| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Will hold a summit for conservative minority entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C. Over on C-SPAN 2, the Senate's back to consider more executive nominations from the Trump administration, including Comptroller of the Currency and a judge for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. | |
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| Next, a meeting with members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council to discuss FEMA being led by states and local governments. | ||
| Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam talks about eliminating the agency as it exists today. | ||
| This is about an hour. | ||
| Today's council meeting is convened pursuant to the Federal Register notice that was published in the Federal Register on June 23rd. | ||
| As a reminder, we are recording today's meeting for the public record, and this video will be posted to the council's website, just as we did for the first public meeting. | ||
| Additionally, today's minutes will be made available to the public through the council's website and through the Federal Advisory Committee Act database. | ||
| Transparency and accountability are the cornerstones of our work, and we are committed to keeping the public informed about the council's ongoing deliberations and decisions. | ||
| Today's agenda has been posted to the council's website, and copies are provided to those in attendance in person today. | ||
| Today, we will start with the council's co-chairs, Secretary Noam and Secretary Hexet, who will provide opening remarks. | ||
| We will then have Governor Louisiana Governor Landry provide some welcome remarks. | ||
| The council will receive an update on the subcommittees from the vice chair and the subcommittee co-chairs. | ||
| And then we'll end with an open QA from the members. | ||
| Without further ado, it is my great pleasure to introduce Secretary Christy Noam. | ||
| Ma'am, the floor is yours. | ||
| Well, thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. | ||
| I appreciate you all being here and making this such a priority. | ||
| I do want to thank our Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, as well, for co-chairing this important review council. | ||
| His input and wisdom has been incredibly valuable as we re-evaluate this agency and look at what we can put in place for reforms that are much more responsive to the citizens of the United States and to make sure that this agency is operating in the way that President Trump has laid out for all of us to make sure that it operates responding to people when they have a crisis or for the continuation of government. | ||
| I also want to thank Governor Landry for hosting the crew and for all of his hospitality. | ||
| His leadership has been absolutely fantastic and his insight and experience in FEMA and its response will be very valuable input to this review council as well. | ||
|
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And Governor Phil Bryant, thank you. | |
| This man has spent dozens and dozens of hours putting in the work and contacting individuals and getting input so that we can end up putting this agency in the best place and position possible to be reformed and remade into a vision of an agency that respects people, responds, and doesn't get in their way. | ||
| You know, when President Trump first established this review council, the goal was very simple. | ||
| It was to provide recommendations on how to streamline and to right-size the federal government, especially in its role in disaster management. | ||
| Now, I was in Texas this weekend and was there dealing and working with the individuals who are experiencing this heartbreaking tragedy and saw firsthand the devastated families, the reeling community, the leaders that are there on the ground responding. | ||
| We certainly supported that immediately on search and recover efforts and partnered with the state and local governments to get Americans all of the resources that they need. | ||
| Working together, state officials like NIMKID and the governor and his team, along with all the other agencies involved, have coordinated efforts that have rescued over 850 people. | ||
| We now currently have an ongoing flooding situation going on in New Mexico as well, which we are in communication with the governor on and continuing to work there. | ||
| And what President Trump has empowered us to do is to let these states and local emergency management officials run and make decisions that best respond to their communities, and we be a support that comes in and comes alongside them when they need us. | ||
| Federal emergency management should be state and locally led rather than how it has operated for decades. | ||
|
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It has been slow to respond at the federal level. | |
| It's even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis. | ||
| And that is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency. | ||
| We owe it to all the American people to deliver the most efficient and the most effective disaster response. | ||
| In fact, some of how we've responded to Texas is exactly how President Trump imagined that this agency would operate, immediately making decisions, getting them resources and dollars that they need so that they can conduct the response that they need to do on the ground. | ||
| This job of remaking this agency is not nearly as simple as it should be because we're up against decades of gross mismanagement and negligence. | ||
| The list of FEMA's failures is staggering. | ||
| The scale of those failures is matched only by their longevity. | ||
| FEMA has been disastrous at times, incompetent at times, and not just in the last few years, but for decades. | ||
| There's times FEMA has performed very well and has responded and delivered the help that people needed. | ||
| But we look back at instances like Hurricane Katrina, which happened 20 years ago, next month, there are still many open claims left over from that disaster that have gone unanswered. | ||
| And meanwhile, in the last two years, or in the first two years, I guess, after Katrina, $2 billion in dollars had been paid out in fraudulent claims. | ||
| Payments for Katrina recovery are still ongoing, with $400 million being spent in just 2021 alone. | ||
|
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And then after the wildfires in Maui, residents voiced concerns that every FEMA employee that they spoke with had different answers. | |
| None of them had conversations that resulted in getting assistance that was helpful or any clarity in their situations. | ||
| The situation in Lahaina was so bad that one in six survivors were forced to trade sexual favors, other favors for just basic supplies. | ||
| At the same time, illegal aliens were staying in luxury hotels using FEMA dollars. | ||
| Much the Roosevelt Hotel is the one you're probably the most familiar with in New York City. | ||
|
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They got to stay there for free on the taxpayer dime through this FEMA agency. | |
| Most of those rooms cost over $300 a night. | ||
| In 2024, when Hurricane Helene devastated the Southeast, FEMA's disaster relief fund was unable to provide the necessary relief because millions of dollars had been diverted to housing and transportation for illegal aliens. | ||
| Now, FEMA was supposed to show up, and yet residents reported that they saw no FEMA personnel on the ground or applying for aid on their behalf. | ||
| They instead had to rely on local volunteers. | ||
| Right after Helene, Hurricane Milton also hit the Southeast. | ||
| It was revealed that FEMA officials in Florida ordered relief workers to skip houses that had certain campaign signs, ones that had President Trump's name on them. | ||
| And the workers responsible for that horrific act of discrimination have been fired. | ||
| Politics has no place in disaster relief, and it won't in the future under our watch and under President Trump's watch. | ||
| The American people deserve better, and they deserve better, especially in times of disaster. | ||
| The answer is going to be putting the federal government in its proper place, getting this bloated bureaucracy out of the way. | ||
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And so that is why President Trump created this FEMA Review Council. | |
| The responsibility that you have is incredibly important. | ||
| The future of disaster management has to be led by local communities and by states, with the federal government coming in in a supporting role, empowering them, not hindering them, and slowing them down with paperwork, bureaucracy, and lack of resources. | ||
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State and local leaders know that their communities, they know what they need better than the government ever could. | |
| They know their exact needs and they know how best to prepare. | ||
| People forget that the states are older than the Constitution and that they created the Constitution, that federalism matters and states' rights need to be respected. | ||
|
unidentified
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We need to focus more on helping, not hindering, and state and local authorities need to be empowered. | |
| We don't take charge of them. | ||
| We give them the opportunity to lead the way. | ||
| Now, a leader is someone who empowers others to do their job well and to be the best that they can be. | ||
|
unidentified
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The job of government is not to do everything for the people. | |
| It's to let people do things for themselves and empower them to make decisions and take personal responsibility for their lives, but to help them when a crisis happens. | ||
|
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When I was a child, my dad always said to me, Christy, we don't complain about things. | |
| We fix them. | ||
| And I want all of you to have that attitude. | ||
| We could sit here and complain about FEMA and the failures of the past, but we are charged with fixing it. | ||
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For far too long, people complained about the incompetence of FEMA. | |
| President Trump is wanting all of us to sit down with clear heads, clear minds, and a good heart and be willing to fix this agency. | ||
| Together, we're going to revolutionize disaster response for the 21st century by going back to our founders' first principles and why that works. | ||
|
unidentified
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When American lives are at stake, failure is not an option. | |
| So I want to thank you all for what you're doing here. | ||
| I ask that God bless your work and that we come up with the right answers for the American people. | ||
| Our hearts and our prayers are with the people of Texas, the people of New Mexico, others that are going through a crisis today, and know that we will walk alongside them through this, but also that while we are doing that, that we use every opportunity in front of us to do better, to be better, and to continue to create opportunities that the United States of America can continue to be the best country leading the way in the world. | ||
|
unidentified
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So with that, I'll yield back. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Secretary Noam. | ||
| It is now my great pleasure to introduce Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. | ||
| Sir, the floor is yours. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Secretary Noam, thank you. | ||
| I mean, for those powerful examples, for your powerful example down in Texas, the leadership you've been willing to show out front across the board on tackling this critically important issue. | ||
| So we are grateful to have you as Secretary of Homeland Security and leading the charge on this. | ||
| Critically important. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| I want to thank Governor Yunkin, Governor Landry, for convening the second public meeting of the FEMA Review Council. | ||
| Your leadership, both in this forum and across the wide range of issues we face, is vital to restoring America's prosperity and improving our capacity to promptly and competently respond to natural disasters. | ||
| Support to our domestic partners is an absolutely critical role for DOD and the defense of the homeland, as stated in our interim natural defense strategy. | ||
| That's not the way it was. | ||
| Our Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, has made it very clear that in conjunction with Homeland Security, in partnership with them, whether it's FEMA, Border Patrol, ICE, DHS, you name it, Homeland Security is a central tenant for DOD, and we're trying to operationalize that and live that out every day. | ||
| Having this meeting in New Orleans, and this being the 20th anniversary, as Secretary Noam mentioned, of Hurricane Katrina, it's a powerful reminder of the impact that disasters have on local communities and, frankly, for us, how DOD can support the state's response. | ||
| And across DOD, my team works closely with federal, state, and local partners to plan, prepare, and exercise for responding to natural disasters. | ||
| I've seen the images and gotten the reports of the Texas National Guard in Texas of the Coast Guard search and rescue. | ||
| We're monitoring it closely. | ||
| Where there is disaster, where there is need, the Defense Department is poised and ready to be a part of that. | ||
| This time last month, DOD assembled the whole of government team in San Antonio to exercise and analyze response strategies for the 2025 hurricane season. | ||
| And I've also approved annual actions that ensure General Guillo, who's the commander of U.S. NORTHCOM, is able to rapidly surge support during the greatest hour of need. | ||
| In parallel, it's important that Secretary Noam and her team, as well as other parts of the federal government, with her leadership, continue to work with state and local governments to enhance and increase their capabilities to respond to natural disasters as is being done. | ||
| And state and local governments continue to ensure that emergency management teams and first responders have the resources that they need, including personnel, training, and equipment. | ||
| But what we know at DOD is in times of crisis, there are certain capabilities, certain things that DOD, whether it's National Guard or the federal side, can do that other state and locals just cannot. | ||
| And so we look forward to being a part of that team that helps review what FEMA does and how it does it. | ||
| And we look forward to everyone's feedback and participating in these discussions. | ||
| That's all I have. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Secretary Heckset. | ||
| It is now my great pleasure to introduce the Council's Vice Chair, former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant. | ||
| Sir? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Patrick. | ||
| Thank all of you for being here. | ||
| Madam Secretary, Mr. Secretary, thank you for your leadership here. | ||
| As we were offering prayers, I remembered how thankful we should be to God that Secretary Noam has been there to help lead this effort. | ||
| We have already received a blessing with her presence and her leadership for the people of Texas and now the tragedies that may occur in New Mexico. | ||
| It's my great honor to introduce a friend that's with us here today, the great governor of the state of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, formerly served in a number of capacities in the government in Louisiana as a public servant, attorney general, but now serves as governor of this great state. | ||
| And I will tell you, as a former governor, we can be competitive at times. | ||
| We always look and see how good Tennessee might be doing or Florida or Texas. | ||
| And I can tell you now we have to look at Louisiana. | ||
| We have to look back and see how well Louisiana has been doing. | ||
| And I can tell you he has knowledge of how to deal with disasters. | ||
| Katrina was the worst natural disaster in this nation's history, and much of it came to bear upon this beautiful city of New Orleans. | ||
| He is here today to welcome us and to certainly talk about, I think, how Louisiana not only responds but leads in the nation today. | ||
| Governor Landry, thank you so much for being before the committee today, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you, Governor Bryant. | ||
| Thank you for being such a great friend and such a great ally for Mississippi. | ||
| I want to thank virtually Secretary Hecksmith and Secretary Noam for their leadership that they've been exhibited. | ||
| I know I have all the confidence in the world. | ||
| And also, before I begin, I want to take a moment to extend our prayers to the people of Texas. | ||
| The state of Louisiana has sent dozens of assets and swim team rescue water rescue teams to the state of Texas, just like Texas and Mississippi and other southern states have done for each other during times of natural disasters. | ||
| That is one of the functions that I think work very well inside of the FEMA realm is how states work with each other to be able to share those assets and those experiences. | ||
| We did that again last year during the storms that ravaged North Carolina and the East Coast. | ||
| But what's happening in Texas today is exactly why this FEMA review council matters. | ||
| Again, like I said earlier, I have all the confidence in Secretary Noam, Secretary Hecksmith, President Trump, that Texas will get what they need to address the tragedy that has befallen them. | ||
| As Secretary Noam mentioned, New Mexico is having some flooding as well. | ||
| And I'm completely confident that the people there are in good hands, knowing that Secretary Noam and President Trump's administration will be there to help them as well. | ||
| The reason that I can say that I have confidence is that I have had experience with President Trump's dedication to addressing natural disasters. | ||
| Because before he was president, in 2016, Louisiana experienced a thousand-year flood event. | ||
| And one of the people who came to our aids, besides faith-based groups and our sister states, was President Trump. | ||
| While others golfed, he was on the ground bringing much needed supplies to the state of Louisiana before he was even elected. | ||
| Time and time again, we know that Louisiana has been impacted by major hurricanes. | ||
| And time and time again, when President Trump was in office, he has been on the ground helping us. | ||
| This is not political theater. | ||
| The president has tasked Secretary Noam and Secretary Hegseth and his consul with addressing emergency response because, like me, he believes and they believe that disaster response must be fast, it must be smart, and it must be closer to the ground. | ||
| I don't believe that it's a coincidence that I welcome you all to New Orleans to discuss the very agency that, along with the Corps of Engineers, failed this city some 20 years ago when Hurricane Katrina struck our state and the city. | ||
| And since then, 10 storms have ravaged us. | ||
| Since Katrina, over 10 storms have affected Louisiana. | ||
| 10 times has the state of Louisiana had to deal with FEMA. | ||
| As a resident of this state, I grew up on the coast. | ||
| And now as governor, I can bring those experiences to bear. | ||
| I know all too well the importance of having strong, reliable emergency and disaster response systems in place. | ||
| My first experience with a major hurricane was Hurricane Andrew. | ||
| In 1992, I was a sheriff's deputy and a National Guardsman. | ||
| I spent two weeks responding to that hurricane without electricity. | ||
| For two weeks, I spent without electricity. | ||
| It's why I have a generator at my home from here on out. | ||
| Because hurricane season is normally in the summer and not having electricity certainly impacts those because the heat is something that is critical and can be devastating to those communities. | ||
| I remember that at that time, which was interesting, the federal response seemed to be simple. | ||
| They let locals lead. | ||
| I remember that because our farmers who had just experienced a devastation of their crops were put to work utilizing equipment that would have set idle otherwise. | ||
| That equipment could not be used to harvest their crops because their crops were devastated. | ||
| So instead, we put those farmers and their implements to work, clearing our streets, clearing our ditches, helping each other out. | ||
| Since that time, the bureaucracy of FEMA has only grown, in my opinion, to the point of dysfunction. | ||
| We have regulated ourselves into paralysis with a patchwork of solutions that leave many communities suffering for years. | ||
| As I said, since that time, I've lived through disaster after disaster. | ||
| Katrina, Rita, Ike, Gustav, Laura, and so many other storms that have up-ended the lives of the people of Louisiana and have destroyed many of our communities. | ||
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This state and this city knows firsthand what it means to wait too long for federal support. | |
| We know what it means when red tape holds up rescue, recovery, and rebuilding. | ||
| That's why this council being here in New Orleans today is so critical, meaningful, and hopefully special. | ||
| My hope today is that we take serious the issues that help communities mitigate and avoid emergency and avoid the emergency part of natural disasters, | ||
| that we recognize what flaws this system has from the top to the bottom, that we address things like giving our states more authority for building levies so that the bureaucracy doesn't stall the needed protection that only costs our taxpayers and other taxpayers millions of dollars. | ||
| I'll give you an example, like in Grand Isle, where the federal government, since Katrina, has spent over $135 million. | ||
| And yet today, when we have financially secured the means to protect that community, the Corps of Engineers today is dragging its feet on the ability for us to finish the projects needed to save federal taxpayers money and lives and property in Grand Isle. | ||
| And yet, so we go through another hurricane season where that island is exposed, where the federal government would have to step in, and we will have to spend money that needously should be mitigated. | ||
| Like risk rating 2.0, which is driving our flood insurance to unaffordable limits, making long-standing communities unlivable. | ||
| These decisions made here won't just affect policy. | ||
| They will determine how quickly a mother in Lake Charles gets a roof over her head, how soon a small business in Homer, Louisiana can reopen their doors, or how prepared the city of New Orleans will be for the next major hurricane. | ||
| Again, I would like to thank and commend President Trump for his leadership. | ||
| Finally, someone is taking control of the bureaucracy. | ||
| I would like to thank Secretary Noam, who was on the ground here in January when this city experienced a terrorist attack. | ||
| I want to thank Secretary Hegseth for being here today. | ||
| His participation is extremely important because the Corps of Engineers has a vital function in natural disaster and they sometimes fail. | ||
| And everyone else in this council, I want to thank you for holding this second public meeting here in Louisiana. | ||
| Our state just doesn't need FEMA to do better. | ||
| It needs FEMA to be fixed and it needs a system that is simplified. | ||
| I know President Trump and his council understand that speed and transparency are essential to keeping our cities prepared and our people safe in the face of natural disasters. | ||
| While we are hoping and praying for a very passive hurricane season this year, I hope that we're all committed to working closely with each other to strengthen our disaster response system. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Governor, you. | ||
| Governor Landry, thank you so much. | ||
| I was Auditor, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor during Katrina, and the challenges there were historic in nature. | ||
| Governor Lander has gone through his share of disasters already and does what a remarkable job he has been doing. | ||
| And we're proud to have him here today. | ||
| Sir, thank you. | ||
| We'll turn now to the executive order, which has given the authority to the council to create subcommittees. | ||
| This is section 4B in consultation with the co-chairs. | ||
| The council is authorized to create standing subcommittees and ad hoc groups, including technical advisory groups to assist the council and provide preliminary information directly to the council. | ||
| Based on that authority, the council has created three subcommittees. | ||
| Subcommittee first of the subcommittee of federal state coordination is co-chaired by Governor Glenn Yonkin and Governor Greg Abbott, of course, of Texas. | ||
| Our prayers go out and thoughts again to Governor Abbott and his team. | ||
| These two co-chairs are charged with the evaluation of the traditional roles of the federal state government in disaster management. | ||
| Its primary task is to examine the role of the state and their coordination with the federal government in securing life, liberty, and property of their citizens. | ||
| Second subcommittee is a subcommittee on disaster response recovery assessment. | ||
| It is co-chaired by Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and Neem Kidd, the Chief of Texas Division of Emergency Management. | ||
| Again, we can only imagine what NIM has been going through since the 4th of July when we were all looking forward to being with our families and our barbecues very early on the morning of July 5th. | ||
| As I recall, Nim and his team began work with that tragedy and have not stopped. | ||
| We'll hear from Co-Chair Kevin Guthrie later. | ||
| And finally, the final report subcommittee, which I co-chair in cooperation with Michael Watley, who is also co-chair of the final report committee, | ||
| whose responsibility will be to draft the final comprehensive report that will be the, will present the council's conclusions and recommendations to the President of the United States in request of his executive order 24 January. | ||
| So we will now turn. | ||
| I am not sure if Governor Yunkin was able to join us today, but I think we have Governor Yunkin remotely that will report his sub, I'm sorry, his council members, subcommittee members, of course, is Governor Yunkin, Governor Abbott, Mayor Jane Castor of the great city of Tampa who is with us today, and Sheriff Rosie Gordero-Stutz. | ||
| Sheriff Rosie, so good to have you here and Mayor you as well. | ||
| Thank you to this subcommittee. | ||
| I turn now to Governor Glenn Yunkin of the great state of Virginia for his subcommittee report. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Can you hear me okay, Governor? | ||
| We can, sir. | ||
| Wonderful. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| First of all, I just want to thank Secretary Noam and Secretary Hegseth for leading this very, very important endeavor as we seek to transform the role of FEMA in supporting states as opposed to supplanting states in responding to natural disasters. | ||
| I also want to thank Governor Bryant for your leadership. | ||
| I've enjoyed our working relationship over the last few weeks, and I just want to thank you for the time and energy and effort that you're putting into this most important review council. | ||
| And then finally, I want to thank Governor Landry. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you for hosting, sir, and I appreciate your input. | |
| One of the things that is most important through this process is receiving the input and the counsel and the experiences from governors across the country, from emergency management personnel across the country, and of course, from our first responders who are leading localities. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is so important. | |
| And that's why this committee, which is working to evaluate the role of states and localities and federal resources in responding to these natural disasters and emergency situations, is so important. | ||
|
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I also want to thank, of course, Mayor Castor and Sherry Rosie Bordero-Stutz. | |
| Thank you for your efforts as well. | ||
| What we have completed over the course of the last few weeks since our last meeting is a substantial step in beginning to understand first the roles of state, local, and federal government as they stand today and beginning to map what they should be as we go forward. | ||
| This has entailed a weekly meeting that has brought together all the stakeholders. | ||
| It's allowed us to fully understand the statutory authorities that exist currently with FEMA. | ||
|
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We have also been reviewing 12,000 public comments. | |
| We've also been preparing a spider chart of the comprehensive role of various government agencies beyond FEMA in federal support so that we can understand the full nature of the federal government's involvement. | ||
| And then finally, we are beginning the mapping exercise of what exists today. | ||
|
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This is incredibly important. | |
| What are the roles of the localities? | ||
| What are the roles of states? | ||
| And what are the roles of the various federal government authorities and particularly FEMA? | ||
| Those roles, in fact, spread across preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. | ||
|
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There are 32 different core FEMA capabilities that need to be understood. | |
| Each one of those core capabilities has a varying role that currently either has localities or states playing the primary lead or FEMA. | ||
| And as you have heard us discuss, we have seen time and time again that the localities and states are well prepared to respond to many of these emergencies. | ||
|
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And therefore, what we are working towards is the two. | |
| We will be receiving input from governors, from local leaders, from emergency response personnel, and of course, from the review council itself. | ||
| And as we gather this information, I think we will be able to chart a very clear delineation of the way things work today, the deep challenges with the way things work today, and then be able to provide recommendations on how we shift responsibility to the states and therefore move FEMA from being in a support, move FEMA from being in a supplant role into a support role. | ||
| We're also mapping the funding exercise, and we need to better understand, of course, what FEMA's funding responsibilities will be with states. | ||
| We hear it over and over again, and I've experienced personally in leading our response to Hurricane Helene, where it was just unclear what FEMA was going to show up with financially, what other government agencies were going to show up with financially, | ||
|
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and therefore, how do we move forward with pace in order to meet our citizens' needs when we don't really even know how much the resources are going to be to provide the answers to the basic needs of housing and food and recovery? | |
| This is the work that we are undertaking. | ||
| I appreciate the hard work on behalf of all of our colleagues. | ||
| And if I can stop for a minute, Governor Abbott and the team in Texas are doing extraordinary work. | ||
| This tremendous, tremendous display of a natural disasters force, a flood that elevated 20 to 25 feet in 45 minutes, that caught sleeping children and many others at four o'clock in the morning by surprise. | ||
|
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This moment is one that has brought us all to our knees. | |
| We've asked the Lord to comfort, to receive. | ||
| We've asked him to provide the resources to find every last victim. | ||
| And I just want to thank the responsiveness of Governor Abbott, the Lieutenant Governor who was on site immediately as well. | ||
| Nim Kidd and his team were spectacular, as well as the many, many, many, many first responders who came from not just all over the state of Texas, but around the country. | ||
| Like Governor Landry, I am incredibly proud of the Virginia Swift Water teams that have been deployed in order to support this effort to find every last victim. | ||
| May God have mercy on their souls. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'd now like to turn it over to Mayor Castor and, of course, to Sheriff Rosie for their comments. | ||
| Thank you, Governor. | ||
| I rarely presume to speak for others, but I think I can speak for everyone in this room when I say that we're grateful that your family is safe in Texas. | ||
| And we are also very thankful that you could spare time for us today on this important topic. | ||
| Our thoughts as well are with those who have been impacted by the tragic flooding in Texas and their families as well. | ||
| Also, pointing out, as many have here today, the emergency responders who continue to do their work as we speak. | ||
| I've served in law enforcement for over 30 years, and when I became mayor of my city, I received a quick and sometimes very frustrating education in government processes and how slow they can be. | ||
| I told my staff at the police department and as mayor, the one phrase I never wanted to hear was that's the way we've always done it. | ||
| Disaster response can't be slow. | ||
| It needs to be rapid and responsive. | ||
| If something doesn't work, we need to fix it. | ||
| Do better, be faster. | ||
| Since I was appointed to this council, I've had substantial conversations with organizations that represent mayors, counties, cities, and states. | ||
| I hear the same things over and over from elected officials. | ||
| Disaster is no no-party affiliation. | ||
| We have a role to play, and our communities are counting on us at every level, federal, state, and local, to prepare for, respond to, and recover from these events. | ||
| The U.S. Conference of Mayors is launching an intergovernmental emergency management task force that will be meeting next week with mayors from across the country. | ||
| Next month, we'll be holding a joint meeting with NACO, which is the National Association of County Executives. | ||
| They have an intergovernmental disaster reform task force as well, and the National League of Cities. | ||
| These organizations and their members are seriously committed to working with the federal government to make disaster response more efficient and effective because it has to be. | ||
| I appreciate the opportunity to provide input on one of the most important issues facing cities, counties, and states across our entire nation. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mayor. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to echo your sentiments as well in regards to everything that's gone happening across this country. | ||
| We have a very big task before us as part of this council. | ||
| I want to take the opportunity to kind of move us forward to brief everyone as to some of the things that we've been doing as a committee. | ||
| You talked a little bit about what we've been doing at the level when it comes to mayor, the other mayors across our counties, our cities, and we've been taking this as well for first responders. | ||
| One of the things that as a committee we've been doing is we've been putting out the information and having one-on-one interviews with the subject matter experts, people who've had first-hand experiences and how it's affected them for the past 10, 15, 20 years and how they've handled it or not handled it at the community level, at the city level, at the county level. | ||
| And these firsthand testimonies is what we are bringing back to the committee and hopefully bringing it back upward when it comes to solutions. | ||
| Additionally, we are also putting out surveys. | ||
| I will be sharing it through the FBI National Academy Network, through the major county sheriffs association network, through the National Sheriffs Association, federal, correction, the Florida Sheriff's Association, and Major County Chiefs Association. | ||
| These are all major organizations that allows us to tap into law enforcement first responders so that we can get the input that we need to be able to bring forth the best information to this committee and to this review council. | ||
| I'm very proud and honored to be a part of this committee. | ||
| I'm grateful and thankful to Secretary Noam and Secretary Hedzik and to the leadership of this review council. | ||
| you very much any further governor yonkin from your subcommittee Governor Bryan, I was just going to conclude by once again reiterating that the broad participation and the extensive effort to invite comments from across first responders, | ||
| mayors, and governors and emergency management personnel has been a big effort of this subcommittee. | ||
| And I again want to thank all the members of the subcommittee. | ||
| And I also want to thank all of those that will be providing us input. | ||
| We have a very extensive mapping exercise that will collect their input and provide us the opportunity to do exactly as President Trump asked us to do in his executive order, which is to understand how it works today and how it should work and to be able to make recommendations on how to get states in the forefront and make sure that we are providing collectively the best response possible for Americans who need our help. | ||
| Governor, thank you so much. | ||
| I want to thank you particularly for all the hard work and dedication you put into this effort. | ||
| Governor Yonkin and I do talk on a regular basis. | ||
| He is very focused on his mission as subcommittee chairman and has done a remarkable job, as he does as governor of the great state of Virginia. | ||
| So, Governor, thank you so much for all your work and what you're doing. | ||
| Again, our prayers go out to you, the people in Texas that you know and are acquainted with, the loved and the lost there and the structural damage and loss that you've gone through. | ||
| We hope that the good Lord will assuage all of the pain and agony of the parents and the families that are suffering at this difficult time. | ||
| Governor, thank you again. | ||
| We'll move now to the subcommittee report on disaster response and recovery. | ||
| Its core purpose is to evaluate how FEMA could better serve the American people as a supporting rather than supplanting agency and to identify the necessary statutory changes to achieve this transformation. | ||
| I'll turn now to Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management or subcommittee report. | ||
| Mr. Administrator, you're up. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| So, Governor, I appreciate the opportunity to present today before you, the review, the review council. | ||
| I am going to solicit Mark to help me out in NIM's absence. | ||
| I know that both of us have been talking to him often on over the last week or so and have some of his thoughts. | ||
| So, instead of one of us trying to do it, I guess it takes two of us to create one NIMKID, maybe. | ||
| But we certainly appreciate everything that NIM's doing out there. | ||
| First and foremost, recovery subcommittee, we started out with several presentations on statutory functions of FEMA. | ||
| These are dozens of objectives over a series of what in essence falls into six categories of work. | ||
| That is first and foremost, foundational authority, then goes into disaster assistance, which is more so the response and recovery, the national flood insurance program, mitigation, preparedness, and last of those six categories is the continuity of government and emergency communications. | ||
| So what we're trying to do more than anything, Governor, is look at these areas in kind of a two-pronged facet. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So what we're trying to do is look at that in a two-pronged methodology. | ||
| And those two prongs are: one, what can we provide to Acting Administrator Richardson today that we feel he could do with the stroke of a pen? | ||
| In other words, things that are very fast acting, they do not require a change to 44 CFR, 2 CFR, any type of federal regulation are clearly within his roles and authorities as the acting administrator. | ||
| And then secondly, in parallel to that, we're looking at things that are going to take some type of statutory change that would be obviously need to start with Congress and the Senate. | ||
| The next thing that we've have been doing and will continue to do is conduct listening sessions. | ||
| You heard Governor Young speak about that. | ||
| You heard Sheriff Rosie and Mayor Jane talk about that as well. | ||
| We all continue to do that both informally and formally and taking information and digesting that information. | ||
| We've been giving that information to council staff so that they can run the analysis on that and get it into our presentations as we meet each week. | ||
| Something that is starting to emerge, and I shouldn't say starting to, I think we as a practitioners group knew that this was always the case. | ||
| EMAC, the Emergency Management Assistant Compact, continues to be our number one go-to thing. | ||
| I think what's starting to evolve from that, and we've heard this from numerous directors and governors, I'm sure the governors have heard this as well. | ||
| You see evidence by Texas, you see evidence by New Mexico and other disasters that we've had around the country this year. | ||
| Governors will send their staff. | ||
| And I will tell you, as a governor working directly for Governor Ron DeSantis, he never asks me the question, are we going to get reimbursed? | ||
| He always does the right thing. | ||
| He sends the people out the door. | ||
| We'll figure out the reimbursement later. | ||
| But at the end of the day, governors will be much more apt to send their individuals out the door if they know they are going to get reimbursed. | ||
| And how can we improve that? | ||
| And we think we have some ways that we will be recommending to the acting administrator as well as potentially 44 CFR revisions to help get that done so that governors know that when they do send help, they're ultimately going to be given a bill and that come out of local taxpayer dollars versus coming from the federal government. | ||
| Last, what things that's naturally start, I shouldn't say last, second to last. | ||
| What are things that have traditionally been a federal role that may be able to be taken over by another partner or a non-traditional partner? | ||
| For example, we've already had associations starting to come forward saying, you know what, we with maybe just a tad bit more money, we could actually take on that role and do that. | ||
| I'll give you one example, EMAC, back to where I started from. | ||
| That is typically overseen in large part by the National Emergency Managers Association, and they continue to want to play an active role in that. | ||
| So, could they do more? | ||
| I think the answer is they're ready, willing, and able to have that conversation. | ||
| And perhaps it could relieve some personnel at the NOC or the RCCs and some other things that may be able to help us downsize traditional federal government and maybe put that back into a better, more highly functioning space. | ||
| And then the last thing is we continue to have a conversation, still flushing it out. | ||
| And I believe this might be happening at the governor's council as well, but parametric insurance is what is the role for parametric insurance in disasters as we move forward? | ||
| You know, those specific parameters. | ||
| Could you have a parametric insurance policy? | ||
| The simple answer is yes, that's centered around debris removal. | ||
| That is probably the most costly act that comes out of a disaster is debris removal, followed probably very closely by closely by emergency protective measures. | ||
| And then as you get into the permanent categories of work, is there a place there? | ||
| And I know that some of our former administrators have probably some ideas and concepts about parametric insurance as well. | ||
| So those are the things that we have been working on. | ||
| I'm going to turn it over to Mark briefly and let him speak about anything else that I may have forgotten or that he's also talked to them about. | ||
| Thanks, Kevin. | ||
| And first of all, just let me say, being part of this subcommittee is an honor for me. | ||
| You've got three of the best emergency managers probably in the country leaders with Bob Fenton representing FEMA and, of course, Kevin and then Nim. | ||
| And they all have dealt with a number of disasters. | ||
| So the American people should be have comfort in knowing that you've got people that have the experience that can make the right recommendations. | ||
| You know, at our last meeting, the Secretary gave us a directive to go out and meet with stakeholders. | ||
| And we've taken that very seriously. | ||
| And I know Kevin already referenced that. | ||
| We are going to be doing regional listening sessions. | ||
| We've got one tomorrow here in Louisiana, but we've also invited the state emergency management directors from Delaware. | ||
| We call them the lower Atlantic hurricane states down to Florida, all the way across to Texas to be with us tomorrow to give their input, as well as Governor Landry's organizations here in Louisiana that have input as well. | ||
| We're also looking at doing one on the West Coast, in the northern states, and then also with Tornado Alley. | ||
| And I think, again, the American people know that we're trying to get input, nonpartisan input from citizens, from parts of the country that deal with different types of disasters, from hurricanes to wildfires to flooding that we're seeing tragically in Texas. | ||
| So I feel really good about that, that we're going to be able to give the Secretary what she asked with this input. | ||
| And it's going to take a lot of effort. | ||
| We have a short timeframe, but we are giving our best effort to do that. | ||
| So that's all I have to add, what you have to say. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I appreciate it, Mark. | ||
| And I think, Mark, hone in on one thing. | ||
| I know that there was a lot of social media posting ghosts, if you will, of individuals that felt that this particular makeup was a lot of hurricane Southeast United States individuals. | ||
| I will tell you, this response and recovery group has painstakingly made sure that we have gotten out of our boxes, out of our states. | ||
| I've been communicating with the New York State Commissioner for Emergency Management, who gave me a very, very well-thought-out process of preparedness metrics and things that she was able to pull together. | ||
| For instance, 73% of all preparedness dollars in the state of New York have gone to all but about 14 nationally declared disasters. | ||
| In other words, 202 of those disasters were not federally declared. | ||
| And 73% of the people that responded to those were trained by individuals directly through FEMA preparedness dollars. | ||
| I think that's the type of stuff that we don't hear about. | ||
| And we need to hear more about that, how the federal funding is being effective in these states. | ||
| So again, we have been listening. | ||
| As my mom used to say, God gave you two ears and one mouth to listen twice as much. | ||
| And we've been doing that. | ||
| So I would just say we're going to continue to do that. | ||
| And I appreciate Bob. | ||
| I appreciate Mark, Nim for their leadership on this council. | ||
| And we look forward to bringing you more recommendations in the future. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I hope you can all tell the two subcommittees have been hard at work. | ||
| The practitioner subcommittee, as we refer to it, has done an outstanding job of bringing in those that have input that would like to discuss more about not only their experiences with FEMA, but how we might make it better for their states, involving governors, involving emergency management, United States military personnel, law enforcement, all are invited to this table. | ||
| I want to welcome and thank also Brock Long for being here, former FEMA administrator, and Craig Fugate, two former administrators of FEMA and live to tell about it. | ||
| So gentlemen, thank you. | ||
| A wealth of information. | ||
| I would suggest to the committee, let's get all their knowledge that we can before we allow them to leave here. | ||
| So the final committee is the final subcommittee report. | ||
| Of course, that will not happen officially until 20 May of 2025. | ||
| But Chairman Watley, if you have any comments to make regarding, I think the final report or what you've seen here today, the two subcommittee reports. | ||
| Well, thank you, sir, and really appreciate your leadership here. | ||
| I also want to thank Secretary Noam and Secretary Hegseth for their leadership on this committee, which is so absolutely critical. | ||
| And Governor Landry, I want to thank you. | ||
| You and Louisiana have shown the rest of this country how to respond to storms. | ||
| The amount of information that you have accumulated back through Katrina and previous storms, all the way through where we are today, the rest of the country needs your leadership, and we appreciate it very much. | ||
| And thank you so much for hosting this. | ||
| I've had a chance to review all of the information that has been put together so far by FEMA, by the staff on this committee, as well as a number of other reviews outside of the committee. | ||
| And generally, I think that there are some good ideas in all of this information. | ||
| But there's a couple of thoughts that continue to kind of percolate, I think, is the first is that a lot of the ideas that we see when we're talking about what FEMA does, we're talking about how FEMA does it and the rest of a government response. | ||
| Because again, the federal government response is not limited to FEMA, makes sense in a vacuum. | ||
| But as we've seen just this week, we don't live in a vacuum, right? | ||
| And the fact is that the storms that we have seen, the fires that we have seen over the course of the last several months are going to continue to happen. | ||
| And so as we're thinking through what is this response going to be, what does federal emergency management need to look like? | ||
| We're going to continue to be responding in real time to these storms. | ||
| And I think that it's hard when there's a lot of conversation about FEMA, about the Corps of Engineers, that we do need to be mindful of the fact that these are people who are working hard every single day to save lives, to protect communities. | ||
| And I want to make sure that that is put in place. | ||
| Our thanks and our gratitude for everybody who's stepping up, whether it's from the Coast Guard or FEMA or the Coast or anywhere else in the federal or state governments that we're seeing. | ||
| And secondly, I want to thank President Trump for his vision here, because I think that as we have seen over the course of emergency management back to the 60s, every time we see a major event that takes place, there's an immediate reaction to it. | ||
| Sometimes it is just put in place by the president through executive fiat. | ||
| Sometimes there's legislation that looks at it, but it's very reactive. | ||
| And what president has tasked us with doing here is being proactive and making sure that we are setting up a program that may be FEMA, it may be a different entity, and that we have a lot of other actors within the federal government that are going to be involved. | ||
| But more importantly, what are the states going to be doing? | ||
| And what are the local governments going to be doing? | ||
| That we have a proactive discussion as we're moving forward is going to be extremely important for us. | ||
| And so I feel like the president's vision here is something that is going to last far beyond his term. | ||
| And I think that that's very critical for what we're trying to set up. | ||
| I would just say, as far as the first two subcommittees that have already started their work, I definitely appreciate all of the efforts that they're putting into gathering information, gathering the inputs that you are, because obviously that's going to be very critical as we put together ultimately what is going to be the report and the recommendations that are going to go to the president. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Chairman Watley, who has a day job and still spends his time helping with it. | |
| I also want to recognize Acting Director FEMA, David Richardson. | ||
| Acting Director and I have become good friends as we talk on a daily basis. | ||
| He has been invaluable. | ||
| Bob Fenton, thank you again, now serving at FEMA. | ||
| But the information resources that has been provided by the acting director and his FEMA staff will be invaluable in not only putting this report together for the president, but allowing the president of the United States to make clear-eyed decisions along with the United States Congress about how we respond in the future. | ||
| So Director Richardson, thank you so much, sir. | ||
| Jonathan Owen, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary. | ||
| Assistant Secretary. | ||
| There was a long title involved in that, but Joe has showed up today and took charge as all good Marines will do. | ||
| I'm honored to have him here. | ||
| I hope he'll get involved more as I draw people into this council to divide the workload. | ||
| But Joe, it is an honor to have you here, Mr. Acting Deputy Secretary. | ||
| And I'll turn to you for comments before closing. | ||
| Well, thank you, Governor. | ||
| And thank you, everybody here. | ||
| Get the mic better. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| So again, on behalf of the department, thank you for everybody in the work, National Guard Bureau. | ||
| Give a shout out there. | ||
| I know you guys are working hard. | ||
| Secretary Sejio, Dave Richardson, thank you, Acting Director. | ||
| DOD is here to support. | ||
| We recognize that we bring the money, we bring assets, and we are the department of last resort. | ||
| We understand that, and we want everybody to know that the department is behind you and will be supporting. | ||
| I'm in very much in receive mode to work through any seams and find any areas that we can improve efficiencies and support. | ||
| I've already gathered quite a bit of knowledge just being down here for a few hours with the gentleman. | ||
| And I'm looking forward to the rest of the week and we do not want to delay. | ||
| So thank you, governors. | ||
| And I turn it back to you. | ||
| Mr. Secretary, thank you. | ||
| And again, to the guard, I'm sure Governor Landry would echo my thoughts of how important our National Guard is to every executive and how being commander-in-chief was one of our proudest responsibilities with the fine men and women of the National Guard. | ||
| Patrick will adjourn this in a moment. | ||
| If there are any further questions, comments, the good of the order. | ||
| If not, I'm going to ask that we take a moment of silent prayer to remember those families in Texas and pray the good Lord's protection on those in New Mexico. | ||
| of the fathers and the mothers and the children that were lost lord we ask for your divine healing dissuades the pain that they will carry with them for their days Lord, knowing that you are there as a great sacrifice, lead us now, Lord, that we might serve on this council in their memory. | ||
| Lord, in Jesus' name, we ask these things. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| Patrick? | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the FEMA Review Council's second public meeting. | ||
| I want to thank everybody for participating both in person and virtually. | ||
| A recording of this meeting will be posted to the council's website. | ||
| And as various members of the council have repeatedly reiterated, your feedback is both welcome and appreciated. | ||
| If you wish to contact the FEMA Review Council, you can reach out to us at female reviewcouncil at hq.dhs.gov. | ||
| You can also go to our FEMA Review Council website. | ||
| It is dhs.gov/slash FEMA review tack council. | ||
| And without further ado, I'd like to thank Secretary Noam, Secretary Hegset, and Governor Landry for hosting us this week, sir. | ||
| Greatly appreciate your hospitality and to our great CBP partners here at the Customs House who are hosting us for the week. | ||
| Thank you all for your support. | ||
| The FEMA Review Council's second public meeting is hereby closed. | ||
| Thank you all for attending. | ||
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