Brock long. Here to discuss response of recovery to hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria as well as the wildfires that spread across california. Administrator, thank you very much for being here and for joining us. The magnitude of the disaster activity that were experiencing this year is basically unprecedent unprecedented. I want to thank you and the thousands of dedicated fema personnel who have deployed and who continue to work tirelessly to help communities and families get back on their feet in the wake in every instance of these devastating events. Congress has passed two emergency supplementals which have provided an additional 26 billion to ensure femas ability to respond to immediate aftermath of the disasters. Now its designed to shift focus from response to recovery. And while some of these efforts are already under way theres still a very long road ahead. Today we look forward to hearing from you on how this third supplemental request, 23. 5 billion, would enable the communities to start down the path, a long path of longterm recovery. Mr. Long, please, before i get to you, i want to introduce ms. Roybalallard, my good friend, for any comments she might have. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Good morning, mr. Administrator, and welcome to your first appearance before the subcommittee. I wish it were not necessitatesed by the damaging hurricanes that prompted the administrations supplement a. M. Third funding request in just the last few months. But we are nevertheless aeger to spend some time with you to get your perspective on femas response and recovery activities and the challenges that lie ahead. I know this has been a difficult time for your agency. You were at fema for only a few months when Hurricane Harvey struck the gulf coast, followed close behind by irma and maria. And i would be remiss if i did not mention the wildfires that devastated large swaths of california, my home state. Mr. Administrator, we want to help support the efforts of fema personnel and we want to make sure that femas programs are working well to support Recovery Efforts. Particularly in puerto rico because of the level of devastation there and the fiscal challenges it was already facing. Again, we appreciate your joining us this morning and i look forward to a productive discussion. We are also joined by the full Committee Ranking member, ms. Lowey. Ms. Lowey, youre now recognized for any comments youd like to make. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate chairman carters holding this hearing. Administrator long, thank you for being here and for all your hard work assisting the states and u. S. Territories that have suffered recently from natural disasters. There have been more than 50 major disaster declarations so far in 2017. 20 of them were for disasters that occurred since your confirmation, including hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria. After Superstorm Sandy it was very difficult to garner support for the Disaster Assistance we needed, and i remember that very, very clearly. There are similar concerns now about the adequacy of funding proposed by the administration for this supplemental, particularly with regard to puerto rico, which has faced significant fiscal challenges for some time. Its my hope that today we can have a productive discussion about how fema can best help those impacted by harvey, irma, and maria, with a particular focus on how to assist puerto rico with vital repairs and improvements to its power system. Water infrastructure, Transportation System and other important infrastructure. The traditional fema programs will only bring puerto rico just so far. And it will be important for us to understand what the limits are and what additional flexibilities might be helpful. For recovery beyond the scope of fema programs we need to understand femas role in determining unmet needs that will inform assistance from other federal agencies. Its simply not acceptable to restore infrastructure and public facilities to predisaster conditions especially in puerto rico which suffered unprecedented damages. We must use assistance, funding to mitigate the impacts of future disasters, or else we will find ourselves in this exact position in short order. When the next hurricane blows through, forcing taxpayers to pay more because investments were not made at an appropriate time. Resiliency is the only sensible path forward. So administrator long, again, i really do want to thank you for being here today, and i look forward to this discussion. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, ms. Lowey. Mr. Cull behr sop has requested an opening statement. The people of houston and Southeast Texas suffered more than we have than any storms certainly in my memory. 52 inches of rain. 150,000 homes flood. 250,000 apartment units. A number of people tens of thousands of people in my district are living on the second floor of their homes with the first floor torn out, the sheet rock torn out because they dont have anywhere else to go. We all of us are immensely grateful to the work that femas done to help the people of houston, the Southeast Texas, who suffered from this catastrophic rain event, and to all the volunteers who came from all over the country. One of the Silver Linings of this storm were the people that just showed up spontaneously from all over the country with food, supplies, water. Im especially grateful to the cajun navy, the people of louisiana who just showed up with boats and food and jambalaya to help pull people out of their houses. I didnt even know there was such a thing as the cajun navy. We all found ourselves in houston doing what needed to be done to help our neighbors and friends and its one of the many, many reasons im so proud to represent that Wonderful Community of people who all look first to each other, to our family, to our neighbors, to our faith and our state to help each other. The federal governments role is essential. And administrator long, we appreciate the work that fema has done. We are grateful for the help that you provided. But a lot more has to be done. And without even directly addressing the Disaster Relief fund i want to say at the outset that the office of management and budgets request is woefully inadequate. Its embarrassing. Its deeply upsetting to the people of texas to see that the largest housing disaster in the history of the United States of america, theres not one dime recommended for housing relief in the ombs request. So we are grate tofl speaker ryan, to chairman frilling hooizen to open up this process to make sure the Appropriations Committee is the one that makes the decision on what people in our nation make in response to this hurricane. The constitution vests that authority in congress and on this committee we always have and we will once again make the decision on whats necessary to heal the people of texas, the people of florida, and the people of puerto rico and the Virgin Islands from these terrible storms. I thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and look forward to working with you and my colleagues to be sure the people of the United States who suffered are made whole. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Culberson. Administrator long, at this point youre recognized to make your statement. We have a written copy. Wed ask you try to limit yourself to five minutes because weve got a lot of questions that are going to be coming your way. Absolutely. Mr. Chairman, madam member, members of the committee, thank you. Its an honor to be here. Marks the end of the 2017 hurricane season. And its been the word unprecedented doesnt do it justice. I want to start by thanking members of the committee but also members of congress for quickly considering the first two supplementals and pushing through. Its vital funding and were in the middle of a third request which ill get to here in a minute. Ive been in office about five months. For 97 days weve been actively responding around the clock. And just to not only to harvey, irma, maria as well as the California Wildfires but right now were working 31 disasters across this country in 21 different jurisdictions. My staff is tapped out. They work around the clock and bust their rear ends every day to help those who are in need. We are doing the best that we can do and trying to move as quick as we can. This has been the longest activation in femas history. And ive got to say, im extremely proud to work with the members of fema. Weve got a long way to go in the spirit of improvement. Im here in the spirit of improvement. I have many ideas that i have not had a chance to catch my breath and come to you with. Some of them i can do with the stroke of a pen through my authority. Some of them are going to require changes to the stafford act. But to put this into context, just those four events, harvey to the devastating California Wildfires, impacted 25 Million People. You know, in a 97day time period weve put almost 5 Million People into the individual assistance program. To put that into context, in that short of a time frame thats greater than sandy, katrina, rita and wilma combined. Its a tenfold increase over what we did last year for the entire fiscal year. And while these statistics, i could go on, where weve put 80,000 people in hotels in just texas for harvey alone. I could go on with those statistics. The nation needs to stop, take a teep breath, and figure out how we collectively become more resilient. Not just fema. You mentioned how do we better realize the whole community from the cajun natheyvnavy all the the federal Emergency Management agency. Im ready to change the face of Emergency Management and the way we tackle resiliency in this nation. And its going to require your help as well. Today weve received since august 25th weve received roughly 42 billion when you include not only the drf funding but the nfip Debt Forgiveness as well as Community Disaster loan funding. And now were asking for 23. 5 billion. This is a tremendous amount of money. You know, protecting the taxpayer dollars is of utmost importance as well as saving lives. I get it. And in this third supplemental were asking for some special provisions that i need the congress to consider. We need outcomebased planning, Recovery Planning when we enter to these disasters. Were asking for puerto rico to have an integrated Recovery Plan with clear outcomes so were not just throwing money at recovery. We have an outcome in mind going into this. The next thing is that im also asking for additional authorities, particularly around puerto rico. The stafford act allows me to rebuild communities to a predisaster standard which would not be prudent in this situation. We are facing massive amounts of deferred maintenance in the infrastructure and antiquated infrastructure. The average age of the power plants is 44 years old. If you look at it globally, what the average age of a power plant is, its typically 18 years old as i understand it. So when fema comes into this situation, i will have i will need additional authorities to be able to put back puerto rico in a resilient or prudent manner based on what we so were not here again having this same Committee Hearing about not only maria. But the real question me is it is time to question what is femas role in Disaster Response and recovery. What can we adequately handle as an Agency Versus what the real roles and responsibility of the whole community should be from state to local governments. And lets hit the reset button and lets carve out what every level of government and the whole community should be responsible for. Fema is never designed to be the First Responder and the only responder in a disaster. But in many cases thats where we find ourselves. And weve got to fix that problem. You know, doing so fixes the whole Community Issues that we face and bringing up a level of resilience. I have numerous ideas. Starting first with recoverys too complex, is too fragmented. Funding comes from too many different federal agencies down to the local and state level. And its too difficult to understand what youre entitled to, how to use this funding in concert with one another, and it leads to deobligations, confusion, and more frustration on your part, the citizens part and the disaster survivors part. This is the time to fix those problems and streamline the federal governments support down through a local governor to the local level to achieve the governor and the local governments goals and responsibilities, not my goals and roles and responsibilities. Okay . We have to increase predisaster mitigation. Youve got to get hit to have access to billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars of mitigation funding. Thats reversed. Its backwards. It doesnt make sense. We need to move 404 section money out of the stafford act to a blue sky day up front place where people can plan out mitigation strategies rather than having to get hit and then figure out how to do mitigation. Its a regressive formula. It needs to be changed. We have to ensure that state and local governments have their own ability to push out lifesustaining commodity distribution for water and meals. It cannot be solely on the shoulders of the federal Emergency Management agency to push food and water out. Every state should have a capability. Large cities should have their own capability. Our support should be designed to backfill that community, not supplant it fully. We have to make sure we find low to nocost ways to truly implement a true culture of preparedness within our citizenry. We dont have it. And its time to hit the reset button on how we become more resilient. Not only at the citizen level. Because citizens are the true First Responder. They are the true First Responder in an active Shooter Event and they are when a tornado hits or when a flood occurs. And we need to give tangible skills from cpr to how to shut off water valves to how to be properly insured. Not only as a homeowner but as a business owner. We have to fix the nfip business process. I run a program that is structurally broken every a. It goes into debt every time we have a major event, and i have to come ask for supplementals. We continue to go into debt. Katrina forced it into debt. Sandy forced it into debt. Harvey, irma. Forced it into debt. Weve got to fix the structure of that framework and weve got tone sure affordability but fix the structure. I run a program that is not financially solvent. Ive got about 100 more ideas i can share and i look forward to working with you but im here in the spirit of improvement. I look forward to having a fruitful discussion today. Thank you. Thank you. That was very spectacular. I love that outside the box thinking. Okay . Let me remind our panel here that were going to be on the clock and were going to try to stick to it but ill do a little courtesy over but not a whole lot. Well, that was a blitz, and id love to hear the other 100 ideas youve got. And lets hope we can figure out a way to do those things. So you start off with kind of the big picture, and thats right where we need to start. Series of questions concerning the big picture. Whats the status of fema at this time and the impacted states response in recovery in this years hurricanes . What do you anticipate your Biggest Challenges will be in the coming months . And how do you plan to address them . And with more than 80 of femas workforce currently deployed to support ongoing Disaster Response activities, are you concerned with femas ability to respond if another catastrophic event occurs . Great question. In regards to harvey and irma we are rolling forward he in the initial recovery and longterm recovery it faces. The Biggest Challenges that face us are housing. Obviously. Congressman, you hit the nail on the head. There arent enough manufactured home and travel trailers and in some cases hotels to service, and were never going to be able to move fast enough to put people back in their homes. Fema is not a housing expert, by the way. I often question whether or not fema should be in charge of Disaster Recovery housing. Thats another discussion that we should probably have. But the bottom line is its on my plate. I recognize it. We work with it every day. Housing is tremendously different. Not just from texas but the california wild sfooirs, which is one of the most disturbing events ive ever been a part of in my career based on the urban the urban nature of those wildland fires. The Housing Mission is tremendously different there because theres nothing to rebuild. Its been burned completely down versus where we have to go into harvey and we have to understand what can be rebuilt versus where we need to bring in manufactured homes or how we transition people out of hotels to other options. You know, rent them if youve got them. Apartments that may be available. So each this is the Biggest Issue that we face. In puerto rico obviously is the power. Its an antiquated power system that were rapidly trying to figure out day in and day out on how to get in there. The complexities of it being an island and the logistical complexities. You know, adds to it. Everything that we do in puerto rico is hard. Thats not a complaint. Its just a reality. Its hard. So power and housing is also the problem in puerto rico. When youre trying to fix problems in puerto rico putting a tarp on a house is not easy because theres not a structure to connect it to. You have to first rebuild the structure before you put the blue tarp on it. In many cases its trying to figure out who actually owns the home. Or you know, those issues that are there. The other thing i recognize is we are having to delicately deal with billions of dollars of taxpaying money. One of the things that ive recognized that we have to improve is oversight in grants management. Grants management is the responsibility of the whole community. Not just fema. Weve got to increase the grants management oversight at the state, local, and subgrantee level, provide better more training to how this funding works. But it goes back to the thing we have to solve is the problem of fragmented recovery from different types of money coming from hud or fema or federal highway, wherever it comes from, with different policies, different tags, different rules, and it just sets everybody up for failure in the long run. And we never trained people how to utilize the funding that comes down from the federal government in the best way possible. Heres what youre entitled to. Heres what your goals are. Lets grab the money you need. Lets put it to work in concert with one another in an efficient and effective manner. Theres a lot that we have to talk about. Housing. Housing is going to be the most Difficult Mission ahead of us. Well, that was an excellent response. [ inaudible ] respond to this years disaster activity. And my understanding, the 23. 5 billion requested in the supplemental addresses all disaster requirements for hurricanes harvey, irma, but only fy18 costs for hurricane maria. Why does this request only include funding in 18 for puerto rico and the Virgin Islands and do you plan to submit another supplemental in addition to support these disasters . Thats another excellent question. Because were performing our due diligence. Its hard to project what the true cost is going to be after fy18. As we transition to recovery, and while were asking puerto rico to have an integrated outcomebased plan for their recovery effort, it helps us to project what we need. We also as we get into recovery based on what a governor may ask for, the different programs that are made available, when they turn those on we look at trends, we look at the programs that are on and we deliberately go in and try to estimate out. I think if we go beyond 2018 i dont think that the estimates i could provide you would be remotely accurate based on the work. And thats why weve decided to stay there. Administrator long, the administration has proposed giving you discretion to waive the predisaster condition limitation on public assistance grants for puerto rico and to fund the repair of or replacement of public facility components that werent damaged if replacing them is essential to restoring the overall facility. Can you talk a little bit more about why this authority is needed in the case of puerto rico . Do you expect that it will help speed up Recovery Efforts . And did you consider extending this authority to the u. S. Virgin islands as well . And if not why not . Yeah, so in regards to puerto rico im concerned that i dont have the authority to implement recovery in a manner thats needed. Because where fema gets in trouble is when we start fixing issues that were not damaged as a result of the actual disaster. So if you take the roadway system inside puerto rico, there are plenty of deferred maintenance issues where the roadway system was not maintained, there were damages that were there before the storm, and in some cases as a result of the storm passing through the damages are exponentially increased because of a lack of maintenance. If i fix infrastructure that has not been maintained, then oig comes back and rightfully so says hold on a minute, is this truly the federal governments responsibility or should this be on the backs of the local and the state governments . But in this case with puerto rico were running into so many deferred maintenance issues in regards to the entire infrastructure and antiquated systems that i dont think you can put it back to a predisaster condition. Right now im working under the emergency authorities that i have to prevent Public Health emergencies and future loss of life. But once we get into the permanent work thats required to actually rebuild to a higher code standard. For example, just putting the kona standard for the power grid onto puerto rico is greater than the prestorm condition that we found the power grid in to begin with. So this is why were asking for those authorities. I need protection. When it comes to putting puerto rico back in a more resilient manner so that we dont were not sitting here again having this discussion. If you get that authority, how will you decide when to use it . And do you anticipate that you will broadly use it or will you use it only in certain circumstances . Or for certain kinds of projects . So right now we dont have a full understanding. Were still in the response phase of puerto rico. But we know as we get into whats called permanent work, or the different categories, category c through g like fixing the public infrastructure, we know that were going to run into it. Were already in the emergency work trying to get into areas of the power grid where youre having to do debris removal and brush removal because of overgrowth you know, and thats deferred maintenance, which delays the recovery time. We know were going to see it. Were anticipating it going into fy18 into the permanent work issues of recovery. And under this authority or other existing authorities will fema be able to fully fund the federal share of a more modern, efficient, and resilient type of electrical generation and grid system or will puerto rico only be eligible to receive an amount sufficient to construct a brand new version of its Current System which would still be vulnerable to future hurricanes . In other words, would fema funding reflect the higher cost of a new system that would mitigate against future disaster costs . All of that is being taken into consideration. Im going to have to respond to you in writing on all of the issues that are there. Obviously, the problem that we are facing in puerto rico is the liquidity issue when it comes to the reimbursement or to the cost share issues that youre referencing. Bottom line is that liquidity is standing in the way of doing things in a normal fashion but ill have to get back to you on the specifics of that question. And what is your understanding about other federal resources that might be available to puerto rico to cover any gap between what fema will provide and the added costs of more resilient infrastructure . This goes back to what i refer to as fragmented recovery. Every day we have what are called recovery meetings with our partners across the recovery perspective. And other agencies are in the joint field office. We are having those meetings daily when it comes to how our funding works together and where our authorities begin and end. So for example, we were in a very detailed conversation with secretary carson and hud yesterday about housing and how, you know, fema can handle the housing for homes, less than 50 damage you have and its going to be a hud mission. We are looking at areas to hand that off. We can still do a much better job of streamlining in a signing authority thats clear. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and for hearing from mr. Brock. I just want to say that i will sleep better tonight. I am so impressed. And it seems to me youre handling this just right. And the only question i have before i get to my questions, when youre talking about rebuilding to standards, whether its homes or the electric grid or the highways or the roads, i was there with the speaker not too long ago. I do hope if we ever get this budget passed, going, well be able to give you a number that will provide for Adequate Funding to do this because i understand youre saying you have to combine your efforts with hud and other agencies. But knowing youre there will help me sleep better tonight. So i thank you for your presentation. So first question. Congress authorized the alternative procedures Pilot Program as part of the Sandy Recovery improvement act to test a more efficient approach to awarding public assistance grants. So id like to know from you, how has the alternative Procedures Program worked with regard to Superstorm Sandy Recovery Efforts . Do you anticipate that puerto rico will choose this approach . And if so, do you anticipate any changes in how the program will work for puerto rico . Maam, thats an excellent question. Thank you. What i believe youre referring to is section 428 of the stafford act. For largescale events it makes sense to go the 428 route. Now, a governor has to basically elect to go that route. Governor russello has done that for puerto rico. The reason its an advantage for us is just going back to the roadway system, if there are thousands of problems in the roadway system, which there are in puerto rico, instead of having to generate thousands of project worksheets to fix those problems and those project worksheets can be reversioned for many years and there seems to be no end, the 428 program, as the governor so proactively agreed to forces us to be outcomebased and we can write one project worksheet for the entire roadway grid. Now, where weve got to do a better job in helping the city of new york or other communities is they obviously have some concerns of when we do the cost estimate up front at the beginning of the 428 program, did we accurately estimate how much it was going to cost . And that that alone sometimes is frightening for community, and i understand it. To make sure that theyve hit the nail on the head. But over as far as the efficiency goes, the 428 program truly is in my opinion the way that we need to go forward and continue to improve it. So following up on that, what is the process for how fema and puerto rico find agreement on the cost estimates for the hurricane damage . I know youre in the process of evaluating this. How long will that process take . Because im hoping that the current supplemental, which is inadequate, can try to reflect some of your i dont want to put you on the spot but i think it is important that we have a it is important that we have a good idea, an accurate idea. Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac
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