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49–948 PDF 2009

AN INDEPENDENT FEMA: RESTORING 

THE NATION’S CAPABILITIES 

FOR EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY 

MANAGEMENT AND DISASTER 

RESPONSE 

(111–32) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 14, 2009 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

PHIL HARE, Illinois 

JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio 

MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

TESTIMONY 

Gispert, Larry, Director, Hillsborough County Emergency Management .......... 9 

Hauer, Jerome, Chief Executive Officer, The Hauer Group ................................ 9 

Honore, Ret., Lieutenant General Russel L., United States Army ..................... 9 

Larson, Larry, Executive Director, Association of State Floodplain Managers .. 9 

Moss, Mitchell, Professor, Henry Hart Rice Professor School of Urban Policy 

and Planning, New York University .................................................................. 9 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona ....................................................................... 27 

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia ................................. 28 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 31 

Shuster, Hon. Bill, of Pennsylvania ....................................................................... 38 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Gispert, Larry .......................................................................................................... 44 

Hauer, Jerome .......................................................................................................... 55 

Honore, Ret., Lieutenant General Russel L. ......................................................... 57 

Larson, Larry ........................................................................................................... 58 

Moss, Mitchell .......................................................................................................... 72 

SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD 

Gispert, Larry, Director, Hillsborough County Emergency Management, response to request for information from the Committee .................................... 52 

ADDITION TO THE RECORD 

James Lee Witt Associates, a part of Global Options, James L. Witt, Cheif 

Executive Officer, written testimony .................................................................. 77 

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(1) 

HEARING ON AN INDEPENDENT FEMA: RESTORING THE NATION’S CAPABILITIES FOR 

EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AND DISASTER RESPONSE 

Thursday, May 14, 2009, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 12:15 p.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable James Oberstar [Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. The Committee will come to order, with apologies 

for the repeated votes on the House Floor that, however, will leave 

us in continuity for the next couple of hours. 

I want to thank Mr. Mica for joining me in this hearing and our 

panel for participating. 

We will receive testimony today on the performance of FEMA, on 

whether the agency can effectively carry out its essential function 

of helping communities and their residents to prepare, to respond, 

to recover, to mitigate disasters and emergencies in their role within the Department of Homeland Security. 

My relationship with this organization goes back a very long 

way, to a time when one of your predecessors, Mr. Mica, Bill 

Klinger, was my partner on the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee in the mid-1980s. When then President Reagan made a 

radical proposal to eliminate Federal funding in support to communities and States for disasters, a hue and cry rose up across the 

Country, especially the State of Pennsylvania, where a Member of 

Congress from the Republican party had just experienced in his 

district a disastrous flood and needed the support of the then Civil 

Defense Agency. 

So at his instance, Mr. Klinger and I gathered witnesses and 

communities who had been engaged in disaster response, relief, as 

well as mitigation from across the Country and had an extensive 

two-day hearing, the end of which was the Member of Pennsylvania led this charge, I invited to participate with us in drafting 

legislation that resulted in creation of FEMA—although it was initiated by Jimmy Carter, it really was still Civil Defense in those 

days—and restructured the financing, set the partnership and the 

framework for the program in Federal law, which had not been 

done, it had been done by administrative action. 

Then I asked this Member to introduce the bill and I would be 

a cosponsor, and, Mr. Mica, he said, well, you are the Chairman 

2 

of the Committee; it is unusual for a Republican in a minority position. I said, no, you had the guts to stand up to your administration, I want you to sponsor the bill. His name, Tom Ridge. Years 

later, when he was designated to be Homeland Security Secretary, 

he came up to see me and said, you know, you got me into all this 

mess, you started it all. And we have had that partnership for all 

these years. 

As an independent agency, FEMA responded effectively to a wide 

range of natural disasters: the North Ridge Earthquake, the 1993 

Midwest floods, the 1993 terrorist attack on The World Trade Center, the 2001 September 11 attack. FEMA was considered a model 

government agency. 

But then, in the aftermath of September 11, the Bush Administration proposed a Homeland Security Department, consolidating 

22 agencies into one department, and our former Chairman, Mr. 

Young, and I were called, along with other Full Committee Chairs 

and Ranking Members from the House and Senate to the White 

House for a conference, and in that meeting both Mr. Young and 

I spoke up against including Coast Guard and FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security. They have a different mission. 

They have different roles. There could be a liaison, there could be 

a connect to Homeland Security. 

In fact, just a little bit of overture dictum, when I served on the 

Pan Am 103 Commission, along with our former colleague, Mr. 

Hammerschmidt, who was Ranking Member of the Full Committee, 

our Pan Am 103 Commission recommended a small, nimble, mobile 

unit consisting of a half dozen or so cabinet officers or agency 

heads that would form an intelligence unit that would evaluate and 

disseminate information on aviation terrorism. This was in 1990. 

Not a department, but a small unit that would be quick and effective, that would coordinate all the agencies. So I proposed that to 

the President, instead of this massive department. I said it will 

grow into a huge monstrosity. 

Mr. Young pointed out, then-Chairman Young, that every year 

we know there are going to be disasters. Our terrorism, our fear 

in the heartland is flood, white-out from blizzards, hurricanes, 

storm surges. That is our terror. We shouldn’t have FEMA in this 

organization. Well, we know what happened; the Department of 

Homeland Security was created, FEMA was absorbed into it, and, 

just as I said at the time in this Committee room, money is fungible, people are movable, and they will move people out of FEMA, 

they will move money out of FEMA and leave it emasculated. 

We have spent 10 times more on terrorism preparedness, $15 billion, than we have on emergency management preparedness in the 

last six years, $1.5 billion on emergency preparedness; $15 billion 

on terrorism preparedness. We just have to look around this Capitol complex to see the expenditures the Congress is making on terrorism prevention and preparedness. 

Well, when the bill came to the House Floor, I said, in support 

of an amendment I offered to delete FEMA from the Department 

of Homeland Security, I said, this is July 2002. Let’s fast forward 

to July 2003. The majority has prevailed, FEMA is a box in the 

mammoth bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security. 

3 

The flood waters are swirling around your city. You call for help, 

you get the Department of Homeland Security. 

The switchboard sends your call to the under secretary’s office, 

which looks up disaster on their organizational chart and sends 

you to the Congressional liaison office, which then promises to get 

a message back to you in 24 hours. Eventually, they find FEMA, 

by which time you are on the roof of your house, waving a white 

handkerchief and screaming for help. FEMA, the word comes back, 

sorry, is looking for suspected terrorists someplace and will get 

back to you as soon as we can. 

I had no idea that Katrina would strike, but it did. Several of our 

colleagues on both sides of the aisle went back and said Oberstar 

said something about this back then and repeated my words. So 

here we are in February of this year with bipartisan support in 

this Committee, and I introduced the FEMA Independence Act of 

2009 to reestablish FEMA as an independent cabinet level agency 

reporting directly to the President. 

Secretary Napolitano yesterday said, with the President’s blessing, that the Administration does not have plans to remove FEMA 

from Department of Homeland Security, and I understand that 

competing priorities and calls on the President’s time and on the 

time of the various cabinet officers who are feeling their way, trying to get themselves into position, but I think we on this Committee have been doing this a much longer time than the Administration has, and I think we know more about it than they do. 

So we are going to proceed with this legislation and proceed with 

this hearing, and take the views of the witnesses at our table 

today. Thank you for listening to my monologue. 

Mr. Mica? 

Mr. MICA. Well, first, I have to thank you, Mr. Oberstar, for your 

leadership on this issue and also holding this hearing today; it is 

an important hearing. We both have similar stories to tell about 

the progression that has taken to get us to this day with FEMA 

under Homeland Security. I remember giving a very eloquent set 

of remarks in the Government Reform Committee, which the proposal to combine 22 agencies into one Homeland Security Department, and I questioned putting FEMA and Coast Guard, exactly 

your position, into that agency, and then having it run efficiently. 

At the time, there was—well, first, the Bush Administration 

didn’t want to do it, then they combined it all together and were 

trying to convince everyone it would work, and I said no way, Jose. 

After I gave that speech, I was asked to tone down my rhetoric by 

the Administration, but it is unfortunate that what we predicted 

came through. Unfortunately, also, with the experience we had 

with Katrina. 

I support you strongly. I am a cosponsor of H.R.—I believe it is— 

1174, ready to take it up at any time and pass it out of our Committee, because it is important. I think today’s hearing—and we 

are fortunate you have some excellent witnesses, one of them from 

my State. 

Let me recognize Larry Gispert. He is not from my district, but 

from Hillsborough, the west side of the State, Emergency Management Services Director there. Certainly, Florida, I think, is one of 

the premier States that has shown how you deal with disasters, beVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:34 Sep 23, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49948.0 KAYLA
4 

cause we have been hit so many times. But fortunate, too, I understand on Monday Craig Fugate, our former State director, will be 

sworn in as the President’s selection to head FEMA. Excellent 

choice; couldn’t do better. Tested, qualified, sees the full picture. 

So we have had our fair share. Even in my district I have had 

three in the last ten years. I had three hurricanes and two tornadoes, fires, floods. We have had everything but locusts, and we are 

waiting on that to come. 

But I am pleased to join you today in a continued call to look at 

the mistakes that were made. 

I have a chart which I made up. Let me just describe, in closing, 

the problem that we face. We have just been joined by our new 

Ranking Member here. You get to see this too. 

But we have, what is it, POTUS, and we have now got DHS, and 

now we have got FEMA under here. What Mr. Oberstar and I recommend is we have the President and then we have FEMA here, 

and what we had in Katrina, we had the President, we had DHS, 

but we also had DOD, and then we had this other issue of the 

State National Guards. 

We also, of course, had other agencies like Coast Guard, which 

did a great job. And we had confusion here, here, here. We have 

actually put in place—I guess the President put in place to deal 

with this DOD issue a—what was it, the task force?—Task Force 

Katrina. So this is what we ended up with and this is really what 

I think works the most efficiently. 

The President really is the only one that has the ability to call 

out DOD and the other agencies. The Chairman just described the 

call to DHS. It was somewhat humorous, everyone was chuckling, 

but there is so much truth to what he described. We have got to 

get back to that model. We lost days in here and people died and 

we lost property. It was difficult to tell who was in charge of what, 

and we have got to simplify that. So I am prepared for this model, 

having the President in charge, having FEMA return to its role 

and a direct relationship and ability to respond. 

I have asked leaders who they think is in charge in several meetings we have had in the past. You get different answers, even with 

some of the changes that have been made in an attempt to try to 

clarify. This is the model we need and I look forward to working 

with you. 

Finally, too, the Stafford Act, at some point, we need revisions 

there. We need the ability to get assets for smaller disasters to 

communities. Mr. Ross, from Arkansas, and myself, we had nightmares. I think he had tornadoes, I know I had tornadoes. I had 

trailers, and I would love to hear, we don’t have the FEMA folks 

here, what they have done with the hundreds of thousands of trailers that they had, but we had them down the street in storage with 

FEMA paying rent on them, and I had people without housing, 

which is totally unsatisfactory. At one point we had six attorneys 

on the phone trying to figure out how to resolve this situation. Six 

attorneys. We ended up not being able to get them any housing. 

So just again, a clear chain of command and then some flexibility 

so that we can make certain that, when we have a disaster, the 

people that need aid get a positive response and assistance from 

their government at every level. 

5 

Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much for that chart, with which 

I fully agree. 

Mr. MICA. I would submit that chart to the record. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. To which we could add within the Department all 

those several layers of internal bureaucracy so that the FEMA director never got to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Never got 

to him. 

Mr. MICA. I would ask, also, Mr. Shuster was active in trying to 

look at what went wrong with Katrina. He isn’t with us, and I 

would like to submit—he is the former Chairman of the Subcommittee, I believe. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. And he did splendid work during that time. 

Mr. MICA. So I would like to submit—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Without objection, his statement will be included 

in the record. 

I would like to now recognize our Chair of the Subcommittee, 

who had another event that she had to attend and is now back 

with us. 

Ms. Norton, thank you for returning. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And for the splendid work that you have done 

over the last two years of hearings and inquiry into FEMA. You 

have really laid open this issue we are addressing today. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I very much thank you, Mr. Chairman. All of 

us who are Subcommittee Chairs are trying to still live up to the 

high mark you set for us, as impossible as that is. I do want to 

thank you for your continued persistence in what can only be called 

the reform of FEMA. 

I concede that I don’t see much appetite, not as yet, on the part 

of the Administration or of Congress to take on the behemoth task 

of unraveling and disjointing FEMA from the bureaucracy in which 

it is now encased. But that does not mean that your persistence in 

pointing out just how hobbled the agency has been within that bureaucracy should cease. The only way to get action is to do precisely what you are doing now. So I was pleased to join you as a 

cosponsor of your bill, the bill that the four of us, I believe, have 

all sponsored. 

Mr. Chairman, with you, there was certain logic we all saw in 

putting FEMA, which is a major disaster agency, within the major 

disaster bureaucracy that we created called the Department of 

Homeland Security. When it failed, worse than any government 

failure, I think, in the United States in our history, we moved to 

enact the Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act, because they wanted to give FEMA a chance to show that with more flexibility, with 

the oversight you and my own Subcommittee had given, there 

could be improvements, recognizing how difficult it is to undo a 

structural change as new as the Department of Homeland Security 

was. 

I must say to you, Mr. Chairman, having had more Subcommittee hearings in my combined jurisdictions than any Subcommittee within your jurisdiction, and a dozen hearings on FEMA 

alone, I must say to you that that has been an exercise in frustration rather than improvement based on oversight, yours, sir, and 

6 

mine. We have had hearings on every conceivable element of 

FEMA: its housing plan, which was abysmally late; its emergency 

food supply plan, which is at the heart of why it exists, for postdisaster relief; its response to all hazards, which was the whole 

reason for putting it in that bureaucracy in the first place, all hazards, because the response is essentially the same regardless of 

hazard, the recovery is essentially the same. 

And for me, who has the primary jurisdiction over FEMA, when 

you consider that Homeland Security, the Committee on which I 

also serve, has jurisdiction only over preparing for terrorist events. 

Well, 99.9 percent of what FEMA does is exactly what FEMA did 

before 9/11 and before the anthrax attacks. What the American 

people look to FEMA to do is to take care of the American people 

in hurricane season, in tornado season, in flood season, yes, and in 

icicle season with the ice storms in Kentucky and in the Midwest. 

And when we see shortcomings there, we begin to wonder what the 

Department of Homeland Security is there for. Has this huge umbrella done us any good? And if we are supposed to wait, how long 

are we supposed to wait. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I ran a Federal agency once and I know 

that it is like turning around a hippopotamus even to make a small 

one change, and I looked at the Department of Defense to get some 

comparison, and the Department of Defense, more than 50 years 

ago, had to do the same thing we are doing here, consolidate existing departments; and if you look at the GAO reports on DOD, you 

will see that they will say that they still have serious management 

failings. 

I don’t think that you, Mr. Chairman, nor I, were asking for the 

impossible here. We were just asking to see some improvement 

that some response to Congressional criticism post-Katrina, and 

that, I believe, is the real impetus for this. I didn’t want to hear 

the word trailer again, but this year we were still talking about 

trailers. If you want to know the source of my greatest frustration—and I will not rest until it is done—in the middle of the stimulus package, we learned that there were $3.4 billion still outstanding in the Gulf Coast. You have got to be joking. We are trying to get money to people in order to do precisely what they were 

supposed to be doing, rebuilding their hospitals, putting people 

back to work, and these people have had hung up for years $3.4 

billion? I almost climbed the walls in this very room. 

Senator Mary Landrieu was so put out that she put in to the last 

omnibus bill a section that would create an arbitration panel of 

panelists appointed by the President of the United States. That 

may be too large a response. We now have tried to rein it in. I have 

asked for a status report on the $3.4 billion. Is it still growing? 

We have a new Secretary and she is not a part of any of this. 

I am willing to work with her to see what she can do, although I 

believe these are deeply embedded within what we have created, 

and we have to take responsibility for it. But the $3.4 billion is 

what blows me out of the water, Mr. Chairman. Not able to reach 

a decision. Nowhere in the bureaucracy is there the ingenuity—and 

I do not think it takes much—to give people deadlines, to bring in 

an outside force, even if it is not arbitrators, to give them final authority. 

7 

Indeed, in doing research on this, Mr. Chairman, I found that the 

AAA, the American Arbitration Association, had been called in by 

the Federal Government to do precisely for that, when a number 

of States, with their big Medicaid programs, were stuck on stupid, 

and that they had straightened that out. So there is even precedent 

for doing it. 

I like government; I am not one of these people. But I can understand why people want to get rid of government when they see this 

kind of performance. I am not sure what the answer is. 

If your bill, our bill does not move this time, Mr. Chairman, I believe we will have to, at the very least, take action to give FEMA 

greater, considerably greater autonomy within DHS. I had no response from the Administration. I know they have a lot on their 

plate. Typically, until there is a failure, people don’t act. So, you 

know, if there is another great big failure, they will see people 

rushing to say, Mr. Oberstar, would you please do something about 

your bill. But you and I can’t wish for another big failure. 

We have seen duplication in money, we have seen the bleeding 

of staff and resources out of FEMA into terrorism, even after the 

aftermath of 9/11. Rather than throw our hands up, you are doing, 

Mr. Chairman, what you do best, and that is to look for a remedy, 

and I am with you in looking for that remedy. I want to be with 

you in finding that remedy this session. But I ask you, as well, 

please don’t leave us in another session if this Administration does 

not come with us, if the leadership does not come with us. I then 

think we have to move ahead and give the kind of autonomy, the 

kind of answer and greater autonomy that it will be very difficult 

to refuse, given the record you have made in this hearing and in 

prior hearings. 

And I thank you very much for your great persistence in not giving us on what is necessary to make FEMA and DHS perform as 

Congress intended. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Chair Norton, for a very 

detailed discussion of the hearings, the highlights of the hearings 

that you have held, for the work that you have done, the hours you 

invested in this. It is my intention to pursue this bill. We will move 

it through Subcommittee and we will move it through Full Committee, and that is the way to get people’s attention around this 

town. 

I want to quote from Representative Shuster’s statement, which 

we are going to accept for the record. He quotes from the Katrina 

report—you served on that Commission—which says ‘‘Critical response decision points were assigned to the Secretary of Homeland 

Security. The Secretary executed these responsibilities late, ineffectively, or not at all. The reforms,’’ he says, ‘‘we made in the PostKatrina Reform Act to address this problem have not been implemented. We need to implement those reforms.’’ 

Now I yield to the distinguished Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Diaz-Balart, following which we will take testimony 

from the panel of witnesses. 

Thank you, Mr. Diaz-Balart, for your participation all throughout 

the hearings we have held so far in this session of Congress. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me actually 

thank you for this hearing and for your leadership on such an imVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:34 Sep 23, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49948.0 KAYLA
8 

portant issue. As a Member that represents the State of Florida, 

again, a State that unfortunately sees our fair share, or beyond our 

fair share of storms, I really appreciate the important role that 

FEMA plays in disasters and recovery after disasters. 

We have some very good news, as you well know, Mr. Chairman. 

Greg Fugate has now been confirmed as the new Director of 

FEMA. Chairwoman Norton and I, in a meeting that she held in 

south Florida, were able to once again witness firsthand, frankly, 

the job that Florida has been doing, probably the best in the Nation, and part of the reason is because of the leadership of Mr. 

Fugate. So I am excited that now he is going to be up here. 

But as you have said and as Ranking Member Mica has said, 

and also Chairman Norton has said, obviously, there have been 

some improvements after Rita, after Katrina, but, as you just said 

yourself, right now, a lot of things have yet to be implemented, despite the passage of the 2006 bill. They are obviously inconsistent 

policies and they slow the decision-making, and those are just some 

of the symptoms with the bureaucracy and the bureaucratic makeup that now FEMA has to deal with, because they are buried into 

DHS. 

That is why I am so pleased to be a cosponsor of the bill, of the 

FEMA Independence Act of 2009, along, again, obviously, with the 

leadership of the Chairman, with the Ranking Member, Chairwoman Norton as well. I think it is a common sense approach to 

do that. The overarching issue obviously is that we must ensure 

that FEMA has the necessary authority, the tools, the resources, 

the flexibility to effectively and efficiently carry out its vital mission. 

So I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. I want to 

once again thank the Chairman for his leadership and I look forward to listening to the testimony and to be able to move forward 

on what I think is possibly one of the most important pieces of legislation that we might be doing this year. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much for your comments, for 

your support, your partnership in this initiative. 

Our first panel includes Lieutenant General Russel Honore, now 

retired, author of this splendid book. Thank you for your contribution. I had not read it. I knew it was coming, heard about it. Survival: How A Culture of Preparedness Can Save You and Your 

Family From Disasters. It promises to be a very important contribution to our body of work on this subject of preparedness. 

Larry Larson, Executive Director of the Association of Floodplain 

Managers; Jerome Hauer, Chief Executive Officer of The Hauer 

Group; Larry Gispert, Hillsborough County Emergency Management; Dr. Mitchell Moss, Professor, Henry Hart Rice School of 

Urban Policy and Planning at New York University. 

We will begin, General Honore, with you. 

9 

TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL RUSSEL L. HONORE, 

RET., UNITED STATES ARMY; LARRY LARSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION OF STATE FLOODPLAIN MANAGERS; 

JEROME HAUER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE HAUER 

GROUP; LARRY GISPERT, DIRECTOR, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT; AND MITCHELL MOSS, PROFESSOR, HENRY HART RICE PROFESSOR SCHOOL OF URBAN 

POLICY AND PLANNING, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 

General HONORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members 

present. It is an honor to be here today to share a few ideas with 

you on this topic of great relevance to our Nation. I had the experience of some six years as a General officer in the United States 

Army and on the Joint Staff to support FEMA in response to hurricanes and other disasters in the United States, and my bottom line 

recommendation is that FEMA is too important for the working 

poor people of this Country to be hidden inside of DHS. DHS is focused on protecting this Country. FEMA should be focused on helping our people before, during, and after natural and manmade disasters. 

I too lay witness when FEMA was made part of DHS, and admiring that piece of work is like admiring your marksmanship when 

you are shooting at your foot; it was wrong then, it is now wrong, 

and it will continue to be wrong. And this is no criticism on the 

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, or the very 

competent man, Mr. Fugate, who is about to take it. This is not 

about the leadership, it is about the bureaucracy and what has 

gone wrong, and what was the intent of the Stafford Act and what 

it has become. 

Points made earlier about the amount of money spent in preparedness, one need to only look and remember that we need to reform how we spend the Stafford Act money in that we have governors who don’t want anybody to tell them what to do, but when 

a disaster happens, they want to turn the disaster recovery over to 

FEMA so they can go on making speeches and doing whatever else 

they do. We need to change that. We need to put the responsibility 

back on State government and FEMA being in support of them. 

It is interesting that one State rebuilt its football stadium, but 

the schools will not open. How did the State legislature figure out 

how to open the football stadium and didn’t figure out how to open 

the schools for the poor children? That is a damn shame. That is 

why the whole paradigm of how we spend the Stafford act money 

needs to change, Mr. Chairman. It is too much of a responsibility 

on FEMA and the governors get a ride. 

And I know a lot of governors said we have got a great plan, we 

know how to do this, but they have not fought a Katrina, either. 

Katrina broke everything, and any State that gets a Katrina that 

floods a city of over a quarter million people are going to have the 

same issues. And it is not so much about the response to saving 

lives; that will be done. It is the recovery and how we rebuild 

schools, how we rebuild hospitals. The city of New Orleans has 

more hotel rooms today than they had before Katrina, yet the 9th 

Ward is not rebuilt. 

And the poor people who rely on most help from the government 

can’t seem to get that help, and I think much of that is ingrained 

10 

in the bureaucracy of layering, where the governors and the State 

legislators have passed the entire responsibility over to FEMA. We 

saw last year, after hurricanes, as long as everything is going well, 

the State governments are out cheerleading their people to do the 

right thing. As soon as there is a bottle of water not in the right 

place, it is FEMA’S problem. 

For every dollar we spend in preparedness, we save $9 in response. The governors of this great United States need to be empowered with Federal money to preposition water and food inside 

their States, and it is under their control. This habit we have of 

depending on FEMA to bring water the day after the storm is 

broke. Having FEMA embedded inside of Department of Homeland 

Security is broke. The Department of Homeland Security is focused 

on protecting the Country; FEMA is focused on the survival of the 

people and to get them back in their homes. 

The two are incongruent. We need to fix that and this Congress 

needs to make that happen. And if you can’t make it happen this 

year, then separate the budget so FEMA can buy the right things 

they need, preposition food and water inside the States that are 

most vulnerable and be able to take care of our people, as opposed 

to going through a chain of command that can take money from 

and reset priorities. 

I bring that to you as a humble servant for 37 years, 3 months, 

and 3 days in uniform of this great United States, and it is horrible 

to see how ineffective the current system is. And, again, it is not 

personal; there are just too many layers of bureaucracy, and we 

need to put the responsibility back on the governors to take care 

of their people and FEMA give them resources to make that happen. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much. You summarized it very 

well. I think you sized up the situation with clarity formed and 

honed by experience. Thank you. 

Mr. Larson. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. 

The Association of State Floodplain Managers is grateful to this 

Committee for its leadership in exploring the important role that 

an independent FEMA plays in the Nation’s economic and sustainable future. 

We acknowledge the declaration that the Administration made 

yesterday, that they support FEMA remaining in DHS for now. In 

any case, we agree that it is important that this record be established of what the issues are with the current organization not only 

for all of us, but for FEMA and DHS to work on those issues to 

see if we can get them resolved so that we have effective emergency management for the Nation. 

Craig Fugate, the new FEMA Director, knows many of these 

issues and he surely knows the FEMA partners that are represented up here, who have worked in every way we can to address 

these issues. We understand from some of those folks that Mr. 

Fugate intends to work to implement those elements of the 2006 

Post-Katrina Act that we have talked about here that have not yet 

been implemented, to add some authority and autonomy to FEMA. 

11 

We also have been assured that he has support of Secretary 

Napolitano to do that. Let’s hope that is the case. 

Actually, the resurfacing of the debate, as the way the General 

has stated, today is about mission priorities and organizational 

structure. FEMA’S reputation rises and falls not only on its own 

performance, but also on its ability to operate within the constraints that it must have in the organization. As we have talked 

about here, when it was independent, one of those reasons that it 

was effective in those events we have talked about was the fact 

that it did not have to clear every decision, every rule, every policy 

with some parent agency that wanted to tweak it to fit its mission, 

and not the FEMA mission. 

Such is not the case today, we know that, and making that adjustment is going to be very difficult. Those missions that we have 

talked about, the mission of DHS states that its mission is preparedness response. It doesn’t even mention the word mitigation, 

and it hardly mentions the word recovery; whereas, that cannot be 

true for FEMA or FEMA is going to fail. 

The terrorism prevention in the DHS mission is not hazard mitigation. Some people would like to claim it is. It is not. It is inherently an enforcement intelligent gathering function before an event 

occurs; whereas, hazard mitigation must involve communities and 

all those people the General talked about to get full inclusion. That 

is the FEMA mission. Neither of those missions are wrong for those 

agencies, you just need to understand they are totally different. 

Some feel that FEMA has regained some of its effectiveness in 

Ike and Gustav, but I would submit that that is primarily in the 

area of response, it is not in the area of mitigation. FEMA has not 

moved the area of mitigation ahead since the days of James Lee 

Webb; it is still sitting where it was. There is lots to be done there 

and it has not gotten better. 

This culture issue, the culture of DHS is, by necessity, closed and 

secretive. That is what they do. The culture of FEMA has to be exactly the opposite, open and inclusive. A few examples. You have 

mentioned some; let me mention a few we have seen; more is in 

our testimony. This agency effectiveness and declining morale; diversion of human resources and financial resources; slowdowns due 

to these layers of bureaucracy. There is a ripple effect, also. As 

States try to mirror DHS, they are doing the same thing, as the 

General mentioned, and at the same time, they are diverting their 

money. In a way, they are chasing the dollars, because that is 

where the dollars are. 

Flood mapping is a good example of this disconnect in FEMA 

DHS. You in Congress have been very supportive of the increased 

effort to get better flood maps in the Nation. DHS has fought that 

every step of the way. Despite the support of Congress and OMB, 

DHS has fought it. 

DHS recently gave a grant to build an Emergency Operating 

Center in the floodplain, a critical facility in the floodplain, without 

having it elevated or anything. No floodplain regulations applied to 

it. Well, so much for integrating because they are in the same 

agency. Those kinds of things can’t and shouldn’t happen. 

12 

The IT functions, the Web site. FEMA needs to have access and 

use the Web site to get to citizens, communities, and so on. The security of the DHS Web site scenario doesn’t allow that to happen. 

As a Nation, we cannot afford to continually fund the cycle of 

build, disaster, bailout, another disaster and bailout over and over 

again. An independent FEMA provides an opportunity to break this 

devastating cycle of natural disasters through an emphasis on mitigation, along with its other functions. Our conclusion, we feel that 

FEMA must be allowed to be FEMA. An effective and nimble 

FEMA is essential to the disaster resilience of our Nation, our communities, and our citizens. 

We still believe they can do this better and more effectively as 

an independent agency. But, like you, if this does not happen, we 

will be working the work of FEMA and DHS to implement the 

changes of the Post-Katrina Act. If they don’t work along with you, 

we will be back again to push for FEMA becoming an independent 

agency. 

Thanks again to the Committee. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much for that testimony, that 

shocking statement about DHS building a preparedness center in 

the floodplain and then waiving all the requirements. We will come 

back to that. 

Mr. Hauer. 

Mr. HAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the Members of the Committee for inviting me here today. My comments 

will be brief. 

As you can see from my biography, I have worked in emergency 

management public safety at every level of government, at the Federal, at the State, at the local level, under two different mayors, 

for seven years under Senator, then Governor Evan Bayh, and for 

one president. I have worked every kind of disaster that you can 

imagine and any kind that you can think of. 

I am in complete agreement with you that FEMA needs fixing. 

We are at a point in time where we can never again allow American citizens to die in a hospital, waiting for help, because nobody 

was paying attention. I have seen FEMA in its heyday and I have 

seen it in its worst. My concern today, as you move forward, is that 

you do it in a way with this legislation that allows FEMA to succeed as an agency if in fact it can be split out of DHS. 

In DHS, FEMA has focused on terrorism, I agree with you. There 

is no question the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. I have talked to fire chiefs and police chiefs all over this Nation, and they all are telling me that they have got to get away 

from focusing solely on terrorism. They have got to get back to the 

basics of firefighting, training for firefighting, training for law enforcement, and training for emergency management. The problem 

they run into is that the money that is coming down from DHS is 

very terrorism-centric and it prevents them from doing some of the 

things they sorely want to do and sorely need to do. 

I am in complete agreement with you that FEMA needs to be a 

freestanding agency. But I would urge you to ensure that, as it becomes a freestanding agency, that pieces and parts of FEMA are 

not left behind in DHS, because the FEMA that will come out of 

13 

DHS will be so stripped of the resources that it will fail. So you 

need to ensure that as you move forward with this legislation. 

I am also concerned about your desire to split the terrorism response capabilities out of FEMA, because, from my perspective, 

emergency management is emergency management no matter what 

the emergency, and that includes terrorism. Yes, the pendulum has 

swung too far in the terrorism direction, but that was a knee jerk 

reaction on the part of the Administration post-9/11, and we have 

got to ensure that, as FEMA gets moved out—and I commend you 

for your determination to continue this legislation—you have got to 

ensure that the emergency management function is maintained 

and that that includes terrorism, that includes earthquakes, that 

includes tornadoes and all the other components that FEMA is supposed to respond to. 

We can’t have two agencies coordinating the response to terrorism. At the end of the day, that would be a disaster in and of 

itself. So as you look at moving FEMA out of DHS, you need to ensure the response component includes all hazards, not just natural 

disasters, but it also includes terrorism. 

The second thing, and I know this is politically charged, is that 

the new administrator of FEMA needs the ability to get rid of the 

political hacks that were buried in FEMA as SESers. As the new 

Administration took over, the old administration buried a lot of 

these political hacks, and Craig needs the ability to move them out, 

and the legislation should ensure that he has got that ability, because otherwise he is going to have people in the agency that feel 

immune from any repercussions that can undermine him as the 

new FEMA administrator. 

Mr. Chairman, I again support all you are doing and I support 

your determination to get FEMA out of DHS. I think that there are 

some land mines as you go about doing that, but I think if you 

keep your eyes open—and I can see that you are—that FEMA can 

once again be the kind of agency that this Country needs coordinating its emergency response. Thank you, and I will answer questions at the end of the session. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Hauer. I really appreciate your seasoned experience over many years and through many 

different administrations. Thanks. 

Mr. Gispert. 

Mr. GISPERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. I am Larry Gispert, the Director of Emergency Management for Hillsborough County, Florida, the Tampa Bay area. I 

am the immediate past president of the International Association 

of Emergency Managers, IAEM-USA, which is our Nation’s largest 

emergency managers association. 

Mr. Chairman, we are aware that the Administration put forth 

their position yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency, FEMA, should remain within the Department of Homeland 

Security, DHS. Be that as it may, the position of IAEM remains 

in support of an independent and strengthened FEMA. Please permit my testimony that I give today to be used to point out areas 

to strengthen FEMA, regardless of its structural location. 

A successful FEMA is one with the authority, independence, and 

flexibility to make final decisions as quickly as possible. FEMA 

14 

must continue working closely with its stakeholders. At the local 

level, our involvement with FEMA continues during the long 

months, and sometimes years, it takes to recover from a major disaster. We need to point out that there still remains a fundamental 

difference in the mission of FEMA and DHS. The mission of DHS 

is clearly to prevent the next terrorist attack and secure our borders. The mission of FEMA is to respond and recover from the impacts of all disasters, regardless of their cause. 

It has been said that keeping FEMA in DHS is like requiring the 

Department of Defense to fight the war as well as implement diplomacy, which is normally done by the Department of State. Like the 

analogy just given, combining consequence management—dealing 

with the impacts—and crisis management, preventing and arresting the perpetrators—has proven contradictory, and both will suffer 

from the continuing inclusion. Both missions are vitally important 

to our Country and one should not detract from the other. 

Just as there is a difference in mission, there is also a mission 

in culture. FEMA must maintain consensus and buy-in from its 

stakeholders, while DHS is more top-down oriented, using mandated and strict procedures. Since the creation of DHS, we at the 

local level have noted a total lack of understanding of how States 

and locals work. 

Some have said that the structure of FEMA within DHS does not 

matter, that good leadership will overcome poor structure. Any student of organizational behavior will tell you that you must have 

both, good leadership and properly laid out structure. We would 

strongly suggest that structure does matter because of the significant structural impediments caused by the subordination of FEMA 

to DHS. Some of these include: not accepting the Congressionally 

mandated role of the administrator of FEMA as providing the Federal disaster leadership; the continued insistence by DHS on appointing a principal Federal official, PFO; by assigning functions to 

the Office of Operations Coordination which the Post-Katrina 

Emergency Management Reform Act, PKEMRA, assigned to 

FEMA. 

Priorities are set through budget requests. FEMA must submit 

its budget request through DHS and not directly to OMB for consideration. This permits DHS to reallocate funds to programs not 

related to FEMA’S core mission. Regulations are also important 

tools to implement policy. The additional layers of DHS review 

make it difficult for FEMA to get their rules promulgated. 

After the failures of Katrina, Congress passed the PKEMRA to 

give FEMA the clear authority and tools to do its job, and put a 

fence around it to give the protection for its mission and resources 

within the Department. Some contend that the passage of the Act 

has resolved the mission competition within the Department. However, key provisions of the Post-Katrina Reform Act have not been 

implemented. The law is being ignored. Homeland Security Presidential Decision Directives 5 and 8 have not been revised to coincide with the law. We have always thought that public law trumps 

presidential directives. My written testimony contains several specific issues concerning the lack of compliance by DHS with 

PKEMRA. 

15 

It is clear to us that a misunderstanding still exists with DHS 

concerning the definition of emergency management and incident 

management. We all know emergency management is the overall 

broad collection of functions specific to disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Incident management is a smaller 

subset which deals specifically with one incident. IAEM-USA applauds the appointment of Secretary Napolitano, Craig Fugate as 

FEMA Administrator, and Tim Manning as Deputy Administrator 

for Preparedness. We commend the President on nominating individuals with prior State and local emergency management experience. 

In conclusion, IAEM-USA still strongly recommends that the 

President and Congress consider removing FEMA from DHS and 

make it an independent agency reporting directly to the President 

with the FEMA Administrator as part of the President’s cabinet. In 

lieu of this, and FEMA remains within DHS, we strongly suggest 

that Congress insist on the full implementation of PKEMRA and 

consider the issues pointed out in our testimony. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for permitting my testimony. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, thank you very much. You have raised 

some very thought-provoking issues here. We will come back to 

them in the question period. 

Dr. Moss. 

Mr. MOSS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Mitchell Moss. 

I have been on the faculty of New York University for about 35 

years, and I am going to speak briefly today, since some of the 

other panelists have addressed the key issues facing this Committee. 

Let me first say that I admire your prescience for anticipating 

the challenges that would occur when FEMA was folded into 

Homeland Security more than half a dozen years ago. It is regrettable that you were right, but now we have to still deal with those 

challenges. 

I want to talk very briefly on two points, and I think they were 

raised earlier. 

FEMA has to do two things. One, it has to mobilize other Federal 

agencies in the disaster and then it has to work with civic groups 

and State and local governments in dealing with both recovery and 

response when disasters occurs. In both cases it is much more elegant and certainly easier to do it as an independent agency, as the 

chart we saw earlier today indicated. 

It is clear, though, if FEMA were to remain in Homeland Security, the challenge is even greater of how to structure it to assure 

that it can do this job; and in some ways it is even more ways to 

pay attention to the legislative challenges because, should it remain in this case, then it is essential to design an organization so 

it has the authority to do two things, to act quickly and to act flexibly. 

We have developed a great capacity to predict disasters. We don’t 

really know when they are going to occur, but we have great ability 

to anticipate hurricanes that we didn’t have over 10 years ago. But 

we cannot predict the way in which they disrupt a community. We 

simply cannot foresee what they do to destroy a community, both 

its physical and social fabric. And when they do occur, disasters 

16 

don’t go away even when the hurricane ends. Disasters become 

part of a fabric of a community; they become part of a way of life. 

And the fact is that some disasters—and you can look at the 

floods in Johnstown, Pennsylvania—they are still there. The people 

remember them and they are going to be part of that forever. I 

think that is why FEMA is so important, because it is not fighting 

a battle, it is waging a long-term relationship to assure that a community recovers. 

Any organizational structure that adds delay costs lives and puts 

communities at risk, and I think it is essential that we design 

FEMA, should it be independent or should it be part of Homeland 

Security, so that it can provide assistance and resources to States 

and localities quickly and without meeting the bureaucratic burdens that come with an agency that has over 180,000 employees. 

Let’s think about it, FEMA has 2,500 people; there are 180,000 

people in Homeland Security. How important can it be when it constitutes such a small share of an organization? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Dr. Moss, it is now 215,000 people. It growed like 

top seed, to quote that—— 

Mr. MOSS. I appreciate the correction and I am going to change 

my remarks to reflect that. Thank you very much. 

The second point I want to make, and I think this is very simple 

and I will just end on this point, is that no matter what we do in 

dealing with disasters, we know they continue to occur. Fires, 

earthquakes, tornadoes, we are going to continue to have them. 

Most of the responsibility for dealing with them it is a State and 

local responsibility. FEMA’S has to be able to find ways to deal 

with the very different conditions that occur in all 50 States. 

Having an organization which is accustomed to dealing with a 

single type of strategy doesn’t work when you deal with communities, each of which has to adapt to its own disaster. I think for 

that reason alone I think it is essential that we assure that in any 

redesign of FEMA we recognize that it has to be able to work effectively with State, local, and civic groups. 

I want to make one point We have done a study of the Stafford 

Act. I will deal with the staff later. But in certain cases we have 

to expand the definition of who emergency responders are and we 

have to change the way we aid local governments. Right now, as 

you may know—and I will simply end with this—we provide overtime for State and local employees in the even of a disaster, but 

in New Orleans they had to lay off 30,000 employees of local government because there weren’t the resources after Katrina. So an 

important element in any revision is to recognize that it is not sufficient to just help pay overtime; we have to find a way to assist 

the government who have lost their tax basis after a disaster. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, this is splendid testimony of all five of our 

witnesses. Dr. Moss, you are a great wrap-up presenter. I thank 

you very much for your commentary. 

I want to come back to a fundamental issue here. In the 1980s, 

when our Subcommittee first dealt with the issue of emergency 

preparedness and management, two separate issues, preparing for 

and then managing incidents, the real question was who has the 

first line of responsibility. Should that be a State or a local governVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:34 Sep 23, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49948.0 KAYLA
17 

ment agency, or should the Federal Government be the primary responder? The evolution of governmental response began perhaps in 

a formal way in the 1930s, during the Dust Bowl era and the floods 

that resulted from the Dust Bowl, and then the intervention of the 

New Deal and Roosevelt. But there still was no real formalized 

structure. 

In the post-war era, as we were all, the Federal and State governments, responding to the threat of nuclear war, handed that responsibility over to civil defense, and the civil defense agencies all 

were prepared; they had structure, they were in almost every county in the United States, they had mobilization capability, they had 

structure, and gradually, gradually, cities, counties, States turned 

to their civil defense authority. We have got a flood, we have got 

a hurricane, we have got a huge blizzard here in the north county. 

Civil defense, you take charge of it, mobilize, and cities turned to 

their civil defense authority. But we didn’t have any formalized 

structure. 

What we tried to do in what became known as the Stafford Act 

was to develop first line of responsibility, second line and backup 

responsibilities. So is it clear in your mind, this panel, where that 

first line of responsibility lies for response to and, prior to that, 

preparing for disasters? 

Mr. HAUER. Mr. Chairman, I don’t think there is any question 

in the minds of people in this business that the first response is 

a local one, and that is supplemented by the response at the State 

level and then the Federal response. But the first response is and 

has to be at the local level; they own it and it is critical that it stay 

at the local level. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, in the event of a massive rainfall resulting 

in a flood and tragedies of various sorts, the governor is the one 

who has to make the formal request to the President for assistance, 

and the governor is petitioned by local units of government. 

Mr. HAUER. Right. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Is that an effective way to continue sort of the 

chain or sequencing of response to disaster? 

Mr. GISPERT. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Mr. GISPERT. I have got 28 years experience at the local level. 

The locals have to own the disaster. We are there when CNN goes 

home, when FEMA goes home, and when the Federal Government 

goes home. The reason Florida is as adept as it is at disasters is 

we developed a very good intrastate mutual aid system where 

county governments and city governments help one another. We 

are trained and our thing is we don’t ask for help until the matters 

exceed our capabilities. We then first go to our State, who then 

asks the other local governments in the same State can you help 

Hillsborough County. If the answer is yes, we handle the situation 

and the Federal Government doesn’t get involved. 

Now, there are those events that are beyond local and State capability. That is when we propose that FEMA and the Federal Government get involved. We would object to the Federal Government 

showing up on my doorstep prior to the landfall of a hurricane, not 

knowing what my needs are, because the Federal Government 

comes in like an 800 pound gorilla and sort of pushes their way 

18 

around, and they may not have the resources I—if they would have 

waited until the event and asked me, Larry, what do you need, and 

I tell them, then they send it, they are going me a whole lot much 

better than showing up before the event and saying we are not 

here to be in charge, but, by the way, we are going to do it this 

way. 

So, yes, the locals must own it, because they will own it forever, 

and they must do everything within their capabilities to handle the 

situation. And when it exceeds their needs, then they ask for help. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, that is what I heard in 1987, when we first 

addressed this issue. I am glad to see that you are seasoned practitioners of disaster, but, General Honore, was that the way it 

worked in New Orleans? 

General HONORE. Well, that worked when you have a normal 

hurricane, and the scenario just described is what was happening 

in New Orleans before Katrina. The governor had it until the levees broke. If the levees hadn’t broke, the system would have 

worked. 

I think in the reform of the Stafford Act not every State has the 

resources Florida has, so places like the State of Louisiana and the 

other Gulf Coast States—I mean, let’s face it, the storm hit the two 

poorest States in the Nation, Mississippi and Louisiana, and there 

were a lot of problems there before the storm. So after the storm 

passed, the recovery of that region, a lot of the infrastructure was 

bent, if not broken, before the storm, such as the flood mitigation, 

the large population of poor people along the Gulf Coast. 

So I think the role the Federal Government can play is help the 

States preposition the right type of food, water, emergency communications in the State before the hurricanes come. Last year we 

saw Gustav. We saw a good effort on the evacuation, but we were 

having to move water into Texas and into—after Ike and after Gustav in Louisiana after the storm. That doesn’t make any sense. We 

need to change that and empower the governors to be able to request and get pre-positioned food and water in their States. 

We need to also allow FEMA to publish what are the rules for 

hurricane season, Mr. Chairman. Hurricane season starts 1 June. 

If you live along the Gulf Coast, you make $30,000 a year, you 

have a wife and three kids, more than likely, you are going to have 

to evacuate. If you have to evacuate, is the government going to reimburse you for hotels? We still haven’t told the people that. Last 

year, after Gustav, the people found out after the storm you have 

to go sit in a tent somewhere for half a day, this is America; we 

again looked like a third world country, and apply for assistance. 

We have got to stop that. We know we are going to have to evacuate those populations that are in flood-prone and hurricane areas. 

We need to preregister people. And that is the type of thing FEMA 

can do if they are allowed to do it, along with the States, as opposed to focusing on counterterrorism. We need to focus on the people more, and I think if we can give the States the assets and they 

are under their control, and then FEMA be in support of those governors, we can recover quicker and we can be there more responsive to the people, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. You mentioned pre-positioning water. 

That was an essential element of the civil defense nuclear disaster 

19 

preparedness. There were barrels of civil defense water stored in 

schools, in city halls, in buildings. People built their own shelters 

in their backyards and had water. This is not new. And hurricanes 

aren’t new. My wife is from New Orleans. 

General HONORE. Sir, we have got to live through—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Lived through hurricanes all her life. We know 

how to deal with this. But someone wasn’t coordinating, wasn’t preparing, wasn’t putting it all in place properly. 

Mr. HONORE. We need a cultural shift, sir. It starts in the family, 

goes to local communities, that you are your own first responders. 

You have got to take care of your family and then the local community has to be empowered with pre-positioned stocks and the authority to spend money to get the people prepared. Until we do 

that, we are going to continue to pay $9 for that bottle of water, 

when we should be paying one. For every dollar we spend on preparedness, we save $9 in response. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is what we are going to have to do. We can’t 

have a situation where, as Joey DiFatta, who is the deputy—mayor 

is not the right word—of the Parish Council of St. Bernard Parish, 

and after hearing appeals from his constituents, one after another, 

for a FEMA trailer, and FEMA not doing anything, he finally, one 

Saturday, went over to the FEMA lot where they were all parked, 

got a wire cutter, cut the chain locking those FEMA trailers up, 

hooked one up to his pickup truck and hauled it out to his constituents, said here they are. And along the way he got a call, after 

about five or six of these, got a call from the U.S. attorney in New 

York saying I understand you are taking trailers from the FEMA 

park. Do you know that is a Federal crime? Tell me where you are. 

He said, do you think I am that foolish? You come find me and help 

me deliver these trailers. 

We don’t want situations like that. This is America. We can and 

should do better. You see that in third world countries. 

Now, one question. The Federal coordinating officer and the principal Federal official, that created confusion in the chain of command. When we move this legislation, we are going to strike that 

authority for principal Federal official and leave Federal coordinating officer in place and restore order, rather than allow conflict 

to continue. 

Mr. GISPERT. Mr. Chairman, we don’t care what you call him or 

her. If you want to call it principal Federal official, that is fine. But 

we need one belly button to push as a local jurisdiction when we 

are looking for help. We don’t want one guy looking from the political side and the other from the operational. Call them what you 

want, but tell us this is the person that is representing the Federal 

Government. If you have an issue and a need, you talk to that person, and that is what we will do. And that is why we have problems with PFO and FCO, because if you have both of them assigned, then who is in charge and who do you go to for help? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you for your counsel. 

I am going to ask Mrs. Napolitano to take the Chair. I will have 

to go to another meeting. I will return later, but we will now turn 

to Mr. Diaz-Balart. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, thank all of you for your very insightful testimony. 

20 

Before I say anything else, I want to thank you, General, for 

your service to the Country. There is nothing more honorable than 

that and, again, we are in your debt. 

All of you as well, obviously, but the General has served in the 

armed forces and, to me, there is no more honorable way to serve 

our Country. 

A couple questions. General, I was glad to hear in your last 

statement you talked about personal responsibility. My concern is 

being, again, a Floridian and seeing how Florida is away ahead of 

the curve. Not perfect, nobody is; these are human institutions. 

But one of the reasons that it works so well is precisely as you 

said, because there is an insistence on making sure that individuals know what our responsibility is, and we are constantly hounding that you have to be self-sufficient for three days. In worst case 

scenario, water, food, whatever it may be, medicine for three days 

because you cannot necessarily count on the Government coming in 

for those first three days. You hope that they will be, but you never 

know. Number one. 

Number two is that obviously we also have to make sure that we 

don’t let the locals and States off the hook by thinking that the 

Federal Government can solve all our problems, because ultimately 

the Federal Government doesn’t have fire trucks, ambulances, rescue. Those are local. Actually, not even the States. Locals have that 

and the State have a great responsibility. 

When we look at Katrina, one of the many things that we saw, 

obviously, there was a failure of FEMA, but there were huge failures on the local level; buses that weren’t used, et cetera, et cetera, 

et cetera. No amount of Federal Government intervention is going 

to be able to solve that, and you mentioned that. 

If you all want to comment a little bit about that, because my 

concern is that is why I am so excited that Mr. Fugate, by the way, 

is the new Director. We could not have a better person. My concern 

is that we don’t overreach to a point, then, that the States kind of 

hang back and the local governments hang back and say this is a 

Federal responsibility, we don’t have to do as much. If you can just, 

if you want to touch on that, and then I have another question for 

the General once we touch on this, however you all want to touch 

on it. 

Mr. LARSON. I do want to address that. You are right, the reality 

is that we are talking a lot about the response side, and that has 

to be dealt with. But if we were doing the right thing, what we do 

is avoid the response, and that is where mitigation comes in. 

And who has the authority to prevent these disasters from creating tomorrow’s disasters? It is the State and local government, 

because 99 percent of how you prevent them is land use. Don’t 

build in the wrong place, don’t put your critical facilities in the 

wrong place, on and on and on. That is land use. The Federal Government doesn’t have any authority under our Constitution for 

land use; it all rests with the State and local government. And 

until we devolve that responsibility to them, along with the money 

we keep throwing at them, this problem isn’t going to change. 

Mr. GISPERT. Congressman? 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Yes, sir. 

21 

Mr. GISPERT. I am in the latter phases of my local government 

career. In fact, in 626 days I will retire. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. But who is counting? 

Mr. GISPERT. But who is counting. And I am taking these last 

two hurricane seasons as a tough love. I am looking my citizens in 

the eyes and saying the economics are bad. You don’t want to pay 

taxes. You don’t like local government because your taxes pay our 

salaries and you are voting to lower us, and we are laying people 

off. Then take responsibility. 

In my community, well over 80 percent of the people are physically, mentally, and economically capable of taking care of themselves. I just need to give them some guidance of where to go and 

stuff like that. The other 15 to 20 percent are the elderly, the infirm. Those are the ones that government can take care of. But I 

can’t sort through healthy people who are just milling around to 

get to those people. 

When I tell them to evacuate, evacuate. Don’t discuss it, get in 

your car and go. Okay? When we tell you to pre-register, and you 

are an 83-year-old woman that lives in a trailer in the center of the 

county, and you have no family, and you have all kinds of medical 

devices, and we have got to come get you, we have got to know 

where you are at. They don’t want to register until the storm is 100 

miles away from Tampa, and, you know, that is a big logistics 

problem of getting to them. Personal responsibility. 

The Conestoga wagon days, remember that from your history? 

The people marching westward. The lady was pregnant, she had 

her baby. She just got off into the bushes, had the baby, wrapped 

it up, got back in and started marching to Oregon. Be responsible. 

Be resilient. Don’t count on your government for everything. If you 

do count on your government, we will all fail you at one time or 

the other, because we don’t have the resources, manpower, and capabilities of being all things to all people. 

I have 1.2 million people that reside in my county. If I had to 

reach out and touch every one of them individually, it would take 

me three years to talk to them. So please help us. Personal responsibility. It is your responsibility. You live in this Country. Be prepared. The General is right on, preparedness is where you are at. 

It will save you money, save you time. 

Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005 in Broward County. Within an hour 

after the wind letting, people were queuing up at the points of distribution, wanting their water. And I asked them where is your 

hurricane kit? Congressman, you are from Florida. You are supposed to have a hurricane kit, right? And we asked them where is 

your hurricane kit. Duh. There were thousands of people standing 

there. The storm had just left. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Well, we had the case in Dade County where 

people were waiting in line to get water, when we did not lose 

water; all you had to do was open your tap and drink the water. 

Mr. GISPERT. So, anyway, personal preparedness. That is my 

message for the next two years. Then, if you need help, we will 

come do the best we can. Take care of yourself. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Yes, Mr. Hauer. 

22 

Mr. HAUER. Congressman, we, for years, have been pushing people for personal preparedness. We have done it for earthquakes, we 

have done it for tornadoes, we have done it for hurricanes. The 

problem is the further you get away from an incident, the more 

complacent people become, and it is a very difficult task. I was the 

Chairman of the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium. 

In 1990 we had a prediction by a scientist, who turned out to be 

a kook, that said that we were going to have an earthquake on the 

New Madrid Fault on December 2nd, 1990. People were spun up 

like I have never seen before. Everyone had earthquake kits; 

schools closed. We had close to 600 members of the media down in 

New Madrid, Missouri and Blytheville, Arkansas. Everybody was 

earthquake focused. 

If you go to that area now and ask people about their earthquake 

kits, people will look at you like you are crazy. And it is the same 

thing with pretty much any other kid of disaster. The further way 

you get from it, the more difficult it is to get people to prepare. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. If I may, Madam Chairman, one last question, 

if that is all right. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. [Presiding] We have a vote coming up. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you. I will be brief. 

One of the arguments against taking FEMA out, General, or 

keeping it within DHS, is the fact that you have access to the military coming in. You have access to all these resources if FEMA is 

within DHS. We all remember, after Katrina, where we saw people 

on the roofs until the Coast Guard came in and rescued them. 

Now, my understanding is that that was done by the Coast 

Guard under its own authority, not at the request of FEMA. But 

it seems to me that obviously access to responder assets is the key, 

is the important issue that we are dealing with here. So we obviously need a system where FEMA has the best access possible to 

those military assets, because, when it is needed, it is needed in 

a big way. 

So if you could tell us about your experience during Katrina. If 

FEMA’S position within DHS, within that bureaucracy, delayed or 

negatively impacted the speed or the type of response provided by 

the military? Also, if you believe that FEMA’S access to DHS assets 

would be diminished if FEMA was taken out of DHS. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

General HONORE. Yes, sir. I think FEMA can deal with the military. It dealt with them for years prior to the current arrangement 

through Department of Homeland Security, so I think that can 

happen and happen quickly. DHS adds a layer. Katrina, which is 

the construct we have now, a mayor would ask FEMA for 10 generators. They would take it to the State person, the State person 

would take it to FEMA, FEMA would send it back to Washington, 

somebody at DHS would look at it, and then some lawyers would 

sit around. That same mayor would ask me for generators, I make 

a phone call and the generators are on the way. 

When we create these layers and FEMA doesn’t have the authority to act, the people in FEMA know what to do; these are good 

people. They are good public servants. But when you create that 

layer and that protective service of DHS, which themselves are 

good people, but they are focused on security—you know, we were 

23 

flying the people out of the Convention Center. We had a little tiff 

trying to get the airport open in New Orleans because the people 

at DHS wanted to make sure nobody was getting on the airplane 

with guns. Hello. 

So we are applying prior to Al Qaeda activities because the St. 

Bernard is trying to save the people, and you have got the pit bull 

and the German shepherd who is trying to protect them, and the 

St. Bernard loses every time. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you. Again, thank you all for your service. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you very much. We are running short 

of time and I wanted to be sure that we get some of the questions 

in. I will submit some questions for the record because I do have 

some. 

I do have a couple comments. Being from California, Mr. DeWitt, 

prior FEMA director, was one of the best recognized and beloved 

in California for his quick response during the earthquake and 

fires, and everything that hit California. There was great concern 

amongst a lot of us in regard to the trailers that were sitting and 

not being put into use, and then later to find out that some of those 

trailers had toxics in them that were hazardous to the people that 

might inhabit them. We are hoping that, as you are saying, they 

worry not just about the one aspect, but worry about the whole aspect of helping people. Those questions are going to be into the 

record. 

The other would be a program to be able to say for information. 

You talk about prevention. Back in the day, when I was in school, 

I remember going under the desk because there were earthquakes. 

We were, as children, trained. We have gotten away from that. We 

have not continued to tell people it is your responsibility to take 

care of yourself, too; it isn’t just government to take care of you. 

But, Mr. Gispert, can you explain the consequence management, 

what it is and how it works with non-natural disaster events such 

as terrorist attacks or pandemics? 

Mr. GISPERT. Yes, ma’am. Regardless of what event that is going 

on in your community that is above normal everyday activities, 

there are need for such things as alerting the citizens, sheltering 

the citizens, feeding citizens. Those are consequences of the event. 

DHS does not have the experience in that mode; FEMA used to 

have that experience. So it is our point of view, regardless of what 

happens, terrorism, pandemic flu, there are going to be consequences that must be managed, and FEMA and emergency management manages those consequences better than anybody else. So 

in order to have them focus strictly on catching the bad guy, who 

did that, focus on taking care of the citizens, as the General says. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Very quickly, on page 5 of your testimony, you 

state that in the last Administration FEMA served as the piggy 

bank for DHS. Can you elaborate very minimally on this, because 

I would like to give my colleague a chance to ask a question. Do 

you believe access to the large amounts of funding FEMA disburses 

through the Disaster Relief Fund is a motivating factor for DHS to 

want to retain FEMA? 

Mr. GISPERT. Yes, ma’am. We were made aware of that. When 

DHS was initially stood up, there were expenses in bringing the 

24 

Department on hand. Much of that money for those expenses of 

bringing DHS online were out of FEMA coffers. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Were there specifics? 

Mr. GISPERT. I don’t have the actual dollar—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Would you provide them to this Committee? 

Mr. GISPERT. We will try to do that for you. 

The other thing is personnel were diverted away from their 

FEMA mission and then went to the bigger DHS mission, such as 

your public relations people, your outreach people. FEMA now has 

a very small cadre of four or five people doing that, when they had, 

at one time, 16, 17 people. Those people were diverted over for the 

Department’s use. Those are the issues that we are talking about. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. You are talking about decimating the personnel that really focused on FEMA. 

Mr. GISPERT. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay, Mr. Hauer, in your testimony, you stated you support legislation that FEMA be removed from DHS, but 

terrorism response must come from FEMA. H.R. 1174 would make 

FEMA responsible for the response to all hazards under the Stafford Act, including terrorist attacks, as FEMA did in 1993 and 

2001 in New York and 1995 in Oklahoma City. Are there other response activities you believe the legislation does not address? 

Mr. HAUER. No, I believe the legislation does address them all. 

I was concerned about the one issue with terrorism. As I said in 

my testimony, an emergency is an emergency is an emergency. 

FEMA needs to be able to coordinate the response to any type of 

incident, whether it is manmade or natural. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Madam Chairwoman, I hold in my hand here a Congressional 

study entitled A Failure of Initiatives in connection with FEMA’S 

preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina. But having lived 

through the tough and the odious task of recovery with thousands 

of people in the 2nd District, I believe FEMA’S greater failure lies 

in recovery. 

FEMA presently does not have a recovery plan, and I believe 

that the Stafford Act in its present form does not provide FEMA 

with the flexibility to address the many variables in connection 

with devastations the size of Katrina. We were able to, with the 

help of Chairman Oberstar and the Ranking Members, to reform 

the local TRO office to expedite many of the projects and to advance the recovery process, but I believe that FEMA continues to 

be a party in opposition rather than an agency in cooperation in 

the recovery process. FEMA’S recent denial to provide the necessary money to rebuild Charity Hospital is another indication of 

how FEMA is out of touch with the suffering poor and the struggling institutions. 

I would like to know from this panel how can we provide FEMA 

with the necessary tools for recovery. Mr. Gispert? 

Mr. GISPERT. Mr. Congressman, there are four phases in emergency management: preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. They are four equal needs. As of late, because of Katrina, 

FEMA has focused on the response phase and the pre-positioning 

of food and stuff. They need to also focus on recovery, how do we 

25 

get the money in the right hands to get the community back; mitigation, how do we prevent it from happening. 

All four phases are equal and necessary and need attention. They 

do not need to only focus on one portion of it. If they do, the other 

three will suffer. And for it to work, all four must be equal, ready, 

raring to go, and you need to recover. And, yes, you are correct, in 

my 28 years of experience with FEMA, they have always failed 

miserably in the recovery phase, because the cameras have gone 

home, it is now two or three years later, you are still trying to get 

that elementary school back online, you are still trying to get the 

hospital back online, and then we get into, well, here were the 

rules on the day of the event, and we will refund this, we won’t 

reimburse this. And then you get into the lawyers and everything 

else. 

We have not recovered money from the 2004 hurricane season in 

Florida, and it is now how long? It is now five years later. We will 

probably not recover that before I retire. 

Mr. CAO. Yes, General. 

General HONORE. I echo those sentiments, but we need to have 

a cultural shift and we need to have a shift in government. If you 

look at the Tampa Bay area or you look at the New Orleans area 

or you look at the Hampton Roads, we have too many itty-bitty 

governments with too many mayors in charge and too many people 

trying to make decisions. The States are going to have to look at 

the emergency response plan, because who does FEMA respond to? 

In a parish where there are four or five different mayors, we have 

got to try to coach the States to be compliant in how they set up 

their emergency response, because right now it is too many people 

requesting assistance from the Federal Government at the same 

time. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. I think I am going to have to recess because we have three minutes to get across the street. So 

please hold your thoughts. We will recess until after the votes. 

Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. The Committee will resume. 

Mr. CAO. [Remarks off microphone.]—especially those of the poor 

are suffering from the lack of health care, and while hospitals are 

lingering on the verge of bankruptcy because they took it on themselves to provide indigent care for the poor, while FEMA is tinkering with the values of doorknobs and toilets, how do you propose FEMA to be more people-centered, rather than rules-centered? 

Mr. HAUER. FEMA has always been rules-centric, for as long as 

I have dealt with FEMA, since it was organized under President 

Carter. The problem you run into is because they are giving out so 

much money post-disaster, they have got to have a set of rules, because they come in and audit it. The problem you run into is they 

do focus on doorknobs rather than rebuilding a hospital that sorely 

needs to be rebuilt, and I found, when I was a director in New York 

City and when I was a director in Indiana for seven years, that 

sometimes you just have to bring them to a hearing and embarrass 

them; and that is what we did. 

We had an ice storm in Indiana, when I was working for Evan 

Bayh, and they declared a major disaster but they never funded it. 

26 

They basically told us we are going to give you X in dollars, but, 

by the way, we don’t have the money. So the governor said to me, 

go to Washington. There was a FEMA hearing, which some of us 

remember, and I just beat the hell out of them. 

And I think as a Member of the Committee, bring them before 

the Committee and ask them why they—I think it is unconscionable that they are not rebuilding a hospital. I don’t know how you 

can get away with that. 

Mr. CAO. Now, what I have seen in the last several months is 

that there is simply a lack of coordination between the different 

Federal agencies in the recovery process, especially devastation the 

size that Katrina cause. There is the Federal coordinator, but she, 

I believe, lacks the power to really coordinate the different agencies. Should FEMA be the point man in the recovery process and 

also be the coordinating entity to coordinate all the Federal agencies in the recovery process? 

Mr. HAUER. Yes. Absolutely. The problem is there needs to be 

one agency that coordinates a response and recovery. The problem 

is a lot of this boils down to dollars and them not wanting to spend 

the money, and that is where you run into trouble. They use the 

rules to hide behind so that they don’t have to spend the money, 

and that is where you really need to be able to get them to come 

before a Committee or come before the public and explain why they 

are not providing the funding. It is as simple as that. 

Mr. CAO. Yes, Mr. Gispert. 

Mr. GISPERT. We need rules. We are a Country of rules and laws. 

But everybody needs to know what the rules are before the event, 

and we don’t need a Federal agency changing the rules as the 

event occurs. 

Now, I will give FEMA some credit. Every time they have ever 

tried to get creative, any time there was any wiggle room, two 

years after the event, the Inspector General and GAO comes and 

bangs them hard for not following the rules; and many local jurisdictions have had to give back money they got that they thought 

they were legitimately owed. 

So tell us what the rules are, let’s explain what the rules, everybody understand, then let’s play the ball game, and don’t change 

them. In my case, in 2004, FEMA clearly said we will not reimburse for the removal of tree stumps after a storm. Well, in the 

middle of it they change; well, we will reimburse for tree stumps 

as long as it is in the government right-of-way. So then we had to 

go show them the hole where the tree existed, and we had to show 

them that the hole was in the right-of-way. That was the issue. 

It is funny because a tree stump is a tree stump. We spent over 

$30 million clearing tree stumps, for which we will not get reimbursed because the rules changed. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you very much, Mr. Gispert. Our time has expired. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. NADLER. [Presiding] Thank you. 

If there are no further questions or questioners, I thank the witnesses for their attendance, I thank the Members, and I declare the 

hearing adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:33 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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