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24–439 PDF 2006

S. Hrg. 109–467

HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW IS FEMA PERFORMING ITS MISSION AT THIS STAGE OF

RECOVERY?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 6, 2005

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JONATHAN T. NASS, Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Minority Professional Staff Member 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 1

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 3

WITNESS 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2005

R. David Paulison, Acting Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and 

Response, and Acting Director of the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41

Post-hearing Questions and Responses .......................................................... 53

APPENDIX

Senator Coburn’s Findings RE: Charity Hospital in New Orleans ..................... 32

Coburn Calculations RE: the cost of the FEMA contract with Carnival Corp. .. 33

(1)

HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW IS FEMA PERFORMING ITS MISSION AT THIS STAGE OF 

RECOVERY? 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2005

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in room SD–

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Collins, Coleman, Coburn, Warner, Lieberman, 

Levin, Akaka, Carper, Dayton, and Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. The Committee will come to order. 

Good morning. This morning the Committee holds its third hearing into the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Our focus 

today will be on the recovery efforts being directed by the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Our purpose is to identify the bureaucratic roadblocks, inflexible policies, outdated laws, 

and wasteful practices that impede the prompt and compassionate 

delivery of needed assistance. 

I appreciate the acting FEMA Director Paulison testifying before 

us today. Throughout our investigation, the Committee has taken 

care not to interfere with the critical work being done in the Gulf 

States by distracting key officials from their urgent, immediate duties. At the same time, however, this Committee has an obligation 

to conduct vigorous oversight. More than a month after Katrina’s 

landfall, frustration, concerns, and questions about FEMA’s responsiveness and planning persist as Gulf Coast residents work to put 

their lives and their communities back together. 

At our hearing last week, we heard testimony from four officials 

representing communities that have become major relocation and 

relief centers for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the 

storm. A common theme of that testimony was the incredible ingenuity and generosity demonstrated by individuals, businesses, 

charities, churches, and other community organizations in providing relief, not just in the immediate aftermath of the storm, but 

for the days and weeks following. Another common theme was that 

in many cases this humanitarian mission is being carried out, not 

in conjunction with a coordinated Federal effort, but despite the 

lack of one. 

2

As an example of this disconnect, the Mayor of Baton Rouge told 

our Committee that it was not until September 27, not coincidentally the day before our hearing, that his city was assigned a single 

point of contact at FEMA. The population of Baton Rouge doubled 

in the first days after the storm, from 400,000 to 800,000. The pressures on the city’s resources—schools, housing, and health care facilities—are staggering. For the city that is at the very heart of the 

recovery effort to be left so long without a dedicated Federal contact is simply astonishing. 

The Mayor of Fayetteville told us that the FEMA teams in his 

city seemed to be completely unaware of each other’s presence, evidence of a lack of coordination and communication that we have 

heard about time and again. Minor oversights and inevitable 

glitches are to be expected. But the more glaring failures appear 

to be the result of insufficient planning, faulty decisions, ineffective 

implementation, or perhaps simply an overwhelmed bureaucracy. 

FEMA officials have stated that housing for those displaced by 

the storm is the Agency’s highest priority. Yet more than 430,000 

victims remain in hotel rooms and thousands more are still in 

emergency shelters. Since Katrina hit, FEMA has signed contracts 

for more than $2 billion in temporary housing, including more than 

120,000 trailers and mobile homes. According to press reports, however, as of last week just 109 Louisiana families have been placed 

in those homes while tens of thousands of Louisiana residents remain in emergency shelters. 

The entire concept of creating sprawling centers of temporary 

housing far from homes, schools, and other necessities has been 

questioned. Would an expanded voucher system be more effective? 

Are displaced families asked their preferences? Is the system 

matching families and housing easily accessible? 

The Committee has also heard countless stories of wasted resources and refused offers of skilled assistance. Several hundred 

firefighters from throughout the country who answered an emergency call from FEMA to serve on the front lines of the Katrina 

recovery found themselves instead in Atlanta undergoing days of 

training on cultural sensitivity and sexual harassment. Many then 

found themselves not dispatched to the scene of the disaster where 

their skills would have been put to very good use but instead serving as community relations officers for FEMA. 

One of those firefighters was from Jay, Maine. He and four other 

Maine firefighters had traveled south at FEMA’s request. They 

were asked to bring flood and hazmat gear with them and were advised that they must be physically capable of performing manual 

tasks under severe conditions. They were told to expect austere, 

harsh living conditions with minimal or no creature comforts for a 

period of at least 30 days. 

Instead, once they arrived in Atlanta they had to go through 2 

days of sensitivity training before getting their assignments. Then 

they learned that they were being deployed to Texas and that their 

jobs would be handing out pamphlets and helping evacuees fill out 

paperwork. These five Maine firefighters feel that their valuable 

skills were wasted. They answered the call for help, volunteering 

to serve in harsh conditions. So they wonder why they were put up 

in hotels and asked to do jobs that could have easily been perVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:11 Jul 25, 2006 Jkt 024439 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24439.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
3

formed by local people. They are frustrated by spending two critical 

days in sensitivity training at a time when they could have been 

helping people in desperate need. 

Too often vital supplies have not been positioned where they are 

needed. Perhaps one of the best known examples is the odyssey of 

the ice. Nearly 200 million pounds of ice were purchased by the 

Federal Government at a cost exceeding $100 million. Much of it 

traveled thousands of miles on circuitous routes throughout the 

country, including to Maine, but was never delivered to the victims. 

In addition, a recent report by the Inspector General finds that 

millions of dollars were wasted on unused ice during the Florida 

hurricanes last year. No one questions the necessity of ice during 

natural disasters, but clearly the system by which commodities are 

ordered, tracked, and delivered appears to be deeply flawed. 

Since September 11, enormous investments of time, effort, and 

taxpayer money have been made to craft a system in which all levels of government were to communicate and coordinate for the most 

effective response possible whether to a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. That did not occur with Katrina. Certainly there are 

many people at all levels of government, including people at 

FEMA, who are working tirelessly to help rebuild the lives and 

communities that this powerful storm so severely damaged. But the 

progress has been halting, a trail of missteps that calls into question what has been done during the past 4 years and that continues to plague the recovery efforts to this very day. 

Senator Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Thanks for calling this hearing. 

Mr. Paulison, thanks very much for being here. As the Chairman’s opening statement has indicated, you are going to hear an 

accumulation of frustrations, anger, concerns, and questions about 

FEMA’s performance. I understand that you’re the Acting Director 

of FEMA. You were brought in on an urgent emergency basis when 

Michael Brown stepped down. But you’re the man in the chair now, 

and therefore you’re the person that we have to ask these questions 

of. I thank you for being here, and I will proceed in that spirit. The 

spirit is one of determination to work together with FEMA and the 

Department of Homeland Security to get this right, which is to say 

the process of preparing for and responding to disasters, whether 

they be natural disasters or terrorist attacks, because neither nature nor history will give us a vacation, or a break. So we’ve got 

to do the work that we know we need to do and do it quickly. 

Last week at a hearing that we held, as the Chairman has indicated, the stories we heard from officials whose communities have 

opened their arms to hundreds of thousands of evacuees were very 

troubling. The ongoing investigation of our staff has found critical 

gaps in the recovery effort. 

First, and most importantly, FEMA has had trouble, it seems to 

us, just getting services to many of the storm victims. In too many 

hard-hit communities in the Gulf Coast, disaster recovery centers, 

so-called DRCs, still have not been established. According to your 

testimony submitted to the Committee, Mr. Paulison, FEMA has 

4

established 84 DRCs, but Hurricane Katrina alone affected some 

90,000 square miles of the Gulf Coast consisting of hundreds of 

local jurisdictions. How many communities out of the national spotlight that Senator Collins and I saw when we visited the region a 

couple of weeks ago totally in Hurricane Katrina’s and then later 

Hurricane Rita’s path are there, and how many still do not have 

a convenient FEMA center where citizens without access to phones 

or Internet can go for help? 

I will tell you that our staff asked, I believe it was the congressional relations office of FEMA, for some numbers on this. How 

many communities are currently unserved that should be served, 

and we were told to look at the FEMA Web site. And that’s just 

not enough. That’s not an adequate response. 

We have heard complaints also that FEMA has not communicated effectively with many of the local officials in the affected 

area. We’ve been told that many of these officials, in Louisiana particularly, are having a hard time finding out from FEMA who is 

in charge of urgent matters like housing for evacuees. Others complain that when decisions are made that they, the local officials, 

have not been put in the loop to participate in the decisions or even 

to learn about them in a timely way. 

I would say that the most significant need that FEMA must address now is housing for the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of evacuees who need it. I’m glad, of course, that FEMA and 

the Red Cross have decided to extend for now the program which 

is paying for a reported 438,000 evacuees to stay temporarily in hotels and motels. As you know, the program was originally scheduled to end on October 15, but with longer-term solutions still not 

available for many evacuees, I do not think FEMA had any other 

choice but to extend the program, and I thank you for doing that. 

More broadly on the housing question, FEMA has apparently 

spent well over $1 billion up until this time for travel trailers and 

mobile homes, although the exact number our staff has not been 

able to determine. I am going to ask you today how much, to the 

best of your knowledge, FEMA has spent on housing and what’s 

happened for now to those trailers and mobile homes that have 

been contracted for? 

Again, many local officials have told the Committee and our staff 

that they fear a proliferation of dysfunctional FEMA cities across 

the Gulf Coast region where evacuees will have little access to jobs, 

schools, health care, public transportation, or other services. Helping hundreds of thousands of evacuees who cannot return home to 

find suitable housing is clearly an extremely difficult problem. I 

don’t minimize it as I repeat these concerns and criticisms, but we 

need to hear today how FEMA and the Administration plan to 

solve this problem. 

Like all other Members of the Committee, I would imagine, I am 

also concerned that FEMA’s handling of no-bid contracts for the response and the recovery effort has created opportunities for waste, 

fraud, and abuse. Some companies with questionable contracting 

histories have been awarded multibillion-dollar no-bid contracts. 

Others are reportedly receiving payments far in excess of market 

rates. 

5

FEMA does not appear to have sufficient contract officers to prevent these abuses. Congress has already appropriated, as you well 

know, over $60 billion for the relief effort. We absolutely need to 

assure that those funds are being spent effectively or it will, as it 

is beginning now, constrict the willingness of Congress to appropriate more money for relief recovery and rebuilding. 

In that regard I’m pleased to see that the Administration has, in 

fact, decided to limit the government’s use of a statutory provision 

that it originally asked to be changed. That provision had increased 

to $250,000 the amount that Federal employees could charge to 

government credit cards for Katrina-related purchases. Similar use 

of much smaller authority was criticized in previous auditing reports. To raise it to $250,000 was inviting abuse at a time when 

we really need to take steps to guard against it. Congress now, I 

hope, will follow through by repealing the original provision, which 

was enacted in the initial supplemental appropriation without opportunity for debate. 

Finally, I do want to talk with you, if time allows today, about 

the oversight of not just the immediate response and relief but of 

the recovery and rebuilding process. I know that Secretary Chertoff 

has asked Coast Guard Admiral Allen to be in charge of the immediate relief and response to Hurricane Katrina, but on the recovery 

and rebuilding under existing statute and regulation FEMA’s role 

is also pivotal. Under the national response plan, FEMA is charged 

not only with delivering its own programs of recovery and response 

and rebuilding, it also is the Federal coordinator for long-term recovery that includes other primary agencies such as HUD, Small 

Business Administration, Department of Agriculture, and the 

Treasury Department. 

This is a recovery and rebuilding of the Gulf Coast that is without precedent in our history. A successful recovery from this disaster, compounded by the additional responsibilities that have been 

placed on FEMA by Hurricane Rita, it seems to me, is beyond 

FEMA’s capacity to manage, which is to say the recovery and reconstruction of the Gulf Coast region. Many of us here are looking 

for an answer to how to best provide for the reconstruction of the 

Gulf Coast and are concerned or have concluded that it is too much 

to ask of FEMA to do this, and I would like very much to hear your 

advice at this point, as Congress is thinking about these matters, 

on this important question. 

Madam Chairman, I thank Chief Paulison for taking the helm in 

a time of crisis. He’s got a distinguished and very proud record in 

firefighting and as Administrator for the U.S. Fire Administration 

over the years. He is no stranger to stepping into a tough situation. 

This is a real tough one that will demand your best. I thank you 

for coming today to answer our questions. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. I’m pleased to welcome——

Senator LAUTENBERG. Madam Chairman, forgive the interruption, but I understand that for a peculiar reason that I do not fully 

comprehend that we’re prohibited from giving opening statements. 

I thought that we, as Members of the Committee, would have the 

same privileges as the Chairman and the Ranking Member, and I 

am going to suggest to my colleagues that they prepare opening 

statements and give them to the press. If there is not time to hear 

6

a protocol that perhaps one of us want to lay out, I think that we 

ought to make sure that we are not stymied from giving our views. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Lautenberg, it was made very clear 

to all Members that at the start of this series of hearings every 

Member would be given an opportunity for an opening statement, 

but that on subsequent hearings, as is the case in virtually every 

other committee, the Chairman and Ranking Member alone would 

give opening statements. 

However, every Member is welcome to have an opening statement prepared, put on the press table, and included in the record. 

And to make that very clear, I would say that, without objection, 

opening statements will be included in the record for all Members. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Madam Chairman, I do want to say with respect to Senator Lautenberg’s question that this procedure has 

been agreed to by both of us and is patterned—I am happy to say 

this in the presence of the distinguished chairman and the ranking 

member on the Armed Services Committee—on the other committees, not all of them but most of them that I am on, that follow 

this rule, that part of it is because we want to get to the witness 

and then leave, hopefully, a little longer time for individual questions. So I understand why you said this and I respect it, but I just 

wanted you to know it is a decision we have made together. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I understood that, Senator Lieberman. The 

fact that you made it together, in my view, doesn’t make it right. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. But it raises the probability that it’s right. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman COLLINS. I am very pleased to now turn to our first 

witness, David Paulison. Just 3 weeks ago, on September 12, Chief 

Paulison took over as the Acting Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response and as the Acting Director of FEMA. As 

Senator Lieberman indicated, previously he served as the Administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration, as well as the Director of 

Preparedness Division. He also began his career as a firefighter 

and rose through the ranks to be Chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Department. He has had a great deal of experience, and I very much 

appreciate his joining us this morning. 

I also want to make clear to those watching this hearing and to 

our colleagues that I recognize that Mr. Paulison has only been in 

the job as FEMA Director for 3 weeks. Thus, many of the problems 

and the criticisms that we’re going to bring up today were not on 

his watch. The decisions were not made by him. Nevertheless, 

you’re the one in charge right now, Mr. Paulison, so we hope that 

you will work with us to address what remain very serious problems. 

Please proceed with your statement. 

7

1The prepared statement of Mr. Paulison appears in the Appendix on page 41. 

TESTIMONY OF R. DAVID PAULISON,1 ACTING UNDER SECRETARY FOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE, 

AND ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY 

MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

Mr. PAULISON. Madam Chairman, thank you very much for those 

comments, and Senator Lieberman and the rest of the Committee. 

Quite frankly, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you. I 

understand very clearly the charge that we have. I have only been 

here for 3 weeks, but we will work with this Committee, I can 

promise you that, to make sure that we look at all avenues of how 

we’re going to make this a better system. 

I was asked by President Bush and Secretary Chertoff, as you 

know, 3 weeks ago to take over as Acting Director of FEMA. Quite 

frankly, I did not hesitate to lead the dedicated men and women 

of FEMA. Senator Collins, I appreciate your comments earlier. It’s 

astounding the effort that I’ve seen by the employees of FEMA to 

do a good job, and quite frankly I’m humbled to be working with 

what I feel are some of the finest people in the Federal Government. 

Over time, I look forward to working with Congress, this Committee particularly, to evaluate and address what we have learned 

and continue to learn from this catastrophic event. I do appreciate 

the attention and focus Congress is giving to these important 

issues, and I look forward to working with you in the coming 

months. 

However, that is not why I am here today. Today, I’m here to report on the ongoing relief effort, which you rightly imagine has 

been, quite frankly, occupying all of our time and particularly 

mine. So I’d like to provide the Committee with a brief report on 

ongoing operations. Our response efforts involving immediate lifesaving and sustaining efforts are coming to an end, and a long and 

immensely challenging recovery effort is already well underway. 

Families have been separated, lives have been turned upside 

down, and many people, as you have seen personally, have lost everything they have. FEMA, our Federal partners, the governors, 

the mayors, parish presidents, county officials, emergency workers 

and planners, private industry, as well as our partners in charitable and faith-based organizations, have a great deal of work 

ahead of us. This will require, quite frankly, a team effort from all 

of us. We will work side-by-side with all of our partners, and we’re 

going to be united, not divided, in this effort. It’s going to take hard 

work, but together I firmly believe, I do believe that we can get the 

job done. 

To date, FEMA has registered over 2 million victims for disaster 

assistance, and we’ve provided housing assistance in the form of 

money or direct housing to almost 400,000 displaced individuals 

and families. As Senator Lieberman pointed out, we have 84 disaster recovery centers open in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and 

Alabama to provide support to these evacuees. At one point we had 

over 300,000 evacuees from Hurricane Katrina sheltered in congregate shelters spread throughout more than 40 States. Hurricane 

8

Rita added to this shelter population, and although today we have 

fewer than 60,000 people in the shelters, we still have a lot of work 

to do because our goal is to get these people out of these shelters 

by the middle of the month. 

Our first and foremost priorities are efforts to address the housing needs of those displaced while also respecting individual autonomy as well as the impact on the affected communities and States. 

State and local leaders will play a central role in determining the 

nature and shape of the long-term and arduous planning and rebuilding process that we’re going to have to go through. We will 

support and supplement these State and local efforts throughout 

the process while continuing to assist the individual victims of 

these disasters. That is a commitment from me personally. 

Our goal is to move all Katrina evacuees out of congregate shelters by the middle of October. In Louisiana and Mississippi, Texas, 

and Alabama, hundreds of thousands of homes have been damaged 

or destroyed in one of America’s largest natural disasters. The 

housing stock lost in most of the impacted parishes and counties 

in Louisiana and Mississippi alone has created a need for shortterm and mid-term housing for an estimated between 400,000 and 

600,000 households. Some of these people are still in congregate 

shelters. 

Many of the displaced found their own temporary accommodations such as hotels and motels or with friends and family. They, 

too, will require assistance to get back on their feet. These families 

will also need to find long-term housing. The Federal Government 

is committed to helping the citizens of the Gulf Coast overcome this 

disaster and rebuild their devastated communities. 

Our recovery strategy is based on a single premise, assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina and re-establish a normal living environment as quickly as possible in the towns and communities where 

they want to live as long as that local infrastructure can support 

them in the long term. In reaching these goals, we’ll apply three 

basic assistance methods. The first method is to provide assistance 

directly to individuals and families, allowing them to take ownership of their lives, to choose for themselves the best housing option, 

where they can best fit into the job market, and how best to move 

forward. Each eligible family can receive assistance for temporary 

housing for up to 18 months. 

An individual whose unemployment or loss of self-employment is 

caused by a major disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, and who is not 

eligible for regular unemployment compensation, may be eligible 

for the disaster unemployment assistance program that FEMA operates. To date we’ve provided almost $50 million to the U.S. Department of Labor for unemployment benefits and State administrative expenses under the disaster unemployment assistance program. 

The second way is to provide assistance to State and local governments that are now encumbered by the increased demands on 

their limited resources. While many host States have welcomed 

thousands and thousands of displaced evacuees into their communities, into their churches and schools, they nevertheless face a difficult challenge supporting the new population of evacuees as you 

so correctly pointed out. Their infrastructure, their community 

9

services, and housing stocks have been strained to the limit, and 

the Federal Government recognizes the urgent situation that 

they’re in. 

Accordingly, we are committed to reimbursing the States for 

many of these increased shelter-related costs through our public assistance program. In areas directly impacted by Hurricane Katrina, 

we will provide funding to repair damaged schools and rebuild 

those that were destroyed, including funding for equipment, furniture, and supplies. In those host States that have received large 

numbers of displaced students, we will fund temporary classrooms 

in those schools where additional funding capacity is needed to accommodate the increase in the number of enrolled students. In addition, if new buses are needed to transport students to school, we 

will fund those additional costs along with any additional security 

costs they may incur. 

The third way is to help rebuild the Gulf Coast in ways that 

make the community stronger, safer, and less vulnerable for future 

loss of life and property. FEMA’s public assistance program and direct contracting authority will pay for much of this work. The 

States will pay a portion of these efforts as well. Some of the remaining costs will be paid through our flood insurance settlements 

administered by the National Flood Insurance Program and 

through mitigation grants, private insurance, Small Business Administration loans, Federal tax incentives, and the private sector. 

Also during the recovery process, FEMA awards grants under the 

hazard mitigation grant program as authorized in the Stafford Act, 

so we can assist State, local, and tribal governments to rebuild 

communities in a way that will reduce vulnerability and reduce future hazards. The recovery process for Hurricane Katrina will be 

neither fast nor easy, and I’m sure you’re well aware of that. But 

I’m confident that we will get there, but only if we continue to work 

together with all of the partners that I mentioned earlier. 

On September 23, 2005, the Federal Government announced a 

comprehensive housing assistance program to meet the immediate 

needs of individuals and families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. 

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of 

Housing and Urban Development announced measures to provide 

transitional housing assistance to evacuees that cut through red 

tape to provide the evacuees with flexibility, a choice, and portability that they need to move into temporary shelters and more 

stable housing than those congregate shelters that they’ve been in. 

We are also expediting aid to evacuees with immediate housing 

needs. Because of Hurricane Katrina’s unprecedented scope and 

the widespread dispersion of evacuees, FEMA is accelerating the 

assistance to individuals and households program, which provides 

housing assistance to homeowners and renters. To reduce upfront 

paperwork and provide immediate aid, households will receive an 

initial lump sum or rental assistance payment of $2,358 to cover 

3 months of housing needs. This payment represents a national average of fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will also 

provide specialized housing to assist these evacuees. While the majority of evacuees will receive assistance through FEMA, others will 

be eligible for comparable benefits under HUD’s Katrina disaster 

10

housing assistance program. Through these programs, displaced 

families will have the opportunity to relocate to areas where housing availability and job markets will meet their immediate needs. 

Let me do contracting first, and then I’ll get into the conclusion. 

I think that’s an interest for everyone here. 

As we focus on the long-term rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region, 

many are asking how the Federal contracting process works and 

rightfully are concerned about the cost, as we all are. Members of 

Congress have also inquired on behalf of their constituent business 

owners about how they can match the resources with the extraordinary demand on the impacted regions. 

There are three basic ways by which we will arrange and pay for 

the Federal recovery efforts. In some cases, FEMA will directly contract for goods and services in accordance with our Federal procurement regulations. I can assure you that we are enforcing those 

Federal procurement regulations. FEMA can also issue mission assignments to other Federal departments and agencies to perform 

necessary work and reimburse them for their costs. In many cases, 

however, FEMA will reimburse directly the State and local governments in declared emergency areas for eligible activities through 

grants. 

For example, FEMA issued a mission assignment to the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers to conduct large-scale debris removal efforts in some of the most decimated areas of Mississippi and Louisiana. The Corps acquires services or supplies for these efforts 

through contracting processes. Companies interested in assisting in 

the debris removal efforts should contact local officials or go to the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers web site for guidance, and they can 

become part of that system. 

Similarly, last week the Department of Homeland Security 

placed on its web site a list of companies with whom FEMA has 

contracted and posted a link that should be helpful for businesses 

interested in directly contracting with FEMA or in examining subcontracting opportunities. Businesses in your constituent States 

that wish to pursue contracting opportunities can go to the Department of Homeland Security web site and simply click on the icon, 

Working with the Department of Homeland Security, and it gives 

them opportunities to get into that system. 

As I said, much of FEMA’s spending will be to State governments in the form of grants. FEMA awards grants to assist State, 

local, and tribal governments and certain private non-profit entities 

with their respective responses to and recovery from disasters. Specifically, FEMA provides assistance for debris removal, implementation of emergency protective measures, and permanent restoration of infrastructure. 

While FEMA is not a party to contracts awarded by the State or 

their county sub-applicants, we will nevertheless not tolerate discriminatory contracting practices. Under the Stafford Act and its 

implementing regulations, local businesses or workers are to be 

given preference where practicable, and under various Federal laws 

and FEMA regulations, minority and women-owned businesses 

should be given a fair opportunity to compete for contracts. 

In conclusion, governments, whether local, State, or Federal, cannot compel any citizen to move back into the disaster-affected reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:11 Jul 25, 2006 Jkt 024439 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24439.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
11

gion, nor should they. However, we must work with our State and 

local partners to develop opportunities that will facilitate the return and provide help to those who chose to do so. Over time and 

with encouragement, the good people of the Gulf Coast will return 

and make the region better, safer, and less vulnerable to disaster 

if disaster strikes again. 

These States are suffering tremendously. Speaking from experience, it will take years to really recover, and there will be countless 

hurdles to overcome along the way. But the spirit and essence of 

this region, even among such a tragedy, remains vibrant and 

strong, and all of us remain committed to the restoration of this 

important part of this great Nation. I believe that working together 

we will help the victims in this terrible disaster rebuild their lives 

and get back to some normal type of living conditions. 

Madam Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak in 

front of you, and I would be absolutely happy to answer any questions that I possibly can. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much. 

Senator Warner needs to leave to chair the Armed Services Committee hearing, so I’m going to yield part of my initial time to him. 

Senator Warner.

Senator WARNER. I thank the Chairman, and I will submit other 

questions for the record. 

Drawing your attention to something that you’ve, I’m sure, been 

focusing on, the Mayor of New Orleans has laid off a goodly number of his city workers who could presumably be productive in this 

crisis. The sheriff now has inadequate funds to pay his individuals. 

Is that within your jurisdiction, or where might I or others go to 

try to help that situation, which on its face seems to me to fall 

within what Congress intended by way of its appropriations to 

meet these types of crises? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir, that’s a significant issue for probably not 

only New Orleans but several of the other communities that I met 

with the mayors on also. Under the Stafford Act we do have the 

ability to loan up to 25 percent of the taxable revenue in a particular community. However, that has been capped at $5 million, 

and I’m not sure that $5 million would have a big impact on a city 

the size of New Orleans, or Baton Rouge, or some of the others. 

Senator WARNER. There’s no other means by which Congress can 

expeditiously act to help in that situation, if it’s necessary? 

Mr. PAULISON. There is no other means for FEMA to assist in 

that matter. 

Senator WARNER. Is there another agency of government—I assume you’re coordinating with other Federal departments and 

agencies? 

Mr. PAULISON. We are, sir. I’m not aware of any that allows us 

to give direct benefits as far as paying for employees’ salaries. We 

do pay for overtime. If the overtime is created by dealing with a 

disaster, we will assist a city in that matter. But we are not allowed to pay for——

Senator WARNER. Perhaps our staff and others can direct their 

attention to this because I think this is a situation that patently 

on its face—the American citizens want to help in a situation like 

this. 

12

Senator LIEBERMAN. Madam Chairman, I wonder if I could just 

clarify because I believe I just heard you say that under the Stafford Act FEMA can only compensate for overtime work of municipal employees. In this case, because they’ve had their tax base 

decimated, they need compensation for just regular pay, not overtime; is that right? 

Mr. PAULISON. That’s correct. Several of the cities in the area 

have lost most of their tax base, so therefore they don’t have the 

revenues to necessarily operate their normal day-to-day operations, 

such as New Orleans, as Senator Warner pointed out. That is an 

issue. Except for the $5 million that we’re allowed to give statutorily to loan to the cities, the rest of that is outside of our purview. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Can that be used for regular pay and not 

overtime as——

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, the $5 million under the Stafford Act is a 

loan, and again it’s up to 25 percent. Previously, in my understanding, there was not a cap. Congress put a cap on it, I’m not 

sure how many years ago, to cap it at $5 million. It does help some 

of the smaller cities, but it probably wouldn’t have a big impact on 

the City of New Orleans. 

Senator WARNER. Madam Chairman, we have a bill on the floor 

moving through now, and we could possibly put together a brief 

amendment to correct these technical problems. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. That’s a very good idea. 

Senator WARNER. I’d be happy to join with the Chairman in that 

matter. I thank you for the courtesy. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Paulison, one of the complaints that we’ve heard from the 

very beginning, and it continues to this day, is that it’s been difficult for the victims of Hurricane Katrina to register for benefits. 

Initially, we were told that they would call the 1–800 number, it 

would be busy. They would try in the middle of the night, they still 

couldn’t get through. We were at that point, told by FEMA that 

they should go to the web site, and now we’re hearing from our colleagues in the Gulf States that hurricane victims have been turned 

away when they tried to register for benefits at FEMA’s disaster 

recovery centers, which would seem to be a very logical place to go 

to register for benefits. So we looked on FEMA’s web site, and sure 

enough, it said that hurricane victims could not go to the disaster 

recovery centers to register for assistance, and we’ve highlighted 

the relevant section. 

We printed that screen out on Monday. We talked with FEMA 

officials, and we said, it makes no sense to set up one-stop centers 

and yet not allow victims to register for assistance. Now it’s to 

FEMA’s credit that after we talked to FEMA about this that the 

web site was corrected, that the policy was changed, and now hurricane victims can go to the logical place, the disaster recovery centers, in order to register. But I am perplexed why FEMA would not 

have allowed individuals to register in the first place when you’ve 

touted these recovery centers as being a one-stop center. 

Mr. PAULISON. Senator, I don’t know that I can answer the question of what has happened prior to me being here, although I understand the position I am in, and I do accept responsibility for 

13

those issues. They can go to the centers. They can use our telephones to register, or they can use our computers to register online. 

The amount of people we registered in Hurricane Katrina far exceeds anything that FEMA has ever done. We ramped up, we had 

well over 12,000 people answering telephones during the height of 

the Katrina response and ramped up as quickly as we could. We 

normally keep about 1,000 operators around the clock to answer 

FEMA questions, and we had to ramp up very quickly from 1,000 

to over 12,000. And we can thank the IRS, their call center, they 

loaned that to us to ramp up. We got about 5,000 people immediately. But you are correct, the Disaster Recovery Center should 

be a place where people can go to register, and we have done that 

and will continue to do that in the future. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. I used up the remainder of my 

time. Senator Levin needs to go also. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator 

Lieberman. So that I can join Senator Warner over at the Armed 

Services Committee, I appreciate your allowing me to go out of 

order. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Senator Collins and I hope that Senator 

Warner and you will, therefore, support all of our requests for 

funding for our respective States. [Laughter.] 

Senator LEVIN. In addition to that, we will also explain your absence to the Armed Services Committee, even more important. 

At the last hearing, I asked our witnesses about missing children. We still have children that are unaccounted for, a couple 

thousand. We also have children that are located in shelters or in 

homes that are still separated from a family member. Do you know 

how many children there are? 

Mr. PAULISON. Senator, I do not know exactly how many children. I do know that we are working diligently to get families back 

together. We know very well that families were separated during 

this disaster and are working to make sure that we get those families back together where they belong together. Right now we are 

going into the shelters—we have about 57,000 left in congregate 

shelters—to get those into some decent housing. And we will also 

start our case work, and I think that case work will very quickly 

help us resolve some of the issues you talked about. 

Senator LEVIN. What we need is just simply a common intake 

form in a national database. There is no reason not to have one. 

We have been trying to get this from the Red Cross, these numbers. We have been trying to get these facts from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It is incredible to me that 

there is not a single database where people who have control of 

missing children who are separated from their parents or their 

guardians are not identifying those children and those children are 

not being linked to the guardians and the parents who are looking 

for children. I find that utterly incredible that there is no one database for those children to be registered and those parents who are 

still seeking children to be registered. 

I would hope FEMA would just take charge of this issue. We cannot get this data. Of all the human horror stories that exist, it 

seems to me that probably at the moment, with all of the other 

problems—and there are huge problems; they have been identified 

14

by our Chairman, our Ranking Member, Senator Warner, and others—this has got to be No. 1. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, we also have a law, as you said, that local 

people are supposed to be used in the reconstruction under the 

Stafford Act, where that is practicable, I guess, are the words of 

the statute, and yet we have story after story about local workers 

being displaced by workers who are coming in from other States 

who work for less wages. 

For instance, 75 skilled electricians at Alvin Callendar Naval Air 

Station in Louisiana, a military base hit hard by Katrina, 75 electricians from Louisiana, devastated by the hurricane, but they had 

a job, employed by Knight Electrical under a 20-month contract to 

repair electrical problems on the base after Katrina. Then we were 

told that recently the operation was shifted to Kellogg, Brown & 

Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. They then subcontracted immediately to an engineering and construction firm with out-of-state offices. They bring out-of-state electricians to the base. 

Are you familiar with that particular issue? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir, and——

Senator LEVIN. Is my statement accurate or is that——

Mr. PAULISON. Well, 72 percent of the dollars—not necessarily 72 

percent of the contractors, but 72 percent of the dollars in the first 

3 weeks after Hurricane Katrina when we started contracting went 

to small businesses. And any contracts over $500,000, our current 

business plan says at least 40 percent of those subcontractors have 

to be awarded to small business. 

Senator LEVIN. Are you familiar with the one contract that I 

mentioned that was shifted to Kellogg, Brown & Root? 

Mr. PAULISON. We can definitely research that—I have people 

sitting behind me—and get back to you on that particular contract. 

We are working very hard, believe me. 

Senator LEVIN. I know you are working hard, but this is a subject that we read constantly about, hear constantly about. 

Another example: Maintenance workers at the Superdome and 

the Convention Center, these are maintenance workers at that center who had a job. They were being paid $15 an hour plus benefits. 

That was their pay. Instead, suddenly the cleanup is being handled 

by out-of-state workers who agreed to work for $12 an hour with 

no benefits. 

Now, is that what is going on here? Do you know about that 

problem? 

Mr. PAULISON. I can tell you that we are working diligently to 

get most of those contracts down to the local workers, if possible. 

We know that in order to rebuild that community, the people need 

jobs, they need housing, and we are working to do that. I can look 

at these individual instances. In fact, if you want to give us that 

whole list, we can do the research. 

Senator LEVIN. I will give you the third one. You can report on 

these and then tell us if they are typical or not. This has to do with 

portable classrooms. A company that had supplied portable classrooms to schools in Mississippi for two decades offered to supply 

200 portable classrooms immediately, another on short notice. They 

offered to sell these for $20 million. Instead of accepting that offer, 

15

there was a no-bid contract to a company called Akima that had 

out-of-state offices, no prior experience in supplying portable classrooms. Twice as much was paid to that company as was offered in 

a contract by the Mississippi company that had previously supplied 

those classrooms. And if you will read the Clarion Ledger, a paper 

in Jackson, Mississippi, a no-bid contract issued to a crony, a company that had those kinds of crony contacts before with the contractor, allegedly. 

Now, I know with all the things that you need to do, we have 

to get local people working. We have to have contracts bid for, and 

we need a system, as our Chairman and Ranking Member have 

said. If this contracting process is not used properly, if dubious contractors are used or cronies are used or sole-source contracts are 

used, we are going to find that there is a loss of support for congressional efforts to see if we can’t help these folks recover from 

the disaster. It is going to sour the public, basically, on congressional efforts to help the public if these stories continue. And I 

would hope that on those three cases you look into it, but also go 

back to those missing kids, if you would, and give us some assurance that is the No. 1 priority to bring those families and their 

children back together. 

Mr. PAULISON. Absolutely. Particularly the classrooms, that is 

one of those issues that we mission-assigned to the Army Corps of 

Engineers to provide those classrooms. But we can go back also 

through them and see how they awarded those contracts. 

Senator LEVIN. I appreciate that, and thank you for your efforts. 

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you for your questions. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Welcome. First of all, let me tell you how proud I am of the courage that you are displaying in the position that you are holding. 

You are in the hot seat, and it is difficult. Our job is to make sure 

that the response is appropriate to the individual need, and some 

of what we do is a little Monday morning armchair quarterbacking 

to you, but I think it is still very important. 

One of the concerns—we had several people from Oklahoma 

down working, and I want to raise an issue with you. Several of 

them were National Guardsmen that were told to leave Charity 

Hospital, and the assessment by the National Guardsmen that I 

talked to down there was that the only damage that Charity Hospital had inflicted on it was flooding of the basement. 

I hear last night on the news that they are going to condemn the 

hospital, and I don’t know if that is accurate or not. But what I 

do know is they had plans to replace it prior to this, and they had 

not found a funding mechanism. And the question in my mind, in 

your job as administrator, and we look at that if, in fact, structurally it has been damaged, is it part and parcel of what we 

should do to replace that whole hospital? Should that be American 

taxpayers that do that? Or should we replace the portion of it that 

was actually damaged by the storm since it was up for replacement 

anyway? And so I would love to hear your comments on the philosophy under which FEMA works and the guidelines under which 

FEMA works to do that. 

16

I will put a couple more out there on the table for you so that 

you can answer. 

We also had several Oklahomans that went down, EMTs that 

went down for dispatching, and they were paid as dispatchers. One 

spent 1 weekend down there, and you all paid him $5,400 to work 

48 hours to dispatch care from Texas into the area. And he called 

me because his question was: ‘‘This is ridiculous that I am getting 

paid this much money.’’

The third area is that some of the contracts that have been let 

down there are now affecting the rigs that we are trying to get 

back up in the Gulf Coast because the pay that they are receiving 

from some of the contractors is higher than what the pay is when 

working on the rigs. So when we are overpaying for things, we tend 

to have things not competition allocating the resources where they 

might best be needed. 

So I just would like for you to outline the process that you all 

go through to make the decisions that you make. 

Mr. PAULISON. I think there are a couple issues. One, I appreciate the information about Charity Hospital. We will look at that 

very carefully. 

Senator COBURN. Let me just give you a little additional thing 

on that. They were told to leave their positions and instructed by 

the mayor and the management of Charity Hospital, and several 

of the doctors that I have talked to down there say there is nothing 

wrong with the hospital. They can be up and running if they would 

just decide to do it. So I am a little worried that we may be building a new hospital, or at least paying for a complete hospital, 

when, in fact, it may not be our obligation. 

Mr. PAULISON. We want to move quickly to restore the cities, especially the critical infrastructure, back to the way they were. And 

that is the key, restoring them back to their original condition, not 

necessarily tear down and rebuild a new one. So that is what the 

public assistance program does. If a sewage station pumped 

100,000 gallons of fluid, we will restore it back to do that again, 

not to do 200,000. 

But we will look very carefully at some of these big projects like 

you just mentioned. We have put IG staff out there. We put our 

senior procurement officials out there. I even have some of our general counsel people that I have put in place after I took over to 

make sure that the contracts that we are putting out don’t have 

some of the same things that we did early on. 

Again, I don’t know if the contracts earlier on were right or 

wrong. That is something we are going to go back and look over 

carefully, so I am not giving a judgment call here. I just want to 

make sure that the ones we do from now on under my tenure are 

as fair and equitable and legal as they can possibly be. 

The weekend thing, quite frankly, Senator, I am going to have 

to look into that. Those are some of the issues—when we go back 

and do our after-action report and the lessons learned—and this 

Committee is going to be heavily involved in that, and we are going 

to do some of the stuff on our own also to look at some of our practices. And I suspect there is probably going to be a hundred other 

people out there doing studies on this, and the lessons that we 

learn from this, what we are telling staff is we are not going to get 

17

defensive about anything out there. We are going to do the same 

thing that we did after Hurricane Andrew where we took our State, 

the local, and Federal Government and made a very conscious decision that this was not going to happen again, that we are not going 

to allow what happened in Hurricane Andrew happen again. And 

if we had had a Hurricane Andrew, it would not have happened 

again. But Hurricane Andrew pales to what happened in this particular storm. 

So we need to do the same thing and take that same attitude, 

and the distinction you are bringing up is that those are the types 

of things we need to look at very carefully and make sure if there 

was wrongdoing that we fix it; if there is something wrong with our 

procedures, that we fix it; and if there is something wrong with our 

policies, we fit it. And it may require legislative changes. 

Senator COBURN. Let me go to another question, if I may, because I am going to run out of time here. 

Mr. PAULISON. Sorry. I didn’t mean to take up your time. 

Senator COBURN. No, it is your time. It is important that we 

have the answer. I have been critical of the contracts that you have 

let with Carnival Cruise Line. That was a decision you obviously 

didn’t make but somebody made. And the problem isn’t that you 

have made a contract. I think there are two problems here. The net 

revenue for Carnival under that contract is greater than what the 

published net revenue per passenger would have been had they 

been sailing full board, according to their own reports. And I am 

not critical of Carnival. They came and offered ships. It is not 

about Carnival. It is about, first of all, making a contract for 6 

months at a quarter of a billion dollars; and, second, doing it at a 

price above what they would have earned had they been running 

a commercial sailing operation. 

I just would like for you to talk about that. 

Mr. PAULISON. Well, you are right, I was not part of the contract. 

But I have to tell you, the cruise ships are a very essential piece 

in this whole public policy issue, how we are going to house people. 

In Florida last year, we had four hurricanes, and we housed more 

people than ever in the history of FEMA, which is between 5,000 

and 20,000 people. We have to house now between 400,000 and 

maybe 600,000 people. So it is just incomprehensible what we have 

to deal with. 

The cruise ships are a big piece of that, and with the cruise 

ships, the apartments, the hotels, the motels, trailers, mobile 

homes—all of those are going to be pieces of this big housing 

project. And right now they are serving a very significant need for 

us. 

Senator COBURN. They are half-full. 

Mr. PAULISON. Today they are almost completely full. They were 

half-full a few days ago, that is correct. We are moving our Federal 

workers that are going in there. Some of the corridors are very 

tight, but we are rotating people out on floating 60-day time frames 

so they can live in those quarters for that short period of time. 

And, quite frankly, they are almost completely full, and the cost 

per day per person is, I think, $168 a day, and the Federal per 

diem in New Orleans is close to $200 a day. Now I am hearing it 

is much more. 

18

So right now it is becoming very cost-effective to do that. But, 

again, those are types of things that we need to go back and look 

at, how we did no-bid contracts. We have to weigh the ability to 

do it quicker, but at the same time be fiscally responsible. But the 

cruise ships is one of those issues that will definitely be part of our 

after-action report and review. 

Senator COBURN. I would just put in for the record, Madam 

Chairman, that the cost of one cabin for 6 months comes to about 

$85,000, and you could come close to buying a very nice home in 

Tulsa, Oklahoma, that would meet that for that same cost. So we 

have got to look at costs a little better. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. Paulison, thanks for your answers so far. This Committee, 

as you know, is involved in an investigation of the preparation for 

and response to Hurricane Katrina, in some ways separate from 

what we are talking about today. We are focused today on the relief and recovery part of it. We want very much—I know I speak 

for Senator Collins and the entire Committee—to work with FEMA 

on this. 

We have heard some initial reports that the Department of 

Homeland Security and FEMA may have instructed at least some 

personnel not to speak with our Committee investigators without 

permission from people above or without the presence of people 

from above, and also that work on some after-action reports may 

have been halted because of our document request for fear that 

they would come into the possession of the Committee. 

Obviously, I don’t know whether that is accurate or not. I do 

know and I am sure you know that the Lloyd-La Follette Act and 

annual appropriations statutes generally prohibit Federal agencies 

from trying to prevent personnel from providing information to 

Congress, and the Whistle-blower Protection Act particularly forbids agencies from taking action against employees for disclosing 

waste, fraud, and abuse. 

So I want to ask you, since you are here today, will you as the 

Acting Director of FEMA commit to fully cooperating with all aspects of this Committee’s investigation, including producing documents and witnesses in a timely manner, and that you will not prohibit FEMA employees or contractors from speaking with congressional investigators? 

Mr. PAULISON. Absolutely, Senator. I am actually looking forward 

to working with this Committee. We are going to cooperate 100 

percent. We need to find out what worked and what did not work, 

and we need to find out before we have the next disaster. So I am 

fully supportive of what this Committee is doing. You will have 100 

percent of my cooperation, and I have not heard any of the issues 

that you have said. No one has passed any information down to me 

that we are not to cooperate with this Committee. So you are going 

to have our cooperation. You are going to have my personal commitment to do that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I appreciate that immensely, and I take it 

from the last thing you said that as far as you know, neither you 

nor anyone at DHS has issued any instructions to staff regarding 

cooperation with our investigation. 

19

Mr. PAULISON. No, sir, I have done nothing like that, and I am 

not aware of anybody else doing anything like that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I guess I would ask, although maybe in 

some sense you have done it by stating what you have just said, 

that you urge people working in FEMA under you at this point to 

cooperate with the investigation. Would you do that? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. This has to be as open as it can be. If 

we are going to learn from the lessons, we have to do a full and 

complete investigation from all angles. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Absolutely. We are not into the so-called 

blame game. Obviously, we want to see who performed and who 

didn’t, and we want to say so, but our focus will be on how to work 

together to make it better. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. I agree with that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. My colleagues have asked different questions about contracting problems, and I share that concern greatly 

about the various particular matters asked. I have heard, as others, that contractors are receiving payments in excess of market 

rates and that FEMA doesn’t appear to have sufficient contract officers to prevent overcharging. In fact, if I am right, the agency is 

relying on a contractor, on a consulting firm to help with its contracts. And, this is troubling, and it forces us to look more generally at FEMA, and in some ways this disaster will highlight what 

FEMA is. I think a lot of people felt FEMA was and, in fact, is 

more than it actually is. It is a couple thousand people, right? 

Mr. PAULISON. Twenty-three hundred people across 50 States. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes, on stand-by. Now, you have a disaster 

like this, this one is unprecedented, and immediately you have 

enormous responsibilities thrust on you through this number of 

people. I think one of the things we are going to want to ask, as 

we go on with our investigation, do we want to reform, transform 

FEMA? Do we want to create a new agency to do what it is doing? 

Let me ask you some general questions that I think may highlight this. For instance, when will FEMA reduce its reliance on nobid contracts and return to normal contracting procedures in its response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita? 

Mr. PAULISON. I have been in public service a long time, and I 

have never been a fan of no-bid contracts. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PAULISON. Sometimes you have to do them because of the expediency of getting things done. I can assure you that we are going 

to look at all of those contracts very carefully, and hopefully we can 

put things in place for the future where we will not have to depend 

on no-bid contracts for future use. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. One of the problems that I would guess—

and I have heard others say this—that led to the no-bid contracts 

is that FEMA did not have contracts in place before the storm to 

provide the emergency needs that could have been anticipated, perhaps not to the same degree, but the kinds of needs, which nobody 

anticipated, in a hurricane like Katrina. In fact, somewhere I remember reading that the Department of Homeland Security chief 

procurement officer admitted that FEMA should have had in place 

more of those contracts so it could have been ready to more quickly 

respond. 

20

I understand, again, you are Acting Director. You have been 

there 3 weeks. But do you have an answer to why FEMA didn’t 

have in place more of the so-called indefinite delivery, indefinite 

quantity contracts before the storm which might have been—or 

would have been bid contracts and would have been presumably at 

more competitive prices? 

Mr. PAULISON. I cannot completely answer that. I do know that 

they were in the process of bidding these particular contracts when 

the storm hit and were not finished with that process. And, also, 

all of those no-bid contracts we are going to go back and rebid. We 

are in the process of rebidding them already. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. So you have started that already. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. We are going to rebid all of those no-bid 

contracts, and they were in the process of starting to do that. Now, 

maybe it should have been done sooner. That is one of those things 

that your Committee will obviously research, and we will do also, 

internally, for our lessons learned and our after-action reports. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. I appreciate that. My time is up, but 

I want to say we are all looking at this very intensely in a way that 

we would not have before, but it sure looks with hindsight that 

FEMA would have been in a much better position if it had had a 

lot of contracts in place that had been bid that were stand-by contracts to provide exactly the kind of services that FEMA rushed in 

to provide on a no-bid basis and which we fear the taxpayers may 

have ended up paying more money for than they should have. 

Thanks, Mr. PAULISON.

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

First, I want to thank you for your service. You have taken on 

a responsibility of enormous magnitude at a time where there is a 

lot of criticism. And we are sitting here doing what we have to do. 

We have oversight responsibility, and we want to make sure the 

system works the way it should. 

What you have heard again and again from all my colleagues is 

concerns about not overcharging in contracting. We know the people need to be housed, but do you spend a quarter of a billion dollars on cruise ships? Are they operating at fully capacity, etc.? So 

I want to thank you, Mr. Paulison, for your willingness to step forward into the line of fire here, and hopefully we will all learn from 

this and do better. 

Let me just follow up on a couple of points. One, in terms of the 

ability to deal with payroll, you have a $5 million cap. That $5 million cap could go, as I understand your testimony, to pay for salaries—it is a loan, but if that is what local governments want to use 

it for. Is that correct? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. 

Senator COLEMAN. So if we could simply fix that statutory cap 

under these circumstances, a technical correction, if, in fact, we 

wanted to do something about payroll for sheriff’s employees, it 

would be possible to do that by simply changing that cap. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. 

21

Senator COLEMAN. In terms of the concern that my colleague 

from Connecticut raised about no-bid contracts and the concern—

and this has been reported in a number of areas, stuff like blue 

tarps for covering damaged roofs, there weren’t enough of those in 

stock. Again, we are looking back here, but do you recognize, do 

you agree that FEMA did not have on hand, in stock the number 

of goods that would have been needed for this kind of emergency? 

Mr. PAULISON. Well, I don’t know if—I am not sure exactly what 

the point of your question is. 

Senator COLEMAN. One of the points was, for instance, it was reported that you did not have enough blue tarps to cover damaged 

roofs. 

Mr. PAULISON. There has been a nationwide shortage of those 

blue tarps based on the number that we used in Florida. But as 

I flew over—and I am sure Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman 

flew over the damaged area. There is a sea of blue roofs out there, 

and we do have tarps coming in, quite frankly, as fast as we can 

use them. So, supplies are—the two areas where there was a significant issue were blue tarps and generators, that there was a nationwide issue with those, but we were able to get the numbers 

that we needed to do our job. 

Senator COLEMAN. In terms of dealing with no-bid contracts, 

clearly you have to move fast, and certainly the traditional bidding 

process wouldn’t work. But is it possible if you look at how we 

could modify the contract process to allow for competitive bidding 

but still allow FEMA to move quickly? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir, absolutely. That is what we were just 

talking about, the fact that we are going to rebid those no-bid contracts, and we should have contracts in place ahead of time for 

those stand-by items that we need, like blue tarps. 

Senator COLEMAN. And if there are statutory changes that need 

to be done to allow you to move quicker but still provide some sort 

of competitive mix in there to ensure that we are getting the best 

price, I would appreciate it if you would submit those to the Committee so that we could take a look at that. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COLEMAN. Could we just talk a little bit about housing 

going beyond cruise lines? Who has responsibility for the long-term 

housing needs in the Gulf Coast? What agency? 

Mr. PAULISON. FEMA is responsible for the long-term housing. I 

shouldn’t say that—we are responsible for the interim housing. 

What we want to do is to do a phased process, a step process. We 

want to get people out of these congregate shelters, first of all. 

That is our number one goal. We need to get them into some decent 

living quarters, apartments, condominiums, single-family homes. 

Mobile homes plays a piece of it. The cruise ship plays a piece. All 

of that plays a piece in getting people into some decent housing 

where they have some privacy. We want them near where they can 

have jobs. We want them near where schools are available for their 

children. And that is what our focus is right now. 

Senator COLEMAN. Is there a percentage maximum that FEMA 

then provides to rebuild a house that has been totally destroyed? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes. The maximum a person can receive with all 

the benefits is $26,200. The actual price for a damaged home is 

22

$10,200—for a destroyed home is $10,200 for that particular piece 

of it. But when you add the rental assistance, damage to the inside 

of the house, medical bills, the whole series of things, it all adds 

up to $26,200 maximum that we can give an individual. 

Senator COLEMAN. There is a big gap there, isn’t there, in terms 

of what it takes to rebuild a home versus what FEMA provides? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. And if a person does not have any insurance at all, there is going to be a significant gap. 

Senator COLEMAN. I do not have a lot of time, but I ultimately 

want to get back to housing. One of the areas of concern to me, on 

the one hand, there have been questions raised about the number 

of mobile homes. Then, on the other hand, I am looking long term, 

and I don’t think we want to create mobile home cities. How are 

you dealing with that issue? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is a big issue. What we don’t want to do is 

what we did in Florida, create this huge mobile home park. So we 

have limited the size of mobile home parks to 200. If there is a 

need to do more than that, the Federal Coordinating Officer would 

have to come back to me and Under Secretary Jackson for approval 

to build anything over 200 mobile homes in a particular park. 

What our real focus is going to be is to put travel trailers in people’s driveways or on their lot while they rebuild their homes. That 

is the quickest, that is the easiest for us to do, and that is going 

to be our focus. 

The next move would be to put those mobile homes in existing 

parks or existing places, like parks and things like that, that already have pads and sewer and water hook-up and electric hookup. Then the last one would be to actually create a mobile home 

park where there is nothing there. 

Senator COLEMAN. I appreciate your sensitivity to that issue. In 

Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, I saw a lot of the travel trailers in the driveways, and they weren’t very spacious, but they at 

least allowed people to be close to their homes as they began the 

process of rebuilding. 

Mr. PAULISON. You don’t want to live there forever, but for short 

term, it is perfect for a family. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Dayton. 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I want to thank you for being here, Mr. Paulison. In the month 

now or more since Hurricane Katrina, you are the first Administration official with direct responsibility for managing this disaster 

who has had the fortitude to come before us. I notice that you are 

pretty much alone here at the table. Echoing what President Kennedy once said, success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an 

orphan. And if your counterparts in other agencies and your peers 

would spend as much time before this Committee as they do on the 

Sunday talk shows, we would be much better informed, and we 

would have answers and the American people would have answers. 

And I thank you for providing some of those answers today. 

I recognize you are new to the position. I commend you for taking on the responsibility, especially in the midst of what you are 

facing now. 

23

As I have thought about this, it seems to me that the term 

‘‘emergency management’’ is really an oxymoron. I mean that not 

pejoratively regarding the agency that you head, but just the very 

nature of what we are looking for here, and I hear that contradiction even in our questions today, and they are all legitimate questions. But, on the one hand, we want and the situation demands 

a swift response, an immediate response. On the other hand, we 

want a response carried out according to literally thousands of 

pages of laws and regulations, all of which have justification, but 

in a way we are going to have to decide which of the two we want, 

because my experience up in Roseau, Minnesota, in 2002, when 

there was a flood that had the same effect on that city, but a much 

larger scale occurred in New Orleans, but the people who came 

from, I believe, Washington State, FEMA agency staff, were very 

dedicated, hard-working, right on the spot, wanting to help. But 

they were shackled. They couldn’t give in most cases immediate responses. They weren’t authorized—we talk about—I am on Armed 

Services—the commanders on the battlefield able to dispense 

funds—to provide assistance for schools, to provide soccer balls, I 

mean, to do things that are just immediately necessary. They 

couldn’t say yes to any of that. 

Individual citizens who were in the state of shock and despair 

needed answers about what kind of assistance they could get, not 

just for temporary housing but to rebuild their homes. They 

couldn’t get an answer—I commend the Chairman for pointing out 

the 800 number of the disaster. They didn’t know where to go. 

They had a form to fill out or a number to call. They got answers 

almost always no, no. If they could decipher where to go for this 

and then where to go for that, and this is the reason, I think, we 

need to have these hearings now on an ongoing basis because, as 

Senator Warner offered today, to try to amend something—if we 

are going to just sit on the sidelines and wait until all this is over 

and then second-guess what has happened, I mean, that is a legitimate function. But if we are going to roll up our sleeves and try 

to improve the response that is ongoing now for the next weeks and 

months down in New Orleans, in that region, then we have got to 

be engaged and involved. And we have to figure out with you what 

we need to do to take off these shackles and allow people to say 

yes, and, yes, hold them accountable and, yes, audit their decisions 

and assure that the taxpayers’ money is as well spent as possible. 

But, on the other hand, if we just send people down there who can’t 

do anything other than to go back to normal contracting procedures, which take weeks or months, then we can’t then rightfully 

expect them to deliver any of the results that we are all looking 

for. 

So I don’t know if you can address that in the time I have that 

is limited, but it seems to me that should be the thrust of what we 

are doing here. 

Mr. PAULISON. Again, I am not familiar with what happened in 

your State, but I can tell you what my philosophy is, and that is 

to push the authority for decisionmaking down to the lowest level 

possible. The people out in the field should have the authority to 

make decisions, and they should have the information to make 

24

those decisions, and that is how I operate. That is how we are 

going to run FEMA as long as I am here. 

Senator DAYTON. I appreciate that. If somebody is a small business owner whose business has been destroyed now, can they go to 

somebody at that level and get a response? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. We should be able to have enough knowledge on the scene for anybody to come to a FEMA person. We have 

a Federal Coordinating Officer down there. We have the Principal 

Federal Officer down there. I have senior procurement people down 

there. We have the IG’s office. We have our General Counsel, everyone that we can think of in those areas that can make decisions 

and tell them what the right answers are. 

Senator DAYTON. What are the right answers to someone whose 

business has been destroyed and wants to know can he get a small 

business loan for $100,000, the cost of rebuilding the business? 

Mr. PAULISON. There are people from the Small Business Administration on the scene down there in those cities now. I have a 

FEMA person in pretty much every municipality. We have our 

Joint Field Offices located in the capital of both of those States. So 

we are doing right now everything we possibly can to get that information out there, where people should be able to get the right 

answer. There shouldn’t be any question about what we are capable of doing and what we are not capable of doing. 

Senator DAYTON. The homeowner whose home has been destroyed, they can go in the same way and find out how much 

money, if any, is available as a grant for, beginning to refurbish, 

what kind of a loan is possible, if it is or not, just to help rebuild 

their home? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is why we have the Joint Field Offices, that 

is why we have the Disaster Recovery Centers, to put people out 

there who can answer questions. And we are making it much easier for people to do that. Based on Senator Collins’ comment to us 

about what we were not doing, we made changes to make sure that 

could happen. 

So, yes, we are making every effort to have those answers down 

in the field where they should be. They shouldn’t have to come to 

Washington for answers. 

Senator DAYTON. My time has expired, Madam Chairman. The 

other issue I would like to explore and I hope this Committee will 

explore is the centralized locus of one person or one entity in 

charge in a situation like this. I think the multi-jurisdiction nature 

of government in the Federal agencies that are interlocking and 

overlapping, again, we can’t have a swift emergency response if we 

are going to do it by committee and consensus. That may be more 

than a tangled web than we can resolve immediately, but I have 

seen it now with the private airplanes flying into the airspace here 

and the whole Capitol complex evacuated. You have six different 

agencies, Federal, local, all of whom claim jurisdiction and authority. And, believe me, by the time they have agreed on what the response is going to be, the pilot has lost his license and is deceased. 

Mr. PAULISON. Understood. 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

25

Chief, many of us have expressed concerns to you today about 

FEMA’s contracting procedures. The Stafford Act, as I understand 

it, requires FEMA to give a preference, to the extent feasible and 

practicable, to local firms doing business primarily in the area affected by a major disaster. Obviously, that makes a lot of sense because it helps the recovery effort if local businesses receive some 

of these contracts. 

Our staff took a look at a contract that FEMA issued for manufactured housing that required potential bidders to respond within 

24 hours. And what we found is that FEMA issued a no-bid contract to a company outside the Gulf Coast region. 

We were told by the Mississippi Manufactured Housing Association, which represents three manufacturers and 171 retailers, that 

it never received any kind of communication from FEMA during 

this process. And that troubles me because it seems inconsistent 

with both the letter and the spirit of the Stafford Act, but also the 

failure to tap local resources can breed resentment towards FEMA. 

I know that you didn’t make this decision. It was made in early 

September. But what will you do to ensure that local resources, 

local small businesses, are able to bid on FEMA contracts that affect their region? 

Mr. PAULISON. First of all, we have heard pretty much every 

Member of this Committee very clearly, and also we believe that 

we should be giving as many of these contracts as we can to the 

local people in the community and also in the State. We have also 

worked with the Governor of Mississippi to allow them to purchase 

locally mobile homes and travel trailers, and we reimbursed them 

for those. So we are moving along in that direction. 

It is a Band-aid fix, no question about it. But, again, my philosophy is to make sure that as much as possible we can do that. We 

do have requirements, when we bid national contracts, for those 

big contracts, that they have to use a certain amount of small business or local vendors. We just have to enforce that to make sure 

that happens. 

Also, I just got a note from my people that we have told them, 

for those big contracts, they have to use local vendors exclusively, 

if that is possible. Now, they may not have the capacity, but at 

least we can use whatever can be used. So we are putting stuff in 

place to make sure that we can do this. 

It is obvious, going through as many disasters as I have, that the 

more jobs that you can create at the local level, the quicker the 

community is going to recover. And that is what we want to do, 

and that is what we are going to focus on doing. 

Chairman COLLINS. I am really glad to hear that because that 

is what has been so troubling in this case. It seems that there were 

local vendors who were available, able to meet the need, and yet 

the contract was awarded without competition to a supplier from 

outside the region, and that just doesn’t seem to make sense. 

I also want to talk with you further about the ice example that 

I brought up several times and that we have had discussions with 

your office about, and the reason is that while our first goal is to 

make sure that we are serving the basic needs of the victims of 

Katrina, we also have a very serious responsibility to the taxpayers 

26

of this country to ensure that as we open the Federal purse, we are 

doing so prudently and that we are not wasting taxpayer dollars. 

I wrote to you on September 20 asking you why the Federal Government was paying drivers to haul truckloads full of ice all over 

the country, including to my home State of Maine. Approximately 

one week ago, we were told by your office that 30 trucks of ice had 

been routed to Maine and that of those, 20 had been dispatched to 

assist the Hurricane Rita victims. 

Well, this seemed odd to me because I was in my home State, 

and one of my constituents took me and showed me where trucks 

were lined up in a parking lot, just sitting there, running 24 hours 

a day because they had to keep the refrigeration on, and it seemed 

to me that there were many more than 30 trucks. 

So we asked your office again whether you were sure that was 

correct, and just this morning we were told that actually there 

were not 30 trucks, there were 250 trucks that were routed to the 

State of Maine, and of those, about 100 have been dispatched. 

Now, if those latest figures are correct—and they sound much 

more like what I observed and what my constituents have told me 

about—that means that we still have 150 truckloads of ice purchased to assist the Hurricane Katrina victims sitting in cold storage in Portland, Maine. 

And I am also told that it costs $800 a day to haul this ice 

around the country. None of this ice started in the State of Maine. 

It was just routed there, 1,600 miles away from the victims. 

This is just really hard to understand, and, again, it erodes public confidence in the Federal Government’s management. And I also 

think it erodes public support for additional appropriations to help 

the victims when the public sees this kind of waste in their own 

backyard. 

Again, I realize a lot of these initial decisions were not made on 

your watch, but they are very disturbing to those of us who want 

to both help the victims and guard the taxpayers’ dollars. 

Mr. PAULISON. And, believe me, I understand your concerns. I 

have done a little bit of looking into this. Again, most of it has focused on what we are going to do in the future. But a lot of the 

ice was prepositioned for Katrina. With the massive evacuations 

out of Louisiana, a lot of that was not needed. We did also preposition again for Hurricane Rita, which I was responsible for, and we 

did move a lot of ice and water and MREs into Texas and into 

southwest Louisiana for that event. 

Part of the issue also is one reason you may see a lot of trucks 

of ice is we don’t have time to replenish it if there is another hurricane. So we made the decision to continue to store it. We cannot 

get new ice again. If we dumped it out on the street and just let 

it melt and sent the trucks home, we couldn’t replace it fast 

enough, and there are two more storms out there. So until we get 

through hurricane season, we are not going to get rid of the ice. 

We are going to keep it. 

I guess the bigger issue for down the road is what is going to be 

our public policy on ice. Is it an essential commodity or is it not? 

We know that water and food definitely is. And should we be in 

the ice business? 

27

Now, I firmly think we probably should be, but, again, I don’t 

want to make that judgment without really looking at it. So there 

are a whole bunch of issues that are coming out of what you’re asking that we need to look at very carefully. How much do we store? 

How much can we get when we actually need it? What is the rampup of the industry out there to give us ice? Those all are the types 

of things we have to look at and fit into this mix of how we are 

going to supply commodities. 

Another issue is tracking. FEMA does not have a good tracking 

system. Maybe we need to bring in a Wal-Mart or something. We 

don’t have a good tracking system of where the commodities go and 

where they are at any given time. 

So those are the issues that we have to go back and look at very 

carefully and how we are going to manage this organization in the 

future. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

On that last point, you are absolutely right, and incidentally, I 

have grown so tired of using the metaphor, ‘‘This makes as much 

sense as carrying coals to Newcastle,’’ because it is not an American metaphor, and it is tired. And now I am going to say, ‘‘This 

makes as much sense as carrying ice to Maine.’’ I will think of Senator Collins whenever I do that, and many other times, of course. 

Mr. PAULISON. I am sure that will be on the front page of some 

paper. [Laughter.] 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Probably in Maine. 

I just want to say—and you probably have seen this, although I 

know you have had a busy 3 weeks, but really on the question of 

the ice, last month the Department of Homeland Security IG issued 

what I thought was a startling report about information technology 

systems that the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, in which FEMA is located, uses to support incidents, response, and recovery operations. They particularly went over the 

four Florida hurricanes in 2004 and found a number of deficiencies, 

including that the systems cannot effectively handle increased 

workloads and don’t talk to each other. So that may be a big part 

of the reason, as you suggested, why the ice ended up in Maine. 

It makes no sense. And, it is not such a bad idea to talk to WalMart or somebody like that because they manage to move enormous quantities of stuff around effectively. 

I want to just pick up a few pieces that we have talked about 

along the way. First, on housing, am I correct, in your priorities for 

the trailers, the first priority, as we have heard testified to by local 

officials last week, is to put the trailer basically on the homeowner’s property, so from the trailer the homeowner can rebuild 

the house? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Do I also understand that the next priority, 

if you have to build a trailer community, in addition to putting it 

near existing infrastructure that will support it, you want to put 

people as close to their homes as possible, their previous homes? 

Mr. PAULISON. The second priority would be putting those mobile 

homes or travel trailers in existing either travel trailer parks or 

campgrounds that are close to work. 

28

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PAULISON. Because the sewer hook-up is already there, there 

is water, there is electric, the house pad is already there, so it is 

much easier to put them in and——

Senator LIEBERMAN. But the key there is close to work. 

Mr. PAULISON. It has to be. We can’t put people out in the middle 

of nowhere. That is what slows things down, particularly around 

New Orleans. There is nothing there locally where we can put 

places right now. It is still pretty wet. But we don’t want to put 

them out in the middle of nowhere. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. That is what is important. 

Mr. PAULISON. It does not serve a purpose. There are no jobs, 

there is no transportation, there are no schools. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. It is just going to make a bad situation worse. 

Mr. PAULISON. Exactly. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you for that answer and that policy. 

I referred to the relatively small number of Disaster Recovery 

Centers, and my impression is that this is particularly true in the 

rural parts, often poor parts, or parts that have a lot of poor people, 

of Mississippi and Louisiana. So let me ask you what FEMA is currently doing to reach those individuals in the rural areas of the 

Gulf Coast who still do not have a FEMA representative or Disaster Recovery Center in their community? And, parenthetically, I 

will say what we talked about briefly before the hearing. When 

Senator Collins and I and other Senators went to the region a couple of weeks ago, in some sense we were—it was awful to see New 

Orleans, but we had seen so much of it on TV that what really 

stunned us was the absolute devastation caused in rural parts, 

coastal rural parts of Mississippi, where they didn’t have the flooding so they were better off than New Orleans, but everything was 

knocked down by the hurricanes. And a lot of poor people there are 

really hurting. 

So I will go back to my question. What are you doing to try to 

get more direct FEMA representation or Disaster Recovery Centers 

in those communities? 

Mr. PAULISON. A couple things. One, the Disaster Recovery Centers, we put them where the States want them. We don’t just go 

out and arbitrarily pick a place to put them because they know 

where the population is and they would know where they are needed much better than we do. So we do that. We are still in the process of adding more of those. 

Second, we have what we call community relations people, and 

this goes back to Senator Collins’ comments earlier in her opening 

statement about using firefighters to do that. We had issues in 

Florida with some of our community relations people, and we made 

the decision that we were going to ask firefighters to do this. We 

made it very clear that that is what they were going to be doing 

because we have plenty of people to respond. But we had over 

4,000 firefighters respond to do that, and so they are out in these 

communities, and there is nobody that I know that is more sympathetic to somebody in a terrible situation than our firefighters and 

police officers because they know what they are going through, 

29

they have seen it before. They have seen people with fatalities. 

They have seen people that have had their homes destroyed. 

So that is why we use firefighters, and we have these people out 

in the communities, out in the rural areas, and they have the information. They are not just handing out pamphlets. And, yes, we did 

give them some specific training in sexual harassment because we 

are required to do that. 

But that is what we are trying to do, Senator, is get the people 

out to where—into the rural areas, and it may be just two or three 

people in a car driving from home to home, making sure people 

have the information of how to get connected into the FEMA system. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. I urge you to really give that your attention. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Because we keep hearing from folks and 

communities like East Biloxi and Waveland that they have been 

devastated and they have no help. 

Incidentally, we ought to work together on that sensitivity training because a lot of that probably happened because of Federal legislation or litigation. But this is the classic case, when the house 

is burning or people are drowning, you don’t want to send them for 

2 or 3 days of sensitivity training. You want to send in first responders to help and run the risk in the pursuit of saving life. 

I want to ask you a last question, and I apologize, I am a little 

over my time. Just give us your counsel on this question of FEMA’s 

capacity to oversee the rebuilding and reconstruction, which it now 

has the responsibility to do under the National Response Plan. I 

just don’t know how FEMA, with everything else it is doing in 

terms of the immediate relief and response, how you can oversee 

the recovery and reconstruction. Do you have a thought on that? 

Mr. PAULISON. Well, we have set up a new Emergency Support 

Function, ESF–14, that is responsible for some of those long-term 

recovery efforts. But it is a concern, and we have already had discussion with the Secretary about how we are going to do this longterm recovery because of the planning needed and the amount of 

devastation, particularly in the areas of Mississippi and New Orleans, of how that is going to happen. 

Our long-term recovery is primarily based on public assistance, 

rebuilding the infrastructures that are torn down. We still have 

people in Northridge, so that takes a long time, and we are still 

there. I can tell you that I have a commitment from the Secretary 

and personally from the President that we will stay there until it 

is done. But there is an issue or there may be some issues beyond 

the capability of FEMA for this long-term thing, and already we 

are trying to come up with a solution for that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. Well, again, I look forward to working 

with you on that. I just don’t see how you can continue the immediate response relief to the hurricanes, be ready to respond to other 

natural disasters that may occur, and oversee the reconstruction of 

a major section of our country. So I think Congress—and we should 

try to do it together. Congress is moving toward a czar or a Gulf 

Coast Reconstruction Corporation, but some entity to get that job 

done. 

30

Thanks very much, Chief. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir, understood. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. You gave me a number a minute 

ago on occupancy of the cruise ships, and you gave me a percentage. How many people are on board those ships right now? 

Mr. PAULISON. Give me one second, and I have that in front of 

me somewhere. 

I don’t have that. I know that—here we go. OK. In Louisiana, we 

have the capability of housing 2,350 people on cruise ships, and 

there are 2,155 on that cruise ship. In Mississippi, it is able to 

house—this is as of yesterday, so I know there are already more 

people on there. In Mississippi, we have 726 capable of housing, 

and there are 486 on there. So total out of 3,000 cabins, we have 

2,641 full. 

Senator COBURN. Well, OK. You are talking cabins. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. The capacity of the cruise ships is 7,000 people 

that you have contracted, 7,170-some people. It is important that 

the language we get here is correct. If you are talking about cabins, 

you are not talking about beds. And the capacity is over 7,000. So 

how many total people are on board the ships? 

Mr. PAULISON. I am going to have my staff find that. 

I will have to find that for you. I know yesterday they told me 

that even with the number of bodies, they were over 90 percent 

full. 

Senator COBURN. The numbers aren’t adding up, and that is why 

I would like for you to clarify. 

Mr. PAULISON. I will absolutely get that for you, sir. 

Senator COBURN. When we started talking about numbers earlier, you all were giving us numbers, and now you are giving us 

cabins, but it doesn’t say how many people. Sometimes there are 

two, three, four berths in a cabin, and so I think it is important——

Mr. PAULISON. It will never be 100 percent full. 

Senator COBURN. I understand that, and I am not——

Mr. PAULISON. Those three-berth cabins or four-berth cabins may 

have a family of three in there. 

Senator COBURN. Sure. I understand that. 

Mr. PAULISON. Now, we are doubling up with all of our Federal 

workers and all of our police and firefighters that are in there. We 

are making them double-bunk, not in the same bed, but both in the 

same cabin, to make sure we can get as maximum capacity out of 

it as possible. 

Senator COBURN. I have one other question that I would like to 

ask. LSU health system is requesting $600 to $700 million to build 

a new hospital in Baton Rouge. Did Baton Rouge sustain damage 

from the hurricane? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir, they did. I was there, and there was a 

significant amount of damage. 

Senator COBURN. The hospital? 

Mr. PAULISON. I did not visit the hospital, but I can find that out 

for you. 

31

Senator COBURN. But they didn’t have significant damage like 

New Orleans? 

Mr. PAULISON. Oh, no, sir. Mississippi had a significant amount 

of damage, probably more so than Louisiana. If it had not been for 

the levees breaking around New Orleans, we would be talking 

about Mississippi here, not Louisiana. 

Senator COBURN. OK. But is it the responsibility of FEMA to 

bring on board greater than to repair that which was lost? 

Mr. PAULISON. No, sir. Our job is to put it back where it was before the storm. 

Senator COBURN. So we can pretty well count on not spending $2 

billion on two new hospitals in Louisiana based on restoring what 

was there in the past. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. I cannot imagine that happening. 

Senator COBURN. Well, that is what the request is for. 

Mr. PAULISON. We get a lot of requests. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. PAULISON. We will look at those very carefully. 

Senator COBURN. Madam Chairman, I will end with that. I 

would like to have permission to add for the record an analysis 

done by my staff on the contract done on Carnival Cruise Lines 

and also the information done on Charity Hospital and what is actually going on down there. 

Chairman COLLINS. Without objection. 

[The information follows:]

32


24439.001
33


24439.002
34

Senator COBURN. And also the possibility to have questions for 

the record to be answered. 

Chairman COLLINS. The record will——

Mr. PAULISON. Senator, I would like to have copies of those also, 

if we can, because that would help us make a better decision. 

Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Dayton. 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

What is the state of basic water, sewer, sanitation in New Orleans now? And who is responsible for reestablishing those essentials? 

Mr. PAULISON. It is our responsibility to reimburse the city for 

those expenses to put that back together and to help them with 

some contracting issues. Parts of the city do have water. I am not 

sure that it is all totally potable. The sewer systems are coming 

back online, and some of the electric is coming back online. 

Obviously, it is not very widespread. There are just pockets of 

that. I know the Algiers area, the mayor is allowing people to move 

back in. It pretty much has all the essential services. The downtown district seems to be able to function fairly well, but there are 

a lot of other areas in the city that are not able to have occupants 

back in there yet. 

Senator DAYTON. Who is responsible for law enforcement? And is 

that being effectively provided? 

Mr. PAULISON. That responsibility is a local issue as to the decision to either move back in or not move back into the city. That 

doesn’t fall in FEMA’s purview. 

Senator DAYTON. The people who are now coming back in finding 

their homes in whatever condition if they still exist, what procedurally are they doing? You testified on this before, but where do 

they go? Who do they talk to? What are their options? 

Mr. PAULISON. Well, the city is in control of that. I know they 

are letting some people go back into the cities. I talked to a friend 

of mine who is a former fire chief of New Orleans, and he got to 

see his house yesterday, and he said there was about 6 feet of 

water. They did not go inside. They were supposed to do that 

today. 

So I know they are letting people back into the city to look at 

their houses, to recognize what kind of damage they have, but the 

mayor has been very careful about what areas of the city he is allowing to be occupied. 

Senator DAYTON. So who is in charge? Is the mayor making these 

decisions and FEMA provides reimbursement? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. The mayor and the State. All of 

our funds go through the State, so when the city submits the bill 

to the State, the State submits it to us, and we reimburse them. 

Senator DAYTON. So when Senator Lieberman asked about how 

FEMA is going to be responsible for reconstruction, it sounds to me 

then, from what you have just said, that FEMA’s role is really to 

reimburse for the reconstruction, and others are going to drive 

those decisions? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. Part of it, we do help with some 

of those decisions. We also help with some of the planning. But the 

primary responsibility for that lies with the local and State, and 

35

our position is mainly to help them reimburse those projects. We 

look at those project work sheets, either approve them or disapprove them, and then help them——

Senator DAYTON. Given the scope of this disaster and the work 

that lies ahead, do you have the organizational decisionmaking capacity and authority then to approve $2 billion, $200 billion, whatever this price tag is going to be for whatever those individual decisions add up to be? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. If it falls under what is legally permissible under the Stafford Act, the answer would be yes. 

Senator DAYTON. Is the reconstruction of New Orleans covered 

under the Stafford Act? 

Mr. PAULISON. The reconstruction of individual buildings, the answer is no. The reconstruction of critical infrastructure, the answer 

is yes. 

Senator DAYTON. So the entire critical infrastructure would be 

what? Again, sewer, water, sanitation, schools? 

Mr. PAULISON. Sewer, water, sanitation, schools, public works 

buildings, city hall, things like that. We would help with that reconstruction. Again, to put it back the way it was prior to the 

storm, not to make it better. 

Senator DAYTON. When you say ‘‘help,’’ does that mean someone 

else makes the decision, local or State, and then FEMA reimburses? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. And the State picks up a percentage of those costs also; it’s a 75–25 mix. We pick up 75 percent of 

the costs; the State picks up 25 percent of the costs. 

Senator DAYTON. So local government and the State will make 

these decisions, and then FEMA will reimburse? 

Mr. PAULISON. They will submit project work sheets on what 

they feel is eligible, and we will make that determination whether 

it is or not. 

Senator DAYTON. And the eligibility, though, is dependent upon 

the replacement kind of decision? It is not based on whether this 

is the right strategy or the right configuration or anything else? 

This is just to replace what pre-existed? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. If a building has to be replaced, 

let’s say—I will make one up. Let’s say a school was totally destroyed, they are going to have to meet all the new building codes 

and new floodplain codes. So that will play into making the—the 

President is committed we are going to rebuild it better and stronger. That will play into that. 

Now, individual assistance is totally different. That money goes 

right to the individual. It does not go through the State. It does not 

go through the city. It is just the public works projects, the longterm piece of it that goes through the States. 

Senator DAYTON. Next time one of these hurricanes approaches 

some part of the United States, who will make the decision whether to evacuate or not? Who will carry that out and who will deal 

with people who choose to stay behind? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is a local and State issue. We do not do evacuations. 

Senator DAYTON. You just come in after the fact and deal with 

what has occurred? 

36

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. We can do a pre-disaster declaration and 

help pay for those evacuations and help pay for the city to do some 

of those things. But it is their decision whether to evacuate or not, 

not ours. 

Senator DAYTON. Is that the right protocol, in your judgment? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. I don’t want to make decisions from 

Washington. I mean, I have a lot of experience in doing this, and 

I could make some recommendations to them. My daughter was in 

New Orleans, and Sunday morning I told her to get out, and she 

left. It took her 121⁄2 hours to get to Memphis, but she got out. But 

that is definitely a local issue. When I ran emergency management 

for Miami-Dade County, the mayor and I decided in consultation 

with the State and the Hurricane Center when to evacuate, and 

that is what the locals—that is what they are supposed to do. 

Senator DAYTON. My time is up, but is the protocol now in terms 

of the decisionmaking, locus of responsibility, local, State, Federal, 

is that aligned properly, in your judgment, in New Orleans and 

that region? 

Mr. PAULISON. As far as when to——

Senator DAYTON. For where we are today, moving forward, the 

reconstruction, the rehabilitation, you talk about the local responsibilities, FEMA’s role. Is that the proper protocol? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. I believe it is, yes, sir. 

Senator DAYTON. OK. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. Paulison, welcome. It is good to see you, and we thank you 

for being with us today. We thank you even more for your willingness to step into the breach and to fulfill the responsibilities and 

provide the leadership that you are providing today. 

Mr. PAULISON. My wife said I need my head examined, but that 

is OK. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. My wife has said that a time or two as well. We 

have all had times when I am sure we felt like we were drinking 

out of fire hydrants, and I suspect that is exactly how you felt in 

recent weeks. 

We have an oversight responsibility in this Committee with respect to the Homeland Security Department and the agencies 

therein, and really a broader oversight responsibility for the operation of the Federal Government. Among the things that come before us are nominations for people to serve in a variety of leadership capacities. OMB is one, Homeland Security is another. And I 

don’t know that—and as we apportion blame or credit, I don’t know 

that we covered ourselves with glory with respect to our oversight 

in the way we scrub some of the nominees who may have come before us for some of the Homeland Security positions. And as we 

look to replace Mr. Brown as he has left, and perhaps others who 

may depart, take a moment just to talk to us about some of the 

leadership qualities that we ought to be looking for in order to better fulfill our oversight responsibilities to make sure we are getting 

the kind of leaders in these critical positions. 

Mr. PAULISON. Are you talking about particularly FEMA? 

Senator CARPER. FEMA. 

37

Mr. PAULISON. I fully support the fact that those types of positions should be political appointees. They have to carry out the 

President’s policies and guidelines. However, I do feel that the person has to have the capability of doing the job. 

Senator CARPER. How might they get that capability? 

Mr. PAULISON. Well, I can only speak for me. 

Senator CARPER. Go ahead. 

Mr. PAULISON. I can’t speak for anybody else. My experience that 

I have, 30 years in fire service and emergency management, allows 

me to make the decisions that I think I need to make for a particular job like this, even in an acting level. I can’t speak for anybody else, what their experience or education or anything else gave 

them to move into there. I can just say that I make better decisions 

when I have good people around me, and I make better decisions 

based on my experiences that I have had over the past 35 years. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

I want to ask you—and I know some others have already asked 

questions with respect to the folks we had in hotels, the folks we 

still have in hotels around the country, and I know that we started 

off with a whole lot of people, and I think we have a great many 

fewer today than we did several weeks ago. I think the Washington 

Post reported yesterday that there are more than 400,000 folks who 

are still living—who lost their homes by virtue of Katrina who are 

still living at FEMA’s expense in hotels around the country, 

400,000. Does that sound like it is in the ballpark? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is pretty accurate. That is in the ballpark, 

yes, sir. 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

Mr. PAULISON. Those are not in congregate shelters. 

Senator CARPER. Say that again? 

Mr. PAULISON. Those are not in congregate shelters. Those are 

either in mobile homes or motels or hotels or living with friends. 

The ones we have in the actual shelters themselves are less than 

60,000, and we are looking to get those out by mid-October. 

Senator CARPER. All right. This is October 6, so——

Mr. PAULISON. I understand. We have a task in front of us. When 

the President gave us the task of getting everybody out by October 

15, that was prior to Hurricane Rita. And Hurricane Rita’s evacuation obviously set us back significantly. However, we are still focusing on meeting that mid-October deadline to get as many people 

out of the shelters as we possibly can. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Now, of the 400,000 individuals, these 

aren’t people that are just in hotels. These are people in a variety 

of places. Go ahead and just give us some rough idea of——

Mr. PAULISON. Well, they can be in a motel, they can be in a condominium, they can be in a single-family home. There are several 

places they can be that we are housing. We want to move those 

people out of there. We are giving them rental assistance. We are 

putting them in our housing program. We are working with HUD 

to as quickly as possible get these people settled somewhere. It 

very well may not be back in their State where they came from. 

There is simply not enough housing stock in Louisiana to take all 

Louisianans back in there. That is not going to happen. I know the 

38

governor wants them back in there. We would like to have them 

back in there. But that is not going to happen. 

The mobile home and the trailer park issue is not going to house 

400,000 people. We have to find alternative housing. So they may 

very well be in a hotel or a motel or a condominium or duplex for 

a period of time until we can get them back into homes. A lot of 

these homes can be reoccupied. A lot of them just had some wind 

damage, and we can either put a travel trailer there, or they can 

move back in their home just because we put a blue tarp on the 

roof. 

So I think we are going to see things starting to move very quickly now as we get this ball rolling and get it moving along the way. 

This is a massive undertaking for any organization. Like I said earlier, we housed 20,000 people in Florida, and that was the biggest 

event we had ever done. Now we are talking about 400,000. It is 

just a massive effort. 

It is going to be slow, but we are going to do it methodically. We 

are going to make sure people are treated with respect and treated 

with dignity and put in a place that is decent for them to live. 

Senator CARPER. OK. One other question, if I could. Senator 

Coburn may have raised this. I am not sure if he did or not. But 

he and I and Senator Obama and others, I think with the support 

of our Republicans Leader, Senator Frist, and Democratic Leader, 

Harry Reid, have called for the creation of something like a chief 

financial officer to work with Inspectors General and others who 

have oversight over spending in our departments. We passed that 

legislation from this Committee that would create such a person to 

serve as a watchdog. 

I understand that the Department of Homeland Security has created what I believe is called the Katrina Internal Control and Procurement Oversight Board. 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. 

Senator CARPER. And my notes here say it consists of the Department’s Under Secretary for Management, your Chief Procurement 

Officer, your Chief Financial Officer, your General Counsel, your 

Inspector General, and your Chief of Operations. 

I have two questions. Where does this board, which I presume 

you are familiar with, fall in the chain of command on the ground 

in the Gulf? And, second, is it involved in making day-to-day decisions about purchases and expenditures? 

Mr. PAULISON. It is located here in Washington. It is not out in 

the field. All these people work here, and they are overseeing all 

of our procurements to make sure they are being done properly. 

On top of that, we have put senior procurement people out in the 

field. We put people from the Inspector General’s office out in the 

field. We put people from our Office of General Counsel out in the 

field. I am going to do everything humanly possible to make sure 

that we follow government procurement guidelines from here out 

for the rest of the expenditures we are going to do. This amasses 

a lot of money. You have given us $60 billion to manage this disaster, and we have to spend it in a fiscally sound manner, and that 

is what we want to do. 

I am going to do everything I can do to make that happen. 

39

Senator CARPER. Of that $60 billion, do you have any idea how 

much is left? 

Mr. PAULISON. There is about $38 to $40 billion left. 

Senator CARPER. And of that $30 or $40 billion that is left, any 

idea how much has not been obligated, that is, unobligated funds? 

Mr. PAULISON. No, sir. Off the top of my head, I don’t have those 

figures. We can get those for you. 

Senator CARPER. Again, thank you for your service. Great to see 

you and welcome. 

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you for your questions. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Director Paulison, I want to thank you for stepping up to the 

plate, answering the call of your country under extremely difficult 

circumstances. I have a great deal of admiration for you personally. 

Your commitment to emergency preparedness and response has 

been evident throughout your entire career. And I think we are 

very fortunate that you have stepped in to lead a troubled agency 

at a critical time. So I want to end this hearing today by thanking 

you for your service. 

We are concerned about a host of issues—and they are legitimate 

issues—as we go forward with the recovery effort. We are also undertaking and have begun an in-depth investigation of what went 

wrong, and how can we improve our preparedness and response to 

future disasters. And I appreciate your assurances to Senator 

Lieberman that you will fully cooperate with the Committee as we 

go forward with our investigation. 

There are many more questions that we have for you today, but 

I am going to submit them for the record. We also have some questions that have been submitted by Senators from the affected regions. For example, during the course of this hearing, Senator Lott, 

who must have been watching on television, asked me to bring up 

with you a question concerning aid to the fisheries which have been 

devastated in his State. We will submit that for the record as well. 

For that reason, the hearing record will remain open for 15 days 

for the submission of questions and other materials. 

I also want to thank our staff for their hard work in putting together this very important hearing as we assess the status of the 

recovery effort. But, again, you have an awfully big job, and I hope 

you won’t hesitate to come to the Committee and tell us what you 

need and share your experience. We would welcome that kind of insight and input from you as you attempt this very challenging task. 

Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Madam Chairman, I just accept and embrace everything you have said. 

Mr. Paulison, you have stepped into an emergency. That is your 

training. This is a different kind of emergency you are stepping 

into, but in a way, the house is on fire, and you have been called 

in to not only to put out the fire, but to help us make sure that 

we are ready the next time. So we have to work together to make 

that happen, and I look forward to doing it with you. You are a 

professional. You have answered the questions today. You have 

given us some pledges, which are important to us. And overall, I 

thank you and look forward to more of the same. 

40

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you, and I am looking forward to working 

with the Committee. So I thank all of you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:01 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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