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S. Hrg. 113–705 

NOMINATION OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

NOMINATION OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH TO BE DEPUTY 

ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

JULY 24, 2014 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN, Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

DEIRDRE G. ARMSTRONG, Professional Staff Member 

JASON T. BARNOSKY, Senior Professional Staff Member 

ROBERT H. BRADLEY, Legislative Assistant 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER J. BARKLEY, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

ANDREW C. DOCKHAM, Minority Chief Counsel 

DANIEL P. LIPS, Minority Director of Homeland Security 

NATALIE K. FUSSELL, Minority U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector 

General Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Begich .................................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2014 

Joseph L. Nimmich, Nominee to be Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 2 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

Biographical and financial information .......................................................... 15 

Letter from the Office of Government Ethics ................................................. 36 

Responses to pre-hearing questions ................................................................ 38 

Responses to post-hearing questions .............................................................. 70 

Letters of support ............................................................................................. 77 

(1) 

NOMINATION OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH 

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2014 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:46 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark Begich, presiding. 

Present: Senator Begich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BEGICH 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much, and welcome again to 

the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 

we appreciate you being here. We will call the Committee to order. 

We are here today to consider the nomination of Joseph L. 

Nimmich to be Deputy Administrator for the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency (FEMA). As a former mayor, I know how critical it is to have leadership positions filled by capable people. I also 

understand the gaps in productivity and innovation and overall 

progress that can occur when key positions are vacant. It is for 

that reason I wanted to express my frustration with the situation 

we find ourselves in today, not due to you being here, or FEMA, 

but to the White House and how they operate on their nominations. 

I am just very frustrated that for months people have been 

aware of this position, and now suddenly we are given your position to be nominated and move forward in the Committee, and we 

are being asked to move it very quickly—which I am happy to do. 

My frustration is not with you or FEMA. It is with the White 

House and their ability—or inability. So those who represent the 

White House here, please take note, and I hope you present that 

back over there. 

Again, we have waited 6 months. We knew this was coming, and 

now we need to rush it through. 

I know the nomination process is subject to many delays and consideration, but vetting and confirming nominees is one of the most 

important functions of this Committee, and we must be able to do 

our due diligence. 

Committee staff on both sides of the aisle have worked very hard 

to expedite this process, and I appreciate their hard work. And I 

appreciate your hard work, Mr. Nimmich, during the prehearing 

phase, as we worked on such an expedited timetable. I spoke with 

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate earlier this week, and I could 

hear his enthusiasm for your nomination, which I hope we can get 

completed very quickly in a favorable manner. 
2 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Nimmich appears in the Appendix on page 11. 

While some of your answers to the prehearing questions were encouraging, especially with such a needed focus on workforce improvements, similar to the Committee hearing we just had, I remain concerned that FEMA may be stuck in the mud on some of 

the most critical challenges facing the agency. 

We have already heard your testimony and questioned you in our 

previous hearing, so we will not rehash those issues. But I wanted 

to be sure you recognize the many FEMA issues we have concerns 

about. 

As you transition into your new position and better identify the 

role you will play implementing Administrator Fugate’s vision for 

the agency, we hope you will keep open lines of communication 

with this Committee. I look forward to addressing my various concerns in the question-and-answer period, so I will conclude my remarks here, and if we can, we will go ahead and start. If I can 

have you stand, the rules require that all witnesses at nomination 

hearings give the testimony under oath, and so let me go ahead. 

Mr. Nimmich, would you please stand and raise your right hand? 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give to the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. NIMMICH. I do. 

Senator BEGICH. Please be seated. 

Since we already introduced you, Mr. Nimmich, in the last one, 

I will just let you introduce your family members, which I had the 

great pleasure to meet several of them as we were getting ready, 

and then we will go into your opening statement. Please. 

TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH L. NIMMICH,1 NOMINEE TO BE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. NIMMICH. Thank you. Thank you, Senator, and my statement has my introduction of the family, so if you do not mind, I 

will go through it so they can hear the way I have written it. 

[Laughter.] 

That way I get it right. 

Senator BEGICH. That means they wrote it to make sure you said 

everything right. [Laughter.] 

Mr. NIMMICH. Good afternoon, Chairman Begich. I also would 

like to acknowledge Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, 

and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to 

testify before you today. 

I come before you as the nominee for the Deputy Administrator 

of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I am humbled by 

the President’s nomination and honored by the opportunity to continue to serve my country. Before I begin, I need to thank my wife, 

Cindy, and my children Lizzie, Abby, and Mallory, who are joining 

me here today. I would also like to thank my daughters Katie and 

Becky who are unable to be here due to scheduling difficulties, but 

I am told they are watching it on the Web. I would not be here 

without their love and support and the patience that they have for 

the times that my job has taken me away from home, and undoubt-
3 

edly will again in the future. I also need to take a moment to thank 

Administrator Fugate for his leadership, his counsel, and his trust 

that he has afforded me. 

Sir, as a Coast Guard officer for over 33 years, I have developed 

the leadership skills, management expertise, and strategic and 

operational decisionmaking ability to help lead FEMA. I would like 

to take a moment to tell you how I believe my experiences have 

prepared me for this opportunity. 

As former Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Key West, I am 

personally aware of the challenges facing local communities as they 

work hard to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. 

During that assignment, I worked closely with city and county officials. I have seen firsthand the issues facing local emergency managers as they balance the many competing requirements of local 

government. 

As Director for Joint Interagency Task Force-South, I worked 

with interagency and international partners and navigated the opportunities and challenges involved in the interagency coordination 

process. I served tours at Coast Guard headquarters, where I managed the Federal budget process, developed strategic plans, and instituted performance-based management tools. If confirmed, I will 

continue to leverage this experience to help FEMA improve on its 

core capabilities and build on FEMA’s interagency disaster response processes. 

I have also shouldered great responsibility—not just for budgets 

and plans, but for the well-being of men and women in uniform. 

My proudest and most humbling experiences with the Coast Guard 

were providing for the safety and well-being of my crew through 

three afloat commands and three ashore commands. When in command you must be able to rapidly and correctly assess the situation 

and effectively make critical decisions. My experience in the Coast 

Guard helped me develop quick decisionmaking capability based on 

the best information available. I will continue to use that skill set 

to achieve FEMA’s missions in support of disaster survivors and 

States and local communities as well as tribes. 

Over the past year as FEMA’s Associate Administrator for Response and Recovery, I have overseen a number of disaster responses across the country, including the tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma; the floods in Galena, Alaska, and across Colorado; and the 

mudslides in Washington State. Throughout these operations, I 

worked with my team to hone FEMA’s ability to employ both traditional recovery capabilities and alternate procedures, cutting 

through bureaucratic challenges to help disaster survivors and 

communities recover and rebuild. In every case, I have looked for 

lessons to improve FEMA’s performance in the next disaster. 

If confirmed as FEMA’s Deputy Administrator, my focus will be 

threefold: to steady FEMA’s disaster workforce; to stabilize FEMA’s 

policies; and to develop the data analytics to support rapid, effective, and efficient decisionmaking. To this end, I will focus on effective management of FEMA’s processes, particularly human resources, information technology (IT) systems and their security, 

and contracting and acquisition—all of which form the foundation 

necessary to reinforce a strong workforce that can effectively respond to and support the Nation in a time of disaster. We also need 
4 

1The letters of support referenced by Senator Begich appear in the Appendix on page 77. 

to better define FEMA’s policies, simplifying and streamlining 

them whenever possible. Finally, we must harness geospatial technology to more swiftly respond to the impacts of disasters in real 

time. Developing FEMA’s critical analytic capability will allow us 

to more effectively utilize existing information systems for swift 

and sound decisionmaking. 

I believe that fostering a close working relationship with Congress is critical to delivering the highest level of service to the 

American people. If confirmed, I will continue to build relationships 

with you and your colleagues to ensure Congress has access to the 

information it needs to fulfill its oversight missions. I will also continue to work with the full spectrum of Federal agencies within the 

Executive Branch, particularly the Office of Management and 

Budget, the Inspector General (IG), and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

Providing States, survivors, and communities with the resources 

they need in an efficient and effective manner is my primary focus. 

Based on our conversations during previous hearings, I have no 

doubt that this Committee is focused on the same. The American 

people deserve an emergency management workforce that is capable, competent, and prepared to meet the challenges of the future. 

It is my hope that, if I am confirmed, I can continue to help 

strengthen FEMA’s workforce and develop and improve its core capabilities, sustaining the organization into the future as a wellmanaged, performance-focused agency able to meet the expectations of the Nation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to appear before 

you, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much. I have three standard 

questions in regards to your nomination, the first question is: Is 

there anything that you are aware of in your background that 

might present a conflict of interest with the duties of the office to 

which you have been nominated? 

Mr. NIMMICH. Sir, I have no known conflicts of interest for the 

office to which I am looking to be confirmed. 

Senator BEGICH. Do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from fully and honorably 

discharging the responsibilities of the office to which you have been 

nominated? 

Mr. NIMMICH. Sir, if confirmed, there are no reasons, personal or 

otherwise, that would prevent me from fulfilling the requirements 

of the office to which I am nominated. 

Senator BEGICH. Do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from serving the full term 

of the office to which you have been nominated? 

Mr. NIMMICH. Sir, if confirmed, there are no reasons that I will 

not be able to complete the full term for the office to which I am 

nominated. 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much. I also have several letters that I will make sure are entered into the record1 from different groups recommending you for this position. 
5 

I just have some basic questions, and because we had a very good 

conversation on the Committee hearing just before this, I am not 

going to go into a lot of broad issues. I will have some specific Alaskan issues. 

But, first, what do you believe—and you kind of said it in your 

opening on some of the things you wanted to work on, that you believe your principal responsibilities will be for this new position? 

And again, you are in a unique position because you are already 

in the system, but give me your thoughts on that, if you could. 

Mr. NIMMICH. Yes, sir, and I think they warrant to be reiterated. 

Our workforce is our keystone. It is what makes us successful or 

not successful. We owe the workforce the ability to give them the 

training and experience and the equipment necessary to do their 

job. And then I need to hold them accountable that they do their 

job. 

Much of what we have heard from the IG and the GAO go back 

to information provided very early in a disaster that has not supported the subgrantee or the grantee in making the right choices. 

And then the IG comes in afterwards, much later in the process, 

and we are in that debate as to how do we rectify that situation. 

I want a workforce that does not create those problems, that 

rectifies the situation right from the beginning. I need to give them 

the ability and the tools so our IT systems and our information systems, will give them better analytics to understand the situation. 

Finally, a lot of our policies are overly complex, overly difficult 

to interpret, even for our own workforce, and we need to make sure 

that we stay within the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, 

but that we make them as clean and as clear and as deliverable 

as possible to our customers, which are the citizens of this country. 

Senator BEGICH. Your last comment there, it made me think— 

I had a note here on how long it takes some of the regulation process to move through FEMA. One, for example, is 8 years to get 

through, which also, as you can imagine, you are a disaster relief 

agency, so you have immediate needs every day, and yet if you cannot do a regulation, it can take up to 8 years. 

What are some of your thoughts on how to—and these are my 

words, and I am not sure it is the right words to use, but streamline the process so you can get these regulations in place when 

there is a need to have guidelines, maybe, for example—I know you 

are working on the tribal regulations now. I would hate to see that 

take 8 years. But give me a thought there. 

Mr. NIMMICH. So I want to delineate between two, sir. One is our 

policies, and then the others are what are really regulatory. The 

regulations do require an awful lot of effort, and you know that we 

will be looking at the factors in terms of declaration, not just for 

tribes but overall for States also. Those are going to be some of the 

challenges, and we need to stay focused on them, and we need to 

move them as quickly as we can, realizing that there are issues 

that are not always within our control. 

But you have my commitment to move those as quickly as possible, particularly tribal, because we opened the existing State criteria for disasters for tribes, but those do not take into consideration cultural issues and the capabilities of the tribes. So we are 
6 

working very diligently to try to come up with a set of criteria that 

are more appropriate for the tribes. 

The other side is policy, and sometimes it is the policies that we 

create and make overly restrictive in terms of what the regulations 

actually allow us to do. We need to make sure that we continue to 

look at those policies in a way that we, in fact, enforce that regulation, but do not necessarily make it more difficult—or easier on us 

rather than easier on the survivors, the subgrantees, and the 

grantees, sir. 

Senator BEGICH. What would you consider—obviously you are 

moving to a different job. What would you consider your weakness 

that you know you have and know that in order to be successful 

in this job, you have to work on it? What would you say? I should 

try and ask your wife. [Laughter.] 

Mr. NIMMICH. You might get a whole different set. 

Senator BEGICH. I saw her smiling back there. 

Mr. NIMMICH. Sir, I have the zeal to solve problems, and often 

the weakness is we try to take on too many and, therefore, we do 

not resolve those. 

When I came to FEMA, I really looked at three imperatives every 

day, and those imperatives can become overwhelming in and of 

themselves. But that is the workforce. We have to keep focus on 

the workforce, and that is one of the reasons Administrator Fugate 

has asked me to take this job. We need to get that disaster workforce trained and the tools that they need to do their job. The policies, and then the ability to use the data that we have, those three 

imperatives—the analytics and the data capabilities, stabilizing our 

policies, and steadying that workforce are three things that I look 

at every day. And by using those, I try to remain focused as opposed to allowing virtually every problem to become a challenge 

and, therefore, get nothing done. 

Senator BEGICH. Got you. In Alaska we have over 200 tribes, and 

there are obviously tribes all across the country, and we want to 

make sure that we are doing everything we can to make sure they 

have the knowledge, the training, the expertise, and so forth. But 

I am concerned that FEMA may not be able to handle this at this 

point. Tell me how we—and I say ‘‘we’’ collectively, to make sure 

that FEMA can ensure that there is sustainable levels of training 

for tribes and others within the tribal community, not only in Alaska but throughout the country, as they are entering into this kind 

of new potential process. How do we make sure that happens with 

the resources you have? 

Mr. NIMMICH. So, sir, initially when the Sandy legislation was 

passed, the Administrator made it very clear we were not going to 

wait until we received new resources to implement these. We have 

carved resources out of the agency. In every region we now have 

a tribal liaison. We have just hired the tribal liaison here at headquarters. Mr. Booth, who happens to be an Alaska Native, brings 

to us some of that expertise. But we need to start taking those discussions and that counseling that we get from the tribes as to what 

do they really need and how much do they need. And then we need 

to come back and find whether we can identify additional resources 

inside FEMA or whether we need to ask for additional resources 

to do the job right. 
7 

What I can commit to you is we have started to build a tribal 

liaison corps and that we are going to continue to focus on tribal 

issues with the expedience that we can have. 

Senator BEGICH. In a broader issue, the issue—and I have had 

a hearing on this and some other discussion regarding mitigation, 

what is happening with climate change, the impacts it is having on 

more severe storms, more costly storms, or disasters, I should say, 

in a broader sense, weather related. But one of the things I have 

noticed within FEMA, the pre-disaster mitigation (PDM) funds 

have gone the wrong direction in funding. And my concern is: Is 

it better to do pre-disaster or post-disaster investment? To me, obviously, it seems like, well, why wouldn’t we want to—we recognize 

this is happening. Why are we not spending more time? But yet, 

when I look at the PDM program, it seems to be going the wrong 

way. 

Mr. NIMMICH. Sir, I think that most of the studies indicate if you 

can mitigate the disaster or mitigate some of the impacts of the 

disaster before it happens, it has a much larger dollar value. But 

we also cannot sacrifice our ability to respond to disasters. That is 

the first and foremost. So you are correct that there has been a declining PDM budget. The President has asked for above-the-line 

authority to continue the PDM process. 

What we are trying to do inside FEMA is look at the mitigation 

money that we have in other areas, in our recovery program, in our 

insurance programs, in the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA)—the Federal insurance management part of 

FEMA—and how can we associate those and correlate those in a 

much better way to be able to do some of that mitigation, albeit 

after the fact of the disaster, but in a way that when we repair 

something or we make it so that it is insurable, we make it so that 

the risk is reduced dramatically by the works that we do rather 

than not having a correlated or a coordinated response. 

Senator BEGICH. You have done a good job last Committee hearing and this one here, but let me ask you, this was one that just 

drives me crazy, and it is the flood mapping and how to get these 

accurate. 

I was in the Matanuska Valley recently, which is just outside of 

Anchorage, and 40 percent of the maps are inaccurate, which, of 

course, means people are paying for flood insurance they should 

not have to pay for, or vice versa, they should have flood insurance 

but they are not in the mapping zone. 

Then we have different agencies that have different technology 

for their maps and different requirements for their maps. This 

seems to be a never-ending problem and an expensive problem 

probably to solve. 

In your list of responsibilities, is this one that you recognize as 

an agency we need to get after? Because it seems like with all the 

resources of mapping, maybe the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or FEMA, you guys, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 

and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), we will re-map 

an area seven different times from different agencies, and yet for 

some reason we are not sharing this data, and it seems like there 
8 

should be a baseline data sharing that should be going on to help 

make this job a little bit easier. 

Can you give me some thought on that? And it is something that 

you will hear a lot on a regular basis from me. 

Mr. NIMMICH. Yes, sir. There is no question that flood mapping 

and risk mapping are key focal points for the oversight committees, 

as they should be. We go to look at mapping and use the resources 

we have for creating the flood maps. Then the follow-on to that is 

the risk maps, how much of the risk that, in fact, creates, we do 

use experts in those fields. Those experts often look at all of the 

different factors that you have taken in. That is part of what the 

expense of the program is. We try to look at as many pieces of information and as much data as possible to be able to put the most 

correct map in place. 

The world is a dynamic and continually changing environment, 

and simple things like, a flood that goes through Colorado completely changes the way that the watershed looks and drives a lot 

of our decisions. Fifty-two percent of our maps have been looked at 

and are accurate and can be used. We know that we have a lot 

more work to do, and we are continuing to do that. We are 

prioritizing based on where those maps will produce the most results in terms of the potential risks the country faces, sir. 

Senator BEGICH. I am going to end my questions at this point. 

Just a couple things. 

One, you heard in my last commentary how important it is that 

we believe our role here is oversight and constantly doing analysis 

and research regarding FEMA’s work, talking to the IG and the 

GAO to make sure that we do our job here so we do not look back 

5 years from now and say why didn’t we ask this question, or we 

did, but they had a report, but no one responded to it. That is 

something you will feel from us. I say that in a polite way. You will 

feel that on a regular basis. It may be in a room like this or with 

staff in conversations. And I hope you will be receptive to that and 

that is not something that as an agency person you will hesitate 

to respond. Any thought on that? 

Mr. NIMMICH. Yes, sir. If confirmed, I intend to continue to work 

very closely with you personally and with your staff. We have had 

great conversations over the last several months in terms of working toward producing the report that you released today. Your staff 

has been very inquisitive, digging very deeply into the challenges 

we face. And, sir, the oversight helps us do a better job for the public we serve, and you are the voice of that public. So we look forward to continuing to work, and if I am confirmed, sir, I will answer your questions wherever you have them. 

Senator BEGICH. Fantastic. Let me pause for a second. 

[Pause.] 

I would like to thank you for your appearance here before the 

Committee, and your family, because I know it means—you 

thought he spends a lot of time at work now. He will spend more 

because, by that design, he will be dragged down here when probably you do not want to be. But I appreciate it, your willingness 

to serve in this very important job, but also your public service, because that is what it is. And you will be part of running an agency 
9 

1The biographical and financial questionnaire for Mr. Nimmich appears in the Appendix on 

page 15. 

that is delivering services in times of need where people are at a 

crisis state. So thank you for your willingness to do that. 

For the record, the nominee has filed responses to the biographical and financial questionnaires. Without objection, this information will be made as part of the hearing record,1 with the exception 

of the financial data, which are on file and available for public inspection in the Committee offices. 

Without objection, the record will be kept open until 5 p.m. tomorrow for the submission of any written questions or statements 

for the record. 

At this time the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:11 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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