well good morning welcome to the subcommittee on emergency communications preparedness and response of this committee will come to order the committee this subcommittees meeting today will receive testimony on ensuring strong female regional offices and examination of resources and responsibilities i will now recognize myself for an opening statement let me first of all say to the witnesses who are here i promise to be gentle that's a joke this is my maiden voyage and  will be one that i'll remember for a long time so very glad to hear you have you here today and i look forward to your participation when i think about the panel's testimony and we talk about the most regional offices there really is nothing more important in my mind because you're the direct contact that people will rely upon in times of disaster this hearing marks the first of the subcommittee that i've been able to chair since assuming these duties and i'm particularly pleased to have sit here beside our ranking member mr rogers who i'm looking forward to us doing good work on this committee as we move forward i would like to acknowledge mr clay our who is here he was the former chair he's moved on to being the chair of borders however he still very committed to this issue remains committed to it and we will rely upon a lot of the work that he's already done thus far further i want to acknowledge our chairman chairman thompson for his leadership he actually entrusted me with the opportunity to do this job and i'm committed to not only fulfilling the committee's objectives that we've laid out but also to be mindful of the goals that he has in mind and to be a good partner and to make sure that we achieve them i also look forward to with this panel with fema to look at the post katrina emergency management reform act of two thousand and six when you look at the many reforms that were intended by fema the tools that are necessary to really support our citizens in times of disaster having our first responders available and prepared to do the work is critical for all of us if you reforms are more important than the ones designed to reinvigorate females tend regional offices for fema to truly be effective it must develop strong relationships with its state local and tribal partners and for me having come from local government that's a particular focus that i think we need to keep in mind these relationships are best built and nurtured at the rigi regional level headquarters should largely develop the agency's policies and regions should lead the implementation of those same policies of course that's easier said than done and i'm very encouraged though however that administrator fugue it has taken some of the necessary key first steps to empower the regions to do that very task shortly after being confirmed mr few good he delegated tennis ortiz of the regional offices we want to use today's hearing to get an understanding from thema directly on how these regions have implemented those ten authorities and more broadly females future plans for further enhancing the region's participation the sub committee wants to ensure that as more responsibilities are delegated down the regions both have the staffing the expertise and the tools necessary to fulfill your duties this in particular is true for the homeland security grant and preparedness program is unclear to this committee at this point whether the regions currently have the capacity to manage the homeland security grant program for example this fall team announced that the majority of the homeland security grant projects would have to undergo an environmental review process putting aside the administrative burden that this requirement places on the grant ts our understanding is that there will be just one person in each region who will be responsible for reviewing hundreds of environmental reviews this clearly is a bottleneck that's waiting to happen it's also unclear to this committee how the region's preparedness and grand officers work together to ensure that the federal resources are building state and local preparedness capabilities the most leadership recognizes that the grants and preparedness efforts were largely siloed at the headquarters and the announced reorganization and it in december was intended to better integrate these efforts we need to make sure though that the regions don't make those same mistakes the national academy of public administration now explored famous headquarters region's complexity in its report integration of preparedness and development of robust regional offices and napa concluded that the most making progress but although the progress there were several recommendations that we'll talk about today i look forward to all of your testimony and with that i'd like to recognize endeavor like to start by thanking our witnesses for taking the time to be here i know this is not convenient but it's very helpful to us to be able to draw on your knowledge and experience to better shape policy so thank you for taking the time and trouble to be here like especially as think brock along from alabama director of f e m a does a great job for our state and glad to know there's somebody on the panel it talks like me and we've got a member over here even though she's from las vegas she talks like me too you'll find out a few minutes when she introduces one of our guest i like it this hearing is being held to examine whether current resources and staffing within famous ten regional offices a sufficient to support the administrators vision as well as the post katrina emergency management reform act the mandate to strengthen enhance famous regions th continued strengthening of famous regional offices is essential to measuring the effectiveness of the agency partnerships with state and local emergency managers and in turn our native nations level of preparedness i look forward to discussing administrative you gates recent memo delegating authorities to the regional administrators including an update on the progress of the regions making the regions are making and implementing these new authorities as well as a discussion on the possibility of additional changes and reviews in the future this hearing also provides an opportunity to discuss famous twenty eleven budget proposal for the regions and specific ways in which the regions can build there are critical partnerships with the states finally i would like to hear from the national national academy of public administration as to as well as our state emergency management director on how bhima can streamline and improve its regional operations to create a more efficient and effective organization and to that end one of the issues discusses the disaster declaration process how we can help make this process more transparent and to have timely as it moved from region to headquarters and up to the president's determination and you know one thing i wouldn't say for being here or that my manager will not lead you back thank you the chair now recognizes the chairman of our committee of the whole homeland security chairman the gentleman from mississippi mr thompson for an opening statement thank you chairwoman richardson for convening such an important hearing this morning and no doubt that you will continue the great work of chairman in your new capacity as chair of the committee and i look forward to working with you and i want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss the most efforts to strengthen it regional offices as an estate a local emergency manager will tell you the regional offices themas frontline for facilitating emergency management program that is why the committee made sure the language was included in a post katrina emergency reform act kimura to boast of the role of the regional offices hurricane katrina demonstrated that we needed better coordination between headquarters and the regions stronger regional preparedness and more autonomy for the regional administrators to make timely decisions and i was very encouraged to see administrative tackle these mandates by delegating many new authorities important step but much more work needs to be done according to a recent report from the national academy for public and ministration the regions may not have the capacity to handle all the new responsibilities when the regions were axed by napa what being a robust regional office mean the number one response from all those surveyed was more personnel unfortunately nappa also found that theme a has a weak five year strategic human capital plan that does not meet the mandate since becoming chairman i have consistently called on fema to build a larger more qualified and diverse workforce completing a comprehensive five year and one capital plan and properly staff in the result offices must be a priority for same n also highlighted the need for better communication between thema headquarters and the regions as well as a possible transfer of additional authority to the regions i strongly urge fema to furthe analyze napoles recommendation and make any needed adjustments to its new regional office strategy we must ensure that we are not setting up the regional offices for failure they must have the staffing authority funding and expertise to carry out all their missions again are committed to man a man a straight a few gate but taken bold steps to empower the regions but many questions still remain including other members of the subcommittee are reminded that under the committee rules opening statements may be submitted for the record i welcome the panel of witnesses our first witness is dr david garrett associate administrator for mission supported fema in this capacity mr garrett is responsible for finance human capital acquisitions security information technology facilities and support services at fema mr garrett has served in a number of leadership roles at  including acting deputy administrator our second was witness mr tony russell was appointed as the regional administrator for region six in december of two thousand and nine in this role he is responsible for all sima operational decisions and policy implementation within the states of texas oklahoma new mexico arkansas and louisiana prior to disappoint and mr russell served as acting director of the louisiana transitional recovery office our third witness dr christine ringer is a national academy fellow and will be introduced by miss titus of nevada the chair recognizes the gentlewoman for a brief introduction thank you very much ma'am chairman serving on this committee with you and to the ranking member i appreciate that statement because my mother thinks i'm losing my act i'm really delighted to answer these my friend and colleague dr christine springer dr springer is the director of the executive masters degree program in emergency and crisis management at the university of nevada and las vegas i'm proud to have a colleague from  and for this committee and i'm she's able to join us today she comes on behalf of the national academy of public administration where she participated in writing the previously mentioned an off sided nappa report themas integration the preparedness and development of robust regional offices an independent assessment i look forward to hearing her perspective on this important subject and i'm sure that her presentation will be most informative  assumption not only on her impressive resume an extensive experience but all my firsthand opportunities to have had her as a guest lecturer in some of my classes that you are now but thank you and welcome to you bring your in the witnesses i think the gentlewoman and certainly you have not lost your accent our fourth witness mr brock long was appointed director of the alabama emergency management agency in january of two thousand and eight he serves as the governor's cabinet level state coordinating officer for all declared disaster events in alabama we are pleased to have all of you present and greatly appreciate your testimonies today without objection the witness is full statements will be inserted into the record and i now ask each witness to summarize his or her statement for five minutes beginning with mr garrett and i should tell you that our former chair meeting so well that if you weren't here in the first half an hour mr player the meeting would be done so i administrator the federal emergency management agency joining me as my colleague tony russell is regional administrator from a region that encompasses the state of texas louisiana new mexico arkansas and oklahoma on behalf of being on the department of homeland security we appreciate the opera you need to testify today about our regional offices their resources and their responsibilities as you know the mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build sustain improve our capability to prepare for protect against respond to recover from and mitigate all hazards this is not a mission for the faint of heart for the fluid of commitment it requires great personal and professional dedication constant engagement with our partners at every level of government across the private sector and the authority ability and result to act quickly and decisively to respond to the fence develop on the ground seem as administrator mr craig strongly believes that emergency management organizations most responsive and effective when the unambiguous authority to make necessary operational decisions is delegated to the lowest command levels possible ministry attributes vision shared without reservation by members of a senior staff and senior department leadership is at headquarters responsible for the rules and tools in the regions in the field of the implementers and other words the role of headquarters is to prescribe policy and develop systems to support national policy but personnel in the regions and feels are responsible for actually implementing the policy and preparing for responding to and recovering from an mitigating all hazards soon after he was sworn in ministries are few gate made it a priority to ensure that team is regional and field organizations were properly equipped and fully empowered to exercise operational responsibilities accordingly july of last year not long after taking office administrator fugate issued a memorandum which began what is an ongoing process of realigning key operational responsibilities and authorit to and in some cases back to our regional offices this ongoing regional delegation and empowerment effort reflects a fundamental institutional shift toward a more decentralized approach to disaster management and recognizes three important principles first that our regional colleagues as a result of their reg they're in routine interactions with their principal customers have developed relationships and are far more likely to have an acute understanding of the unique capabilities of the state local and tribal governments in their respective geographic areas  responsibility clearly they are in the best position affectively communicate with local stakeholders and work proactively to address regional issues both day to day and during emergency operations second empowering the regions while up reduce unnecessary bureaucracy overly complex decision making changes inevitably contribute to costly delays and providing needed support and may episodically result in operational paralysis micromanagement mismanagement go hand in hand and or fail to timely and effective emergency management we simply cannot allow micromanage ereal reliance on overly centralized decision making to undermine our responsiveness and hinder our ability to react swiftly and successfully to the needs of our partners and customers when under emergency conditions the top priority is to save lives and assistance aster survivors regions must be empowered to take necessary action finally delegating more responsibility to our regional offices will enforce their and they already to use may reinforce the authority and operational relevance as well as fortify them with a greater sense of direct ownership and bemis multi faceted mission this just sends a strong signal of national confidence to our regional staff as well as to the jurisdictions with which they regularly interact support by strengthening our regions beam affectively strengthens us in relationships with and responsiveness to our state local and tribal customers ministre to fumigate and secretary napolitano recognize that strong regions require strong leaders and both are committed to pursuing selecting and assigning regionalism administrators with a demonstrated ability and knowledge of emergency management homeland security the gentleman sitting to me to lead my left is a perfect example of this we firmly in fundamentally agree that these key leadership positions are no place for emergency managers novices and will continue to ensure that all experience and qualified emergency managers fill these critical positions in conclusion i want to emphasize that this regional empowerment initiative represents not a devolution of responsibility and authority from headquarters to our regions but the evolutionary recognition that our regions must grow into stronger and more capable extensions of our national emergency management capability we look forward to working with the sub before you today particularly from my perspective as a regional and ministry there about the most initiative to evolve with ortiz to the regions simply put it missed a few days that headquarters is responsible for the rules and the ongoing process of realigning key operational responsibilities and authorities to in some cases back to our regional offices this process addresses a key goal of the post katrina emergency ma particular of what's called one of the i'm a to develop more robust regional offices in october two thousand and nine the national academy of public administration napa concluded a congressional  better integration parents across our functional fabric as well as in creating more robust regional officers but that specific goals and outcomes to expand on these efforts were still needed  offices and create a regional advisory committee in each region to represent stakeholders bema is pleased that the napa has recognized the agency's efforts theme it is also aware that address the opportunities for improvement and empowerment remain to which we are committed additionally deputy administrative serino is personally a high priority senior level initiative to examine how our positions and organization between headquarters in the regions and in the view and how best to align resources to the reaches to complement and support the reaches new responsibilities effort may well drive additional functional management changes as we continue to decentralize in ways that will continue to improve the agency's performance in support of this effort and consistent with partin both the administration is thank you very much thank you for your testimony i now recognize dr springer to summarize her statement in five minutes thank you i was one of seven panel members that remains possible and preparing for responding to recovering from all disasters despite our best efforts history continues to show us that disasters and events will occur that exceed the capability of local  state government in these incidents strong and effective relationships with our fema regional partners and fema national headquarters are vital to successful response and recovery efforts in alabama we enjoy a solid working relationship with our fema regional office in atlanta however to improve on our collective emergency management capability i recommend we to revisit or modify the following areas that i'll summarize first we need to promote a better understanding of state specific priorities because often national initiatives are not necessarily reflect what is important to each state for example in alabama right now what we're trying to accomplish is making sure that there is a local full time emergency manager in all sixty seven counties we do not have that at the local level right now and that is one of the most important levels if not the most important level in emergency management we're also trying to build vendor managed life safety life sustaining commodity concepts where we can be self sufficient for the first seventy two hours and getting water ice an m r e is out to those who have been impacted by disaster we're also trying to build our shit shelter capability during evacuations if we can provide our citizens with more options and safe shelters closer to the coast when we evacuate for hurricanes imagine the life safety opportunity that we have and the cost reduction will see and just our and just evacuations alone second we need to develop plans and policies and regulations that complement state and local initiatives to build capability in community resiliency i applaud famous recent efforts to improve authority however there are some policies that may stand in the way of our state's priorities and an example of this is in my opinion is the hazard mitigation assistant say from policy while i'm trying to build shelter capability this policy is very restrictive and makes it very difficult for us to accomplish this using has a great medication performance funds as a result of a disaster number three further empower fema regional offices with the authority to make critical response and recovery decisions during presidential declared events here again i applaud administrator few gate's efforts to expand the authorities down one area that i think we need to also consider is to make sure that the regional offices have full authority to to mobilize and execute commodity contracts and logistics making sure that there are not there are minimal layers and getting  water ice and m r e down to the states and ultimately to the incident level for staff regional offices to levels consistent with the programs and responsibilities they are charged with managing as a result of the camera it's my understanding that there are thirty two additional responsibilities and requirements placed upon regional offices and i think we have to ask the question are the regional offices staffed properly to handle and execute does finally provide states greater of a greater ability to build an engaged and prepared citizenry through tailored public awareness campaigns each one of our states is unique and different and as a result our risk and vulnerabilities are different and i would like to see a greater opportunity for us and receiving assistance through grants to help us tailor make each one of our public awareness campaigns because i often question if we're truly building a culture of preparedness within our citizenry and we have to look at our citizens as the most important resource and also the most important resource in the partnership between state federal government and local government i've expanded on each one of these points in my written testimony and in closing i want to reiterate we're making great strides towards refining emergency management processes through elation shipbuilding across all levels of government and the private sector it is in the spirit of improvement and cooperation but i'm honored to appear before you today thank you again for inviting me to be here and i would be happy to answer any questions you may have at the appropriate time thank you mr long for your testimony i think all the witnesses for your testimony and will remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel i now recognize myself for questions mr russell can you please describe the staffing levels your region that your region has to manage the homeland security grant program will you receive additional grants specialists under the full year eleven budget request  here when i think that at the moment you know i've been there job about two and a half months and at the moment we have what we need to be able to effectively do our program and i say that only because it's done in a partnership between the region and between headquarters also and if there's a point that we get to as this process evolves that we by that i cannot perform my mission at that time before i get to that point what i do is i go and i say i need more resources and from that i am assured that those resources will become a vailable so as i went through and i did in assessment of my to build the i phone at this point i have no shortfalls in my belly to perform my mission what do you have i have in how many people do i have in my mission i don't know precisely the exact number that i have in that one division but i know that when i've talked to my division director he is started by what he has now in  get those how how involved were you in the budget itself were you allowed to or you just given a set budget and everyone was given the same thing or were you allowed to say i need a little more x in this to talk about what were the requirements in the field and from there be able to build the budget to your knowledge how involved are the regional coordinators in the budget were they given  opportunity to make changes or was it the same for every  regions or engage in the budgets at different points in the budget process for example there are a number of headquarters organizations and functions response and recovery mitigation that control lines of funding those organizations work directly with the reasons to identify what their requirements are for those functional lines of funding and provide funding to the regions in support of their requirements so in that respect regional staff work directly with their counterparts at headquarters to identify what their requirements are and then work to negotiate funding to support those requirements in addition to that regions receive a general budget to support their eleven hundred account which is for travel things of that nature so they are involved in the budgeting process from the very beginning but the level and tenor of their engagement is going to depend on the type of line of funding for which for which they are requesti are you aware of any regions that submitted additional requests or changes i would suspect madam chair that there are probably requests every year within various functional areas that adjudicated and some are met and some are not that i'm not aware that there have been any critical requirements that any reasons have identified that have not been that are you aware of any had to do with staffing request staffing requirements and that we have not been able to satisfy all of those requirements at that time however i would like to piggyback on that and say that as my colleague mr russell indicated our deputy those those vacancies so the agency is very committed to additionally for the fine and bolstering the number of staff at the regions i'm going to pause for that moment because my time is expired and i want is mr rogers i think i'm going to need a bit more detail and a comprehensive policy review is that a particular policy or just in general no with regard to this regions and where the regions all this is a where they have sufficient  correct sir this is really kind of a multifaceted process as we indicated some some months ago the administrator queried the regions and asked them what a national authorities they needed they provided that information and then additional authorities re delegated to those since then we have the administrator at the name of conference last we met again with the regional administrators and said ok thanks preceded that let's do this again he's once again charged the regions to identify additional types of dorothy's that they believe that they need to be more effective and to let us know what those authorities are reasonable we'll get together they'll identify what those are and those will come up in terms of policies supporting the regions those are an outgrowth of that we provide to the region so as we identify authorities that we are going to push back out of the regions we will amend in revise the policies to support that ok so we're still going at last like to ask you to clarify how famous grant programs will operate between fame in the headquarters of the headquarters in the regions that would be affected differently that is an evolving process mr rogers in fact we do expect that to work differently we do expect again as part of this process to  begin pushing various grant responsibilities that are currently manage to the headquarters level down to the regions but i can't tell you what the final form of that is going to be at this point we anticipate that they are going to get additional grants personnel but in terms of exactly what those responsibilities are going to be don't have a fix on that yet sir thanks to mr russell i want to stay on this same topic with you what type of oversight or support as the regional office provide with respect to state and local grants  process the way that the issue at the moment when you heard mr garrett talk about trying to shift more that responsibility to the regional offices that's something you support and think would be better for the distribution of those grants my philosophy is that things are best done at the point of impact and so i think that the more ability that we have in the regions to monitor to put our grants forward i think that will be better and more efficient thank you and m long how long does it take the disaster declaration process generally to take wants you've submitted a request a famous for a declaration is there a typical timeline ranking member rogers honestly  the declaration process has become somewhat frustrating in my opinion the last two disaster declarations that we went through tropical storm ida took thirty two days the most recent denial that we had for extreme cold weather also took thirty two days  to me that's an excessive timeframe however there's very little transparency in that process as well once our request the governor's request goes to the fema region it's not clear as to what the next steps are and and where where our request is actually in process specifically how would you like see it improve it would help you do your job well if we if we have definitely if there is life safety issues involved where individual assistance is needed in famous rolling resources i don't see why a declaration could not take place within twenty four forty eight hours and you know quite honestly if public assistance if it's just a public assistance for infrastructure is damaged but there are no life safety and we meet our numeric indicators fema provides i'm not sure why it would take a day it would take a month and it should also be a matter of maybe two three four days and tell me more about the transparency concerns quite honestly when you call when we when we make phone calls to the region or to headquarters a lot of times the answer we get is that the declaration request is in process and that's it  all recognize the other members for questions they may have to have no witnesses no accordance with our committee rules and practice i will recognize members who were present at the start of the hearing based on seniority of the subcommittee alternating between the majority and minority those members coming in later will be recognized in the order of their rival but with that what supersedes all of that is recognizing the chair of our committee which is chairman thompson thank you very much madam chair and  capital human capital plan for the move so we can look at it good question chairman thompson i can't tell you at this point  give you a date when you're going to have that when i can tell you is why i can't tell you that at this point what we're doing that's leading to that particular effort since mr putin came on here recently identified three key initiatives for this fiscal year ten one of workforce wants to have rotations eccentric sattar a lot of improvements that he envisions for this coming year our work ropes that we've stood up are currently shaping in fashioning what are going to be the initiatives to support that workforce and has been  ve and what comes out of those work groups will in fact inform what will be that by the year human capital strategy we're looking at potentially some fairly large changes in how we do business  capital perspective within the agency and we want to wait for that workforce enhanced one initiative to conclude and understand how we're going to move forward before we completed human capital plan six months and months from a professional standpoint tell me how difficult it would be to implement any reorganization without a human capital plan to go with  staffing component from my experience the human capital plan to the reorganization restructuring our panel determined that frankly one part of this restructuring that was necessary was to develop metrics that would allow regional office performance to be measured and to hold them accountable and performance standards particularly directed at outcome should be developed for regional offices metrics and standards we found was very important and i would also like to mention that it's not just what we found was it is not more staff we found that ordinary work force i am familiar with that john thompson and the administrator is extremely familiar with that as well which is why he's committed to turning that perception around or is it reality it is certainly perception the reality is that we do have a lot of former military former retirees who are part information statistically as to what that component is yes or mr russell who is your disability coordinator for your region might just be a coordinator chairman thompson i have a person who handles all of my equal rights and all of my other things to do with personnel but i don't have anyone who was particularly the disability coordinator at the time last question the satirical you tell me why we don't have enlisted in  for this year for thema staffing for disability coordinators in the reason german thompson i fully expect that as part of this ongoing process working with the regions that is being led by deputy administrator serino that disability coordinators will be among those key positions that we will be providing positions for as party part of the reallocation of positions to the regions so i think the expectation is here that we will be reallocating headquarters position to the regions and one of them will be for the purposes of disability coordinators need region so we had an emergency in alabama today  who would have that responsibility in the region in the land would be shared between the headquarters disability coordinator and personnel probably performing an additional duty at the at the regional office i would assume most long that is part of some of your concern that you said in your testimony about having specific  actually seen a logistics coordinator that's been assigned directly to the state whether it's a disability coordinator whether it's a logistics or operational chief is assigned directly to alabama services it's always a best practice because it gives us somebody that we can test training exercise with and we don't just see them in the heat of battle when we've been impacted by disaster but you understand that planning and training  well thank you madam chair well and congratulations to my colleague from california on her appointment as the chairwoman and i thank the witnesses for coming today i greatly appreciate your time your expertise and your willingness to sit down and educate us and make sure that we make better decisions for the people our districts and for the people of america and my first question is for mr russell and mr russell a cost of concern i hear from galveston county is that the local fema team set up to assist in the hurricane ike recovery will soon be leaving and heading back to the debt nop is over three hundred miles away perhaps as soon as april the job is not done on the ground and we need that team to stay there i understand it you've been meeting with local officials state officials stakeholders in the galveston area and these meetings have been going well very positive feedback can you give us an update on where things stand and i am committed first of all to ensuring that the staff there will not leave until the job is done and what that means to me is that until i get concurrence from those from that from the state that in partnership that we are at a position where that staff could leave a return back to the region for the actual close out then best death is going to remain in place and to me that's a very important point is there is going to be in conjunction with our state partners before m with the university of texas medical branch there galveston one of the best hospitals and medical schools in our nation they're located on gal style as you all know and they sustained great damage during hurricane ike a cause of concern i hear from them is the length of time it takes to complete a project worksheet up to sixty days in some cases are other steps fame it can take to reduce that amount of time and i'd like you to specifically address the method used to  estimate the cost of repair and mitigation as a means of achieving that goal of a quicker turnaround yes sir and in fact i'm going down there next week to do a walkthrough to share the thought that my goal is to always have the process they streamlined as possible and if we can work together as a team and that means with the applique it with the state with the with the locals with bhima and be able to come to conclusions i have nothing to add i greatly appreciate that i mean it's incredibly important community they had two hospitals out of shriners burn hospital and u t m b that were both significant damage a lot of the health care moved off the island and they're in a process of getting that back up and running greatly appreciate it will get out there talk to because it is a regional asset i mean they were one of the only level one trauma centers one of the three in our region handling a lot of the work offshore on the drilling rigs and and also the texas city some of the refineries there on the southern part of the houston ship channel and when they went down it put a tremendous strain on the trauma care throughout the region so thank you very much for being willing to go down there and finally one last question for you mr ross and that's just because you're by region six administrator but you know the devastation i was caused by ike the texas coast suffers from storm right disasters on a regular basis and eight disaster results and hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions  economic damages and where famous efforts to buy and restrict building lots where there have been damaged i'd like to hear your thoughts on the buying and retiring of building rights on undeveloped land where there is the possibility of future development in areas that are disaster prone with or i think bad with me i always like to look at what is the flexibility of those programs now work with our state recognizes mr pascoe from new jersey had his own challenges this week with some of the floodwaters for five minutes thank you madam chair madam chair i just returned this morning from my district which is centered in the passaic river basin  as a result of this storm and this weekend we're seeing some of the worst flooding in the area has seen in twenty five thirty forty years the river and with the state police and other rescue workers they've been doing and unbelievable job since early saturday morning in responding getting local residents out of forms away over thousand i mean you know accurate thousands have been evacuated i want to express this to get my appreciation to the female office here in d c that's been working in quarter way coordination with my office i'm confident the work that fema region to will undertake to conduct a preliminary damage assessment with the state of new jersey we've lost lives this is serious business and not the day we already have a declared state of emergency in the state regarding the subject of this hearing i want to go on the record and say that i support additional stories being delegated to  regional offices if they receive the resources necessary to handle these greater responsibilities one cannot exist without the other in fact i hope that fame and national would give the regional office greater authority on other matters like choosing local contractors for projects within the region clearly each region has different challenges and the local people on the ground better understand what is needed then decision makers here in d c to garrick can you comment on this issue of giving regional offices greater control over choosing local contractors each region would be part of a essentially collective team to locate each region which would be local business engagement personnel for the right purpose of reaching out to engaging in local contractors in a way that we haven't necessarily  before so they would on a day to day basis operate within their regions doing exactly what you suggest but in a major disaster situation they can be assembled in a in a disaster area to do that and more robust and focused and targeted way within a faster area so yes we think that's a terrific idea let me ask this question let's assume that these new authorities we're talking about today are already implement did in the disaster we're seeing  parts of the northeast how would same is response be different and would the regional offices have the resources in place today to effectively mitigate the damages these heavy floods and winds have caused what your opinion tough question to answer because it really depends on the situation and we have for example some very large contracts that we can call on our individual assistance technical assistance contracts or public assistance those contracts those contracts unable to essentially roll contractors out on a moment's notice to respond to disasters we don't need to go out and compete those  requirements to get somebody to perform that service they're available now to do that and that's the value of having them on standby is that we have that capability ready to go what we're interested in doing is being able to migrate as quickly as we can away from that and then bring on local contractors once we get the situation stabilized but we don't want to do a sacrifice sort of military to move quickly for the sake of simply bringing on local contractors we want to find a balance  just respond quickly with a standby contractor and then bring on locals now to the extent that regions and mimic what we do with these large contractors that are regional level think that's fine and that's one of the things that we're going to be working with regions on as time goes on is to see if we can essentially break them or come up with smaller regional versions of these large contracts  conclude by this i'm satisfied with what has happened between saturday and this morning with and in terms of fame of been critical in certain areas but let's say the way it is so i wanted you to take that back and we've got serious serious problems here it looks like we're heading towards one hundred years records what that's where we're heading by six to nine o'clock tonight and there's you know people have been evacuated of course these things happen five years ten years twenty years and nature has its its way of dealing we have our way of dealing and  winds have been lost and we certainly want to do everything we can to help the state agencies local agencies to do what they have to do i must say that this my question my first question to you here is are the steps that you have taken to improve the efficiency as well as the work environment at the local office how can you ensure incessantly to ensure that everything that we put in place can be used to move forward we also are exposed to makers and with the state also with members of the city to make sure that we continue to competency in evaluating p w projects especially for example on the issue of charity hospital i know that's he mom refused to pay to state the replacement value of charity hospital it state that amount what what changes have you initiated to ensure that these problems in the future can be a progress that we've made what happened in charity happened a while back it took time to get to where we are now but i think that you will see the benefits of us coming together as a team and try to solve it together  the budget for female for twenty eleven includes a cut in in funding for emergency food and sheltering for example post katrina food was shipped in trucks from areas as far away as florida much of much of it was prepackage and a pain at a cost significantly higher than food obtain elsewhere in the state or in neighboring states so i just want to  statement by by congressman pasco explain to me how regional offices can sure that this type of waste doesn't occur during and after the next disaster what happens at the  resolver that we work with are they poured nurse to make sure that we have the resources there when they are required to be to be there so our goal on the growled is to make sure that when any of my five states they water or water ice or whatever the case may be that we have a one time or target for the providers so that's what i'm going to be doing but the issue of cost also how can you be more efficient how can you get the locals involved to provide a more cost effective means of providing these basic needs of the people rather than trying to ship for example i i was hearing that a is to make sure that once the stores and was the business operational that we are not there anymore and the post and then go to the stores and purchase things there thank you very much i commend you on that your acknowledges miss norton from the district for five minutes received as projects worksheets are submitted and then obligated to headquarters once they're obligated the funding goes to the district and then the district then provides that to the applicants so what about funding for the snow  this is we're in the middle of a great recession and all of the region was bled dry by having to clear the snow what about that funding so again if they have a declaration as soon as they make the request able to give me in march any date with respect to funding for the first declaration in december funding is available region for the district for fairfax county from montgomery county four for the state and the district of columbia for the december snowstorm have you any target date for when done and what is to do rather than to go around in circles any further on this question without objection i'd like that submitted within two weeks i know the role of the region when it comes to your so called reserve or temporary workers is it true that these workers do not have any health care those workers would be covered by the present health care bill that's going to through the congress do you believe they should be any group of workers who would do work for the federal government who should not have access to health care i personally believe that whenever an individual is under federal employee that they should have access to health care during that period of employment so where are these temporary workers come from they could be tired schoolteachers could be retired or you're parallelism perhaps they are receiving health care from some other source some of them are don't you think it's the obligation of the agency to know whether they receiving health care from some other source or whether they are simply without any health care that in light of his own president's priority on health care the agency needs to do one of two things either make certain that the employees have health care through some other source or devise a way to make sure the federal government does not have in its employ people who don't have health care while preaching to the rest of the country that everybody opportunity to participate in this hearing as i am not a member of this subcommittee but a member of the full committee and also let me congratulate you on your leadership of this committee and the courtesy by the ranking member as well coming from the gulf region i have lived with thema third cousins if you will we have gone through a recent years storm allison some of you may remember that of your seasoned team right that was one of the possibly of climate or weather conditions it was not a hurricane and then of course hurricane katrina rita and hurricane ike that hit our community just several points that i'd like to make and then have a comment on it i'd like to join my colleague congressman also and to insist and hope that beamer will remain in the galveston region before the congressman was elected we worked collectively together on these issues and i continue to look forward to working with him mr russell i would commend to you and your staff to reach out to north galveston i am familiar with them because they're working with churches in my congressional district and asked to pacifically to contact the reverend berkeley on the condition in north dallas and this is been brought to my attention by churches in my congressional district one of the concerns i have is this whole question of the relationship and it is a statutory lation ship between the state and the federal government once they emergency declaration is declared mr garrett i'd like your commentary that the point  that is of concern is to respect the state government and local governments but there is much confusion when there is an emergency declaration because whenever you have to talk to fema they always have to say they have to talk to people who are in the emergency my question to you is what review is being looking at to make sure that it is much more effective in an emergency situation than this back and forth calling if you're calling there's it has to call local local is under siege i think hurricane katrina was an example of the state elisa and it was under siege the city was under siege you couldn't get the men to act because they were talking to a local station is there any review on how thema behaves do in an emergency what kind of take charge posture that you're  in fundamentally femurs responsibility under the stafford act is one the governor requests an emergency or disaster and the president makes such a declaration we are in a support role we are supporting the state in supporting the locals in responding to that disaster and we use the incident command system as the unified model that we all operate under to provide that support so generally work we're operating hand in hand so  typically we are providing support through the state to the local however under p camera we were given the authority in those unique situations where we had to act unilaterally to do so and so the federal government as a result of reading what are you know now has that of that authority to what did you say we have the authority to provide assistance directly to locals even though such assistance has not been requested by the state you said under over again and i just believe that that event ablated let me just quickly go to the question of hires and would emphasise that in this time i believe it is important to hire diversity out of the community people who are in need and to expand the concept and to focus on local contractors let me quickly go to mr russell let me thank you for coming down with them in a straight if you get i think was a constructive meeting would you please answer that in the concern i had about deferred maintenance a lot of the properties in houston were not being taken care of because the excuse was that there was an issue of deferred maintenance that i guess it was these were already homes that had trouble and you're leaving a lot of seniors in the of the things that i said to do was to make sure we give your thing a fresh look to look at things again to make sure that we did not overlook anything and i think that's been done even as we  speak now stafford act allows people to be on the road to recovery is i think that as we're doing in houston area we're trying to use as much latitude and making what areas and what places can look to possibly resources that they did not have before because we're still living in very poor conditions and if you travel as you know you'll see a lot of blue roofs still in the houston area for hurricane ike those people have not been able to improve their condition yes ma'am i will do that and thank the chairwoman and i yield back thank you the chair has one question and then we'll kind of wrap up for the day mr garrett as you may know my district is home to a very large small population i actually have a very diverse district largest amount of cambodians outside of cambodia largest not a small and outside of and in particular i have an interest in our support to america reference to a territory said distance time funding trained personnel and visibility what steps are you taking to ensure that the pacific islands are receiving the training funding and attention that they need to properly prepare for respond to a disaster i can assure you that our region and administrator miss nancy ward who is one of our premier reasonal administrator she was in fact the  acting administrator during the interval between the old and the new administrations is is extremely familiar with american samoa and the challenges that face getting assistance to them as well as what they need to improve their posture  the response to the recent events in american samoa as an opportunity to reach out to and in fact conduct the sorts of training engagements that we believe as an agency and as the samoans believe  will help improve their posture and their preparedness for future disasters so i think if you talk with the leadership in american samoa what you'll see is that there is and has been increasing ajman there to address and money for example for a warning system that had never been deployed i can tell you that i did go there and i did talk to people there were no sirens there were no warnings when the disaster occurred and the tsunami subsequently approach and i believe in probably about ten to fifteen minutes there were no police on the street to provide direction there were not first responders out there to help people seniors and children who were the greatest amount of people who died in that incident because those systems were not in place so i do hope that we will learn from it but i wouldn't go so far as to say that things are necessarily working well finally i'd like to build upon this jackson lee's comment that i think we really do need to re evaluate policy under the stafford act of who the man takes direction from if in the event a disaster occurs when i went to american samoa and had an opportunity to participate in some of the fema meetings it is quite clear that it is the governor's discretion to determine what happens next and my only question to you would be what happens if the governor does not make the right decision the government the governor may be empowered but he or she does not necessarily make the right decision and if they don't what do you do then do we just let the boat sink because that person has the authority or do we have a plan b in place to make another decision specifically i would say that american owes this government money for previous incidences and so therefore the governor didn't rely upon some help that should have been provided because he was afraid of adding to the additional bill and we should never put residents in people of those kinds of decisions so just giving you forewarning that's an area i'm going to be working at and i think we do really need to seriously evaluate if an emergency happens what happens if you don't to agree that it's it's an issue that worthy of any discussion thank you i want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions the members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses and we ask that you respond peripherally within two weeks in writing to those questions i just like to summarize that mr rogers mentioned the concern of transparency and also turnaround time in terms of declarations mr thompson talked about the staffing for disability coordinators implementing the five year human capital strategy which mr garrett you promised to give us a timeline and actually get it done and also the stats of female employees those that are retired former civilians and so on mr olson talked about gavin sin taxes and regarding the workforce staying there and mr russell you made a commitment to that he also mentioned the building rights for disaster prone areas mr pascrell talked about choosing local contractors in regards to some of this regional work that's being done mr gallup talked about workers having a positive work environment in louisiana and the ability to complete their projects he mentioned evaluation of the most response to some of the claims and whether they're being done fairly and efficiently and finally he mentioned that the regional offices what decisions that they would be able to make in regards to food for example that the costs would be reasonable and would not be wasteful miss norton talked about the current emergency that here in the district we experience the first presidential she believes declaration made and asked for a recap in terms of the  current work sheets that have been submitted have not been submitted and where you are in the response mr garrett and she also talked about the temporary disaster workers what is the process in place if they qualify for benefits and if that's something that can be changed and finally miss jackson lee talked about she bill upon mr olson's comments of continuing support with hurricane ike for you mr russell review of fema as take charge policy which is what i was just talking to you mr garrett about the considering the local hires and contractors and keeping diversity in mind and finally what reassessment we would make i think that summarizes it all we look forward for  future hearings and thank you very much for all of your participation hearing no further business the hearing is a