good morning and the subcommittee welcomes all of our witnesses this morning we extend special greetings to our colleagues from the transportation and infrastructure committee who will testify that they have been deputized as it were by their local communities to bring us straight from the field and the information the subcommittee needs to evaluated just how the new federal flood mapping will work on the ground the need to engage in hazard prevention cannot be doubted floods are the most common hazard in the united states right now midwest communities are being ra floods floods affect a lot of facts can be local affecting a neighborhood or community or they can ravage entire river basins and multiple states the flooding produced by a hurricane katrina alerted the nation to the possibility of unanticipated devastation even in areas accustomed to severe flooding the flood has existed in all fifty states  here in the district of columbia they are especially common in low lying areas near water or downstream from a dam they are especially calm it is not uncommon to see small streams or low lying ground that appear harmless and dry weather become flooded after a heavy rain or significant snowfall nevertheless many raise the legitimate question whether a wholesale national remapping based on essentially a one percent chance of severe flooding is worth the time and expense this is one of the questions we will raise in this hearing this morning however the remapping function certainly did not originate with hurricane katrina the national flood insurance program or the n f i b began in  sixty eight with the national flood insurance act to control devastation incurred from the floods nationally although the program started in hud the federal assistance insurance administration this program with because floods are the greatest natural hazard based annually by communities the n f r p works hand in glove with themas efforts in disaster preparedness carbery response and mitigation the program offers incentives to help communities identify and reduce flooding hazards and take steps to mitigate the damage to property and the risk of loss of life when a community agrees to adopt and enforce floodplain management ordinances particularly for a four for new construction the federal government makes flood insurance available to homeowners and business owners bhima estimates that flood plain magine measures to prevent one point four billion dollars in property losses annually and today ninety eight percent of the country including up to twenty thousand communities is covered by the flood insurance program the program for vides about five and a half million policies with over one trillion dollars in coverage approximately nine the companies sell flood insurance companies on behalf of sima the point of all of this is to reduce the need for federal disaster assistance under the stafford act the sub committee is well aware that flood hazards change with time because of the physical changes in topography caused by wildfire brochures in an infrastructure construction and the like we are also painfully aware that floods can cause levees to fail hurricane katrina all but big weed the current flood mapping effort to the nation we do not doubt that the them remapping is timely or that the corps of engineers efford is essential however necessity is not always the mother of invention communities must be convinced of both the risks and the benefits time for communities to do the necessary work must be realistically assessed and granted the question concerning whether expense sorry the question concerning eggs vance and whether the remapping requirements constitute an unvented unfunded mandate must be answered the actual of facts on federal backed mortgages and on eligibility for federal disaster assistance must be described requiring the costs mandated by law remapping in the midst of the most serious downturn in the economy in years must be justified not only explaining the remapping process itself but answering questions such as these are what hearings are for the subcommittee has much to learn from the members whose districts are affected by the new mapping effort who will testify today from thema a rmy corps of engineers who will explain the how and why of the process from experts and from witnesses who can express the views of local communities and business  opening remarks this morning thank you madam chair let me also thank our witnesses for being here today i look forward to hearing testimony on the obviously the modernization of famous flood hazard mapping program particular i want to thank th distinguished colleagues our first panel for taking the time out of their busy schedules obviously to be here today you're providing testimony on the practical impact of the most flood hazard mapping program or what it has had on your congressional districts and i think  important issue to our constituents and for that matter to all property owners i personally seen the impact of flooding and what it the fact it has on lives and property due to the recent floods in missouri and other parts of the midwest over seventy countries  d seventy counties in southern and central missouri were affected by the flooding that occurred at the end of march this is only the most recent flood event to impact the state over the past three months taking a great toll on the state of missouri resulting in three federal disaster declaration floods and one of the most common hazards in the united states and currently the united states averages about two point five billion an annual flood losses recognized in the impact floods have taken on lives and property congress created the national flood insurance program in one nine hundred sixty eight the program was intended to make insurance available to cover flood damages to provoke promote sound land use by minimizing exposure to flood losses and to get people out of harm's way to carry out this program the federal government worked with local governments to identify and map flood hazards today twenty thousand communities participate in the program and one hundred thousand flood hazard map panels have been created flood maps is of the upmost importance to the communities affected accurate maps are needed to strike a balance between protecting communities from the devastation caused by flooding and sure the community growth and development is not overly constrained without a flood maps some homeowners may be paying too much for flood insurance while others may not may not purchase flood insurance at all because of an inaccurate map shows that their property is obviously outside the flood plain because  the great impact on communities covered by the maps fema must be responsible to community concerns additionally fema must provide a quick and effective way to appeal mapping determinations in order to strike a balance and ensure accuracy i know famous trying to get it right this is too important not to be able to get it right again i want to thank all of our witness for being here today your testimony is going to help us better understand the practical impact of famous map modernization program to determine whether fema has attained the proper balance in implementing the program thanks ma any of the members have statements of their own this to castello madam chair thank you and i thank you for calling this important hearing today i see that we have a distinguished panel of members before us so i will only make brief comments and ask unanimous consent that my full statement be entered into the record madam chair thank you for calling the hearing today i welcome my witnesses and i'm pleased that one of our witnesses on the next panel is left starman from the regional council of governments in the st louis metropolitan area i think you will hear testimony from him that relates to my concerns with the program as you know in two thousand and four team and barked on a map modernization program it's an important program it allows us to take advantage of revised data to help local officials and citizens have the ability to better plan for flood related disasters so i support the program however i have gr concerns with the piecemeal approach that fema is using and pursuing at this time for example in the st louis metropolitan area plenary maps will be available for review this summer for the l annoyed side of the mississippi river but it may be three years before the maps are available on the missouri side of the river even though both sides of the river share the same floodplain and the same watershed why because fema  regional office for instance covering illinois is pursuing the matter of the mapping process much sooner than the regional office that covers the state of missouri while i support the map modernization program i oppose this piecemeal approach i believe that the flood modernization map for applied flood plain or a watershed should be implemented for the entire floodplain or watershed the same time the corps of engineers follows watershed boundaries not state boundaries i offered an amendment to h r thirty one twenty one the flood insurance modernization act when it was when it passed the house and let me say  that that amendment basically says to fema they would be required to implement maps for the entire floodplain and watershed as opposed to the piecemeal approach that is currently being followed again madam chair i thank you for calling this hearing today and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses time the united states house of representatives the once vibrant neighborhoods in buffalo and lackawanna new york in which flood insurance is mandated are effectively economic dead zones because this program provides perverse disincentives to homeownership into home improvement which over decades have effectively turned whole swaths of formally vibrant urban neighborhoods into virtual ghost towns it is my contention that the financial basis of this program is unsustainable and unjustifiable it has a pay or pay structure in which many communities across america pay this mandatory flood tax in see no benefit with just a few communities realizing assistance in order to demonstrate this pay or pay a relationship i am today submitting to acting administrator merced at a request for a national county by county breakdown of the amount paid into out of the program in the past ten years unfortunately the map modernization process being undertaken by fema which is a subject of this hearing at the edges of this program instead of addressing its fundamental flaws in buffalo while some communities received relief from the map modernization fema now proposes to include the historic old first ward neighborhood in this economic dead zone for the first time a neighborhood which has stood since the civil war which has never seen the type of flooding that would result in payments from the flood insurance program after i've received the data from fema regarding the payer payee relationship i will forward it to the committee for your review and consideration and i thank you once again chairwoman norton for allowing me to participate in this hearing thank you very much mi importance to towns and cities throughout the country i would like to begin by noting specifically that i am glad the committee has chosen to title this hearing national flood plain remapping the practical impact because if there is one point that my testimony would make to the committee today i would hope that it is that this process will have a real and significant impact on the daily lives of people in my district and elsewhere the results of this process will impact the value of people's homes the costs to maintain them and the fate of homes and businesses unfortunate enough to be affected by future floods as we have seen in recent years extreme weather events are occurring with alarming frequency too often these events create flooding that leaves homes battered business is reeling infrastructure broken and communities devastated my district new york's hudson valley has been far from immune floods have had an incredibly destructive impact in the hudson valley and recent years the flooding has become so frequent the town supervisors farmers and homeowners have every reason to look over their shoulders or up at the skies every time it drizzles the region has experienced three fifty year floods in this decade alone that rate of activity strains the ability of emergency emergency services to respond communities to recover and local resource managers to prepare the full force of flooding impacts became evident a year ago during last april nor'easter the rains only lasted a weekend but the damage is still being repaired roads were washed out fields submerged homes and businesses were damaged after those storms fema made a deal disaster declaration opening the way for assistance but it is clear that we need more than an ad hoc approach to prevention mitigation and recovery unfortunately recent history and the forces of climate change leave us with too much on certainty to simply hope that these events are anomal es that will soon be remembered only is historical quirks or weather channel trivia it is clear that our government must take steps to be prepared for future events one of the most challenging consequences will be the modernization of the national flood insurance program and the update of the national flood plain matt as he moves forward with this process it must take a methodical comprehensive approach that will be effective fair and avoid onto costs to taxpaying homeowners large process a part of this process should be the provision of avenues for communities particularly those that will be newly included in the flood plains to boyce their concerns or their protest with thema without undue burden several communities in orange county new york would be included in the flood plain map and forced to purchase insurance for the first time for the preliminary flood insurance rate map regarding base flood elevations within orange county new york the data needed for the appeal of a draft would require hydrologic and hydraulic studies that must be paid for by individual homeowner homeowners or local governments despite the highly technical and costly nature of these studies female allows only a ninety day comment period now ninety days might be a standard window here in washington d c for federal officials but for home on homeowners in my district who are already struggling with property taxes and small towns with limited expertise that is a fast turnaround although fema has since and for my office at the review process in one of my cities will allow other communities to register protest until late may these procedures are hard to navigate and need to be made more accessible to the stakeholders who will have to live with the impact of the new floodplain map on a day to day basis in either instance it would not be feasible to finance and conduct these studies before the current public comment dental and deadline i'm not suggesting th towns and cities should be able to skirt inclusion in the floodplain if it is truly weren't it but if there are local concerns that inclusion is unjustified or detrimental it should be easier for communities to make their case to fema directly efforts to update the national flood insurance program are right to account for changing circumstances and the new map should take perspective factors into account specifically the human factor of local growth and the environmental factor of climate change must be taken into account both will directly impact flood activity in my district orange county new york is one of the fastest growing areas in new york state we are proud that more people are choosing to make the county their home and are working hard to manage the development with their presence requires the region is also blessed with abundant streams and rivers that may exhibit changing six as sea levels precipitation activity and other factors relating to our changing climate or move forward it needs to find ways for the new flood map to recognize the need for growth and extend protection to vulnerable communities in order to prevent the blessing of our water resources from becoming a curse i thank the committee and the chair for examining this issue i look forward to working with my colleagues fema and the army corps of engineers to ensure that the ms update of the national flood plain map is responsible effective and in the national interest  thank you madam chair and ranking member grade for convening this hearing since coming to congress by protection has been one of my top priorities my district sits at the consulates are two great rivers sacramento is considered to have the highest flood risk of any major metropolitan city in the united states more than four hundred forty thousand people one hundred ten thousand structures the capital of the state of california and up to fifty eight billion dollars are at risk yet my district has truly been a positive poster child in its efforts to boaster our flood control system since our near catastrophic flood in one thousand nine hundred sixty we have investigated our levees planned our projects assessed ourselves millions of dollars pushed our state to be a full partner and begun to build the projects that will get us to a greater than two hundred year level of protection in fact our latest assessment commits over four hundred million dollars a local dollars to this effort we are fully committed to flood protection i'm very proud of the flood control work we've accomplished we know we still have a long way to go but what we don't need at this point is to have the rug pulled from under us that leads me to why we're here today to discuss where our national flood control policy is and where it is headed specific clee i would like to discuss what the corps of engineers has proposed to use as a new standard for levies as written about in the draft engineers technical letter first published or released in two thousand and seven i think we can all agree that it is important to set robust standards when it comes to public safety i am concerned though with the core proposed levy standard not because i don't want greater public safety for everyone who lives in the floodplain but because we may not be addressing our biggest problem when it comes to flooding this new standard creates a goal for us this so far off the chart unobtainable we must maintain the trust of our local communities communities their own vesting their hard earned dollars their time and their future goals we cannot put the brass ring out of reach i understand that the historical data of a flood plain is not enough in order to compute a watershed flood frequency analysis to estimate the risk of faces you must also use probabilities and depending on what probability theory you use i watershed could have greatly different flood threats so if you are proposing a change to the methodology being used for levee standards nationwide we must be extremely careful to get it right the problem i see is that we are setting the bar for communities in the floodplain and leaving it up to them to best figure out how to mitigate for that risk i'm not a flight engineer but i understand that the corps is proposing to use a method of analysis often referred to as a money carlo simulation and may just be a name but any method with a label like that needs to be greatly scrutinized i'm also concerned that by using this new standard we may in actuality be holding communities to a different standard the midwest communities that contend with a wide and massive mississippi river have very different watersheds that in the west there levees are set back their flood plains are much larger they often have days a warning when a flood is coming in sacramento's watershed we have a sierra snow pack that can melt quickly and in some cases give flood plain residents only a couple hours warning of a flood are livy's are a result of the gold rush and are built built immediately adjacent to the river and then we have the warm coasts that can make our weather patterns change rapidly so i'm concerned that a universal approach will not recognize these very significant region no differences if getting communities the highest level of protection in the quickest time possible is argo we also need to some of this policy specifically the for far away permit process by allowing the local corps districts to approve for a white permits so that work can be done quickly to upgrade levees a commitment to public safety will also be demonstrated we need to get federal flood control policy right because communities such as mine are pain a huge price i know females go and remapping is to make communities safe we can all agree that public safety is the number one priority but unless we accurately estimate the threat our communities will pay huge economic consequences without getting additional safety also i worry about people on fixed incomes and their ability to make to meet flood insurance requirements even if the annual payment could be broken up in two installments it would be much easier my point is we need flexibility and we need to get it right the good news is that we know how to flood protection problems and make the city safer from strengthening our levees to the joint federal project for some dam i don't want all the good work we are doing to be wasted we must have obtainable standers standards t recognise regional differences and flood protection and flood plain analyses public safety needs to take precedence across the country and new standards must allow communities to actually achieve measures that will allow them to be safe i want to thank the subcommittee for allowing me to be here and looking into this important issue and i thank you very much thank you very much ms met through a ms miller thank you madam chair and ranking member grades and members of the subcommittee i certainly appreciate the opportunity to come here and testify on this very important hearing i believe on famous flood mapping program and actually many of the same reasons that other areas of the country are expressing concern this issue has also impacted my constituents in a very negative i think in an unfair unjust way fema of course is currently doing what the congress has directed them to do and that is to update and modernize flood maps across the entire nation and we all recognise that with new technology we can and we should update the maps to reflect our very best science and to convert existing outdated maps into a user friendly digital format which will account for property development and growth over the past several decades as well as changes that we find in a top dog or a fee and i want to make it clearly clear that i absolutely do support this very important work however property owners in the great lakes area are being treated very unfairly by these new maps which have taken effect in my district actually in the past several years the net impact is that we can show how these property owners all throughout the great basin actually whose properties very rarely flood nor have the potential to flood are being treated unfairly in fact  being abused by the national flood insurance program my constituents are paying very very high flood insurance premiums and yet we very rarely receive claims and let me just give you an example of the disparity that i'm trying to address in regards to famous proposal for remapping in the great lakes region they are basing raising the base flood elevation an additional fourteen inches they say the macthis to accurately reflect the risk of flooding and this is predicated however on data from one thousand nine hundred eight which was two years after the highest levels ever recorded in the great lakes in lake st clair alone which is the small lake between lake huron the lake erie the lake levels have dropped over three feet since then and are now five and a half feet below the current base flood elevation in fact over the past twenty years the lakes average have dropped eleven times and most importantly if you really want to look at historic averages the lake level has only changed an average depth of about six inches a year and in spite of all of this famous new base flood elevation is now six and a half feet above the clear the current like level and while fema has gone about implementing these new maps the international joint commission also known as the i j c which is an independent by national organization is stablished to help and prevent and resolve disputes relating to the great lakes has undertaken a five year study examining issues that affect water levels in the upper great lakes this is going to be the most comprehensive in advance like level study ever completed and certainly we can all agree using sound science is very important in this instance when hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be assessed against property owners the most prudent course of action i believe is to wait until the i j c has an opportunity to complete the study in fact let me mention that another subcommittee of the t n i committee the water resources is going to be holding a field hearing and several weeks in green bay to study the lake levels in the great lakes however my constituents currently are paying much higher premiums for an insurance plan that they will likely never ever file a claim on in the practical impact of these new maps and my constituents have been to simply raise their flood insurance premiums costing them literally millions of dollars again at a time when the like levels are at a historic all time low this means that they are not going to be making claims but they will be subsidizing other parts of the country because what is happening is that many states and their property owners with little risk of flooding who have experience low or no flooding are funding the national flood insurance program at very very high rates between seventy eight the year the national flood insurance program that began in zero two there were ten states that received more in claims and what they paid in policies in fact over one and a half billion dollars more and the average premium for policyholders in those states was two hundred twenty three dollars michigan on the other hand paid almost one hundred twenty million dollars more into the program than it received back in claims and yet the average premium for people in michigan was two hundred fifty seven dollars and this is a very common element throughout the great lakes state higher premiums and lower claims in the states who year after year are taking advantage of a flood insurance program and i believe that what is going on is that michigan and other states are sort of being forced to subsidize those who live in in other states that have repeated floods and really if this is what we are going to do as a nation we should call it what it is i think because we are always going to step up as a congress and help areas that are having natural disasters then we should have a national catastrophic fund as opposed to what we have right now where you have some states subsidizing others in fact if the situation continues as it is it is my intention to contact our governor and our  insurance commissioner and suggest that michigan should opt out of the national flood insurance program and ashley self insure and one thing i will say in michigan we actually look down at the water we do not look up at the water let me just close by giving you want to experience one county in my district think clair county this is a small county they have actually subsidized this program to the tune of eight point five million dollars so you can interpret across the entire state at the same time this is a county that has about a fifteen percent unemployment rate at this current time and so here we are with all these higher flood insurance premiums that is happening but i really appreciate the committee allowing me to testify on this i certainly look forward to continuing to work with all of my colleagues to bring both fairness and reasonable as well back to the national flood insurance program thank you very much thank you very much ms miller mr bozeman thank you ms norton mr drs for your leadership in holding this very important hearing on the national flood plain remapping process i believe this strongly as anyone that famous flood maps should be modernised and accurate however communities in my district being exposed to a confusing and unclear process that has failed to address your questions and concerns in a clear and consistent manner also they have been subjected to a timetable for compliance that seems both arbitrary and unrealistic given the circumstances these failures are not for a lack of effort or communications from the dedicated folks at the relevant relevant federal agencies rather the process is problematic because our communities are traveling through uncharted territory as i navigate this process while there are several efforts aspects of this process that are challenging for communities focus my brief remarks on just one relevant issue the assessment of flood protection provided by levees and how levees are certified for inclusion on the modernize famous flood maps let me provide you one example of such a challenge from my congressional district crawford county in the city of van b of engineers to have their levee start a fire as a result crawford county in the city of van buren have been proactive informally enlisting the assistance of the corps of engineers however challenges and barriers have been encountered that were not anticipated when fame advised the county and the city to work with the corps specifically as the corps look for a legal authorization to perform live certification work they have encountered several hurdles that will most likely did lie assistance and probably prevented assistance for example in two thousand congress and acted the thomas amendment which permits the corps to provide commercially available engineering services only if these are not reasonably quickly available through ordinary business channels and if the corps is uniquely equipped to perform such services as a strong proponent of this private sector i support the thomas amendment but i believe the corps should take into consideration in this specific instance whether proud to thousand and nine fame imposed deadline to complete their levee certification work or else the citizens and businesses including the local industrial park will face mandatory increased flood insurance cost even if the corkin eagle justification to do this certification work the evaluation would take five to six months also any deficiencies with the levee would have to be addressed before certification deficiencies could result in the need to generate significant pay for the levee modifications including engineering design and construction costs which nobody is disputing that's that's something that needs to be done but in short it is highly unlikely that the april two thousand and n a deadline it will be achievable despite the best efforts of my community's been very proactive to try and get ahead of this thing to work with our federal agencies and good faith manner as a result without a change much of reclassified as a high risk flood zone and the cost of doing business there will be dramatically increased next spring the conclusion is the ranking member on the subcommittee on water resources and environment i hope our subcommittee and this committee can work together  with both the corps of engineers and fame a solution that will provide reasonable accommodation for levee owners who are making their best effort to get their levees certified as quickly as possible as an initial step i would suggest that again i you know i have a situation where i encourage my my city my county how to get ahead of this to do the right things they contacted the appropriate agencies were told to move in a certain direction now though i have been given a timeline that is unattainable and it's ironic because much of the delay that's going to be caused in that timeline will be from the agencies from themselves in their inability to make a decision and move forward so it's a problem right now like i say most of our communities now are struggling with this if you hear from the testimony they need guidance but we really do need to look at these very  many many hours in the seats where you were and now this is my first time here and i must assure you the view is quite different from here very imposing this front thank you for the opportunity to testify the committee today i have been a strong support of the flood insurance program ever since it began i think it's a great idea but we also have to recognize it has to be properly administered in my hometown of grand rapids michigan is facing severe neck and negative economic impacts as a result of femurs floodplain remapping initiative i had the opportunity to explain this to the subcommittee precisely what is happening here i have a longer written statement that i will submit for the record grand rapids is a city of two hundred thousand people settled along the grand river it is the second largest city in michigan and the center of a metropolitan area of over one million people the current story of flood mapping and grand rapids is one of bad timing and bureaucratic close mindedness as well as disagreements between different federal and state government agencies the city was first notified about the fema flood plain remapping initiative in the fall of two thousand and three this was right around the same time that the city had just completed a seventeen year twelve point four million project to improve the flood laws and embankments along with grand river now the words a city urban area was not a lot of money took it upon themselves to develop a major floodplain apparently flood wall and embankment project they raised the flood was to one foot above the hundred foot elevation which at that time was deemed by the corps of engineers as adequate cost effective and context sensitive two years later have to that major project was finished which really strange the government's resources the city's resources in august two thousand and five issued a procedural memo which required that the levees be constructed to three peat above the one hundred year flood elevation in order to be considered during mapping revisions or upscaled dates in other words the am project the city had done following guidelines of various government agencies both state and local were now two feet below the required level apparently the fema design standards were in place since  six but it was more of a guideline than an enforced rule and grand rapids city officials were told in july two thousand and six that the flood was and embankments were not adequate would not be considered as in f remapping once the appeals are resolved and the new map is finalized and published it will trigger the flood insurance requirements for those properties located in the newly identified floodplain according to a draft report from a local engineering firm the new regulations are estimated to impact over six thousand parcels in the city of grand rapids with the potential for a total annual insurance premium of somewhere between six million and twenty two million dollars this is particularly unwelcome knows to a center city and a state facing troubling economic times and high unemployment many of the affected properties are in low and moderate income neighborhoods i strongly encourage the subcommittee to work with theme of a more reasonable approach fema should discard its all or nothing policy on levy certification and should take existing flood protection into consideration when revising its maps and calculating flood risk particular early when a city of modern city with a typical modern city financial problems has taken it upon itself to really improve the protection within the city i understand that fame is a job to do and warning and insuring against flood risk however arbitrarily disregarding existing flood protection ignoring context sensitive design and requiring property owners to insure themselves against imaginary flood risk that will likely never be realized has economic impacts on communities and property owners that are inappropriate and unfair we've heard rough estimates that the new standards  provide protection for a five hundred year flood plain which is certainly longer than the age of the city finally i'm sure it's a subcommittee to ensure that fim is usually utilizing the best and most appropriate geologic hydrologic and climate data and the flood my modeling available it is my understanding that there is some question about the accuracy and consistency of the modeling used and mapping can't county and the city of grand rapids the effective implementation of a reasonable flood insurance program depends on accurate science let me add one quick note and that is even if we simply raise the current levees by the two feet that are required by fema that would not meet the standards of fema because there are a number of river crossings bridges that would not meet the standard reconstructing all the bridges would be back breaking monetary test for the city of grand rapids and so i'm asking that we help you help us develop a better plan that we can meet the actual needs of the floodplain and not break the bank for the city a hall mr bozeman ms miller you spoke about the study have raised questions that go to the need for more time i wonder if  your communities have asked for extensions and whether those extensions have been granted or any of you have had that  experience none of my communities that i'm aware of have had anything except in getting extensions that flood maps have they have come out of been implemented and the premium premiums have gone up substantially and people are paying these very man's of course if you have a mortgage if you don't have a mortgage you don't have to pay the premiums while the flood maps are out the extension would have to do with your response or the need or your or your your differences with the ma p and i'm trying to get some sense of whether or not there is a kind of communication you might expect between the federal agency and the community to work out differences between communities and in our case ms norton the community is very supportive with you know going forward with the levee certification project and i don't dispute that it needs to be done  i don't dispute that at all either i think the train or the events of the past of showing us that we need to be doing this work but the reality is you know for the agencies to require an april or nine deadline when we all have experience of these agencies making it difficult for them to make the decisions to allow the community go forward with the project and so there's no way that they're they're not getting the the answers to the question whether or not the corps convert via this or the two thousand law is going to you know will prove that those decisions aren't being made and then if the court does get involved it will take them several months to figure out what's going on in the construction so  the deadline is unrealistic by any standard and we've not had any success in getting the deadline extended now part of that is if this truly is uncharted water i mean you know people are trying to figure out who can do you know who's responsible timeframe when we took when we speak to the next panel i want to mismatch what you meant when you said that the new standard was on obtainable we are men chair we are on the leading edge of some new standards being imposed upon us and the corps has started to implement apparently these new standards which were apparently in existence using a new probability theory so therefore for us it's we have always been the good citizen and essence of being very proactive we have been certified four hundred a year and we're going for two hundred a year and during that process we discover that we had that under seepage so therefore we move forward to address this in the meantime with those remapping we understood now because of the new core standards that we are now in the floodplain so we're moving forward with our own assessment to advance fund this because we need to do this but quite frankly the question i ring up is that if the corps goes forward with these new standards that are imposed upon us it without regional differences my concern is that really reach the standard we need because it seems like there's changing all the time so we reach one hundred year or two hundred year in all of a sudden we're not there yet so that's my concern here that i'm  we got it and they told us in fact that the length of the appeal period is regulated by statute and seen it is unable to extended quote and quote however they will not issue a county wide flood insurance rate map until all communities within the legally extend that two hundred eighty days i should add that in my home county of duchesse which i didn't mention in my formal statement we've also had flooding of both the ten mile river which the corps of engineers is currently taken out by too much water but there was so much water coming down the whoppers that went over the top of the hydroelectric plant building and they had to shut down the generators because they were full of water and silt and that in orange county we had the well kill river the missing river and the delaware river all flood flooding at the same time and right now the corps looking at studies in in that area both at my request and of congress and she's request things are changing very rapidly because not only of increased storm frequency and increased storm strength which models of climate change but also because of development which means more impervious impermeable surfaces like parking lots and roofs and driveways and roads where there used to be  natural plains wetlands and forests which could retain water and hold it instead of releasing it immediately into storm drains and into the into the storms and as a result what used to be a normal rain a bad event now seems to produce a flood in our area much more i've told our state insurance commissioner i said you know if you had aaa or any of the normal insurance regular privately insurance companies doing this kind of thing with a reaping all of this additional money based on the claim rate you know you'd be up in arms and this is what is happening to us as a state and we can show it and we can demonstrate it over and over and over in so many of these various counties as i've said and others have said we have literally thousands and thousands of property owners that have never had to pay flood insurance all of a sudden with a new map they are now in a flood plain and their pain pain is very high premiums and this is where i say as a nation a compassionate nation which i believe we are mean when we see what happened with hurricane katrina or rita or the various hurricanes that happen in florida or we see what happens in mr gray state we see what happens along the mississippi as a nation we are never going to say we're not going to help our fellow americans  and that is why i say i think we should have a national catastrophic fund or something so we are able to move very quickly rather than what we feel we are literally funding others other state well then somebody would have to fund the national assistance there's a lot of quid pro quo in here but we do need to look at the basis here this is an insurance program will and george programs usually that some people put in everybody and some get out most that's the whole nature of insurance whether it's health insurance or flood insurance whether or not that fits this post katrina period is very much worthy of real examination i pr that we will look at it because of a lot of communities decided to self insure them where would they were to go that's exactly right and it does sound like a rather dry county an idea i understand that which i think speaks to how frustrated we all are with the looking at the numbers on this type of thing i very much appreciate all of this vote and i'm sure you we will take every bit of it into account not only in our questions for the next panel but in statutory changes and other changes we may request thank you maher to start followed by mr scott good morning to your woman norton ranking member graves and members of the subcommittee i'm david marr said assistant ministry of her for mitigation and federal insurance administrator for fema thank you for allowing me to update you on three items the most progress in meeting congressional intent that the nation's flood map inventory be updated and modernized the importance of accurately depicting levees on community flood maps and to discuss the status of flood maps right here in our nation's capital a collaborative effort among fema and its partners the flood map modernization initiative uses state of the art technology to replace paper firm panels with modern digital maps for the majority of flooding sources the flood plain boundary lines are updated and in some areas the flood elevations are revised recognize though that the flood maps only depict the one percent annual chance flood a flood with a one in one hundred chance of occurring in any given year it's a widely accepted the minimum standard for fame of the modernized maps allow us to establish and maintain a fair and accurate insurance rating mechanism for the national flood insurance program for the over twenty thousand communities participating in the n f i p they are much more the digital data and maps serve as a vital foundation for local flood hazard awareness land use planning floodplain management evacuation planning and reducing vulnerability from future flood events firms are used more than thirty million times a year by builders lenders realtors insurance agents community planners local government officials homeowners and others objective to map sixty five percent of the nation's land area where ninety two percent of the population lives is within reach fema has over fourteen hundred countywide mapping project underway currently in every region of the nation at the close of fiscal year zero seven we had produced modernize maps for over sixty percent of the nation's population accurately depicting flood hazards near levees is critical the aim is encountering levees which communities know did not provide the flood protection one spot like here in washington d c in other areas we are finding that the level of protection provided has not been established or is not known in cases where we know levee does not provide protection against the one percent annual chance flood we are compelled to ensure that the public is aware of the threat and to arm them with the facts that will allow them to reduce their risk and even in cases where levees meet themis standards we must let them know that a chance exists that a greater flood could still overtopped the levee which is why we show areas protected by levees on our maps while flood insurance is not required for these areas fema recommends the property owners consider insurance at a reduced rate as we know we can't be too careful when it comes to ensuring people are aware and take steps to reduce their risk in the last two weeks in missouri and arkansas levees have been breached flooding hundreds of homes and businesses let me conclude by providing a brief update on the status of the washington d c flood insurance rate map in march of two thousand and seven due to the new information provided by the us army of engineers that outlined significant levee deficiencies in the d c potomac park system fema notified the district of columbia by a letter that it issued revised pulmonary flood maps depicting the levee system is not providing adequate flood protection march twenty five of this year fim articulated its continued commitment to inform citizens businesses and institutions about the flood hazard while expressing famous optimism and working together with the district and outlining a collaborative solution for this unique situation at this point there is agreement that the d c potomac park levee does not meet current and f i p levee requirements nonetheless we have agreed to meet with city officials over the next thirty days to discuss how identified deficiencies might be remedied fema will continue working with the corps in our other federal state and local government partners to communicate the true and current flood hazard for americans in their homes and their places of education work worship and gathering we have both a legal and moral responsibility to depict the risks accurately and we are committed to upholding our responsibilities we understand that our work is not always popular but if we choose to look the other way when it comes to plot hazards the tools that people need to make informed decisions will not be available putting many families and businesses at risk themis taking a monumental first step in reducing the nation's flood risk we are providing the data needed to make sound decisions but data isn't enough as a nation we also need a collective will to ensure the right decisions are made madam chair on a on a side note i want to observe that the pre disaster mitigation grant program is up for reauthorization this year and i look for look forward to working with the record statement for the record corps of engineers will serve our nation since its birth we partner with local and state governments since one nine hundred seventeen on public safety projects to reduce the damaging and sometimes catastrophic effects of flooding these projects primarily designed and built by the federal government then transferred to the nonfederal sponsor for ongoing maintenance and operation corps of engineers shares with the federal emergency management agency the expertise and mandate to address the nation's vulnerabilities to flooding however responsibility for managing the nation's flood risks is also shared among federal state and local governments private citizens and enterprises such as banks insurance companies and developers the corps and b m i have programs to assist states and communities to promote sound flood risk management however a critical element of successful flood risk management is land use authority to determine how land is used within flood plains and to enforce flood wise requirements is the responsibility primarily of state and local government has embark on a map modernization program to update and improve the nation's flood insurance rate maps in some instances the corps mean asked the conductor support levy certifications for these maps certification is a technical finding for the national flood insurance program that there is reasonable certainty that all levy will contain a flood within a one percent annual chance of happening this finding is only for flood insurance purposes and should not be interpreted that the public living behind the levee is safe from all flooding while the corps does not have authority that specifically addresses levees certification for national flood insurance program purposes it has authorities to perform certification certifications when that the corps operates and maintains levees that are part of an ongoing project or study levees designed and built by the corps but operated by a local nonfederal sponsor levees in the corps rehabilitation inspection program and levees constructed by other federal agencies except for levees owned and operated by the corps funding the responsibility of the entity desiring certification finally the corps is pursuing effective combinations of tools to ensure a safe and informed public our intent is to edge citizens about their risks so that they can become responsible for their safety by knowing what actions to take to lower those risks madam chairwoman thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the core m s remapping program and our broader mission of assisting in the reduction of flood risk for the nation i will be pleased to answer any questions you may have i thank you both for that testimony could i ask how we got to the one percent risk the hundred year threshold was that the threshold before and prior and prior mapping act yes madam chair that actually that the and discussed quite some length as to what the minimum federal standard ought to be so it goes back literally to the start of the program has been looked at at congress request a couple of different times most recently the association of state floodplain managers foundation held a symposium on whether or not the one percent annual chance was still relevant and  received comments from experts in the field across all disciplines that was accomplished about two years ago they produced a lengthy document summarizing their findings and the why you have a panelist in your your next panel from a s f pm that can better articulate this i believe that the finding of that summary was that it was still the most appropriate standard although it may be time to look at it again you think that should a universal standard that if you have the same stand throughout the nation the same one percent standard to out the nation heard members perhaps speak about communities and never seen a flood you i do believe there does need to be a standard and it needs to be uniform crossed across the country because the standard is that in a particular area of the country there is a one percent chance every year that a flood could happen there there certainly are going to be areas in the short period just before two years a flood but a flood of the kind that requires the kinds of changes that communities are now being required to make sure there be a flood ma'am i do believe that there does need to be a minimum federal standard and i think that's part of our part of the difficulty as we communicate with communities and the public to get them to understand that the federal standard is a minimum standard we have vents every year that are that are less than our minimum standard that caused significant damage it's not a either or circumstance people that are right outside the special flood hazard area of the highest risk area of our country have one third of the losses in the national flood program every year so you can see that the one the minimum standard is just that we have a program in the national flood insurance program the community rating system where we encourage communities to take actions beyond the minimum federal standards currently about eight hundred communities choose voluntarily to do so they receive discounts on their flood insurance premiums for accepting that additional responsibility and so which affects about two thirds are policyholders so i think we get people to understand that this is a minimum standard there are going to be events every year that exceed this minimum standard and we need to prepare for those also dollars change and vested in levies now they don't meet the standards they can't be grandfathered in anyway how do you deal with a community that just finished work of that kind  the national flood insurance program is a program that depends upon its partnerships the over twenty thousand communities that participate in the program do so voluntarily because of the benefits that they believe they receive from joining the program the floodplain management requirements that they adopt at the local level in their ordinances the availability of insurance making their communities stronger and safer it's that it's those partnerships that really make the program successful whenever we're doing a remapping as we've been doing very vigorously as a result of the matt modern initiative that was started in two thousand and four we reach out through our regional offices with the communities and work with them as we go through them and wrong a very specific question here somebody i've given you a hypothetical i like an answer to my hypothetical somebody i finish is putting in seventeen million dollars for the work right now is that is that can that be taken in kinds of flexibility that congress could give you so that you can work it when better partnership with local communities we are always willing to work with subcommittee on looking at the time asking you specifically you've heard the time frame we've overarching we've got over fourteen hundred us map the map over here depicts fourteen hundred ongoing flood studies in most cases the current statutory requirements and the process that we use go along without hitch we certainly have circumstances where there are unique situations with communities and we do our best in working with the communities to work with ninety day if somebody needs more than ninety days what would you do we can always revise the map first of all in the ninety days starts the if it's the stats perl required comment period at the end of that there's another six month appeal and adoption process at the community level beyond and once the community adopts the final match the maps can all always be revised through a letter of map condition or letter of map revision so the maps can be revised when new and better data is available or in the case of levees where projects start in  believe you need any more flexibility you think you have all the flexibility and you do not see the time frames for example i particular problem i just need these answers because if you need changes then i don't know why you would not ask for them so that you would have a better relationship with latin they would not otherwise we're going to have people coming to the appropriators we're going to have people coming to congress saying my community just can't do this within that timeframe or that they want this or that and hope change included for them we're trying to avoid that and if we can do so then we will do so we just went through a period when we had a post katrina act where we gave thema more flexibility than  head under the statute i'm simply trying to find and as part of our oversight whether or not the statute is one hundred percent exactly as you would have it with respect to your ability to communicate in time get feedback get the additional time that communities need you think it's ok i believe it is ok you heard one member representative miller testify about the unfairness she perceives to property owners so much so she's never get a lot of so seldom that she is going to recommend if you're not able to do something about it self insurance what's your answer to that a couple of couple of points i would make and i think that you quite frankly hit the nail on the head in that we are talking we  can't predict when an event is going to happen to us the map ten attempts to provide information within a realm of probability quite frankly i think that the communities in any state already can insure they can already opt out of course they can sure what is the effect of self insurance one on the program and two on their eligibility for disaster assistance and say well exactly i mean they they would not be eligible for disaster assistance and they and the the program is adequately funded as is all federal government programs are adequately funded but would say that for the record strike that thousand and four the program was self sufficient from the policyholder premiums while providing one point three billion dollars a benefit in avoided losses every year has there been any increase  premiums or the like not specifically because of katrina we have been increasing the premiums to the program because it seventy five percent of the policies are risk base that's on actua based premiums twenty five percent of the policies are discounted for those people that had properties that were mapped into the special flood hazard area so congress said provide them discounts and so we have had  and because of the fiscal financial need to make sure that we have funds for catastrophic years we've been increasing the premiums over the course of the last five years thank you very much i'm going to go to the ranking member at this point is there any help for small communities in particular thinking about the unincorporated communities for certification federal assistance for those communities there not from fema nor from the course or one of those small communities some of those communities i imagine it's going to be pretty tough or it is pretty tough and i'm thinking about those ones that are and my district is full of them  well that's part of the reason why we issued the procedure a memo that allowed for those communities where the chief executive officer will will find that they believe that the levy continues to provide the one percent annual chance protection that we provide them two years to provide us with the necessary information to be able to credit that levy on their maps one of the reasons why but least they had some period of time as the owners of the levees and those that benefit from the levees to be able to put together the resources to provide that necessary documentation mr corey thank you madam chair gentlemen thank you very much for being here i have two questions one very specific to the counties in my congressional district and one more general with respect to the state of new york as inform the new york state department of environmental conservation and that is why oh wait flood map modernization funds will be used for show mung schenectady oneida nazis and oswego counties although they have also inform the d c that no f y o eight dollars will be used to update detailed maps studies only to overlay the old details studies on new topographical layer updated maps are critically important to ensuring that the development can be placed appropriately as well to ensuring that people who live in the real flood prone areas have adequate insurance isn't this contrary to the mission stated in the map modernization mid course just a matter of producing new updated maps for communities with greater population greater flood risk and greater potential for growth development why would you merely do an overlay for counties like or night in schenectady that have those characteristics which you say warrant updated   what resources that we have available and working through the regions in the states where they identify the highest risk areas are and that's as funds are available where new engineering studies are done now we've we've  through the president's own nine budget are requesting an additional two hundred forty eight million dollars for ongoing mapping activities with an emphasis on new engineering studies in high risk areas so we're hopeful to be able to get to more more of those areas that you mentioned well i can understand that but you know as i understand it for france and sections of the adirondack mountains in new york state where there were population density is very low have obviously been left out of it and that's understandable the population is low but in the two counties that i referred to you know the pot there is flooding in the population density is high shouldn't they be given a higher priority again without knowing the specifics i would i would say  i would say yes and but i would also say that these decisions have been made with with the state involved in the dissin where the dollars that can be allocated for that area need to be spent so i'd have to go back at the specifics see what the recommendations were from from the state and how that fit into our to our national national effort i would appreciate that and one more question prior to hurricane katrina new york state had the second highest flood losses in the nation under the national flood insurance program and this is not because new york experienced floods of overwhelming magnitude but rather the sheer frequency in which it suffered from the clear disasters i look at the the the map that i have here the progress of maque mapping activities and i look in new york has a seems a significant number of counties which are not funded and in especially when you look in the in the southern part of new york state that neighbors the evaluation in terms of difference i see the same thing happens with respect to northwestern ohio and southern michigan and south carolina and georgia well as i indicated what we we put forward from the beginning of the map modernization the mold a year flood hazard identification plan been out transparent visible everybody has had it but in the development of that we used risk we use stakeholder input from the local and the in the state level we looked at in some cases communities that had data to contribute to the process so we have district which may be different than the than the losses that you're talking about if a lot of the events that you had were not insured because the focus in the direction from from congress has been to look at the impacts to the national  the national flood insurance program which may be slightly different from the criteria that you've mentioned but it's still a risk based with local and state stakeholder input so do i have to tell my local communities that they need to  get get engaged to to lead to to be more more proactive in terms of getting the message out that you know what they're what their needs are i think that that's always good advice but i also think that as i go around the country and look at look at disasters one of the things that always strikes me is the number of folks that have been damaged by a flood event that did not have flood insurance clearly people that have flood insurance after events whether they're presidential declared disasters or whether they're after a lot of the flooding events that never rise to that level that people that have a flood insurance policy or those that recover faster get back on their feet better and so i continue to try to encourage people if they're in the high risk area if they're in the low to moderate risk area to have a flood insurance policy i'm just in forgive me this my last question i don't mean to be argumentative but it just seems odd to me i  don't understand the fact that new york has so little of its counties that are funded and yet it has such a high incidence of flooding again and without knowing the specifics one one aspect to the loo did that is the the areas that were funded under the program were more expensive to do and so there were fewer studies that could be done and so the geographic area was that could not be reached so it could depend upon the types of studies that were done in those areas that were funded in new york and i'd have to get the specifics on that if you could furnish me with that i would appreciate that very much yes or no more questions  allentown bethlehem easton area were the green area effect of county what's the difference between the the the green and that i guess that that reddish and the funded county areas what what does that have n the effect of county versus preliminary county versus funded county i guess rightly the effective county means that those counties have final maps adopted and in place from the map modernization initiative but they're not funded you know they they are funded they're completed ok that's ok that's what that means is completed and ok all right i just want to be clear about that point and then preliminary county means what plenary counties means that we've gone through the probably a year to year and a half scoping process development of the of the new maps and have provided those maps to the local communities in plymouth very form that starts the process ninety day process map now i want to get to the issue of in my area of eastern pennsylvania as you know pennsylvania very plot prone state we probably have more miles of running water than any of the lower forty eight states so we have enormous flood issues in my region we've had three major events in the last three and a half four years hurricane ivan and two other major events we in my region have put together a regional comprehensive flood mitigation program which has been very helpful and in fact this year in  six of our high priorities are you at fema giving greater consideration to communities like mine in the lehigh valley of pennsylvania that do have regional flood mitigation plans that they have a lot of projects that are ready to go it's been comprehensive done by planning commissions now are well ahead of the game do you give consent parity consideration for funding for those types of applications are proposals versus some other communities that may not be as well events in terms of their planning well the disaster  to meet that requirement we have over sixteen thousand communities that now have in place the required mitigation plans they created asked for mitigation grant program is a competitive program it's based on technical engineering and feasibility of the of the projects are very strict grants management competitive requirements the having a plan in place is that that gets you into the game but doesn't necessarily provide you with additional points so to speak in the competition and of course in the hazard mitigation grant program there are there aren't requirements other than to have the local plan in place to be eligible for  mitigating grant programs so based on the sludge and then you really want to be in a green area centrally you want to be effective county right in terms of your process is a this is a indicating those counties that have affected mass which  partner in the delaware river basin commission that's a multi state manatee delaware pennsylvania jersey and new york and one issue that i continue to hear and perhaps this is more a question for fi might be a better question i guess to the d r b c is not here but the question i hear most regularly is this my residents will tell me that floods are occurring and in part in eastern pennsylvania because of the reservoirs up in new york being at too high capacity  and that those reservoirs need to be managed differently that is not not be at a one hundred percent or over hundred percent capacity but some other number less than one hundred percent i don't know if it's eighty or ninety percent but some other number feeling is that there were those fill up that contributes to flooding downstream and it is a source i realize or a lot of experts and hydrologists and others who have to examine this issue and have some very different opinions that we must deal with this issue on  l issue i mean what we're talking about today is is mapping the risk the risk is there and what we do what we've been charged to do is go out and determine what that risk is and then communicate it to local governments and the public so that they can necessary actions as a result of that so what you're talking about really falls outside the scope of my area of responsibilit we you know as this nation developed a lot of projects were built dams and reservoirs and some federal nonfederal authorized for specific purposes and we do have authority to go in and re evaluate basins or systems to adjust them to more contemporary needs so the authorities exist it would take funding to do one of these studies to help re evaluate exactly how the system might be operated for more optimal contemporary purposes and one of the thing to my community too we are looking at the belting some interesting flood warning systems and actually trying to get some of these funded i don't know what you have you have any perspectives on these types of programs but it's gotten to that point where i live particularly on the delaware that with the number of events we've been having in recent years that we didn't have any event since one thousand nine hundred fifty five and then the past three four years we've had three major events and  so now there is very serious talk of flood flood warning systems of course other alternative plans to help elevate houses or remove people from the areas of high risk so i'd just be curious to hear your comments and perspectives on these flood warning systems athena why i think i think they've they've proved to be very valuable and they're they're i think in many areas of the country a very necessary preparedness activity that needs to be looked at so that communities can be prepared for and know how they're going to respond when when an event is at their doorstep and that's my final question i guess my only comment would be i just encourage them to stay engaged the delaware river basin commission as we talk about the flood a geisha in and help them because obviously anything we can do to prevent these floods or mitigate these flood events you know is important to you because you're the ones who are asked to  to respond after the fact and so the extent that you can help shed some light on the issue of where these reservoir should be in terms of capacity would be might be might be very helpful and there are a lot of competing interests i understand on the on the delaware  new york state is interested in the water for the city you know we try to manage both drought and flood at the same time and i do understand the complexities of these types of issues so but the team is important with the basin commission i think would be very valuable to flooding but it's more of a flash flood type of situation into the hollers and because of our geography on the map i'm curious to know and maybe you covered this in your opening statement i apologize if i didn't if i didn't hear it when a county begins to to map and in conjunction with with thema is there a process by which the county can contest some of the results and and because this actually happened in one of my counties what's the process for that appreciate the question the answer is yes and i go back to one of the comments that i made i'm not sure if you were present at that time where i said that the really the success of the program depends on its partnerships and so once we start this process with with our partners those that participate in the national flood insurance program we sit down and we have what's initially called a scoping meeting that starts the whole process and kind of lays out how things are going to unfold lot along the way while the engineering work is done if communities have information to provide we accept that we use that if they have to topographic information for example  along the way we continue to let them know what and where we're at during the mapping process of course when you get closer to the more formal processes the  provide the plenary maps there is that ninety day comment period where communities can provide scientific or technical disagreements we'll call them with the with the maps has been provided to them then there is even during the six month appeal an adoption process that they go through certainly disagreements that happen during during that but then back again in response to your woman's question at any time that there's  better information that communities can share with them but we want that information and then we can have a process for updating and improving those maps we want the best best maps possible for communities right and i appreciate the good hard work that you do and also i know you're not in this emergency response area but famous as it has done a great job historically in our state coming in setting up very quickly and very difficult situations i appreciate that let me ask another topic that we discussed a lot was it was called at one point three strikes and you're out you know if you if you filed your flood insurance or and collected three times what is the status of that and do you have any anything to say about that well we do have in our in the in the midst right now of implementing this severe repetitive loss pilot program that was authorized in the two thousand  really have a three strikes and you're out provision in it but it does have a pot a process that if a valid mitigation offer is made to a particular property o and they turn down that offer then their insurance premiums can be increased fifty percent and so it's the first time that the program is really ever had we usually work cooperatively with incentives in the program this is clearly a disincentive and is trying to use the stick approach with those that have been severe repetitive loss policyholders in the grand scheme of things how many i mean this is just an off the wall kind of question but percentage wise would you say are people who or individuals who are repetitive large loss and coming coming to fame i mean just kind of ballpark curious i think it's around eight thousand of the five point five million policyholders fit into that to the definition that congress put in the act of severe repetitive loss ok all right thank you but they cause a large a large number of policy losses every year their small number but they are they make their voices heard thank you let me ask both of you to respond to the criticism of your methodology  in the prior pat on land from complaints from the states how do you define risk so what he says probability you do you use a historical approach largely how do we know this is scientific let me take that congress woman we define risk as being the probability of an event occurring times the consequences so if you have one person the chance of exceeding that your probability and then the consequences has to do with what type of property or lives you're protecting behind that  levee as far as the methodology that we use both the fema method and the corps method or other federal agencies the risk and analysis method they're very very similar when they go through in the information that they collect to perform those analyses the only difference is one there's uncertainty in all the calculations we do it's based upon statistics historical record there's a lot that we don't know but we make the events whether there are one hundred year events or or five hundred year events we can produce that but it's based upon the period of record you have the type of hydrology you have the hydraulics the channel and i varies so the only difference in the two methodology is really is how you capture all that uncertainty the fim approach just basically approach adds three feet of freeboard to capture that uncertainty  approach that we use determines what the probability is and we look for a ninety percent confidence level that that flood level will not be exceeded in some cases that provides for less than three feet  freeboard in some instances that provides for more than three feet of freeboard this approach has been recommended by the national academies of science we've adopted this approach it's not new we've been using it since  seven we continue to update our guidance though to make it clear more relevant as more models because i'm available but it's really it's it's not new and i think eventually the korean fema will have a similar approach  different approaches about the same subject matter there are two alternatives provided for in the code of federal regulations and it really fundamentally the same the only difference is how we capture that uncertainty one is a probabilistic approach we use the risk analysis the other is a deterministic approach where you just have three feet of freeboard to capture that the federal interagency blood plane management task force that makes a little nervous to hear about differences between thema corps do you believe that it would be good to have this interagency task vigorously enhancing our partnership in august of two thousand and five with the corps engineers and formed an interagency flood risk management committee where general riley and myself and our staffs work meet quarterly and are working there that is not what i'm sorry i was alluding to and leading to was the call to agencies are now and have been working with developing a better cooperation so that we can better serve our constituents w discussions with them on pursuing this suggestion particularly in the partnership i'd ask you to pursue that if at all possible let me quickly ask a series of other questions we're going to have one more panel we have to quickly get to i'm going to have to ask you about costs that are inevitably associated with flood mapping particularly in the midst of the worst downturn in the economy in several years the point of course the sub tax speak of economic dead zones that had been created in his community by mapping about how it kills the mapping had had the effect of killing development and community we know there is wholesale concern that development in some community is going to stop instantly if it had already stopped because of economic conditions have you thought house how to avoid and cost as a result of the flat map remapping well i mean i think we certainly look at at the at the impacts we're going to have economic cycles certainly one thing that is certain is floods are going to happen every year and they're going to remain our number one natural disaster and floods in those areas would be far worse than what the impacts are well for example the but the example i gave you before the people just done raised to the last level here comes a new level i need to correct at that level was always three feet since one thousand nine hundred sixty just finished work then maybe it's a level list where where it should have been is any grandfathering that takes into account work there's just been done that would be a slippery slope for us to recognize work that had been done that did not meet our regulatory standards and that was troubling testimony from  michigan about the lakes dropping levon times she testified not rising and yet elevations being required to the remapping how would you respond to that criticism in a very general sense i don't know the specifics i can't comment specifically but lake's risin lakes fall when i was a regional administrator and region eight north dakota was one of the states  the region they have a lake up there called devil's lake thirty years ago i believe that lake was completely completely dry now it's at about forty eight feet and has caused  again but where it has been so the dropping of water levels has been so consistent with so many years you can imagine telling people you've got to elevate beyond where you were doesn't make much sense to them what kinds of what would there be any kind of communication to go see him would that would go on in the case like that well there's going to be communication madam chair and i would say  fema we rely on the engineers we rely on the corps of engineers we rely on the private contractor engineers to provide us with accurate data that reflects the one percent annual chance flood risk are we have to that has to be sound because ultimately we have to operate under the premise that it could be legally challenged so the answer your question is yes we would communicate we would look at situations like this and if the data was wrong we would change it and correct it all right i think that the great lakes may be one of those instances where there needs to be perhaps some realistic understanding of what has happened to the great lakes over now a number of years consistently on the full the full committee chairman i think will will have to have his own meeting with you to discuss that matter because he's the expert there has there been how how how much noncompliance for lack of a better word has is fine with the mapping program the people generally get it done i m asking i mean again how about this year we have i mean in terms of the protests this year well there's no question that as we've gotten in the map marginalisation one of the one of the benefits quite frankly of the modernization and finally updating the maps after many years of neglect for funding reasons is because of all the discussion and communication that's going on throughout the country on what their flood risk is it's more sensitive in those areas where there are levees that are no longer providing the protection that people once believed that they had so in those areas yes we're working through a number of challenging circumstances but overall the program we were meeting our metrics when congress designed map model said we're going to provide two hundred million dollars a year for five years but it's going to be performance based you're going to have metrics and we're going to expect you to meet those metrics and we're on track to do that we're very proud of that in fact i don't envy the t communication i would i must say that fame a was not quick to come forward after katrina to ask congress for changes to accommodate that special circumstance i don't suggest that this is that special circumstance but i am suggesting that essentially where the complaints came from were the areas of the country and the post katrina act is is not the result of the agency coming forward and saying  believe we are interpreting this perhaps conservatively if you want to target it differently then perhaps there need to be changes in the statute such as x y z instead you had to have me sybian louisiana and others coming here long after the in light of that experience i am going to ask you to look closely at your statute and actually flexibility and add to your procedures to make sure that you have the necessary flexibility because i want to show you this subcommittee is prepared to quickly give you added flexibility if necessary very much appreciate this work is a huge challenge and based on the work you have done i have every reason to believe you will meet that challenge thank you for your testimony i'm going to ask the next two witnesses to come forward we're trying to complete this hearing about another half hour these two witnesses are equally important to this subcommittee l the issue of mapping of grass especially that related to levees is critically important to this nation we have a number of unsafe levees in this nation a number of high risk areas that we need to identify a shared responsibility of all levels of government and to talk a bit about the level of protection issue the one percent issue that you raised a number of times a indicated map rest for about twenty thousand communities the feeler program uses as mr march that indicated that one percent standard to identify that hazard rest area it's important for people to recognize that that one percent standard or hundred year flood plain is not a public safety standard it is not a standard that says you will be safe if you use a standard it says this is the standard that used by the national flood insurance program is it a standards should be used for structural flood protection measures specially in the highly urbanized areas with highly critical facilities such as hospitals and police and fire stations and the rest as we saw in new orleans no it's not adequate  so we need to think about a variable level standard but right now fema uses a one percent standard across the nation for all for mapping all has i want to also point out that when a new map is issued now have a more accurate depiction of the floodplain so you always have what some people consider winners and losers we don't consider the need to purchase flood insurance as a loser it's really an opportunity and quite frankly in most cases it's a low cost opportunity showing the flood hazard on the map will not make the hazard go away if we don't show it on the map so we need to make sure that people understand that it's important to if they want to be able to take citizens communities take action they need to know what the risk is levees and mapping managing flood hazards are shared responsibility federal state local typically it's a local community that asks for a loving federal government may have built it for them but it was their mitigation option that they chills with that may except to do responsibility in most cases to operate maintain that levee if they did not do that act accurately and adequately they may now find that the corps of engineers comes in and says you e not adequate and can't be certified if you've been maintaining it over the years it probably would be those are all things that need to be considered finding federal funds to fix levees these days sector investment firms and arrested and funding infrastructure these days it's a much safer investment than the stock market at the moment and perhaps a little better return than c d s so there's a keen interest in the hundreds of millions of dollars man available to help communities and infrastructure improvements and levees seems to be one that is open for that kind of discussion i well again i know you asked about the management task force the reassurance and upgrading of the executive order to guide federal investments and work and flood plans those are all things we support without it be glad to answer any questions and if you might have illinois i met in the region st louis region is at the confluence of the mississippi and missouri river is a large portion of our region of land area is a large portion of our region's land areas protected by levees and other flood control facilities some of which have been in place since the one nine hundred twenty s entire communities existence and prosperity to these great rivers and the protection from flooding that we've carefully built over the last eighty years or so about half a million people live in the illinois portion of our region and we now know that about one hundred sixty thousand of them are imminent in imminent economic and physical peril last august fifteenth congressman costello called a meeting and and the corps of engineers revealed for the first time that they could not certify that what were formally five hundred year levees along the mississippi river in illinois could withstand a one hundred year flood event this would mean that the entire area known as the american bottom would be remapped as a special flood hazard area like many older industrial cities st louis has struggled to regain it economic footing in recent years in illinois were experiencing an economic rebirth long awaited but now him in an expansion of industries like u s steel and conoco phillips expansions worth literally billions of dollars in actual construction is now on hold new development has simply stopped dead in the american bottom perhaps most troubling the american bottom is home to some of the poorest and most physically and economically vulnerable citizens in our region for most of them flood insurance is not a realistic option at any price and without flood insurance they'll be unable to get a mortgage on able to buy or sell a home and unable to recover from a catastrophic loss from a flood let me  take these actions by famine the corps very very seriously since august fifteenth we've mobilized our local governments very quickly taking on precedented cooperative steps to rebuild our flood control systems along the mississippi river legislation will be considered by the illinois general assembly next week to impose a sales tax in three illinois counties to raise as much as one hundred eighty million dollars for these repairs our goal is to rebuild our flood control systems and five years or less an enormously challenging job but one that simply must be done the same time as we're pulling together protect our citizens or a local economy we're troubled by a number of serious concerns about how this situation has unfolded and the future participation of the federal government in helping us rebuild my written testimony provide some detail but i'd like to just cover a couple of highlights of those concerns while the remapping process has been underway for some time the revelation of the levee deficiencies was both sudden and shocking to local officials in our area public officials want to do the right things to protect the safety and livelihood of their citizens but to ask them to fix one hundred eighty million dollars problem in less than a year especially one they didn't even know about is not reasonable the manner in which the remapping process is unfolding across the country leads to some irrational and very unfair outcomes our area for example is bisected into two femur regions which are proceeding along different schedules in the remapping process the remapping in missouri is as much as three years behind that in illinois the citizens of illinois who will suffer truly draconian outcomes from this process will look a couple hundred feet across the mississippi river at their neighbors in missouri who will suffer no such outcomes congressman costello sponsored an amendment to the national flood insurance reform and modernization act h r thirty one twenty one that rectifies this injustice the bill did pass the house it is now pending in the senate and we strongly urge its passage with the castelo amendment included we know that we have to work together in a responsible way to reduce the risk of flooding without commenting compound the problem by putting people and entire industries in immediate economic jeopardy we don't ever want to create a situation where well intended but manmade government action is creating a hardship every bit as threatening as the acts of god that we want to protect against i thank you for the opportunity to testify and a place to respond to any questions you may have thank you very much first let me ask do you perceive significant either  was unexpected the there remapping process was certainly not unexpected local government's been participating in that for a number of years what was unexpected was the decertification of we have five hundred year levees along the mississippi river that h protected hundreds of thousands of people and industries the corps announced on august fifteenth and this was evidently a surprise to see him as well that they could no longer certify those levees to were evidently maintained adequately but simply no longer met current standards that the corps use i think there was a significant change we withstood the flood of one thousand nine hundred three which is a three hundred year event we did that with the help of what's known as flood fighting folks got out there with sandbags sand boils came up from under seepage and the levees held fairly successfully under the current standard that the corps is using famous direction flood fighting activities like that will no longer count in assessing the adequacy of the levee so the levees need to withstand without human intervention that flood we didn't x we weren't expecting that kind of outcome at that time y that go or do you think that coaches needless expense where we think flood fighting is a standard well worn practice in this business it's been practiced for many years it's sandbagging around san boils it's reinforcing behind floodgates those are things that can be planned for we do have along the mississippi we have significant advance notice when floods will be occurring people and the forces are in place ready to do that probably using a uniform standard across the nation does not make a lot of sense because what mr spock to talk about risk is variable if you're protecting a cornfield is one thing if you're protecting a highly urbanized areas such as talked about here that five hundred year level of protection makes a lot of sense it's important by the way to understand that one hundred five hundred year flood is not five times larger than a hundred year flood in the st louis area it's about a foot a difference a foot of height difference down it wasn't a positive step so we need to that's one of the problems with having the magic line if we had universal flood insurance requirements that magic line between one hundred and nothing would would make any difference right now it's an all or nothing line set of a graded line that says your risk is variable and your how we deal with that should be very we don't do that this nation we need to get to that point mapped an area to determine if that levee was really adequate a corps inspection program had been issuing letters to communities for a number of years saying you're in the program what you in order to do your operation maintenance  deficient you should do this this and this and some cases the issues those letters for ten years in a row but never kicked that community out of the program so that now they have religion after katrina and said we need to make sure communities i have safe levee and  now i think you're seeing some of the results of the remapping process certainly got our attention i mean we've been moving since august fifteenth of last year to rebuild these levees we're not waiting for the federal government or the corps of engineers to come in and do the job that will take too long where looking to raise one hundred eighty million dollars locally take the bull by the horns and get these levees repaired we know we're protecting people's lives we know we're protecting literally billions of dollars in economic assets we've got to get moving well that of course speaks positively to what they're doing understand it because with all the priorities that states have it's easy enough to say you know we'll let the levees look like it's doing fine for now and i need some money for public education i'm trying to get a grip though on the financial dislocation we've heard this hypothetical when new you know there are changes like you can't use the sandbags anymore or we haven't been in the floodplain before for now let's say we're doing what it says we're going to fix it meanwhile it appears that if you're doing for example new construction you have to build higher than you would have to build if in fact the levee were a fix that is now being fixed so you'll hear compl good construction is there permanently once we make this investment that's a substantial addition to what the cost of construction is there any way to keep is there any flexibility you could suggest to keep new construction i'm concerned about the economic turndown from essentially having to add what could be millions of dollars in construction that would be unnecessary because the community is doing well mr stern says they're moving in there to fix the problem how can we deal with so doing something behind a levee is not necessary and i'm not talking about the levy now i'm talking about someone who has to now do something about construction as the levee is next you know we have last we have thousands of miles of identified  plains in this nation and there's construction occurring in them all the time and it takes into account what place those are areas that are protected by levees so if construction doesn't stop there by the identification of a flood plain why would it be stopped behind the le where they are at a cost yes the cost but it's a risk area so i think there's about there i understand people see that and sometimes for see that as a quote unnecessary cost i don't believe that that is madam chair i think this is one of the most important questions in this whole process is the economic impact what we're finding in our areas when people are faced with those increased cost of development is simply choosing to go someplace else to build an area there there are other places to build the economic impact even if we're able to make a self imposed standard of five years to get these levees could be in the billions of dollars just in an industry that is that is foregone and in our region and the impact on individuals will be substantial as well and all this for frankly to most of our citizens and businesses seems rather arbitrary one day everything was fine and the next day with the with the waving of a pen at say it's not fine anymore and and that wall of our plans get changed and literally billions of dollars of economic impact have to be absorbed by our region the speaks for how people develop government doesn't have to do with that and people have what does do with it in the end of phase disaster no no no for ever the flood plain lan the way in which development occurs in places like st louis and that matter the district of columbia's developers decide among their choices anything that adds to the cost has to be taken into account jurisdiction over federal construction and we see it every day and we're going to have a hearing on credit crunch and what effect did may have on commercial real estate which we are now beginning to see happen i don't mean to pose this as a reason for stopping remapping i do mean to say that even without using the r word some pretty bad is happening in this country at this time and there are people throughout the united states that are particularly concerned about whether or not development will continue in their community that means to be clear construction of various kinds of five the private sector not by government by the private sector but if i may say so there are governments people who bid on government work who are building less today one of the most the bass developing cities is a city that i represent where you now sit new ballpark building on every blade grass but when i ask people about it they tell me the way in which commercial development takes place is people have gotten their financing long before any recession said sam and i went to the to a reception in advance of the first game and we went on the top of the building owned by the learners who are the owners of the ball park and it has this wonderful view of washington one of the great dues of washington and i look down and i said what is being built there because there was a hole that hadn't been built up and it's surrounded by all kinds of buildings that are going up and i was in formed congresswoman that is a hole in the ground one of our leading something compass clark was ordered to stop it was to be a hotel we love hotels not a government building was ordered to stop because of the hotel had quote lost had been financed and lost its financing i don't know what the subcommittee can do anything about it but i am steadily trying to find out as much as i can about it because to the extent that there is anything we can do about it i think we ought to make recommendations or somehow do what we can many are absolutely petrified that the administration has become so concerned that it has become activist in the marketplace so may i ask you to think about that subject mr larsen because he brings a very  important view to this matter and that is remember what the costs will be if you do not proceed you don't have to think about katrina and then think about that all you have to do is think about what's happening as i speak in the midwest if you want to talk damage all you have to think about is what is the most common hazard in the united states of america and you will come up with the word floods and you are speaking to a member who represents a district of columbia who saw floods in one of our communities have been through to which we could only say what floods they come from hurricanes and the and hurricanes you have in communities like this that don't even have much in the way of hazards so that this committee has jurisdiction over payment does not mean to mitigate that concern at all normally the concern that mr stern raises would be  concern to us it is of particular concern to us today we do not believe that this is an ordinary kind of downturn all because we have seen for the last several years we had one in what two thousand we had this has been an extraordinary can i mean i was with the speaker in india we went to london india and barcelona  there was talk of and here we are climate change we are in a climate change trip and of course in in the year talking about the u s nuclear deal but everywhere we went  there was not only concern but stark evidence that what was happening here subprime there spreading to other parts of the economy had definitely spread to europe was definitely an india where the indians were looking for other funders now funders other than europe other than the united states so i'm in a mood to take very seriously what is happening  to the economy and just as stan we all appreciate that this is a cyclical economy we know it will step back from that back we know how strong it is we don't want to be part and parcel of worsening it at the same time that the administration or the congress is trying to relieve the effects on the economy through that through the mechanisms they have we mean to be in harmony we don't not know how to do that so you're saying therefore fill in the blanks i am saying that with the very important testimony you have brought to the table i'm asking you to think about this subject in light of the twin risks the risk of not proceeding rapidly because the one thing we know even less about this economy is what the next hazard will be and the risk of a downturn that we may ourselves have aided and abetted by not being sufficiently flexible in thinking through this process that we are now going through i want to thank each of you for really very important testimony that this subcommittee will take into full account thank you a