mike check one two one two three four five six seven eight nine ten mike che testing one two testing one two three apologize that i was detained because this is a hearing of considerable importance to the subcommittee it's not about ok any disaster that we have seen unimaginable event that it did not occur to anyone i believe to think of such a god gargantuan mass but today's hearing and we'll address very important knew unresolved questions that hurricane katrina raised for our country for the first time what is a catastrophic disaster note that word catastrophic disaster think of it is a new invention so i haven't used that word before what is the role of the federal government before during and after these events is additional authority needed to address response and recovery from these events we cannot sit by and merely hope that outsized disasters such as hurricane katrina and nine eleven will never occur again obligation to the public requires investigation by the subcommittee to prepare us for the possibility of these contingencies hurricane katrina made landfall august twenty ninth two thousand and five and proved to be the most costly natural disaster in american history congress and particularly this subcommittee have spent the nearly four years since katrina looking at the action of the federal government as well as state and local governments voluntary agencies and citizens themselves from response to recovery which continues to this day on the golf course gulf coast today's hearing focuses on next steps what do we learn from hurricane katrina as well as some other disasters in the united states and around the world concerning what should be done to respond to catastrophic disasters and to facilitate would cover a most important what steps should all concerned be taking now to pay or for and mitigate the risks to lives and property from these events the robert e stafford disaster relief and emergency assistance act or stafford act was signed into law on november twenty third  eight but it is not clear that congress contemplated gargantuan disasters with recovery proceeding for years the act authorized  committee is the federal government's primary authority for addressing major disasters from all hazards and events for the most part this authority has proven sufficient to address all types of this asters and emergencies but it is an open question whether the stafford act is sufficient when measured against the background hurricane katrina now provides the stafford act and our nation's emergency management system are grounded enough that a world system of government that recognizes that the primary responsibility to address asters and emergencies resides with states and communities not the federal government as a result the assistance provided after a disaster is as the stafford act provides to and i'm quoting here supplement supplement the efforts and available resources of states local governments and asked to relieve or as asians and quote however it is already clear that one characteristic that distinguishes catastrophic disasters from other disasters is that the magnitude of a huge disaster often has national impact national impact impact beyond the seed of the disaster rather than effects limited largely to i particularly state or community we must  therefore really evaluate the role of the federal government as well as themis authorities policies and regulations that presume federal assistance is always supplemental garbus of  disaster the stafford act existing authority and systems for the emergencies and disasters that the country faces are so detailed and time through verdant that this landmark statute provides the necessary base for dish and or revision if needed however define katrina teaches that catastrophic disasters are complex unusually large and facts hard to predict and expensive moreover they are distinguishable distinguishable because they require months rather than days or weeks month indeed hand probably years rather than days or weeks to move from response to recovery and evidently therefore the subcommittee cannot avoid the question whether new extraordinary story should be given to the president of the united states in advance and whether congress should provide for the recovery from catastrophic  specific and targeted to the size of these unusually large events the subcommittee looks forward to hearing the testimony of today's witnesses to help us address how we can prepare for these catastrophic events we particularly welcome the administrator who has recently taken office and is testifying before this committee for the first time i'm pleased  now he's been doing this kind of thing before at a different level and it's going to actually very excited that now he's doing it here at the federal level after hurricane katrina congressman a very clear that we need to fema and minister who knows what he's doing and has the authority to get the job done emergencies and again i have a tremendous confidence and if you get and i'm really looking for to continue to working with him and hopefully he will not be too busy that's something that we're obviously all hoping for i also needed knowledge of the tremendous work congressman has done to speed the recovery funding funding in louisiana we still have issues after that storm now he's held several round tables with with state and local officials and with members of congress i've been involved in some of them and frankly and he's helped free up hundreds of millions of dollars for those stricken by katrina he's also been working madam joan closely with the experts such as the witness today mccarthy of the congressional research service on possible changes in recommendations to the stafford act and i believe many of the options that mr mccarthy will be presenting to the committee for reforming the stafford act are frankly a direct result of congressman efforts and again i thank him for his  aggressive involvement with this committee in these important issues thank you sir now obviously as a chairman said katrina was a horrible huge devastating hurricane unfortunately as we know it is very unlikely that that will be the largest one that hits us or the most the largest catastrophe the most damaging the one that hits our country a category five hurricane in south florida could come at any moment or an eight  would stress the entire emergency management system but i want to focus on a few important areas that are i think the most concern there needs to be obviously a clear federal chain of command and that's essential during a catastrophic disaster and it can be critical point of failure and as we saw during katrina i've mentioned this before as i mentioned earlier as well you know congress change the law to ensure that the nation has a qualified a qualified fema administrator who really knows what he's doing who would cordon eight the federal response on behalf of the president now unfortunately president has yet to update the presidential direct incident management which is just p d five to reflect this change and the h s has built a duplicate incident management organization outside of phoenix and congress continually tries to defun to manage the response to a terrorist attack and yet for the last three years d h s s built a parallel incident command structure that bypasses fema again makes no sense  result it's frankly not clear to me or to some of the witnesses of our witnesses who will be in charge those who will be in charge to coordinate the federal response if the secretary decides to appoint a principal federal officers officer known as a p f l during the disaster who would be in charge fema or this outside p s l this confusion frankly is a recipe for failure and also you a and and they have to be well coordinated with fema and they also have to be in a supporting role to the states the states when they run out of resources that's when you need the o t to come in and if it's a big disaster to come in i understand that part of the defense is recommending a change in the way it would respond to disaster and i've also heard that that change in the potential changes caused frankly considerable concern among a number of governors and i have to admit that i share many of the governor concerns and so i hope that we can talk about that another critical failure this is something the chairwoman has has brought brought up many times in the fact we had a hearing in south florida and you brought that up madam chairman to do with the housing issue  what to do with the five hundred thousand or over a million families forced out of their homes by one of these horrible catastrophic disasters despite the release of a national disaster housing strategy there is still no clear solution to addressing the housing issue at that scale and now i do need to commend fema for and i read that they are looking at other options to get outside the box even looking at the possibility of in some cases using that must be examined and clearly improved earlier this year i introduced it i introduced the integrated public alert and warning system modernization act along with the chairwoman norton and represent representatives gal guthrie and states to enact building codes is frankly a very effective commonsense way to minimize damage and the loss of life that a catastrophic disaster could entails and we've seen that it does work and developing a truly integrated public alert warning system is obviously critical to saving lives now with countless mothers methods of communication available today you know twitter facebook email etc etc we're still using the one hundred fifty s model which is a little that we hundred t v s in our radios and that's frankly it well that's not enough because there are more ways that we can communicate and we need to do that so the issues that i have raised impact disasters of all sizes but the big one the catastrophic disaster magnify obviously their significance and their importance so it is important for us today to determine if the current framework for emergency management is adequate for again catastrophic disasters or should there be some more capabilities and flexibility built into the system so i get hope that we'll hear from our witnesses today on these and other issues i want to thank you madam chairman for convening this meeting again is one of the issues that means a lot to all of us but particularly those of us who live in states that are prone to disasters thank you challenges to recovery presented by certain aspects of the stafford act and we have and when we are talking about the stafford act one of the questions that we are exploring today is whether we should create under the act  separate incident level for catastrophic event and to help us clarify what these terms may imply i would like to tell you what katrina did to my district many of the critical institution like charity hospital and basically the entire health care infrastructure in the hardest hit northeast have never reopened other basic services like police fire and rescue libraries and schools were wiped away by the flood waters and are simply today pap block shells of buildings in the immediate area around new orleans eighty percent of the buildings and forty percent of the house and stop were damaged in some way in my mind and in the mind of my constituents what katrina did to have cost coast and to orleans and jefferson parish is was without doubt a catastrophe after katrina i spent a significant amount of time talking to my constituents and also to federal officials with the ministry of a few with mr mccarthy about what changes need to be made to the stafford act we are taking a comprehensive project by project basis for the gulf coast states that were hit by hurricanes katrina and rita this is not optimal due to the extent of destruction the fact that we are nearly four years from this event and the state female are still arguing over door knobs and whether a building that was flooded gutted and is falling down was more or less than fifty percent damage demonstrate this in catastrophic for america disasters the state and localities need to have the flexibility to rethink and replan their recovery and hazard mitigation plan they need to have the flexibility to decide whether rebuilding in the pre footprint is the best solution for the community's long term what are some of the fixes that i hope to look at in regards to the to the stafford act legislatively creating an incident level for cat four catastrophes or mega disasters for which a holistic look at the community's needs would be taken the fifth the feasibility of lump sum settlement in mecca disasters like that which was little slated to respond to the disaster of september eleventh shifting more responsibility to and thereby incentivizing state and local and localities to prepare better for disasters for example time building codes to be amount of recovery dollars ultimately provided by the federal government this is something that the ranking member has been working on through legislation and i'm proud to support this re revising the management structure of fema and other agencies to shift decision making from the upper level management where bottlenecks occurred to the staff that is on the ground and meeting with local government representative on a daily basis in the course of my conversation with the different parties it has become abundantly clear to me that female employees have been almost indoctrinated to believe that they are handcuffed by the stafford act and therefore can't come up with out of the box solutions when you have major disasters like hurricane katrina we need creative thinking but fema employees are allowing themselves to be mired in red tape causing them piece of legislation that was always in visage to provide a framework the real problem is for decades female has been layering regulations one on top of another which is actually what is hampering female employees fema has restricted itself with inconsistent regulations so much so that they can't be a partner in communities because very which is what they ought to be i am hopeful that  gates will have the same sort of self awakening about the restrictions to fema and that they will fundamentally rework the regulations hampering performance however i want to make it clear that if we don't see real progress in freeing up the creativity and proactive thinking of female employees we will draft legislation that requires you to do so with that i'm looking forward to your testimony and i hope to work with you further in the future to look at the stafford act and how we can improve the cooperation safina with the state and local employees thank you very much madam chair say at the outset that i think thema did a pretty darn good job in iowa and has done a good job but there are a lot of things that obviously can be changed to look forward to working with you folks in the future on how we can how we can change things and i also want to say at the outset too that  i said throughout this when this first happened in iowa in june of two thousand and eight there's nothing partisan about catastrophes there doesn't matter whether you're republican or democrat you're going to get hit by a catastrophe and working together i think in a bipartisan way is really absolutely critical so that's what i'm looking forward to doing as well our flood in iowa what was truly a five hundred year flood eighty five of the ninety nine counties were presidential he declared disaster areas not represented about eighty five percent of the entire state some of the hardest hit areas were in my district cedar rapids iowa city a small town of oakville coralville columbus junction it's estimated that cedar rapids alone has nearly five point six billion dollars in recovery needs that's right one city of one hundred twenty thousand or so in iowa five point six billion dollars in recovery needs with this in mind then consider that about three billion has been allocated to the entire state of iowa for recovery which includes a large amount of state funds even though damage statewide early on was estimated at about ten billion dollars when considering what constitutes a catastrophic disaster one indicator indicator which may be useful to consider would be the damages relative to community or state budgets and resources the state of iowa had receipts for f y o nine of around six point nine billion dollars compared to the estimated ten billion in state wide damage and the city of cedar rapids at a budget for f y o nine of nearly three hundred eighty million and keep that in mind when you think about the five point six billion dollars in the it's and then to further bring the magnitude of this disaster in perspective when calculating estimated damage through  public assistance program the iowa floods alone rank as the fifth largest disaster in u s history and if you take away nothing from my testimony besides the largest the significance of the widespread magnitude of this is asked for then i will have accomplished something it's my job to keep this in the forefront of your minds in the minds of the american people fema was not of course our only source of assistance many federal programs departments or agencies were mobilized and utilized during and after our disaster fema for example agreed to lower the cost share that ten percent for all of our public assistance categories and waive the cause share completely for others because we had to get waivers and extensions and changes to the  work to put in place and this was one example in addition the application periods for people's individual assistance disaster unemployment assistance and public assistance were extended and numerous other waivers were granted to federal various federal departments or agencies i also worked with my colleagues in the last congress to pass through supplemental disaster relief appropriations bills the largest of these funds allocated to iowa eight hundred million dollars comes from the community development block grant program through hyde it's my understanding that effective use of c b g funds after hurricane katrina continues to be an issue as well and some mention was made of of housing seem to be just see the b g funds are not traditionally used as you all know for disaster relief and therefore they're not ideally suited to be flexible enough nimble enough something that i heard from you folks the need for numberless if you will to meet the immediate post disaster recovery needs of states and communities hud secretary donovan stated during a visit to my district that the state of why on the city of cedar rapids are models for officially use it utilizing c b g funds for disaster recovery i'm proud of that distinction but i do have to wonder why at this point the federal government is still looking for models of efficiency i know it is not been the easy journey for my district and the journey is far from over but as cedar rapids and iowa can provide examples of best practices for the future then i look forward to working with secretary donovan to all of you on this committee to those who are about to testify to mr few gape and so we can deal more effectively and more efficiently with these with these issues when they arise with these catastrophic disasters and perhaps i think maybe we should begin with a simple assumption that we are going to be faced with catastrophes in the future we have to just simply accept that fact i know that in the past we said that we knew that but i think all of us who've been through these catastrophes wonder if in fact we really believe that they're going to happen again because we need to be better prepared there's no doubt about it so thank you very much for allowing  testify today i really appreciate this opportunity i'm going to turn it over now to the experts and i'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say and reading their testimony and and as mr gao said continuing to work with our relevant administrators at the federal level so thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today thank you thank you most of us take you to introduced a new element one that i'm not sure is unique but certainly very much worth looking at at the cost of projects although that's the annual budget of the state so that is that is a matter we should look into another element and see if you did think of it before are there any questions for most in just a brief comment you know it's interesting that you say that it's it's those of those who have gone through it become aware of it of those catastrophes and you're so right about making sure that we you know remind people that this is going to happen and it's not going to happen only in one part of the country is going to happen and it may happen anywhere anytime and your observation about the fact that the incidents are not a nonpartisan is so true is as well as i am very proud of for example and critical of this committee the response of congress and particular this committee has also been nonpartisan but it's very important to always remember even in places like florida where it's been a few years since we got hit by the big one andrew which actually was not as big as we thought i mean it's it was huge but but standard it would be it would be the budget of the state of louisiana for decades suffering and that may be what we in fact end up paying because of the nature of the disaster thank you very much are pleased now to welcome our first witness and minister david lovesick i'm sorry minister crank who of course is the new administrator this thank you chairman norton the ranking member board members committee sonar to be here before your committee ma'am and talking about catastrophic disasters so what is a catastrophic disaster by what definition do we use one national response framework we define it as any natural man aidance including terrorism that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties damage or disruption of severely affecting the population infrastructure environmental kamiya national morale or government functions of course if i'm in a town of one hundred thousand and i have a catastrophic event it may not be catastrophic to the overall system so i oftentimes think we talk catastrophic particularly our level of fema we're looking at those events that have national impacts versus those that may be very localized that we can still respond with our normal process and resources to get in there quickly so when we talk about catastrophic people really talk about those events that are of such magnitude they take on the significance of impacting our national bill of t to respond recover and really move on from those in particular i was interested in a conversation about stafford white lay out how i'm approaching this vote and my confirmation process in the two months i've been there i believe i'm taking a three tier approach because obviously until i have got it from congress on which way your you want to proceed the most immediate thing we can do is look at our policy internally and address that first that is our first step i've directed best airman who has been who's come on board to head our disaster assistant director which deals with those matters of individual systems and public assistance to look at our current policy and guide is to address those issues that are being brought up on our we do that limiting what we are able to do in a disaster the second piece within looking at the rules the c c f r forty four which governs the rule making the rules that we administer the stafford act under and then look at the stafford act as a whole but i think our first step is to really look at what we have and fema done as far as our policy got is and make sure that it is not prescribing are preventing us from using the tools the stafford act actually gave to us when we talk about catastrophic i think again we oftentimes look in the past i'm looking towards the future and looking at some of the scenarios that we still face as a nation not only those that have occurred but what are some of the other tops of events that we could face new badgered california earthquake a major hurricane again in the gulf coast and florida hurricane strikes  and looking at developing plans based around what the impacts are they go of the challenges we've had emergency management oftentimes will plan to our capability and hope that the disaster is not any bigger and what i've found over my history is that if you don't plan for the potential impacts and look at how your system is applied you run with a false sense for the illusion that you are able to manage these events but at the point of failure you have catastrophic failure not just system that you need to expand and i believe in partnerships one of the things that i want to make clear is and we talk about disaster response to catastrophic disaster response fema is not the team fema is part of the team under the federal system we have to leverage and work as partners with our local state or federal agencies or private sector volunteer faith based community based organizations in the public to build a team that can respond to these very large scale events some a which may the point on a national scale and be catastrophic so to summarize the stafford act has a lot of tools in it but we must first take a look at our policy guidance which we are doing to determine what we can do within the scope of stafford to address many of the concerns that have been raised both in previous disasters and the ones we are facing to building a team based upon what the consequences we're facing and some of these events are and building that capability by leveraging all of the resources of the country not just looking at fema and third and finally the understanding that in catastrophic disasters we must not continue to look at the public as a liability but look at them as a resource that we cooperate in our planning to oftentimes i've run into challenges where we have in many cases wrote plans for what i call the easy to help part of the population be able bod adults who understand in relation have enough means to take care of themselves and the media impact of a disaster that's not the communities we live in our communities are made up of children they're male that made up of frail elderly they're made up of people  disabilities and our tendency is to look at those folks after we wrote the basic plan to address those challenges i think if you're going to be successful in any scale disaster including catastrophic you have to design plans that address the needs of the community not just those folks that are easy to help with that madam chairman i will conclude my remarks and welcome questions thank you very much mr to get you would you describe for us your your own background and emergency management when it began what it began as how you rose to your presen located in a logical county florida gainesville florida i began working in one nine hundred eighty seven that february a career that took me for the next ten years working at the well you will as the emergency manager had several large scale chemical incidents that we dealt with as well as numerous other storms flooding events but fortunately when hurricane andrew hit the logical candy was not directly impacted even though we hosted a vacuum weeds from south florida hundred seven i was offered the opportunity to go to the state and the service to bureau chief for preparedness response i joined the team of the late governor chiles and again looking at the lessons of hurricane andrew and what had happened to address the concerns the state had i joined a team that was working hard with the florida legislature to continue to build and improve upon that we found out nine hundred ninety eight how much we were able to move forward in that we had over two hundred days we were activated through wildfires floods and hurricane george the situation was such that it was the first time on the east coast we actually evacuated entire candy during wildfires because of the threat in two thousand and one i was asked by governor bush to serve as the director of emergency management and that october serving in that capacity through two thousand and four hurricane season we had four landfalling hurricane between two thousand and four and two thousand and five we had a total of eight hurricanes hit the state of florida five of which were major hurricanes in addition that an immediate aftermath of hurricane katrina at the request of the state of mississippi we provided emergency management assist compact and ended up the point close to seven thousand responders and spending over eighty million dollars in state funds and providing everything from search and rescue teams enter operable communications food water and ice and just about anything else that we could provide to those local governments at the request of the governor we also the state had sent resources to the state of mrs to the state of louisiana but we ended up because of the proximity of the road systems and the fact that we had last bridge across potty trained focused in mississippi to provide them assistance governor bush step down governor crist was elected reappointed one month into his ministration we had a tornado outbreak with twenty one fatalities this that history because it's very important to this committee it has been the view of this subcommittee that particularly for unforseen disaster but even for the run of the mill disaster at the federal level the way to respect what your testimony indicates what my opening says to monique my opening statement says about responsibility lying at the state is to have somebody who's been there done that and who has a very deep and wide experience in emergency management and we are pleased to lay that on the record because the president has appointed somebody who has what appears to be  and for the record to show because i'm going to ask you a question about this agency that we just went to someone and in the subcommittees frankly and in the side of congress itself it seemed to fall apart after after  hurricane katrina now nobody expected some have been put to rush in there like a knight in shining armor rescue louisiana but it didn't seem to know which side with it was i think saved end dependence of the agency within the department of homeland security of the perhaps major criticism was that homeland security and that all decisions had to go from the administrator through some newfangled bureaucracy that we ourselves had created and setting up the department that homeland security was not to compromise the ability of this agency to move forward i want from indication from you whether or not b m i is today as independent decisions when you got to ask somebody several seats up the bureaucracy before decision can be made whether it's made in washington or made in louisiana i need to know what the chain of command is in your own agency before we get down to the states having to then ask you something how independent is this agency within the bureaucracy today madam chair i report to the secretary secretary for the president service or are no officials between you and the secretary no ma'am as a component i report directly to your strategy change yes ma'am that was a direct result of the post katrina emergency management for magnus as the administrator fame reports directly to the secretary  that's very important for us to know you've been in practice that that is the way since you were there in the agency matters have been handled pretty much so i have direct access to the secretary we of course she has working with her deputy branched out and some of the things we're looking at in the quarterly are the quadrille review but those are more functions of the secretary assigning work tasks or you have to go to the secretary for everything you know they might have given authority to urine sample we didn't change the authority of thema when we put the money in the department of homeland security so can you make most of this is you have to make on your own or do you have to say to the secretary this is what i want to do madam secretary do i have your sign off there are some things that because of procurement or other issues that are assigned to secretaries that will go through that level but by and large what they are being a disaster then put your money matters in a disaster would you bureaucracy has to clear some of your actions that is not the case madam chair sector to paul thomas having served as a governor obviously understands the role responsibilities we have in supporting governors there are many moving pieces within homeland security but within a disaster itself we're able to move forward and take the actions we need to take virtually as if you were an independent agency or not i don't put words in your mouth under my reporting relationship through the secretary we are able to perform our function report is one thing permission is another we get into permission matters of the super size this after we're talking about will be supersized repeated what is the role of the office of operations coordination sees you know if names if you know the average person really loses kind of an eyes once we get into the old what is the office of operations coronation when was it created by who and what is its function but i'm sure i'll defer back to homeland security that was created and has been a standing element prior to me joining d h s s and fema within our center we have a natural response coordination center that we coordinate with the national operations center other components within da just coordinate with the national operations center which gives the secretary visibility on a variety of issues including things such as border matters coastal issues other activities that occur within the department under her purview as the other components now conflicts with the role and many of the statutorily mandated functions of thema itself and  the agency appears to be relying on and this really does get the commission upset so are the committe is exactly what we had in mind when we passed the katrina act and old who these administratively documents what can you explain therefore  in light of the post katrina act why h s p d m is still an outstanding administrate of document and the role of the so called office  operations coordination and preparing for responding to disasters that have a role in function in that and why in the world are you relying or does the agency appear to be relying on  administrative documents that have been overruled overruled by statute part of the executive branch the president's prerogative and executive orders obviously and looking at those it had been issued in previous administration carried forward into this registration many of these are still under review as to the  what the post dreamer's management format directly speaks to in what may be pretentious conflict with h s p d number five or homeland security prison presidential decision directive number five i am aware of these issues but i've been more focused on our role and responsibilities in the ministry are part of that program i'm pleased to learn that at least these matters are under review if you don't want to go to congress to twice with his name and then when you get really mad and you lose authority because we have the same problem with principal federal officer now in fact we have real problems with that one because we did revisit that one part from the post katrina had we were visited it more than once because of what we had witnessed on the ground red red tape after katrina now the so called principal federal officer everybody who wishes that substance matter will have to pardon me while i get through these bureaucratic names that they paste onto functions where sometimes a function disappears or is in conflict with the statutory mandate but here goes it's called by d h s the principal federal officer p f l conflicts directly with the steps statutorily created federal coordinating officer so maps on the ground no matter who comes whoever's in charge stands up this is a war when there's a natural disaster just like there's a war when there is in fact a war god know who's in charge that was one thing we have some exasperate should concerning this officer now i need to ask you whether d h as in fact seeks the repeal of the statutory mandate put in place to avoid duplication and whether the agency is continuing to rely on administrative documents that have been overruled by statute and you have said that that's under under review and for that matter the national response framework to attempt to regard these are disregard the statutory provisions need to know now because if w the way we are joined in this inquiry by the other committee on which i served the committee on homeland security which has the same problem cosigned with us on department but as far as the f c s goes it's clear to me the way the statue is written that the f c c under a stafford act either emergency or major presidential is the personal bet against the manager and my my interpretation of the stafford act in post katrina emergency management format clearly states that when the president declares an emergency or a major presidential disaster declaration the federal coordinating officer has the authority to execute the stafford  has the authority the federal coordinating officer yes ma'am so what is sensible to have federal officer highly paid official doing on the ground and how am i to know if i come from out of state who's in charge under  stafford act declaration it will be the federal coordinating officer who is authorized by the president to support the federal response on behalf of the requests of that governor say that again i'm sorry the federal coordinating officer on behalf of the president is authorized under stafford act to coordinate how do you make that this distinction to state officials to ordinary citizens on the ground and why does the if in fact the president of the united states has confidence in the that of coordinating officer why would it be necessary to pay somebody else to be on the ground to report the department of homeland security that chairman of the for back to the agency my focus is again under my authority with the federal coordinating officers as appointed by the president when there is a declaration that is clear that they have the authority on behalf of the president to coordinate the federal response as well as the minister stafford act after the congress passes a statute not just not disputing that i'm stating that under my purview i appoint or make the recommendations of who the president will point is a federal court in all stronger stafford act the principal federal official program is not something that fema is not something that we in ministry well let me indicate that the appropriation supports procreation committee support southview it would support it many times over now that we don't have money to spend on another top layer beside the top layer that's already there we've never had a satisfactory answer to why this would be two people on the ground particularly after hurricane katrina which gave us this aster that way and we don't intend to powerade it any longer and if we find that such a an officer is funded we will ask the appropriations committee committee to defund it and we will expect this administration to abide by the mandate of congress i'm going to go to that's an agency all right now right now carson obviously my greatest challenge is the next disaster working closely with our federal partners such as our department of defense nor call work with national guard you're working with other elements but i think some of the other part of that teamwork hopefully we're starting to see some daylight in the state of louisiana we've worked with the state sector in the paul taught always has been there my predecessor the acting administrator nancy ward made significant personnel changes there to begin moving forward to begin that process that oftentimes she was seen as a state and the federal government and local governments not being able to move forward all we've been working on our part to resolve those issues to move for good projects committed to move the money and begin that rebuilding on those projects that had been in dispute we've been working aggressively to address those challenges but i think the part of the other part of discussion i've heard that as a state i was very much aware of was that oftentimes in a large scale disaster catastrophic disaster there are other the stafford act that can be brought to bear it works best when it's done looking at what stafford act can do and other programs such as community block development grant dollars working together to address to me the issues and i think when you go back and you say what w some of the lessons of hurricane katrina was the fact that in many cases we did not do a good job of looking at all of our federal programs matching those up with the needs of the community and oftentimes looking at only one or two programs and not really having ability to reach out across the federal family of programs that could meet those challenges or support the needs of those communities a good example children you know we look at our plans we oftentimes write plans we forget that children can be twenty percent or more of the population but if you look at children issues there's not much in the stafford act other than talking about the scylla teas and some things that really get to that and i'm not sure that we're the experts on that there are other federal programs that every day have funds that go to local community support daycare and other issues we should be looking at how we partner with these projects funding sources and build that team so that in a disaster famous not having to recreate a system that already exist we're part of a team that can leverage that and provide assistance and work with those federal agencies that do this every day in the communities so we can meet the needs and that's really what i think is for building a team is not going back in creating a new program if we already have one but making sure that we're leveraging those programs with those programs seem to have good programs that exist every day and when disaster strikes making sure we on the federal side are working as a team to address those challenges now one of the biggest problems that i saw after katrina is the a lack of a timeline and a lack of coordination between the different agencies let's let's take the issue of health care for example it's one issue just to simply rebuild the hospitals and clinics but it's another issue to basically provide an area with housing with economic development all those issues all come into play how do you the fe that possibly would have the power in order to coordinate and provide a timeline for the different federal agencies through the who does who is responsible what when do they have to do it in order to provide at least the area with a very clear path towards recovery courage and i believe so i often ask this question what does long term recovery look like if we're successful and people can describe pieces of that but it oftentimes seems to be hinged upon so many different aspects that i think you're right there is no one single federal agency that has all the answers knowing from their perspective a famous the tools that we have we obviously need to be a better partner with the rest of federal family whether that long term recovery mission resides within female resides another federal agency i think we all have to look at is you pointed out some of the things that have to occur to say we can move forward is addressing housing i mean if you look at the most housing programs or really shelter programs if we don't have a long term affordable housing solution at the end of the eighteen to twenty four months we end up keeping people and what should have been much shorter timeframes and sheltering operations that we end up now three four five years later we still got about twenty four hundred folks that are in temporary housing units well these are really shelter programs that should have had an outcome that said at the end of that timeframe we had enough affordable housing on board to make that transition out of that sheltering program and when it didn't occur we were still keeping people in what should have been a much shorter comp much shorter timeframe but we did have that follow on that i think is where we have to do a better job both at the local state federal families describing the outcome and then going back on the federal side and identifying who's already got existing authorities resources or capabilities and then oftentimes we look at funding mechanisms is not necessarily just funding the stafford act but looking at the other federal programs that would make more sense to provide that capability to them in that disaster response that they have the programs that can actually deal with longer term solutions versus many of the most programs which are based upon a shorter term response like activity or rebuilding activities based upon damages that occurred as a directors or storm and i did have one last question to ask you the minute you don't mind mr seagate after speaking to different people more or less they and we come to an agreement that the staff at let's not prevent the mine from reaching a lump sum settlement in order to speed up the recovery state or city agencies to settle with the money in a lump sum i'm out and then from there just to allow the state and the local government the flexibility to to have them initiate be fit for their own community well there's two options here one is to design a program that looks a lot like community block development grants we do an estimate we write them a check and we're done i think the problem that is oftentimes disasters are so complex that we don't know enough initially and we oftentimes keep going back i think a better option instead of let's take a school system let's take the jefferson parish school system orleans parish school system instead of writing each building as a project what if we wrote the district as a project for the campus as a project and gave them more flexibility within those structures i think the tendency to look at every item every building as a separate project worksheet is not something that necessarily lends itself to the flexibility you're asking for so one of the things i've asked after go back and look at do we have the tools can we with the stafford act in the c f or do things that allow us to write projects based upon a function not necessarily each piece of that function example you raised was pleased patients fire stations and we treated those each as an individual component but what if we step back and said let's look at orleans parish look at the fire department for the city of new orleans as the project do we have the ability to step back and try to recreate it station by station because that may not be the need given the change in population and rebuilding schedules it may have been more work to do other things within the overall framework of what was impacted what is eligible and how do we forward so we're asking the questions what's the best way to approach that and then look at if we cannot get there with our forty's that we have other staff are going to see a far and that would be more discussions back to look at if congress would like to provide any additional guidance to us in stafford thank you very much and would not a wholesale overhaul of the agency be in order at this time to assure that it is a number functioning agency administratively arm it had in place or do you think that administrative or is now functioning to the level that is required and does not need to have recommendation of president that will have a person with city experience we have people that work in state government and we are building our leadership ranks based on people that have actually done this been in the field and have been customers of bhima the other thing is if you've ever seen or chart or chart is far past any reasonable span of control does not resemble what we do and i've always believed firmly what what what what if it was important was that it was like a spider everybody reports to the boss and nobody seems to be able to figure out what we do if you look at the org chart i doubt anybody can understand what the man does i'm a firm believer that form should follow function that we should be organized by what we do and these are the steps that we're currently going through as we build that a look at how we've been doing things and putting emphasis on outcomes not process the other thing we've asked it to that is there's a tendency to think you're a no one the next disaster is going to be which we know is not true and i believe the best way to prove my point and to demonstrate our competencies is through no notice exercises that take us to the point of failure and sure ourselves that we are learning the lessons from previous disasters and applying them to both those threats are familiar with and threats many people have never thought about i was recently left the space weather prediction center in boulder colorado which deals with geomagnetic storms and looking at the potential impacts of a major geomagnetic storm across our infrastructure these are natural hazards that nobody has really addressed that would cause us far more trouble than people realize so this is approaches based upon what could cause this much trouble again what are you calling them please we have within the national weather service an office that is in boulder colorado which does nothing but monitor the sun for solar flares and geomagnetic radiation and certain events those storms can be so powerful as dan packed whichever part of the globe is facing the sun power outages across most united states simultaneously have there been anything that you might not point to perhaps not across united states of examples of what you mean yes ma'am there's been a solar storm so powerful that across the northern tears of our country including canada there's been power outages with damages to every structure there is a historical record of vent of eight hundred fifty nine that if it occurred today would result in about a ninety percent blackout of the power system of whatever part of the globe is facing the sun when it strikes how about the ice storms that we had in the midwest just this past winter is at and is that paramount to a smaller version of what you're talking a no ma'am i storms are a feature of the atmosphere that is probably better understood but the weather that occurs are what they refer to as whether the sun's activity we've currently are sitting right now entering into what's called the next solar maximus of activity for solar flare sunspots and the potential for geomagnetic storms these events based upon our vulnerabilities with our dependency upon satellite technology for communication navigation as well as our dependency upon the power grid are the top of hazards that we have to expose the team to through exercises in training because again we know a lot about hurricanes we don't know a lot about the next disaster it's going to strike or when it's going to strike and we're going to get there by doing exercising to learn about hazards but also that make sure that the team that we are building both within the h s within the federal family in our state local governments are faced with challenges that pushes to the point where we are you've just described result of climate change no ma'am this is just our son and it is a bunch of been there all along why haven't we had that because our technology becomes increasingly more vulnerable as we are more dependent upon satellites and it's not well known but the impacts definitely within the industry are well known to clean the satellite industry it is something that when we send up our satellites we plan for in fact the space station is one of the prime customers because during certain radiation storms astronauts have to move into a safe location on the satellite to be protected during these storms and of course we have out outages it took out great parts of the united states mr diaz balart thank you madam  start to step out for a phone call and i have to say thank you so much you already touched on this and in general terms i just want to show that i and then understand this if if for example sort of were to get hit by you know the great response you know again and would that be a full report to you or to the secretary of the h s as i understand it there would be a federal coordinating officer wanted and we would coordinate that response through the stafford act as to that that judge according officer if you remember back to hurricane andrew the president made a decision to appoint a cabinet official in that capacity to be the federal corning officer so oftentimes it will depend upon the scale and expertise of that disaster ask you whether or not it would be a staff member that is routinely designated ground disasters it could be a regional ministry or i could find myself in that position but it is the president's call as to who he appoints as federal coordinating officer but those authorities under stafford act the post katrina emergency management format would be vested in that federal cording officer to manage that response and to service a point of contact with that governor in supporting the governor's request sent and whether it as far as you know whether it be a p f l sent you know congress has had an issue with that but congressman under the stafford act and under the post katrina merger management for maggie's been very clear that there be a federal courting officer the principal federal official program does not reside within fema so i cannot speak to that my understanding is that the federal cording officer will be the point of contact and would be the principal implementation for stafford act which serve sent out there and who's in charge and that is one of our concerns is as and i guess that's not a decision that you would make but i just want make sure that that you'd be in charge not not somebody else in this outside group that frankly we're not even sure what they do well again i service the i report to the secretary serves the principal advisor to the secretary and the president emergency management cars when you know what i did in florida the team we built and i think that's the thing that i really want to focus on is the individual is less important in building the team we build a good team i think a lot of these issues become secondary to our response but if we don't have a good team and we are operating as separate entities trying to assist the state these issues then become things that we will have to deal with absolutely and hopefully we can deal with them for before that happens let me let me just on the kind of the same vein but let me just check some trying to understand really what really works how to really work let's let's i mean we know that there are a lot of steps being taken out to responsible for managing the consequences now would the h s and your would d h has used the most response team and regional office to manage the consequences or if we're outside stafford act the secretary is under h s p five i'm half of the president's coordinating the rest of the federal family in support of h h s and dealing with issues that again were not under stafford act declaration that is a real potential here with this h one n one if it does not reach the severity that would warrant a stafford act declaration you want to have the ability which is not vested and fema is vested in the secretary to coordinate on behalf of the president and those types of non stafford act events and this goes back to other questions such as when you're dealing with things like national you know the party national conventions are you dealing with g eight summits where you don't have a disaster or declaration having that ability provide the coordination across the federal family is one of the mechanisms and one of the tools that exist on your h s p the number bought is there anything preventing the secretary from using fema outside of a stafford i mean can they use fame outside of the south africa region absolutely as part of one of her components we do work actively on those issues we bring a lot of resources in the table in fact there are capabilities when it is a federal response not requiring a stafford act on behalf of governor were famous serves as a coordination role in supporting a lead federal agencies such as nasa such as h h s when warranted but again you look at what resources we bring to bear how we apply that and again our primary capabilities are coordinating on behalf of governors requests to resources the federal government the ministering the stafford act when you look at sema itself our response capabilities other than the coordination available number one to us and again this is really again i'm trying to and i'm asking the questions and you're obviously giving very direct answers as you always do but let me tell you what my concern is that we have basically two separate structures now for managing disasters we have you know famine and we have the h s separate structure and are you going to be looking at at those structures as you're as you're looking to you know you're looking at the rules and regs exciter a deal with  more you can have the opportunity to look at those structures and come up with recommendations to see again if there's a problem how we can streamline it how we can make sure that there's no confusion for state and local officials and we know there already is because we've heard that and we need to continue to push you know the secretary on well to be fair beam as part of the agency's planning for h one n one we've been engaged nobody's you know we're not sitting outside we are part of that team i think the second thing you need to understand is this hit at the transition of the new administration coming in it was decision was made to go forward with a lot of the existing structures because when the first wave hit many of the team had yet come on board we were using the existing plans to deal with a crisis i think as we have come through that we're looking at the second wave we are continue to examine how we are doing things with a d h s and i think that is a process by which the secretary is very much aware of the challenges we face to better integrate all of our resources together so to be fair the h one n one planning to h one n one struck at the very beginning of the new administration where they did not have many of their staff on board so they went and made i think a wise decision to utilize the existing planning document the concept of operation and they have since been looking at how to improve those as we go forward so as i've always worn planning is a process not an outcome that you necessarily get done and i think we are very much working on that process of how the best coordinate across a variety of threats where there may be different agencies that have leadership roles that want to always fall into the purview of a stafford act declaration now and i understand that and i think look that this may seem like a great just want make sure that that there is no confusion that there obviously is right now because some states and local officials have told us there is so again i just what i would like from you sir if possible look if it's not something that's going to be looked at and then  something that we need to maybe put on our end if it's it is something i can be looked at and we feel it would make me feel more at ease but but it's obviously something that has to be looked at to make sure that there is no confusion and that change of command chain of command understand thank you thank you very much mr diaz of the law and this is one we've heard that it needs to have a nail put right in it so that it doesn't have to be brought up again and i appreciate your response that let me be clear we're not objecting to anything that the secretary would do and i know stafford that event so long as it's not a federal officer federal to deal with being on the ground not unusual just not unusual in the federal system for agencies like let's take agencies like h h s which have very many assistant secretaries and other people have learned how to relate to the secretary at the same time that they fulfill their statutory obligation and the committee is objecting to being ignored and having to go to the appropriations committee and if you know we've asked for it to be defunded this year and i'm for mention was that the secretary wanted it funded and we don't care what she gets funded so long as that's not a stafford act notion and as long as she takes academia we're on the same page and if we're not then a needless fight started in the last administration continues and this is ministration that's a lot of wasted time you know too many things that we have to do among them the three points we're talking about the left overs of the last administration which is give this committee a report on one that sent both sides up the wall and we learned as we were dealing with the stimulus that there were three point four billion dollars and outstanding disputes from louisiana and to have the president appoint arbitrators that's just how bad it had become we were very embarrassed by it frankly at a time when most persistent begging for the kind of money that seem i had not even gotten to the appeal problem was at the point of decision and nobody had said down to look at the various ways in which the federal government and others have solved such disputes so we'd like to know what's the status of the three point four billion dollars dispute has any of it been been disbursed and how much is left of that amount at this time manager i can give you some of those numbers so those numbers i would like staffed up take this as an evolving process and i ask the same question when i was originally briefed on the three point four billion outstanding by the state of louisiana i said what exactly are these projects and they said this probably is more based upon their concern that current projects being written will end up being appealed so why how much is really being appealed right now that number is roughly half of the and that is actually in the appeal process many of those are working through the system through a group that we set up with stable louisiana that were very senior policy very experienced at looking at stafford act and many of those are now being sent back down to the staff with g e to move forward all but the three point four billion and asking for show me which projects are in that process it is what i have heard was that this was based on outstanding project work yet to be completed th concern was there may be appeals there but what we have currently in house that the state of louisiana through their local sub grantees that are appealing is right at half of the and the others may yet be to come if we go through this project this so that the state of louisiana by the way there was a similar amount not as high outstanding in mississippi could get on with it this is one deadline that there are a lot that we need to see broken right away at a time when the economy was on its knees everywhere including in the state of louisiana in the city i understand i will have what is being done to break the deadlock between famous and the state of louisiana on three billion dollars still in dispute that's a question that chairman as we go through the outstanding projects that are being written we have set up a team with the state in baton rouge that  very high level that came consists of the parties of our staff and their staff that are working through me all as i explained to you when you paid your courtesy visit each of these parties has a structural problem and i'm going to lay this on the record so that everybody knows what our concern is this is a structural problem your mandate is to keep louisiana to keep mississippi from getting too much money the mandate of the state of louisiana in the state of mississippi is to get as much money from the federal government as they can the lies the deadlock so as long as you've got people with this structural problem still at one another i am not convinced that you will break the deadlock and what is your objection to having all parties agree upon a procedure like for example several states have agreed upon the start to solve similar medicaid issues involving much more money what is your objection after both parties have a say final say as to what the procedure will be for getting others to break this deadlock considering that you are keeping three billion dollars on the citizens of easy and this is very little progress made in the six months since we discovered this outstanding met most of it before you came here but i guess what mr pugh it's called being your three billion dollars unless you can give us timetable to get this three billion dollars moving through the system and then if we see hang ups in the appeal system then we're gonna want to know why the world can't the peals be settled problem is to get money to people on the ground to get it on the ground now when the state needs it more than ever because of a combination of katrina and the worst economy since the great depression depression need to know what you're doing with the three billion dollars to break the structural empa as i said man i'm sure we are working within the tools i have and i am looking forward to the ability to bring in a panel to give final judy cation of those disputes for the state that the an independent panel that both parties had agreed upon so yes ma'am thank you very much for trying to do that and i think you see the structural problem and there is no way to argue that well you know we can ease up on louisiana mississippi a little bit because after all we've been at this the longest way for you to do that with any integrity and there's no way with any integrity for the governor of louisiana mississippi to the greatest exam possible to pressing for every dime they could get it's presley now and they want even more dimes and they could've gotten if they had solved back two years ago when the economy was not as bad as it is day and we are frustrated with the aged the not seeing the structural defects we're not asking you to do some fought for for here and all the time but we are saying that we would like in thirty days to know what proceed will be using with some kind of third party where the procedure is both parties have agreed to use if any party can use it then it's not on the table with what set of actors it's not as if we're asking them to invent something the federal government has never done before we are impatient because agencies with far more money have found ways to break impasses rather than leave  would out the money that congress has appropriated them from a safe house or years ago years ago it is unconscionable within thirty days we would like to see what is the procedure what is the name of the group or appeals procedure is well my patience reflects the amount still outstanding you have indeed moved us somewhat forward because at least you acknowledge that there is a structural problem we could not even get next move she's going to give him a certain number of days in which to set up the arbitration panel so we've got all worked this out we can with the new administration with everybody i think intelligently understanding what the problem is a would you give us some guidance  first of all let me just say i appreciate what you said oh boy it is just the kind of breaking through of the bureaucracy when you talk about what we are putting your staff to if we have to understand what the staff has to do in order to come to break this impasse it's got to say now as we look at this structure which by the way the state may not have looked at it decades we must ascertain how much of this is due to lack of repair and how much of it is still i submit to you and then a straight a few days that it's an impossible task yes ultimately it's a judgment you can put everything you want to on the table but to come up with a figure is the come up with a proxy an imaginary f a q that everybody can of calculations that ultimately nobody would have any confidence in so when you say that you are bringing to the table and kind of a different vision that's what we're looking for for the agency to do is as difficult as it is where you say look at the project if you could just you mentioned that in passing in one of your answers if you could just say something further about that it would it was it was very refreshing to hear because it means that when you read hear prophecy a problem you see it may be structural we said why don't we let's put fresh eyes on it tried with the pilot project but don't just keep going at it as if you if you keep doing the same thing the same way you're going to get a different response would you just lay that out a bit the project minocin versus the present notion the one that you are considering at least absolutely manager and i think one of the challenges i have is i'm not really interested in getting money down to the state i'm interested in what the project is if you have a far station that is destroyed by a disaster the uninsured elements which are eligible understaffed for replacement what you're actually doing is your rebuilding a fire station the flack to maintain its records which may have been destroyed in the original disaster and the fact that there is no fire state is what's going to drive the project we're supporting that local government has to subbranch through that grants process but we should not be adding to that burden on issues that do not get us back to the original project which was if the station was a government function is eligible for assistance and there are uninsured losses then in this type of event we should be looking at what it will take to rebuild the fire station versus looking for things such as manus redbridge which didn't exist because they were destroyed as making sure that we have a clear line of command and that that the person who knows what he's doing has the right man at the right time who is the best in the country if we have when we get hit by another catastrophe we don't learn then  that that he does not have either the resources or the right chain of command and there's confusion because we do have the right person right now in that important see is as i think it's very evident just and in the time that you know the american people have had the has over company stated was fighting the last war when it sees another disaster before and that it's doing that it's doing what you expected to do kind of lean forward try not to try not to have happen what happened drowning and i we had we had some some word that florida had to ask the secretary of homeland security to stop sending aid that the state had not asked for would you speak to us about over compensation by steam has it occurred and what would you intend to do about it wow preparing while leaning forward in the nudist manager having been probably one of the folks that was very concerned about how we were approaching in the aftermath of katrina and some cases i think so playing the role local and state government there is a danger there yes the federal government could do more yes the federal government can do a lot of that the problem is locals and state governments are not full partners in doing everything they can before they request for assistance in a large scale multi state disaster there may not be enough if the only player in towns federal government behind me is a lot of that both local and state government and i think to avoid this overcompensation nature you have to build a team that relies on trust upon each so the work affect team and not second guessed or question the day maxwell the director and marcus all says this is what my governor needs and that is what i should be focused on yes i'm going to spend yes i'm on a plan ahead i don't want to leave dave maxwell hanging if he's got a request that i haven't thought about but i should not be second guessing him and responding outside of working with him as a team team members don't do that team members work together we're talking we're working as a team that you're not supplant each other we may be an we may get ready if we see something coming so that when that request comes in we're not delayed in getting that help but a real team does not second guessing going blindly with another team member that should be handed out free to ask the department not to  until requested matters of a certain resources to the state is their right yes ma'am and that was in some quarters taken that i was anti federal and your reaction was i think probably the taxpayer of the united states thank you but i was looking at it more pragmatically states are going through very tough fiscal times if the federal government is stepping up to the plate every disasters and states are less and less inclined to fund those programs they should be funding we will further dilute our capabilities this nation to deal with very complex disasters people forget most of the resources that actually responded to hurricane katrina were not federal resources they were national guard and local and state law enforcement far apartments paramedics and other responders across this nation if we continue not to leverage to capabilities of state local government we won't have the resources the next time there's a disaster because we have built everything upon the federal government doing everything at such low levels that when states faces hard budget choices it's easy to go somebody else will take care of us instead of taking the steps that many states do even in the face of very adverse budgets to build and maintain their capability to respond to their services with our role supporting that but not supplanting that primary responsibility is the governors have in their states during disaster we don't believe in the domino theory where each level of government has to fail before the next level kicks in but we do believe we have to be a team and that means everybody turns into the game so we play as a team not depend upon only one part of government to make sure we can meet those needs when disaster strikes just have a few more questions for you would you about every couple of months the national press all of the united states you see a story on let us call them the last most vulnerable victims of katrina who are still in trailers would you give us a status report they had housing each and every one of of the of the victims of katrina the need to harden or fema had broken down who we were talking about how close they were whether they were disabled people whether they were people waiting to build their homes just who they were in the first place and so they have been all lumped together by the press how many are there how many are left your predecessor just before leaving office or promise this committee nobody would be put out in the street but of course even notices might go out the committee does not object to that we certainly are not saying that violate the stafford act and keep people receiving federal actually a little under twenty four hundred families that are still in fema housing we've been working aggressively with otherwise known as trailers most of these are in families some are trailer some are mobile homes but again working to do case work and we were working with the state of louisiana we were able to list one of the other partners they've asked me that they would like to do this as part of team to help with that transition but i think that your point is well taken there is an end to these programs the fema program for shelter programs they weren't designed to be long term so we have to actually make sure that we're doing the case work to dental fi that the resources are matched up with the needs of those families but we also have to bring conclusion to that process i faced this in florida were again many of those challenges had to be worked one on one and in some cases it literally took the final notice that there was no longer will be federal systems for people to make the decision to move on versus those people that did not have that option and needed to be moved into other programs provide that long term housing solutions so part of doing that case work is there's not one size fits all has to be based upon where that family is are they going to get back in their home are they going the other options but there is a point where you have to have closure to what the options will be and at some point where people have said i refuse that assistance then we have to be able to close that program yes because you don't you don't have a right on the stafford act to be where you were before to be close to work all of that brings hardship but not hard set ship to ask this question because we need to know where the staff are that that we have died on since eighty eight with the twenty years of reliance on one statute very broadly frame would seem to compass almost everything you could think up whether or not in light of the experience after katrina and lack of experience for that matter after nine eleven terribly catastrophic even though it involved wel area and even fewer people when you consider katrina whether in light of that experience you are a minister if you date are a deep thinker in this area and we don't want to be caught with the notion that nobody knows what a catastrophe is and maybe we do under the statute we have no opinion at this point but we really don't want people running to us and saying we've got representative objects give us a whole new a whole new standard based on the budget of the city or for that matter the state and ask all happen when people see  try to give some additional assistance to louisiana mississippi i mean ultimately i think that we did give them out of course that happened through statute we waived the state match but the other parts of it that were in this at the didn't get past came as a result of testimony from people from the area and the testimony was given on the basis is that we're talking about a one time only katrina stuff where you find that the that the residents or the state or the city cannot move cannot act because isn't sure what it is authorized to give in this kind of situation so we want to ask you should congress begin to look toward describing consequences an objective benchmarks that would guide all concerned does the president need authority that would stand from the top the notion this is an extraordinary event we given any thought to that or do you think we should be giving thought to it at this time and i'm sure usually when i when i hear discussions that having been in this long time are breaking into things and i looking at cochere as what rational should be when we go to one hundred percent that would be only one of the things that would only be one that would be one way to look at it the other ways look at it if you look at our system we tend to reward we don't reward states that do more our co started twenty five percent state local no less than seventy five percent federal share and we have the option to go up to one hundred percent those authorities are vested under stafford act it is what triggers the next level we use a per capita impact to go to ninety ten obviously katrina was off the scale makes sense but oftentimes i find that we don't look at it from the standpoint of not only the consequence but how much more the state doing with their own money that is offsetting the cost to the federal government yet they're only going to see their cochere go up when it is reaches a certain for capital or in a very tight narrow part of that disaster so i'm looking at how do we look at cause here not only when it warrants it because of the size of the disaster but how do you use it as a capability of encouraging state local governments do a better job of managing disasters i got to ask this question a long time ago by a very wise man the late lazy suitor who was one of the associate directors of fame and the  anything florida could do if ema reimburse the state for it and i said not much so that's part one the second part of the is do we wish to have only one program to administer and a catastrophic disaster to take care of everything in which case you need to expand the stafford act dramatically or do we want to look at the existing federal programs that are already there such as community block development grant dollars and look at how we build a system that takes greater advantage of the existing structures and existing authorities and make a better plan to integrate stafford act and other federal organizations including in many cases u s d a from the programs they have in the rule states and roll parts of states so that rather than creating new structures and new mechanisms in a disaster we will get what we already have now with those before and not the temporary assistance but for ongoing assistance yes ma'am in many cases with the state hud example most of what you see with the fema probes are very short term the bias time yeah if there is not going to be housing at the end of the femur programs we're unable to get out of a temporary program so you need to recognize early in a disaster that the housing that will be available at the end of the female programs would not be sufficient to provide the affordable although usually just so we hand off responsibility past temporary period to another federal agency to decide what role and what funds our program is that what you're advocating yes man chairman i would say that if you approach it from the standpoint you want stafford act to try to be all of these things that program needs to grow and you're going to create structures that usually won't be implemented until disaster  commit to that female would be would be the most logical place i think you're correct in looking at those programs that go beyond stafford act that go across a variety of federal agencies should there be vested a coordinating role and who would be best to do that you know you look at what we have been charged with theme in the long term recovery components and doing those plans one of the things i'm trying to drive is not only what does that look like and i've used a very simplistic definition to make my point we store the tax base to what it was or greater than within a five year period so we start driving a process that looks at not just trying to get somewhere by going all these programs and pieces together but to find where we're going in such a way that local officials understand and can start looking at how we drive programs to reestablish a tax base if we rebuild the farm they should understand that there's no tax base to support the operation of the parliament have we changed the outcome so it goes back to i cannot get there if i don't have long term housing solutions which is not what the staffor act does i can't get there we haven't been able to rebuild the job base and if we're in a transitional economy where the jobs that were there may not be the jobs that will be there in the recovery i didn't have much of that outcome hurricane andrew is a perfect example what happened  city homestead we spent millions of dollars down there in recovery trying to rebuild an economy that truly did not recover until the building boom pushed down to that part of the county that many of those communities were not recovered the jobs in the air force base  occurred i give you and this is why the president may need to get into this this current very early in the in the swine flu occurred very early and the administration now i don't know for the life of me who bureaucratically should be in charge but i know this much they put the c d c out there because nobody wanted to hear from anybody else except somebody who had some expertise in flu that your scenario might well apply logistics who does what and so forth that's one of these and we're looking at at not only the stafford act but for that matter homeland security act remember  c comes under h h s now technically if it were a staffer that matter thema has a huge coordinating role but when you get into subsections or for that matter whole cabinet agencies that's where you get into who should be stepping up to do something also mostly of course if you get enough confusion in the bureaucracy you go up to the man in the white house neil straighten it out we'd like to have someone stafford act or not depending upon going to your notion function look what's happening here who the public will have confidence in then that others come into play they're often very critical and restored confidence because she was one of the few cabinet officers had been appointed but to show you how find one the administration was as it's all how the matter was developing and realized that notwithstanding the normans credibility the secretary had to have somebody understood about flu stand up van and they had to call upon because it was early in the administration it was still getting people through they had to call upon a bush administration official as i recall from the c d c does the perp jobbie was a professional and therefore he spoke in ways that people could understand that awfully important and he spoke with the background and my we have been very pleased to hear how deeply you think about these matters we think the requires a very deep and new thinking i suspect that when it comes to this process agency coordination we probably  somebody look at it beyond our particular agencies and that's something we want to give some thought to following this hearing to hear what your thoughts might be on that notion about the presidential authority to say that lead agency order to have anybody spit speak credibly given how few resources when place the commander of the which is the service that did the rescuing had to stand up and speak out and it paid change at various points we don't care who was in charge we just care that everybody understands who was in charge there there's no dickering about about it moss henry our professor of urban policy and planning at n y u dawdle dunbar agile adjutant general state of wisconsin was testifying today on behalf of national governors association david maxwell vice president of the national emergency management association ross decker president their national association of words the management manager's job becker senior vice president disaster service of american red cross i'm going to just go across as i indicated starting with miss jane bullock ms ms jane bullock who was the former gratian you were the chief of staff under what is ministration the clinton administration go ahead madam chair ranking member my testimony today is based on my twenty two year career at the federal emergency management agency culminating  chief of staff to james lee witt during the clinton administration and also drawing on the past eight years when i've worked with communities and now on profits in disaster management throughout the one nine hundred ninety s we worked with communities to respond and recover from over three hundred presidential disasters although we had many significant disasters none of them became catastrophes the geographic scope and level of damage of these disasters could have made and catastrophes for example there was more infrastructure damage from the northridge earthquake than there was in hurricane katrina there was more geographic impact from hurricane floyd than there was in katrina they were not catastrophes because once we built a strong partnership with state and local emergency managers to we had a federal response plan that was agreed to by each federal agency including d o d and executed under the direction of the fee i'm a director and three we had leadership from the president on down committed to cutting tape being innovative and not worrying about the price tag it is within this context i would like to provide some thoughts and suggestions in the immediate aftermath of any disaster what individuals and communities want the most is to get back to normal this return to normalcy often impede the community's opportunity to rebuild better safer and more environmentally and economically sound furthermore in flexibility and regulations on the part of the federal government programs tend to reinforce returning an agency to its excuse me returning a community to its pre disaster state it is in the government's best economic and social interest to support expeditious recovery and rebuilding of safer communities but how do we do this first i would suggest the president should have the flexibility to request congress authority to waive certain regulations and statutory requirements in the aftermath of a catastrophic disaster such as allowing for innovation in a plaque location scope and cost of the community disaster loan program an essential lifeline for communities to continue their administrative and legal functions after a disaster when their tax base has been lost i would also suggest allow for waiving of match requirements for other programs the assistance to individuals and household grants and the hazard mitigation grant programs this is obvious as impact the states will not have the funds in the context of mitigation community leaders in the public are most likely to embrace mitigation in the aftermath of the disaster to take advantage of the public willingness the federal government can provide the incentive by waving the cochere in katrina this was not done and we all see the problems that people in communities are having in doing elevations of housing rapid recovery of the communities infrastructure is critical to economic recovery the current public assistance program is converse them and highly bureaucratic after the northridge earthquake we expedited fun give public infrastructure to jumpstart the recovery a similar approach or block grant approach that removes the issues of preexisting conditions as was talked about earlier is will be absolutely necessary after a catastrophic disaster second federal support for long term recovery is confusing and scattered congress should request a federal road map for communities as to what the federal government can do to help them recover third i would suggest establishing a pilot program that would allow certain high risk disaster prone communities to receive funding to do pre disaster recovery plans and strategies which will significantly enhance approval of the project and hasten an economic recovery the private sector is a key to recovery we need to break through the red tape to allow businesses greater access after a disaster to make coal funding of projects and assets possible and to provide more support to small businesses we need to relook the approach to disaster housing the jihad program shows promise but w it work we don't know why not use disaster housing resources to foster innovation modular green building why not take advantage of successful nonprofit programs like social service which is state databases of available housing units in real time and perhaps  fame it could work together to do an inventory of substandard housing and high risk areas before the disaster finally i continue to be very concerned about family being a part of the department of homeland security i firmly believe that this organizational circumstance will impede its ability to not only respond but certainly support long term recovery i commend the obama administration for in point appointing incredibly qualified individuals into pima such as administrator fuel gauges and mcnamara bill them and i know they will serve well but their present doesn't negate the bureaucratic issues that remain with same in d h s d h s is a law enforcement agency with a federal top down approach thema on the their hand works in partnership with state and local governments in the private sector to help individuals institutions and communities become socially and economically stronger through effective programs of mitigation preparedness and recovery these very divisive these very divergent missions require a different set of capabilities and certainly a different mindset the post the tram learns to management reform act was intended to strengthen same put a fence around its authorities resources and missions however as already been mentioned very shortly after passage the d a s office of operations coordination with created and given functions to duplicate that a famous i would encourage the committee to request that the ajax explain how the data saw the two operations coordination a function in a catastrophic disaster versus the femur operation center another area that is  concern is that there were numerous incidents of the d s general counsel overruling decisions made by the famous general counsel in spite of the fact that the rulings made were made by experienced lawyers and were based on family laws and disaster precedent since  a centralized the general counsel function there have been many concerns that should a catastrophic disaster occur interpretations of the law based on disaster precedent and the innate flexibility of the stafford act will be overruled by less i still believe that there's intent to use the p f and i think the committee should continue to look to questions relative to that as the issue of katrina was who is in charge frankly if we really want to address the issue of reducing bureaucracy for  in the next catastrophic disaster the answer is remove same make it an independent agency reestablish the federal response plan not a framework and create a national recovery plan hurricane train it was a failure of leadership at all levels but in spite of that failure famous staff would have made stations and taken certain actions to correct the problems but they couldn't because the decision approval process with the d h s well i recognize the obama administration is very different from the previous administration and is committed to providing service to the american public i still wonder and i'm still concerned that very few things have changed and whether the process will work more smoothly as long as sima has to answer to the department of homeland security and as long as the same administrator is no longer in a peer to peer situation with other cabinet secretaries and this could be extremely important when requesting needed resources from other agencies thank you for this opportunity i'll be happy to answer any questions arise and considering how to cut the red tape in excel or federal assistance may be the first questions to respect respective roles of the executive and legislative branches traditionally both played a key role obviously the executive branch critically famous administered on behalf of the also provided funds through other departments and agencies to meet specific post disaster needs oftentimes this process has been affective uncomplimentary in a ranch partnership to address the complicated problems following a large disaster event that overwhelms a state or several states within the context of the discussion so much suggests that for catastrophic events the pm administrator could be provided through legislation the discretionary authority to create lump sum or block grant payments as needed and other additional authorities such as cars share waivers to speed up the recovery process so i'm also argue that while discretion to designate a disaster a catastrophic event could be exercised by the president it might be a more reliable approach to have a catastrophic trigger based on the amount of estimated damage the creation of a threshold dollar amount to trigger increased cost shares and other exceptional procedures may be a critical part of this debate current thought cross cochere thresholds are clear but these standards are under pressure from states seeking a waiver of costs as this chair is pointed out that many states consider their disaster catastrophic at the time it's occurring so for that reason perhaps having an actual trigger would help to distinguish when we're in the realm of the catastrophic disaster and this was consideration might be that when the threshold for expanded assistance has been reached it could also trigger the president's notification to congress of the use of catastrophic authorities similar to the procedures currently for emergency spending the notification could also serve as the vehicle to engage the congress with potential funding requirements and suggested legislation that could move the response and recovery along i've discussed some of the alternative funding proposals for public assistance in my written testimony one question of implementation regarding block grants for example would be how determine and ensure that the amount of block grants meets the needs of the affected area it's important to note at this point that while assistance to families and individuals and also to for hazard mitigation grants are capped there is no cap on the amount that may be spent for eligible pay projects so while the block grant is appealing particularly for speed and clarity it would also likely be an amount certain well the pm ounce under section four zero six can change and steadily accrue based on the actual repair or replacement work one option might be to use the initial block grant as an incremental downpayment on public disaster costs following the initial block grant the regular section four zero six process could then be used to assure eligibility to complete the funding when othe considerations i notice that all the ideas for upfront funding underline the need for quality damage assessments that can give a clear indication of the scope and extent of the damage and discussion of alternative approaches for p a the proposals generally assume that such options would be available under a catastrophic or mega disaster by investing these authorities in the executive branch before hand it arguably would permit the swiftest most flexible action without the necessity of new authorities being legislated as the disaster then unfolds however providing such discretion the leadership might only provide the possibility of effective action we just briefly summarize some of the options that i mentioned in my testimony number one provide discussion of the president assistance and also trigger a notification to congress of the pension potential needs in resources and authorities three place in law listing of stafford act program changes that would take effect for a catastrophic event including ca shares for specific programs such as a but also others such as other needs assistance and hazard mitigation assistance clearly defined femurs role and that of other agencies and departments of state and local governments in long term recovery planning and work for direct fema to create a national recovery framework similar to the national response framework but with an emphasis on long term recovery program needs this framework could also include alternative housing scenarios when large numbers of residents are displaced and define the female head relationship in disaster housing consider other department or agency authorities that should also be triggered by a catastrophic event such as the community development block grant program this minute the administrator mentioned continue to have congress create a legislative recovery package across the government to adjust the unique needs of particular catastrophic events and finally consider establishing a law or reporting framework so that all disaster spending including but not limited to the disaster relief fund is captured and summarize for congressional review urban planning policy planning at new york university thank you madam chair and i want to thank you for inviting me to speak today i also would like to go back to the questions you posed at the outset of this hearing concerning the need is and whether we have to find it too narrowly and how we can rethink it and i also would like to address some of the remarks that i've heard earlier this afternoon from the administrator femur let me first say that the kinds of disasters that have been the basis for the stafford act as you point out originally were natural disasters and the history of disaster relief in this country is in fact focused on the capacity of the federal government to assist as you point out supple provide supplemental sense to states and localities but the country today faces a very different race than those that we faced when the stafford act was first signed in november twenty three nine hundred eighty eight which you may remember was your two decades ago globalization has changed the way in which will lead to other countries to other events so that our financial collapse in asia really could disrupt our own financial markets problems in the harvesting of telepathy in china imposes enormous consequences on what we eat in america and in fact we've seen that our pharmaceutical and our nutrition is increasingly dependent on food flowing from other places in fact over third of all the apple juice products in this country come from china i think we have to be aware in fact that disasters  rooted in our local environment but that can come from other places we didn't learn this year with the swine flu will never learn it the second point i want to make is that advances in information technology is have made us more dependent and i think we heard this in your questioning about solar risk from solar episodes earlier where more depended upon advanced computer systems they're bright increasing our vulnerability to breakdowns in our energy systems and transportation infrastructure and communication systems i want to point out that  simply put we have to understand that more and more of our public and private life is organized around global into great additional systems a small break down a one component can have serious and widespread consequences on the entire nation and let me point out that this is in substantial disagreement with the speaker from fema who basically talked about disasters only within the context of communities we've seen as he quote unquote his remarks he said that while the impact of catastrophe will certainly be felt at the federal and state level the impacts have the potential the most devastating in the community level and he pointed out then therefore a catastrophic response dredging must be designed to quickly stabilize communities and calibrated to support their timely recovery and in turn to municipal self sufficiency this is a terrific point of view but it may not be appropriate for the twenty first century and as you may then mention you may remember he then said the key challenge is to respond turn to normalcy i want to point out this is one of the greatest myths of disaster recovery there is no return the normalcy we've learned from sounds like john's time with this flooding we learned from september eleventh we learned from katrina there is no return to being normal there's a new normal but it's not the old normal and people live in communities which have experiences as you can tell you that it's different afterwards they've experienced a catastrophe it becomes part of the community and it's different so i think the goal of returning to normalcy is one that is desirable but unrealistic now let me just point out something in return of two of the comments in the time i have remaining we need to recognize that changing scale of catastrophes we have a lot of experience with natural disasters that disrupt a community a city county but we must consider the way catastrophic disaster spread in our national economy and capacity to function in such cases the federal government's role must go far beyond the concept of supplemental assistance and simply returning to normalcy clearly we have to recognize the possibility that catastrophic disasters require much more than the federal government just bringing back a community to where it was beforehand and i want to end with one final point here there's been a great deal of attention to housing and i do believe as you point out that the housing problems from katrina still remain with us but after a disaster the quality of the water supply is far more important than housing because if there isn't adequate water for sewage for drinking then it doesn't matter how many good housing units you have the same thing goes of energy and communications so i think that the focus on hud is a somewhat exaggerated one based on the katrina experience but not necessarily appropriate when you look at the way in which can disrupt the fundamental infrastructure of a community thank you very much thank you very much mr moss adoptive moss adjutant general donald dunbar state of wisconsin he's testifying now however for the national governors association yes sir go ahead thank you madam chairwoman norton a ranking member diaz balart and distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on these important issues of catastrophic having a disaster preparedness as the as a general for the state of wisconsin i serve as the commanding general for the wisconsin army and air national guard with responsibility for both federal and state missions i also serve as governor does homeland security advisor chair of the wisconsin homeland security council  responsibility for emergency management i appear before you today in uniform and i am a federally recognized officer however i have here today as a state official not on federal military orders and i'm representing the state of wisconsin of the national governors association i'd like to start by thanking the committee members for the leadership and support of the first responder emergency management communities i work closely with wisconsin's first responder and emergency management communities and know that your support continues to improve our overall readiness at the state tribal and local level my testimony today will briefly touch on three areas critical to enhancing the nation's preparedness for a catastrophic incident first the federal state partnership in the need to clarify the role of the military to the role of federal peronist guidelines and three the nation better target grant investments t sustaining capabilities since becoming the adjutant general in wisconsin we've experienced many emergencies three of which led to a federal disaster declaration i'm proud of the response from our first responders and our emergency managers who under difficult conditions serve the people of wisconsin very well these are truly heroes who are committed to something larger than themselves i'm also proud to report that the wisconsin national guard was able to assist in these emergencies as you know the national guard is not a first responder but it is a first military responder for emergencies that exceed the capacity of local jurisdictions and requires state support for the incident commander in keeping with our national state guidelines when the national guard is called to support civil authorities we respond to the emergency management framework and we support the incident commander several times in the past two years the department of defense has attempted to amend existing law to allow for mobilization of federal reserve forces in support of domestic emergencies each time including most recently this year's defense authorization deliberations the nation's governors and their adjutant general have opposed this legislative change the opposition is centered on the issue of tactical control of military forces when responding to an emergency under gov control the national governors association and the  adjutant general association of the united states believe the tracks of controls remain under the governor and support the incident commander this should occur unless and until the emergency is so severe that the federal government must take control we believe these situations exist but are at the extremely severe en emergency continuum we believe that this is necessary to ensure unity of effort and is consistent with national guidance issued by the federal government secondly turning to the federal preparedness guidelines i can share with you that wisconsin find some critical in guiding our overall preparedness planning wisconsin recently updated our homeland security strategy which represents a collaborative interagency effort it is our vision to foster a culture of preparedness and continually improve our capabilities to ensure resiliency at every level in the event of emergency with resiliency being the ability of citizens families and communities to successfully cope with and recover from an emergency whether natural or manmade our strategy specifies and i'm hardy's with many goals and subgoals to which we apply an analytical framework that seeks to measure  progress our strategy based in part on federal guidelines will guide our investment of state appropriations and federal grant allocations this will allow wisconsin a vertically integrated homeland security efforts and measure improvement and prioritize our investment justification in what  be a continuing difficult to school environment lastly wisconsin is developing metrics to support our strategy and measure our progress for this we rely on the federal government to define articulate target capabilities list to guide our analytics it is our belief that these national capabilities developed at the local tribal and state level will greatly aid national and regional preparedness it will also help identify gaps in local and state capability this needed will require regional and federal assistance the department of homeland security has signaled that sure federal grant awards may consider existing capabilities and capabilities based planning in the investment justification if so this may significantly increase preparedness of clearly understood and executed consistently in my view to be successful grant guidance most focused on capabilities but allow for full development and sustainment too often in the past guidance has changed from year to year and floored efforts to develop capability fully thank you again for this opportunity i look forward  thank you thank you very much general dunbar and may i thank you for your service as well dave maxwell vice president national emergency management association thank you chairwoman norton ranking member diaz balart and distinguished members of the subcommittee for inviting me to appear before you today and i'm david maxwell director and homeland security advisor with the arkansas department of emergency management i'm testifying today on behalf of the national emergency management association the definition of catastrophic disaster is an issue that name has been discussing since hurricane katrina devastated the gulf coast in two thousand and five the challenge was in the fact that what constitutes a catastrophic disaster in one state or community may not be catastrophic in another there is no question that hurricane katrina was a catastrophic disaster for those states and communities that experienced it similarly should an earthquake occur on the new measured fault zone it would be catastrophic for an entire region perhaps the entire nation these types of the bantz are of such scale and complexity that they require additional response and recovery efforts than we've seen in the past the stafford act was written broadly so as to allow presidential discretion and flexibility naima believes that unnecessarily strict in their interpretations of the wall are more problematic than the law itself the policies and regulations are over really restrictive and don't reflect the original intent of the further decisions about thema personnel in the field are often inconsistent between states and regions as field personnel changes previous decisions are frequently overturned the theme peals process takes months and sometimes two years these problems are due to subjective interpretations of the stafford act which end up costing state and local governments precious time and resources for community restoration the opinions of attorneys in auditor seem to take precedent over the intended discretion and flexibility that congress provided through the stafford act all of these issues combined serve to create a federal briana crecy that can paralyze large scale disaster response and recovery and the most recently established a working group to consider a changes are needed to the stafford act or whether issues can be addressed through regulation or policy our work is just begun so i'm not in a position to share specific recommendations with you today but we commit to sharing our work with you in the near future i am confident in stating that name a strongly believes that the federal government is not fully utilizing the power of the stafford act in the words of one of my colleagues if it's legal moral ethical and the right thing to do to help disaster victims we should do it arkansas has benefited from the theme of catastrophic planning an initiative as we prepare for the possibility of new matter dark way the challenge and catastrophic planning is that there is little experience to draw from with regard to a new metric certainly with regard to a new measured quake in arkansas we think we know how the roads bridges and other infrastructure will perform in a new measured event but we're not one hundred percent certain that our plans have to remain flexible despite these limitations and perhaps because of them i would encourage congress to continue to support and fun themas catastrophic planning an initiative the national level exercise in two thousand and eleven will be focused own a new mattered earthquake and will be the first natural disaster scenario in the history of the national level exercises name is extremely supportive of the new leadership in this team led by administrator few is made up of experienced professional emergency managers who are innovators and have a vision for a world class emergency management system now's the time to redefine the outcome we want and large scale disaster response and recovery and to align legislation and policy to support that outcome we must also do a gene all of the resources available to us and catastrophic disaster response and recovery including the public and private sector government can't be solely responsible for recovery nor should it be in most situations government does a very good job at the faster response but the current approach to long term disaster recovery is ad hoc at best well just asked or is unique it would be extremely helpful for state and local officials to know in ad vance the types of the systems that may be available for to them for long term recovery in addition having a federal counterpart that would help them access and leverage the various federal programs would be helpful this is an ideal role for fam name a would recommend the development of a full spectrum to sastre response and restoration capability and i've included several suggestions in my written testimony the main point i'd like to make today is that we need not be confined to outdated systems in approaches to desist or response and recovery particularly for large scale events we should define the outcomes that we want to build in resource the system that supports that outcome build the team that can manage the event and provide leaders with the discretion and flexibility to ensure a successful outcome thank you for the opportunity to present testimony before the subcommittee and thing you for your strong support for emergency management thank you thank you so much mr maxwell ross decker president of the international association of emergency managers mr decker thank you madam chair and ranking member iris decker the director of emergency management and homeland security for allen county i'm currently the president of the u s council the international says haitian emergency managers have nineteen years of emergency management experience the last eleven as a local director i ams membership of over four thousand state local tribal military college private and nonprofit sector members makes i am the nation's largest association of emergency management professionals the basic question asked by this hearing is what needs to be done to reduce the bureaucracy and ensure rapid response to catastrophes were also asked for view current authorities and suggest necessary changes to the federal government's response to response and recovery efforts to a disaster defining a catastrophe by a specific numerical trigger is very difficult in a large event the rapid mobilization of federal assets is imperative but those same resources must respect the civilian chain of command in the jurisdictions in which they are mobilized given the difficulty of defining a catastrophe we believe that caution is in order when considering modifications to laws policies and authorities we would urge caution in making statutory changes which enhance the role of the federal government including the military at the expense of the authority and responsibility of state and local governments even in what some would describe as a catastrophic event i am consistently stresses the key to effective management of any major event is the rebuilding of the essential emergency management system within the united states this system rebuilding must include the restoration of resources personnel and authorities of emergency management agencies at all levels of government without such a collaborative coordinated and comprehensive system we will not have the ability to act decisively and with sufficient flexibility to deal with any crisis the stronger the state and local emergency management programs are the less assistance that we will need from the federal government we ask that the current team administration be given the authority and the resources to do their job and we urge that the upcoming fema regional administrator appointments consider experienced state and local emergency managers  candidates for those jobs what is needed most in any disaster and especially in a catastrophic event is flexibility of action and speed in decision making we do not need duplications of responsibilities and confusion over the chain of command the activities of the office of operations coordination currently in the h s needs to be examined as they currently duplicate functions rightfully performed by fema as assigned to the according to the post katrina emerg management reform act and we continue to remain opposed to the appointment of a principal federal official and strongly support and applaud the prohibition included by the house in the f y two thousand and ten appropriations bill we recommended this committee task be able to perform a study of their workforce to ensure that they have the necessary human capital to perform their assigned responsibilities and we think fema should undertake an immediate review of their policies and procedures with an toward eliminating any bureaucratic hurdles after that review there should be a discussion of what additional legislative authority may be needed if changes in authority are needed we recommend that they be placed within the existing stafford act to maintain biden continuity of existing efforts some possible legislative suggestions would be to allow a change or waiver of the statutory twenty five percent cost share for the fema individual assistance program for needs other than housing and the hazard mitigation grant program and increasing the five million dollars cap on the community disaster loan program on the policy front the project worksheet system of the public assistance program is too cumbersome having checkers check the checkers over and over again and then having a new official say it needs to be redone simply frustrating to our members perhaps we may need to take another look at estimating and providing the block grants host carriers need to be treated differently than they are now in fact the dallas county texas emergency manager advised me to dallas and other jurisdictions have not yet received full reimbursement for their expenses and hosting other communities during hurricanes gustav and ike the ability to host future evacuees might be impacted by this lack of timely reimbursement we join team administrator craig fugate and recognizing the importance of personal preparedness we want to create a nation of disaster survivors not disaster victims in addition to people helping people in the recovery of small businesses is also vital to the recovery of the community and they too need to plan we thank you for this opportunity and we look forward to your question thank you very much mr kakkar finally a job that car senior vice president disaster assistance american red cross welcome mr beck thank you very much madam chairwoman thank you for holding this hearing on this important matter and  appreciate you inviting our participation there's been a lot of discussion this afternoon about the certainty of the next catastrophic event i thought it might be helpful to quantify some of the human need that would result from what we have imagined can happen not even counting manmade events just within the earthquake and hurricane scenarios we know of scenarios in this country that would be four times the size of katrina five times the size of katrina and possibly larger that is based on the human need that earthquake and hurricane scenarios would present us clearly as a country we are not ready for scales of this size of an event we've had a lot of conversation this afternoon about  the types of issues are the range of issues i'd like to confine my comments to what the rest of the panel has not discussed and that's to go back to the housing and human services where the red cross we care for people we feed people we shelter people i'll confine my comments to those areas we're discussing particularly the long range recovery housing issues not the immediate sheltering issues even though that's what the red cross typically focuses on early in a disaster and a lot of conversation about disk coming up with a definition of a catastrophe i would suggest that for a practitioner who is works with government but isn't part of government as scale of disaster increases you typically layer on more you open up more shelters you clear more roads you increase your supply chains of a certain magnitude a catastrophe as a disaster which more of the same doesn't get you where you need to go a catastrophe is a disaster where the scale is such that the normal business methods won't work and that's what we've experienced a couple times now and we have seen and we've learned from starting with housing we all know the scenario you have people who leave the affected area and have no options for housing back in the affected area the result is they evacuated over great distances and they can't come home they can't come back to their jobs they can't come back to their communities they were evacuated and end up becoming residences of other areas for much longer than anyone had imagined and i've heard a lot of questions a second about what's the answer to that and i would suggest please to this panel or to this subcommittee there is no one answer to that we need the infrastructure obviously the utilities and then we need a range of housing options within the affected area not just more mobile homes yes the addition of hud housing stock has helped and the recent disasters the additional use of rental assistance has been very helpful but if you do the math the sum of all of the options that we have in our tool kit today is not big enough no one option option is the answer the answer is to maximize each of the options to develop new options and great work is being done in state and local government to this regard maximizing the options develop new options and then housing isn't  fema does to a state or a community housing decisions are best made locally from that range of options that's developed within by fema we need the research work done we need prototypes developed we need contracts let and then we need to let state and local government with their housing task forces that need to be stood up work with themas housing task force to arrive at the right local solutions and as you know the urban solutions where land is scarce are very different from the real solutions where distances matter greatly i would suggest that the national disaster housing task force that has been stood up to be the focal point of this work needs your support and needs to be energised and needs to move more quickly also and i think we heard the administrator speak to this we're not constructing a response community and then dealing with the exceptions the exceptions beating the frail elderly or children or people with disabilities or people with medical needs or people with pets those are most of the people that we're dealing with and a lot of these disasters they're not the exception to the bottle that we build they are the model that we are building and i think that work needs to continue then lastly in housing we focus a lot on the buildings are the utilities in place and are the structures in place and we don't always recognize that when we've moved people hundreds of miles from what used to be home the social services haven't followed and government services haven't necessarily followed the medical care the daycare the elder care the wide range of needs that people have pre disaster when we relocate them great distances are exacerbated so we have to bring the services to the people and that's where integrated case management really matters and we have great case management pilots being done by a variety of federal agencies but we don't have an integrated solution to that yet and that is needed i'm not here today to give a laundry list of what fema needs to do this is what our country needs to do these are what the federal agencies the nonprofits the for profits state and local tribal governments need to do i ask you to support this approach in this important work and i thank you for your hearing today to make that happen thank you very much mr becker  the scenario of focusing on a manmade event by gauging in a real time exercise for the first time involving a natural but a natural disaster will occur how after decades of decades beyond that of natural disaster characters catch can only i take it after nine eleven did it occur anybody that the kinds of disasters we have to pay for every year require some real time exercises i mean how was this and why why did this not occur before we think this question is will help us to understand whether or not any change in the statute is necessary since we certainly don't think that that the mall or the federal government lacks the ability to do some kind of national level exercise that somebody has to say you know you're by have authority to do such an exercise of this but i don't know tornadoes or actually all hazards  as as clear as the nose on your face after nine eleven we had to do that such an exercise such exercises should be done after terrorists to invent terrorist attacks why given the scale of disaster even national level exercise series developed out of the top of series that was done so what the top officials exercises that were done that involves cabinet level officials  national level exercises for a long time the states and regions have practiced natural disasters and i think for we were playing at united states yet we had national exercises there i still live i think to some degree we were playing catch up bone not having practiced that terrorist event so so we went through several scenarios on that and now we're getting back to the need to do those high level officials exercises with natural disasters as well makes one question what whether so you agree that there was a lack of authority no ma'am and i thank you it is  you mr decker that cautions the notion that statutory changes may be necessary we did look at the statute and you know com was always right statutes very broad if you're going to go ahead dealing with some major don't nit pick the authorizing statute give the agency what it needs to proceed and you look at that stafford act and you see is broad  mandate as you're going to find anywhere and yet over and over again theme i said well we don't think we have the authority to x y or z and exasperated the patience of the people on the ground are you suggesting mr decker that changes may not be necessary to cope with a true catastrophic disaster given what you've seen how you saw the seem especially when you seem to somehow relay this authority quote at the expense of the authority and responsibility of state and local governments even in what some would describe as catastrophic events well we're certainly not we are suggesting if anything that our role is supplemental we needed to be supplemental no matter what you call it but you can call it supplemental with the agency trying to figure out how to resolve disputes between the two agencies federal and local precisely because it happen we never put anything in the statute to say what to do so they're sitting there with their family and their mouths although under this president ministre to apparently making some progress or so he testified that people in on the ground are literally tearing their hair out now let's assume that off the table is moving out what state local government would famous stop sending stuff to us we don't need so you know you have the backbone to stand up and say don't do that you're being wasteful but we saw the same of just poor i saw on the second hurricane down  there with people laughing at the agency all over the place for fighting the last war with too much ice so assuming that we're not trying to do anything at the expense of local or national government and still regard the role of thema as supplemental even in a catastrophic disaster except for you got to tell me what would you or any of you believe that clarification of statutory authority is necessary or given the broad language of the stack you should just hunker down and do what the statute says in the doll take care of itself understanding that you have on the line on the ground experience from which to draw from now madam chairman or i'll take a stab at that when i have i think what our members were trying to stress is that we view the federal  role as supplemental and we want to make sure that the locals in the state don't lose that that command and control how would that happen you know do you really think we were just a can to throw money at states and ok ality well our concern is and i think i think earlier it was discussed about i think if you leave it under stafford that's why we said if there are going to be changes they need to be within stafford because we believe that as long as it's a stafford act event and we have an  coordinating the activity and the two people court and not this confusion about is it the p f over the absolute then i think you find the locals and are much more likely to accept that because that's a system we're familiar with and it's a system that we trust we believe the stafford is broad enough that it would cover a lot of those events if the f b o was simply given the authority to do his or her job without worry about what would you know if you felt comforted overtake if there was it if there was a huge catastrophe that struck los angeles are you confident that we would be able to categorically categorize it as a disaster or as a katrina like catastrophic disaster are you satisfied that that that that would happen instantly or in timely fashion because we haven't seen anything like that and i and i time at least in the west coast but nobody saw this coming i think that i think that's the defining the cat the catastrophe is going to be the toughest part of this because what's catastrophic i mean if you take out the entire state of ohio it's certainly catastrophic to us but the other forty nine states the impact on the rest of the country is going to be really i think what defines it as whether or not it's a report now with the recovery framework and you think do you think there needs to be a recovery frame no i think the legislature lives already exist to require that but it hasn't been done yet i think you've already that's already been mandated i think you might want to direct them to do it an issue raised here from the red cross or big about the question of housing of social services but understanding what's involved in recovery has been one of the many flaws in a bad number and other numbers or by what but what the elements of recovery what does it take to have recovery and i think the point i we've heard a lot of discussion about housing but i think we also heard about social services and other the problems you have when you decide to move people more than one hundred miles from the location things get much worse in terms of what is required for recovery and i think that asking for emergent carry out what you've already asked them to do might be a good start that might be the place to start most bullet and use of the stafford act at some later point so i don't think there's necessarily a need to increase the authority in staff or i think the problem exists in terms of what administrative few days and narrow interpretation of regulations on the part of the agency and i think that if they're going to work on that that's something i think congress should look at very carefully because people there now are regulations written yes and narrow interpretation of those regular yeah and  and it is skewed may cover your butt notions it takes a there i independent intent upon doing his job strong administrator and i not give me comfort to believe that regardless of the bureaucrat the person will understand go ahead that's why we even are looking at the president somebody has got a signal that it's all right so that when the fingers begin to point responsibility we know where it lays we're example in this if you go said don't send anything else here if more was needed he would have had to step up and say i asked the secretary not to sand more resources at a time when i did not think they were necessary even if it turns gives and makes is triple a little bit the same who's going to call the shots that say for example that you speak about a waiver when you say ask a waiver well you know we sometimes give the president authority to do things and then report to congress it is you who say no i'm sorry dr moss who cites a perfect example  theme was out like a like lightning this didn't we got rid of this incident of national significance we still do not have confidence that we will  ohio like louisiana i don't have any oil in ohio you know somebody is gonna make the call and so home my answer is if somebody's got to make the call does the statute have to say who should make the call or is there plenty in the statute all you need is some backbone which you're guaranteed to have on who should make the call we've got to make a jew one way or the other well i would argue that the statute has provided the authority but i think man chair you're exactly right it all comes down to leadership at the top in the agency with and if it's going to stand as with india as i think we're naive to think that if we have a major catastrophe the h s and secretary nepal tano is not going to want to play a major role in that disaster i think we're just being naive if we don't look at it that way therefore the statute may be hashed the staffer statute maybe has to be made stronger to clearly say that the same administrators in charge and maybe it's a piece of the other thing when we're taught just to go back to the recovery issue if congress doesn't put somebody in charge of recovery it's never going to be organized because the agencies during the one nine hundred ninety s we used to bring all the agencies together after a major disaster like northridge or any disaster we'd sit them in a room and we'd come up with an ad hoc report that would talk about what each federal agency is going to do to support that community in the aftermath of the disaster we did that because the president wanted thema james lee witt and the federal emergency management agency to take that coordinating role that's not statute anywhere it's not stafford i think that's something especially in the aftermath of a major catastrophe somebody has to give the authority to and well you might you know we have cabinet level agency so you want you know here you get into real bureaucracy friends family is not a cabinet level agency it's not like it was what it was independent i gave as example swine flu so somebody has to say it president said it because clearly they put the c d c up front if you know there were to be a an attack involving biological weapons i'm not sure who in the world would do that or who wouldn't but somebody would have to make that call and you know the people around with whoever is  agency and family you know you not can tell the secretary of the x y z what to do you know presents problems so that's how bureaucrats behave that's why we're looking to see how far should we go mindful of what mr decker said we are very very reluctant to to broaden an already broad statute or for that matter to pull it and we just don't want to be sitting here when the next one occurred and nobody jumps up and acts like you know what he's talking about like for that matter general done by really complicates matters for us but rightly so because you point you point to point out that if you now we're dealing with the national guard that's already under the government but you point out that the defense department wanted to call up but he reserve are concerned and something parallel to apia or c f o whatever these officers are you are concerned with the establishment of a dual chain of command creating a being created by having the armed forces and there but of course we have a separation of powers government and it's kind of awkward to think about putting the reserve forces under a government or is there a precedent could this occur should it occur how should it be done if we absolutely need the reserves because the people on the ground need them the national guard is not remember we might not get there because we can call the national guard from all over the country they are trained better than the reserves but if these these these reserves would have some kind of law enforcement type  with the law from fly on nine which mandated a council of governors to tackle this issue when congress issued their rejection of the request they suggested that we could best solve this issue of tactical control and mexico and i realize we're talking sovereign nations versus states but if we send forces to canada it is possible that we put tatto control of those forces under canadian commander is canada sent forces united states it's possible that they would put those forces under tactical control of the u s commander doesn't mean you given up all authority you could always recall those forces and higher levels of control operational control and higher levels of control continue to exist you mention the national guard when we deployed national guard forces to other states which is a similar parallel i've done this this year alone from wisconsin to both north dakota for the floods and kentucky for the ice storm i give talks of control of those guardsmen who in fact become state assets for the states to which we deploy and i certainly reserve the right government over serves the right to recall them if needed but i think from a unity of  and unity of effort point of view the best thing to do unless and until the federal government needs to take command for the emergency being so drastic so severe in which case we all get behind the president i think the best thing is to stick with both state and federal guidelines which is the lowest level up and from that perspective we would be talking and probably would be talking lots of federal troops not be talking about a company of engineers or a small capability that could easily fit into our joint force headquarters in our case in wisconsin or in other states joint force headquarters and we would then provide those forces to the state coordinating officer which is lined up perfectly under the staffor across state lines all the time but the armed forces of the united states constitutionally is under the commander in chief and that constitutional barrier of some interest to us certain things you can't waive very  notion that the reserves should be on the some dual command we were able apparently it had always been under the d c national guard the commander of the d c national guard and there was some kind of swearing yet i'm not sure what it was but there was some kind of swearing in and everybody else who came in and so they were either sworn in to the national guard  r it it occurred even though these were national guard now the d c national guard is a little different because we are not a state recollection is that although the d c national guard is technically under the president that the commander of the d c national guard swore and these troops as something other than reserve troops for purposes here that may suggest there's some parallel there to avoid any constitutional issue arising because i do think that if we are truly preparing for the next month we bett i'll soon assume that you will need to go beyond the national guard and national guard is best trained to do this no question about it from across the country in a whole lot of guards it's not that i think that we would need more troops i agree with you but what we may need is specialized training of the time for example i don't know of any anyone has seen this  movie so far from the iraq war and hurt locker is about a whole lot more than the kind of of a compact capabilities that our bomb d are in my opinion you know national guard commander just as professionally trained as the national guard and do a phenomenal job for the country you're right about the distinction and you mentioned the dual high command i think that's worth discussing just for a second because what command under the law the president and the governor can agree on one national guard officer total thirty two who would be given a title ten command at the same time and that would allow in effect both those change of command to and at the same commander in the state response and would avoid the separation of powers that you're talking about and allow us to function under the governor's is the problem we have yet to confront that it may be right up the line because it really is we know how to deal with you know we getting finally to deal with mass transit in the rest except we're particularly concerned with  made will not be like anything we've seen before and may and could be so serious it could be an actual terrorist attack or someone has to make us love first and foremost people have experience in that kind of you have spoken about housing in particular which has been the the brain really we have had such concern although i think that the mosque says you know  there are other areas that are of greater importance if you think about the disaster itself the fact is that in this country we always focus on the on the person and so you know if they've got if they that ten people in trailers those are the people the press will focus on and frankly that the average american is focusing on even if you know even if your computer stuff is out they want to know what you do is family or this disabled in treaty after entreating from this commission this committee did issue a final national disaster plan this was the evening last business day the last administration  of you are concerned with housing do you believe that this plan is adequate for addressing the needs of a catastrophe of that matter of a disaster manager when i would i would suggest that the details of the plan empower a task force to solve what hasn't been solved so far and by that i mean i don't think you're going to see specifics of a plan that would satisfy  a county emergency manager or state emergency manager to understand the framework and understand how it needs to proceed what we need to do is if if the administrator wants to continue the disaster housing task force that the plan calls for that needs to be staffed it's you have to have a permanent head and it's been an existence for over a year now it needs to be supported it needs to be a multi agency resourced body it needs to have state local and tribal and nonprofit representation all of the red cross is on it but from that the most important body of work that that task force can do is to create a menu of options it's not any one option that's go be the magic bullet in a catastrophe we need a menu of options joe bruno commissioner bruno in new york has done some great work to look at what the urban housing needs would be in a catastrophe hitting new york city that's very different than travel trailers and mobile homes on big vacant lots you need to have menus of options for him you need to have a menu of options for arkansas that might be very different from that and so this work is moving too slowly and this task force needs to be resource needs to be headed by a permanent member or permanent leader and it needs to get moving yes because i'm going to ask mr mccarthy who has been working on these areas when we got this so called housing plan looks like a plan in order to plan and we were expecting a plan and yes the difference is you're talking about not even approached i don't know where the money is on it but it is very scary given the issues that perhaps was a plan for a plan and it's my understanding that the task force now is working on a concept of operations of actually applying the plan and starting to find what plans are the disaster housing plan to start having specifics for it of how it wo plan to make it into a plan one a plan i want to point out though the camera act did quite a few good things and i think one of the best things it did was authorize case management and had a few other things that took the capsule away from within housing where you could spend the money needed to on repairing your home within that overall cap it provided all that freedom the one thing it wasn't those it wasn't retroactive to the population affected by katrina that some kind of incentive for mitigation when i think of the way we have done medication that we are this whole committee is a huge fan subcommittee and  mitigation yet we put tiny resources and what i know that's not going to be any more we were doing that long before the those little resources long before i don't know if states waited for main thing because the people we're not going to since we were just trying to help people recover from the disaster so that if some how was it in the it was it and the the earthquake bullock that you spoke of that there was actually criticism because the rebuilding took account of the fact that there might be another earthquake yes and criticize  well actually it was the same an i g this internal criticism that what what we did there and what certainly after a catastrophic disaster has to be considered building codes which isn't mentioned in the committees or support of our only for a life safety protection in other words that's that way the building won't fall down what we did after northridge was we worked with the hospital specifically the u s u c l a hospital system to rebuild those hospital buildings for continuity of operation so if there was another earthquake those buildings not only would still not collapse they would be able to be fully functional and obviously hospitals are things you need absolutely critical after any sort of disaster but particularly in earthquake and i'm it's those kinds of innovations that we took and ran with and you know what francis has has talked about and what we've talked about with mitigation unfortunately state and local governments are so strapped post disaster that they cannot meet that match is the last priority when it actually should be the first priority because we have all sorts of evidence that shows that when we do to mitigate for every one dollar invested in mitigation the federal government says four dollars in future disaster costs and the congressman the talked about the flooding in iowa i would bet that the buyout programs are sima participated in in ninety three after the ninety three floods and then again in ninety five with the repeat floods probably california was the idea looking only cost the i didn't look at cost and the i g was also looking at the regulations and the perhaps we exceeded our our application of our own regulations that was really the issue the the problem is that if we don't take those steps now we're just going to keep putting money out over and over again and i think this is a serious issue because there is a lot of strain on the san andreas fault right now there's been a lot of  geological work done recently that we are we may be looking at a major earthquake in that area and the idea is in and california is way ahead of the rest of the country relative to applying building codes and retrofitting but they're still they're still going to be huge problems well i would like to think that today nobody would criticize anybody for reinforcing housing i'm not sure about that but with all the criticism didn't come from from the congress and the issue way and what and even never asked you to waive it never asked to wait now this is very important famous could protect itself by simply coming to the congress and we take the rap i can think of when they even asked for it and i don't even know what would keep up your crap from asking for it that doesn't protect them what else could let me finally ask you given what mr in and it has to be done in conjunction with a complete review of all of the policies with n p a and how they are administered because the last thing we as the state wants to have happen is g no ward that is based on an estimate and then have to pay money back and play money back from a sub grantee that local government to turn money back so we would want a very careful review of the policies i would just like to add that's both yes and the northridge earthquake once again because of the scope of that disaster we did do some upfront funding we didn't know if a project came in and the state or the local government said it was going to be two million dollars we wouldn't give them the two million dollars but we would give them a portion of that so they could at least get the work started and then we could do them or not take care of it mr massey went on don't want any money out of here very quickly but when people are waiting just to get started that's a mosque you see a problem there e in any disaster after that famous then would say yes ok if the code take this point you could have additional mitigation money to take it to this other point but once again there was not adequate funds to handle all that is for if you're redoing a whole school system in the city of chicago after a massive tornado there never would be enough funding to use that formula and that's why working with communities on building codes and updating building codes are so critical and this is all going to be this and i'm going to be real touchy because climate change and energy conservation is a top priority for this subcommittee this committee and the congress of the united states now we have figured out because industry helps us to figure out we have real time they get is now have a payback now that is and that's going to confront us in louisiana if you're building mercy hospital what kind of energy systems are you putting they're going to cost more tell you this much we're going to build a department of homeland security over in ward eight which is gone be a lead building it's go as it's called may not be platinum but it's gone be it's close to that is we can't because we know it's going to be there forever in this case because it is a cabinet agency that should be pretty easy to figure out i don't know what the life of the school was but i do it all today what i did not know five years ago what the payback on many energy systems is i don't know if we have confronted this so it is not come to the committee's attention but this is the kind of thing that we have got to be prepared for say the federal government money it would save the state money it cost it cost some money and advance beyond what we would have paid ten years ago a there's huge dollars that have been spent rebuilding buildings we will certainly ask that you know mercy hospital would you say are for example that's going to be a healthy part of that twenty billion dollars simply build it back to how it again just like that i didn't move them out just like that before all of that now is experience that we have did i am the best of you before as you can see we get when we put a big question like that what helps is t fruitful very productive very stimulating testimony that's going to have puts me on to something the big question now for us given what the kind of information we're getting from our experts that for a level what is the devices may do harm by doing nothing and thus we got a need to try to be wise as well and not to simply throw down the gauntlet and offer a new statute to what we think was a very well written statute in the first place thank you very much for coming to advise the committee hearing is a journey