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21–181 PDF 2016

S. Hrg. 114–355 

FEMA: ASSESSING PROGRESS, PERFORMANCE, AND 

PREPAREDNESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL SPENDING 

OVERSIGHT AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 12, 2016 

Available via http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

CHRISTOPHER R. HIXON, Staff Director 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

BENJAMIN C. GRAZDA, Hearing Clerk 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL SPENDING OVERSIGHT AND EMERGENCY 

MANAGEMENT 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky, Chairman 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

BRANDON BOOKER, Staff Director 

MARIANNA BOYD, Minority Staff Director 

RACHEL NITSCHE, Chief Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Paul ..................................................................................................... 1 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 3 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 17 

Prepared statement: 

Senator Paul ..................................................................................................... 25 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 27 

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 

Hon. Timothy Manning, Deputy Administrator, Protection and National Preparedness, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security ............................................................................................... 5 

Hon. John Roth, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ... 7 

Chris Currie, Director of Emergency Management, National Preparedness, 

and Critical Infrastructure Protection, Homeland Security and Justice 

Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................. 9 

John Drake, Deputy Administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 

Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation ........................................ 11 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Currie, Chris: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 50 

Drake, John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

Manning, Hon. Timothy: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 29 

Roth, Hon. John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

APPENDIX 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Manning ..................................................................................................... 78 

Mr. Roth ............................................................................................................ 90 

Mr. Currie ......................................................................................................... 95 

(1) 

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AGENCY: ASSESSING PROGRESS, 

PERFORMANCE, AND PREPAREDNESS 

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL SPENDING,

OVERSIGHT AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:03 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Rand Paul, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Paul, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, Baldwin, Booker, 

and Peters. 

Also present: Senator Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL 

Senator PAUL. I call this hearing to order. Good afternoon and 

welcome to the panel, and thanks for joining us today. 

This Committee is charged with oversight over all Federal spending, which we accomplish through hearings like this one and 

through regular reports that are provided by various agencies that 

also help us to oversee government and its spending. Today we are 

examining spending at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the need to make reforms in that spending. 

Given that our government borrows about $1 million every 

minute and has a $19 trillion debt, we just cannot afford to allow 

waste to persist in government. 

Waste at FEMA and grant programs administered by FEMA has 

been described in detail by Senator Coburn, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG). One of our witnesses today, Inspector General Roth, found in a report issued today that Maryland 

bought nearly $70,000 worth of computer equipment that it did 

nothing with for nearly a year and a half. 

In 2012, Senator Coburn reviewed one FEMA grant program and 

concluded the program is struggling to demonstrate how it is making U.S. cities less vulnerable to attack and more prepared if one 

were to occur—despite receiving over $7 billion in Federal funding. 

After 10 years, a clear danger for the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant program is that it would be transformed from 

a risk-based program targeting security gaps into an entitlement 
2 

program for States and cities. I think that risk still exists and that 

many States are supplanting some of their typical expenditures 

that they would commonly pay for themselves with Federal money. 

I do not think to this date we have adequately corrected the deficiencies that Dr. Coburn found. 

Just last month, Inspector General Roth also released a report 

that had 333 recommendations for reform to the grant programs at 

FEMA, however FEMA only found that four permanent changes 

had been made to FEMA over the time in which these recommendations had come forward. Despite recommendations for reform over a nearly 5-year period, little in the way of reform appears to have occurred. 

We had a hearing on this in 2013 in which we went through 

some of the various forms of waste that were occurring at FEMA, 

but even since that hearing, we still continue to have problems: 

$280,000 was recently spent for a Bearcat armored vehicle in 

Dover. The last time we were around, we complained of a $600,000 

Bearcat armored vehicle for Keene. I guess New Hampshire is 

ready for the next invasion. We also found recently—or the inspectors have found, $1.7 million for unused radios and generators in 

Hawaii and $174,000 for unused radios in D.C. This is since we 

last met to talk about waste. 

Every dollar wasted makes a difference to taxpayers. Right now 

FEMA is more than $20 billion in debt because of the flood insurance program. Disaster spending often far outpaces the annual 

funding Congress provides, leading to the need for supplemental 

funding every year or so. 

FEMA has provided more than $40 billion in preparedness 

grants since 2001. These grants flow primarily to State and local 

agencies, who all too often seem to be using these funds for things 

they would never purchase with their own money, such as the 13 

snow cone machines former Senator Coburn found were bought by 

some Michigan counties. Small communities are using these funds 

to buy armored vehicles. 

Local communities love Federal grants because they do not have 

to tax their local constituents to pay for the spending. The Federal 

Government simply hides the grants in the massive $19 trillion 

debt. For this reason we must be diligent in insisting that local 

communities’ needs be largely paid for by local taxes. 

A significant amount of this spending is also duplicative of 

grants available from other departments, such as the $650 million 

handed out to local police by the Department of Justice (DOJ) last 

year. 

I expect Inspector General Roth will give us much more insight 

into some of these problems today. 

I and my office hear a lot about FEMA from our constituents. 

The most frequent complaints are about flood maps. A neighbor of 

mine has a house out at the local lake, and his house is about, oh, 

I think it is 60 feet above the level of the dam. And yet FEMA’s 

map has him in the flood plain and requires him to spend money 

on extra insurance even though it is hard to conceive how his 

house is going to flood when it is above the level of the dam that 

holds the water for the lake. 
3 

I hear that the updated flood maps are not clear enough for 

county officials to make fully informed decisions. I hear that it 

takes far too long for counties to receive reimbursements for disaster recovery work. Perhaps if we were not buying Bearcat armored vehicles for local police forces, we might have more money 

to take care of some of these problems. 

I am eager to hear what our witnesses have to say, but I would 

certainly welcome any comments at this time from our Ranking 

Member, Senator Baldwin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Chairman Paul, for working with 

me to hold this important hearing to examine the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s efforts to assist States in preparing 

for terrorism and natural disasters. I would like to also thank our 

witnesses for being here today. 

We have learned from the attacks in Brussels, Paris, and San 

Bernardino that we face critical and evolving threats as a Nation. 

Not only do we face new risks of terrorism, we also face ongoing 

threats of natural disasters, including floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes. 

FEMA is charged with the critical role of ensuring that our first 

responders have the tools and resources they need to prevent, prepare for, and respond to all hazards. 

For nearly 40 years, FEMA has implemented robust programs to 

increase States’ capabilities to protect against disasters. Notably, 

FEMA provides critical Federal preparedness grant funding as well 

as real-time training and exercises for first responders. 

I think all of our States—and, indeed, the country—have benefited from this critical assistance. However, as I have said in previous Subcommittee hearings, we must continually assess and 

evaluate our programs to ensure that we are addressing our Nation’s priorities in the most efficient and effective manner possible. 

So thank you again for being here, Mr. Manning, to discuss ways 

that FEMA can continue to prepare first responders for new and 

emerging threats, as well as increase oversight of its programs. 

One area of particular importance to me and my home State of 

Wisconsin, and certainly many other States across the country, is 

the significant increase in the transportation of crude oil by rail. 

At a higher rate than ever before, we are seeing this volatile substance traveling in rail cars past homes, schools, and businesses. 

With increased volume comes increased risk, and last November, 

two trains carrying hazardous materials derailed in the State of 

Wisconsin, spilling hundreds of gallons of crude oil in one case and 

thousands of gallons of ethanol in another. Fortunately, nothing 

caught fire and nobody was hurt. However, in one of the instances, 

35 families were evacuated from their homes. 

We have seen other derailments across the country, including in 

Illinois, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, and Virginia just 

in the past year. These instances pose an immense threat to communities, people, and the environment. 

For example, this past weekend, a train derailed in Wauwatosa, 

Wisconsin. No one was hurt, and these train cars were not carrying 

hazardous material. But it is not enough to rely on luck, and we 
4 

have to have sufficient plans in place to respond to derailments, including the worst-case scenarios. 

Now, I am proud to have included a number of provisions in the 

recently passed highway bill to improve first responder access to 

information about these trains, and it is really critical that the Department of Transportation (DOT) implement the reforms as soon 

as possible. However, we must do more to address this significant 

security concern, and it is why I requested that the Inspector General audit whether the Department of Homeland Security has established sufficient plans and coordination efforts to effectively respond to and recover from railway accidents involving hazardous 

materials. I look forward to the results of that audit and to hearing 

from our witnesses about what more we can do to respond to this 

emerging threat. 

I am also concerned by a recent Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) report that found that FEMA 

has not adequately analyzed recurring Office of Inspector General 

recommendations to implement permanent changes to improve 

oversight of the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). Specifically, the IG found that while FEMA tracks specific audit recommendations on a State-by-State basis, FEMA has not proactively 

analyzed its audits to discover trends, engage in root-cause analysis, and implement corrective action over the entire program. 

Like the IG, I am concerned that States could be repeating the 

same mistakes and that we run the risk of money not being spent 

for its intended purpose. 

Similarly, I am concerned about a GAO report that found FEMA 

does not comprehensively collect or monitor the status of corrective 

actions made by Federal departments that participate in nationallevel exercises. While FEMA has made progress in addressing this 

issue, more needs to be done to track corrective action to ensure 

that FEMA has an up-to-date outlook of national preparedness. 

I look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Manning, on how FEMA 

plans to improve oversight of the Homeland Security Grant Program and track the status of corrective actions made by Federal departments. 

And I want to again thank Chairman Paul for providing us this 

opportunity to discuss these important issues and our witnesses for 

taking part in the discussion. It is my hope that when we leave 

here today, we have concrete ways to improve preparedness efforts 

for first responders, strengthen oversight of the FEMA programs, 

and deliver our Nation’s priorities in the most efficient and effective ways possible. 

Thank you. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you. 

Our first witness today will be Mr. Timothy Manning from 

FEMA. Mr. Manning is the Deputy Administrator for FEMA for 

Protection and National Preparedness. Before his confirmation, he 

was head of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security 

and prior to that, worked in a number of other emergency management and first responder capacities at the State and local level. 

Mr. Manning, thank you for your testimony today. 
5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Manning appears in the Appendix on page 29. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE TIMOTHY MANNING,1 DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, PROTECTION AND NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. MANNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Baldwin, Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about how FEMA supports States 

in preparing for terrorism and natural disasters. 

As a former first responder at the local and State level, I can assure you that we at FEMA remain committed to ensuring that our 

citizens and first responders have the tools they need to be prepared for the full range of threats and hazards. In the past year 

alone, the United States has experienced historic drought, malicious cyber attacks, extensive flooding, widespread wildland fires, 

mass shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and San Bernardino, 

California, along with numerous other events. And the tragic 

events recently in Paris and Brussels show how important it is for 

us as a Nation to be ready to prevent, protect against, respond to, 

and recover from complex, coordinated terrorist attacks. 

With such a wide-ranging array of threats and hazards, we must 

work together to leverage all of our collective resources at every 

level of government in order to achieve our goal of a secure and resilient Nation. 

With that in mind, I would like to tell you about some of the 

things we are doing to address these challenges. 

FEMA is working with every State and large urban area to identify their specific risks, set outcome-based targets, and assess their 

capabilities. They identify remaining gaps in their capability, which 

then drive investments across their jurisdiction and grants, but in 

local resources and in mutual aid planning. This ensures that 

FEMA’s grant funds go to the most critical priority areas. 

In 2015, FEMA provided $1.6 billion in preparedness grant funds 

to address priority capability gaps. We analyzed State grant information alongside risk and capability data to ensure that grant dollars are being used effectively to enhance preparedness. 

In addition to providing grant funds, the Agency works to help 

fill capability gaps through our training, exercise, and technical assistance programs. These programs aid first responders and emergency managers across the protection, prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery mission areas. 

In 2015 alone, FEMA achieved over 2 million course completions 

across all of our training programs, which include the Center for 

Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Alabama; the Emergency 

Management Institute and the U.S. National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland; and our partnerships with the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, the Center for Homeland Defense 

and Security; and our Continuing Training Grant (CTG) partners, 

such as the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium in Somerset, 

Kentucky. 

We provide courses ranging from online introductory level to 

highly specialized hands-on training for responders in fire, medical, 
6 

and other disciplines, including the only federally chartered weapons of mass destruction training in the Nation. 

As risks and threats continue to evolve, we must adapt our programs to meet those most pressing needs. FEMA continues to prepare for complex coordinated terrorist attacks, working with State 

and local jurisdictions, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), 

and private sector partners to assist communities through a series 

of counterterrorism awareness workshops, where participants from 

multiple disciplines discuss and analyze capabilities required to respond to an attack involving a coordinated assault against multiple 

targets. They work through scenarios to identify gaps in their current plans and capabilities and develop mitigation strategies. To 

date, we have delivered 23 workshops with participation from more 

than 5,000 responders and officials, most recently in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Another example of how FEMA’s preparedness programs adapt 

to address emerging threats relates to the exponential increase in 

the domestic rail shipment of crude oil since 2008, which has resulted in an increased threat of spills, explosions, and other incidents. FEMA collaborated with the 48 contiguous States, the Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other components of the Department of 

Homeland Security to define the biggest capability gaps related to 

crude oil incidents. This allowed us to efficiently target Federal resources to the most critical needs. 

FEMA offers multiple hands-on and virtual training opportunities related to hazardous materials and crude incidents through 

partnership with the Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo, 

Colorado, as well as training on the information materials from the 

Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston. 

FEMA also worked with the U.S. DOT, the Coast Guard, and 

EPA to design and deliver an exercise series known as ‘‘Operation 

Safe Delivery,’’ specifically addressing crude oil incidents. In total, 

nearly 1,500 responders from around the country participated in either a training or exercise related to crude oil incidents in 2015. 

We also recognize that past events are not an accurate way to 

assess future risks. FEMA uses a capability-based approach to target resources so that jurisdictions around the country will be able 

to handle a wide range of incidents. We are currently analyzing the 

2015 risk and capability data gathered from our State partners, 

and we will use that information to drive future decisions on training, exercise, and technical assistance, ensuring that we are effectively using our resources to target the highest priority needs. We 

look forward to working with you all to that end. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to any questions the Committee may have. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you. 

Our second witness is Mr. John Roth, the Inspector General of 

the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Roth was confirmed in 

2014 after 2 years of service as the Director of the Office of Criminal Investigations for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Prior to his work at the FDA, he served with distinction for some 

25 years at the Department of Justice in assignments ranging from 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Roth appears in the Appendix on page 38. 

counter-narcotics to disrupting terrorist financing and in places 

ranging from eastern Michigan to Paris, France. 

Thank you for taking the time for your testimony today. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JOHN ROTH,1 INSPECTOR 

GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. ROTH. Good afternoon, Chairman Paul, Ranking Member 

Baldwin, and Members of the Subcommittee.1 Thank you for inviting me here to testify today. My testimony today will discuss our 

audit work with regard to FEMA preparedness grants. 

FEMA Homeland Security Grant Programs assist States in preparation for terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. FEMA is responsible for partnering with States to coordinate grants, training, and exercise to help ensure preparedness. 

These grant programs fund a range of preparedness activities, including planning, organization, equipment purchases, training, exercise, and management and administration. 

From fiscal years (FY) 2009 to 2014, FEMA allocated $7.6 billion 

in these grant funds to assist grantees in achieving program goals. 

We have completed audits of FEMA grants in 58 States and territories. In most instances, with some notable exceptions, the grantees administered the grants effectively in conformance with Federal law. However, as with any large, diverse program, we continue 

to identify issues in awarding and expenditure, monitoring, and 

management of the grants. The issues we have found are best described in five categories. 

First, poor development of metrics. We found that many States 

did not develop fully measurable and achievable goals and objectives. Rather, they had many broad-based goals and objectives, 

with no timelines for completion and few concrete measures to determine if the goals and objectives were met. 

Second, incomplete or non-existent State assessments of risks 

and capabilities. To help make smart decisions on how best to use 

their grant funds, States need to do a better job of annually assessing the unique risks to preparedness they face and develop appropriate capability targets to address them. FEMA, in turn, needs to 

make sure that it reviews the State assessments for accuracy and 

completeness. 

Third, untimely obligation of funds. We found numerous instances of FEMA awarding grants, but then the States delaying in 

distributing the money to the recipient of the grant. We have had 

a number of instances in which months and sometimes over a year 

would pass before the States awarded the funds to the subgrantees. 

Fourth, insufficient management controls. States are required to 

monitor subgrantees’ activities to ensure compliance with applicable Federal requirements. However, we have found a number of instances in which the State had not adequately managed the grant 

process, leading to a lack of assurance that the funds were being 

spent wisely. 

Last, improper expenditures. Our audits have found examples of 

improper expenditures. These grants are awarded so that States 

and local agencies can prevent, prepare for, protect against, and re-
8 

spond to acts of terrorism, major disasters, and other emergencies. 

However, we found that grant funds were not always spent for 

their intended purposes or well supported. 

While FEMA has worked to improve its grant processes and 

oversight, our audits continue to find the same issues in State after 

State. Of our 490 audit recommendations resulting from these 58 

audits of States and territories, 91 percent of the recommendations 

identified similar challenges year after year. 

Notwithstanding this, FEMA had not taken the lessons from our 

audits to create a systemic and institutional change in the manner 

in which it oversees the program. FEMA simply tracks specific 

audit recommendations but has not taken the extra step of 

proactively analyzing the audits to discover trends, engage in a 

root-cause analysis, and implement corrective action over the entire 

program rather than State by State. Thus, FEMA and the States 

are repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and we cannot be assured that the money is being spent appropriately. 

FEMA resolved only 4 of the 333 recommendations related to 

program oversight—less than 2 percent—through permanent 

changes to the Homeland Security Grant Program. This shows a 

troubling lack of commitment to program oversight. 

Given the risks and expense of the Department’s FEMA preparedness grants, we have continued our audit efforts in this area. 

For example, we recently conducted a risk-based analysis to determine the highest priority grantees for our next round of grant audits. 

Fortunately, FEMA has agreed to develop and implement a comprehensive plan for conducting an ongoing analysis of recurring 

audit recommendations. This plan will include clearly delineated 

roles and responsibilities along with policies and procedures for determining trends and systemwide problems, as well as recommending solutions to improve oversight of grant programs. It expects to complete this plan by December 2016. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I welcome 

any questions you or other members of the Subcommittee may 

have. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you. 

Our third witness is Mr. Chris Currie from the Government Accountability Office. Mr. Currie is the Director of Emergency Management, National Preparedness, and Critical Infrastructure Protection for the Homeland Security and Justice Team at GAO. 

Thank you for your testimony. 
9 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Currie appears in the Appendix on page 50. 

TESTIMONY OF CHRIS CURRIE,1 DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY 

MANAGEMENT, NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS, AND CRITICAL 

INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, HOMELAND SECURITY 

AND JUSTICE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE 

Mr. CURRIE. Thank you, Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Baldwin, other Members of the Committee today. It is an honor to be 

here to talk about GAO’s work on national preparedness. I think 

it is important to first talk about the progress FEMA has made 

over the last decade. 

Before 2006, FEMA was not responsible for national preparedness. The Post-Katrina Act of 2006 changed that. It gave FEMA 

several broad responsibilities in this area: first was to implement 

the National Preparedness System across all levels of government; 

second was to assess the capabilities and preparedness of State and 

local partners; and third was to manage and provide all of the Department of Homeland Security preparedness grants to these partners. 

Now, progress across these areas has been mixed. FEMA has 

made progress in establishing the structures necessary to coordinate preparedness across Federal departments. For example, 

FEMA re-issued the National Response Framework in 2013. This 

set up the 15 emergency support functions (ESFs), that deliver response capabilities and designated a lead Federal department as 

coordinator for each ESF as well. 

To test these functions, FEMA has conducted numerous exercises 

to identify capability gaps and identify lessons learned from realworld disasters. Challenges still exist in this area, though. 

FEMA cannot direct other Federal departments’ preparedness efforts or resources. It relies on coordination to do that. For example, 

FEMA coordinates national exercises, but we found that other 

agencies do not always report back on actions they took to close the 

gaps identified during these exercises, as Senator Baldwin mentioned in her opening statement. 

We also found that ESF coordinating agencies like DOT lacked 

guidance from FEMA on what actions they were supposed to take 

to demonstrate preparedness. We recommended that FEMA better 

track these open corrective actions and provide guidance to other 

departments to help them in their respective areas. Now, FEMA 

has implemented some of the recommendations and is taking steps 

to close the rest of them. 

Now, switching to preparedness grants, the story has not been 

quite as positive. First, we found a risk of duplication and a need 

for better coordination across these preparedness grants. These 

grants share similar goals, they fund similar projects, and they 

sometimes provide funds to the same grantees. 

To be fair, in some ways they were designed this way, but we 

found that FEMA lacks the data and the controls to review and 

compare grant applications across programs which risks unnecessary duplication. We recommended that FEMA collect more information to fix the problem. 
10 

FEMA has taken some steps to temporarily patch this problem 

with updates to its current grant management system. However, 

the Agency’s long-term solution to this problem really hinges on 

full implementation of its new Non-Disaster Grant Management 

System. However, this system has been delayed for years and is 

now not expected to be in full use until sometime next year. As a 

result, our recommendation likely will not be addressed anytime 

soon. 

I would also like to talk about assessing State and local capabilities and measuring the impact of grants. Mr. Roth talked about 

this as well. It is true it is difficult to measure preparedness and 

assess capabilities, but it is not impossible. And with over $40 billion provided since 9/11, it is also very important. 

FEMA has taken steps to assess capabilities such as requiring 

States to complete annual preparedness reports and rolling these 

all up into one big yearly national preparedness report. It has also 

developed a tool that States can use to assess their risks and capability needs. These are good steps since States are in the best position to assess their needs and risks. However, when it comes to allocating the grants, FEMA relies on States to self-report their capability requirements and level of preparedness rather than a quantitative standard across jurisdictions. This makes it difficult to ensure that data are both accurate and comparable across States. It 

also makes it difficult to ensure grants go to the areas of greatest 

need across the country. 

We have recommended that FEMA complete a more quantitative 

national preparedness assessment of these capability gaps at each 

level and direct grant funding accordingly. However, FEMA disagrees with this approach and does not plan to address this recommendation as we have written it. 

This completes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions you have. 

Senator BALDWIN. I would like to introduce our last witness this 

afternoon. John Drake is Deputy Administrator of the Pipeline and 

Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), at the U.S. 

Department of Transportation. In his work as Deputy Administrator, Mr. Drake helps protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of hazardous materials. PHMSA 

regulates the operation of 2.6 million miles of gas and liquid pipelines and 1 million daily shipments of hazardous materials by land, 

sea, and air. 

Before joining PHMSA, Mr. Drake served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at the U.S. Department of 

Transportation where he oversaw policy implementation with a 

specific focus on freight, surface reauthorization, and safety policy. 

Mr. Drake also worked as the Director of Governmental Affairs at 

the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. 

Before joining the U.S. Department of Transportation, John 

Drake was a Capitol Hill staffer for nearly a decade, working on 

the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. 

He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of 

California at Santa Cruz. 
11 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Drake appears in the Appendix on page 68. 

Thank you so much for being here. We look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN DRAKE,1 DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, 

PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. DRAKE. Thank you, ma’am, and good afternoon. Chairman 

Paul, Ranking Member Baldwin, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today on 

the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s efforts to ensure the safe and reliable transport of hazardous materials by rail and prepare first responders for emergency incidents 

involving derailments. 

Every day, more than 6 million tons of energy products and other 

hazardous materials move across our Nation. Many of these materials, like lithium batteries, pesticides, fertilizers, gasoline, and 

cleaning products, are essential components to our daily lives. But 

an unplanned release of any one of these materials can have deadly 

consequences to our communities and cause unacceptable harm to 

our environment. That is why it is the mission of PHMSA to advance the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials. 

In recent years, PHMSA, along with the Department of Transportation, has been focused on the significant increase in the 

amount of crude oil being transported by rail. This increase has affected communities along rail lines in many ways—from increased 

traffic at grade crossings to concerns about leaks, spills, 

derailments, and other incidents. Further, these oil trains are also 

carrying larger volumes of crude oil per train than ever before. 

Safety is the Department of Transportation’s top priority. That 

is why we have taken more than 30 actions over the last 2 years 

to ensure the safe transportation of crude oil. Most recently, 

PHMSA, working in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration, issued a comprehensive rule that adopted new requirements designed to reduce the consequences and help reduce the 

probability of accidents involving trains transporting large quantities of flammable liquids, like petroleum and ethanol products. 

These new requirements cover everything from approved tank car 

design to new operational requirements, including speed requirements, braking systems, and routing. 

This work builds on this agency’s previous actions to help ensure 

that communities and emergency responders are prepared in the 

event of a derailment. For example, we work closely with local law 

enforcement, emergency responders, and hazardous material professionals to share information and support their efforts to prepare 

for and respond to incidents involving hazardous materials. 

We also have a grants program that provides approximately $28 

million per year to States, tribes, and emergency responders to 

help prepare for and respond to hazardous material incidents, including pipeline spills and train derailments. These grants support 

critical training for emergency responders and other hazardous ma-
12 

terials professionals who may be called on to respond to an incident. 

We also recently released a document called the Transporation 

Rail Incident Preparedness and Response (TRIPR), which is a 

training document that is a free resource developed in coordination 

with FEMA and other public safety agencies at the State and local 

level that leverages the expertise of responders and operators to 

help better prepare first responders to safely manage hazmat incidents. 

Other collaborative emergency training efforts include PHMSA’s 

work with FEMA and the U.S. Fire Administration to develop 

Guidelines for Public Sector Hazardous Materials Training that establish the most current standards to improve the quality and comprehensiveness of hazmat training for local and State first responders. 

We also work with Canada and Mexico to prepare the Emergency 

Response Guidebook, the go-to manual for first responders that is 

essentially the first and primary document that they will use in responding to a hazmat release. 

Finally, we are grateful for the support to our mission provided 

in the recently enacted FAST Act. This act provides provisions that 

validate many of our most recent actions and support to improve 

the safety of oil trains and also includes new provisions that will 

help us better prepare communities going forward. We are working 

aggressively to implement these provisions. 

Keeping communities safe requires constant vigilance, a comprehensive approach to safety, and an openness to the use of new 

technology. We look forward to working with you all and the other 

Members of Congress to continue to advance our important safety 

mission and ensure America’s communities are well prepared to 

deal with emergencies involving hazmat. 

Thank you again for inviting me to appear, and I look forward 

to your questions. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you all. 

Mr. Manning, in the Inspector General’s testimony, he reports 

that FEMA only resolved 4 of the 333 recommendations related to 

program oversight, less than 2 percent, through permanent 

changes. His conclusion is that this shows a troubling lack of commitment to program oversight. Your response? 

Mr. MANNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I would respectfully disagree with my colleague from the Office of Inspector 

General. We have made a great deal more changes to programmatic design. The entire development of the National Preparedness System, and the elements that with the grants are designed to achieve were all made with the intent of addressing 

issues that have recurred through audit findings and through technical assistance and working with our partners at State and local 

governments with the grantees. 

While maybe four major changes have been made to the funding 

announcements to the grant document, a great deal of the findings 

come, I believe, from matters of training with the grantees, a matter of interaction with the grants management staff at the grantee 

level, and we have carried out a great number of technical assistance visits and interactions with the grantees to account for those 
13 

issues and to continue to change the way we do technical assistance through really all of those programs. 

Senator PAUL. Is there a way to objectively measure whether or 

not we are achieving our goal or whether or not we are wasting 

less money, Mr. Roth. 

Mr. ROTH. It is difficult to do that given the nature of the enterprise or the exercise that they are conducting. What FEMA has 

done is put together a process in which they attempt to measure 

what the gaps in the preparedness are and what the States can do 

to meet those gaps. And I know GAO, for example, has done some 

work with regard to that as well. 

Senator PAUL. Mr. Currie, you mentioned in your testimony that 

you believe that there did not seem to be an indication that FEMA 

was interested in the reforms. Do you have a suggestion for how 

we would have FEMA become more interested in the reforms? 

Mr. CURRIE. You are talking about the assessment of capabilities. 

Senator PAUL. Right. 

Mr. CURRIE. We have been talking with FEMA about this for 

years, and in some ways part of what they are doing is part of, I 

think, a system that we think would work effectively. You start at 

the State and local level. You assess the risks. You see what their 

capability needs are, and then you work your way up to some sort 

of quantitative measure across jurisdictions so you can see where 

the capability gaps are and then give out the money accordingly. 

I think one of the things that we have found is that there is a 

lot of reliance on the States’ own self-reporting of their risks. And 

as Mr. Roth’s work has shown, in looking down into the grants, 

sometimes those risk assessments are not done completely and are 

not identified. So we are not sure how you can allocate the money 

based on risks if those things are not identified. 

Senator PAUL. Mr. Roth, do you believe that any of the money 

through the grant system is supplanting sort of the ordinary costs 

that police and firemen do and somehow they are becoming dependent on that for things that maybe should be raised through 

local taxes? 

Mr. ROTH. We certainly have found examples of that in a number 

of the audits that we have conducted, that once you sort of dive in 

and look at what the money was actually spent on, it was not justified as part of the grant program. For example, overtime for police 

officers in certain jurisdictions was not there to protect critical infrastructure, which would have been a permitted cost, but, rather, 

overtime for other ordinary kinds of things. Likewise with asset 

purchases, many times the asset purchases would have a law enforcement utility to it but not a preparedness function. 

Senator PAUL. Right. I guess the problem is—and I think you are 

all sincere in trying to eliminate waste. I do not think anybody is 

trying to waste the taxpayers’ money, so I do not question sincerity, 

but I see this waste throughout government. We have a waste report we put out every week. We find it everywhere. Every department has got it. And then we find people who say, ‘‘Well, we are 

going to root out military waste, but we are going to give the military $100 billion more in money.’’ I frankly think you are not rooting out any waste unless there are limited, finite resources. So if 

I am the mayor of a city of a million people, I only have a certain 
14 

amount of money, so I have to prioritize it. So I am better at ferreting out waste because I have an incentive, and I think that is 

part of our problem with government as a whole, is that we really 

do not feel like we have finite resources. And we say, well, it is for 

homeland security so we give more money, or it is for emergency 

management and we give more money. And I think maybe it is restricting the amount of money in order to find the waste, and then 

maybe we would listen to those who are talking to us about waste 

because we would have a finite amount of money. 

I have another question for Mr. Manning. The government has 

been paying for some of these Stingray cell towers. Are you still 

doing that with FEMA money? 

Mr. MANNING. Yes, sir. 

Senator PAUL. Do you know how many? 

Mr. MANNING. My information is that since the beginning of the 

grants program, 10. 

Senator PAUL. OK. A lot of us who are concerned about privacy 

are worried about, watching people and following them without 

warrants. The Maryland Special Court of Appeals ruled that people 

have a reasonable expectation that their cell phones will not be 

used as a real-time tracking device by law enforcement. I think the 

Federal Government has gone in a positive direction in that you 

are only using warrants. It is my understanding that local government is still able to use these without a warrant. And like many 

things that were intended for terrorism, they wind up being used 

for all kinds of other petty crimes. 

Is there anything that FEMA is doing to protect the civil liberties 

of those from local law enforcement using these devices without 

warrants? 

Mr. MANNING. Mr. Chairman, in regards to these particular 

pieces of equipment, they are on the authorized equipment list that 

we have developed with law enforcement and the Department of 

Justice. Their legal use is the responsibility of the law enforcement 

agency that acquires them with the grant, and they are subject to 

the provisions and oversight of the Department of Justice. It is 

their responsibility to use any equipment obtained under these 

grants legally and consistent with Department of Justice civil liberties regulations. Where we find instances where that has not 

been the case—we have not in the matter of this equipment—we 

can require them to pay all that money back on top of whatever 

punitive actions the Justice Department—— 

Senator PAUL. I guess the determination would be what is legal 

and what is not legal. 

Mr. MANNING. That is correct, sir. 

Senator PAUL. The Federal Government decided that, according 

to this one court opinion, it is not, and they are not doing it, but 

it is still left open for local law enforcement to do this without warrants. And I think since we are using Federal money, there would 

be no reason why the administration could not actually demand 

that of local law enforcement since we are paying for it with Federal money. 

Mr. MANNING. Mr. Chairman, that is an interesting suggestion, 

and the matter of the legal use of the equipment is one of the De-
15 

partment of Justice, but I will contact my colleagues in the Department of Justice and—— 

Senator PAUL. We will look at it from the legislative perspective, 

but I would appreciate it if you would look at it simply from the 

administrative perspective because it could be something—the decision for Federal officers to get warrants was done simply unilaterally by the administration. I think this could be done as well. And 

if you would just give us an answer from our office, I would appreciate it. 

Senator PAUL. Senator Baldwin. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Drake, again, thank you for being here today. As you noted 

in your testimony, there have been significant increases in the 

number of trains carrying crude oil and other hazardous materials. 

I certainly hear a lot from constituents who are along the railways 

that cross Wisconsin. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, I was proud to author 

a provision in the highway bill that ensures local first responders 

have real-time information when hazardous materials are going to 

be traveling through their communities in their jurisdictions of responsibility. 

So you had mentioned in your testimony that PHMSA will publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address this mandate in 

July. And as you know, the FAST Act gives the Department of 

Transportation a year to issue this regulation, so I want to ask if 

you are confident that you will meet the December deadline. 

Mr. DRAKE. Thank you for the question, ma’am. So a lot of the 

work that we have done up-to-date currently has been in working 

with FEMA and other stakeholders involved in trying to map out 

the framework by which this proposed regulation will be written. 

And so at this point in time, my answer to you is, yes, we feel confident that we are going to be able to meet the December timeline. 

Senator BALDWIN. OK. The highway bill also directs the U.S. Department of Transportation to implement rules requiring railroads 

to improve their worst-case oil discharge response plans as soon as 

possible. DOT first issued a notice on revisions to comprehensive 

oil spill response plan requirements in 2014, and in your testimony 

you state that PHMSA estimates the agency will publish a draft 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in June 2016. 

Can you please let me know when we can expect a final rule on 

oil spill response plans for high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT)? 

Mr. DRAKE. So there is currently a regulatory proposal that is 

under review at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs 

(OIRA). It is an interagency review, and I think there may be some 

confusion in the testimony I submitted, and if so, I apologize. But 

in 2014, we issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) looking at the appropriateness of expanding the oil spill response plans 

for the railroad industry. That proposal is currently under review 

with OIRA. They have approximately 90 days to review it, and 

then I hope that we should have something out very soon afterwards. But this is something that we started along with the HHFT 

rule, and it is something that is very important for us getting done. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 
16 

In your testimony you also discussed that PHMSA is working 

with FEMA to implement and maintain support systems to help 

State and local training offices improve the quality of training, including needs assessment and testing. So I would like you to elaborate, if you can, on the needs assessments that FEMA and PHMSA 

are working with the States on. What specifically goes into those 

assessments? And how are they followed up on? 

Mr. DRAKE. We do a lot of coordination work with FEMA specifically on the hazardous materials release side of things. A lot of the 

materials that we develop, a lot of the preparedness planning that 

we do is done in coordination with FEMA because oftentimes they 

do play a very important role in our efforts. 

To your question specifically, there are a number of products that 

we have put forward, for example, the pipeline accident spill response plan, also this new document, the Transportation Rail Incident Preparedness and Response (TRIPR) training resource as 

well, that is developed very much in coordination with them. And 

the idea there is to provide as best we can specific tools and resources that help first responders better act and better respond to 

hazmat releases. 

Senator BALDWIN. OK. Mr. Manning, as you know, FEMA serves 

as the coordination and policy agency in response to train incidents 

involving hazardous materials. As I understand it, FEMA is currently finalizing its Oil and Chemical Incident Annex to the operation, response, and recovery plan to further clarify responsibilities 

in this area. Can you discuss this annex and the date you expect 

it to be complete? 

Mr. MANNING. Yes, Senator. The annex is an annex to the Federal Interagency Operations Plan, which is a document subordinate 

to the National Response Framework, and these are documents 

that describe how the Federal Government comes together to deliver assistance to a Governor when they would request it in times 

of emergency. These plans are executed by FEMA, drafted by 

FEMA on behalf of the interagency, so they are a governmentwide 

plan. 

This particular document is in its last stages of review on comments received across the interagency. I do not have a hard date, 

but we expect it very shortly, I would expect maybe in the next few 

weeks, certainly within the month, as I understand. 

Senator BALDWIN. Within the month, thank you. 

I appreciate the training that FEMA provides to first responders. 

That is why I remain concerned about significant proposed cuts to 

FEMA’s preparedness programs in the President’s Fiscal Year 2017 

budget request, particularly a 63-percent cut to the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium. 

You mentioned this program specifically in your testimony as an 

important component of our preparedness efforts, and as you know, 

this consortium funds the crude by rail training program. 

How does FEMA plan to address this gap in training if the President’s request ends up being enacted? 

Mr. MANNING. Well, Senator, the President’s 2017 budget request 

reflects difficult decisions, balancing priorities across the entire 

homeland security enterprise. Their training regime across the entire homeland security world, with our close partners in the Na-
17 

tional Domestic Preparedness Consortium, as you mentioned, but 

we also have a number of other partners and assets between the 

Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) and our continuing training grant applicants, and a great number of partners in State and 

local governments who are increasingly using grant resources from 

other programs you have heard of before earlier today to do more 

training. 

Just in the last few years, for example, the Transportation Technology Center (TTCI), has run 856 people through their crude oil 

training. CDP has had an additional 300 students through their 

crude oil-specific training. The Center, based in Kentucky, has had 

more than 8,000 people go through rail training, and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), for example, with 

grants that they received from us have done almost 6,000 offerings 

of hazardous materials training as well. 

We are constantly balancing the requirements against all different threats and hazards across the country. You have heard a 

number of references to capability gaps. In our evaluation of capability gaps, we look at capability as a combination of the people, 

training to do a job, and the equipment to do that job. And when 

we evaluate those capability gaps, it may be the right number of 

people and the right amount of equipment, but the wrong training. 

So we focus resources on getting additional seats available for people to get trained in a particular subject matter. 

Other areas, there may be the right number of people in training, but they are absent equipment, so we focus the grants on particular lines of equipment to build that capability. 

So as we continue to work with these difficult decisions across 

balancing funding priorities, we have to continue to use the tools 

that we have developed through this National Preparedness System to apply the resources where we think we can get the most effective and most efficient use of those funds. 

Senator PAUL. Senator Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

including me in this hearing although I do not sit on this Subcommittee, but this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. 

I want to point out, Mr. Manning, North Dakota was the site of a 

spectacular oil train fire. The first responders there were, in fact, 

volunteers, and our fire chief, Tim McLean, when I asked him what 

was the single most important kind of training that you had, he 

said the preparedness training that was done by FEMA. 

I think that when we are looking especially with an interstate 

carrier—and I am sensitive to the Chairman’s comments about 

what is the Federal role and what is the State role. But as a 

former tax collector, I know that I ran into the 4R’s Act. You probably do not know much about it, but it greatly restricted how 

States could, in fact, tax railroads and other kind of common carriers, whether pipelines or railroads. And my point is that they did 

that because they wanted a system of interstate carriers, and they 

knew that this was a role under the Interstate Commerce Clause. 

But it also means that if you are going to restrict the funding 

sources, you may have to rethink, as you said, your tough choices. 
18 

I share Senator Baldwin’s concern that this training that Chief 

McLean talked about, which was so critical to his ability to respond 

in a way that not only protected his community but protected the 

lives of his firefighters, is something that is on the chopping block, 

especially in the context of an interstate carrier. 

And so I just want to tell you that I have a lot of concerns about 

a budget proposal that does not adequately fund these grant programs, and we are going to be fighting pretty hard to make sure 

that especially as it relates to the movement of hazardous material 

in interstate commerce, that the Federal Government sees their 

role a little differently. 

I want to raise an issue that I have been raising since I have 

been here. I probably come to it a little honestly given that my father was a volunteer fire chief in a small community for about 25 

years. The vast majority of land in the United States is covered by 

a volunteer fire force. In fact, in North Dakota, about 96 percent 

of all firefighters are volunteers who do not get paid a dime. But 

we do not want them untrained either. What they do is hazardous. 

I want to make sure that we have the tools that we need. Some 

of those tools are these grants, and I am concerned, as Deputy Secretary Mayorkas heard, in my State that these programs are difficult for volunteers to navigate. And I am wondering either for 

you, Mr. Manning, or you, Mr. Currie, if you could respond to how 

you could fashion a grant program, provided we still have it, that 

could take some of these high administrative costs—frequently in 

these small grants, the money does not go where it belongs, in part 

because you guys are holding them accountable, and we applaud 

that, the two gentlemen in the middle [referring to Mr. Roth and 

Mr. Currie]; but we do see high administrative costs, high costs to 

apply for the grants, low dollar amounts, which then get spread out 

over services in a much narrower fashion. 

So I am wondering whether you guys are looking at what you 

can do for the rural firefighters to make those grants more accessible. 

Mr. MANNING. Thank you, Senator. I myself was a volunteer firefighter for most of my life, actually, before I came to Washington, 

and I am very cognizant of how difficult it can be to interact with 

State and Federal Government requirements on a part-time basis, 

manage that nights and weekends on top of a full-time job. And 

that said, as you rightly pointed out, we have a responsibility at 

FEMA and in the Federal Government to ensure that grant money 

is being used appropriately and we are reducing or eliminating any 

possible waste or duplication. 

But we are absolutely committed to making the programs as efficient and easy as possible while balancing those needs and those 

requirements. We are constantly evaluating all of our policy, the 

promulgation of new rules and policy and grant applications and 

the grant processing and the things like the Biannual Strategy Implementation Reports (BSIRs) and all of the reporting things you 

have to do with getting a grant, with how can that be done by 

somebody, potentially, in the wee hours of the morning, on an old 

computer, with maybe a poor Internet connection. It would be very 

easy to just have a system where everybody, just kind of interacts 

online, but the reality is most fire departments in the United 
19 

States and most emergency management organizations and most 

communities do not have that infrastructure. 

So we are absolutely committed to balancing both the oversight 

requirement and making sure that we appropriately adjudicate all 

of the audit findings and the things that our colleagues find when 

they are doing site visits with the efficiency with which the grantees can interact with us in those matters. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I think many times for the smaller agencies, 

it becomes a non-starter, and as a result, we see old equipment, 

unless the community steps up, as many communities in my State 

have, to provide the resources. But we should all be thinking about 

what the fire service looks like into the future, because we are seeing fewer and fewer volunteers stepping up. We are seeing fewer 

and fewer folks willing to, leave their work or they do not work 

where the fire service is in their community. And this is going to 

be a challenge going forward, and if we reduce the training support 

that we receive from FEMA and from PHMSA, if we reduce the incentives—because no one is going to want to fight a fire without 

training, or they should not want to fight a fire without training— 

we will be jeopardizing kind of a critical piece of infrastructure in 

this country that we have relied on for a lot of years. 

I want to thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for 

holding this hearing, and put on everybody’s agenda the volunteer 

fire service and the challenges that we have. The vast majority of 

area in this country is covered by a volunteer fire service, and if 

we are going to continue to maintain that critical first response, we 

are going to need to work together to fashion opportunities for the 

future. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you, and we will ask a few more questions 

and wind up here. 

We have so much waste throughout government. I have a great 

deal of admiration for the Inspectors General and the GAO to look 

at the waste, but I find that it continues and that I do not see a 

lot of connection to actual reform, that we actually fix things. For 

years now, watchdogs have said that there is as much as $10 billion worth of duplicate spending in government, and yet it continues. 

I get back to sort of what I said earlier. Is there really a mechanism by which we can enforce reform and actually make it work? 

Do you have suggestions on how we would fix government from the 

standpoint of getting those who are watching over government to 

actually get policy implemented? Why don’t we start with you, Mr. 

Roth? 

Mr. ROTH. Thank you for that. One of the things that we have 

found in the course of doing a number of these audits with FEMA 

is that we will make a finding of questioned costs, for example, 

against a subgrantee. The FEMA Administrator has the ability to 

waive our finding, basically not go against the State or the locality 

to recollect the money that was misspent. We think that authority 

is being used in a fashion that really is counterproductive in that 

the States and the localities really have no incentive to spend the 

money correctly. So we will find an instance, for example, where 

a bid was not put out for competitive bidding, for example, it was 
20 

a sole-source contract or was a contract where it was cost plus a 

percentage of cost that was simply let. And, when you do not have 

the money at stake, it is, frankly, quite easy to do that. So we will 

make a finding—— 

Senator PAUL. Would you say this is common across agencies 

then, not just FEMA? Are there other agencies that have the same 

kind of waiver system for making either mistakes on no-bid contracts or overpaying for something or paying for something that 

was inappropriate? Would that be a bigger problem than just with 

FEMA? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, certainly in the grant area, I think it is a significant problem. 

Senator PAUL. OK. 

Mr. ROTH. And, again, I was speaking directly about the Administrator’s authority to simply waive those costs and those findings. 

But, certainly, in our other sort of acquisition work, we have found 

those kinds of things to be problematic, although I will have to say 

that DHS as an entity is improving in those areas. For example, 

sole-source contracts for DHS have actually decreased over time in 

a fairly significant way. 

Senator PAUL. Mr. Currie. 

Mr. CURRIE. Yes, sir. In general, I think part of the problem is 

a lot of these problems are so large and complex and they are not 

easy to fix. It is not that folks do not want to fix them. And I will 

give an example. 

When FEMA was given all of the preparedness grants that used 

to be scattered throughout DHS after 2006, it had to figure out how 

it was going to manage all these, and it did not have the information technology (IT) systems to do that. So one of the things we 

found, obviously, is that they do not have a way to review across 

grant applications because they were all separate grant programs. 

And so implementing a new system is challenging, it is expensive, 

and it is complex. 

But because of that, these issues require sustained, long-term 

oversight and attention, and that is one of the things we have seen 

in our work. It is not until it is said over and over and over again 

and the Congress says it over and over and over again, and an 

agency starts paying attention to it and dedicating resources and 

effort to it that oftentimes it changes. But it does not happen 

quickly, and I think this is a good example. 

Senator PAUL. Right. I like the idea on the waivers, and when 

you finish up your reports and you do it, do you come up with conclusions like that on legislative ways? Or is that not your mandate, 

legislative ways to fix problems? 

Mr. ROTH. We typically do not. We recommend certain things to 

the Department because that is our oversight capability. Sometimes we will recommend that the Department try to get legislative 

fixes, but it is largely mostly recommendations to the Department 

to change the way they operate. 

Senator PAUL. Mr. Manning, do you have a comment on the 

waiver idea? 

Mr. MANNING. Well, Senator, I think that we use the waiver judiciously and appropriately. When we are made aware of examples 

from the IG or become aware on our own accord of matters of in-
21 

tentional or malicious—or fraud or waste or where there are cases 

where regulations were flaunted by a grantee, we recoup those 

funds. We have many examples of when we do that, probably more 

often than when we waive them. The example I heard I believe is 

probably from the public assistance program where there is more 

contracting in disaster rebuilding programs. In those cases, it is a 

much more complicated web of authorities and responsibilities and 

grantees and subgrantee relationships. I would be happy to speak 

with the IG on specific examples, but there are many that we go 

back and forth on, absolutely. 

But I want to say that we are absolutely committed to adjudicating audit findings as they come along. The 596 recommendations you heard referenced earlier, we have closed 93 percent of 

those. We were focused on closing those audit findings as they 

came up over the course of the 9 years of those audits that led to 

that number. Along the way we made programmatic changes. We 

continually make programmatic changes to both the training to the 

grantees on how to carry out the Federal requirements and the 

way the regulations are structured, but also the way the larger 

government policies that are being carried out by these grants are 

structured to make them more easily achieved by the grantees, to 

make the audit findings fewer. Absolutely committed. 

Senator PAUL. Are either of the Inspectors General or those who 

are auditing aware of recent instances where there have been inspections that have been done where we have actually gone forward with legislative overhaul and significantly used your recommendations to actually reform any agency? 

Mr. ROTH. We have in a number of areas, for example—and this 

is one just off the top of my head—radio interoperability. DHS did 

not have the ability, the subcomponents within DHS, to talk to 

each other on a common radio channel, notwithstanding the fact 

that one of the reasons that DHS exists is to, in fact, have that 

unity of effort. 

We have done two separate audits of those. The first audit 

showed a 99.8-percent failure rate in the ability to talk to each 

other. Two years later, we came and saw that the situation was not 

particularly improved. As a result of that, legislation was passed 

at the end of last year mandating essentially congressional reports, 

so enhanced oversight by Congress, as well as specific guideposts 

to try to get toward interoperability. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you, and thank you to the panel. Senator 

Baldwin. 

Senator BALDWIN. I have a question regarding metrics and 

standards. FEMA obviously is the Federal leader in assessing our 

Nation’s capability to respond to disasters, and it is vital that 

FEMA have end-to-end standards and metrics and assessments for 

how actions taken by Federal, State, and local partners contribute 

to the National Preparedness Goal (NPG). 

I think you did a good job, Mr. Manning, in your testimony of 

laying out the threat and risk assessment that FEMA requires 

States to conduct as the State and national preparedness reports 

that come from those assessments. However, I want to make sure 

that we are continuously evaluating the metrics and that we have 
22 

in place, to make sure that we are always making progress toward 

our National Preparedness Goal. 

So I want to start actually with you, Mr. Currie. In your assessment, how effectively has FEMA integrated grant program metrics 

with its evaluation of progress toward the National Preparedness 

Goal? And what recommendations specifically would you have for 

FEMA to improve its metrics structure? 

Mr. CURRIE. Well, one of the things that we have found is most 

of the metrics are what we would call output-based metrics versus 

the real outcome measures, and FEMA would probably debate that 

point. But output meaning we gave money to this and this jurisdiction, we know this jurisdiction purchased this, it was on the improved products list. 

Now, I think there has been some effort from FEMA to try to tie 

those purchases and those investment justifications and grant applications to the core capabilities, those 32 core capabilities. But as 

I mentioned before, a lot of that is based on self-reported information and self-reported assessments by the State, which is not a bad 

thing. The State is in a good position to assess their own capabilities. 

I think what we would like to see and what we have not seen 

so far is a more quantitative assessment by capability of each level 

so we can compare that across jurisdictions so we know when we 

have to give out $1.6 billion across the whole country that we are 

giving it out to the areas where we need the capabilities the most. 

Senator BALDWIN. Mr. Roth, I know you may not have looked 

into this issue specifically, given the timeframe of your audits. But 

if you do have information generally, how would you assess 

FEMA’s overall metrics structure? 

Mr. ROTH. We have not done that. What we have done really was 

take a look at the States, the grantees. What were their metrics? 

That is a requirement of the grant program to understand sort of 

what does success look like, how do you measure it, how do you get 

there. It has to be specific, time-bound, achievable, those kinds of 

things. And what we found almost universally is that the metrics 

that the States were using were none of those things, and FEMA 

had not been enforcing those kinds of metrics. So that is the only 

thing that we looked at. I know that we tried to separate some of 

our duties to not overlap. 

Senator BALDWIN. Avoiding duplication is a worthy goal. 

Mr. Manning, do you think there is room for FEMA to improve 

its metrics? If so, how? And, again, I am specifically referring to 

metrics for FEMA’s individual programs and metrics for how those 

programs feed into the National Preparedness Goal. 

Mr. MANNING. Thank you, Senator, and I can start with saying 

that, with a temporal caveat, I do not disagree with anything my 

colleagues here said. They are describing a situation that I think 

is accurate circa 2009 into 2010, which is why we developed the 

system that is put in place, this National Preparedness System 

where we are trying to achieve the goal. 

There was no policy linkage between the outputs that the grants 

were achieving. States had individual homeland security strategies. 

Each State had a strategic plan for what they were trying to 

achieve. But there was no national overarching kind of arc over all 
23 

of those. You had 56 different strategies for the States, territories, 

and the District. And there was no linkage, and you could not compare. 

Separately, there were national preparedness programs; there 

were things like the Target Capability List where there was an 

idea, as suggested by Mr. Currie, where there is a common set of 

metrics: Every jurisdiction should be able to do this much hazardous materials response, and everybody was working toward 

that. 

The problem was they were divorced. There was no linkage between the two. The grants were allowed to be used to achieve those 

target capabilities—this X number of resources—but it was not specific to the jurisdiction. So to Senator Heitkamp’s examples earlier, 

we would expect the same of a small community in North Dakota 

that we would of New York City or Chicago by that formulation of 

kind of standard targets. 

So we developed an interconnected National Preparedness System, one of the goals being the capabilities that we use to define 

these things. Then the National Incident Management System is 

the language. Those are the words we use to commonly describe 

the resources across the country. And then the frameworks and the 

grants are kind of how we put those together. So this threat hazard 

identification process, the Threat and Hazard Identification and 

Risk Assessment (THIRA) that you hear so much about, that notion is that we know that risk does not aggregate across the country. We cannot look at the individual risk to Wisconsin and Michigan and Kentucky and Missouri and North Dakota and say here 

is the national risk. Those are individual risks. There is a different 

strategic level of risk to the Nation. But the capabilities do aggregate. Resources aggregate. So if we can look at what is important, 

what is valuable, what is the highest level of risk, the greatest 

threat to a community, and help that community build, that is the 

outcome we are trying to achieve, using the resources, the people, 

the training, the equipment, and time it takes to do it, that they 

can do a job in a certain amount of time against the threats that 

they have, that is this whole system—I am happy to provide more 

detail—then we can look at the Nation, what we have achieved, 

and we can aggregate those capabilities and apply them anywhere. 

We can take mutual aid resources—by ‘‘we,’’ I mean the Nation— 

from the west coast to the east coast, from Florida to North Dakota. We can come together as a Nation, leverage what we have 

built with these programs. No one jurisdiction will ever have 

enough. There is not enough money to ever build enough capability 

to deal with everybody’s worst day. But we as a Nation can come 

together to deliver those resources, and that is the system we have 

put in place, and those are the outcomes that we are trying to 

achieve. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 

Senator PAUL. I had one final question. Is there a formal, oral, 

in-person presentation of inspector reports to the agency that you 

are inspecting? 

Mr. ROTH. It is a process, but, yes, the answer is yes. We will 

have an entrance conference where we will sort of discuss with 

them what it is that we are going to try to do. During the course 
24 

of the audit, we will have constant communication with the agency 

or the component that is involved. At the end of it, there will be 

what we call an exit conference in which we describe what it is 

that we find and discuss what the potential recommendations 

would be. Then we write a draft report, which then goes to the 

component, and the component will take a look at it and decide 

whether or not it is factually accurate and whether our recommendations make sense and whether they are going to accept 

those recommendations or not. 

That then gets turned into a final report, which is issued, given 

to Congress, and made public. 

Senator PAUL. So the agency actually will respond in writing to 

your findings? 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Senator PAUL. And so you present it to the head of FEMA. The 

head of FEMA will hear an oral presentation on your findings 

or—— 

Mr. ROTH. Typically not the head of FEMA. It is typically somebody who is a subject matter expert within sort of whatever component that we are looking at. I do brief the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary on our significant reports, and I typically try to have 

regular meetings with the component heads to discuss what work 

we are doing. 

Senator PAUL. Right. And what is, I guess, your impression, either of you or any of you really, on—I understand it probably has 

to be somewhat adversarial because you have to be independent. In 

the end, does it always end up that way? Or is there a collaboration in trying to fix the problems based on the reports? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, what we try to do is balance engagement and 

independence. So we will always be independent, and what I always say is that I am of no use if I am not independent. That is 

the whole purpose behind my existence. 

That being said, we want to be able to work with the component, 

listen to the component, understand exactly what the challenges 

are before we make the recommendations, because it does not do 

anybody any good to have a recommendation that will be rejected 

out of hand by the component. But there is lots of disagreement, 

as you can imagine there would be. But we think that is an appropriate sort of level of engagement. 

Senator PAUL. OK. I think we have learned a lot from it, and 

thank you all for your testimony. 

The record for this hearing will remain open until 5 p.m., Tuesday, April 26, for any Members who wish to submit additional 

questions. And with that, the hearing is adjourned. Thank you very 

much, panel. 

[Whereupon, at 4:16 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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