U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

36–608 PDF 2008

S. Hrg. 110–566 

IMPLEMENTING FEMA REFORM: ARE WE 

PREPARED FOR THE 2007 HURRICANE SEASON? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 22, 2007 

Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BETH M. GROSSMAN, Senior Counsel 

MARY BETH SCHULTZ, Counsel 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

ASHA A. MATHEW, Minority Counsel 

KATE C. ALFORD, Minority Associate Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 3 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 15 

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 17 

Senator Coleman .............................................................................................. 20 

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007 

Hon. Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 5 

Hon. R. David Paulison, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management 

Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security .............................................. 8 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Jackson, Hon. Michael P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

Questions and responses for the record .......................................................... 64 

Paulison, Hon. R. David: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

Questions and responses for the record .......................................................... 74 

APPENDIX 

Article from the Washington Post submitted by Senator Coleman ..................... 61 

‘‘Are You Ready?’’ An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness, FEMA, August 

2004 ....................................................................................................................... 107

(1) 

IMPLEMENTING FEMA REFORM: ARE WE PREPARED FOR THE 2007 HURRICANE SEASON? 

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in room SD– 

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Landrieu, Collins, Stevens, Coleman, and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. Good 

afternoon, and thank you all for being here. 

Today we will examine the Department of Homeland Security’s 

progress in implementing legislation which this Committee and the 

Congress passed last year and the President signed to strengthen 

FEMA and make it the leading force in our Nation’s emergency 

preparedness and response system. 

Just this morning, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that this hurricane season, which is 

just 10 days away, will be a very active one. They predicted between 13 and 17 named storms and as many as 10 becoming hurricanes. We have already had our first named storm, in case you 

missed it—subtropical storm Andrea, which formed on May 9. And, 

of course, beyond preparing for and responding to natural disasters, we know that DHS and FEMA must be prepared to also respond to a possible terrorist attack. 

I want to welcome our witnesses, FEMA Administrator David 

Paulison and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland 

Security Michael Jackson. I want to thank you both for your service to our country in two of the most demanding jobs anywhere. 

Your successes are too often taken for granted and not noticed. 

Your failures, real or perceived, are broadcast live for all to see. 

That is a tough assignment, and I want to say to you and all of 

the employees of the Department of Homeland Security who work 

under you that we appreciate your hard work every day on behalf 

of the American people. 

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 

August 2005, causing the deaths of over 1,500 people, destroying 

billions of dollars in property, and uprooting millions of lives, we 

all watched. The Nation watched live on television as a region 

2 

drowned and our emergency response systems floundered. It was 

the Department of Homeland Security’s first large—that is, large 

to the extent of being catastrophic—challenge since it had been 

formed after September 11, 2001. And while the Coast Guard, a 

proud division of DHS, performed valiantly, rescuing thousands of 

people stranded on rooftops, the overall response was chaotic and 

uncoordinated. 

Following the Hurricane Katrina debacle, this Committee, Senator Collins as Chair and I as Ranking Member, spent 8 months 

investigating what went wrong. We issued what I believe was a 

comprehensive and tough report, concluding that there were failures of government at all levels, including FEMA. The Committee’s 

report contained many recommendations, a substantial percentage 

of which were adopted last year in the Post-Katrina Emergency 

Management Reform Act of 2006. 

First and foremost, this new law was designed to ensure that a 

newly strengthened FEMA would be the hub of the efforts of the 

Department of Homeland Security, indeed of our government, to 

prepare for and respond to disasters of all kinds—natural and terrorist. That means that FEMA would be more forward leaning, efficient, and proactive. It would be prepared to marshal resources 

from across the Federal Government, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations and move quickly, particularly in those 

cases, as in Hurricane Katrina, when State and local governments 

are overwhelmed. And DHS had to be prepared to fully support the 

efforts of FEMA. That was the goal of the 2006 law. It reunited 

preparedness and response within FEMA so that the officials who 

have to lead our Nation’s response are also responsible for leading 

our efforts to prepare. We thought the two naturally went together 

and it was not good management to separate them. 

The new law also makes the Administrator of FEMA the principal advisor to the President of the United States for emergency 

management and requires FEMA’s senior leadership to have the 

emergency management qualifications necessary for their jobs, 

which was not the case prior to the new law. 

I do want to say that I have been troubled recently, even as 

FEMA begins to implement its new authorities under the new law, 

to hear that there are some people who, notwithstanding the reforms that we adopted in the 2006 law for FEMA and DHS, are 

still calling for FEMA to be taken out of the Department of Homeland Security. I believe that would be a serious mistake, and I personally will do everything I can to stop such a step backward if 

there are legislative attempts to accomplish it. 

The fact is that the 2006 legislation strengthens FEMA enormously by both making it a distinct entity within the Department 

of Homeland Security, in the same way that the Coast Guard and 

Secret Service are, and at the same time bolstering FEMA’s ability 

to tap into and coordinate with the many other preparedness and 

response assets that exist within the Department of Homeland Security. That would be lost if we separated FEMA, the agency that 

we ask to be most involved in disaster preparedness and response, 

from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department we 

created to coordinate the Federal Government’s protection of the 

American people from disasters. So with today’s hearing as part of 

3 

our ongoing oversight of DHS and FEMA, we want to explore what 

DHS and FEMA have done, pursuant to last year’s law—which in 

many ways just went into effect a little more than a month ago— 

to improve disaster preparedness and response and what challenges our witnesses see ahead that we can work together to fix. 

America needs to know that we are making progress because 

Hurricane Katrina obviously did not just devastate New Orleans 

and the Gulf Coast. It also dealt a body blow to the confidence that 

the American people have in the ability of their government to protect them in times of disaster. 

Today, almost 2 years later, we are clearly better off. FEMA has 

made changes that we are going to hear more about today. But 

FEMA continues, certainly in the Gulf Coast region, to face postKatrina challenges, including the challenge of helping tens of thousands of Americans still living in trailers get back on their feet and 

bringing aid to communities across the Gulf Coast still struggling 

to rebuild. Obviously, building FEMA into the premier Federal 

emergency response agency our Nation needs has not happened 

and cannot happen overnight. But I am confident that today, 

FEMA within DHS is much stronger than it was on September 11, 

2001, much stronger still than it was on the day in August 2005 

when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, and I am confident 

that together we can make FEMA yet stronger, as strong as America needs it to be, in the months and years ahead. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin my 

comments today by associating myself with your remarks. I am baffled that there are those who are proposing that FEMA, the new, 

improved, strengthened FEMA, be moved out of the Department of 

Homeland Security. I have no idea what has prompted a renewal 

of this debate that we went through last year and concluded that 

it was the wrong solution to the problems that we faced. 

I also want to point out, Mr. Chairman, as you are well aware, 

as most of the Members of this Committee are well aware, that this 

Committee conducted the most in-depth investigation into the 

flawed response to Hurricane Katrina of any entity. It was the only 

bipartisan investigation. We held 24 hearings; we interviewed 400 

individuals. We had 85 public witnesses, and we reviewed 838,000 

pages of documents. And, yes, we actually issued subpoenas as well 

to get the information that we needed. And the result was a detailed, lengthy report and comprehensive legislation, the PostKatrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which became law in 

October. 

That Act brought about sweeping changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It raised FEMA’s visibility, protected 

its status and budget within DHS, gave its Administrator a direct 

channel to the President, restored the linkage between preparedness and response, strengthened its regional presence, and established multi-agency strike teams to promote rapid and effective action. And this was all brought about because of the universal dissatisfaction with the response of government at all levels to the 

horrors of Hurricane Katrina. 

4 

The 2007 hurricane season does start very soon, on June 1. The 

widely regarded Colorado State University forecast also calls for a 

‘‘very active season,’’ as does the NOAA forecast that was released 

this morning. 

So this is the ideal time for us to ask the question of whether 

or not FEMA is better prepared for potentially significant storms. 

I think the answer to that is obviously yes, but it leads to another 

question, which is: Is FEMA sufficiently prepared to respond to a 

catastrophe? 

While memories of Hurricane Katrina and the approaching hurricane season provide the impetus for this very timely hearing, the 

purpose of our reform efforts was broader than just the response 

to hurricanes, or even to natural disasters in general. Our legislation explicitly defined FEMA’s mission as all-hazards, whether natural or man-made, and invoked the full range of emergency management functions—preparedness, protection, response, recovery, 

and mitigation. In fact, one of the reasons that I am so opposed to 

moving FEMA out of DHS is that it would inevitably require DHS 

to create a duplicate of FEMA to respond to terrorist attacks. 

Our Nation is regularly challenged by natural disasters, such as 

fires, floods, tornados, earthquakes, as well as at times by terrorist 

attacks. So when we ask whether FEMA is sufficiently prepared for 

the 2007 hurricane season, we are really posing questions that are 

proxies for a broader and deeper set of concerns. 

FEMA Administrator Paulison, who is here with us today, recently testified on the House side that his agency is ‘‘leaning forward’’ and is an ‘‘engaged partner’’ with State and local agencies. 

And I have seen this firsthand lately in FEMA’s response to the 

Patriots’ Day storm in Maine that was devastating to the southern 

coast of Maine. And I am very grateful that the FEMA Administrator came to see firsthand the damage and has been so responsive to our concerns. I have also seen the response to the recent 

tornados in the Midwest, and, again, FEMA has received commendable praise for its quick response. 

There have been a lot of improvements. FEMA has a new operating agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency. It has new capabilities for procuring, delivering, and monitoring supplies. None 

of us will soon forget the shocking, wasteful, and sometimes tragic 

stories of supplies delayed, spoiled, or misdirected because of an inadequate logistics system that hampered the response to Hurricane 

Katrina’s victims. I am sure the Chairman remembers that ice designated for the Gulf Coast spent weeks in Portland, Maine, in cold 

storage, at a terrible waste and tremendous cost. 

FEMA is also adopting new controls that will increase assistance 

to victims as well as help curtail fraud and abuse. 

There are other indications of progress. Earlier this month, I participated in a New England exercise in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The response was to a hypothetical Hurricane Yvette that 

struck New England, and the difference was remarkable. I saw 

first responders and emergency managers from all levels of government working with the National Guard, going through training, the 

kind of joint training that is essential. One of the lessons of Hurricane Katrina is never again should we have people who are in 

charge of the response exchanging business cards in the midst of 

5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson appears in the Appendix on page 33. 

the crisis. And I was very pleased with what I saw during this New 

England exercise. 

There still is obviously much to do, but I want to also tout a reform that is already paying dividends, and that is the reform that 

we mandated of having Defense Coordinating Officers assigned to 

regional FEMA offices. That has made a big difference, and I saw 

that firsthand. 

Mr. Chairman, there is much more that we need to do. We need, 

for example, to make sure that we heed the caution of Florida’s 

emergency management director, who is well known nationwide, 

that we need to increase the funding for the Emergency Preparedness Grant Program. That is part of the bill that we passed in the 

Senate, and I know we are going to fight for that in conference. 

And to this day, I recognize from a recent trip to Mississippi and 

my conversations with Senator Landrieu and Senator Vitter that 

residents of the Gulf Coast still point to a cumbersome bureaucracy 

that hinders the delivery of aid and reconstruction assistance. 

There is still work to be done in completing the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System. 

FEMA’s reorganization is still a work in progress, and coordination 

with other Federal partners still needs to be improved. But I think 

we are seeing considerable progress. We are not yet there. We are 

not yet where we need to be. But I, too, Mr. Chairman, am pleased 

with the results of our legislation. 

So I thank you for scheduling this hearing as our witnesses come 

before us to help us explore our readiness to respond to the inevitable next catastrophe, regardless of its cause. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Collins. 

Secretary Jackson, welcome. We look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL P. JACKSON,1 DEPUTY 

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having me here 

today, and, Senator Collins, Members of the Committee, thank you 

for this hearing and thank you for the time and energy that you 

are spending on these issues. I am grateful for the support that 

this Committee has given to the Department, to FEMA particularly, and I am grateful for the sage counsel that was embodied in 

your comprehensive review of the post-Katrina actions that we 

needed to focus on. 

I would like to offer just briefly by way of introduction, and then 

get to the question-and-answer period, an overview from the Chief 

Operating Officer position at DHS about how we are doing on the 

DHS reform integration and also how we are generally positioned 

relative to emergency management capabilities, as the both of you 

have discussed today. 

I share the fundamental observations, Mr. Chairman, that you 

and Senator Collins have offered. When Hurricanes Katrina and 

Rita hit, we were obviously in clear possession of the vision of an 

agency, of a department, with serious deficiencies. These deficiencies were and are longstanding. I had a chance to see that firsthand back in the President’s father’s administration at Hurricane 

6 

Andrew and the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. There are longstanding issues that we have not faced up to and that we are now, 

I think, clearly facing up to. 

It would be folly to understand that the same degree of change 

is not needed at the State and local level. My saying this is not a 

ruse to blame others or to deflect blame from our Department for 

our past failures. There is a keen sense of awareness at DHS of our 

shortcomings and an eagerness to participate and to improve in 

doing our work. 

The change is being driven—I should say, though, at the start— 

and thank you for your comments about the FEMA team and the 

DHS team that is supporting them. It is being led by an outstanding group of people who have been reviled and in some cases 

dismissed as oafs or worse in the work that they have done. And 

I would say that for me it is a magnificently inspiring group of people that have been willing to dig in and say, ‘‘This work is too important. Let us fix this, let us do it right. We know we have a lot 

to do. We are not perfect.’’ And they want to get on with the job, 

and that is exactly what I see at FEMA today. 

My job is to make sure that FEMA has clarity about its mission, 

that they have solid management tools in place to work, the right 

leadership, and that I help with the Secretary to clear a path forward for them to do their jobs. 

Twenty-seven months ago, when Secretary Chertoff came in, we 

did not have the tools in place across the Department to support 

an architecture that would allow FEMA to operate in a totally effective fashion. I think, today, that we have put in place a multiplicity of such tools and very specific reforms. They range from getting people in the FEMA regional offices who have the right experience and the depth of experience to be able to deal with our jobs 

to this macro architecture of support. And I would like to just say 

a few words about that. 

That architecture starts with the right doctrine, as our military 

colleagues would say. This means that we have to support our 

State and local colleagues. We have a strong supporting role, but 

we are there to support their mission. When they are unable to 

complete the mission, we have to be prepared to be an effective 

partner that fills the gaps. That means that we have to call upon 

maximum flexibility for on-scene leaders to do their job. We have 

to have capabilities to surge and accommodate all catastrophic incidents, whether they be natural or terrorist in their origin, as is 

clearly the case. And we have to lean aggressively into this with 

prepositioning of assets, a faster response cycle time, more extensive integration to the State and local teams as they communicate 

and they operate at the local level. 

The tools in our toolkit that have helped us since Hurricane 

Katrina made landfall are a national preparedness goal. The interim goal, which is on the table and which is materially the same 

as we will come out with just shortly in a matter of days with the 

final version, is structuring how we work with the local and State 

investments necessary to make preparedness work. 

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) provides a 

framework for this, and that, too, has been a product that we have 

delivered and now trained and exercised, too. 

7 

The National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) picks up the 

means and the tools and the points of connectivity and the networks necessary to protect our core infrastructure and to respond 

and recover from attacks against that. That has been published 

since Hurricane Katrina. 

Just yesterday, we released the 17 sector-specific plans which 

outline the process of managing and the progress that we have 

made and the progress forward on how to work to protect our infrastructure. Strengthening infrastructure strengthens our response 

capabilities. We continue to invest money in this. The Congress has 

appropriated some $2 billion for interoperable communications, for 

example. We have put a significant focus on that since Hurricane 

Katrina made landfall, and we have just slightly less than $1 billion that we will spend in conjunction with the Commerce Department this year for further strengthening of that work. 

We have programs with buffer zone protection with our nationwide plan review of State and local emergency preparedness work 

with assessments in 75 large cities and soon to come of all the 

States of the interoperability communications plans. And so I think 

what we are seeing is a substantial collection of additional asset 

structure strength and communications among those who are responsible for emergency preparedness. 

I would conclude by just talking briefly about FEMA’s role within 

the Department and the Department’s responsibilities to support 

FEMA and the mission that it has. 

Hurricane Katrina, unfortunately, revealed weaknesses and outright fissures in the unified command of operations within DHS. 

That was a historical relic of DHS’s legacy integration—or the lack 

thereof. That is gone. That is over with. 

By statute and by Presidential Directive, Secretary Chertoff is 

the principal figure on behalf of the Administration to provide coordination and unity of effort within the Federal Government regarding national incident management and emergency response. 

Mr. Paulison is his key figure in managing the operational components of this, but he is supported by and assisted in his work by 

the rest of the Department’s activity and by other agencies of the 

Federal Government which operate in conjunction with FEMA. 

Our role is to provide for the entire Federal Government and 

with our State and local colleagues an architecture, a plan, a process, a method for dealing with catastrophic incidents of all types. 

This has reached a level of maturation that did not exist in August 

2005. Our mission has particularly focused on eliminating at the 

Federal level the seams between agencies and departments and 

also between the States and the local governments who have to 

work in harness with each other to manage such incidents. 

My final words really are about a topic that both of you, Mr. 

Chairman and Senator Collins, have raised about the courage of 

our convictions in supporting DHS as we intended to create it and 

as it was created by law. Some today look back at Hurricane 

Katrina and are tempted to conclude that DHS is too large or that 

the complex mission is impossible to succeed with. The creation of 

DHS was a bold and gutsy move. Both the President and the Congress took those measures to make a place where the work of allhazards protection could work, and that was the right decision. 

8 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Paulison appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

I know that Mr. Paulison agrees with me that FEMA is made 

stronger by being a part of DHS, by being supported within a larger organization that is responsible for our larger counterterrorism 

mission and preparedness for natural disasters. I can assure you 

that what Congress voted to create is taking shape and improving. 

The senior leadership has its eye on this thought, which is that we 

are determined that by the end of President Bush’s tenure, DHS 

will leave for the next President a strong, successful, and well-managed organization to make an effective transition to the new President and the new Secretary. 

Why do I say that? It is not that we are not focused on the short 

term and this hurricane season, but we are saying that the task 

ahead is more than we will get done in a day. But there is a clear 

mission. We have made clear progress. We have substantial assets. 

I believe we are prepared effectively for the hurricane season. And 

this is our mission, to make certain that this Department is able 

to perform in a way that will give Congress and the American people the confidence that this is the right organization for the mission. 

I would urge Congress to stay with the vision that created the 

new FEMA and, before that, the organization of DHS as a whole. 

I am convinced that a failure by Congress to embrace DHS’s mission as an integrated homeland security organization will impel far 

too many of my 208,000 colleagues at DHS to question their own 

sense of commitment and enthusiasm for the mission at hand. The 

faith of DHS employees in our mission is the solid foundation upon 

which our success is daily driven. We need your support, and we 

will earn it, I hope, in the days ahead. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Secretary. 

Chief Paulison, thank you for being here, and we look forward 

to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. R. DAVID PAULISON,1 ADMINISTRATOR, 

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, Senator Coleman, Senator Stevens, and Senator Coburn. I see 

Senator Landrieu has stepped out. I have been meeting with her 

on a regular basis, by the way. I do welcome the opportunity to 

come in front of the Committee and talk about what we have done 

for the 2007 hurricane season, quite frankly, since your report 

came out, and how we have implemented some of those things. 

We have instituted numerous reforms to improve our ability to 

respond and recover from disasters. In addition to FEMA’s internal 

transformation that we embraced to improve this agency, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have been working together closely to implement the adjustments included in the PostKatrina Emergency Management Reform Act. The result is a new 

FEMA that is stronger, more nimble, as you talked about, Senator 

Lieberman, than it was simply just a year ago, and that has improved our preparedness posture for the 2007 hurricane season. 

9 

You can see the impact of these changes in our responses this 

year to the Florida, Georgia, and Alabama tornados, the Nor’easter 

that affected States across the Mid-Atlantic and New England, and 

just a few weeks ago in Greensburg, Kansas. In each of these cases, 

and immediately following the event, FEMA was an engaged partner with the State. We deployed operational and technical experts, 

moved logistics and communications capabilities, and that was 

even before a disaster declaration, and coordinated with the governor to assist and facilitate a Presidential declaration. It was also 

FEMA that supported and helped to facilitate an effective Unified 

Command system amongst the many Federal, State, and local partners involved in that response. We call this an ‘‘engaged partnership,’’ and that is how FEMA is going to operate. 

Our response to these diverse and numerous events across the 

breadth of this great country is evidence of the new FEMA’s readiness for the 2007 hurricane season. With the first named storm of 

this season, Andrea, behind us and with this year’s official prediction released today, let’s look at our advanced preparation, our 

plan of operation during the storm, our improved ability to help 

with the short- and long-term recovery. Local governments will always be the first to respond, but FEMA still has an important role 

to play. The old paradigm of waiting for State and local governments to become overwhelmed before providing Federal assistance, 

as we saw in Hurricane Katrina, simply does not work. We have 

to go in as partners. 

Under an engaged partnership, FEMA has strengthened our relationship with key State and local partners, and also we have 

learned that one size does not fit all approach to emergency management. FEMA is helping each State analyze their strengths and 

weaknesses. Thus, our plan is more informed, and we can better 

anticipate specific needs and quickly move to support each State 

with the things that it does need. 

This reorganization has provided additional strength through 

these efforts. The Post-Katrina Reform Act establishes 10 regional 

administrative positions. This year, we have filled all 10, and not 

with just anyone but with solid and experienced managers, each 

with 20 and 30 years of hands-on experience in emergency management. These recognized leaders with backgrounds in firefighting, 

law enforcement, armed service, and emergency management are 

helping us to build strong relationships with our partners on the 

ground that will be essential for the future. 

When a hurricane forms in 2007, FEMA will be ready to act. As 

part of our improved and reformed operations, we have prearranged contracts and improved and improving logistics systems 

and other elements already in place to expedite our response. 

FEMA can surge its own teams and assets into an area in anticipation of an approaching storm. This forward-leaning new FEMA, as 

evident in our response to the tornado that devastated Greensburg, 

in the first 72 hours coordinated the efforts of numerous Federal 

agencies. FEMA had an Urban Search and Rescue team on the 

ground the same day that Kansas asked for the support. Supplies 

were rolled in within hours. Mobile support vehicles moved in 

early, and I was very proud of the response of our team—and not 

only our teams, but also the State and local teams—for doing an 

10 

outstanding job. The mayor and the city manager both lost their 

homes, and they were there working to help get their city back up 

on its feet. They did an outstanding job. 

Once a storm has passed, FEMA is also better organized and better prepared to help with the recovery. FEMA’s Disaster Assistance 

Directorate has expanded its capabilities to assist with mass care, 

sheltering, debris removal, victim registration, including enhanced 

protections against waste, fraud, and abuse, and coordination 

among the government and private sector entities, all moving forward to provide assistance. 

Another recent example is FEMA’s response to the storms and 

floods that hit the Northeast earlier this year. FEMA had a staff 

on the ground before the rains stopped, evaluating damage and 

registering victims. Mobile assistance centers were available in the 

immediate wake of the storm. The first individual financial aid was 

actually delivered less than 24 hours after the President signed the 

first disaster declaration. This fast, efficient, multi-state response 

shows the type of action you can expect from FEMA during this 

year’s hurricane season. 

In conclusion, we have made real progress at FEMA and are 

much better aligned to prepare for the 2007 hurricane season. By 

leaning further forward to coordinate the Federal response, which 

is more informed through assessments and communications with 

our partners, we can better serve all Americans. 

Today, FEMA has created engaged partnerships with State and 

local governments. We have facilitated and supplied an effective 

unified command across all levels of government. We have engaged 

with hurricane-prone States to gain better understanding of their 

vulnerabilities. We have improved logistics and communications capabilities that will improve response. And we have enhanced our 

disaster assistance capabilities for recovery efforts. 

Now, we are not done yet. We know we still have a lot of work 

to do. I have already met with Senator Landrieu several times, and 

I know there is a significant amount of bureaucracy. And my goal 

under my tenure as the FEMA Administrator is to make sure that 

we can remove a lot of that bureaucracy and make our system 

much easier and much more user friendly. 

But if our progress over the past year is any indication, I believe 

we are on the right track to fulfilling our vision to become the Nation’s preeminent emergency management and preparedness agency. I am especially proud of the men and women who work at 

FEMA. They really have put their hearts and souls into rebuilding 

this agency. 

I want to thank this Committee for their support, and I look forward to answering any of your questions. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks Chief. That was really good news. 

I appreciate the progress report. I understand it is early in the history of the new FEMA, but I must say—and Senator Collins and 

I have talked about this before—that in this unusual life that we 

live as lawmakers, there is nothing more satisfying than having 

identified a problem during an investigation, trying to create a response to it in law, seeing the law through passage and the President signing it, and then actually to hear about how it is being implemented. Specifically the beefed-up regional offices with the 

11 

interaction of Federal, State, and local officials, including, as Senator Collins said, a representative of the Defense Department right 

there, is really a step forward. And, obviously, if it had existed at 

the time of Hurricane Katrina, I think the Gulf Coast would have 

been in a lot better shape. So I thank you for what you have reported. 

You mentioned both the tornado in Greensburg, Kansas, and the 

Nor’easter storm earlier this year, just a short while ago, and the 

quick response of FEMA. Talk a little bit, if you would, about the 

role of your regional office and regional strike teams in both of 

those cases. Is that part of why you were able to respond so quickly? 

Mr. PAULISON. Senator, it is a different philosophy of how this 

agency is going to operate. We are not going to wait for a State to 

start asking for assistance. Now, we are not going to come in and 

take over, and we are not going to step on the State. But recognizing what the disaster is and having people on the ground that 

can tell us very clearly what the needs are going to be of the State, 

we can start moving quickly, sometimes before the local community 

or the State can recognize exactly what their needs are. 

In the case of Greensburg, Kansas, we saw very quickly the entire town was destroyed, so we started moving cell systems in, 

radio systems for the local emergency responders to have land mobile radios to talk to each other. We knew they were going to need 

supplies. We knew they were going to need tarps. So we started 

rolling those things in, advising the governor that we were doing 

that, while they were working on the declaration. 

We knew they were going to get a declaration just by the enormity of the situation, so why sit back and wait for the declaration 

to go through the process and get those papers signed before you 

start moving equipment? So when they needed the supplies and 

equipment and people, they were already there. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. One of the things that we learned—and 

I suppose it is just common sense, but it is important to say—during our investigation of Hurricane Katrina is that there is a difference between a natural disaster, which I would say the tornados 

in Greensburg and the Nor’easter earlier in our part of the country 

would qualify as, and a catastrophe. This characterization does not 

diminish the impact of those storms on people. They were devastating. But there is a difference between a natural disaster and 

what we, in our work on the Committee, came to call a natural catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina—a 100-year storm—which was 

beyond what we have seen and what FEMA previously has had to 

deal with. 

So take a moment and try to spell it out for us a little more. Are 

you ready? If one of these hurricanes, God forbid, in this 2007 season becomes a catastrophic storm anything like Hurricane Katrina, 

what do you have now that FEMA did not have then? 

Mr. PAULISON. Quite a few things. One, the report that came out 

of this Committee was extremely helpful in identifying the things 

that simply did not work, and we worked on those very carefully 

to put those in place: A better communications system, a much 

more coordinated logistics type of a system, a better ability to register people and track them, having people scattered across this enVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:15 Nov 13, 2008 Jkt 036608 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\36608.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
12 

tire country and really not having a clue who they were, where 

they were, what their needs were. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. How about in the early moments of a natural catastrophe that is so great that it effectively incapacitates 

State and local government? 

Mr. PAULISON. Part of the issue also was not having a good, rock 

solid evacuation plan and an ability to move people out, so that if 

you do have a known event coming in, like a hurricane, move people out of the town before the catastrophe happens. Then there is 

nobody there to get injured or pass away. 

So we have been working with all the States. Right now, particularly in the Gulf Coast, we are doing a tri-state evacuation plan. 

Last year, we just kind of shoved one down their throats, working 

just strictly with Louisiana. But it has a major impact on the surrounding States, so we are working with all three States there— 

Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana—to do a tri-State evacuation 

plan. 

We are also doing a gap analysis tool across not only the Gulf 

States but all the way from Florida to Maine on looking at those 

issues of what is in place for evacuation, what is in place for transportation, what is in place for sheltering, what are the gaps, so we 

can help fill those now instead of waiting for a catastrophe to happen. 

We also have the ability that we did not have before for the 

President to do a pre-landfall declaration, where let us say if a Category 3, 4, or 5 storm is coming into a Midatlantic State or Florida 

or, God forbid, Louisiana again, we can do a pre-landfall declaration and start providing funds and equipment prior to the hurricane making landfall. That will help the city get much better prepared and the State get much better prepared to move in. 

We have put a lot of tools in place just by literally stepping back 

and watching what went wrong with Hurricane Katrina, what can 

we do to mitigate that, if we should get another storm of that size. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. What will the presence of a full-time representative of the Department of Defense in the 10 regional FEMA 

offices enable you to do? 

Mr. PAULISON. What we did not have during Hurricane Katrina—and I think Secretary Jackson can talk about this also—is 

have the mission assignments in place with the military understanding exactly what they are going to do and what our needs are 

that we need from the military. 

We had about 14 pre-scripted mission assignments across the entire Federal Government before Hurricane Katrina. Last year, I 

had about 44 in place. This year, I will have over 180 pre-scripted 

mission assignments. A lot of those are with the military. By having those Defense people in each region—and also in FEMA headquarters, we have put some of our people at NORTHCOM and 

some of their people at FEMA headquarters. To have that relationship so we will get action immediately instead of having to negotiate mission assignments, like the Secretary did after Hurricane 

Katrina made landfall, those will be ready to move before a storm 

even hits. That is a tremendous asset for us. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And as you remember it, as we discussed, 

one of the thoughts about the regional offices is that they would 

13 

prepare more for the kinds of disasters that were likely to occur in 

their region. So I presume that the region, for instance, that Kansas is in had a set of plans ready to go in case of a tornado, as compared to the Gulf Coast, which would prepare more for hurricanes. 

Mr. PAULISON. And they did. They had a good plan in place, and 

they responded very quickly to that town. The town was totally 

devastated and did not have a lot of resources itself. But the adjunct general who runs the emergency management out of the 

State was in there very quickly, had a lot of equipment on the 

ground, and that was part of the reason, plus the early notification—they had 20 minutes before the tornado hit to move people 

into basements—for the low loss of life. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Chief. My time is up. 

Senator Stevens, as you saw, came by and had to leave for a 

meeting, but asked me to submit two questions for you, Chief, for 

the record, and they are typically direct and tough questions from 

Senator Stevens. 

Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that you and Senator Coleman will remember that the lead-off witness for our investigation was a FEMA 

employee from Region I named Marty Bahamonde, who was the 

first person in New Orleans and, regrettably, the only FEMA person in New Orleans prior to the storm. And he happens to be a Region I employee, so during this exercise for the hypothetical hurricane that struck New England, Mr. Bahamonde was one of the participants, and he came up to me and volunteered how dramatically 

better FEMA was organized. And this was a very credible report 

because he essentially was our whistleblower who started our hearings off. So I just wanted to share that with the Members of the 

Committee. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Paulison, not all is perfect, and there still are 

areas of great concern, and one of those you have touched on very 

briefly in responding to the Chairman, but I want to pursue it with 

you. 

When I think back on the hearings we had, the hearing that was 

most troubling to me dealt with the failure to evacuate those who 

could not evacuate themselves, particularly frail, sick, elderly members of nursing homes. And that to me was such a colossal leadership failure at all levels. Certainly the Louisiana official who had 

been assigned responsibility to do the evacuation plan, who had 

just utterly failed to perform his responsibility, bears a large measure of the blame, but the fact is that our investigation showed that 

it is not just Louisiana that has had flaws in its plans for evacuating those who cannot evacuate themselves. 

Please bring us up to date on how FEMA is helping State and 

local governments better plan evacuations. This is an area where 

GAO has been critical of FEMA’s efforts and has said that they are 

not sufficient and that evacuation plans for many State and local 

governments—and they are the primarily responsible parties 

here—failed to take into account the special needs of non-mobile 

populations. 

Mr. PAULISON. Senator, that is a major issue across this country, 

not just in hurricane States. We have a large elderly population. 

14 

A lot of them are not mobile, and how do you deal with those when 

you have to evacuate those. 

Last year, we worked very closely with Louisiana identifying the 

nursing homes and those types of shelters—some can shelter in 

place—doing a survey of those to see who can shelter in place. Do 

they have the plans in place and things in place to do that? And 

those who cannot, forcing them to put a plan together of how they 

are going to evacuate, where they are going to go, and how are they 

going to get there. 

We are doing similar things in all the hurricane States. We are 

doing, like I said, a gap analysis, and part of that gap analysis is 

just not talking about evacuation but what are you going to do with 

your elderly, what are you going to do with your people who are 

not mobile, what are you going to do with pets, and what are you 

going to do with hospitals. Just looking at each of those plans from 

Texas all the way to Maine, then very carefully working with the 

States to make sure they put those plans in place. It is so important that every State has those rock solid plans in place to do those 

things. 

Senator COLLINS. I think that is absolutely critical. We had language in our bill that spoke to the need to have effective evacuation 

plans. 

I want to turn to another area where I still think FEMA needs 

to improve, and that is to ensure that the true victims get the assistance that they deserve as quickly as possible, but that those 

who are not victims do not rip off FEMA’s Individual Assistance 

Program. We had two hearings on this last year where we found 

very disturbing examples of outright fraud, not to mention waste 

and abuse but outright fraud. And a lot of it was caused by FEMA 

not having in place obvious safeguards to verify identity, to verify 

damage, to ensure that duplicative payments were not being made. 

We want to make sure that the money goes to those who really 

need it and is not lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. Depending on 

GAO’s and the IG’s estimates, our estimate was that as much as 

$1 billion in Federal assistance was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. 

What steps has FEMA taken to ensure that we do not see that 

kind of looting of the Individual Assistance Program in future disasters? 

Mr. PAULISON. A major problem during Hurricane Katrina, no 

question about it. FEMA did not have the capability to have identity verification to make sure you were not applying for benefits 

more than once. Sometimes some people applied 20 to 30 times. We 

have put systems in place that we can now tell you are who you 

say you are and you lived where you say you lived, and our Webbased system does not allow duplicate applications from one household. 

So we put a lot of systems in place to stop that. It was very important that we did that because we simply could not go back to 

the way it was in Hurricane Katrina. And that is, again, one of 

those lessons that we learned that came out of this Committee that 

we have put in place. 

Senator COLLINS. Perhaps the worst example of that were those 

prisoners who applied for and received rental assistance while they 

15 

were incarcerated. Are you confident that would not happen given 

the safeguards that you now have in place? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, Senator, I am. We are very confident that— 

now, you are not going to stop 100 percent of the fraud. That is 

just the way any system is going to work. But we really feel very 

comfortable that we can stop a lot of it, and a lot of it sometimes 

was done not intentionally. People got two checks and did not report that. We are able to stop that now with the identity 

verification and our Web-based system that simply will not allow 

two applications from one household. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this 

hearing. I think it is important for people to hear the positive side 

of FEMA. I had some personal experience with them in 19 counties 

in Oklahoma, eastern Oklahoma this year, and although their communication was not always great, the response was excellent, and 

they carried out their mission greatly. 

I also would note my disappointment, again, with the fact that 

OMB obviously held the testimony. We did not get it until yesterday evening, so it is hard to prepare, to read your testimony, and 

to have the time to think over the problems that we have in front 

of us. Again, I would ask you to send a message. I do not know 

when you got it to OMB, but the fact that we did not get it until 

the night before the meeting violates our rules and is inappropriate 

for us to do an appropriate job. 

I am supportive of the changes that have been outlined and accomplished by both Senator Lieberman, Senator Collins, and the 

Committee. But I really want to focus on a couple of things on the 

financial aspects of FEMA and DHS. Basically if you could be audited—which you cannot be because they cannot complete an audit 

on you—what the American people would see is something similar 

to Enron accounting. And my question really is not blame. I know 

you are working on that, and we are improving every day, and 

hopefully someday we will get to audited financial statements for 

both FEMA and DHS. But basically what I am worried about is the 

duplication that we are going to see as we now combine FEMA 

with DHS. We have 80 grant programs at DHS, and the IG has 

identified 36 Federal assistance programs that have the potential 

to duplicate the DHS programs, and I am worried a little bit about 

the potential in those specific grant programs that the IG talked 

about in terms of being duplication from FEMA grants to DHS 

grants and HHS grants, and I am wondering what is happening. 

What are the safeguards that are in place now so that we do not 

duplicate the grants, so that we truly send grant money where it 

is needed, but then we do not turn around and send it again for 

the same thing? 

If you can give me some examples on how you are trying to coordinate that rather than the stovepipe, here is DHS grants and 

here is FEMA grants, so that we are not sending money twice, foregoing somebody who should be getting it because the money has already gone to somebody that is getting it twice. 

16 

Mr. JACKSON. Senator Coburn, I will take a first shot at that one, 

and Mr. Paulison can jump behind me if he wants. 

There are no stovepipe grants in the Department. They are all 

run in one coordinated way. DHS has FEMA as its executive agent 

for all of our Homeland Security Grant Programs, and those grants 

are managed out of FEMA. But let me unpack what that means 

for you. 

FEMA has the financial management, the audit, the discipline 

for financial controls and assessments to make certain that money 

is being spent as we said it would be spent and that it is being 

used as we have required by all the rules of the grant guidance. 

If I could unpack our grants, we have a large grant program for 

States and a large grant program for cities, major cities, and both 

of those are administered by FEMA under an agreement within the 

Department where we all put the appropriate assets to the task to 

support the grant program. 

The Secretary at the end of the day feels like he owns the responsibility to make sure that his Department does not stovepipe 

programs but supports these programs in an effective way. 

Senator COBURN. So you are saying there is one system in DHS 

that is responsible for and administers all the non-disaster grants. 

Mr. JACKSON. That is exactly right. 

Senator COBURN. And when did that come about? 

Mr. JACKSON. On March 31 of this year, when we moved it by 

virtue of the law that Congress had passed into FEMA and administered it that way. 

Senator COBURN. And it is effectively being run at this time? 

Mr. JACKSON. Exactly. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. JACKSON. Senator, if I could, there is one point that is really 

important about this that I would just like to make. FEMA does 

not have the subject matter expertise for all of those Homeland Security Grants. For example, the risk formula that we need to run 

this program has to call upon our intelligence services, it has to 

call upon our infrastructure protection people in the field, it has to 

call upon the broad array of assets in the Department to make a 

judgment about how to define these programs for the maximum impact. 

If you look at our substantial amount of money we spend on 

transportation and infrastructure support, the Coast Guard, for example, has the subject matter expertise for port security programs. 

They have a Captain of the Port. The whole program revolves 

around the Captain of the Port and the various professional assessments that flow from that area of subject matter expertise. For our 

transit grants, it is the Transportation Security Administration. 

So around the Department, Fire Administration, for example, inside of FEMA has the subject matter expertise for the Fire Grants. 

So Mr. Paulison is responsible for the financial controls and financial management and the distribution of these systems and the 

management of it. But he calls upon, literally spread throughout 

the Department, the multiplicity of assets there that will help 

make these grants effective. And that is why the opening comments by both the Chairman and Senator Collins about the necesVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:15 Nov 13, 2008 Jkt 036608 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\36608.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
17 

sity to draw within FEMA upon assets in the Department is very 

real and tangible when it comes to grants. 

Senator COBURN. Let me just sneak in one other question. There 

are two grant programs for interoperability, both essentially run 

through you, both authorized and funded—one through the Commerce Committee and one through the Homeland Security Committee. Correct? 

Mr. JACKSON. Well, not exactly. This is one grant program, and 

Commerce has assigned DHS as its executive agent to design the 

program, to deal with the States, to manage it so that it is integrated in an effective way with our Homeland Security Grants for 

States and urban areas. 

Senator COBURN. And how much is that? 

Mr. JACKSON. It is this year $1 billion. It is a one-time grant program. The ultimate sign-off agreement comes from Commerce, and 

so they have the statutory authorization to obligate the funds, and 

they use this program at DHS to accomplish that. We are working 

hand in glove with each other. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Coburn. 

Senator Landrieu, thank you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me begin 

by thanking you and Senator Collins for the work that you have 

done to get us to this point. I did not receive the testimony, unfortunately, until too late to prepare the specifics of the testimony 

today. But I was able to receive from the Committee a long list of 

accomplishments that this Committee has achieved since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And I am pleased to have been a part of 

that, and I do know that FEMA is stronger today than it was when 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the southern coast of Louisiana, 

Mississippi, and Texas. The question is: Is it strong enough? And 

that is what this hearing and many other hearings that will take 

place on this side and the other side of the Capitol in many different committees will continue to ask: Is it strong enough to respond to a catastrophic disaster, whether that disaster is caused by 

the collapse of multiple Federal levees that should have held and 

did not, whether it is a catastrophic disaster of a terrorist attack 

of many different natures that we could think about? 

And so we have to pursue aggressively our reform efforts, and I 

continue to represent, of course, millions of people who are affected 

daily by the failure of the system to respond to this particular 

large-scale disaster. I am fairly certain, as my colleague from Oklahoma said, that FEMA is equipped to deal with your regular tornadoes, regular storms. But as the Chairman and Ranking Member 

know, since they have been down to New Orleans, Louisiana, and 

Mississippi, what happened to us was a flood of biblical proportions, seven times the size of Manhattan, 250,000 homes under 

water, 20,000 businesses lost, and responding to and recovering 

from this kind of disaster is beyond the scope of what this country 

has attempted to do, just way beyond the scope. 

So while things have been improved—I have many questions that 

I am going to submit to the record, but I will ask Administrator 

18 

Paulison: What are the three things that you are most proud of 

having accomplished since you have been there? And what are the 

two or three things that you still firmly believe we have got additional work to do? 

The two things you are most proud of accomplishing that you 

think will have the most impact and two things that are on your 

mind that we could focus on to help you with. 

Mr. PAULISON. If I had to think of two very quickly, I think working with the Secretary and the Cabinet to put together a unified 

command system. One of the biggest failures that I saw during 

Hurricane Katrina was the inability to share information from the 

local community to the State, the State to the Federal Government, 

and inside the Federal Government. We have tested the system all 

the way up, including the President’s Cabinet. We have used it in 

smaller instances, but the system works. It worked in the first responder world for 30 years, and now we have it in our entire emergency management system. 

I am going to give you three. The other is leadership. I only had 

two of my 10 regional director slots filled, and they happened to be 

two very good people, so I kept those. But I have the other eight 

filled with rock solid people who have emergency management experience. 

And then being able to register people and track them and developing partnerships with people, like the Red Cross and HHS and 

others that can help us do that so that we do not end up with the 

same mess that we had, quite frankly, with Hurricane Katrina that 

had particularly the biggest impact on Louisiana. 

The things that we do need help with is housing. If we have another catastrophic, mass migration, which is what this was, the 

largest migration in the history of this country. How do we do a 

better job of housing people? FEMA should not be in the long-term 

housing business. HUD should be in the long-term housing business, and now we are partnering with them to make that happen. 

So I would appreciate support from this Committee when we bring 

this before you of exactly how we are going to do this. 

The other is logistics. We are still working on logistics. It is much 

improved over what it was before, and it is much improved over 

last year. We still have a long ways to go to get the type of system 

that I want in place that the business community uses every day, 

and we are working hard to do that. I brought in one of the top 

people out of the Defense Logistics Agency, hired him away from 

them, and brought him in to put our logistics system together. And 

that is really starting to take shape, but it is not where I want it 

to be yet. 

Senator LANDRIEU. You can most certainly appreciate, given your 

comments about housing, why I am pressing this Congress so hard 

for the 10-percent waiver, which helps us rebuild our public facilities which support the rebirth of the city and the region. Is there 

any reason that you would know of that we would not be entitled 

to ask for that waiver given that it has been given before? 

Mr. PAULISON. You are always entitled to ask for it. Our position 

has been—and I have not had a conversation with the Secretary or 

the President on this lately—that by the State being involved financially with the decisions, we have much better control over the 

19 

1The response from Mr. Paulison appears in the Appendix on page 71. 

expenses, making sure they are spent in the right way. And that 

is the position we have had in the past with all States. 

Senator LANDRIEU. But we have waived the 10 percent in the 

past for at least the most recent disasters. 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And my final question would be about this 

planning. While some of this is too late for us for this time, it is 

not going to be, hopefully, the next time. I am still concerned, Mr. 

Chairman, that we are not investing more money in planning, but 

we are moving money from one pot to another. How much money 

was in the grant program for local planning for disasters before 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita? And how much is available today? 

Are we $1 billion to the positive or $1 billion or more to the negative? 

Mr. PAULISON. Senator, I cannot give you that off the top of my 

head, but I can get that to you if you submit that for the record.1

Senator LANDRIEU. Do we believe it is an increase? 

Mr. PAULISON. I do believe that. 

Senator LANDRIEU. But we do not know what percentage. 

Mr. PAULISON. I just do not know what off the top of my head, 

but I know it is an increase. Also, when I took over FEMA, there 

were no operational planners inside of FEMA, and now we are hiring a lot of those. We put a planning office inside this organization 

to assist with those types of things, and they will be going out to 

the regions to work with the States on planning. But we know that 

is an important issue, and you rightfully brought it up. It is a 

weakness in the system, our planning system, and that is what we 

are addressing. I just cannot give you the figures. 

Mr. JACKSON. Senator, I can add just a little bit of a gloss to 

that. In our core Homeland Security Grant Programs, planning is 

an eligible expense, which is to say that when a State or a community wishes to use this money for planning purposes, they are allowed to do so. I think all of us have seen the lesson of Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita and know that this is an area for more work. 

We have gone out to the 75 largest cities, and we have reviewed 

their planning process, reviewed their preparedness measures, and 

we have issued a report on where that stands. We are continuing 

to engage with them on interoperability, for example, all the 

States, all the territories, all the major cities, and a statewide plan 

is coming soon this fall for interoperability of communications. 

So we are trying to do that and to put the training and the exercise programs together in ways that are much more robust. In the 

Federal Government, we have created a coordinated training program, an exercise program—especially the exercise part—with the 

Defense Department, with DHS, and other agencies to be able to 

take these core catastrophic scenarios and operate much more effectively to exercise together. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. And I know that my time is up, but I 

know that our bills have doubled the authorization for these 

grants. But doubling the authorization and appropriating a double 

amount of money are two different things. And I just want, Mr. 

Chairman, for us to make sure on the appropriations side that we 

20 

1The article from the Washington Post submitted by Senator Coleman appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

are actually investing more money for planning which could help 

save not only lives but property, etc. 

Mr. PAULISON. Mr. Chairman, if you do not mind, if I could mention one more thing? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go right ahead. 

Mr. PAULISON. We also have put a lot of money aside for catastrophic planning, particularly in Louisiana for another catastrophic storm coming in there. We are doing catastrophic planning 

in Florida around the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee and a Category 5 storm coming into Miami, and also doing 

catastrophic planning for the New Madrid Fault. 

So those are new dollars that we have actually set aside for this 

year to do that catastrophic planning, which can be applicable 

across the entire country once we get them done. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Landrieu. 

You made a very good point at the end there. 

Senator Coleman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What a difference 

leadership makes, both Mr. Chairman and the Ranking Member of 

this Committee, in the work that was done last year and the review, investigation, and reports, and clearly leadership that is represented at the table. It is refreshing for me to hear about engaged 

partnerships and a forward-leaning new FEMA. And I think that 

is positive. 

I want to look back and then look forward. There was an article 

in the Washington Post1 about 3 weeks ago that talked about international assistance and a story that out of $854 million in cash and 

oil that was to be sold for cash, only about $40 million had actually 

been used. Did we ever figure out what happened, whose responsibility, and understanding, as Senator Landrieu said, this was a disaster of biblical proportion. In my experience as mayor, that 100- 

year flood seemed to happen more than once every 100 years. And 

so I do not want to look at this as just something that happened 

and we never have to deal with again. 

So, two questions. One, did we ever sort out what the problem 

was? And, two, should we have those kind of international offers 

again, would we be in a better position now to utilize and to get 

that money into action? 

Mr. PAULISON. We, inside the United States, did not have a good 

system in place on how we accept international donations and what 

we are going to accept, and that was a flaw in our system. We have 

put a good system in place. We have been working with the State 

Department on how we are going to set up a system to accept 

international donations. FEMA will be involved with the State Department on what our needs are, what we can accept, and what we 

will not accept. 

A lot of the dollars that were promised, they have not been re- ceived. We did receive $120 million: $60 million went to the Department of Education, I think they have already spent $30 million 

21 

of that; the other part went for crisis counseling that we distributed, and they are still doing crisis counseling with it. 

So the dollars that we received we spent. We distributed—and I 

forget exactly what the figure is, but hundreds of metric tons of 

supplies that we did take in: Blue tarps, generators, and a lot of 

other supplies. What we were not able to accept sometimes were 

foodstuffs and things like that. 

So now we are doing a better job of laying out exactly what we 

can accept and what we cannot accept. We can make that known 

to our international partners out there if we do have a catastrophic 

event. That will make our system work much better. 

Senator COLEMAN. I appreciate that. One of the biggest concerns 

that we heard in our review is about interoperability, at the local 

level, and between local and the Federal level. Where are we at 

today? You talked about unified command system logistics. But on 

the interoperability piece, the communication piece, what is your 

assessment of where we stand today? 

Mr. PAULISON. The interoperability issue, we really have come a 

long way. We have a lot of money going to the system. The billion 

dollars from the spectrum sale is now coming into the system to 

be distributed. 

The biggest issue with interoperability is really a management 

issue sometimes more than an equipment issue of how we are 

going to communicate with each other. It can be as simple as 

changing hand-held radios, working out of the same command post, 

or working in a unified command system. The technology that exists out there, units like the ACU–1000 that can merge five or six 

different frequencies together in one place. Most of the State National Guards have the capability. FEMA has the capability with 

several units around the country to move into an area and provide 

interoperable communications like we did in Kansas just recently. 

It is an issue that is quickly becoming resolved. Sometimes it is 

almost a buzz word, ‘‘Well, I do not have interoperability,’’ but the 

fact is there is resolution to it at the local level also. 

Mr. JACKSON. Senator, I would say there are two problems. One 

is operability and the other is interoperability. If you are wiped 

out, like we were in New Orleans and you do not have towers and 

communications systems, you need to be able, for a rapid response, 

to move in those temporary communications infrastructures necessary to be able to communicate. And the other part of it is what 

Mr. Paulison has addressed with the interoperability investments 

that we are making around the country. 

There are some bright spots. In Texas, for example, they have 

statewide interoperability to the point where people from all 

around the State, emergency responders, can come and talk to each 

other with guaranteed success and proven capabilities to do that. 

I was with the governor recently when he announced their accomplishment of getting to this benchmark for the State. But there is 

a lot more investment that needs to be made here to make this 

where we need to be. 

Senator COLEMAN. And my concern goes back to the uneven playing field at the local level. Minnesota has put a lot of time and a 

lot of effort into this issue of interoperability, but my concern is if 

there is an unequal playing field, that when a disaster occurs, 

22 

somebody needs to be there to make sure that the playing field is 

level and that the system is operational in spite of States not having achieved the success perhaps that Texas and Minnesota have 

achieved. 

Mr. JACKSON. Right. There has been differential investment here, 

and you will see in the fall very detailed progress reports and report cards on a statewide basis from all the States about where we 

are. This tool is being used by us to drive the investment that we 

will be making with the $1 billion Congress has provided. So we 

are looking for these disciplined, systematic, and clear plans, and 

you will see it in black and white where we stand across the whole 

country with those. 

Senator COLEMAN. The confidence of the people is often a factor 

in our ability to do the things that have to be done. There were recent surveys that continue to show a lack of confidence at the Federal level. At the State level, it appeared folks had a high degree 

of confidence in their local responders, but, still, I think it was 

about three in 10, 30 percent, had confidence in folks at the Federal level, and that number was worse for minority communities. 

Are you addressing that issue? Do you have something in place 

that would spread the word? We are going to hear a little bit of 

it today. What are you doing to reach out to people to raise their 

level of confidence? 

Mr. PAULISON. We are doing that with all 10 regional directors 

in place and with very clear direction from me to make sure they 

make those contacts so, like Senator Collins said, we are not exchanging business cards in the middle of a disaster, telling them 

what we are doing, showing them what we are doing. 

The problem is going to be until we have a major event and this 

agency performs, it is going to be difficult to get over those doubts. 

We lost a lot of confidence during Hurricane Katrina. We are rebuilding this agency back again. It is going to perform. But I do 

not expect people to believe me. I expect them to see what we actually do, and we have been doing that. Every disaster we have had, 

whether it is in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, or up in the 

New England States, FEMA has done an excellent job of responding to these disasters, and we just do it a piece at a time. And I 

think eventually we will get there. 

Senator COLEMAN. Actions speak louder than words. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir. Right on target. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Coleman. 

We are going to do a second round. Do you have to go? 

Senator COBURN. I just have one question. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go right ahead. 

Senator COBURN. The $1 billion, is that enough to solve the 

interoperable problem? 

Mr. JACKSON. No, but it makes a heck of a downpayment on top 

of the $2 billion we have already spent. As Mr. Paulison said, really one of the core problems remaining is that we have to have the 

governance structures necessary to make this work. This is not 

necessarily about buying gizmos or all the same gizmos for all the 

same people. It is about making the fundamental management deVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:15 Nov 13, 2008 Jkt 036608 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\36608.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
23 

cisions about who needs to know what type of information and 

what time sequence and who is talking to whom. 

There are bridging mechanisms, technologies that can help us 

take existing tools and link them together. In the places where we 

have seen great success, it has been State and local leaders who 

have a very clear vision and a strong commitment to getting the 

job done. And the places where we need to go a little farther, it is 

a case of sometimes trying to get a community together. And even 

in a single State, you can see a diversity there among communities 

that really get it and get all together with the multiplicity of law 

enforcement and emergency managers that have to be connected. 

So that is the part where I would say for the smallest investment 

of money, a little bit of energy and leadership in the right way can 

help us bridge very far where we need to be. 

Senator COBURN. So are you going to need another $1 billion? 

Mr. JACKSON. I am not here to tell you what it is going to cost, 

but I am here to say that this is not going to end the problem. We 

are using our Homeland Security grant dollars for this every year. 

That is where the $2 billion figure comes from. Since DHS was created 4 years ago, we have spent $2 billion on this, and we will 

spend more in the Homeland Security Program this year as well, 

on top of the $1 billion. 

Senator COBURN. And you realize there is another $1 billion in 

the 9/11 bill that is in conference right now for the same issue? 

Mr. JACKSON. I have heard stories. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Just to give you the latest update, the 

budget resolution that has passed has $400 million to fund the first 

part of the interoperable communications grant program. As you 

know, the $1 billion that you got was the beginning of a program 

which will now flip over into this new program when we actually 

get it authorized. 

We have naturally today talked about preparedness for natural 

disasters because the FEMA reorganization followed the terrible 

performance of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina. But FEMA also 

has very critical responsibilities to lead the Nation in responding 

to a terrorist attack, and, of course, the Department of Homeland 

Security was created in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. So 

I wanted to ask at least one question about that. 

The 9/11 Commission, the Kean-Hamilton Commission, said that 

one of the causes of September 11, 2001, was a failure of our imagination, which is to say that we could not imagine that people could 

want to do and do what the terrorists did to America on September 

11. So we have to think about the normally unimaginable. A while 

ago, we asked Secretary Chertoff, what was his No. 1 nightmare? 

His response was a nuclear weapon being smuggled into a large 

American city and detonated by terrorists. Yesterday, a reporter 

told me that he had interviewed the director of the FBI and asked 

him what his No. 1 concern was. His answer, understandably, was 

the same thing. 

So let me ask you both, are we ready? God forbid that happens, 

but are we ready to respond in a way that diminishes the devastation that would be caused by such an explosion of a nuclear weapon 

in an American city? 

24 

Mr. JACKSON. I would say we clearly are better equipped to do 

this mission than before the creation of DHS, before September 11, 

before the focus that has been brought about thinking about the 

awful and catastrophic on a daily basis across the government. It 

will still be a very untidy and devastating event if we have the 

type of attack that Secretary Chertoff explained to you in his testimony as his worry, and which I certainly share. 

So there is no way to make it a happy day, everybody be picked 

up quickly and dusted off and put back on the road. This is one 

of Mr. Paulison’s problems, I think. What has happened is we have 

created an expectation that if anything bad happens and if it is catastrophic, this expectation, I think, is even more that somehow the 

Federal Government will come in and swamp them immediately 

and make everything better. 

So what he has to worry about is that there is an unreasonable 

set of dependencies or expectations on what can be done by a government, and I would say that is not an excuse for the most aggressive and forward-leaning and considerable investment in making catastrophic incidents easier to manage. But it will not take 

away the word. ‘‘Catastrophic’’ means—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. No way. I agree. Incidentally, I should 

say what we all know, which is that the Department has divisions 

within it, working alongside law enforcement and the new intelligence apparatus through the Director of National Intelligence and 

the National Counterterrorism Center, to prevent such actions. 

And, in fact, they have been prevented, most recently with the arrest of six men involved in a plot in Fort Dix, New Jersey, but 

more catastrophically in the arrests in the United Kingdom of 

those individuals who were planning to fly that series of planes 

over to the United States and blow them all up in the air before 

they reached here. 

So, unfortunately, there is already evidence they are trying to 

carry out the extreme and bizarre. It’s a big question to ask, but 

let’s talk about catastrophes. It will be a terrible day, a dark day, 

but God forbid this happens—is FEMA prepared to mitigate the effects of such a nuclear explosion set off by terrorists in an American city? 

Mr. PAULISON. I can tell you that it is not being ignored. We had 

a major exercise, in fact, last week involving the Department of Defense, HHS—every Federal agency played in the same type of scenario you just laid out, how we would work together. There were 

a lot of lessons learned out of that exercise. 

In the exercise, FEMA was capable of carrying out its mission of 

making sure that we could provide the things that we are supposed 

to provide. We even had classified video conferences on how you 

would make certain decisions or what you would do. 

So we are working on these types of things. You know, I think 

the Secretary is absolutely right. With a catastrophic event like 

that, it is going to be a catastrophic event, and it is not something 

you are going to go in and clean up in a couple days. There are 

going to be tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of injuries and fatalities, and where do you put people and how do you 

deal with them. There will be some very difficult decisions to make. 

25 

FEMA is not the core agency to deal with those types of things, 

but we are playing our part, and we will perform up to the best 

of our ability. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Who is the core agency? 

Mr. PAULISON. Well, on the health side, it is going to be HHS. 

The Department of Defense is going to be involved. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PAULISON. FEMA is going to be involved with a piece of it. 

The Department of Justice will be involved doing the investigation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Who will coordinate? 

Mr. JACKSON. The Secretary of Homeland Security. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The Secretary of DHS. 

Mr. PAULISON. He will be the coordinator, yes, sir. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I must tell you, I am encouraged that you 

accept at least the possibility of such a scenario and that the government is planning for how to mitigate its effects. 

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Chairman, can I just respond real quickly on 

that one? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Please. 

Mr. JACKSON. To show you the priority that we place on exactly 

what you are asking about, we have created at the Department 

operational planning cells which are drawing staff from all the relevant Federal agencies—Defense Department, HHS, Energy, 

Transportation—that are able to accommodate for particular matters of growth to the entirety of the Federal Government’s assets. 

And we are unpacking the 15 scenarios that are part of the National Preparedness Goal to give very precise operational plans. 

This is working out of our Operations Coordination Group. It has 

got very active involvement from FEMA and other aspects of the 

Department. 

The No. 1 plan that we are working through operationally, and 

the first draft is being interagency coordinated as we speak, is on 

this type of nuclear attack in a city. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I appreciate that. It is reassuring. I thank 

you for it. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Jackson, one of the most significant findings of this 

Committee’s investigation into Hurricane Katrina was that there 

was a significant delay in getting support to the States and to the 

local governments because of the way the system was set up. 

Under the system in place at that time, the local government had 

to be overwhelmed and essentially fail before the State government 

would step in. Then the State government had to be overwhelmed 

and fail before the Federal Government would step in. 

Senator Lieberman just posed the question about a truly significant catastrophe such as a nuclear bomb being smuggled into a 

city. That is a perfect example of a catastrophe that is going to 

overwhelm even the best local government and most likely the 

State Government as well. 

What is DHS doing to not wait until there are failures of delivering services at the State and local level before stepping in when 

there is obviously an overwhelming catastrophe? 

Mr. JACKSON. Senator, this is an excellent question and an important point, and I just want to make sure that I have rammed 

26 

the answer home very clearly. We have changed our total operating 

model for how to manage this type of incident based upon the results of our failure in Hurricane Katrina. What that means is 

spread across the Department in different ways. You have heard 

the Administrator talking about how we preposition goods more aggressively and move them up to the point of deployment while we 

are waiting for the request to come from a State if we know that 

it is likely to be there. Sometimes we have actually done that and 

then had to move them back to the warehouse a little bit when it 

turned out not to be so bad. I would rather err in that way, call 

it an exercise, and then not be able to fail if we have the need for 

the goods. 

So at FEMA, we are moving into that as much as possible. We 

can declare in advance of a known, a pre-known event, a disaster 

before it strikes, like in a hurricane. For an attack of a chemical, 

nuclear, or biological nature, we would instantly move the assets 

that we have into that arena as necessary. We would certainly 

closely coordinate with the governor and make sure that we are all 

operating in a unified way, but it would not take a lot of paperwork 

rigmarole to get us up and operating. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Paulison, I noted that you smiled as I was 

asking that question, which makes me think you may want to add 

something. 

Mr. PAULISON. No, you were singing my song. That is exactly 

how we are going to operate. It is a different philosophy inside this 

organization, and with the support of the Secretary, we are leaning 

very far forward, just like we did in Kansas, moving equipment 

early, knowing we are going to get a declaration, and why wait for 

the paperwork to be signed before we move in. So we have been 

doing that. 

It has raised some eyebrows inside the organization. We had 30 

years of history here and 30 years of culture, and we are changing 

it. Sometimes it is difficult to change in a few months, but we are 

making headway, and we have a lot of people inside of FEMA now 

who are saying, yes, this is the right way to do it, and most everybody is getting aboard with it. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Secretary Jackson, just one final 

question. I may submit some others for the record. We found during our investigation considerable confusion between FEMA and 

DHS as to who performed what role. We also found that there was 

an astonishing lack of situational awareness that added to that 

confusion. 

What has DHS done to better clarify the roles within DHS? We 

have talked a lot today about coordination with State and local 

partners, coordination with other Federal agencies. But within 

DHS, what has been done? And, second, what has been done to ensure a far better level of situational awareness than we saw during 

Hurricane Katrina? 

Mr. JACKSON. In DHS, we have just faced up to what we need 

to do to be able to operate in the fashion that we are able to do 

today. And we have defined our roles and responsibilities in very 

clear, unambiguous ways. The management team meets weekly 

with each other from the seven operating components of the Department. There is no core ambiguity about how we are going to 

27 

operate as a Department, and there is ample opportunity for the 

experienced leadership team to be able to go directly to the Secretary or directly to the Deputy and resolve any question of this 

nature quickly. 

We have created an Operations Coordination Group as part of 

the Secretary’s initial assessment of the deficiencies inside the Department. That is now up and effectively functioning, and that is 

a substantial enhancement to being able to make sure that we are 

connecting to each other on an operational basis, on a daily basis, 

so that we have a surge capacity to jump into a big circumstance. 

So how do we assure ourselves that we have situational awareness? It occurs at multiple levels, and it gets integrated and fused 

in our National Operations Center, which is managed by the Operations Coordination head. That work leverages and pulls a major 

pipeline of information from FEMA during the course of a FEMAcentric event. But if it were another type of event, it would pull 

from other agencies with greater volume. 

For example, we have established a team of people both at 

FEMA and within ICE to be able to swamp into an area quickly 

with communications devices using satellite links, with cameras 

and video and other capabilities to be able to show clearly what is 

happening in that Superdome with these people. Is there a problem 

here or is there not? 

We have put a common operating platform together inside the 

National Operations Center to fuse data from literally thousands 

of different points into a common template that can be put up and 

understood easily as to the major functioning elements of the response and recovery. 

We have created a new Operations Center for FEMA and are 

using better technology tools, better doctrine about how to communicate, more extensive training of people in this process. This is literally a question we could talk for many hours on, but you are hitting on an indispensably important part of making a new FEMA, 

a new DHS, which is integrated where the management team all 

knows what their role is and where they want to work together. 

I think as your own hearings proved, there were not such common points of understanding about how the Department operated 

and its components related to each other on the day that Hurricane 

Katrina made landfall. That is over with. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks again, Senator Collins. Senator 

Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One of the exchanges that I found rather disturbing when we did 

our Hurricane Katrina review, I think it was a FEMA witness who 

made the comment that it was not an issue of whether there was 

enough food or supplies. It was in the pipeline. They just did not 

know where it was. I think my comment was, you should have 

hired FedEx or given a call. Just touching on logistics, if there are 

supplies in the pipeline today, do we have the computer capability, 

the capacity, much like any basic shipping company has today, to 

know exactly where things are and how long it is going to take to 

get them? 

28 

Mr. PAULISON. We do. We have put a system in place called total 

asset visibility, and it is not just tracking the vehicles. It is the 

whole entire ordering system from the time the order is placed in 

the field until it goes through the regional office and to who is actually going to deliver supplies and tracking that real time. 

We have the capability of tracking our vehicles that come out of 

Denton, Texas, and out of Atlanta. We do not have it in the rest 

of the country yet, but we have it there. But, also, we are looking 

at very clearly—you mentioned FedEx, using what we call the 3PL, 

third-party logistics, using other people’s tracking systems instead 

of just continuing to purchase the stuff ourselves. So that is a piece 

we are looking at for the upcoming hurricane season into 2008, is 

how do we tap into that private sector out there that already does 

this and does it very well, as opposed to trying to re-create the 

wheel inside of FEMA. But our logistics system now is light 

years—and I mean light years—ahead of where it was 2 years ago. 

Mr. JACKSON. Senator, I agree with that, but I would tell you we 

are not where we want to be. And when Senator Landrieu asked 

the Administrator what one of his worries was, this was one of his 

worries. So we have gone from the Stone Age to a moderately effective set of tools. We sure as heck have another major jump to 

make, but the good news about this, it is not rocket science to do 

it, as you have indicated. This is about fusing commercial, off-theshelf products that are used in the trucking industry and the logistics industry and the air cargo world. 

The Defense Department learned how to do this between the first 

Gulf War and the second Gulf War, and what they were able to do 

at TRANSCOM and at Defense Logistics Agency by leveraging 

those commercial in-transit visibility tools and fusing them into 

their planning and management systems is a lesson that we are 

going to borrow. We are not going to reinvent the wheel. We are 

going to leverage existing technology in the commercial world. We 

are going to have end-to-end visibility, and you will see between 

this year and next year another major change and growth spurt in 

how FEMA manages this. 

So it is a good example, Mr. Chairman, of something that we are 

not trying to put a little smiley face on in front of our microphone 

and say it is all done, forget about it, do not bother me about this. 

This is an area where we have to invest more. 

Senator COLEMAN. I think it is important. I appreciate the self 

analysis. I think it is at times frustrating to the average citizen. 

You go to an ATM machine and you get your instant cash. You 

order a pair of shoes, and they are not there that day, you give 

Johnston & Murphy or somebody a call, and they tell you exactly 

where they are and how long it will take to get there. And here 

we have a government that spends billions and obviously was not 

there in Hurricane Katrina. 

So I appreciate the focus, and hopefully we will be part of the 

21st Century before the next natural disaster occurs. 

There have been recent reports about lack of National Guard 

strength. Some say strength is being depleted by international 

commitments, the war in Iraq. I would be interested in the assessment of either of you gentlemen as to the state of National Guard 

29 

1The report entitled ‘‘Are You Ready?’’ appears in the Appendix on page 107. 

2The response from Mr. Paulison appears in the Appendix on page 73. 

readiness today should there be a major terrorist attack or natural 

disaster. 

Mr. JACKSON. I had lunch last week with the General who runs 

the National Guard, Steve Blum, and his assessment is that for our 

needs, they are prepared and they are ready. I know this because 

we have 6,000 National Guard troops at the Southern border on an 

extraordinary mission in support of CBP. When we have a catastrophic event, there will be many claims upon the National Guard. 

They are also overseas fighting a war now. But we have found and 

the National Guard leadership believes that they will be able adequately to support us in the missions that we expect FEMA to need 

to draw upon during the course of this hurricane season. 

Senator COLEMAN. This ‘‘Are You Ready?’’ publication is an indepth guide to citizen preparedness.1 For a government document, 

it is actually pretty simple. It is pretty good. An average family, a 

Mom and Dad could look at this, and it deals with everything from 

a radiological disaster to extreme heat, extreme cold. We do not 

worry about the—actually, it is hot in Minnesota on occasion. But 

it is actually a pretty good publication. 

I have a copy of it. How does the average citizen get this? Can 

you get it in public libraries? What are you doing to make this 

available? Because this goes to my confidence issue, just to have 

people know that we are thinking about this and we are connecting 

with them better than we have in the past. Is there a plan or program to make this available? 2

Mr. PAULISON. It is available online. They can go on our website 

and download that. All the information is there also. Everything 

that is in that book is also on our website, and we do advertise 

that. 

Senator COLEMAN. Is there a plan to get it in public libraries, 

local schools, things of that nature? 

Mr. PAULISON. We have a group, the Citizen Corps Group, that 

does a lot of this for us. It distributes this. Putting it in public libraries is probably not a bad suggestion. I will look at that. 

Senator COLEMAN. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Coleman, for your contribution to the hearing. 

As you know, when Hurricane Katrina hit, FEMA did not have 

technical assistance contracts in place for the provision of housingrelated needs. After the storm hit, the agency then rushed around 

and entered into four large non-competitive contracts with the 

Fluor Corporation, Shaw Group, Bechtel, and CH2M. In October 

2005, when you came before the Committee, you pledged that you 

would compete the requirements covered by the four large contracts. My staff tells me that FEMA did award new contracts for 

maintenance and deactivation of trailers in April of last year, but 

that the agency also continued to use the four large non-competitive contracts until recently, when a competition for new technical 

assistance contracts was carried out. 

30 

Why did FEMA keep extending the four contracts? And are the 

new technical assistance contracts now in place for the hurricane 

season? 

Mr. PAULISON. We did continue to use them for a period of time 

because it did not make sense right in the middle of this housing 

push when we were putting trailers on the ground to try to change 

horses midstream, so to speak. 

However, they have been re-bid. We do have new contracts in 

place. Now there are five instead of four. I made it a policy that 

I do not want no-bid contracts in this agency. We have a lot of contracts that we have written ahead of time that we are not even 

using yet—they are on the shelf—so we do not end up in that situation trying to write a contract when you really need it, where you 

are really at a disadvantage to get a good negotiated deal. So we 

are putting those in place ahead of time. 

We have a couple smaller no-bid contracts that are still viable, 

and we are going to re-bid those as soon as they come up. And the 

only other no-bid contracts that we have is if we go into a town and 

have to put a trailer park up or something, a trailer site, there is 

no reason to bid that. If there is a trailer site there, we will go in 

and lease that from an agency. But my philosophy is as it was back 

in 2005, that except for extreme circumstances, we should not be 

doing no-bid contracts. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. I appreciate that reassurance. You 

kept on those four, as you said, because it did not make sense to 

switch. Even though they were let out non-competitively, without 

bidding, you felt that they were performing under the contract, and 

it did not make sense to stop them in midstream. 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, sir, and they had really gone through the 

bidding process. I did the research after we heard of this. They had 

gone through the bidding process and had gone through it to the 

extent they would have received the bids. What we did not have 

is the opportunity to sit down and negotiate the terms of the contracts that I would have necessarily put in there had we had the 

opportunity and more time to do that. Now we have done that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I appreciate it. You have talked a lot 

about plans and preparation. I know that DHS has been rewriting 

the National Response Plan, and FEMA, at one point, set for itself 

a goal of June 1 to release it. Recently, you said you probably 

would not be able to finish it by then. Just give us a status report—when do you hope to have the National Response Plan done? 

Mr. JACKSON. We hope to have another version of it done by 

July, and what we have done is listened very carefully to our constituents and used this thing called ‘‘common sense.’’ The current 

thing is like a telephone book. It is highly impenetrable and difficult to understand by people who speak regular English. And so 

what we have heard from every angle is, can you make this thing 

in a shorter compass and a more focused and disciplined way speak 

to the core requirements of the National Response Plan? So we are 

going through one iteration here and trying to get it in that sort 

of form where it is a useful tool, it has all the strength and 

robustness of the existing tool. If we had a hurricane or an incident 

of national significance today, we made changes last year to the 

National Response Plan, and they have been promulgated for a 

31 

year. They are there and understood by all. We have a road map 

of how to behave, and now we are trying to get it just a little bit 

more sensible and written in a way that people can use it and train 

to it and understand it at a governor’s level, at a mayor’s level, at 

the level of a Congressman that needs to understand his role in 

this process, and all the points and process of emergency management around the government. 

Senator COLEMAN. That hierarchy from governor, to mayor, to 

Congressman, was that—— 

Mr. PAULISON. I think I would have said it differently, sir. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. JACKSON. It is consistent with what the National Response 

Plan invokes, which is to say that all disasters are local, and State 

and local leadership are usually the first on the scene. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is good news. I appreciate what you 

have said. It takes me back, if I may, to my own previous life as 

Attorney General of Connecticut when I used to do a series called 

‘‘The Law in Plain Language,’’ so that the people could actually understand it. It sounds like you are aiming for a National Response 

Plan in plain language, so I appreciate that. 

I do not have any more questions. Do you have any final statements you would like to make? 

Mr. JACKSON. Sir, I would just say thank you for the support this 

Committee gives to our work and to the Department. We rely upon 

you, and we are grateful for the chance to talk further about what 

we are doing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Glad to do it. I will say again that the 

bottom line, to quote you, Secretary Jackson, ‘‘Is that we are not 

trying to put a smiley face on anything.’’ There are still things to 

do that we have not done as well as we want to, but I would say 

that this has been a very reassuring report. It is certainly reassuring to me, and I think if the American people heard it, it would 

be reassuring to them, too. It is not my business to give you free 

consulting advice, but I think this is such a good story that you 

ought to ask your communications people to see if they could interest some people in the media, including television, to come in and 

do a story about how much better DHS and FEMA are prepared 

for this hurricane season than they were prepared before Hurricane Katrina because it is a reassuring story. 

I thank you very much. We are going to leave the record open 

for 2 weeks so that Senator Stevens and others who may wish to 

submit questions to the record may do so. 

For now, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:43 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(33) 

A P P E N D I X 


36608.001
34 


36608.002
35 


36608.003
36 


36608.004
37 


36608.005
38 


36608.006
39 


36608.007
40 


36608.008
41 


36608.009
42 


36608.010
43 


36608.011
44 


36608.012
45 


36608.013
46 


36608.014
47 


36608.015
48 


36608.016
49 


36608.017
50 


36608.018
51 


36608.019
52 


36608.020
53 


36608.021
54 


36608.022
55 


36608.023
56 


36608.024
57 


36608.025
58 


36608.026
59 


36608.027
60 


36608.028
61 


36608.029
62 


36608.030
63 


36608.031
64 


36608.032
65 


36608.033
66 


36608.034
67 


36608.035
68 


36608.036
69 


36608.037
70 


36608.038
71 


36608.039
72 


36608.040
73 


36608.041
74 


36608.230
75 


36608.231
76 


36608.232
77 


36608.233
78 


36608.234
79 


36608.235
80 


36608.236
81 


36608.237
82 


36608.238
83 


36608.239
84 


36608.240
85 


36608.241
86 


36608.242
87 


36608.243
88 


36608.244
89 


36608.245
90 


36608.246
91 


36608.247
92 


36608.248
93 


36608.249
94 


36608.250
95 


36608.251
96 


36608.252
97 


36608.253
98 


36608.254
99 


36608.255
100 


36608.256
101 


36608.257
102 


36608.258
103 


36608.259
104 


36608.260
105 


36608.261
106 


36608.262
107 


36608.042
108 


36608.043
109 


36608.044
110 


36608.045
111 


36608.046
112 


36608.047
113 


36608.048
114 


36608.049
115 


36608.050
116 


36608.051
117 


36608.052
118 


36608.053
119 


36608.054
120 


36608.055
121 


36608.056
122 


36608.057
123 


36608.058
124 


36608.059
125 


36608.060
126 


36608.061
127 


36608.062
128 


36608.063
129 


36608.064
130 


36608.065
131 


36608.066
132 


36608.067
133 


36608.068
134 


36608.069
135 


36608.070
136 


36608.071
137 


36608.072
138 


36608.073
139 


36608.074
140 


36608.075
141 


36608.076
142 


36608.077
143 


36608.078
144 


36608.079
145 


36608.080
146 


36608.081
147 


36608.082
148 


36608.083
149 


36608.084
150 


36608.085
151 


36608.086
152 


36608.087
153 


36608.088
154 


36608.089
155 


36608.090
156 


36608.091
157 


36608.092
158 


36608.093
159 


36608.094
160 


36608.095
161 


36608.096
162 


36608.097
163 


36608.098
164 


36608.099
165 


36608.100
166 


36608.101
167 


36608.102
168 


36608.103
169 


36608.104
170 


36608.105
171 


36608.106
172 


36608.107
173 


36608.108
174 


36608.109
175 


36608.110
176 


36608.111
177 


36608.112
178 


36608.113
179 


36608.114
180 


36608.115
181 


36608.116
182 


36608.117
183 


36608.118
184 


36608.119
185 


36608.120
186 


36608.121
187 


36608.122
188 


36608.123
189 


36608.124
190 


36608.125
191 


36608.126
192 


36608.127
193 


36608.128
194 


36608.129
195 


36608.130
196 


36608.131
197 


36608.132
198 


36608.133
199 


36608.134
200 


36608.135
201 


36608.136
202 


36608.137
203 


36608.138
204 


36608.139
205 


36608.140
206 


36608.141
207 


36608.142
208 


36608.143
209 


36608.144
210 


36608.145
211 


36608.146
212 


36608.147
213 


36608.148
214 


36608.149
215 


36608.150
216 


36608.151
217 


36608.152
218 


36608.153
219 


36608.154
220 


36608.155
221 


36608.156
222 


36608.157
223 


36608.158
224 


36608.159
225 


36608.160
226 


36608.161
227 


36608.162
228 


36608.163
229 


36608.164
230 


36608.165
231 


36608.166
232 


36608.167
233 


36608.168
234 


36608.169
235 


36608.170
236 


36608.171
237 


36608.172
238 


36608.173
239 


36608.174
240 


36608.175
241 


36608.176
242 


36608.177
243 


36608.178
244 


36608.179
245 


36608.180
246 


36608.181
247 


36608.182
248 


36608.183
249 


36608.184
250 


36608.185
251 


36608.186
252 


36608.187
253 


36608.188
254 


36608.189
255 


36608.190
256 


36608.191
257 


36608.192
258 


36608.193
259 


36608.194
260 


36608.195
261 


36608.196
262 


36608.197
263 


36608.198
264 


36608.199
265 


36608.200
266 


36608.201
267 


36608.202
268 


36608.203
269 


36608.204
270 


36608.205
271 


36608.206
272 


36608.207
273 


36608.208
274 


36608.209
275 


36608.210
276 


36608.211
277 


36608.212
278 


36608.213
279 


36608.214
280 


36608.215
281 


36608.216
282 


36608.217
283 


36608.218
284 


36608.219
285 


36608.220
286 


36608.221
287 


36608.222
288 


36608.223
289 


36608.224
290 


36608.225
291 


36608.226
292 


36608.227
293 


36608.228
294 

Æ 


36608.229