable to make decisions to target resiliency projects, plan future growth, formulate effective policies, or simply ensure that they're not wasting resources. | ||
| Its impact today is felt more than ever. | ||
| With the rising cost of housing, this policy hides the actual cost of home ownership. | ||
| Mr. Curry, could you reflect on the damage and concerns attached to the lack of transparency of risk rating 2.0? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| FEMA has a huge challenge with the National Flood Insurance Program. | ||
| The idea behind Risk Rating 2.0 is the right one, which is you want to assess each house's individual risk to a disaster and not just assume that everybody in an area has the same exact risk. | ||
| The challenge is that if your house is at higher risk, your premiums are going to be higher. | ||
| So they are trying to get the program to the point of solvency or close to solvency because it's never been solvent. | ||
| It's $20 billion in debt. | ||
| And honestly, sir, it's up to the Congress now to decide what they want this program to be. | ||
| Do they want it to be an insurance program or do they want it to be a federal disaster assistance program? | ||
| As long as premiums do not cover the cost of the program, a large portion of the flood insurance program is a disaster aid program. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| What reforms could resolve the possible damage that risk rating 2.0 can have on families and communities in general? | ||
| Well, there's a number of different options that have been put out there. | ||
| For example, state or federal programs to help supplement homeowners of a certain income level or certain income threshold, just like we do with other programs who can't, who are basically going to be priced out of a certain market because they can't afford the flood insurance. | ||
| Well, they barely afford the mortgage and then barely afford the flood insurance on top of that. | ||
| And so there's a number of options like that, but unfortunately, there's no easy options that will drive down the cost. | ||
| It's going to be very expensive, and somebody has to pay for the cost, either the taxpayer, the state, or the federal government. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Should some of the procedures within NFIB be standardized and transparent to ensure that communities can effectively use their resources? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I mean, that's key. | ||
| And FEMA, through its flood mapping project, should be very transparent about the risk of each individual property. | ||
| And so, I mean, they have a long way to go in implementing this program and making sure there's transparency. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| If I may have just another 30 seconds. | ||
| No objection. | ||
| In my home state of Mississippi and also along the Gulf Coast, after the hurricane, FEMA just came in there and blanketed just about the whole area that was flooded and just moved all the flood maps. | ||
| Since then, and since I've been in the Congress, I have worked tirelessly trying to get some sort of order back in place so that we could, you know, this is a once-in-a-lifetime storm and it's not happened again. | ||
| And I just got to say that it's been very frustrating. | ||
| They have the flood maps, but they don't know how to implement them. | ||
| And we're waiting for those things to get implemented. | ||
| And that's very frustrating to people who are trying to buy, build, or have a live future on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. | ||
| So with that, if you got any way that you could tell them to hurry up and get those things adopted, we sure would appreciate it. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman yields back, and I recognize the gentlelady from Michigan, McDonald Revitt, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I want to start just by thanking Chairman Perry and Ranking Member Stanton for holding this hearing on what seems to be a bipartisan level of frustration. | ||
| I represent a community in Michigan, Midland, Michigan, that five years ago saw multiple dams fail after heavy rainfall. | ||
| In fact, I personally ran one of the evacuation centers. | ||
| It caused massive flooding and water levels reaching as high as 35 feet above normal levels. | ||
| Thankfully, no one died in that, which I actually just think is a miracle. | ||
| But it resulted in over $200 million in damages. | ||
| And not only did it decimate our infrastructure, like our roads and bridges, it destroyed homes that families had lived in for generations and small businesses that families had dedicated their entire lives to. | ||
| So here we sit five years later. | ||
| Ms. Lauder, I hear your story and it just resonated so deeply with me. | ||
| It is a continuous struggle, a continuing struggle in order to resolve the pieces that FEMA came in to help. | ||
| But what we see over and over again, like multiple federal programs, is that the intent of FEMA and the amazing Amazing people who work there is dying under a cumbersome bureaucracy that is so frustrating, particularly for local people who don't have the experience of dealing with big federal bureaucracies and are just at the point of giving up. | ||
| Our local communities are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is nothing in a federal budget, but everything in a local budget. | ||
| So, I do want to just say that I understand the frustration, but what I'm not understanding is the suggested remedy, which is a suggested elimination of FEMA, and also the suggestion that this actually can be solved at a local level if states and locals would just budget more appropriately. | ||
| Which, having been a state senator on the appropriations committee, I can tell you states cannot handle this just by budgeting, handling this on their own, and in particular when we're simultaneously considering extensive cuts, including $880 billion from our Medicaid program. | ||
| I mean, it just defies common sense. | ||
| But I do think we have to do something because we can't tolerate this, and my local community still sits there and waits. | ||
| And I hope it doesn't take five years for you. | ||
| But I hear you, Mr. Curry, when you were talking about, okay, what can we do? | ||
| We know that block granting is also a very difficult solution because most federal block grants, again, as a state appropriator, come with burdensome, like incredibly complex and burdensome regulations. | ||
| But you said, let's address the root causes. | ||
| Everything isn't broken. | ||
| But I didn't hear you say what those root causes are, and I would love to hear that. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| I'll take, let me take the grant issue. | ||
| And so a lot has been talked about recently about switching FEMA to a block grant. | ||
| I'm not so much just concerned with the name of the grant. | ||
| A block grant just means theoretically that you provide all the funding up front and the state manages it instead of the federal government holding the money and doling it out slowly, which is what the FEMA process is. | ||
| The root cause is that the process is too complicated and there's too many rules and overlapping requirements and inconsistency for the years that go on with recovery. | ||
| Turnover and staffing plays into this too, and different cultural changes at FEMA. | ||
| So the problem is that you have an infrastructure project that could take 10 to 15 years to rebuild. | ||
| And all throughout there, there's cost changes and you have to go back and forth to the federal government. | ||
| It's very, very confusing. | ||
| I think what we're trying to do is we want to come up with something where the federal government still provides the support that the states will never be able to come up with, like you said. | ||
| But it does so in a way that they provide it to the state where there's flexibility, but there's still the appropriate oversight and controls. | ||
| And that's the balance you're trying to strike. | ||
| With block granting, you give up some of the control at the federal level and the oversight, but you give the states more flexibility. | ||
| If you don't design the block, I just want to say, in your experience, and I know this is a bit of an unfair question, but have you ever seen a federal to state block grant that did not come with its own set of rules and overlapping requirements? | ||
| It does, but we have to build it better in this case. | ||
| So, for example, with the community development block grant, disaster recovery, one of the challenges with that is that you try to build the whole program up front and then turn it over to the states, and that takes too long. | ||
| So the money doesn't get there quick enough. | ||
| We have to build this system and the rules and requirements up front, get the states up to speed on it, get everyone familiar with the process, build their system so they can manage this amount of money so it can be turned over much quicker. | ||
| And that's very possible to do. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentlelady yields back, and I recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Kennedy, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Stanton. | ||
| And today's hearing is more about more than just about FEMA reform. | ||
| It's about shifting the center of gravity away from bloated Federal bureaucracy and toward capable states that are closest to the people that they serve. | ||
| In Utah, we know how to do more with less. | ||
| We invest wisely and build strong partnerships between the state and local governments. | ||
| That same principle, clear, locally led coordination between state and local governments, should guide how we approach emergency management across the country. | ||
| Whether it's wildfires in California, hurricanes in the Southeast, or earthquakes and flooding risks in Utah, we must ensure the Federal Government is a reliable partner, not a bureaucratic bottleneck. | ||
| FEMA should be empowering states and counties, not burying them under red tape. | ||
| When agencies grow too large and too distant from the people they serve, they lose the ability to act with urgency, efficiency, or local understanding. | ||
| Emergency management is just one example, but it's a critical one. | ||
| I support President Trump's executive order establishing the FEMA Review Council. | ||
| We need that top-to-bottom review, and I look forward to working with the committee to play a leading role in it. | ||
| I had a few questions for Mr. Curie and Mr. Guthrie. | ||
| We've talked about block grants, and both you have mentioned that in your testimonies. | ||
| Can you give me some more specifics about if we were to do something like that, how would you do that without fraud, waste, and abuse, but also cut the red tape and allow that money to be used immediately? | ||
| I'll start with you, Mr. Curie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, sure. | |
| Well, I think there's a misconception that with a block grant that there's no oversight, that you appropriate the money, Congress appropriates the money and they write a check to the state and it's done. | ||
| That's not how it works. | ||
| There is most block grants, the state and the federal government work together to develop very specific rules and requirements and controls and audit processes. | ||
| It's just more the money is delivered upfront. | ||
| So it's going to take some time if you develop this into a block grant to train and build the state's capacities. | ||
| Some states, like Florida, probably is going to be very quick. | ||
| Other states, it's not. | ||
| Other communities, it's not. | ||
| And so it's possible to do this. | ||
| But I also think this needs to be very different than other block grants that we've created before. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for the question. | |
| And it somewhat goes to the previous Congresswoman's question as well. | ||
| I'll give you two examples of where we can really speed this up. | ||
| Number one, environmental historical preservation. | ||
| In the emergency management community, I have several state directors sitting behind me. | ||
| That is where projects go to die. | ||
| It could take four to six years to get that done. | ||
| Every state has an environmental and historical preservation officer. | ||
| Why are we duplicating effort on that? | ||
| Let the state do their job. | ||
| Let us document the file and put that as a part of the file. | ||
| We can speed that process up by at least 90 percent savings in time. | ||
| I'll give you another example: the Consolidated Resource Center. | ||
| I would move to abolish the Consolidated Resource Center. | ||
| Again, that is where people send us RFIs, numerous RFIs, hundreds of RFIs, requests for information. | ||
| Again, the State is responsible for managing its grant, whether it's a block grant or if it's a traditional grant. | ||
| We do that. | ||
| But the number of RFIs that come out, and one of our individuals from Alabama talked about he literally had to give some type of minute piece of information in a debris removal claim, that's insane. | ||
| So, those are two examples of where that's already happening at the state level to document those state actions. | ||
| It should be a part of the file, and we move on. | ||
| Thank you for those suggestions. | ||
| And, Mr. Garcia, if I could ask you a question about the counties, and I agree with the potency of counties, and I think that was a big part of your statement. | ||
| The question that I had is the hierarchy that you would consider associated with counties, because the governor is generally in charge of the state. | ||
| The idea of the federal government, for example, giving grants to a county directly and subverting the role of the governor. | ||
| I'm curious how you would, if you were to see federal funds flowing, would you have those funds go directly to counties or would you have them go to the governor and subsequently to the counties? | ||
| What is your thought about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, some counties have capacity like Harris County. | |
| We're very fortunate in that regard, but not everybody does. | ||
| And so we absolutely need to find ways to work with both entities where you work through the states in some regards. | ||
| But for example, in places like Oregon, Oregon is a state that has experienced some delays in reimbursements for their recovery process, but places like Hamilton County has had to suspend current bids because they're just struggling with some of that process. | ||
| But I think you find ways to work both with the counties and the states who have capacity and some who struggle with it. | ||
| Thank you very much for that answer. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I'm committed to helping bring common sense and efficiency to this program. | ||
| It's an essential program, but I think there's better ways that we can do it. | ||
| And thank you to the witnesses for their willingness to come and educate us about this. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| The gentleman yields back, and I recognize the gentlewoman from Nevada, Ms. Titus, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Earlier, the ranking member of the full committee mentioned, and I appreciated it, the Disaster Survivor Fairness Act that I had introduced with my colleague from North Carolina, Representative Edwards, Republican. | ||
| This would streamline federal assistance for disaster victims and expand FEMA's authority to help make homes more resilient for future disasters. | ||
| I'm pleased that NACO endorsed this legislation. | ||
| It was a pleasure speaking to you, Commissioner Garcia, and other members of NACO about this topic earlier. | ||
| In your testimony, you urged federal policymakers to remove barriers to funding and resources for underserved and disadvantaged communities. | ||
| How would creating a universal application for individual disaster assistance help in that effort that you mentioned? | ||
| Thank you for the question. | ||
| The reality is that making sure that the barriers are removed, as I've mentioned in my testimony, is very, very important. | ||
| It is critical that we make it plain language as suggested in the various two pieces of legislation that I mentioned, the Survivors and Simplification Act. | ||
| Those speak to the challenges that many of our underserved and disadvantaged communities struggle with. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, thank you for that. | ||
| I appreciate the support. | ||
| I was looking for a little more detail of how it will be helpful, but that's good enough. | ||
| I represent Las Vegas, and we don't have a lot of hurricanes in Las Vegas, except, you know, we could probably make one if we decided that would be a tourist attraction. | ||
| But anyway, one of the weather hazards that we do have is extreme heat. | ||
| And this past year, we had the hottest day ever in Las Vegas, 120 degrees. | ||
| And statistics from the National Weather Service show that heat kills more people than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined in any given year. | ||
| There were over 520 heat-related fatalities in Clark County last year alone. | ||
| So I have an Extreme Weather and Heat Response Modernization Act so FEMA can more aggressively include extreme temperatures, especially heat, in its disaster planning and have the resources to deal with it. | ||
| I wonder if all three of you would, or all four of you, would take a minute just to talk about how extreme heat is impacting the communities you serve and how this would be helpful. | ||
| May we start, Mr. Curry? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Yeah, I'm familiar with the statistic you mentioned, too, that they do kill heat kills more people than all the other disasters combined. | ||
| The challenge right now for FEMA is the whole system relies on quantifying damage to figure out if they provide help. | ||
| And heat is a very difficult thing to quantify in their current system. | ||
| I agree with you that there's no better thing to quantify in terms of an impact than loss of life. | ||
| But right now, their declaration process relies on damage to infrastructure, and it's very hard to show acute damage to infrastructure from heat. | ||
| And so that's one of the reasons that you don't see more disaster declarations. | ||
| So I think we're going to have to look at that if we're going to change it. | ||
| Kind of hard to say when it starts and when it stops, you know, like a storm or something. | ||
| Yeah, and it does damage infrastructure. | ||
| I mean, you know, it damages roads, bridges. | ||
| I mean, it's just harder to quantify it acutely because it happens, like you said, over a long period of time. | ||
| Railroads. | ||
| Anybody else? | ||
| We do have extreme heat situations inside of Southeast Florida, specifically Miami. | ||
| But this is a great example of the federally supported state-managed locally executed. | ||
| In Southeast Florida, they plan for is that a part of their hazards, they respond to on a local level, and they do that on a day-to-day basis when we have those issues. | ||
| If they need assistance from the state, they ask for assistance from the state. | ||
| So the system does work in Florida. | ||
| With cooling stations and things like that? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I think the chairman mentioned it wasn't a good idea to plant trees to offset heat islands. | ||
| I couldn't disagree more with that. | ||
| But anyway, so locally you're doing some things. | ||
| Locally, Southeast Florida, Southwest Florida, those counties approach it differently, but they are locally executing on that situation. | ||
| Anybody else real quick? | ||
| I do want to suggest or offer that in my precinct, just as an example, I have a public works department. | ||
| We absolutely, my staff told me that the heat damage can be identified in various pieces of infrastructure. | ||
| But as it was stated, it's very difficult to quantify. | ||
| But we do know that extreme heat is an issue for many of our NACO members. | ||
| And we do have data that we can pass along to you to help craft some thoughts around that issue. | ||
| That'd be great. | ||
| I know our ranking member represents Phoenix area and we share some of these common problems. | ||
| So that'd be very helpful. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentlelady yields back and I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie, I commend the work you've done in Florida to strengthen your state's capacity to respond to disasters quickly and effectively and to thereby mitigate and minimize the threat to life and property. | ||
| Unfortunately, my own state of California has not been quite so forward-looking in terms of its disaster response capabilities. | ||
| And this was put on shocking display for the whole world with the recent tragic catastrophic fires in Los Angeles as we bore witness to an empty reservoir, to fire hydrants that wouldn't release water and other basic failures of preparedness for which the residents of Los Angeles are now paying such a high price. | ||
| So do you have, number one, some best practices that you might share with our state for how it can do better in the future? | ||
| And number two, thoughts on how the ongoing effort to reform FEMA might actually itself help to spread those sort of practices. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Congressman, for the question. | |
| First and foremost, in Florida, we do not respond based on whether or not we're going to get federally reimbursed. | ||
| The governor of the state of Florida, the legislature support emergency management holistically, and they expect us to respond not worrying about if we're going to get reimbursed or not. | ||
| Unfortunately, not every state, every city or county has that option. | ||
| They have to wait to respond to see if they're going to meet a threshold or so on to seek FEMA reimbursement. | ||
| I think another thing that was very, very obvious to me in that particular disaster is you had the local officials such as the fire chief, sheriff, and things of that nature, but nowhere on that dais or that podium did you see the emergency manager. | ||
| They were treating it as, in my opinion, sir, they were treating it as still a fire. | ||
| They were treating it still as a traffic issue. | ||
| They had a much more complex issue, and I know that Nancy, the California State Director, was involved, but again, emergency management was not there on the day. | ||
| The Los Angeles County Emergency Management Director was buried in the back. | ||
| I never saw the City of Los Angeles Emergency Management Director. | ||
| And this is more of a systemic problem across the country in that what is emergency management? | ||
| That's something our own National Emergency Managers Association is grappling with and we're going to try to help define for Congress and others in the future is what is emergency management? | ||
| We could all agree that this is what emergency management does. | ||
| But I think those are some of the issues. | ||
| As far as FEMA goes, I know that the Regional Administrator Bob Finton was there and he was heavily involved during that timeframe in the hearse fire that you speak of. | ||
| FEMA was present. | ||
| However, again, state-managed, getting it to the point where you can get that state involvement very early on, working with your local emergency managers to push funding down, start doing the things. | ||
| For example, in a hearse fire, they got paralyzed. | ||
| The attorneys paralyzed that response, worried about the environmental hazard that was going on to clean up the debris. | ||
| We deal with that every single day across this country. | ||
| We know what to do. | ||
| Let us separate it. | ||
| Let us put it in the appropriate landfill, tier one, two, or three, based on the hazardous material, and let us move forward. | ||
| Do not stop the operation because there's hazardous material. | ||
| We deal with that every single day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, very, that's a great insight. | ||
| And I should mention the individuals you mentioned, Mr. Fenton, Ms. Ward, who have worked well with my office. | ||
| It's clearly a systemic issue here that we need to reform. | ||
| Mr. Curry, a question I had for you is that the grants, some of the grants that FEMA makes available for sort of pre-disaster efforts, like the BRIC grants, the PDM grants, they don't allow for pre-disaster water infrastructure for fire suppression to be an eligible use. | ||
| So, you know, fire hydrants, upgrading lines, tanks, that would actually sort of be critical in some cases for immediate response. | ||
| And this is important for several communities I represent that are at high fire risk, such as the Tahoe Basin. | ||
| So, and in fact, the Calder fire, which is 2021, one of the factors that was cited for why it didn't ultimately engulf communities in South Tahoe was that was the availability of water infrastructure for fire suppression. | ||
| So, why is it that that's not an eligible use, and is that something you think we ought to change? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, what I've found over the years is that a lot of times when people say it's not eligible under FEMA, it's just because it was not approved. | |
| There's not a law or a requirement that says they can't do it. | ||
| All these mitigation programs rely on the state or the local government to provide a justification or a benefit cost analysis to FEMA, and then FEMA decides based on all the other project requests it's getting if it meets their threshold. | ||
| And then in that case, they didn't. | ||
| It's not that it's not allowed, it's just that, and this is a very common problem with these mitigation issues. | ||
| These are very complicated projects, and FEMA oftentimes, the paperwork required to get the approvals is just extremely difficult. | ||
| And if you're a large county or a large state with the capacity to do that, then you might have the resources to put that together. | ||
| If you're a smaller county or a tribe or something like that, you don't have the resources to put a good justification together, so you don't get the funding. | ||
| I know we're a little over time here, but just to clarify, are you saying that for PDM and grants that is an eligible use? | ||
| It's just a matter of where the threshold is set or is it not? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'll go back and check. | |
| I'll go back and check on the requirement. | ||
| I'm just saying that what I've found is a lot of times when it's deemed ineligible, it's not approved, it's because FEMA, it doesn't meet some sort of cost-benefit threshold as opposed to that specific kind of project not being able to be approved. | ||
| It's just they haven't demonstrated that the benefits are going to exceed the cost. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| The gentleman yields back, and I recognize the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Friedman, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you very much, and I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony being here. | ||
| You know, I have to say that it's hard as a Los Angeles Congress member sometimes to hear Los Angeles at the time when it's reeling from disasters and when victims are still living in hotels somehow seeming to be blamed for their own disaster. | ||
| I really appreciate Mr. Guthrie's response to Mr. Kiley's question about what California could do better, because it is important that we do evaluate our response to disaster, do audits to make sure that we improve. | ||
| And so your very good suggestions about disaster management are something that I am very interested in, and I appreciate your saying them. | ||
| I do feel that I have to respond a bit about the idea that somehow these fires were caused because of not having pressure and hydrants or reservoirs being empty. | ||
| Yes, a reservoir was down for repair and we should always look at what our timetables are. | ||
| And fire hydrants were not designed to put out a thousand fires in a residential neighborhood simultaneously. | ||
| There's not a fire system in this country that would be able to function adequately under those kinds of conditions. | ||
| But due to what's happening with climate change and changing conditions, we are going to have to look at our infrastructure and make investments to counter conditions that this country has never seen. | ||
| I grew up in Florida and my entire childhood, I believe there were two hurricanes, my whole childhood, and now we see multiple hurricanes every single year. | ||
| So we have extreme weather events happening around this country and we've got to make investments in our infrastructure and our emergency response to counter that. | ||
| And we can't pretend that it's not because of climate change as well. | ||
| And so efforts that we can make in this body to slow that change down are also going to help save lives. | ||
| So I've been working on fire issues for many, many years in the California legislature. | ||
| California has invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several years, year after year, to beef up our response, to add more resources for fighting fires, for fire resiliency. | ||
| And we saw those resources deployed in these fires with hundreds and hundreds of firefighters on the line, more air response than we've ever seen in this nation's history. | ||
| We're really hurricane winds driving embers at a time of year that normally is wet and with record dryness instead. | ||
| And we're going to unfortunately have to keep putting those resources on the ground. | ||
| Now, I've introduced my first two bills around supporting wildfire victims with the Don't Penalize Victims Act, which would ensure that charitable donations are not used to unfairly penalize victims of natural disasters. | ||
| I appreciate the members of this committee to making that a bipartisan bill. | ||
| We also have introduced the Stop Disaster Price Gouging Act to stop price gouging around this country after natural disasters. | ||
| I also believe in holding FEMA accountable. | ||
| We have had a lot of concerns in Los Angeles around air quality, soil and water pollution because of these disasters. | ||
| And I would love to see FEMA doing more monitoring on a regular basis so that the people in Los Angeles know whether or not they need to take precautions if they send their kids to school in Pasadena or if their water has been contaminated or whether or not they can plant things in their garden if they're worried that their soils become contaminated. | ||
| We haven't seen FEMA take that seriously, and I would like to see that happen. | ||
| I do have a quick question about disaster aid, and we've heard a little talk about that. | ||
| But unfortunately, this administration has said that they want to hold Californians accountable and that they, I think, want to punish the people of California and not for anything about their response, but just because this administration doesn't like their policies around things like voting rights or around our commitment to diversity. | ||
| So I have a simple yes or no question. | ||
| For Ms. Lauder, when Hurricane Helen hit North Carolina last year, did President Biden condition disaster aid against major policy changes in that state? | ||
| It was a yes or no question. | ||
| No. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie, when Hurricane Milton hit Florida last year, did President Biden condition disaster aid on the people of Florida? | ||
| No. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I appreciate that, and I would hope that this administration does not play games with people's lives. | ||
| Lastly, I want to ask about staffing. | ||
| You know, FEMA's been on the ground in Los Angeles helping people, and they're very grateful that there are FEMA officials there. | ||
| I'm very worried about the mass layoffs that we are seeing to public employees, and I've had people in Los Angeles say, when I show up to that office, are there going to be enough people there to help me? | ||
| I want to know whether you think workplace cuts are going to make it easier or harder for people after disaster to get a live person on the phone or someone to sit in front of them and help them out with whatever issue they have. | ||
| I'll start with Mr. Garcia, I think. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Workforce depletions do bring challenges. | ||
| Local communities and NACO County members need, in many regards, that human capital that brings that technical assistance, that helps to get the funding necessary to help those communities recover and rebuild. | ||
| So we do need the people behind all the other federal guidelines and framework. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Curry, would you like to respond? | ||
| It's not going to help. | ||
| That's my easy answer. | ||
| You know, FEMA will always marshal the resources towards response and the disasters that have just happened. | ||
| What the cuts do is it affects the disasters that happened six months ago, a year ago, six years ago. | ||
| So it's a cumulative effect because of how many disasters they're dealing with. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentlelady yields back, and I recognize myself for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Some of my professional background lends a voice to this topic. | ||
| In my previous life, I worked in the heavy highway construction, and my family company partnered with states and local communities on all efforts like rebuilding interstate I-95 after the tragic collapse. | ||
| We also worked in Fort Myers after Hurricane Ian rebuilding power distribution systems, where I saw firsthand the devastation and how locally executed, state-managed, and federally supported programs could be exceptionally beneficial. | ||
| I've also seen how bureaucratic red tape can impede disaster reliefs. | ||
| During COVID, FEMA offered grants to hospitals to address challenges like finding adequate PPE and medical supplies, as well as address workforce shortages. | ||
| Even though the public health emergency ended nearly two years ago, Pennsylvania hospitals are still waiting on $690 million in grant applications. | ||
| In September of 2023, Lackawanna and Luzern counties in my district experienced historic flooding. | ||
| Our state emergency agency estimated the damage to be 25 million, including the loss of lives. | ||
| In April of 2024, FEMA denied the state's request for major disaster declaration. | ||
| As GAO points out, there are more than 30 federal entities involved in disaster recovery. | ||
| This is a clear sign to Pennsylvania that we can't always count on the support of FEMA for disaster relief. | ||
| Which brings me to my questions on how states can best prepare for, deliver relief before, during, and after disasters. | ||
| So my first question for Mr. Guthrie. | ||
| In your written testimony, you discussed Florida's Department of Emergency Management implementing emergency standby contracts as part of your proactive disaster management strategy. | ||
| How can states replicate this practice to have dedicated vendors on standby ready to deploy for various types of natural disasters that states can experience? | ||
| Thank you for the question, sir. | ||
| It's very easy to do. | ||
| These are zero-dollar contingency contracts put in place where we already know who the bidders are. | ||
| One of the issues with FEMA is when you need, for instance, a direct housing program, they have to then go to contracting right then and there. | ||
| We know we're going to need direct housing all over this country. | ||
| We should have that already done so that that speeds that process up by months. | ||
| We've done that in Florida. | ||
| I'll make available, as I've already told my partners from other states, I'll make all of our contracts available as a starting point to take the scope of work, copy and paste it, put it into their terms and conditions, and fast forward that methodology for any state, any city, or any county that wants to do that, sir. | ||
| So not all disasters can be predicted. | ||
| What are some best practices Florida uses to have flexibility with these contracts to ensure adequate response from vendors while protecting taxpayer money? | ||
| So I have some of the best attorneys in the world. | ||
| They always get to a yes. | ||
| And what they allow us to do is they advise me of risk where we may be getting outside the four corners of a document, or they'll get me to a yes where I can stay within the four corners of the document so that I don't have to do another emergency procurement to get into the four corners of the document. | ||
| And for those that are attorneys, understand what I'm saying there. | ||
| But that is one way having a good attorney that knows their job, which is to advise the principal on risk versus reward. | ||
| Sometimes we have to take the risk. | ||
| And knowing the consequences of that ahead of time, it's always good to have a good attorney for that. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie, Ms. Lauder, and Mr. Garcia, when communities suffer from disasters, it can also be an opportunity to build back stronger, more resilient infrastructure. | ||
| But oftentimes we see 21st century communities being rebuilt with 20th century infrastructure. | ||
| How have your respective states and counties engaged in long-term planning to ensure rebuilt infrastructure is more resilient, more secure, and incorporates the latest in digital technologies and digital infrastructure? | ||
| Mr. Garcia, Honorable Garcia? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| In Harris County, we are absolutely putting the federal resources that we have been fortunate to receive into resilient initiatives. | ||
| For example, in Harris County, we received $51 million to help with the buyout program to take people out of flood-prone areas. | ||
| And we are doing a whole lot more to make sure that resilience is at the top of our work process. | ||
| We are interested in any way that we can improve for the future. | ||
| I think one of the things that has to be taken into account, though, is that whenever we receive grants or we receive support from federal or state agencies, if there are restrictions around that that make it harder for us to make decisions and make those investments, then it becomes counterproductive. | ||
| Sir, we have done a comprehensive reform on this. | ||
| We have come out with Florida legislation that preempts cities and counties from doing bureaucratic things when it comes to permitting. | ||
| That's one thing that we have done. | ||
| We have worked with the Florida Alliance for Safe Homes and the National Build Strong Coalition for ensuring we have good building codes. | ||
| We have the best building code in the United States, and strong building codes do work. | ||
| You can see that all up and down our coastline. | ||
| Those are just a couple of examples that we have done where we have been able to do this much faster. | ||
| Thank you for the testimony and your time, and I yield back. | ||
| And I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Garmendi, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the issues that you are raising. | ||
| I'd like to just pick up on what Ms. Friedman was referring to earlier and make sure that we fully understand where we are with requirements in order to receive FEMA assistance. | ||
| Mr. Curry, is there any example in the past where a FEMA assistance program, disaster assistance, was conditioned on in any number in any way? | ||
| Are you familiar with any of that? | ||
| I'm not familiar. | ||
| The only thing I would be familiar with is if it's conditioned on using that for resilience purposes, for building back better than it was before. | ||
| I do want to come to that. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie, you answered no to the question that Ms. Friedman raised about conditions. | ||
| Is it your view that there should be conditions for the emergency assistance being available to a disaster area? | ||
| Should there be preconditions? | ||
| There should not be preconditions. | ||
| However, again, to the mitigation piece, benefit cost analysis. | ||
| Should we be applying a BCA to a situation where we want a house out of the floodplain, we want to build a house stronger. | ||
| Just because we meet a number, does that make sense? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| So I think there should be some preconditions to some programs that say we should waive this or we should make this stronger. | ||
| Fair enough. | ||
| And I would appreciate your coming back with the specifics that you are referring to. | ||
| Certainly flood, we have been in and out of that for the 15 years I have been here. | ||
| And yes, we are making some progress. | ||
| The other area that I want to go to deals with the GAO report. | ||
| You had 60 recommendations in the GAO report. | ||
| It would seem to me that this committee would be, its time would be very usefully spent going through those. | ||
| Mr. Curry, in your testimony, you highlighted, I think, four specific areas. | ||
| I'd like you to revisit those in the next minute or so. | ||
| The four priorities that are on your mind for the legislative policy changes that this committee should spend time on, that you believe we should spend time on. | ||
| Those 60 recs cut across four areas, as you said. | ||
| First is streamlining the Federal disaster recovery process because it's fragmented. | ||
| The next is fragmented among multiple agencies. | ||
| Exactly, 30 agencies, to be sure. | ||
| Better delivering disaster aid to survivors, making that easier for individual survivors. | ||
| Reforming the FEMA workforce is number three. | ||
| And then number four is using our resilience dollars and making resilience programs easier to navigate for State and local governments. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And in each of those areas, you had specific ways in which the improvements could be accomplished, that is, legislative. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| Well, actually, two years ago, before the reform discussions even started, we recommended that Congress set up its own commission to look at disaster recovery because we were so frustrated that the agencies for years, we were making recommendations, they weren't implementing them. | ||
| And also, this issue cuts across so many committees of jurisdiction. | ||
| So it is rare that we would recommend something like that, but we thought the problem was large enough that it was warranted. | ||
| Well, you have given me direction on how I should spend my time, and hopefully the committee would similarly spend time on the details of each of these, streamlining multiple Federal agencies, maybe eliminate or at least change the way in which they presumably should work together. | ||
| Individual assistance programs. | ||
| Could you be a little more specific about that? | ||
| Well, changing our aid programs to the individual survivor from being government-centric to customer-centric. | ||
| And what I mean by that is right now the survivor has to extract the money out of the Federal Government through a lengthy, frustrating process. | ||
| And because of that, they don't get everything they could possibly get. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie, you're nodding your head. | ||
| And the rest of you would think this is something we ought to deal with. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| I mean, the mere fact that a homeowner may have to wait four, five, or six years to get back to where they need to be, what we want, all of us want, is that homeowner back on their property in their home. | ||
| I'm almost out of time. | ||
| For the four of you, if you could present to the committee and certainly to me and my colleagues the specific kinds of reform that you think are most necessary on the individual assistance. | ||
| On the workforce, we have already talked about the current reductions in workforce, and there's been a discussion on that. | ||
| With regard to resiliency, FEMA does have a bit of a problem in that Build Back Better is not in their lexicon, or at least in the regulations that they administer. | ||
| So we need to be aware that we need to change and encourage FEMA to look to resiliency that is really do build back better. | ||
| More details amount of time. | ||
| Thank you very much, gentlemen and lady. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman yields back, and I recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Onder, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. | ||
| Mr. Curry, the GAO has conducted numerous audits of FEMA's disaster relief spending. | ||
| Has your office identified instances where FEMA funds have been used to provide aid to illegal immigrants, whether it be housing assistance or otherwise? | ||
| And could you provide examples? | ||
| Yes, we did a report a year or two ago. | ||
| I'll have to get back to you on the specifics on the emergency food and shelter program, which, as you know, Congress authorized that program for FEMA to provide assistance to cities to help support the influx of migrants. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And that was, do you recall when Congress authorized that program? | ||
| It was in the last Congress, but I have to have to get back to you on the question. | ||
| It was 118, okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You know, given FEMA's mission to assist American citizens and legal residents, are there oversight mechanisms currently in place to ensure that funds are used appropriately for disaster recovery as opposed to being diverted to other uses? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| The disaster relief fund is closely monitored, and there are many controls over the payments that come out of that and go to the states. | ||
| And it's not just at the federal level. | ||
| FEMA has its own controls, but then it goes to the states, like Mr. Guthrie's state. | ||
| They have their own controls before it goes down to the local level, too. | ||
| So it's a very highly overseen pot of money. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And Ms. Lafter, as a county official, have you encountered concerns about residents about FEMA's aid distribution being inconsistent, influenced by non-disaster factors, perhaps political factors? | ||
| We have not seen that. | ||
| We have seen frustration from our survivors of being able to access the funds that they should be able to access and difficulty in getting any answers. | ||
| The 800 number that a lot of our survivors were referred to for a long time could not be connected. | ||
| So they really expressed a lot of the frustration around those components. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| So in your testimony, you also stated that when a widespread disaster occurs, there must be a system in place to support response and recovery because local governments do not have the capacity to maintain the ability to handle a response at that scale during non-response times. | ||
| Based on your experience with Hurricane Helene, what role do you think the Federal Government should play versus the State governments and perhaps the local governments? | ||
| I think they both need to play a role. | ||
| And at the end of the day, at the local government level, we just need a system that works. | ||
| What do you think can be done to improve communication between FEMA employees and the State and local officials involved in disaster recovery? | ||
| What we experienced was a lot of silos where we could ask a single question to one worker. | ||
| They did not even know themselves how to get an answer to a question that was outside of their training or outside of their silo. | ||
| So communication is a huge component in training. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield there. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman yields back, and I recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Figures, for five minutes for questions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Ranking, for hosting this hearing and for all of the witnesses being here. | ||
| I want to start by recognizing Alabama's Director of Emergency Management, Jeff Smitherman, who was in the audience with us. | ||
| And also thank you for your near 30 years of service to this nation's military. | ||
| So thank you, and thank you for being here, and thank you for what you do in the state. | ||
| Our state was just hit by a round of thunderstorms, and your office kept us abreast of what was going on and kept us well prepared. | ||
| Fortunately, well, I guess both fortunately and unfortunately, the damage did not rise to a level of a federal, or at least that's my understanding as of this morning, that it will not likely rise to the level of a federal emergency, but yet some rural areas did take hits and there were some losses, some lives lost in that storm. | ||
| Ms. Laughter, I'm going to do something that I don't think you've probably gotten in this process, and that is, I believe it was May Angelou who once said that people, they don't remember everything about you, but they will certainly remember how you made them feel. | ||
| It sounds like FEMA didn't make you and your community feel very good. | ||
| And so on behalf of all of us, I was not in Congress at the time, but on behalf of everybody on this committee and everybody that serves in federal government, I want to say that I am sorry because our government should be there for our people. | ||
| And I know you guys have experienced that in Florida as well. | ||
| So I want to apologize on behalf of all of us and commit to doing better and using my position here to make sure that we're not making other communities feel the way that you felt. | ||
| And I mean that as a kid that was born in Hurricane Alley, where names like Aaron and Opal and Danny and Georges and Katrina and Ivan, they mean a little bit something different to me. | ||
| Hell, I was literally born during a hurricane in September of 1985, Hurricane Elena. | ||
| So I know a little bit about FEMA. | ||
| I know a little bit about communities that need their recovery, need their help, but we needed to be efficient and we needed to be quick and we needed to be effective. | ||
| And so I want to start, at least my question, first question is, look, it seems that this problem is bigger than just FEMA. | ||
| You've mentioned 30 agencies being involved in this process. | ||
| So how by fixing FEMA are we resolving the entire problem? | ||
| Or is there a broader scope of inquiry that we need to be addressing these efforts on? | ||
| And we can just go down the road, Mr. Curry. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Unfortunately, FEMA is the face of response and recovery for the federal government. | ||
| But when you look at the funding, it's spread all over the federal government. | ||
| And each of those agencies has their own rules, programs, requirements, and timeframes. | ||
| And so when those all come together, it creates a very confusing system and process if you're a state or local emergency manager. | ||
| Mr. Guthrie. | ||
| Thank you, Congressman. | ||
| You know, I would say yes, we need a comprehensive review of the scope, mission, and structure of FEMA. | ||
| But I would even say, take that to the back row. | ||
| We need a comprehensive review of the scope, mission, and structure of every agency that is a part of the federal family that responds to disasters. | ||
| Because again, FEMA is a coordinating element. | ||
| They're not the command and control element. | ||
| They're the coordinating element. | ||
| But when you have, if you're a fisheries aquaculture, you've got to go through, I believe it's the Department of Commerce. | ||
| If you're in agriculture, you go through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. | ||
| If you've got something that's on a FHWA roadway, you're going through DOT. | ||
| That's at the public level. | ||
| Imagine if you're an individual that's dependent on Section 8 housing, you're going through HUD. | ||
| If you're with DCF, you're going through maybe another HHS agency. | ||
| We have got to figure out, again, comprehensive review of the scope, mission, and structure of the federal family to streamline that into one single application, whether it's for public sector or individual assistance sector. | ||
| We've got to get off that level. | ||
| I don't want to cut you off, but I want to get Ms. Laughter because I want to get one more question in for Mr. Garcia. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I think it is more complicated than just FEMA. | ||
| We have an example right now of private property debris removal. | ||
| We have a farmer that has 300 bales of spoiled hay from the flood, and he cannot access the private property debris removal because he falls under USDA. | ||
| And he also cannot get direction from the same agency of how to access USDA in order to get relief. | ||
| He just needs help. | ||
| Ms. Garcia. | ||
| With so many agencies involved, it does cause confusion, or it would cause confusion. | ||
| And at all levels for the local community as well as the residents at heart. | ||
| So comprehensive review absolutely is necessary. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And then Mr. Garcia, just for you, you mentioned in your opening testimony, you mentioned about underserved and disadvantaged communities, and that particularly resonates with me. | ||
| I'm in a very poor district. | ||
| For the most part, individual median income is just around $30,000. | ||
| So these are people that can't afford to rebuild on their own. | ||
| So, my question for you is: in those communities that have been hit by storms, particularly hurricanes, tornadoes, where we see those blue tarps go on those roofs, we go back too often, and those blue tarps are still there years later. | ||
| In fact, sometimes decades later, how can we better streamline resources to get into those communities? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And I will tell you that streamlining the process is absolutely critical. | ||
| As I mentioned, both the legislation that is being proposed, disaster survivors, and the Simplification Act, all those things are going to help us remove the barriers that the communities could face. | ||
| And so, we need the support by FEMA. | ||
| So, staff shortages at FEMA do not help us move forward. | ||
| All of this is important for us to address. | ||
| So, you know, simplification, plain language, universal portals, those things are absolutely helpful to get the resources where they're needed. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Thank you for the overage. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| Are there further questions from any members of the subcommittee who have not been recognized? | ||
| Seeing none, that concludes our hearing for today. | ||
| I would like to thank each of the witnesses for your testimony. | ||
| the subcommittee stands adjourned. | ||
| Thursday, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy answers questions on the preliminary report into the deadly helicopter plane collision in January near Washington, D.C. You can watch this Senate Transportation Subcommittee hearing live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
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