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LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS IN

RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA

(109–40)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

TRANSPORTATION AND

INFRASTRUCTURE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 3, 2005

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice-Chair

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

SUE W. KELLY, New York

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

GARY G. MILLER, California

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

SAM GRAVES, Missouri

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

TED POE, Texas

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

CONNIE MACK, Florida

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

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

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD,

California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

(II)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas, Vice-Chair

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York

DON YOUNG, Alaska

(Ex Officio)

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota

(Ex Officio)

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS

TESTIMONY

Page

Blumenauer, Hon. Earl, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Oregon ................................................................................................................... 11

Foley, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida ...... 7

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

Kennedy, Hon. Patrick J., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Rhode Island ......................................................................................................... 5

Kolbe, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arizona ........ 3

Lantos, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of California . 13

Pickering, Hon. Charles W. ‘‘Chip’’, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Mississippi .............................................................................................. 17

Platts, Hon. Todd Russell, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ........................................................................................ 8

Schmidt, Hon. Jean, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio ....... 16

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Connecticut ........................................................................................................... 14

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Blumenauer, Hon. Earl, of Oregon ......................................................................... 26

H.R. 3524, section-by-section and text of bill ..................................................... 27

Davis, Hon. Tom, of Virginia .................................................................................. 43

Foley, Hon. Mark, of Florida .................................................................................. 45

H.R. 1870 and H.R. 3685, text ............................................................................ 48

Jindal, Hon. Bobby, of Louisiana ........................................................................... 57

H.R. 3747, H.R. 3208, and H.R. 4163, text ........................................................ 61

Kennedy, Hon. Patrick J., of Rhode Island ........................................................... 81

H.R. 3565, text ..................................................................................................... 87

Kolbe, Hon. Jim, of Arizona .................................................................................... 112

H.R. 3737, section-by-section, talking points, Dear Colleagues, and text ....... 117

Lantos, Hon. Tom, of California ............................................................................. 149

H.R. 3858, text ..................................................................................................... 150

Mack, Hon. Connie, of Florida ................................................................................ 153

Menendez, Hon. Robert, of New Jersey ................................................................. 155

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia ................................. 157

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 159

Platts, Hon. Todd Russell, of Pennsylvania ........................................................... 162

H.R. 3810, text ..................................................................................................... 165

Schmidt, Hon. Jean, of Ohio ................................................................................... 169

H. Con. Res. 285, text .......................................................................................... 174

Shaw, Hon. E. Clay, Jr., of Florida ........................................................................ 176

H.R. 1137, text ..................................................................................................... 180

Shays, Hon. Christopher, of Connecticut ............................................................... 189

Udall, Hon. Mark, of Colorado ................................................................................ 190

H.R. 3816, section-by-section and text ............................................................... 192

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD

H.R. 3764, text ......................................................................................................... 195

H.R. 4266, text and Section-by-Section .................................................................. 212

(1)

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS IN RESPONSE TO

HURRICANE KATRINA

Thursday, November 3, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2167,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Shuster [chairman of the

committee] presiding.

Mr. SHUSTER. The Subcommittee will come to order.

We are meeting this morning to discuss legislative proposals on

the recovery effort in New Orleans and the gulf region. I look forward to numerous proposals on issues ranging from accountability,

to Stafford Act amendments and ensuring a successful recovery.

There has been a great deal of concern expressed lately, especially by members of Congress, over how we will ensure accountability over the billions of dollars that will be spent on the recovery

effort in the Gulf region. I agree that it is imperative that sufficient

oversight be in place to protect the American taxpayer from waste,

fraud, and abuse. We should also be mindful that accountability is

paramount to a successful recovery of the region. In this effort,

every dollar we lose to waste, fraud and abuse is a dollar not spent

helping the people of the impacted region.

On Tuesday, the President appointed a reconstruction czar to

oversee recovery efforts in the Gulf region. While I believe this is

a step in the right direction, I am concerned that this does not fully

address the problem. For example, will the selection of a recovery

czar lead to more aggressive and successful recovery of the region?

What will this czar’s role be? A successful Federal effort could

hinge on the answers to these questions.

So who is qualified to manage the reconstruction effort? As imperfect as FEMA may be, FEMA is the only Government entity

with the experience and the expertise to manage and coordinate

the disaster recovery. I believe, as I have mentioned many times,

FEMA can and should lead this effort, but we must increase

FEMA’s capacity to handle the job and make the necessary amendments to the Stafford Act’s recovery provisions.

The Stafford Act provides broad authority for the President to respond to major disasters. As a result, the obstacles to a successful

response are not in law, but in the execution of the existing response authorities. Unfortunately, the legal provisions for a recovery operation are not as clean cut. While the Stafford Act’s authorities can achieve recovery, it has never before been called upon to
2

do so much for so many people. I hope proposals will be made today

to adapt and streamline the recovery provisions of the Stafford Act

to handle disasters of this magnitude.

We are all well versed in the damage and destruction caused by

Hurricane Katrina. We have expressed concerns for successful recovery operations. Two months after the disaster, we now have a

better understanding of the needs of the region and its people. In

my opinion, we are reaching a critical stage of the recovery operation. We either develop a Federal recovery plan that supports

State and local decisions and enables the region to return to its

pre-hurricane condition, or we will remain forever responsible for

the largest recovery failure this Nation has experienced. Such a

plan must encompass direct Government assistance, private sector

participation, accountability, flexibility, and respect for local decisions.

I look forward to hearing of relevant proposals from our colleagues today and I remind everyone that while accountability is

necessary to protect the interests of taxpayers, we must not lose

focus of our primary goal, which is to ensure a successful reconstruction and rebirth of the region.

I want to briefly discuss the format for today’s hearings. As much

as possible, we have tried to accommodate members’ requests on

timing issues, but as you are all aware, this is rarely possible.

However, if members testifying today limit their testimony to five

minutes, we will be able to quickly move through all the proposals.

In keeping with Committee policy, we will not ask questions of

the members. However, I would like to assure my colleagues that

if we have questions at a later time, we will not hesitate to ask.

I would now like to recognize Ms. Norton for an opening statement.

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

I am going to put my written statement into the record and simply thank you for this third of the three hearings that you indicated you would be holding after the Katrina crisis emerged. We

are doing in this hearing what we pledged to do from the beginning, and that is to look at FEMA, in particular, the Agency under

our jurisdiction and see in what ways the Agency can be improved.

In our last hearing, a joint hearing with Water Resources, we

heard from the Governor of the State and the Mayor of New Orleans, and we looked specifically at that city’s vision for the future

and at the recovery issues surrounding that particular city and

that State. With this hearing, this third hearing, the time for action has come. We can perhaps find no better way to take action

than to hear from our colleagues who have their own ideas about

how to proceed. I am sure we can benefit from those ideas.

I am concerned that the Mayor in interviews has indicated that

the momentum that was present right after the crisis that alarmed

our Country and the world has slipped, and there have been many

complaints in the Gulf region about the pace of the recovery efforts.

For me, there is an overarching question, and that is whether or

not FEMA is more or less effective as a part of the Department of

Human Services. That is the kind of question you can tackle only

after you have looked at a broader range of issues.
3

I do note that we have hurricanes and we have floods and we

have tornadoes every year. It appeared that the specific kind of disaster that you can count on was the kind of disaster that FEMA

was the least prepared for. We have to find out why. We understand, indeed it was entirely understandable that after 9/11 FEMA

would be focused more on terrorism than before. But it appears

that they were, that the Agency was disproportionately focused on

terrorism and not on natural disasters that hit every section of our

Country every year. We have to find out what we can do to make

sure that doesn’t happen again and that the focus is where we

know there will be great issues on an annual basis.

I am particularly grateful to our colleagues, particularly because

they are not on the Committee, many of them are not even in the

region, but they bring, it seems to me, fresh eyes and fresh ideas

that we can all benefit from, and I very much appreciate their efforts as well and appreciate all three of these hearings, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. And thank you for your dedication to

this process we have been going through. I want to also welcome

and just echo what the Ranking Member said to members from different committees, different parts of the Country. I think that is

what this place is all about. There are fresh ears, fresh eyes and

ideas taking a look at this situation.

So I would like to ask unanimous consent that all of our witnesses’ testimony be made part of the record. Without objection, so

ordered.

First up, I would like to call on Chairman Kolbe from Arizona

for his testimony.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JIM KOLBE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

Mr. KOLBE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will adhere

to your admonishment to keep the testimony short. The full testimony has been submitted for the record. I just want to summarize

a few of the thoughts that I had and obviously would answer the

questions you may submit later, if you have any.

I have introduced legislation, H.R. 3737, which would create a

Special Inspector General for Hurricane Katrina Recovery. This

legislation grew out of my own experience as Chairman of the Foreign Operations Committee, where we created a special Inspector

General for Iraq Reconstruction. I think it has been enormously

helpful in preventing millions of dollars of waste and fraud that

might otherwise have occurred in Iraq.

As Chairman of that Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, we

created this because we could see the large number of different elements and entities that were involved in the reconstruction. There

was no kind of central authority for the oversight of it. We monitored this work throughout, and I think it has been extraordinarily

successful.

So what we are proposing with an independent Inspector General

for Katrina, whose tenure would last only until the Katrina recovery is completed, would be a watchdog with oversight over all the

Federal Hurricane Katrina emergency funding. I think it is obvious, everybody agrees about the need for oversight through an in-
4

spector general. The Department of Homeland Security, along with

other departments and agencies, sent the IG teams to the region

shortly after the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Our experience in Iraq has proved that the mere presence of an

inspector general can have a chilling effect on potential waste,

fraud and abuse. As you pointed out in your opening statement,

Mr. Chairman, the Administration assigned FDIC Chairman Donald Powell as the recovery czar for Katrina. This is, I think, explicit

recognition that we need a single entity to manage the recovery.

But Chairman Powell already has a full-time job at the FDIC,

and he is not an inspector general. So I think a special inspector

general provides the best and the most cost-effective solution.

I say this regardless of how good a job the current Inspector General for DHS is doing. And I say it irrespective of how my proposal

is compared to other legislative proposals that are out there. This

is why I would say that.

First, a single, temporary Government-wide entity with a dedicated mission provides the authority, responsibility and chain of

command to ensure clear priorities, one-stop accountability, consistent standards, and avoids duplication of efforts.

Second, a special inspector general’s enabling authority to cross

jurisdictional lines provides unique status, independence and integrity to obtain information and evidence, to issue subpoenas permitting aggressive pursuit of wrongdoers.

Third, currently the Department of Homeland Security Inspector

General does not have operational control over the inspectors general of other departments and agencies. Without this operational

control, the Inspector General for DHS cannot direct the activities

of other inspectors general when asked. They can cooperate, as

they do, with the counsel they have, but they can’t enforce crossjurisdictional priorities nor validate the work of the other inspectors general.

Fourth, the preponderance, related to this last one, the preponderance of funds that have been appropriated are either appropriated or transferred outside of DHS. As of October 26th, for example, about $345 million was obligated to the Department of

Homeland Security, but almost $7 billion to other non-Department

of Homeland Security departments and agencies.

Fifth, I don’t think this should be underestimated, is the importance of having a temporary organization, which we have with the

Inspector General for Iraq. As such, it can use expedited procedures to hire staff. We all know how long it takes to get an agency

up and running if you use normal procedures. Secondly, related to

that, it terminates after recovery money is expended. It doesn’t contribute to a bloated bureaucracy. We already are making plans to

terminate the work of the Inspector General in Iraq, for example.

Fifth, and finally, the Inspector General will not divert resources

away from the current Inspector General for DHS for his responsibilities for ongoing investigations that are necessary to help protect this Nation from terrorism. It prevents the inevitable duplication of administrative costs, I think, under the current structure.

Mr. Chairman, Congress has already appropriated over $60 billion in response to Hurricane Katrina. This is double, double the

entire appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security.
5

And more is likely to follow. Additional, temporary Governmentwide oversight resources under a single chain of command are, in

my view, necessary.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify

today. I hope that you will favorably consider H.R. 3737, bring it

to the floor of the House of Representatives as soon as possible. I

have every reason to believe a similar bill will move over in the

Senate fairly quickly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Chairman Kolbe. We appreciate your

being here today. I am well aware of what your proposal did in

Iraq, and it has been a success. So we certainly will take a very,

very close look as we move forward on this.

Thank you again for your time today.

Mr. KOLBE. Thank you.

Mr. SHUSTER. Next I would like to call on the Honorable Patrick

Kennedy from Rhode Island.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE PATRICK J. KENNEDY, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF

RHODE ISLAND

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member

Norton. Thank you for having this hearing.

I think both of us saw today’s Washington Post, Flu Plan Counts

on Public Cooperation. Public cooperation is what my legislation

addresses. Let me read you a couple of quotes as to why this is so

critical.

‘‘They should have treated us like we were the Hart Senate Office people. I mean, they should have treated us all equally.’’ That

came from postal workers at the Brentwood postal facility when we

had the anthrax attack. They went on to say, ‘‘They gave the Capitol Hill police dogs Cipro before we got anything.’’

Now we have a quote from a Senate staffer: ‘‘They gave us preferential treatment because we were in Congress. And if that was

readily apparent to us, it was probably apparent to the whole community.’’

The Ready, Willing and Able Act, H.R. 3565, addresses the fact

that this impression that was created by the response to the anthrax attack was compounded by Katrina and the perceptions of

unequal treatment in the response by the Federal Government to

Katrina. Imagine the consequences if just a small percentage of the

population perceives, rightly or wrongly, that race or socio-economics or politics is playing a role in who gets life-saving therapies.

Involving the public in designing a transparent, ethical, rational

plan ahead of time mitigates against this danger. The greater the

involvement of the public in the planning process, the better the

implementation of the plan.

What we need to do with the plan is incorporate the commonsense wisdom of the local citizenry, account for the local conditions

of culture, language, geography, infrastructure, politics, numerous

other factors, most of which are, which are going to be the predominant threats to that given area. In the Boston area, it will be LNG.

In San Francisco, it will be earthquakes. In Santa Barbara,

mudslides. It will differ from area to area.
6

The response will certainly be gauged differently. But the nature

of the public’s involvement will be what is essentially necessary, in

whichever environment this potential tragedy takes place, we will

need.

Based on over 50 years of social scientific research, the typical

response by the typical citizen caught in a disaster, as well as the

collective responses of their social networks is selfless and pro-social behavior. We saw that in New York on 9/11. People were successful evacuated from the lower Manhattan area in the largest

water-borne evacuation in human history. Barges, fishing boats,

ferries and pleasure craft, spontaneously and collectively supported

the Coast Guard and harbor pilots in moving hundreds of thousands of people away from danger, as well as transporting emergency personnel and equipment to the docks near ground zero.

Members of the Independence Plaza North Tenants Association,

this is what I’m getting at, local groups, tenants groups, Rotary

clubs, Kiwanis clubs, an employer, a corporate park, all of whom

can be essential in putting together their own responses to whatever they feel potentially will be a crisis, and how they plan to be

assisting in the efforts to address that crisis. In these examples in

New York, we saw how ordinary citizens were actively involved in

the recovery effort. We should appreciate that citizens are our assets, not liabilities. While they are not the Government, they still

remain an essential part of any response to whatever challenge

this Country may have in the future.

So Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Norton, I just would like to

submit this legislation to you and say that if we have a pandemic

flu attack, I can guarantee you, from everything that has been testified to now, we are not going to have enough supplies. How we

address what the plan will be will have a great deal to do with

what the public’s response will be to whatever we come up with.

If the public thinks a bunch of pols in the Capitol came up with

the plan, and if they don’t see their local community groups consulted, they are not going to have a great deal of confidence that

what is being decided is being decided in their best interests. As

a result, I think we will have a worse situation than we need.

If anyone had asked the people of New Orleans, the local people,

what are you going to do in an evacuation, imagine the local citizens. You know what they would have said? They would have said,

you know what, how can we evacuate? We have no transportation.

I bet you no one asked or even thought of asking that question.

That is why we need to ask local folks what they ought to have

to contribute to any local response plan that is developed. I thank

the Chairman for the time.

Mr. SHUSTER. I want to thank you. Your point is well made and

well taken, it is critical that the local citizenry not only participates

in the plan, but that they are prepared to do whatever the different

region in the Country has to deal with. Thank you for your time

today and thank you for your proposal.

Next we will hear from the Honorable Mr. Mark Foley from Florida.
7

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MARK FOLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. FOLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I associate myself with Congressman Kennedy’s concerns and comments. I think

it is very critically important that local community officials take

part in all of this, both preparation and remediation.

Mr. Chairman, my bill today deals with separating FEMA from

Homeland Security. It is the Federal Disaster Response Improvement Act. It removes FEMA from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In my view, clearly, FEMA cannot carry out its mission of disaster response and recovery inside DHS.

I came to this conclusion prior to the first hurricane hitting Florida. So this isn’t simply a response to four hurricanes hitting my

district.

FEMA is a good organization. It has good employees. It tries

hard. My concern after the hurricanes was watching Secretary

Chertoff standing on the White House lawn, worried about rising

tides, floods in Louisiana and problems associated with the chaotic

scene of disaster recovery. I want Secretary Chertoff to be concerned about al Qaeda. I want him to be concerned about ports of

entry. I want him to be concerned about border control. I want him

to worry about the security and safety of this Nation.

Prior to this roll-up—and I voted for it, based on the testimony

provided that this would be an effective way in which for America

to prepare itself and protect itself and then clean up after a disaster. Frankly, I think the experiences of Rita, Katrina and Wilma

have taught us an important lesson. If President Bush is going to

get blamed for hurricanes, he ought to be able to talk directly to

the FEMA director.

I congratulate the President for selecting David Paulison.

Kendrick Meek, my colleague from South Florida and I and a number of people sent a letter to the Administration urging that they

hire Mr. Paulison and bring him up the chain of command. He is

a former firefighter, he started in Fire Service. He rose through the

ranks and became the leader of Miami-Dade’s fire and rescue.

There is something important about a person having disaster

preparation and remediation skills. This is a wise and competent

pick. He has proven himself capable during these last storms.

But I want him to have a direct line to the President. During

some press conferences, we heard numerous media ask, Mr.

Paulison, have you spoken to the President today? Well, I have spoken to my superior, Mr. Chertoff, and I believe he has spoken to

the President.

Well, you know what? That is not good enough. Because at the

end of the day the Commander in Chief, the President of the

United States, seems to take the brunt of problems that are really

more local in nature.

Now, our Governor, Governor Jeb Bush, has done a tremendous

job of preparation, pre-storm emergency preparedness, working

with local community leaders, county commissioners, sheriff’s departments, working at getting the vulnerable out of harm’s way,

urging people to evacuate in a timely, organized fashion. That’s different. That’s what local governments should do. That’s what State
8

governments should do. They should not have the burden of taking

the responsibility or placing the responsibility on FEMA.

But having watched and witnessed the both pre-and post-disaster situations, it is apparent to me that this organization needs to

be separate and apart. I think they don’t need to be bigger. I don’t

think FEMA needs to change the way it operates inasmuch as creating a lot of new participants or players within the structure.

I just think by separating, putting it in charge of these types of

situations, with a direct line of authority from the President will

enhance efficiency, will give them the kinds of tools they need. We

heard in testimony that Mr. Brown, at the time, was calling or

sending letters to Mr. Chertoff saying he needed 1,000 more employees. I want Mr. Paulison, if he becomes the Director, to have

the opportunity to call those people up himself.

This is critical. And again, Florida suffered eight hurricanes. We

have seen a lot of carnage in our communities. We have seen a lot

of other things that I would like to discuss at a future hearing.

But essential to me is that FEMA stand alone, that we organize

it in such a fashion as it was prior to the roll-up, that it does have

the autonomy, it does have the authority, and clearly does have the

capability if given the opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Foley. We appreciate your words.

On this Committee there has been much talk about exactly what

your proposal is talking about, making FEMA an independent

agency.

I know that you have worked with this Committee before and

you have become an expert on hurricanes, not because you wanted

to, but because you had to. We certainly appreciate your expertise

on this and as I said, this is not a partisan issue about FEMA becoming an independent agency again.

As I said, I know Chairman Young, just yesterday, Chairman

Young and Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Oberstar,

said the same types of things you are saying here today. So I think

that is something that as we move down the road we will be taking

a very, very close, critical look at that.

Thank you very much for being here and taking the time. We appreciate your proposal.

Mr. FOLEY. Thank you.

Mr. SHUSTER. Next we will hear from a member of the T&I Committee, a good friend of mine and neighbor from Pennsylvania,

Todd Platts.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Norton, Mr. Taylor. I appreciate the invitation to testify here today on

this important topic of disaster relief in general and specifically our

recovery efforts associated with Hurricane Katrina.

As Chairman of the House Government Management, Finance

and Accountability Subcommittee, the subcommittee charged with

oversight of the Federal Government’s finances, as well as the inspectors General, let me assure you that I share your commitment
9

to ensuring that each and every dollar appropriated for hurricane

disaster relief in the Gulf Coast region is spent wisely, efficiently

and effectively, and that those dollars reach their intended recipients.

In the wake of the terrible devastation caused by Hurricane

Katrina, Congress has appropriated more than $60 billion for the

immediate relief effort. These funds must be spent in a way that

ensures that the people in the affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are able to recover from this devastating

event. Any dollar lost to fraud or waste is a dollar that does not

make it to someone who is in need.

This funding is too important to be mis-spent. That is precisely

why in early September I, along with Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis introduced legislation to establish a Special Inspectors General Council for Hurricane Katrina, H.R. 3810.

In my experience as Chairman of the Government Management

Subcommittee, I have seen first-hand the good work of agency inspectors general. Their unique relationship with both the agencies

they oversee and the Congress, to whom they report, provides an

ideal check on the system. Inspectors General have long stood as

a bulwark against fraud and mismanagement.

When Congress passed the Inspector General Act in 1978, in response to major management scandals within the Federal Government, we added an important balance to our system of separation

of powers. Congress envisioned inspectors general as independent,

non-partisan and objective. Since their creation, inspectors general

have been largely successful in carrying out their mission, reporting billions of dollars in savings and cost recoveries, as well as

thousands of successful criminal prosecutions.

We should not rush to condemn or abandon this existing accountability structure. There is no reason to believe that our existing IGs

will fail us in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, provided that we give

them the resources and flexibility needed to succeed, and a mechanism to coordinate their actions.

The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General has already taken proactive steps to ensure the appropriate expenditure

of funds, not just after the fact, but in real time as those funds are

being spent. Following Katrina, the DHS IG immediately assigned

12 personnel to monitor personnel at FEMA’s emergency operations center to stay current on all activities and provide on the

spot advice. The IG has also deployed auditors and investigators to

field offices in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jackson, Mississippi and

Montgomery, Alabama.

The DHS IG is coordinating the efforts of 13 Federal inspectors

general offices whose agencies are involved in the relief operations.

These offices combined have committed more than 300 auditors

and investigators to this effort. The DHS IG is also monitoring in

real time major contracts and purchase card transactions to ensure

that Federal acquisition regulations are being adhered to and that

expenditures are necessary and reasonable.

This is just the beginning. We need to ensure that these IGs

have the continued resources necessary to do their jobs and that

the appropriate coordination occurs.
10

In addition to coordination, the DHS IG needs the flexibility to

adapt to circumstances. In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina,

the DHS IG adapted the structure of his existing office to create

an assistant IG specifically for Katrina oversight, drawing the expertise of a former FEMA CFO. They did not wait for Congress to

create a position, they were able to create it using their existing

authority. This type of flexibility is critical to success in anything

we do, and Congress must enhance, not undermine, the authority

of the existing IG structure.

Anyone who has heard the DHS IG in his many appearances before Congress over the past two months would agree that he is

doing yeoman’s work. He has taken a proactive approach with an

eye toward preventing fraud and mismanagement, not just detecting it after the fact. Within days after Katrina, the DHS IG was

already in the process of implementing many of the recommendations we are discussing here today.

Maintaining the IG structure while ensuring effective coordination is the ultimate goal of my legislation. The funding related to

this recovery and rebuilding effort would not flow through a single

authority, but through each affected Federal entity. In other words,

housing funds would be managed by HUD. Funds for repair of levees would go to the Army Corps of Engineers, disaster loan funds

to the Small Business Administration and so on. Each of these Federal agencies has an existing oversight and accountability structure, led by its inspector general, whose responsibility is to ensure

that funds charged to them are spent as intended.

In the absence of an overall authority through which all Hurricane Katrina funding will flow, we do not need to add any additional layers of oversight. What we need is to effectively coordinate

the existing infrastructure.

In addition, almost all the entities involved in the Hurricane

Katrina recovery also have Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed chief financial officers who operate under the CFO Act of

1990. As you know, this Act requires that all major Federal agencies submit to a financial audit, along with other laws and regulations which help to ensure proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars

and the development of effective financial management systems.

Further, DHS faces the most stringent internal control requirements of any Federal agency under a bipartisan law that I sponsored along with Chairman Davis and others. The DHS Financial

Accountability Act, which was signed by the President last October,

subjects DHS to requirements similar to those mandated by private

companies under Sarbanes-Oxley. The system of internal controls

put in place in compliance with this law will provide the fundamental tools for effective management of these important funds.

The proper way to ensure the most effective oversight is to leverage our existing resources and to let the accountability structure

that Congress has put in place work as intended. This structure exists today, has no learning curve and has already demonstrated

leadership by ensuring that resources were deployed to the Gulf region in a timely manner. With the proper resources, flexibility and

coordination, this existing structure is our best defense against

waste, fraud and abuse.
11

Recognizing that the recovery effort will involve the full breadth

of the Federal Government, President Bush established by Executive Order this week a Coordinating Council to address recovery

and reconstruction in the Gulf Coast earlier this week. The President’s Council is comprised of Cabinet Secretaries from the affected

agencies. My legislation would provide an important parallel to this

group by establishing an accountability council comprised of IGs

from these same agencies.

The President, again by Executive Order, designated a point person to coordinate the effort from the Department of Homeland Security. By designating the DHS IG as the chair of the Special IG

Council created under my bill, it would again parallel the structure

put forth by President Bush. As has been the case of the past quarter century, the IG community would serve as an effective counterweight to the executive branch, using a parallel accountability

structure.

We all share the same goal, Mr. Chairman, full accountability.

As we look to accomplish this goal, we need to be mindful not to

impede the work that is going on right now with an unnecessary

level of bureaucracy. We need to follow the model established by

the Inspector General Act, where the accountability structure mirrors the structure of the program it oversees. A Special Council of

Inspectors General, headed by the DHS IG, will accomplish the

goals we share in the most effective manner possible.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for going over my time. I

appreciate your indulgence and I appreciate your Committee’s taking up this important issue. I look forward to working with you.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, and I appreciate all the hard work you

have done on your subcommittee over in Government Reform. I

think this is really a solid piece of legislation, and we have been

working together to try to move this forward. Taking what we have

in place and better utilizing it is, I think, a smart way to move forward on this issue. Thank you for all your efforts.

Mr. PLATTS. You are welcome.

Mr. SHUSTER. Next we have another member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mr. Blumenauer of Oregon.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE EARL BLUMENAUER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON

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

Norton. I deeply appreciate the leadership that has been exhibited

by this Subcommittee in the aftermath of Katrina. Working with

the other subcommittees, I am impressed with what is already part

of the record.

I am here today to testify in support of H.R. 3524, the Safe Communities Act of 2005, which I introduced with Congressman

Weldon earlier in the year. We have an opportunity in the aftermath of Katrina to focus public attention and political concern not

just on doing the best job for the victims of this tragic storm. That

is a high priority; we are all committed to it. But we also want to

make sure that we make it less likely that others suffer needlessly

in the future.

Sadly, it seems to take a major disaster before we deal with mitigation and prevention. The Dam Safety programs were created
12

after the Teton Dam in Idaho broke in 1976. In the Pacific Northwest, the volcano program came after the 1980 eruption of Mount

St. Helens. The wildfire response system developed following the

catastrophic California fires of 1970, and of course, as we have discussed in this Committee, we made some major changes to our national flood damage reduction policies only following the 1990

floods in the upper Mississippi River.

I support helping the victims of natural disasters. I think we

ought to also spend time and energy on them before it occurs. If

we had done a better job, some of the agony that Congressman

Taylor has been struggling with on the ground personally might

have been averted. The vast majority, and this is not just in the

Gulf region, the vast majority of the American population, some 75

percent of our population, lives in a coastal area, in an earthquake

area, prone to flood, fire, volcano, at risk to some type of natural

disaster and the number is growing. More people are moving into

the flame zones in the western forests, they are living on the coastal areas. You know this, it is part of our record.

What we need to do is to help them deal with the rising cost impacts and the cost of human suffering. We owe it to the many victims of this summer’s disasters to make the changes and improvements to our disaster policies that will make this less likely in the

future.

As you may know, I have been working on these issues since I

came to Congress. We worked for five years to make some reforms

in the Flood Insurance Program. Well, this legislation is another

step. There is no single, magic bullet. But there are obvious starting places. And the most obvious is to lay the groundwork through

sound planning.

This legislation would do just that. It would create a new grant

program within the Department of Homeland Security to support

State, local and regional planning activities aimed at reducing

threats posed by natural and human-caused disasters. The grants

would be available for a number of prevention and mitigation uses

ranging from comprehensive risk assessment and inventory of critical infrastructure to land use planning for natural hazards to updating building codes and urban design techniques to reduce risks.

In crafting this legislation, we have been working for several

years with planners, disaster mitigation experts, emergency managers, local building code professionals, architects, historic preservation, a wide range of interests that affect what you do on this

Subcommittee. In speaking with these experts, it has become clear

that Federal investment in natural disaster should include prevention and mitigation, as well as response and recovery.

The World Bank and the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated

that if we had spent $40 billion in the last decade, we would have

saved $280 billion worldwide in economic losses and countless lives

would have been saved, not just the $7 return for each $1 invested.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers, which has appeared

before you, estimates that structures built to higher building standards called for in the National Flood Insurance Program experienced 80 percent less damage than buildings that pre-date that

standard.
13

I could go on, I won’t, you have another distinguished colleague

to hear. My time is almost up. But I want to make clear that local

governments are not doing this on their own. Only 24 states require local governments to prepare comprehensive plans or address

hazards in their planning.

After Katrina, we found that many communities in Louisiana,

Mississippi and Alabama do not even have building codes. I am not

talking about comprehensive plans. I am talking about seven Mississippi counties and three Louisiana parishes that don’t have

building codes.

Those victims should not suffer because the States did not do the

minimum job. This legislation would give the resources to the

States to deal comprehensively. I don’t want to be judgmental after

the fact. But I want to make sure that Congress and the Federal

Government is doing everything it can to make sure that these

simple, common-sense steps are taken care of.

The devastation from Katrina provides an opportunity to not just

help people recover, but make sure that they are better off, and to

make sure that the rational planning and development away from

hazard will protect people across this Country. The grants authorized by the Safe Communities Act, which I urge you to consider

and act upon appropriately, will provide communities with the Federal tools to plan in a safe and sustainable manner.

It will save lives. It will save property. It will save tens of billions of tax dollars that won’t have to be spent on into the future.

And it will make it much less likely that America will see the

haunting images like we saw with Katrina in the future.

Thank you very much.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. As usual, the gentleman always brings

knowledge and passion to whatever issue he is tackling. Your

points are well taken, planning, mitigation, prevention. It brings to

mind the saying my mother used to tell me, an ounce of prevention

is worth a pound of cure. I think we see that over and over again.

So we certainly will take this into consideration, and we appreciate your being here today and all your efforts putting this together. Thank you.

Next we have two distinguished gentlemen, Mr. Lantos from

California and Mr. Shays from Connecticut, with a piece of legislation they have put together. We appreciate your being here today

and I will recognize Mr. Lantos first.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE TOM LANTOS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Madam

Ranking Member and members of the Committee.

I am delighted to be here, and I will be extremely brief. At the

time of the hurricane, we were all glued to our television sets

watching this very serious, dangerous, and tragic drama unfold. We

all have our memories of what particular images remained with us

most profoundly.

In my own case, Mr. Chairman, it was watching a seven year old

little boy who lost everything except his dog. And his dog was
14

taken away from him because there was no provision to allow his

pet to go to the shelter.

We will not know, Mr. Chairman, how many American citizens

lost their lives during the hurricane because they refused to be separated from their pet or from their service animal. My good friend,

Congressman Shays, and I introduced legislation which will put an

end to this absolutely mind-boggling and cruel absurdity: forcing

American citizens, at a time of natural disaster such as the hurricanes we just witnessed, from having to choose between being rescued by themselves or staying with their animals and losing their

lives alongside their animals.

We introduced legislation, very simple legislation, which makes

it mandatory for communities, local and State authorities, to have

as part of their emergency evacuation plan a provision for taking

care of household pets or service animals. About a third of American homes have pets. And there is no distinction between wealthy

and poor families. We received an avalanche of communications

supporting our legislation, from across the Country, when the

media reported it.

What we are asking for, and this is a totally bi-partisan piece of

legislation, supported by the distinguished Chairman and Ranking

Member of the Transportation Committee, alongside Mr. Shays,

myself and scores of others, is to include an emergency valuation

provision for household pets and service animals.

What this legislation will mean is not only an end to the cruelty

which is implied when a seven year old little boy, having had his

home destroyed, has his last possession, his dog, taken away from

him, but it will also provide an opportunity for people who would

not leave their pets, as I would not, to be saved in case of a similar

emergency such as the one we saw in the Gulf. I strongly urge that

you support this legislation and I am delighted to yield the rest of

my time to my friend, Chris Shays.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Shays, take as much time as you need—within

reason.

[Laughter.]

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Mr. SHAYS. I understand.

I will submit my written statement for the record and just say

to you that when I was growing up, I grew up with my collie pet

named Mack. When we moved from another home, he kept running

back to the old home and the new owner threw rocks at him. And

he never came home.

For a year, I was without my family pet, I was without Mack.

That next year, my parents had bought a new home, they had no

money for Christmas. No money whatsoever. But it was my best

Christmas, because they had a gift from my grandfather of $75. He

bought a new collie pet dog named Lance. I remember this new pet

walking up, this tiny little dog, being carried by my dad up the

steps on Christmas Eve. I was thinking I was going to have no

gifts.
15

I will just tell you that that dog, Lance, was as much a part of

my family as my mother or father to me, at that age in particular.

And if I had ever been faced with a choice of leaving that dog behind, my pet behind, Lance, or going with my parents to safety, I

would have hid with my Lance. And I bet there were kids that did

that. And I bet there were adults who did it.

What we are simply saying is, in the emergency operation plans

that you have to submit, how you evacuate a pet. Now, that doesn’t

mean that in an emergency, when you are evacuating someone

from a home and the water is rising, that the pet gets to come. It

doesn’t say that a pet trumps a human being. It just says that in

a shelter, maybe there will be a place for your pet, and there will

be requirements that the pet has to be well-behaved and so on, or

else.

But there has to be, not this mindless law, no pets. I can just

tell you that if there were 600,000 pets that were lost in Katrina,

as the estimate is, there were literally many, many individuals who

lost their lives with their pets. We hope that you move forward

with this legislation.

Now, I want to say something parenthetical to this. In the process of understanding our legislation better, I realize that we have

emergency operation plans. But emergency operation plans do not

require evacuation of human beings or animals. So when you look

at this smaller picture, I think that emergency operation plans

have to require that there be a requirement for evacuations of

human beings. And in that process, obviously, animals as well.

I hope you move forward with this legislation quickly. I will tell

you that I have gotten more interest in this legislation than almost

any legislation that I have ever submitted, and for good reason:

two-thirds of Americans own pets.

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, as one of those two-thirds owners, I have a

pug myself. When I come from Washington, I have two teenagers

and my wife and the dog seems to be the only one happy to see

me come through the door.

[Laughter.]

Mr. SHUSTER. She greets me gleefully as I walk through the

door.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let me just add to that, your kids probably like

their pets better than they like you.

[Laughter.]

Ms. NORTON. Chris, I could surmise some rather complicated deductions from the fact that this dog kept running away from you

once you moved.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, you know, it was the first one, and the sad

thing was, we moved the house. So it kept running back to the old

house.

Ms. NORTON. I understand. It seemed to love the house more

than it loved you.

[Laughter.]

Mr. SHAYS. That’s true. Touche.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you both very much for being here today.

We will certainly take this into consideration, and we appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. SHUSTER. Next up is the newest member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the newest member of

the United States Congress, our new colleague from Ohio, Jean

Schmidt. Welcome, and we look forward to hearing your testimony.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JEAN SCHMIDT, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you, Chairman Shuster and Ranking

Member Norton, for holding this hearing and for the opportunity

to share my proposal with the Subcommittee.

My legislation would address an issue that is of great concern to

all of us: the prudent spending of our Federal tax dollars, not as

a result of Katrina, but future hurricanes. Louisiana, Mississippi

and Alabama do not have modern, uniform, statewide building

codes. They are the only States targeted by these vicious storms

without modern, uniform, statewide codes.

An article in today’s Times-Picayune reports that there are efforts underway in Louisiana, in the legislature, to consider a statewide building code. A recent study by the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center estimates that $10 billion in construction

damage to homes by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could have been

reduced by $8 billion if Louisiana would have had a modern, uniform, statewide building code. That is right. The study suggests

that the cost of rebuilding after Katrina would have been reduced

by 80 percent.

My proposal, House Concurrent Resolution 285, is a straightforward and responsible sense of Congress resolution that the

States of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama should adopt modern

and uniform statewide building codes, establishing minimum

standards for construction and maintenance of buildings and other

structures to mitigate costs in future disasters. My proposal also

encourages the building code standards to be at least as comprehensive as the model building standards and codes developed by

the International Code Council.

The International Code Council, or the ICC, was established in

1994 as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing a single

set of comprehensive and coordinated national model construction

codes. As we move forward to rebuild the Gulf Coast region, there

are substantial advantages in producing a uniform statewide building code for both taxpayers, owners and the building industry.

More important, uniform standards will help mitigate costly future

natural disasters, improving public safety and hopefully saving

lives as well as saving tax dollars.

I introduced House Concurrent Resolution 285 because Congress

and the affected States need to seriously consider this important

issue as we move forward. And it would help accomplish three significant goals: reduce future taxpayer expenditures; improve public

safety; and improve the lives of the Americans in this region.

Thank you again, Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member Norton

and members of the Subcommittee for this opportunity. I look forward to continuing to work with you on my proposal.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. Once again, I think I said

it a couple of witnesses ago, an ounce of prevention is worth a

pound of cure. So many times we see if building codes were better,
17

I think I just watched in Florida where they showed a building,

that was in the latest, Hurricane Wilma, I think it was, that went

through Florida, there was a building not even completely constructed, there were no windows blown out of it because it was

built up to these new codes that are going to prevent those things

from happening. So again, that is something that we will take

under consideration and consider moving forward.

Thank you very much for taking the time to be here today.

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHUSTER. The staff tells me we are going too fast. I don’t

think it is possible to go too fast in a committee hearing.

We are going to take a short recess until the next member gets

here.

[Recess.]

Mr. SHUSTER. The Subcommittee will come back to order.

I would like to welcome the gentleman from Mississippi, I know

he has a bum leg from baseball and playing football with his kids,

so we knew you were going to take some time getting down here.

We really appreciate your coming to testify today, and are interested in hearing what your legislation proposes. So with that,

please proceed.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE

OF MISSISSIPPI

Mr. PICKERING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the

chance to testify before this Committee, the Committee on which

I served in my first term, and a Committee that can give great assistance in a time of tragedy and disaster for my home State of

Mississippi.

Today I would like to talk to you first about the scope and the

size of what happened to our State, and then ask for your help as

I plan to introduce legislation that would get assistance to those individuals who have lost everything, lost their homes and who want

to rebuild, but as of today, don’t see how they can achieve that and

how they can recover. This is just a critical issue for us.

As you know, Katrina was the third strongest hurricane on

record to make landfall on the United States. The difference and

distinction of this storm is that the largest storm surge ever recorded in America hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The thirty-foot

storm surge recorded at Biloxi, Mississippi, the highest ever observed, is the record storm surge that has occurred in the last 150

years. Before that, Camille was the benchmark for all hurricanes.

And it was a category 5. Katrina was a category 4. We had 200

mile an hour winds with Camille.

The difference was that with Camille we did not have the storm

surge. Because of that, all the FEMA flood maps were predicated

on a category 5 Camille-type storm, and this storm was so much

worse because of the storm surge. So places that were never in a

flood zone, and whenever a homeowner would go to a banker for

a mortgage, they were told they were not required to have flood insurance, because they were not in the FEMA-designated flood zone

or floodplain. That is a very important part, an underlying issue

as we go forward trying to find a way to get assistance to them.
18

It was the most destructive and costliest storm in American history. Right now, the death toll stands at 1,302. The damage is estimated from $70 billion to $130 billion. This tops Hurricane Andrew

as the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

Over a million people were displaced. It is a humanitarian crisis

on a scale unseen in the U.S. since the Great Depression, the

greatest displacement, the greatest migration ever in American history.

Two weeks after the storm, over half the United States was involved in providing shelter for the evacuees. The Federal disaster

declaration covered 90,000 square miles. The scope and size of the

storm is as large as the United Kingdom. So as our colleagues from

other regions and other places look at this, and it is easy to forget,

too quickly, for the rest of the country, that as the cameras leave,

the devastation remains. And the hope of rebuilding, right now

people are at that critical decision point: can I rebuild or must I

leave and go somewhere else? What are my options and what are

my choices? And that is why the legislation that I will introduce

is so critical.

FEMA estimates that the number of uninsured properties in Mississippi alone that were severely flooded or destroyed by the storm

surge is between 30,000 and 40,000. Now, remember, these are

people who were told they did not have to have flood insurance, because they were outside of the flood zone, as benchmarked by Hurricane Camille in 1969.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast, unlike Louisiana, is above sea level.

So no one ever dreamed that you would have a tsunami of a 30 foot

wall of water coming over the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

There are a number of proposals out there. I joined with Congressman Taylor on one proposal and we are working with all the

members of the Mississippi and Louisiana delegation around a consensus plan of how we can help these individuals who had homeowners’ insurance, lived outside of the floodplain and the flood

zone, but did not have flood insurance.

The reason that we are trying to do this, on the Mississippi Gulf

Coast, if you think of 35,000 homes, representing about 100,000

people, median home values around $80,000, they are the people

who build the ships for our Navy, work at Stennis Space Center,

critical infrastructures and critical institutions on our Gulf Coast.

If they are not able to build back, then the economy and the jobs

will not come back ether.

So the critical focus and the critical priority, the top priority for

the delegations in Mississippi and Louisiana is to try to find a way

to help these individuals, these families and these communities rebuild. So this is what I would like the Committee to consider in a

legislative solution. Again, I am working with Senator Cochran

closely to introduce this draft legislation in the Senate as I introduced it with all the members of our region here in the House.

The bill would first create a new section 425 under the Stafford

Act. What it would do is authorize the Director of FEMA to provide

temporary emergency assistance to owners of eligible structures to

reconstruct or to repair such structures. Right now, you are capped

at $26,000 of individual or other assistance through FEMA. This

would develop a new category, section 425. It would be a 90 percent
19

share, Federal share, and a 10 percent share from the State or the

individual. Excuse me, you would have 10 percent of the homeowner contributing, and you could look at 10 percent of the State

as well. So both the State, the individual and the Federal Government share in the cost of this program and give a commitment to

the rebuilding.

But the most important thing is if they receive this grant, if they

accept this grant to rebuild, they will have to do it with steps of

responsibility. One, they would have to rebuild according to international code. What we have learned in Florida, if you build to

international code, you can withstand hurricanes of 3, 4 and 5, and

the structural damage and the cost for future storms can be greatly

minimized.

Two, you would require them forever more, even though they are

not in the floodplain, to buy flood insurance. So the personal responsibility of higher codes and purchasing of flood insurance, and

if they must rebuild, in compliance with those things. If they accept

this funding, they can also participate in mitigation plans. In some

of these areas, it may not be wise to rebuild. So they can participate in the mitigation plan that will take that land out of development.

So this is a way to get us to a responsible future in a responsible

way. But if we do not have this help, I am greatly fearful that our

communities on the Mississippi Gulf Coast cannot rebuild, our

economy cannot be restored or recovered, and we have to have this

component for the rebuilding of the Gulf.

The other thing that it would do is modify the current hazard

mitigation program under section 404 of the Stafford Act. And it

would change the Federal share under this program from 75 to 90

percent, and it would change the amount of the program of 7.5 percent of the disaster assistance in a State to 15 percent. This is

something that this Committee has indicated an interest in, and it

is important to do. It was changed by Senator Bond from Missouri

in recent years. This would go back to the previous precedents and

standards of help under these mitigation programs.

So in conclusion, there are many disasters in our Country’s history. The last time that we had a great disaster for our Nation,

September 11th, we established a victim’s fund. Those were innocent victims of terrorism. In this case, we have innocent victims of

a natural disaster. We put a fund together that established $7 billion for the victims of those injured by 9/11. Now, we did not say

that people had to, or the Congress had to offset that. Every year

we pass emergency supplementals for our farmers, whether they

had crop insurance or did not have crop insurance. We did not require an offset in those cases.

When the tsunami hit in the Asian nations, we sent millions and

billions of dollars without requiring an offset. In Iraq, we are rebuilding Iraq, we do not require an offset there. This is the only

way we can rebuild and recover on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and

it can be done in a responsible way and at a cost that is less than

the 9/11 fund as far as the individual assistance. We can do this,

I hope, before Christmas. Because now is that critical point that if

we don’t do it, that people will decide they cannot rebuild and they

will move to other places and our communities will be lost.
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So I ask with all sincerity and with everything that I have in my

being for your assistance and your help for a region that has been

devastated by the largest natural disaster in American history.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. I sit on the Katrina Committee, I

share your frustration as you go through this. You are living it

every week down there, you go home and here in Congress. I have

been down there twice. The cameras all focus on New Orleans, but

when you fly over that Mississippi coast, it is like a bomb has hit.

I have seen the devastation and I think your legislation is responsible, it is well thought out and there is responsibility in there

for the homeowner as you move forward. That is what Government

is supposed to be, a safety net. This is exactly what this is going

to address.

So those people, as you said, they are innocent victims, no one

ever expected that. So we will, some of these provisions already are

in some other legislation we have drafted, we have put them in

there. So we will go through this, I think it is well thought out and

reasonable and responsible legislation. So I appreciate your time

and effort coming here today and we will be looking forward to

working with you on this.

Mr. PICKERING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Pickering for

introducing this. I am a co-sponsor. I would remind you and others

that 99 percent of the people who live in Mississippi who were

harmed in this storm happen to live in the Congressional district

I represent. So we certainly welcome the help of anyone and everyone.

I would also remind you that on a daily basis back home, and

I do mean on a daily basis back home, people who had paid premiums, what they thought was hurricane insurance, for 10, 20, 30,

40, 50 years, an adjustor is showing up at their house, looking

around at what, there is nothing left in many instances, as you

know, and then saying, we are sorry, this was a flood event, and

if you had looked very closely at your policy, now remember, a policy is sort of like an omnibus appropriations bill around here, everybody claims to read them, nobody reads the whole thing. Somewhere buried in that policy is a little line that says, we don’t pay

for wind driven water.

So despite the fact that those people thought they had hurricane

insurance, they are now being told by the insurer, you are getting

nothing. So your several hundred thousand dollar house is gone, in

many instances your job is gone. Some people might have had

home equity loans out against that as well.

And what Mr. Pickering touched on and what is my sincere fear

as well is that we could have a microcosm of the Great Depression

in south Mississippi, with tens of thousands of people who thought

they were doing the responsible thing, who thought they were taking every possible precaution, who lived outside the floodplain, who

were told by their banker and their insurer that you don’t need

flood insurance. As a matter of fact, we were told by none other

than the Consumer Federation of America that if you live outside

the floodplain, don’t buy Federal flood insurance, because that is a

waste of money.
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So all these groups are saying, don’t buy it. Now they are in a

jam where, and extremely smart people, Jerry St. Peter, President

of the Northrop Grumman Shipyard, with 13,000 employees. He is

a very smart man. He is one of these victims. Cy Fenneker, one of

the smartest attorneys in Mississippi, the chief of staff to my immediate predecessor, the late Barton Smith, didn’t have flood insurance. Federal Judge Lou Garola, a Federal judge, obviously a

very smart man, did not have flood insurance. Ricky Matthews, the

publisher of the biggest paper in South Mississippi, did not have

flood insurance.

So these are smart people who fell into this category. And tens

of thousands of others. What Mr. Pickering is trying to do, what

I am trying to do is number one, admit that this was an unforeseen

thing, that to a certain extent has a culpability of our Nation because our Federal flood insurance flood maps told these folks it is

not going to happen to them.

The second thing is, it does call for taking prevention so we can

minimize the chances of this happening again. And above all, just

like we did after 9/11, is giving people a chance to get back on their

feet. I think that is one of the great things that Franklin Roosevelt

did during the Great Depression. Up until that time, our Nation

had taken the attitude, if bad things happen, you are on your own.

Our Nation’s mood changed in the 1930s: when bad things happen,

we are there for you.

And we would hope in this instance, I can’t speak for Mr. Pickering, but I can tell you when I ran for Congress, there was a horrible hurricane that hit Charleston, South Carolina. The day I was

elected an earthquake hit San Francisco. My very first votes in

Congress were to help the people in South Carolina and help the

people in San Francisco. Since then, the people who were flooded

in the Midwest, every other natural disaster, the people of Mississippi have stepped forward and voted to help those folks. What

we are asking for this time is for the people of our Nation to help

Mississippi and Louisiana.

Again, as you mentioned, they have gotten a lot of the spotlight.

But I think if you want to look in terms of sheer devastation and

percentages of sheer devastation, two-thirds of the people in my

home county no longer have a house they can live in. That is pretty

much the norm along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. So in terms of

percentages, Mississippi was hurt every bit as bad, if not worse,

than Louisiana. We are just trying to find some way to help get

these people back on their feet so they don’t have to lose their

houses. So I really want to thank Mr. Pickering for doing this.

Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Chairman, if I could, I want to commend Mr.

Taylor. He has really been a leader on this issue. He was the first

to introduce legislation to find a solution. I co-sponsored that. We

want you to know that all the Mississippi delegation and in the

Senate, in the Coast, we are trying to find a solution that doesn’t

establish a precedent that concerns people, but finds a way to give

the assistance that is required. Whether it is his bill or this bill,

we are going to be working with this Committee and the leadership

and everybody to find a way.

Mr. Taylor lost his home. Nobody is more passionately committed

to the Gulf Coast and its rebuilding. He has been the leader on this
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issue. I am glad to join and work with him to find a way to help

our State rebuild and recover. He is correct, as he lays out, people

thought that they had all the insurance that was required of them,

based on what FEMA told them. And then banks followed the

FEMA maps. And to get their mortgages, they were not required

to have this insurance. And now the private insurance will not pay

for anything that is water-related, only the wind damage.

So there is no way they can be made whole by their insurance

policies. And this is the only way that we can help them rebuild.

So Mr. Chairman, thank you, and Mr. Taylor, thank you for your

leadership.

Mr. SHUSTER. You are welcome and I thank both of you. I appreciate all your efforts, and as I said earlier, this is a responsible,

well thought-out piece of legislation. It is a safety net, and that is

what Government is for, a safety net for people that have things

happen that nobody could plan for. So thank you very much for

your hard work.

Next up, the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Jindal. Thank you

for joining us here today. You can proceed whenever you are ready.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE BOBBY JINDAL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Mr. JINDAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Taylor, for the opportunity to come and talk to you.

First, I will start off by associating myself with the previous conversation. I would also reiterate, probably one of the top, most

pressing priorities for us in the First District of southeastern Louisiana is this matter of homeowners and others that have been victimized once already by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we want to

make sure they are not victimized again because of this dispute

about flood insurance versus homeowners insurance.

And in today’s front pages, there are stories that the levees that

were built by the Federal Government to protect them may not

have been built properly. So I think that adds even more moral urgency to the need to give some relief. I am a co-sponsor of Mr. Taylor’s legislation, and I am certainly open to other solutions. I think

the bottom line is we need to provide relief and immediate answers

to these families.

I am here to talk about five different bills that we have pending

before the Committee, four pending before the Committee, one that

has already been approved by the Committee, regarding FEMA. I

can’t overstate both the importance of FEMA’s role in rebuilding

my home State, as well as the frustration with some of the delays

in that rebuilding process.

I am not here to point fingers, however, I am here to talk about

specific recommendations that could improve this process going forward. I will go quickly for the sake of time. You have my written

testimony which goes with these bills in much greater detail.

The first bill provides disaster assistance to hospitals independent of their ownership status. Under current rules, under current

Stafford Act rules, investor-owned hospitals are not eligible for assistance. At the time that we passed this legislation, investorowned community hospitals were about 10 percent of our Nation’s
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hospitals. Today they are over twice that; in New Orleans they are

even a larger percentage of the hospital capacity there.

The storms obviously did not discriminate based on ownership

status. In Louisiana alone, we have 63 of our State health care facilities that are shut down indefinitely. That includes 10 acute care

hospitals, 11 parish health units. An additional seven acute care

hospitals are closed temporarily. As you can imagine, we have a

massive chicken and egg problem where people cannot come back

to the area unless there are adequate health care facilities, and yet

health care facilities can’t open until they locate and provide housing for their staff.

So the first legislation I would recommend for your consideration

is the legislation that would allow investor-owned and other hospitals to participate on a level basis for help in rebuilding and getting their doors open.

The second piece of legislation, the Debris Removal Act of 2005,

this is a piece of legislation that has passed the Senate unanimously. Just to give you an idea of how large this problem is, in

Louisiana, we have an estimated 55 million cubic yards of debris

that needs to be collected. Of that, 3.8 million cubic yards has been

collected.

So out of 55 million cubic yards of debris, 3.8 million cubic yards

has been collected. These trucks may be running for over a year.

I cannot overstate for you the frustration at the local government

level about the confusion about what is reimbursable, about whether they can use local contractors, about how long these things will

be reimbursable.

This bill has already passed the Senate unanimously. I would

recommend that we go ahead and approve this legislation. It would

clarify that local governments can use local contractors. It would

extend for 180 days the amount of time they have to collect this

debris.

The third bill, Offshore Infrastructure Emergency Relief Act,

would simply say that those that operate platforms and rigs, we

have 46 platforms, 4 rigs that were destroyed by Katrina, 63 platforms, 1 rig that was destroyed by Rita. What people don’t realize

is that many of these platforms are owned by independent companies, so-called mom and pop operations. I am not as worried about

the large integrated companies as I am about the smaller companies that don’t have the vertical integration or the size.

They don’t want Federal aid. What they do want is fairness in

the disaster declaration process. What this bill would do, passed

the Resources Committee unanimously, is that it would allow the

offshore areas to be declared a disaster area for a limited period

of time after these disasters. The impact would be that they could

get their insurance proceeds, use them to rebuild tax-free.

Onshore, if their rigs were destroyed, these tax-free proceeds

could be used for reinvestment. Because they are on the outer continental shelf, however, they are going to have to pay taxes on their

insurance proceeds. That strikes us as unfair and counter-productive when we are trying to encourage production, not discourage

production. We want to help meet the Nation’s energy needs. This

is one pain-free way we could do it.
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CBO scored this as not having a score. So we would like to see

this move relatively quickly.

Fourth, the Disaster Equity Relief Act of 2005, this is a bi-partisan bill that has already been approved by this Subcommittee. It

would simply codify the President’s Executive Order, making sure

that we do not discriminate against faith-based institutions, we

don’t discriminate against them based on ownership when it comes

time to rebuilding soup kitchens, homeless shelters, schools and

other institutions that have suffered damage.

Again, you have already passed this and I appreciate that. It

does have quite widespread bi-partisan support.

Fifth and finally, the Disaster Relief Recovery Act of 2005. It

would, I think, correct some unintentional changes in the Act. For

example, it would restore the cap on repair costs for individuals

and households up to $25,500. We think it was inadvertently lowered to $5,000 in 2000. I don’t think that was the intent.

It would also improve the State management cost funding and

make some other changes that we think are very important, for example, restoring the 15 percent formula for mitigation costs. We

think that is very important as we think about mitigating damage

and preventing future storm damage.

I know I have gone very quickly, I know our time is short. But

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing. Mr.

Taylor, I want to thank you for your hard work on behalf of your

constituents. I know you know first-hand the damage caused by

Katrina and Rita. These five bills as a package won’t solve all of

our problems. But I do think they would represent a pretty big step

forward for our region.

So I thank you for the opportunity to come and talk about this

legislation.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, and thank you for all your efforts and

hard work. If you are not the hardest working member, you are one

of the hardest working members in Congress. I know the situation

has forced a lot of this on you, and as you said, the Subcommittee

passed out one of your bills. We were coming back from August to

pass it out of full Committee, and then of course Katrina stopped

all that.

All of your legislation we will take into consideration, and in

some form or another a lot of this stuff is somewhere working

through the process. We really appreciate your efforts on this and

look forward to working with you to move this legislation forward.

Mr. JINDAL. I want to thank you, not only for your leadership,

Mr. Chairman, but for the full Committee’s leadership. Both you

and the Chairman and the Ranking Member have been very supportive of our efforts, and we appreciate that. I know you have a

lot of work in front of the Committee.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming

today.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Jindal, we are all in the same boat. You can

count on Mississippi’s help.

Mr. JINDAL. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor. I want to thank

all of the witnesses who were here today. They have given us a lot

of insight, and these ideas, as I said from the beginning, come from
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different parts of the Country, they are really helpful. But as I

mentioned, Mr. Jindal, we will be working through all these different ideas and pieces of legislation. I can’t thank the members

enough for taking the time to be here today.

I would like to ask unanimous consent that the record of today’s

hearing remain open for ten days and that all members or outside

groups wishing to submit materials be allowed to do so. Without

objection, so ordered.

With that, the Committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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