Were physical act of tackling. It cant be done. Tackling is tackling. The seahawks tackling defined it exactly as it is done. It should be done at the three levels of football where the game should be played. If boys cant tackle the way the technique was designed, they shouldnt be playing contact football. They should be playing flag until they are ready to play. Thank you, gentlemen. Congratulations to the classic 2016. Today is your day of celebration. Your choices will make all the difference to you, and to all of us. Dont be afraid to take on cases or new jobs, or new issues, that really stretches her boundaries. Abroad, inthe summer real ships i do than internships and the specter of living in your parents basement after this Graduation Day is not likely to be your greatest concern. Felt this month, watch commencement speeches to the class of 2016 in their entirety from colleges and universities around the country by Business Leaders, politicians, and white house officials on cspan. Today, president obama gives to themencement speech graduating class at rutgers university. Our last coverage begins at 12 50 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Now, a house hearing on the cost of federal Disaster Response and the policy implications for future Disaster Assistance. Docent defined include the fema deputy administrator, as well as are presented as from state and local Emergency Management. My top emergencies management priority to launch a Public Policy of of disasters in terms of the loss of property and human life. We follow that hearing with several round tables to help us understand what disasters cost this country. Whether these and problem is Getting Better or worse. Early last year their Ranking Member and i introduce the fema disaster reform act with the First Comprehensive cost andt of disaster losses in over 20 years. We also want to reform the federal assistance Disaster Program to make them more efficient and effective. In february, the house passed the fema legislation and we hope 1471enate will take up hr and pass it soon. The purpose of todays hearing is to discuss what weve learned exploringd begin potential solutions, particularly the principles that should be driving those solutions. While there are significant variation from yeartoyear, we have found that disaster losses have grown considerably over the past three decades. As a result, the private sector and government are spending an everincreasing amount of money on disasters. Fema alone has obligated more than 178 billion since 1989 for over 1,300 president ial disaster declarations. In addition, the number of federal disasters is going up. Take a look at this graph that shows the steady increase in the number of president ial disaster declarations since 1953. Many have suggested, including the general accountability office, that the growth in the number of disaster declarations may be causing the increase in federal disaster costs. But, when we had the Congressional Research service look more closely at the data, they found the growth in declaration is driven by small disasters, and they represent a very small part of federal disaster spending. In fact, 75 of all declared disasters account for only 7 of costs. In other words, we could eliminate threequarters of all federallydeclared disasters and barely cut 7 of federal disaster spending. I would argue the amount saved by eliminating those disaster declarations certainly would not outweigh the benefit those declarations provide to helping our smaller, remote communities respond to and recover from disasters. In order to understand why disaster costs are going up, we need to look at the big disasters since that is where over 90 of the money goes. Since we started looking into this issue, we have also found the role of the federal government in covering disaster losses has increased. As we can see here, federal disaster spending as a share of total disaster losses has grown from 23 during hurricane hugo in 1989 to 80 during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In recent years significant disaster aid has been provided outside of femas Disaster Assistance programs. These charts show how disaster aid programs outside fema have grown. In fact, for Hurricane Sandy there was less fema assistance than from either the department of housing and urban development or the department of transportation. We found that these additional disaster aid programs dont have the same requirements and restrictions as the fema assistance. Fema assistance is tied to actual disaster damage and is for individuals, governmental entities or certain nonprofits performing governmentlike functions. Fema only spends money on eligible items for eligible applicants no matter how much money fema receives. Fema mitigation funds must be used on cost beneficial projects to insure the federal investment is a wise one. Fema makes every effort to get money into the hands of applicants as fast as possible to enable rapid recovery from disaster impacts. In the most recent data provided by the sandy Program Management office from march 2016, it appears that these agencies have been slow in awarding and especially paying out funds. Based on this data, only to onethird of the cdbg dr funds have been dispersed and only 15 13 of the other funds paid out. This may be worth looking into in further detail. This certainly shows why a comprehensive look into disaster spending as well as cost and losses is needed. In an era of growing government debt, we need to insure federal spending is necessary and Cost Effective. Right after i became a member of congress in 2011, my own district was hit hard by hurricane irene and Tropical Storm lee. I remember in blooms burg a family stayed in their home. But the creek rose too quickly. The house next to theirs was knocked from its foundation. Water started gushing through their front windows as they called for help. They had to be saved by a helicopter. The woman there told me she could never live in that home again. I will never forget that. Preparing for Natural Disasters is about more than the loss of possessions. Its our friends and neighbor lives that could be at stake if we do not plan in advance. As we were rebuilding, i was amazed that much of the federal assistance was to rebuild in the same place, in the same way, leaving people vulnerable to the next storm. The federal government has a responsibility to respond after a disaster, but we also have a duty to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar. I look forward to the conversations we have today, the ideas we are going to hear about and taking the next steps to reduce the cost of disasters, and i thank you all for being here. I ask unanimous consent that members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at todays hearing, offer testimony and ask questions. And with that, i now call on Ranking Member of the subcommittee, mr. Carson, for a brief opening statement. Mr. Carson thank you, chairman. Great words. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to todays hearing. While we have several prominent witnesses today, i would especially like to welcome a fellow hoosier, mr. Kevin mickey, from the great hoosier state. Mr. Mickey is the director of the pollis institute at Purdue University in indianapolis. Hes also the new chair of the National Institute of Building Sciences. I look forward to my colleagues learning about the work being done in the great hoosier state, particularly indianapolis, to address rising disaster costs and losses plus the latest report from the Multihazard Mitigation Council. Mr. Mickeys National Leadership and his local work are terrific examples of what indianapolis is doing in the field of Emergency Management. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member carson. On our first panel, we have our fellow subcommittee member, carlos curbelo, from south florida. He knows all too well the risks posed by natural hazards, the rising costs of disasters and the efforts that have proven successful in florida to incentivize mitigation measures and smart behaviors. Congressman curbelo has been a great advocate for his constituents. On our second panel, well be joined by the deputy administrator of the federal Emergency Management agency, or fema, who has been working on ways to reduce the costs of disasters and build resilience in communities to avoid disaster losses. Ms. Sally clark, commissioner of El Paso County, colorado. She is here in her capacity as president of the National Association of counties. Mr. Brian coon, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and the president of the national Emergency Management association. He is here to talk with us about his experience as well as help us see things from a state perspective. Mr. Eric nelson, Vice President , catastrophe strategy and analysis for the Travelers Companies incorporated, representing the build Strong Coalition. Mr. Kevin mickey, chair of the Multihazard Mitigation Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences. I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses full statements be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered. We have hoped that chief david paulson, the former administrator of fema, would be able to join us, but he had other commitments. I do have a written statement for the record from administrator paulson. I thank him and the bills Strong Coalition for their input on these important topics, and i ask unanimous consent that this statement be included for the record. Without objection, so ordered. For our witnesses here, since your written testimony has been made a part of the record, the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral testimony to five minutes. Congressman curbelo, you may proceed. Mr. Curbelo chairman barletta, Ranking Member carson, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. This is my first time testifying before congress, and im glad to do it here at the transportation subcommittee on economic development, especially to discuss the important topic of Disaster Mitigation. Im honored to serve with all of you. Id like to take the opportunity to share some thoughts on controlling the rising costs to the federal government when responding to disasters. Im a native of south florida, and my good friend, mr. Serious, who is working with me on issue, is from new jersey. We both have a deep and personal understanding of the devastating impacts of Natural Disasters on families and communities and have seen firsthand what happens when homes, schools and businesses arent built to withstand the forces of nature. My family and i lived through hurricane andrew back in 1992. Fortunately, in my part of town the damage was not extreme, but just a few miles south where some of my family members lived, the devastation was horrifying. Being a floridian, i know that we have pretty strong state Building Codes already on the books. But at the National Level, it is time to fix the broken federal system that is riddled with red tape, waste, fraud and abuse. Theres some great work already being done in the field of preDisaster Mitigation, and id like to thank chairman barletta for being a strong leader on the issue. Over the last 30 years, we have seen a significant increase in federallydeclared Natural Disasters. But instead of taking additional steps to focus more on preparing for these disasters with enhanced Building Codes to make communities safer, the federal government typically waits until after a disaster occurs to react. This is incredibly dangerous and costly, especially with the increase in extreme weather events. According to the weather channel, this Hurricane Season is supposed to be the most active since 2012, so this hearing and these issues are of the utmost importance and very timely. For these reasons my friend, mr. Sears, who knows firsthand in new jersey just how costly clean up is after a disaster and i have worked to introduce legislation to work towards stronger Building Codes at the National Level by introducing h. R. 5177, the National Mitigation investment act of 2016. This legislation works to alleviate losses to resident and commercial property following a Natural Disaster through preventative measures. It would provide incentives for the adoption and achievement in enforcing state Building Codes. We do this by allowing the president to increase mitigation assistance following a Natural Disaster by 4 based off of the price of cleanup but only if the state is enforcing Building Codes. This incentive can encourage states and localities to be proactive in future building and also save a lot of funds in the long run. The bill would also create a Pilot Program to award grants to state and local governments to encourage the adoption and enforcement of nationallyrecognized Building Codes. The goals of the Grant Program are to reduce Disaster Response and recovery costs by increasing resilience of buildings and reducing the amount of damage that occurs due to disaster and chronic flooding. Grant awardees will be required to accomplish these goals with nonfederal matching funds, no less than 25 , and fema will be required to provide reports back to congress on the success of the program. Mr. Chairman, the residents of both florida and new jersey have had to rebuild communities after the devastating effects of catastrophic Natural Disasters. Returning to a life of normalcy is tremendously difficult and can take many years. Furthermore, chronic tidal flooding poses a significant threat to real estate along our waterfront communities, especially in my south florida district and the constituents that mr. Sears represents as well. This undoubtedly affects insurance rates, Property Value clean Water Supplies and general public welfare. We believe that through preemptive methods of incentivizing state and local governments to adhere to stronger Building Codes, we will alleviate the burdens and costs of the federal government after a Natural Disaster. I thank my friend, mr. Sears, for working with me on this legislation. I look forward to hearing from other experts on the issue of Disaster Mitigation in the next panel. This is a topic that requires perspectives from diverse geographical locations, and i appreciate being able to discuss my bill today. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony, congressman curbelo. I will now begin the first round of questions limited to five minutes for each member. If there are additional questions following the first round, well have an additional round of questions as needed. While we usually do not have questions for members of congress, mr. Sears is an original cosponsor of mr. Curbelos legislation and has a few questions. I really thank you, mr. Chairman. Im not going to ask mr. Curbelo questions because weve been working on this for a while. But i do want to thank you. You and i have firsthand experience in how devastating some of these catastrophes are, how it impacts life, the community, the economy. And i really want to thank you for taking strong lead on this. You and i new jersey got hit hard, floridas been hit hard, and i just want you to know that i think this is the way to go. You know, investing in mitigation especially on a National Level where we can put some real, strong codes has always been on my mind for many years. So i just want to thank you for your hard work, i look forward to continue and be proud to work with you on this legislation. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Are there any questions . Mr. Costello . No . Thank you. Ranking member carson . If not, we thank you very much for your testimony. Your comments have been helpful to todays discussion. We will now call our second panel. I remind you of the subcommittees request to limit your oral testimony to five minutes, and well give everyone a chance to be seated. [no audio] thank you very much. Deputy administrator anymoric, you may proceed. Good morning, chairman barletta, Ranking