And make investments. This gives us the ability to move beyond just looking at one set of criteria. It seems that your mitigation effort has to be focused on the actual hazard. In this budget youre looking at additional funds for Hazard Mitigation but i would certainly want to know that is based on the actual hazard itself and mitigate both the hazard and longterm cost for the federal government and the locality. And that has been the criteria for determining Hazard Mitigation. I can show you example where we have had predisaster mitigation. States have taken that like in oklahoma to do grants to families to build safe roads for tornadoes. Our goal is to reduce risk. Theres a lot of driving factors of that and changing environment but when we want to look at, what are things as taxpayers if we can spend money on the front end and reduce future costs and potential disruptions to disaster. This is very much in our predisaster mitigation looking at it from outcomes that are based upon buying down risk, reducing risk or building more resiliency in the infrastructure that is hazard based. Theres a lot of things out there driving change. I have to look at the consequences of impact. Thats where we focus mitigation dollars. Again, i go back to the measure and show whether its providing funding up front and flexibility, whether its making sure that youre mitigating youve got to have a system to come back and have measurable how about lives saved . Lives saved, obviously huge priority there. Ive got to give you a little good news story. Talked about in d. C. , but few give you a concrete example. Our Fire Administration collects fire information from fire departments, National Fire reporting data base. We never had a good program of opening that data up and finally got the data were providing it but what are we going to do with it . Weve been working with red cross and red cross decided to focus on Smoke Detector installs and areas that have had the highest risk to loss of life. They were able to take our data, match up the communities that use fire grant dollars and got volunteers and we installed Smoke Detectors and now have using data to drive where we met the installs 13 documented cases of lived saved where Smoke Detectors went off and people got out of the building. So were using big data to leverage our limited funds, partnering with organizations like the red cross and getting outcomes we can document that those reports that people used to follow i always wonder, what are you doing with that . Were making the Data Available so people can use analysts and drive wheres the most need and greatest risk . Where can we make the biggest difference with our limited resources, i was talking to red cross this morning, they now have 13 cases where they had installed the Smoke Detector. It went off and people got out. And the data says that was a high risk area without the Smoke Detector we would have probably had loss of life. Where are you measuring that so we can track it. Thank you. As you pointed out, what youre always looking to do is figure out where to spend money to mitigate potential risk and how you can be more effective in doing that. And one of the places where i think theres real potential is working with the private sector because as you know, government doesnt respond to disasters alone. It often has the benefit of using the private sector and femas Industry Liaison Program is one point of entry for those who want to do business with fema. But ive got to tell you, ive heard from businesses in New Hampshire that have not had a good experience with that program. And one of those in particular, i wont name because i havent gotten clearance to use their name, but they have worked with marine corps, in haiti responding in new orleans responding to katrina, and they really wanted to try to Market Technology to fema. Over the course of beginning in 2009, 2011, 2012, they presented to fema at three industry liaison vendor outreach sessions appropriate policy and Program Staff attended only two of those meetings. Although initially officials appeared enthusiastic, the procurement staff limited the Agency Employees from sharing business cards and regularly failed to respond to the followup phone calls and emails and when we try to inquire about the process and how to ensure they were getting a fair hearing, we were told they have to go through the normal procurement process. Thats what they tried to do. Can you talk about how you can do more to ensure when companies have Good Technology that can be a benefit to fema, that there is ab opportunity for them to be heard and you to take advantage of some of that technology where it exists . Senator, given the time frames, we have changed leadership of the chief Procurement Officer it addresses some of this. Sometimes were overly concerned about not obtaining potential bid processes and there are certain things we need to be careful about that we dont give favoritism to. They bring in industry and did this with i. T. And said heres where were going, not giving anybody any one on one sitdowns because this is going out to bid. We brought everybody in and they were looking at looking at our i. T. As a potential vendor and we laid out what we are thinking about doing and what our time frames are and what the well work this but sometimes we overcorrect and not trying to get into procurement issues that may exclude companies from being able to present. And finding a better Playing Field so we dont mess somebody up. As you know, if its seen as giving favoritism and disputed bid, you have a bid protest. We have a new Procurement Officer, making it as transparent as possible and part of the tools are we want to do the meeting and try to set them up so we dont end up contaminating and Industry Days bringing groups around our mission and challenges and go heres what were looking at and this is what were thinking, were going to be putting bids at this but have all of the presentation and they ask, less jaded than what we have. I think what youre probably running into, Procurement Office that was not where we needed to be but also to overcompensate and not always provide level of Service Without jeopardizing future procurement. Thats encouraging, theres hopefully a new process that is more transparent and an opportunity to be heard. Thank you, i look forward to hearing how that works. Theres one issue around the flood mapping that the senator has not touched on that i wanted to raise. And i think its the final issue i would like to raise and that is around the new position of the Flood Insurance advocate, because one of the things that again weve heard, i think chairman said he heard in north dakota, theres a lot of uncertainty and not a clear understanding about how the new flood maps are done and what kind of Community Input is available and how decisions are made. Can you talk about the new Flood Insurance advocate and what that office will be doing and how they can help communities better understand the process of the flood mapping . I have to thank you for the funding and budget to stand the office up. Were approaching this from two ways, we think in servicing maps we need to look at building staff capabilities as advocates in the regional offices to be closer to attend meetings, knowing when maps are coming out. Theres a whole process the community is involved in but having the advocate in the region not part of that mapping process but there to go out and meet with groups get issues and bring them back and dealing with claims issue, we think claims have to be made because we pay essentially. We didnt want to wait and now building the office out, we started to take form, we still have detailed staff but going to the job descriptions to be posting permanent positions to start the program on a more permanent footing. They are going to be housed as part of the Flood Insurance program but they dont report to the administrator, they report to the administrator fema. We put them in the office so all of the connections and Logistical Support and proximity would be there. Their reporting chain other than signing off on time sheets and travel, Everything Else comes to the administrator. So as we move forward and establish that, we looked at specifically in maps the best place to coordinate but what were still looking at workload do we need fulltime or specific map revisions coming up, some map revisions are not contested and they are small, we may be looking at deployable staff as we know we have a large project coming in or Large Community or a lot of concerns about it, we have staff to go in and detail for the duration of that update. I think this is sort of like an ombudsman to deal with flood issues within the office and i think this is a really positive develop the and look forward to hearing how its working and to be helpful if we can. Thank you very much, chairman. Just a couple more questions and well wrap up. First is the talking about the preparedness grants return on investment and really what you feel a level of preparedness is across the nation and how we measure this and how effective they are in helping improve that preparedness across the country. Part of or report that we again struggled with early on was i can do a better job at telling you how much money had been spent and not telling what capabilities had been built. Were seeing through the threat Hazard Reduction and other surveys and state preparedness report that over time were seeing the change and i can give you specific examples. The state of mississippi identified early in some of this they needed more funding for operation direction and control communications and manage disasters. With the Grant Funding thats matured and on the state preparedness report showing that they are more into maintenance mode and not building as much capacity. They are switching to other things like cyber but still see they need to make improvements in. Between the state preparedness reports, were seeing trends where people are shifting to other areas in maintenance or still identifying areas theyve got to make investments in. Part of this comes back to looking again at the tops of threats and disasters and are we seeing capabilities being built out there. When you look at cyber, its been consistent, one of the areas most states are identifying that they have a lot of work to do but its going from were just starting to were seeing things come back on what they are doing. We can show you where the money has started that process of where we have bill capability and what that looks like and how its being used you about how they are not shifting to other priorities within those areas. And what they do there. But then how do you turn that into some type of ongoing analysis where we can say okay, these grants are very effective and we kind are moving up the chain and what the impact is nationwide. How do you develop some system to track that and have a good understanding of where we are how much progress were making . Again our National Preparedness report we try to use analytics and double data to show heres what the data trends are doing and specific case studies where people have done that. The question we get a lot of times, high do we know when were done . The answer is were never done. One of the reality thats hard to explain, because we built teams and capabilities. People retire and move on, you have to train new team members and equipment has to be updated and Technology Changes and needs to be replaced. All of the laptops bought in first go arounds, thats ten years ago, youve had to replace those at least twice. Maybe we need as we go through this and funding going through increasing every year to reduction and being stable, which i also appreciate, were seeing communities make decisions what capacities they need to maintain. Some things they are making a decision no longer feasible or the change how we do business no longer requires it. But maintaining that capability and again, what youre seeing is starting in 2011, i can point to very specific disasters where previously had had a much greater response because of capability to build funding and federal role was to support recovery. For a lot of disasters, thats probably our best indicator were seeing preparedness take place. As i tell people, sandy, when i look at what state and local governments did and what they were able to manage all the way from the carolinas getting ready for the storm, a lot was grant dollars built paid for and administered through all of the Homeland Security grants, that was the capability responded and the federal role is more a support to that versus a primary agency which had been what we had had to do in previous large scale catastrophic disasters. Done right, i think it can make a huge difference. Between continuing to spend a Disaster Recovery money repeatedly year after year building the infrastructure through the preparedness grants, you spend lots and may spend more in one year but youre not you get out of this repetitive spending for recovery. Part of the center too, we made decisions that we were funding each jurisdiction hoping it added up to being prepared and the reality is this through mutual aid to consolidate a lot of resources we as a nation built. We began changing language to recognize these are Building National capabilities that you use at the local level and may use at the local level exclusively until theres a large disaster somewhere else and every state that receives these they have to certificate that that state remembers a member of the Emergency Management system compact and when you look at the resources as national assets. That change began then leveraging do we need to have the same equipment in every jurisdiction side by side or could we start moving towards identifying hey, weve got a lot of search and rescue teams here. What we dont have are Mortuary Services or Specialized Communications to support that or as the case of the trains and other things, may have an emerging threat we need hazmat teams for. Do we do everything or certain teams to start that process. But that to your point is really looking at were building capabilities and capacity that is housed at the local level, ugsed day to day at the local level but in a catastrophic terrorist event, there are Natural Resources to be mobilized across state lines. We saw that in sandy, where a lot of assistance from outside of the area those funded with these dollars and built capabilities but shared governor to state, in mutual aid. We talk about a national framework, National Capabilities and National Preparedness, not federal or fema. The grant dollars are building a national system. Thats working, you have the coordination you need so people feel those resources are available when and where they need them . Again, senator, the ability for governors to share resources whether its National Guard or state resources is the foundation of that. We still work as some states do a better job internally of being able to acty vat local resources as part of that and others need more work. We continue looking at tieing back grants to that capability and getting communities, including urban security areas to recognize they are a national asset. Were never going to strip resources where we need them but also seen time and time again some of the fastest most effective responses have come neighbors helping neighbors and governors helping governors and making it clear we need to build the capability around what governors do best in dealing with disasters. All right, ive got one more question then senator sheehan has one more and well wrap. Can you comment your sense of solvency of the Flood Insurance program in terms of how were going right now and how were managing the national Flood Insurance program and all of these other steps that youre taking to both mitigate risk, Hazard Mitigation, preparedness, all of these steps where does that put us in terms of creating long term solvency for the Flood Insurance fund . Well, the challenge you have if you have average levels of flood events, the fund does find that the programs actually fairly well adapted to recurring flood risk. But its not designed to handle well are large flood events particularly coastal areas where youre dealing with such large responses like a katrina or sandy and there are numerous communities, including in my old state of florida that have significant exposure to tropical systems. The program does not handle that well. If we see a normal level of localized flooding and events we typically experience outside of a coastal storm, the program has done well and paying back interest and debt. But we also want to make sure were looking at some of the practices that i think were finding as we look at what happened with sandy, were paying a lot of money to run this program. I want to start driving down cost like were trying to drive down costs in our other programs, i want to look at these cost analysis, because does it make sense to spend this money to get this product . Are there better ways to get a better outcome at lower cost . As