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35–925 PDF 2007

LEGISLATIVE FIXES FOR LINGERING

PROBLEMS THAT HINDER KATRINA

RECOVERY

(110–43)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 10, 2007

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 

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 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

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 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS Page

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Baker, Hon. Richard, a Representative in Congress from the State of Louisiana ..................................................................................................................... 15

Boustany, Jr., Hon. Charles, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Louisiana .......................................................................................................... 17

Brown, Hon. Corrine, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida . 27

Jefferson, Hon. William, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Louisiana .............................................................................................................. 19

Jindal, Hon. Bobby, a Representative in Congress from the State of Louisiana ..................................................................................................................... 22

Melancon, Hon. Charlie, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Louisiana .............................................................................................................. 24

Pickering, Hon. Charles, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Mississippi ............................................................................................................ 6

Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative in Congress from the State of Mississippi .................................................................................................................. 3

PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania .................................................................... 39

Baker, Hon. Richard H., of Louisiana .................................................................... 40

Boustany, Jr., Hon. Charles, of Louisiana ............................................................. 48

Jefferson, Hon. William, of Louisiana .................................................................... 54

Melancon, Hon. Charlie, of Louisiana .................................................................... 58

vi


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35925.002
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35925.003
(1)

LEGISLATIVE FIXES FOR LINGERING PROBLEMS THAT HINDER KATRINA RECOVERY 

Thursday, May 10, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton 

[chairman of the subcommittee] Presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. I want to welcome members who will be testifying 

at today’s hearing, which will address issues still outstanding 20 

months after Hurricane Katrina made its devastating landfall. We 

will hear from members of the gulf coast region, who describe 

issues that still prevent full recovery from this disaster in their 

communities. This hearing continues an aggressive oversight and 

legislative agenda on the subcommittee of FEMA matters. 

This is our subcommittee’s fifth hearing on FEMA issues this 

year. Perhaps most significantly, we moved the most important legislation requested by gulf State officials. Working with the Democratic leadership, we quickly passed out of committee H.R. 1144, 

the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Federal Match Relief Act of 2007 

to provide urgently needed relief from several matching requirements for communities devastated by hurricanes Katrina Rita and 

Wilma. 

An amended form of legislation is included in the emergency supplemental appropriation that passed the House and Senate and 

was sent to the President. We also collaborated with the Committee on Financial Services on H.R. 1227, the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007 to ensure Louisiana’s ability to 

use its hazard mitigation program funds for its road home program. 

These protections were included in the legislation that passed 

the House in March. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 

29, 2005 and had a massive physical impact affecting 90,000 

square miles—an area the size of Great Britain. More than 80 percent of the City of New Orleans flooded an area seven times the 

size of Manhattan. Under the authority granted the President in 

the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, the 

President declared a major disaster in the States of Mississippi and 

Louisiana on that date. 

The Stafford Act authorizes the disaster assistance that FEMA 

provides after a major disaster. While the authority of the Stafford 

2

Act is very broad and flexible, it does not anticipate every circumstance that can arise in a disaster, particularly a catastrophic 

disaster of the unprecedented size and cost of Hurricane Katrina. 

Historically when catastrophic or unusual disasters struck, 

FEMA and Congress worked cooperatively to identify areas where 

FEMA needed special authority or direction. However, when 

Katrina struck, FEMA was not a flexible or independent government agency, but an organization within the Department of Homeland Security, a larger bureaucracy, without direct access to the 

President or Congress. 

I believe that this structure was a factor in preventing FEMA 

from engaging with Congress as they have in the past. The problem was further magnified by the unprecedented scope and magnitude of Katrina. As a result, Congress must act to fill holes that 

are withholding recovery on the gulf coast. 

Today, I expect we will hear some matters that are normally not 

covered by the Stafford Act and probably for good reason, as the 

Stafford Act is only supposed to supplemental or replace what 

State and local governments do after a disaster. But the devastation of Katrina requires that we look at these issues differently and 

consider what may be needed to provide some further assistance 

for recovery from Katrina and Rita where appropriate, even if not 

warranted in other disasters. 

We very much look forward to hearing from the members this 

afternoon and I am pleased to ask Ranking Member Mr. Graves if 

he has any remarks at this time. 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Two months after 

Katrina made landfall in the gulf coast, this subcommittee recognized that the recovery in the region was already in a critical 

stage, and we held similar hearings at that time to discuss legislative proposals to spur on a successful recovery. 

Today we are meeting to hear legislative proposals to address 

lessons learned from the gulf coast recovery and other disasters 

that have happened since the fall of 2005. I look forward to the numerous proposals on issues ranging from everything from accountability to changes in the Stafford Act amendments and ensuring 

that the success and future recoveries at least goes a lot smoother. 

After a massive disaster like Hurricane Katrina, the sooner the 

community recovers, the less it is going to cost the taxpayers. In 

the long run, it is important to get businesses up and running and 

people back in their communities so the community can be once 

again self sufficient and productive. We need to ensure that communities have the tools for a quick and efficient recovery. And we 

should also be mindful that accountability is paramount to successful recovery of a region. 

In this effort, every dollar we lose to waste fraud and abuse is 

a dollar that is not spent helping the people of an impacted region. 

Additionally, there may be some projects where people have 

moved on and sought relief outside the regular process because the 

system wasn’t working for them and they couldn’t wait any longer 

for help. Although no longer pending, these cases also serve as examples where changes might prevent future problems that slow 

down the recovery process. 

3

Madam Chairwoman, I look forward to hearing the proposals 

from our colleagues today, and I thank you for this hearing. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Graves. We now will 

hear from the Mississippi panel. I would like to ask first, Mr. Taylor, who is a member of the committee, to testify and then Mr. 

Pickering, both of Mississippi. 

Mr. Taylor. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking 

Member Graves, and I want to thank you and your staff for working with me, Brian Martin and other members of my staff to try 

to resolve some of the problems that have surfaced since the storm. 

Ms. NORTON. Is your microphone on? 

Mr. TAYLOR. I believe it is. I will get a little closer. Again, I want 

to thank you and your staff for working with Brian Martin and my 

staff and other Members as we recognize problems trying to find 

legislative solutions to them. 

I want to thank you for conducting this hearing and agreeing to 

draft legislation to resolve the remaining problems with FEMA and 

the Stafford Act that hinder recovery after Hurricane Katrina. 

More than 20 months after the storm, there are obvious signs of 

recovery on the Mississippi gulf coast. But we still have a long way 

to go. Many of the homes that were damaged but not destroyed 

have been repaired. 

Those that have been completely rebuilt are coming along more 

slowly. And every week when I go home I see a few more houses 

going up. Next week, the Mississippi Department of Transportation 

will open two lanes of a new 2-mile bridge across San Luis Bay reconnecting the cities of Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian. 

Unfortunately, there is one gaping hole in the recovery of the 

south Mississippi. During the time that the Mississippi Department of Transportation and its contract to Granite Archer built a 

2-mile long high rise bridge across this bay, not one significant city, 

county or school building has been rebuilt. A few public facilities 

have been reopened, but none of the major public buildings that 

were destroyed along the Mississippi gulf coast have been replaced. 

If you ask the mayors, the county supervisors, the school superintendents about the status of their projects, they will all give you 

the same answer, we are still in the negotiations with FEMA. 

At this rate, the schools and local governmental buildings will be 

the last things built in Mississippi. When I see a new construction 

project anywhere on the Mississippi gulf coast, it is a safe bet it 

is not a public assistance project involving FEMA. We are finishing 

our second school year with many of these young people going to 

school in temporary classrooms. The Hancock County emergency 9/

11 system is still operating out of a trailer. There are hundreds of 

project worksheets in Mississippi that are indefinitely delayed by 

never ending process of objections, revisions and disputes. 

FEMA is supposed to pay 90 percent of the cost to rebuild these 

facilities. But FEMA narrows the scope to exclude many costs that 

are necessary to comply with building codes and standards. 

4

My first and most urgent request is for Congress to mandate a 

fast track procedure and direct FEMA to get these public infrastructure projects approved, paid for and built. We need to require 

FEMA to apply common sense reasonableness tests to these 

projects that has been missing so far. 

I will give you a couple of examples from my home town of Bay 

St. Louis in the Waveland school district. At north Bay element 

school, FEMA says it will not pay any of the cost of relocating the 

temporary trailer classrooms to clear the site for a new school 

building. 

Also FEMA says the new building cannot be larger than the old 

building. But the classrooms from the old school were opened to 

outdoor walkways. That design does not meet today’s safety requirements. The new building must have an interior hallway but 

that would add to the square footage of the building and FEMA 

won’t approve it. At Waveland Elementary, FEMA has ruled that 

the center section is more than 50 percent damaged, but that the 

wings to the building are less than 50 percent damaged. This 

means that the school district is required to rebuild the middle section 3 or 4 feet off the ground, but the wings that it touches will 

be left on the ground. 

There are two kinds of projects that are desperately need intervention to apply a common sense standards so that buildings can 

be rebuilt to current codes and standards. The current system has 

a strong bias towards rebuilding the same facility that was destroyed. In some cases, alternative projects would be reasonable or 

even desirable, but are discouraged because they will receive less 

money. Under current law, a local government loses 25 percent of 

its FEMA funds if it decides to bill a new structure rather than replacing a damaged one. 

Second Street Elementary in Bay St. Louis, built during the depression with WPA funds, is an old historic building that suffers 

storm damage. FEMA says it will cover new flooring, but not new 

electrical wiring. If the school district repairs the school to modern 

codes and standards, they will have to have 5 to $7 million in cost 

that FEMA says it will not cover. The school district would rather 

consolidate the elementary school buildings by building additional 

classrooms at North Bay, but they would lose 25 percent of the 

FEMA funds for Second Street if they did so. FEMA should be encouraging cities and counties that lost buildings to consolidate 

projects. This is especially true in areas where FEMA is regarding 

the new construction to be built at higher elevations and stronger 

building codes. 

I recommend a change in the Stafford Act, so that there is no reduction in funding for alternative projects. FEMA should consider 

alternative projects on their merits rather than looking for loopholes to reject them. We have a chance to rebuild public facilities 

according to stronger building codes and disaster mitigation standards if FEMA would allow us to take advantage of this opportunity. 

My third request is for language to direct FEMA to apply a reasonableness standard to the dozens of disputed projects for reimbursement on debris removal. The main problem in many of these 

cases is that the local governments school districts and public utilities took decisive action in the immediate aftermath of the storm 

5

when FEMA was still nowhere to be found. After this fact, FEMA 

challenged their contracts for not complying with notice and bid 

rules. 

Madam Chairwoman, I realize I am over my time, so my question to you is would you prefer I submit the remainder of my statement for the record or—I probably got another 2 minutes, so it is 

your call. 

Ms. NORTON. Go right ahead. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. 

The Stafford Act allows emergency contracting procedures for 72 

hours but then requires local governments to follow its bid requirements. The 72 hour requirement should have been waived a long 

time ago. In Hancock County, we had no communication, no electricity, no gasoline and certainly no leadership from FEMA for several weeks after the storm. 

All the public utilities did a phenomenal job and saved FEMA 

millions of dollars by making it possible for people to return to 

their homes. Elected cooperatives hired contractors to remove trees 

and other debris from their right of ways so the power crews could 

come behind and restore service. 

FEMA has denied reimbursement for some of these contracts. 

FEMA wants all the debris to be removal to be paid for by the 

cubic yard but the utilities paid their contractors by time and 

equipment. FEMA rules would have made the job more expensive 

and would have taken longer to restore utilities. I suggest language 

stating that FEMA can not disallow a contract by public utility 

during the emergency period simply for failing to comply with 

FEMA bid requirements. 

For public utilities the emergency period should be fine to extend 

until utility service has been restored to the service area. FEMA 

should then be reimbursed at a reasonable charges on time and 

equipment basis. 

School districts had a similar debris removal dispute. FEMA still 

has not fully reimbursed districts for debris removal because it did 

not follow FEMA rules. 

For example, FEMA said it would cut down the dead trees and 

limbs on school campuses but would not pay for grinding the 

stumps or cutting down the trees smaller than 2 inches in diameter. FEMA second guessing the local contracts is specifically outrageous because on their own contract, FEMA handed out billions 

of dollars in no-bid cost-plus contracts to Bechtel, Shaw, Fluor, 

CH2M Hill with almost no oversight. FEMA ignored the huge 

waste and fraud on its own contracts but then sent people out 

measuring stumps and limbs to deny reimbursements to local 

school districts. 

I have heard dozens of complaints from local officials about the 

cost of turnover among FEMA representatives. And Madam Chairman, I am a witness to this. In the immediate aftermath of the 

storm, FEMA filled its ranks by taking people from other government agencies, putting a FEMA jacket on them and sending them 

out to make decisions that involved millions of dollars. The FEMA 

representative on scene would go forth and tell a local county supervisor or a mayor or a school superintendent, go ahead and do 

that, we will reimburse it. When the bill came to be paid, that 

6

FEMA representative was long gone. The one that took their place 

then questions whether or not he was allowed in the first place. 

And so what we would ask for is more professionalism in the 

FEMA ranks. Don’t send people down to a disaster area for a day 

or 2 or week or 2, or even a month or 2. If the recovery is going 

to take 10 to 20 months then we have to have a commitment from 

the FEMA employees to stay there for the duration so that a commitment made on the part of our Nation one day is upheld by our 

Nation when the bill comes due months later. 

Madam Chairman, you have been very, very generous. As you 

can see I still have a couple more pages. I want to submit that for 

the record. And I think we have made the points we need to make, 

and above all, I want to thank you for hearing us out. There is a 

lot to be done on the gulf coast we need our Nation’s help to get 

this done. I just want to see to it that it is done in a cost-effective 

manner for every American and that the folks in Louisiana and 

Mississippi and the entire gulf coast are treated fairly. 

Thank you for having this hearing. 

Ms. NORTON. I want to thank you Mr. Taylor. Your testimony 

contained just the sort of concrete examples we are looking for. We 

don’t want to sit here and kind of dream up examples from what 

we read in the newspaper. That is why we are hearing directly 

from Members of Congress who are the first person people turn to. 

They don’t turn to the committee. They turn to you. So this is just 

the kind of testimony we are after. 

And I am pleased to welcome my good friend, Mr. Pickering, who 

I worked with in the past and I am pleased to hear his testimony 

as well. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLES PICKERING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. PICKERING. Madam Chair and Mr. Graves, as the ranking 

member, I appreciate the committee’s hearing those from Mississippi and Louisiana as we try to find the ways to finish our recovery and to speed the recovery and get the help to our communities back home. 

I want to commend Congressman Taylor for his recommendations and his proposals and I want to join with him in complete 

agreement on his proposals, his identification of the problems that 

are remaining and to join with him as he has led the way on the 

Mississippi gulf coast and has been a great example of someone 

who serves, leads and stands with his people during a time of disaster. 

I want to join him in talking about many of the same issues, and 

I will get to that. But first, let me just say as we look at FEMA 

not only as we finish the recovery, but as we look at the future reforms, you look toward the Coast Guard and you see a mission-oriented culture, one that emphasizes speed to rescue because they 

know that a life is at stake and you may have that golden hour 

in which you can make a difference. 

And we need to look at how we have FEMA structured and all 

of the bureaucracies that go with it and the inability to act in a 

quick, rapid way. 

7

Just as individuals can die or lose quality of life over a long period of time, if we do not quickly assist communities, communities 

too can die or have irreparable damage. And we do a disservice 

here in Congress not to reform and not to find the common sense 

solutions that will help not only Coast Guard quickly rescue, but 

have FEMA quickly recover and rebuild working with our State 

and local officials and the non profits and the voluntary organizations. 

In joining with Congressman Taylor, one of the things we repeatedly hear from our local officials is that we have too high a staff 

turnover in FEMA, no empowerment at the field level, no decision 

maker, no joint decision maker. You have multiple organizations. 

For example the IG can overrule the FEMA or the MEMA officials 

who have reached an agreement on a lot of the reimbursements on 

the schools and on the debris and on the other public facilities. 

And so, if we could unify command, unify leadership so you have 

one place to get the one answer that will give certainty and speed 

and stop the paralysis or the burden that is happening in many of 

our communities. If we could bring an FCO-like individual who is 

empowered to make the decisions to support the local communities’ 

good faith reliance on the directions given to the local officials in 

the beginning or the mid-point of the recovery. 

Only one-third of the transitional recovery office in Mississippi is 

permanently staffed. We need more staff to finish the job. Our theory is, as we go to the next hurricane season, if there is another 

hurricane with much of the outstanding work still pending in Mississippi, that we will lose the resources and what is a burden today 

could halt the recovery and do even more damage. We need quick 

assistance to finish the storm recovery. And that means more staff 

and a clear commander to finish the job, an FCO. 

The next issue is one that Congressman Taylor mentioned as 

well. We have 231 project worksheets that have been completed. 

Out of those, 132 have been pending for over 90 days. They have 

been completed. They have met all the standards. But they have 

not been reimbursed. And we need to find either the staff or the 

will to resolve those pending work projects that accounts to $41 

million that is primarily on small communities, small counties, and 

in small companies that did the work after the storm. 

If we can give FEMA a date certain to close out this process, give 

them the staff and the leadership to be able to implement that date 

certain requirement, then I believe that will go a long way and give 

greater confidence and certainty. 

The reasonableness issue that Congressman Taylor mentioned, 

many of you are communities about half the debris was done by 

local communities and half done by the Corps of Engineers through 

FEMA and with a National contract. 

Many of our communities are being rejected reimbursement even 

though the cost of the debris removal was the same or lower than 

the cost of the Federal contract. 

And it seems to me if it is reasonable for the Federal side to get 

the reimbursement, it should not be—a local community should not 

be penalized or denied the reimbursement. 

Another example down on the coast when it comes to the 50 percent rule, there was a school in Diberville, where the cafeteria was 

8

ruled that it was not damaged over 50 percent therefore it could 

not be replaced. But all the other classrooms were. 

They wanted to move 7 miles inland to be able to have higher 

ground to be able to have an alternative project and to have a safer 

place for the school to be rebuilt. They could do the classrooms, but 

they couldn’t do the cafeteria. And now you tell me how does a 

school not have a cafeteria or transport students back and forth 

from a cafeteria to the classroom? That type of common sense ability to say this is a way that we can do it that is safer, stronger 

and better for the school and it should be reimbursed. 

And just finishing, Madam Chair, if we could empower a decision 

maker in Mississippi to finish the recovery, if we can get the staff 

necessary to do it, if we can have a time table, a time certain and 

a quick adjudication or arbitration process so that the reimbursements that are owed are done as quickly as possible. And then as 

we look forward to the next storms, we need to look for ways to 

emphasize the local response, similar to the Florida model of having contracts in place at the local level prestorm. We need to look 

at imposing prompt payment standards on FEMA and its reimbursements like we do in many areas of the Federal Government 

so that 2 and 3 years after a storm, we still don’t have outstanding 

issues of payments and reimbursement. 

I believe the CBDG and the grants approach that has been used 

in the New Orleans and in Mississippi is an example of what can 

be done used at the front end of the storm not only at the back end, 

so you can have an insurance type model, so that if the assessment 

of the public facilities of an area equal a certain amount that a 

grant can be given to them without all the micromanagement, all 

of the bureaucracy and all the paralysis that comes from having to 

get every bathroom, every light bulb, every doorway, every square 

footage signed off by a Federal agency so that we can streamline 

the process and so that the rapid recovery can also be part of our 

strategy instead of the long delays that we are seeing in recovery. 

We need the rescue and recovery to have the same mission and 

that is a fast, speedy, efficient and accountable recovery. 

There are some other issues and I will be glad to submit those 

to the record. I know that I have gone over my time, but I do want 

to thank the committee and join with Congressman Taylor and the 

other gulf coast members as we find ways to help finish this recovery and then reform for the next storm. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Pickering. Your district also was 

impacted we know by Representative Taylor’s, he has gone to great 

pains to remind us. 

Mr. PICKERING. His district was hit much harder, but the storm 

went all the way up, 150 miles into Mississippi. We were we were 

able to recover fairly quickly and we still have some issues in the 

counties I represent of still not being reimbursed. So it is across 

the board that we have some of the same problems. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask you both, basically, what runs through 

your testimony is the, what would appear to be rigidities in the 

way FEMA deals with some of the issues which, anyone can see, 

from hearing you, and a common sense practical basis are issues 

that need to be dealt with forthwith. You may recall that after the 

disaster, we hauled in officials from the gulf coast trying to make 

9

sure that the money that was about to go out here in record numbers was not wasted. 

And if the truth be told, not so much I must say on the gulf coast 

but generally one of the major issues that has affected Congress in 

the last several years has been contract issues where the difficulty 

the Federal Government has in monitoring contracts, billions of 

dollars wasted from Iraq to contracts in this country for various 

purposes and lots of oversight now going on. 

Be assured that we are sitting in order to provide what we regard as one time, one place relief so we understand we are dealing 

with a special circumstance. But against the backdrop, I have just 

mentioned any ideas you have on the necessary flexibility in contracts in particular and reconciling that with the Federal system 

to obligate funds in a manner that can be audited and accounted 

for so that the agency doesn’t have this coming back at them? Have 

you thought—and I recognize you are not auditing experts. But at 

the same time, we go about these flexibilities that is going to be 

a major issue. 

How can you streamline it while making sure that if somebody 

goes in and audits it they don’t just find here there and everywhere 

waste that then comes back and haunts the agency? Yes, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chairman, if I may, what I was really 

struck by was in the immediate aftermath of the storm, people just 

made decisions. My two mayors closest to my personal home sent 

policemen to the Wal-Mart, to the grocery store, to two grocery 

stores, posted them at the door and said, look, FEMA is not here. 

People have to eat. They can go in and they can take food they can 

take a change of clothes. If they take anything other than that they 

are going to be arrested. I was there when the head of the Mississippi emergency management told a guy who had just delivered 

a load of ice that he was commandeering his truck because we had 

to have a temporary morgue. Good decisions were made on the spot 

by people who knew this is what we have to do. 

And then you contrast that with some of the examples I have 

given you 20 months after the fact, because I think you really are 

dealing with, to a very large extent, a lack of professionalism within FEMA, people who don’t know the rules, people who are afraid 

of the rules and then people who rely on the rules for a reason to 

say no which as we all know is the easiest thing to do. 

What I would recommend is some sort of a cafeteria of options. 

You know some of these communities are—I made mention of the 

Old Bay St. Louis schools built there since 1920s. I would hope 

that that city would be given the option of saying there is a historic 

structure, it is getting close to 100 years old. Sure, if you want to 

bring it up to OSHA, of you want to bring it up to ADA standards, 

if you feel that that is an integral part of your community and you 

have lost so much in your community and you want this as one of 

those things that you want to be a cornerstone yes we will give you 

the option of restoring it. 

If, on the other hand, if the local community says you know 

what, we just as soon have as Chip mentioned a new school further 

inland that won’t flood next time, they ought to have that option 

as well. 

10

But I think what we are going to have to do legislatively is spell 

that out for those many options exist. And above all, I can’t emphasize enough, we had people come down to help us who may have 

been great foresters, who may have known a world about aqua culture, who may have known a lot about boll weevils. All good in 

their own profession. But what we saw was for lack of a professional staff at FEMA, these people were literally grabbed, sent 

down to south Mississippi. Somebody slapped a FEMA jacket on 

them and said now you are an expert. They didn’t know the job. 

It wasn’t fair to them. It wasn’t fair to the local communities. 

The other thing I would ask to come out of this is if we have to 

spell it out in the code, some sort of professional qualifications for 

people who are going to respond to these types of disasters and 

make multi-million dollar decisions. And I think both of those them 

are important. A cafeteria plan, you and I have a cafeteria plan on 

our options on our health care. The cities ought to have a cafeteria 

plan of options of how to respond to these storms and what they 

want to do with their buildings. 

Ms. NORTON. Some of what you describe would mean that if 

FEMA did it the way they ′′usually do,′′ they would spending more 

money and perhaps even wasting money. You don’t want to build—

look, this is even, on the best of circumstances, this is a flood prone 

area. So obviously, we don’t want to build in a way—but let me 

suggest just hearing your testimony, there is a dichotomy between 

two kinds of expenditures. One which is truly unconscionable, if 

you consider the people who went out and did what they had to do 

to help people survive, that is reimbursements that are still outstanding. 

It seems to me that on those, the committee could look at a fast 

way to get those reimbursements done. They were done, one could 

carve out a period of time, a kind of reimbursement after the Act 

and that is one category. 

There are ongoing matters which fit the gulf coast and probably 

wouldn’t fit other places where one could show—it seems to me—

I am relying on your testimony now—that to do it the way they are 

going to do it is either wasteful to the jurisdiction or causes loss 

to FEMA funds, or is wasteful to the Federal Government. 

I am looking at your testimony about when to consolidate additional classrooms. Now, it does even say that they want more classrooms but they want to consolidate them. And I am looking on 

Page—they are not numbered. The school district would rather consolidate the elementary schools by building additional classrooms 

at north Bay elementary school. But they would lose 25 percent of 

FEMA funds for the second street if they do so. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. You are not saying it would cost more are you? 

Mr. TAYLOR. It would cost more then, and again, I am asking you 

to keep in mind I used to be a city councilman in that town. The 

cities of Mississippi live on sales tax. That is their primary source 

of revenue. The cities that were the most dramatically impacted by 

the storm lost all their stores. They have no source of revenue. The 

city of Pass Christian to this day really does not have a major store 

in the town. So Pass Christian is a perfect example. 

11

Bay St. Louis is a very good example of a city that has lost a 

great deal of tax revenue coming in, has lost most of their buildings 

and now is in a position of having to replace them. So when a Federal Government tells a city like Bay San Louis or Pass Christian, 

you are going to have to pay 25 percent more to do it right, where 

is the more going to come from. 

Ms. NORTON. Some of this is case-by-case, but again, in case-bycase, it does seem to me you could figure out whether or not you 

are wasting money by doing it the old way. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mrs. Norton, can I just throw one more thing at you 

because this is related to your jurisdiction. We are 20 months after 

the storm. And FEMA has not updated the flood maps. You mentioned flooding. You mentioned do we really want to build a school 

in a place where it is going to flood? Twenty months after the 

storm, those maps have not been submitted to the cities. The cities 

are operating under interim rules that said, go back and tell everybody you have to build 4 feet higher than you used to be. I know 

it is a shared jurisdiction, but it has to start with FEMA. If FEMA 

is going to come up with rules saying you have to be at a certain 

elevation, they have to come up with flood maps. 

Lastly, and I tried to shorten my testimony, they have to use 

some common sense. Obviously you want a school in a place that 

is not going to flood. You want it high enough that it is not going 

to flood. But telling a bus stop that you won’t repair that facility 

for a bus stop unless it is 25 feet above sea level when the ground 

level is 3 feet above sea level is insane. A beach rest room telling 

them it has to be 25 feet above sea level when the beach is at sea 

level is insane. There are a lot of ways to work around this——

Ms. NORTON. The bias toward building the same facility cannot 

obtain in such a catastrophic way. They of course have the issue. 

We see what the issue is. People can game the system to say now 

that we have got FEMA here why don’t we build a state of the art 

system. On the other hand where there is a catastrophic event, you 

really don’t have the option of building the same facility where it 

will, in fact, in a flood prone area encounter the same problems. 

This notion about building on sticks and you have to do so for the 

bus stop that is really late night comedy stuff. 

Mr. TAYLOR. But Madam Chairman, that is a real life example——

Ms. NORTON. Let me just say this. FEMA does have the flexibility to do some of this. But you can see they are afraid to do it 

and that is what the committee’s job is. I don’t have a lot of—your 

examples really say the—really tell the stories. One thing that 

really bothers me a great deal, it would bother me beyond the gulf 

coast, I think the committee needs to look more seriously at this 

period that you say on page 2 of your testimony, Mr. Taylor, that 

FEMA is supposed to pay 90 percent of the cost of rebuilding these 

facilities narrows the scope to exclude many costs that are necessary to comply with building codes and standards. 

I asked staff what does she know about this, and I said that 

sounds nonsensical, we are going to build not to code, and they 

may have the notion that you have to build it to the old code that 

was in existence when it was built rather than the code that the 

agency has been at pains to upgrade the matter to, but how could 

12

the Federal Government possibly justify not building to code, whatever is the code in existence now? 

Those are examples of things we are going to have to look at. 

Certainly in your area—and I would say I would really want to 

look at the notion of recognizing that costs may be involved and we 

will have to look more closely if we talk about noncatastrophic 

areas. But I would hate the Federal Government to be caught not 

building to code when States have required, seems to me quite justifiably, that facilities come up to code needs a lot of scrutiny. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chair, just the last point, the Americans 

with Disability Act was passed after most of these schools were 

built. So that is one code change that is obviously expensive, obviously done for the right reasons, but something that should be addressed and hopefully, since our Nation has mandated it now and 

I voted for it——

Mr. ORTIZ. There is no way in which the Federal Government, 

which administers the ADA, is going to say build but not in compliance with the ADA. We have to make that plain. We have to make 

that plain. Mr. Graves. 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chairman. In our FEMA reform 

bill that we passed last year, I know you guys were pretty active 

in creating a long-term recovery office and you are supposed to hire 

2- and 3-year employees so that they would be around because, 

Gene, you have obviously spoken to the problems we are having, 

and Chip, you did, too, to the guys coming in and making decisions 

and then being gone. We were supposed to have these 2- and 3-

year employees. And we are also supposed to push the decision 

making authority down to the Gulf Coast Recovery Authority that 

was there. 

Now, my question is are these things not happening? And is 

DHS—because I know there was pushback from the Department of 

Homeland Security on what we were trying to do. Are they still 

making all those decisions at the top? Are they not pushing it 

down? Either one of you. 

Mr. PICKERING. For example, the transitional recovery office, we 

are now in our third acting director and that is not a permanent 

director. It is the third acting director. And again, a lot of that office we only have one-third staffing. And so a lot of what we try 

to implement in the FEMA reform is not being carried out. And I 

think that is why 20 months out of the storm they don’t have the 

staff to be able to make the final decisions to make, to close out 

a lot of the work orders that have been done and completed and 

a lot of the issues. You have a split between the IG and the office, 

and they make conflicting decisions, and then it paralyzes any resolution so you have no quick resolution mechanism. 

And so I think that if we can give deadlines, one of the things 

that Gene mentioned not to have the FEMA flood maps. We need 

a deadline for that. We need deadlines for these reimbursements 

or a dispute mechanism that will allow us to quickly get there. 

And we need to direct FEMA to fully staff and to get someone 

in charge so that there is a clear command and control. 

Mr. GRAVES. Three acting directors. 

Mr. PICKERING. And that is in 20 months. 

13

Mr. TAYLOR. And again, not a single public building has been replaced in coastal Mississippi. Look they are good sports. They are 

working out temporary trailers. They are doing their jobs, but at 

some point, these trailers themselves become a hazard. In fact, 

they become a hazard the next hurricane season because they become shrapnel when the wind grabs them. They are just not made 

to be down there when the wind blows over 100 miles per hour. 

Mr. PICKERING. Let me just add that everything that slows the 

recovery increases the cost of recovery, labor material and land 

goes up. Time is money. And what they—for example, all these 

small companies and counties and communities if you have $41 

million outstanding, and you are having to bear all the interest and 

all the delays and all the losses and you don’t have sales tax, all 

the burden is on the local community. We really need to shift that, 

have a prompt payment requirement, so that if the Federal Government doesn’t reimburse in a timely way then the Federal Government has to pay penalties and interest just like an individual 

taxpayer does if they don’t pay their tax bill on time. 

So we need fairness. We need quick response. And we need some 

resources just to make sure that FEMA has the people to do the 

job. 

Mr. GRAVES. The Federal Government obviously ought to start 

acting a little bit more like everybody else has to and just as you 

say, do their job, but the longer this stuff waits, the more it costs. 

You are exactly right, and it continues to add to it. 

Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Graves, let me just add, Madam Chair had 

asked about contracts. Let me just give you an example as we look 

forward. We had about 40 million cubic yards of debris just in Mississippi. Now half of that was done through a Federal contract, and 

the rest was done by local communities, and counties roughly equal 

each about 20 million. And what we have seen from the data that 

we have is that the local communities cleaned up the debris at 

about half the cost that the Federal Government did. The Federal 

cubic yard average was $31 a cubic yard and the average for local 

community was around $15 a cubic yard. Now that is a huge difference in resources to the taxpayer but also the local communities 

usually did it faster. The local communities are the ones who are 

getting stuck without their bills being paid and the local companies 

are having to carry all that cost. 

So they did a—now, I do think and agree with Congressman Taylor that there is going to be some places that have to have the Federal contract and the Federal assistance, but we need to shift in 

the future to emphasize having local contracts in place because it 

is best for the taxpayer and best for the local communities. 

And I think it speeds recovery. And then if we can fix the reimbursement to local communities, and in a timely way, then I think 

you have an ability to take an organization, FEMA, that is slowing 

recovery and make it actually accelerate the recovery. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Those of you who can vote 

have a vote coming up in a moment. And we want to finish with 

this panel. And I have only one question. I was a little perplexed 

by the first page of your testimony. 

Mr. Taylor, in which you appear to complain about the building 

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cant public buildings. I understand about the public buildings. Are 

you saying the bridge was not vital or necessary. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Oh, no, ma’am, we are very grateful for that bridge, 

believe me, these are two communities that used to be joined at the 

hip. The points I am making is if they build a bridge from scratch 

in 20 months, they ought to be able to build a city hall or a school. 

Ms. NORTON. I see, yes, indeed it would. Finally, just let me say 

to you before you go to vote what we are discussing here are really 

the day-to-day matters that determine for people whether they 

want to continue to live in this major part of the country, and to 

say to their relatives who haven’t decided whether to come home, 

whether or not to come home or not, we—these may seem small 

matters to people outside of your jurisdictions. But these are the 

things closest to the people. And these are the things that make 

the decision for them. 

I want to put you on notice that we are later going to have a 

hearing or a set of hearings that I call repopulation and continuing 

population growth in the gulf coast. And these hearings are going 

to focus on three issues which we also think everything is said and 

done, is going to decide the issues of population growth. 

These are insurance, you can talk about housing until you are 

blue in the face but if we don’t find a way for people to get insurance, people understand they are not supposed to come back. Talking about levees, how much assurance do people need that they are 

not going to be subject to another flood tomorrow. And the third 

thing is public safety. These things are overarching issues, just as 

we think these are the issues that decide people right now. 

The difference is that these issues are the issues that people are 

using to make their decision right now whether to come home, 

whether to stay or whether to do what Americans have done since 

the beginning of our country, move on. This the great frontier. Mississippi was one of the places that you went to. You left the east 

coast. You left the midwest. Hey, guess what, we are at the end 

of the frontier. And we want to make sure that the gulf coast, both 

of these places, were prime sources of revenue for their States. 

They lost their tax base. That means your States are out of luck. 

We want to make sure that repopulation where oil is, this is where 

many of our resources are. We want to make sure that these States 

are repopulated. We want to do it now, to make sure that FEMA 

hops over all of this rigidity and makes a decision it must make 

now. 

And we want to do it in the long run to make sure people understand that the overarching issues can be dealt with and are being 

dealt with, and I hope I haven’t made you miss a vote, but cast one 

for me, too, if you would. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chairwoman, you may live 1,100 miles from 

south Mississippi, but you could not have summed up better what 

needs to be done than you just did, so thank you very much. 

Mr. PICKERING. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. We will reconvene, it is my understanding there 

will be 5 votes, 45 minutes, and I guess it is the New Orleans Louisiana delegation we will hear from you which is our last set of 

members. 

15

Ms. NORTON. In light of the hour, we are going to resume testimony with the members of the Louisiana delegation who are here. 

Others, as they come, of course, can join them. So I am pleased to 

welcome Mr. Baker, who I think is a member of the committee. 

And Mr. Boustany, to begin their testimony. 

Mr. BAKER. I am sorry, Mr. Boustany, is also a member of the 

committee. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Baker. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. RICHARD BAKER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate your courtesy 

in conducting the hearing and in moving ahead in such a timely 

manner. I wish to preface my remarks which are a very succinct 

summary of the written statement by expressing the view that the 

rules and mechanisms in place from FEMA to homeland security 

to everyone never contemplated resolution of an event so catastrophic in scope, and I believe in most instances, the rules are constructed for matters of inconvenience lasting a few days when 

power outages are minimal, when there has been relatively modest 

dislocation of individuals and where most of the social order of the 

community affected remains intact, meaning law and order, 

schools, grocery stores, and facilities generally needed to accommodate the needs of those living there. 

In this instance, in response to the Katrina-Rita matter, these 

storms were so overwhelming they overwhelmed the law rule and 

common sense. For example, it may not be uncustomary for the expenses of FEMA in a mobilization effort of short duration, to have 

a very high administrative costs. In the first quarter of the storm’s 

resolution, 26 percent of all the moneys that the public assumed 

were going to help individuals went first to pay FEMA operations, 

and that is administrative costs, that is not FEMA grants or assistance given to individuals. I thought that rather high, but I examined it after the last 12 months of operation, and the number still 

remains about 22 percent. 

In the case of Louisiana, that was a recipient of slightly more 

than $32 billion, far less than some would have imagined, about 

$7.5 billion of that leaving us with a net of 25 actually went to 

FEMA first. That is a matter which I believe, at least for the sake 

of accuracy and reporting, should have a separate funding category 

away from that which is categorized as assistance to communities. 

So taxpayers have some better understanding about where their 

dollars are actually being allocated. Secondly, is that some significant disparity with the treatment with local officials and local responders in the way their expenses were characterized and reimbursed. One area that has been most sensitive is the area of lost 

revenues or foregone revenues. In the case of the most natural disasters, there are public facilities which are inconvenienced for a 

matter of a few days at worst, often the inconveniences over a 

weekend where there was no planned activity. In the case of Baton 

Rouge and our river center, which is an enormous facility that 

housed, at one time, housed over 7,000 people, it was out of utilization for approximately 2 months. This was not by voluntary act of 

the city, it was by FEMA’s decision to take that for its purposes. 

16

Not that that wasn’t a legitimate and reasonable thing to do. But 

the expenses, the revenue lost to that entity because of the forced 

utilization over a two-month period has a direct bottom line impact 

on the viability of that governmental entity over the course of a 

year. 

But yet that is not now something in these extreme circumstances which can be considered as a reimbursable item. Also 

in analyzing the method of expenditure, there was no common 

standard that taxpayer consequence be a priority in determining 

what action should be taken. As a, for example, we have in Financial Services changed modestly the requirement that a housing resolution not be exclusively temporary in nature. The reason for that 

is modular housing put on a slab—this comes from Fannie Mae 

and Freddie Mac could have been constructed in 90 days or less on 

available properties for a cost per unit on average of $60,000. The 

cost on average per unit to install—to acquire move install and 

make the trailer habitable was $72,000. 

Secondly, I don’t know how the counting was done on how many 

trailers initially should be acquired. I don’t believe there was a survey of any sort from those persons who were in the various centers. 

If trailers were made available, would you utilize it? It is my understanding that although there are 9,000 trailers still in Hope, Arkansas on a $5 million gravel pad, although 4,000 units have never 

been deployed or unwrapped as they call it. It seems that excessive 

expenditure was not warranted, and in instances since Katrina, 

those trailers have remained undeployed despite the fact there 

have been others who have lost their housing inventory. 

Two other recommendations—and I shall be brief. One is more 

the predeployment storm season of various assets. There is one big 

box store in the country. There are many, but one in particular 

who has their own meteorological department. They track these 

storms the way homeowners track. And when the storm is a few 

hours out, they redivert Pop Tarts and batteries and lanterns to 

those locations. When the storm path changes or the storm is leaving, they will bring in generators, blankets, tarps those things people need after the storm. 

My observation is in speaking to some of the management, they 

do a much better job of deploying needed resources into the marketplace and their penetration into residential areas is quite significant that if we were to engage in some sort of Federal negotiation prior to each storm season, we are a month away, what would 

be our response tomorrow if a storm came across North Carolina? 

Where are the Federal resources? And it is the emergency nature 

of the spending pattern that spikes the cost rather than a 

prenegotiated contract for deployment of, say, an overnight basket 

for an individual with a blanket, a flashlight, a bottle of water and 

a few Pop Tarts. Those could be readily displayed by the box store 

itself or handled by the National Guard or those volunteers. 

Another point, when individuals came with manufactured material in the manufactured seal to the river center to give the material to the Red Cross volunteers and others managing the center. 

That was not accepted. We have a very large bottling facility in my 

city capable of manufacturing considerable amounts of bottled 

water. Unless you had a previously agreed-upon purchase agreeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:04 Nov 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35925 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
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ment relationship with the Red Cross, those contributions were not 

made available at great loss to those individuals who were of necessity in the river center. One last idea, in this day and age of Internet access and sophisticated technological deployment, we should 

have in place some catastrophic risk analysis system that is in 

real-time. By that, I mean you could turn on your TV and go to a 

channel, maybe run by the weather station, go to your computer 

on the Internet, and there should be an ability of FEMA, the National Weather Association, other critical entities, including State 

police to give you highway conditions, the hotel-motel association 

where you could look on the map before the storm’s landfall, and 

by color coding, see whether or not you are at risk, see whether the 

traffic is flowing on particular evacuation routes, even display the 

availability of hotel rooms so people get a sense that this thing is 

coming and if I don’t get out now, the roads are going to be impassible or I am not going to be able to find temporary housing for my 

family. It is not that easy to construct, but it would be vitally important. This would be real-time data so that any input from any 

Agency would go into an algorithm and present the map based on 

the real-time risk assessments. 

I think something of that sort would greatly facilitate earlier departure by residents at risk and enable those of us who are wanting to be of assistance to be better informed about the hazards that 

we face. With that, Madam Chair, I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Baker. I am reminded of the 

Weather Channel which almost is there. If you look at the Weather 

Channel, very scientific movement of the storm. 

Mr. BAKER. It wouldn’t take much to upgrade that to where it 

would be a real systemic matter on housing transportation and others. 

Ms. NORTON. Absolutely. Mr. Boustany. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLES BOUSTANY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for providing me the opportunity, and I would ask unanimous consent to 

stick my entire written record—written statement in the record. 

Let me start by saying from the beginning, this subcommittee has 

been a very strong advocate as we have worked together to recover 

in the gulf coast. And I am pleased that the tradition continues 

today with this hearing. I do want to remind my colleagues that 

there were two storms of similar magnitude that hit the gulf coast 

in 2005; Hurricane Rita, the second storm, brought high winds in 

excess of 120 miles per hour and a storm surge equivalent to that 

of a category 5 storm. The total damage is estimated at approximately $10 billion, making Rita—which we call the forgotten storm 

in my district—the third costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Eighteen months after the storm, many impacted local governments organizations and individuals have simply chosen to move 

on rather than wait for aid. In addition, much of the disaster assistance, literally billions of dollars worth is now being held up by 

bureaucratic red tape at the State level, which Congress has little 

control over. The subcommittee can make a big difference by examVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:04 Nov 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35925 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
18

ining some of the lessons we have learned and consider possible 

changes to the Stafford Act that might help prevent these problems 

from recurring. Inconsistent FEMA policies and procedures and 

constant staff turnover have plagued recovery efforts. For 

Vermilion Parish for instance, in Vermilion Parish officials spent 

months working under the assumption that two school buildings 

damaged by the storm were eligible to be rebuilt. After parish officials bought land to accommodate one of the schools, it was then 

subsequently determined that a low-level FEMA field representative had made a mistake and, in fact, a very costly mistake and the 

schools, in fact, would not be rebuilt. 

The information being provided by FEMA should be accurate and 

consistent. More needs to be done to implement the reforms Congress passed last year to prevent staff turnover, and to ensure stability in the regional offices. I can tell you as a heart surgeon, I 

would never start a heart operation with an inexperienced team 

and then have turnover in the midst of the operation. That is just 

not good practice. And I think the same applies to FEMA during 

emergency circumstances. We also need to do a better job of getting 

Federal disaster aid into the hands of victims quickly and efficiently while still providing safeguards against fraud and abuse. 

Much of the aid Congress approved last year is still sitting in 

Baton Rouge, our State capital, waiting to be spent. According to FEMA, only $27 million of the $99 million currently 

available in public assistance funds for Cameron Parish have been 

released. The current payment system should be streamlined so 

that applicants are not required to go through multiple layers of 

government bureaucracy to receive payments. FEMA should also 

be able to reimburse other Federal agencies for work they perform 

after the disaster. Over 250,000 dump truckloads of posthurricane 

debris including tanks as large as 18 wheelers were scattered 

throughout the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge did not 

have the funds for cleanup and was ineligible for reimbursement 

under the Stafford Act. 

Eight months later, Congress ultimately provided funding for the 

cleanup, but we shouldn’t have to wait for congressional earmark 

to move forward while thousands of gallons of hazardous material 

threaten our wetlands and critical habitats. There ought to be an 

interim agency in place. Louisiana’s local State and law enforcement also had to wait nearly 6 months to receive vital funding to 

aid in their justice system recovery. 

As a result, we learned that State and local agencies can better 

serve the public and respond to law enforcement needs in a disaster area quickly if funds are provided directly through the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, which is the traditional conduit for Federal law enforcement funding. I would like to 

work with the subcommittee to provide FEMA with the authority 

to release emergency funds directly to the Department of Justice 

Bureau of Justice Assistance to aid law enforcement recovery efforts. I think this is very important. 

Debris removal on private lands is another issue that is not so 

cut and dry. Taxpayers certainly should not have to foot the bill for 

cleanup on private lands. But in one instance, a public building 

was washed away and set on private land within a subdivision. The 

19

homeowners were required to pay for the cost of removing public 

debris. The Stafford Act does not currently allow for reimbursement for removal of public debris on private lands. And this is 

something that should be addressed. FEMA should also be required 

to reimburse expenses incurred for reinternment. This is an issue 

we saw in Cameron Parish, and I believe it also happened in Orleans Parish as well. 

In Cameron Parish nearly 350 bodies crypts and caskets had to 

be reinterned after the storm. Local mortuaries undertook the task 

at their own expense and still have not been reimbursed. We 

should respect the deceased and ensure that the remains are interned quickly and with the dignity that they deserve. We 

shouldn’t have to spend months and months trying to figure out 

whose responsibility it is to bear this cost. 

There is no doubt that Hurricane Rita has forever changed the 

coast, but no force of nature is strong enough to destroy the spirit 

that is helping the people of southwest Louisiana recover and rebuild. Much more work remains to be done, but we can learn from 

this tragedy and prepare ourselves for future disasters of the magnitude of Katrina and Rita. The subcommittee should use this 

unique opportunity to make the changes that need to be made now 

so that future recovery efforts aren’t hindered. Thank you, Madam 

Chair, and I will be happy to answer any questions, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Boustany. I will go on 

to Mr. Jefferson. He was actually the first in the room here when 

we opened the hearing. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. WILLIAM JEFFERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. JEFFERSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have had the benefit of hearing everyone’s testimony, except Mr. Jindal’s now, since 

I have been here since 2:00. It is a wonderful opportunity to be 

here with you, and I thank you very much for this chance to appear 

before your subcommittee. In New Orleans now, there are some 

220,000 people who are not back home. Half our schools aren’t 

open, half our hospitals aren’t open, day care centers aren’t open. 

The place really isn’t really open for business fully. Our city has 

about 6 percent of its tax base back in place. 

As we consider how to best deal with the challenges that face us 

in rebuilding the gulf coast, we have the opportunity to prevent 

some things that went wrong from happening in the future. The 

Stafford Act was designed to provide a comprehensive framework 

for the government’s response to a major disaster. As we have 

learned many aspects of it, however, however well meaning they 

are worked against this objective. 

I would like to highlight some of the more pressing needs that 

our community faced and in dealing with the limitations of the 

Stafford Act, and some ways that I suggest we may remove some 

of them. Providing transitional housing for our residents who wish 

to return is the most pressing issue we face. Without adequate 

transitional housing stock, our residents have no choice but to stay 

20

away from the city they call home and cannot begin to rebuild until 

they have resolved temporary housing needs. 

A good option for housing displaced residents would be to expand 

the rental reimbursement program and to provide more flexibility 

to meet the needs of specific disasters. In New Orleans, we have 

had numerous owners of damaged apartment buildings, for example, offer to use their own funds to rehabilitate their property in 

exchange for guarantees from FEMA that it would pay for the 

rates for its returnees. 

In this scenario, the local property owner would benefit from 

having a guaranteed revenue source and the tenants would be back 

at home to work school jobs and permanent housing solutions 

would also be in safe structures. Unfortunately, FEMA did not 

have the authority to set up such mutually beneficial arrangements 

and a great opportunity was lost. The Stafford Act relies too heavily on providing mobile or prefabricated housing units for displaced 

residents. 

Housing citizens in trailers acceptable on a short-term basis, 

maybe a month or so. However, a disaster of Katrina’s magnitude 

long-term housing in trailers is blatantly unacceptable. We now are 

nearing the 2-year anniversary of the storm and we still have thousands of residents in trailers. As another hurricane season approaches, these individuals are in great danger should another catastrophic storm hit the gulf coast. Forgetting just after the storm 

and continue well into subsequent weeks, nations across the globe 

volunteered to send financial assistance, manpower support and 

goods in kind to help alleviate the situation. 

Unfortunately, our own incompetence left these generous offers 

on the table and the needs of thousands of hurricane victims went 

unfulfilled, an allegedly overtaxed FEMA simply didn’t accept 

many these offers or slowed them down with bureaucratic inertia. 

From three of our staunchest allies even, Canada Israel and Great 

Britain, we declined 54 of 77 aid offers. Offers of communications 

equipment and aid supplies, two of our most pressing needs, were 

never accepted. Even when we did physically receive items from 

abroad there was no system in place to adequately distribute them. 

A shipment of medicine and supplies from Italy were left to perish 

in the elements and were rendered unusable, almost 6 million 

meals spoiled due to inadequate storage capabilities. Considering 

the tragic suffering of our citizens who were stranded in various 

places in our city with virtually no sustenance this massive oversight is especially cruel. The Greek government offered to send two 

large cruise ships to the gulf to serve as badly needed hospital facilities and housing for residents and emergency personnel. The 

offer was rejected by the Department of Homeland Security, but 

shortly thereafter, contracted with the carnival cruise lines for two 

of their ships at a cost of $249 million. We must increase our storage network’s capabilities and establish a streamlined process by 

which donations in kind can be accepted and distributed. 

The United States Government should never again be in a position to turn down the generosity of other nations due to our own 

logistical problems. The safeguards and the Stafford Act designed 

to ensure that local businesses receive contracts have proven ineffective. Lucrative contracts were given to a small group of national 

21

firms who then had no incentive to give subcontracts to local companies and low performance standards. Worse, local contractors 

who were given low-tier contracts calling upon them to do the actual work, but for sometimes 1/7 of the profits received by the large 

firms. We have seen the number of businesses in the New Orleans 

area left out in the cold, watching as trucks with out-of-state license plates perform work they rightfully should have been doing. 

Local preference guidelines must be codified to ensure that a specific number of contracts go to small business. Here is where I 

think—here is the question that is presented. The current language 

as written gives a preference to local businesses. But provides no 

mechanism or guidelines for its enforcement. Does a local preference mean all things being equal, the local firm is awarded the 

contract? Or does it mean competition must be set aside for qualified local firms unless none can be found? 

The latter construction is the only way to ensure that local—that 

the local program is really meaningful. I might say that at a different hearing in New Orleans we found out that 7 percent of the 

contracts that were given out were to local firms. Their issue of 

prompt payment we heard about earlier. I won’t dwell on that. I 

see my time is rapidly running out here. We have seen a logjam 

at the State level when dealing with CDBG funding. At the Federal 

level, money is allocated based on the needs of damaged areas. 

Once at the State level, however, this funding is diluted by other 

interests. Funding that must be approved by the State is slowed 

down by the legislating. 

Locales not damaged by the storm but which housed large numbers of evacuees for instance have sought reimbursement expenses 

incurred. With that relative strength in the State legislature, this 

topdown approach results in legislators outside of severely affected 

areas having a disproportionate influence over where funding ends 

up. The end result is that badly needed funds are not flowing nearly as quickly as they should, nor in full amounts to ravaged areas 

that Congress intended. To alleviate this problem and create a 

more flexible distribution of dollars, money should be granted parishes or counties based on the devastation each sustained. 

Due to the sheer magnitude of the destruction to our infrastructure, the gulf coast has countless construction projects funded 

through project worksheets. When calculating the cost to replace 

equipment vehicles or facilities, the Stafford Act provides that 

funding will be provided only for an equivalent item. This inflexible 

policy frequently results in absurd outcomes. If a building has a 20-

year-old air conditioning system that is completely destroyed, then 

the only authorized replacement is another 20-year-old unit rather 

than a new unit that is comparable in performance. 

A century old school building can only be renovated to the specifications that existed prior to being damaged and cannot be improved in any way. This is simply a valuation issue that requires 

correction. Reimbursement costs should be provided to items or 

structures that are similar in function to what was there previously 

and not a carbon copy to what is likely outdated equipment. We 

learned a good number of lessons from this recovery and what 

should be done with respect to making this program work better, 

Stafford Act work better. There are many other things I could like 

22

to say, but my time is long past, and I would like to submit the 

rest of my testimony for the record, and I thank you for the chance 

to speak with you about this. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Jefferson. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Jindal. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BOBBY JINDAL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. JINDAL. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, as well 

as the ranking member. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. 

I, too, would like to submit my written comments for the record. 

I will not repeat what many of my colleagues have said. First of 

all, I want to thank the committee for its interest in reforming the 

Stafford Act to help address not only the Katrina and Rita situations, but also future storms. I am also grateful that so many of 

our colleagues have worked with us to pass already some important 

FEMA reform provisions including last year’s homeland security 

appropriations act. For example, we advocated for several measures, for example to improve FEMA’s response and preparedness, 

creating and deploying Federal strike teams to provide the Federal 

Government first line response to a disaster. Secondly, establishing 

prenegotiated contracts to provide surge capacity for critical resources by the disaster. 

Third, establish national asset and inventory program to track 

and identify community needs during a national emergency. 

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, transferring the preparedness functions within the Department of Homeland Security back 

to FEMA, so they can be unified with response as preparedness 

and response go hand in hand, and we must do all that we can to 

prepare for and respond to future disasters, especially as a start of 

the next hurricane season rapidly approaches. However, I believe 

even as it was essential to reform a system that was ineffective at 

both the State and the Federal levels there are still many outstanding needs and steps that we can take to break the current red 

tape and bureaucracy which are still plaguing recovery in the gulf 

coast. 

Twenty months after those hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, the inadequacy of the Stafford Act as well as the inconsistency and inflexibility in FEMA’s interpretation of it and these extraordinary 

circumstances continue to hinder Louisiana in our rebuilding efforts. I would like to focus our attention on three main areas. The 

first is reforming the hazard mitigation grants program, but to provide more flexibility. Recently, our State has discovered a shortfall 

within the road home program and that highlights a perspective 

revenue stream that is current being disputed between FEMA and 

State of Louisiana. The hazard mitigation grant program was designed to supplement road home grants by the State by funding 

$1.2 billion in mitigation efforts. However, FEMA claims the current structure of the road home program is not compliant with the 

law governing the hazard mitigation program, in other words, the 

Stafford Act. If indeed it is true that the Stafford Act impedes the 

allocation of these grants to the road home program and its applicants, then certainly we could would call for adjustments to section 

23

5170(c) of this code to make this program more flexible so they can 

help homeowners rebuild. 

Additionally I would advocate that the Act should be amended to 

allow for global benefit cost approvals for mitigation measures that 

commonly prove effective. For example, when acquiring a block of 

20 homes rather than doing a home-by-home structure-by-structure 

analysis, it should be enough to determine the total cost of all the 

homes and the total benefits of all those homes. 

So the first area we would recommend are making these housing 

mitigation grants more flexible. The second area is streamlining assistance, and we have heard from Mr. Boustany and others, according to FEMA’s numbers, $4.76 billion was available to Louisiana 

for public infrastructure as of May 5. Of this, $2.34 billion was paid 

out to local applicants but FEMA claims $2.42 billion remains held 

up in the State and there are many causes for this bottleneck. 

For example, project worksheets defining what FEMA will pay 

are clear to local government entities are routinely underestimating those actual costs. While local officials work with FEMA 

staff to create new versions of these worksheets, the frequent rotation of FEMA staff has caused severe backlogs and continued substantiation of the same claims. This slows down an already tedious 

process. You have heard examples before already for example in 

the school systems. There are also examples in Madison bill with 

the library system where FEMA first estimated it would take 

$500,000 to $750,000 to repair all the storm damages and bring the 

facility to code. Now after months of arbitration, FEMA’s now verbally offering $187,000, but only to restore the building to the condition it was before the storm, which was barely functional. 

If the library officials want to use the money for another purpose 

that offer would be rescinded. When you have the level of destruction over $6.3 billion, it is a stretch to assume that local stakeholders would be able to make substantial investments and be reimbursed later. A second change has to be allowing our public assistance applicants to replace destroyed equipment, such as vehicles, with new products instead of reversing those decisions. There 

has to be a mechanism for FEMA to up front these dollars so that 

local governments can proceed with reconstruction. There are many 

examples in my written testimony from St. Tammany Iberia and 

Vermilion and other parishes. 

Three specific examples when it comes to the public assistance, 

one human capital retention, the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 directed FEMA to develop a plan to improve the workforce, especially to fill in the gaps in the current 

workforce. A program is to be established or a report submitted to 

Congress by April 2 of this year, that is still not yet to be done. 

The rapid turnover continues to cause problems. 

Secondly, we need a streamlined evaluation process, for example, 

allowing local entities to hire and use licensed engineers or trained 

code enforcement officers in lieu of going through a lengthy and duplicative FEMA review requirement. Third, an alternative buildings construction requirement that would allow alternative projects 

to be funded at the full 90 percent Federal share instead of the current 67 percent Federal share to encourage comprehensive community redevelopment to encourage alternative building instead of as 

24

many others, as already pointed out, simply rebuilding what was 

already there before. 

On this point, I also want to emphasize we are strongly in favor 

of legislation that would waive that 10 percent match for the State 

so the State can get back on its feet for the State and local entities. 

The third and final point and I will wrap up my I know my time 

has run out. The third and final point I think we need to recognize, 

the magnitude of the Katrina and Rita events as compared with 

previous disasters. I do want to applaud teams from HUD recently 

to provide longer term housing solutions reversing its decisions on 

students who were living in university or college-owned housing. 

But despite these steps, we have a much greater step that needs 

to be taken. I think fundamentally, the Stafford Act must distinguish between catastrophic and major disasters. As witnessed after 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it is evident when a disaster simultaneously impacts thousands of square miles and virtually shuts 

down an entire—several metropolitan areas, a separate designation 

is required to adequately respond to an event of such magnitude. 

A catastrophic disaster designation should be established based on 

total populations displaced residential property damage, the scope 

of the failure of the critical infrastructure on vital services that allows us to adjust regulations for assistance, the paperwork the bureaucracy. There is precedent for such a designation. 

The Homeland Security Presidential Director establishes a national response plan that is invoked for declared incidents of national significance. As we rebuild the gulf coast, I think, that it is 

the most important out of my three points that we learned this lesson, we have a precedence for it, that there is a significant difference between a catastrophic disaster and our response should be 

adjusted accordingly. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Jindal. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Melancon, you are the last to testify. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLIE MELANCON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. MELANCON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the 

opportunity to come here. I have submitted my comments for 

record. I was here earlier when Mr. Taylor and Mr. Pickering were 

giving their comments, I listened to part of Mr. Jefferson’s and all 

of that of Mr. Jindal. I would suspect that I would probably be repetitive and to save the committee some time, let me just say that 

I concur with their remarks thus far. There are some items—I 

would be happy to stay for questions but in order to kind of expedite the hearing, defer to my other two colleagues from Louisiana. 

Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Melancon. Let me ask 

all of you a question. Any ideas you have, this notion about fronting money up front when you have a truly catastrophic—we would 

have to define what this is. But in a—Katrina defines it for you. 

There may be something less than that, it would also be catastrophic. I will say to you, as I said to the last panel, we had all 

of your public officials in here ahead of time warning about the 

spending funds and how they get audited and all the rest of it. This 

25

notion of fronting funds is something that it would appear to be 

commonsense, except it is Federal funds and it is taxpayers’ funds. 

What I think the committee would need, because it makes obvious 

sense, and the committee could say there could be a reserve or 

money that would be available in a catastrophic disaster and define 

what that was—well, it doesn’t get you very far because if you say 

okay, here are your funds, that doesn’t mean that some auditor 

isn’t going to account for taxpayers’ funds. 

So what we need, given that commonsense idea, is how to do it, 

and account for it, how to, you know, obviously, you voucher for 

funds for a reason and it didn’t work in a catastrophic event. Well, 

I tell you why it won’t work just to go to the other end of the spectrum. This is where you need truly analytical new thinking in 

keeping with the new kind of catastrophe we have experienced. I 

don’t necessarily ask you off the top of your head, but that would 

be very useful to know how you could do that quickly and have the 

taxpayers trust you that you weren’t just throwing money out there 

because you wanted to kind of protect yourself from kind of criticism that for example FEMA got last time. 

I would like to ask you all because of the role that New Orleans 

played and the revenue of the State budget, what condition the 

State budget of Louisiana is in now that this major part of the 

city—sorry, the State, oil, New Orleans and all of that means in 

revenue, what does—what is the State itself, what is the State 

itself able to do, given the fact that perhaps a part of the State that 

was most responsible for revenue is out of commission and has lost 

its tax base? 

Mr. MELANCON. If I could, the State fisc at this juncture is in 

very good stead. However, it is a result of an economy where which 

if you look back at all past hurricanes and disaster is a booming 

economy, because of the rebuild and the construction, plus you 

have what is called the FEMA effect, everything that is being built 

down there now——

Ms. NORTON. That is great to hear. Has it spilled over to the rest 

of the State in your areas? 

Mr. MELANCON. Well, it is not the entire State. But the State fisc 

is in good stead at this point in point in time. Is that an event that 

will continue ad infinitum? No. It will slowly start fading off, and 

unless we get some of the changes that have been requested and 

some of the legislation that we have passed through the House 

with the——

Ms. NORTON. So taxes are being paid to the State, aren’t taxes 

being paid to local jurisdictions as well? 

Mr. JEFFERSON. I might amend that. For New Orleans—New Orleans didn’t benefit from either the boom in buying materials, 

sheetrock and appliances and all that stuff, because there weren’t 

any places to shop in New Orleans to speak of, so the sales tax 

benefits went to Baton Rouge some went to Jefferson Parish and 

other places, but none went to St. Bernard because there weren’t 

any places open for business. 

So our cities have suffering dramatically and it is a loss in taxes. 

I asked a man before I came up here, how much is back and he 

said about 60 percent of the tax base is back online but that is just 

recently. It has gone up gradually. There was one time when it was 

26

less than 20 percent and then it just has moved gradually up. But 

the city has incredibly indebtedness now somewhere near $300 million trying to overcome this lack of taxes, and it is still not where 

it needs to be and won’t be for a good long time so it is unable to 

pay for things and have it reimbursed. 

It is a mighty struggle to keep above water and to pay for all the 

things that one has to pay for, including fire and police and all the 

other things that are critical services. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. I would just simply add that my district in southwest Louisiana which has a number of rural communities, which 

were quite literally wiped out those communities are really struggling. I think Mr. Melancon, in southeast Louisiana, has the same 

sort of situation. Small agricultural-based communities fishing 

communities which had significant damage their tax base has been 

eroded significantly by this event and these communities are really 

having a hard time. Waiving the State match on some of these 

funds that we have talked about earlier would be of major importance to us, particularly in the rural communities. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you know it is interesting the contrast between the State getting revenue because of the rebuilding and local 

communities New Orleans doesn’t feel it, rural communities don’t 

feel it. I don’t understand how this works. At some point, there 

ought to be some—forgive me—trickle-down effect here. 

Mr. BAKER. If I may add, Madam Chair, I am one of the beneficiary communities, Baton Rouge just north of the storm impact, 

and it is our merchants who are getting the settlements out of the 

insurance proceeds, people came into clothing stores and would buy 

entire wardrobes, housewares, building materials, so there has 

been an exchange of commerce from Mr. Jefferson’s Orleans, Mr. 

Boustany’s coastal Rita area, to those residual municipalities that 

did not get adversely impacted by the storm. 

The net effect is a spike in State sales tax because of these transactions which includes an awful lot of automobiles, but as Mr. 

Melancon said we believe this to be a short term spike, it will flatten off and Orleans to the rest of the State, Orleans metropolitan 

area represents about 30 to 35 percent of the State’s overall economic income. So this short-term cash in the pocket is going to lead 

us—in my opinion, into some very difficult financial times in a few 

years to come. 

Ms. NORTON. Although typically the old pump the prime notion 

should mean that as building takes place throughout the State——

Mr. BAKER. The problem is, in this case, this storm took the 

pump, there is nothing in the ground, there is no slabs, there is 

no economic activity because we have complete dislocation of social 

order, schools, firehouses, everything is gone. And so, if you move 

back in as an individual today, you may be taking your own money 

and putting it at risk because you don’t know if your neighbors are 

going to come back and rebuild. Therefore, your real estate value 

is in jeopardy. And that is what is stymieing the wholesale recovery, which would normally occur where communities are damaged 

but not destroyed. These folks were wiped out. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. The other thing I would add, too, is that when 

you have your law enforcement functions that have really been 

devastated and damaged and understaffed and a health care sysVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:04 Nov 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35925 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
27

tem, which is really stressed, that also is a significant inhibition 

on recovery. 

Mr. JINDAL. And Madam Chairwoman, I would add one final 

point. I agree with everything that my colleagues have said. In addition to these being temporary revenues, let’s us also not forget 

there are some very significant obligations that haven’t been met. 

For example for the State to make whole all the people who have 

been promised in the road home program could take billions of dollars more than allocated. In addition, there has not been a final decision made to how to respond to the destruction caused within the 

charity hospital system. That could obligate the State to be spending hundreds of millions, if not more, dollars. 

Third, there is a significant coastal erosion problem in Mr. 

Melancon’s, and it affects all of our districts. The State has temporary surplus of revenues, but there are some very, very serious 

obligations, and we shouldn’t forget that those obligations are 

much larger than even those temporary surpluses. 

Mr. JEFFERSON. May I make one other small point, unlike almost 

every storm we can talk about, particularly down in my area and 

Charlie’s area, we are in so much trouble there and we were devastated because the levies broke. It was Federally designed, constructed and maintained levies that gave way that drowned the 

City of New Orleans, and that drowned St. Bernard Parish, that 

not having been taking place, we wouldn’t be talking about this 

level of devastation. That is not true along the western coast of the 

State, but it certainly is true where we are. And so, I think there 

is a larger responsibility here on the part of the Federal Government to make our region whole. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I certainly agree. I begin with who pumps the 

prime—or pumps the pump, whatever, first and if you look at Europe, didn’t need us after a while, or if you look even at for that 

matter the Great Depression, first the government begins to do the 

building the public building that is necessary, then everything else 

takes off. You can’t expect the private sector to start rebuilding a 

State. You start with the Federal Government or with the public 

sector. Then, of course, you begin to peel off into the private sector 

the private sector then get some of that, and you begin to rebuild. 

And after a while, you look at Europe, they didn’t need us for very 

long after we were in there on the ground initially. Before I go to 

more questions, I am going to move to the ranking member. 

Mr. GRAVES. I don’t have anything. 

Ms. NORTON. We have been joined by a member of the full committee, Ms. Brown. Ms. Brown do you have a statement before I 

continue with questions? 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. CORRINE BROWN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Ms. CORRINE BROWN OF FLORIDA. Yes, I do, Madam Chairman. 

And I want to thank you for inviting me to come today and to testify about my experiences with dealing with the unresolved problems regarding Hurricane Katrina. And I say all the time that I 

view myself as the people in the New Orleans, Mississippi, Louisiana area member at large. I am very interested in helping them 

to resolve their problems. I have been to New Orleans seven times, 

28

and I am going again in June. Sadly, every time I have been there 

it looks like a war zone. It is unbelievable that 20 months have 

passed and the most basic human needs have not yet been met. 20 

months later and residents are not able to move back. 

There is still debris everywhere and people are without electricity. Twenty months later, and there are impassible roads and 

no clean water, not enough teachers. Twenty months later, no 

street sign, toxic fumes in the air and not enough police officers. 

Twenty months later is unacceptable. You know, I am proud to be 

a part of the new Democratic majority and part of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that recognized that we need 

to fix these problems fast. It is my hope that my testimony and 

other statements from colleagues and some other problems that can 

easily be fixed and give the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi 

finally a chance to rebuild. 

My testimony today will highlight a few of the problems that I 

heard from residents and their families, and I think that can easily 

be fixed. The major problem is getting the funding to the residents. 

Frankly, there seems to be two problems, one FEMA and one the 

State. And what seems to be the problem is they don’t understand 

that we are loading the people down with complicated paperwork. 

Let me give you an example. Louisiana applied for a FEMA hazard mitigation grant program that would fund the road program. 

FEMA denies their claim and calls a shortage of funds for the road 

home program. Now residents have to wait even longer to rebuild. 

Another FEMA problem regarding the damage assessment. I heard 

FEMA falsely assured school districts—and I heard this from superintendents when I was there. They reported in New Orleans 

and Mississippi, they had okayed the projects and the school system went out, purchased sites, rebuilt. And now they have not gotten the reimbursement and FEMA has denied them the additional 

funding. That is a problem and the problem that superintendents 

have told me exist. In addition, I went to the airport and the administration went with big checks, they blew up the checks. Here’s 

the money, $25 million or whatever, but they whispered in the ear 

of the airport directors, now you can’t put it in the bank. And to 

this day, they have not gotten the funds. And so the horror story 

of the government not functioning, a government that is inept incompetent, that don’t care. 

And so I have a list of concerns that I want to submit in writing. 

Another one is that stands out is the SBA loan program. Now, if 

you apply for the loan program and you have gotten assistance 

from another area, they take the entire lump sum out, wherein if 

you had a loan, you could pay it back over the period of time with 

small interests. That is not the case. I would like to thank Chairman Norton for allowing me to testify today and her leadership on 

this issue. 

I am looking forward to working with members from Louisiana, 

Mississippi, and other members from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to finally help the residents from the Hurricane Katrina recovery, and let me just close that I have adopted 

a family there. I brought them to Orlando for a week. But the key 

there is that I took their plight to the White House, letters, their 

casework and we were able to get the funding after 18 months laid 

29

out, although they told me they haven’t received a penny; they 

have gotten in writing they would receive the money. 

One of the ladies died last Saturday and they had the funeral, 

but at least she knew that her funds was on the way, and the VA—

I am pleased to say that we are on the right path as far as making 

sure that the funding to replace that system is in place. I would 

ask for hearings from the VA to make sure that we can cut down 

the amount of time it takes to deliver a hospital to the veterans 

in that area in particular. In the area of transportation and infrastructure, I am asking my governor to convene a conference with 

the governors in those areas so that we can have a train, economic 

development train, but also one that when we have another hurricane, and we will have another one, we will be able to move people 

out of harm’s way. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Brown, for your 

sustained interest in this part—this part of the country. I know 

that your experience in Florida has made you particularly conscious of the needs when an even more catastrophic event occurs 

in another State. I only have a couple questions and a question 

that really plays off of one that ranking member asked. But first, 

I would like to ask you a question, a couple questions that appear 

to have come from the City of New Orleans, that involve—would 

involve were such matters to be adopted a rather unusual intervention into State affairs. First, the city implies if a truly catastrophic 

event occurs, and we again have to define what that means, the 

State should be compelled to accept immediate needs funding. This 

must mean the State did not immediately accept such funding. I 

am not sure why, but I would like your thoughts on Federal Government to that extent when the State has not instantly or immediately accepted immediate needs funding. 

Mr. BAKER. Madam Chair, I don’t know that I am the right person to respond to the question, but I can go back to those opening 

hours of the storm’s approach at the operations and control center 

in Baton Rouge where the State police and later the governor’s operations were finally located. There was much disarray in those 

early hours, and the delay in my opinion—I am certainly not 

speaking for any other member, in bringing in the National Guard 

to help restoration of order was a significant impairment to our recovery capability. When individuals with goods and services arrived 

on the scene, there was civil disobedience of significance. And the 

first responders simply refused to go in until social order was restored. That cost precious days and presented you with those pictures of people standing on elevated interstates without even water 

to drink. That is unacceptable. I have, and remain an advocate of 

early intervention in a catastrophic environment where social order 

has been completely lost and we had no law enforcement on the 

ground to speak of, for the National Guard to come in and assume 

operational control immediately on stabilizing the community. All 

matters should be then delegated to the local authorities to determine the next step. This would be temporary but it would be immediate. The funding issue is something frankly that would not—expedited funding would not simply have mattered in the early hours 

of the response, because there was no place to deploy the money 

anyway. 

30

The first place that money was deployed was at the centers 

where people were temporarily housed and we, for a short while, 

had the $2,000 program that was given to people to help them get 

on the road and to other shelters. That did not work very well either. So there is great room for improvement in response mechanisms in those first 48 hours of a storm of this magnitude. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Madam Chair, I would agree with Mr. Baker, 

and relate my experience with this. In the immediate hours after 

Katrina, I was at the communications center for the largest privately owned ambulance emergency medical services company in 

the country, but it does provide the bulk of emergency services 

throughout our State of Louisiana. They had the only functional 

communications system in the State and we were getting real-time 

information from paramedics who were trying to get in and who 

were fearing for their lives in these early hours. 

So clearly, when you have a disaster of this magnitude, the 

logistical capability that could be brought to bear by our military 

and certainly National Guard is essential. And I had calls, for instance, from someone who had an armored car service trying to get 

money to ATMs to desperately help people in need who couldn’t get 

in because of crime concerns. So law enforcement and getting order 

is essential in those early hours. It goes hand in hand with the 

emergency effort. And there was considerable chaos early on and 

there was very poor communication. In fact, the center where I was 

sitting and working with others was the only place where we had 

viable communication in the entire area. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Jefferson, this idea appears to have come from 

the City of New Orleans. What do you have to say about it? 

Mr. JEFFERSON. I think the City of New Orleans is right in this 

regard. As I have said earlier, I think as a structural matter, the 

notion that the State has to be the only entity to be dealt with here 

and the State has to agree to a coordinated response is, to me, unrealistic. I think that if you look at what happened on 9/11, the 

Stafford Act still applied, and it said the money goes to the State. 

But the governor made a decision that was different than what was 

made at home. He said, we got the moneys, sent it to the mayor 

of the city and said get things fixed. 

If it works that way, it is a beautiful thing, but if it doesn’t, if 

you get bottlenecking in one place or another, it doesn’t work. So 

I would think that as a structural matter, if the devastation takes 

place and parish X we ought to have a more direct way to get 

things to parish X authorities, through the Stafford Act, rather 

than have it all having to go through the State, which requires coordination. 

Second of all, as has been pointed out, the communication system 

must be compatible. A lot of this discussion about the crime and 

lawlessness was as we found out later, it was rumored but nonetheless, it kept people out. I suspect some of it was real, but when 

they got through all the investigations, all the things about murders and all the rest of it, it turned out not to be so. It was a complete deterrent early on and kept people from not taking the risk 

of going down. Second thing is prepositioning of pretty much everything. 

31

I think on the public side prepositioning of the fire and police 

folks in a position where they can kind of—not be victims but come 

back and be of service is very, very important and have the local 

folks have a chance to do things. 

Second of all, contract prepositioning, we had these four big contracts, or five, whatever it was, came in there with no-bid contracts, we had no small business folks, no local people ready to do 

very much of anything. I think this whole thing has to anticipate 

that we can have the prepositioning issues done with local contractors and with our local first responders, have communication so 

that everybody can kind of have good information and be able to 

talk to each other through and a more direct way to get aid directly 

to the affected areas without having it to go through all the——

Ms. NORTON. Very sensitive issue. But again catastrophic funding. I will tell you one thing, by of course going through the usual 

protocol administration we should say the Federal Government 

took the rap. So if, in fact, lives are lost or there is civil disorder 

because you are going through the statutory protocol State, local, 

Federal, whenever that comes in, in the long run, the world will 

see the Federal Government as having not come to the aid of its 

own citizens. Another controversial perhaps notion—that a suggestion that has come forward to us is that FEMA should have the responsibility for managing and setting up, establishing some kind of 

national evacuation plan. 

I think there might be some concern about that in terms of 

homeland security, although one should see these as exactly the 

same kind of disaster, if an evacuation was necessary. What do 

you—what are your views on whether there should be such a thing 

as a national evacuation plan? 

Mr. BOUSTANY. I don’t think it should go from the top down. I 

believe there should be significant input from the governors and 

from the States and from the local communities working in tandem 

with FEMA. I know that the particularities of the situation on the 

ground and their respective locations, and I think evacuation plans 

should be worked out at the State level, but with some Federal 

input as to, you know, how to expedite these things and where pitfalls may come. I think if everybody is working together, if you prepare ahead, then there is less confusion when you have a problem. 

But I do believe that one of the problems we have had is we 

probably perhaps thought FEMA could do too much, and I think 

there was a lack of clarity as to what exactly FEMA’s role is in 

something like this. Because clearly FEMA didn’t have all the resources necessary. So I think there needs to be clear communication beforehand about proper roles and who is going to do what 

from you know the individual counties or parishes with their emergency personnel to the State and communicating with FEMA. 

Mr. BAKER. Madam Chair, if I may, I would suggest—I return 

to my catastrophic risk assessment idea, coordinating all known 

available data in real-time, what is difficult for local officials is to 

say let’s evacuate. You have to shut down businesses, inconvenience people, take kids out of school, run by the grocery, get the 

car filled up, and then don’t know where you are going. A model 

that would enable all the available commercial and governmental 

data just to be visible on a screen where you as a person get home, 

32

you see where the storm is, the likely storm track. That is the 

weather station. 

Then you see that the hotel bookings in central Louisiana are beginning to fill up. That is a warning. You see that there’s gas shortages from lake Charles going west from the storm track. You see 

that the storm is intensifying. You see that there is—you know 

there is health care problems, perhaps elderly being transferred 

from nursing homes into other hospital care facilities. All of those 

are dynamic predictors that convince local constituents in a way 

local officials cannot, and if there is to be another Katrina-like 

event in the New Orleans area and we don’t start getting people 

out 3 days in advance, we can’t get them out. 

If there is not enough contraflow to get all the vehicles out of 

that region of the State without significant advance warning, and 

the way we do it is to begin to tell people, local resources around 

the corner are being depleted, and if you don’t leave now, you may 

not even be able to buy gas. People were stuck on the interstate 

as much as eight and 10 hours to get from New Orleans just to my 

city of Baton Rouge, and from there I had people staying at my 

home. I had people staying in my campaign headquarters. 

Everywhere you could find a place to put people you would put 

people because all the commercial assets filled up too quickly, and 

they didn’t have the resources to get away in time. So I really 

think that—and that is not just for our committee. I think any 

community subject to coastal risk ought to have some sort of system that has all those inputs. And there is a lot of people that can 

tell us how to construct these things to give people the judgment 

and skills they need. 

Mr. BAKER. And that goes, as opposed to a national plan that is 

static in form, that has a rule book. I think the dynamics of these 

things are so unpredictable we need something that is real-time. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. I would agree with that and, first, it is one of the 

problems we had was finding hospital beds, and we ended up using 

that communication center I mentioned on an ad hoc basis, getting 

information about where people were coming from and making 

phone calls to get real-time information about where to transfer 

hospital patients from one damaged or flooded hospital to where 

hospital beds were available, and this was going not only statewide 

but actually outside of the State of Louisiana. And it was sort of 

an ad hoc ′′from the ground up′′ type of effort, and I think Federal 

Emergency Management Agency can provide oversight for when 

you have, for instance, a disaster beyond just a county, where you 

are involving multiple counties, then FEMA can provide sort of the 

coordination. But you have to have the communication, real-time 

communication, to really make this work. 

Mr. JEFFERSON. Let me say one thing. I think at the end of the 

day in New Orleans, if you are going to test if the evacuation 

worked based on who was left in town, I will give you an idea of 

what I think happened. First responders were left there because 

they had to be. They were asked to stay, they were trying to be 

helpful, whether they were pumping water—fire, police. Some of 

those folks were left and trapped in town. The folks who were infirm, who were in nursing facilities and who were in senior citizen 

facilities and all the rest of it, people who were dependent on other 

33

people to move them and who could not make a decision on their 

own were also left. Hospitals—folks in hospitals were left and 

abandoned. Our tourists were stuck there who were in hotels and 

all the rest. And, finally, poor people. Really poor folks were left 

there because they didn’t have any way to get out of town. They 

had no cars. They had no money. They had no whatever. So in 

those five categories that is why we had folks left in the city. 

Now, part of the responsibility lays on the part of the Federal 

Government for not, for example, helping the city plan. Part of it 

was on the city. All of them didn’t do it right. None of them participated in all these issues and none of them did it correctly. 

We had an exercise here called Hurricane Pam which was a 

FEMA-orchestrated worst-case scenario storm in New Orleans. And 

they anticipated many of these things, but didn’t do anything about 

it. And so one of the big deals is to actually—if you are going to 

do a Hurricane Pam kind of an event as a simulation, then do all 

the things that you know can work in that sort of storm. 

I do not believe the Federal Government would be in charge of 

the evacuation plan and all of that. I think they ought to be big 

partners in this. They have many more resources—we have many 

more resources here on this level than the States or local governments ever had, so there must be coordination in the use of them. 

But I do think they can provide a lot of technical help in planning, 

because as Richard points out, there are facilities all over the country that can be used in the case—as it were in this case—that folks 

weren’t prepared to provide. 

They also are first responders all over the country that were 

made available to help, ere ours actually are overwhelmingly becoming, themselves, victims. But there are different remedies to be 

applied to folks who are tourists who are there trapped in hotels, 

people who are too poor to find their way out of town, folks in hospitals and therefore dependent on others, older people who are infirm, and those who are first responders who had to stay and try 

to rescue. So each required a different approach to dealing with it. 

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate your input on that. The notion about 

real-time evacuation and how to make sure that is coordinated, I 

take that question. What I think is left out of your analysis is that 

if you are evacuating, you are evacuating to someplace else. You 

are evacuating to somebody else’s State. You don’t have jurisdiction 

in somebody else’s State. Only the Federal Government has that 

kind of jurisdiction. There is one thing to say, as I think you probably say, again we are learning from Katrina. And Katrina was 

just about getting people to go someplace, anywhere, quick. Okay, 

we got that. 

A national evacuation plan would have to prepare Texas, would 

have to prepare other States around, to understand they may receive people. Might even—might even decide where people from 

one part of the State might go, or cities in—Baton Rouge took a 

huge number of people from New Orleans—might even make arrangements ahead of time on a temporary basis. 

We can talk about Katrina all we want to. If there is a catastrophic terrorist event where, in addition to knowing somehow 

that the floods would recede, you are left with not knowing where 

the terrorist event came from or what to do, it will certainly not 

34

be enough to say to the Governor of the Stat, Why didn’t you evacuate people? 

If it is a nuclear device, evacuating people, for example, in the 

direction of where the nuclear residue is coming from would be further catastrophe. 

I am struggling with this. This is for very good reason these matters have been State matters. But, you know, this is the 21st century now. And this is global terrorism. This is, yes, Katrina writ 

large. 

Mr. BAKER. Madam Chair, if I may suggest——

Ms. NORTON. But I need you to think about, particularly in light 

of the confusion that developed around going through the protocols, 

about the timing it takes to go through the protocols, and about the 

terrible effect on other people who are still feeling that effect in 

surrounding States, but have simply acted like good Americans and 

have absorbed the effect. 

Now, it is one thing to absorb the effect from people who come 

in relatively healthy. It is another thing to absorb the effect of people coming in contaminated with something that has gone off in 

their area. It is the failure to think of the next catastrophe that 

bothers me about Katrina, because I am not sure that another 

Katrina will occur for some time to come. But given what has happened in global warming, the unpredictability of—we have tornadoes in Florida now, and the rest. I am very worried about our 

overlearning——

Mr. BAKER. Madam Chair——

Ms. NORTON. —certain kinds of mistakes and not moving, not 

moving forward as a result. 

I am hearing him. I am going to finish saying what I am saying 

and then I am going to call on him. 

This is an issue of some concern, takes very deep thinking and 

analysis incorporating what we have learned, trying to imagine 

what is unimaginable, and bearing in mind that just as the State 

took the rap for evacuation, there is still controversy about whether 

or not there was some Federal role to be played there. And the 

next event may present an entirely new circumstance. And I hear 

very little to help me think as a Federal official how to deal with 

that. 

Now, Mr. Baker. 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, very much, Madam Chair. 

I would merely point out that in the early hours of any type of 

catastrophe, principally the hurricane we experienced, but almost 

any catastrophe, there is of necessary consequence a local decisionmaking-driven process. And the system I am encouraging to be promoted is advisory in nature, not mandatory, in that you give people 

information. Some will use it. We know some won’t. Some will adamantly refuse to leave. 

Ms. NORTON. I understand that and I accept that. That is an important contribution. I am talking about some kind of framework 

that—for example, here in the District of Columbia, where, by the 

way, 200,000 Federal employees that come in and go out, they don’t 

even live here. 

The first thing we have learned is, hey, evacuate. Well, that 

builds human catastrophe of unspeakable proportions on what is 

35

likely to be a rather small event that happens in one part. But that 

is what everybody thinks now. They think you ought to evacuate. 

I will tell you one thing. There is no way to get out of this city 

and there is no place to go. And I don’t think Maryland or Virginia 

has the answer to that. 

Mr. BAKER. My point merely was that our citizens went to concentrated points of relief and thousands were in temporary shelters 

for about a 3-month period. Those are the people that then later 

located out of our State to our great neighbors in Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas. 

So it is a staged event. If the——

Ms. NORTON. And I am suggesting, again, it may not be a staged 

event next time. The thing may be get out of Dodge, get as far from 

your State as possible. I am not asking for off-the-cuff answers. I 

am asking for us to imagine whether people are going to be in the 

State, anywhere near the State, given certain kinds of catastrophic 

events. I understand how it happened there, how it peeled off. People just wanted to get out of the flood area then. 

But I am trying to force us to think about an event of the kind 

Katrina was, an event we couldn’t possibly imagine. 

Mr. Jefferson. 

Mr. JEFFERSON. I think that you have challenged, at least me, 

beyond my capacity to respond fully to you. But I do want to say 

this much. There are a lot of places in Louisiana that could have 

accommodated our people if we had thought about this thing earlier. In other words, we don’t have to really necessarily involve 

other States. We are dealing with the southern Louisiana phenomenon. It could be Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria. We could 

have places up there that people could go. 

Ms. NORTON. Do you think they spread out rather evenly and 

well——

Mr. JEFFERSON. What happened was people make their first decisions themselves as to where they would go. If you know somebody 

in Alexandria, you went there——

Ms. NORTON. Right, if you have relatives there. 

Mr. JEFFERSON. Right. Then go to Atlanta or Texas, whether 

there was a hotel room, whether they thought they were coming 

back home in 3 days. Nobody thought about this thing as a 2-year 

event—is what it has turned out to be—and beyond that now in the 

next few weeks. So it is certainly something we hadn’t thought 

through. 

The challenge you are presenting to us is let’s stop and think this 

through, because if it happened once it can happen again, maybe 

not in the form of a hurricane, maybe some other form. 

I am not prepared to provide an answer, but I can tell you there 

are ways we can look at this that can involve some Federal assistance helping us to make these plans and some Federal resource allocations that can help us do things, perhaps in our own State, that 

can end up with a different result from what we faced here. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Madam Chair, I would just add something. I believe you have to look at the scale of these different events from 

perhaps a small localized event all the way to a major catastrophic 

event involving multiple States, multiple communities. And I think 

a way to approach this is to have mayors talking to the regional 

36

mayors to have cooperative agreements, have the Governors of the 

respective States having an overall umbrella plan for the State, 

and then perhaps a Governor of a State talking to contiguous 

States with cooperative agreements. 

We did this in southwest Louisiana with our mayors, to allocate 

resources in the immediate chaos after Hurricane Rita, and it 

worked very well. In fact, we bypassed the chaos in Baton Rouge 

where everything was bottle-necked. Every request had to go 

through Baton Rouge. It took hours, and sometimes days, to get 

things. We found alternative ways to get supplies—gasoline, diesel 

and so forth, medical supplies—by having this sort of cooperative 

arrangement. 

I think FEMA with its regional offices should be actively engaged 

with the States and the local communities before these events so 

that they can kind of model out what happened after a particular 

event. If we do that, we will have a proper system in place and that 

is——

Ms. NORTON. That is the kind of thinking I am talking about. 

Yes go ahead. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. I think the final point I would make is that there 

has to be a trigger for when a Federal response occurs. We saw an 

interminable delay after Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans 

area before we saw the full mobilization of a Federal response. And 

when that Federal response began, it was a thing of beauty. It 

worked very well in the immediate recovery—or immediate response stage, I should say. 

What is that trigger point? Particularly if a Governor is sort of—

if a Governor is incapacitated or paralyzed by the situation, indecisive, at what point does the Federal Government move in? This is 

a real problem after Katrina and I submit to you it is not a problem we have solved yet, and it is something we need to address 

here at the Federal level. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Boustany, I think there is Federal authority to 

require the States to gather together and work out the kind of regional understanding that you—here you wouldn’t have the Federal Government for doing it. What does the Federal Government 

know to do for, for example, in this region? They would have to say 

look, Maryland, D.C, and Virginia, you figure out what would happen if there was an evacuation. In fact, the most important thing 

we would have to figure out is how to make people stay in place, 

because we are less likely to have a flood or a natural disaster than 

we are to have a terrorist event. 

What Mr. Jefferson said, I think, is driven home by a 2-year 

event. Mr. Baker said, first, people came to points nearby and then 

they fanned out into other places; because as Mr. Jefferson said, no 

one thought it would be a 2-year event. 

I give you this, gentlemen. Every time thus far that we have 

passed a piece of legislation, the 10 percent—I think—matching, 

each time those States have come in and said, ′′me too.′′ and you 

know what? Each time we have done so—when Texas comes in, 

when Florida comes in, and says as a result of Katrina—Arkansas 

in particular—each time we felt we had to do this. But notice how 

we have had to do it. We have had to do it on an ad hoc basis because the Stafford Act does not take into account the effect on the 

37

States, surrounding States, and, for that matter, other localities. 

That is dangerous. We do have freedom of movement across this 

country. But, particularly if we have certain kinds of catastrophic 

events, if in fact the States believe that a whole hoard of people 

were going to come in from another State, and give you a 50 percent increase in people attending your schools and in people who 

want your State legislature to come up with the State share of 

Medicaid, and with people who wanted food stamps, with your legislature to do it, I would tell you I would hate to see what would 

happen to the normal generosity of the American people. 

So I think we have to look at—and I appreciate the notion of the 

States getting together. The Federal Government could say, 

′′whatever you decide,′′ but could require that the States in the regional configurations where they usually operate in this area—I 

know exactly what those configurations are. They are Montgomery 

County, Fairfax, the District of Columbia. I mean, I know exactly 

where they are. So we wouldn’t be inventing anything new. 

I suspect that, depending on where you are in Louisiana, you 

work more closely with Arkansas, with Texas, or with whoever it 

is. 

Just let me finally say to Mr. Graves, do you have any further 

questions? 

We held this hearing because we did not believe that the committee was in a position to know what should be done in the nature 

of what we are anticipating doing. We intend to put together a set 

of legislative fixes. These fixes would pertain to your areas alone. 

They would say to FEMA, this is—perhaps some of them will have 

time limitations. They will all relate to Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. 

Any further information you have would be what is most useful 

to us. None of us have experienced what you have experienced. 

Your constituents do not come to us, they come to you. So I invite 

you, in addition to the very helpful testimony you presented today, 

to keep it coming to us as we prepare the legislative fixes that are 

now—that your testimony has is already suggested. 

Ms. CORRINE BROWN OF FLORIDA. Madam Chairman, I have a 

question. But let me just say, like quickly, that the FEMA that you 

all experienced is not the FEMA that we dealt with in Florida and 

I really—you know, one of the things, we did a lot of reorganization 

after 9/11, and I don’t think all of it was good. Because how we 

changed the role and scope of FEMA, first of all, the Wall Street 

Journal printed an article—or New York Times—with 20 top physicians. Not one of the 20 top had any disaster experience. 

Now, I don’t know how far we should go as legislators to say 

what it is as far as job description. I don’t feel that we have to do 

that. But the point is you can’t appoint your friends in life-anddeath situations. 

As we move forward, we need to figure out the role of Red Cross. 

They go into the community—as you think of the bigger picture—

they go into the community and they have contracts; but what 

process do they use to include the local businesses in even delivery 

of food, or contracts, working with them? 

First responders came into the area. They came from—I know 

they came from Jacksonville. We sent 16 tractor-trailers, but the 

first responders in many areas weren’t permitted, Madam ChairVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:04 Nov 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\35925 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
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man, to go into the community, because FEMA didn’t certify them 

or something. We talking about physicians. We talking about doctors that was practicing in emergency rooms. We talking about firefighters that was there playing ball, because they was not permitted to come into the area. Not that they didn’t want to come, 

they was not permitted to come. 

So we have—just last Sunday I met a young lady in a nursing 

home—and we need to have plans not just for the New Orleans 

area, but period. It should be a national program so that when people go into nursing homes and they didn’t have the supplies, the 

family did not know what people in various nursing homes was 

taken to. So we have got a lot of work and it is interesting. This 

was a national disaster, what you are seeing. But what if someone 

was constantly attacking us? That would be a major problem. 

Now, one other thing. The ships in the area—a lot of captains 

call me, there are ships that are available that could be brought 

in, we could have carried a lot of the supplies, but we didn’t even 

call them up. And many of the Navy people called me and many 

of the captains saying they have always been sent to other countries. How come, when we had a natural disaster in our country, 

we didn’t utilize their services? 

So it needs to be more working together with the various agencies, and perhaps the role of FEMA is a lot bigger than just FEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. Brown. 

On the matter of the qualifications of the top officials with 

FEMA today, the committee has asked for an audit of the qualifications of all of those officials, because we want to make sure we 

don’t have another Brownie situation. And there have been complaints that although some of these people are military, they do not 

have disaster experience. 

I want to thank the Members again for really very helpful testimony and urge you to keep it coming to us as we prepare our own 

bill. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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